That Bad Other Girl

Bake-along week one: upside-down cake

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Week one of The Great British Bake-Off and the bakers attempted variations on a retro classic: pineapple upside-down cake.

Alongside that, there were Rum Babas, and, of course, that kind of cake where, when Paul got a massive knife and unceremoniously chopped them in half, they sort of looked like something else. Neither of these things tempted me for my bake-along.

The upside-down cake? That did. I love fruity cakes: I've made a few clafoutis in my time, the odd tarte tatin, and peppered classic sponges with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries… in my opinion a yellow, fluffy sponge (or airy batter, or flaky pastry) is only improved by a slightly-tangy explosion of a berry, or an autumnal slice of apple. I did like the look of Cathryn's appley, hazlenutty confection but I want to do this bake-along my way. And the obvious fruit to me for an upside cake? Cherries. Who doesn't like cherries?

Just look at them, all burgundy and delicious. So I adapted a classic pineapple upside-down cake recipe (Nigella's versh, to be specific) replacing the pineapple with cherries (around 400g). Yes, you do have to pit the cherries. Yes, you will have red fingertips. No, it's not going to make you wish you'd never started (unlike peeling tomatoes, which, one tomato in, makes me think I'd rather peel my own eyes than attempt one more). Just run a knife around the belly of the cherry, twist like it was an avocado, and the pit should, after a little gentle encouragement, slip right out. The most difficult bit for me was not chucking the pit into the cake tin and throwing the cherry half into the bin. Smart.

Nigella's recipe uses pineapple juice in a classic sponge batter. So I replaced that with vanilla-infused whole milk (when I say infused, I mean mixed up and heated briefly in the microwave), to make sure the consistency of my batter matched hers. Taylor & Colledge Vanilla Bean Extract is my absolute favourite and though it seems expensive, will instantly improve your sponges.

The only other changes to Lawson's recipe: firstly, halve your cherries and line the bottom of your buttered and sugared tin, like so:

Isn't it satisfying to see them lined up like that? Secondly, and obviously, omit the glacé cherries. All that's left to say? Yes, this was delicious. I served it with cream, and, according to my boyfriend, the best bit was the edges, where the sugar turns the cherries all sticky and divine, and the edges of the cake batter turn a touch more golden and just the right side of crispy. The proportions are perfect – it seems like it will be a thin sponge, and it is, but all that means is you get more cherry in each forkful. Which can only be a good thing.

The Great Brixton Bake-along

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 19:50:00 +0000

My long-neglected blog finally has a purpose.

It comes in the form of a tribute, an homage, if you will, to a TV programme I hold dear; otherwise known as a cunning excuse to eat cake. A LOT of cake.

Yes, it's my very own version of The Great British Bake-off.

There will be recipes. There will be gratuitous Instagrams of cake taken, totally casually, on vintage china. There will be some successes and some spilt milk. And there will be times when I'll wonder how I'm going to go on because I forgot to buy sugar.

But go on I shall. The rules are simple: each week I will bake something from the show, my way. I know, right?

Welcome to the bake-along.

Fury Unbound

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 30 May 2011 20:24:00 +0000

Unbound is a neat little idea. A digital platform (oh, go on then, website) which allows authors to upload details of their project, courting support from individuals, corporations, anyone with their credit card at the ready I guess, which, when published will give them privileges including their name printed at the back of the book. Financial support equals eventual publication. Fantastico, one thinks, a gem of an idea which will surely result in the unpublished, the unsupported, the under-funded and the undiscovered becoming – well, becoming the reverse of all of those things.

And then you visit the website and discover that current submissions are from authors already described as 'legendary' and future submissions are limited to those who have already been published. Yes, the unpublished can submit if they're supported by an agent, but what about those undeservedly in the literary wasteland? It does seem like a wasted opportunity, with the burgeoning homogenisation of the book trade – support for the unsupported should be a priority. Surely these 'legendary' authors could get their newness published anyway? What do you think?

Picture: 'The Natural World', 2009, by Stanford Kay

Five-minute face #1 – Peachy keen

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 30 May 2011 19:48:00 +0000

A recipe for looking lively on a grey Sunday lunchtime (without a vodka martini)

1 x application of Control Color N in Coral by RMK (a very fluid base product – don't expect OTT coverage, do expect an even-ing of skin-tone, a brightening of your wintry pallor and best of all, quick-as-a-flash application)
1 x slick of Lash Doubling Mascara by Clinique (mascara for the shy – it's not a Geordie Shore look, it's just a little glossy black tint, a little volume and a lotta separation)
1 x dusting of Revlon Blush in Perfectly Peach (no shimmer, no shine, just a fifties flush)
1 x slick of Rimmel Moisture Renew lipstick in Nude Delight (I don't think you'll find a better nude for a fiver or so – if you do, let me know)

Wear with a floral, a flat, and a polka-dot brolly, in case of grey skies. As Sinatra says, anything goes.

I heart baking

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:18:00 +0000

Have you seen that Lurpak advert where the burly-yet-adorable guy makes a really rather delish looking pie? I love it, because to me, that's cooking. It's messy, it's imperfect and things do go wrong but nine times out of ten you get something amazing for your efforts – and your friends love you for it. Baking's a little bit different: you create heaps of mess around the edges but in the middle needs to be something deliciously perfect and really rather enviable, both aesthetically and with a view to popping it in your mouth. I think these jammy hearts are the very embodiment of that. Occasion baking gets me through the 'holidays': baking something adorable totally makes up for the general tackiness of Valentine's Day. I've baked these for the adorable café You Don't Bring Me Flowers in Hither Green – they'll be on counter this weekend, raspberry red and ready to be bought for V-day!

How to dress for Vogue

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:37:00 +0000

1. Ensure you are prepared in advance by only washing a peculiar mix of items from wardrobe, leaving majority of respectable clothes on floor or in washing basket.

2. Lay in bed until last possible moment, telling self you are actually SAVING time by planning outfit in head rather than running around like headless chicken.

3. Get up with twenty-five minutes to do everything, but feeling very smug that out of nothing you have managed to assemble outfit of decent proportions using only imagination. Possibly MORE of an achievement than if you had limitless clothing budget and insatiable thirst for doing laundry.

4. Remember not only is it painfully cold but Britain is in the clutches of the BIG FREEZE – hence planned outfit is useless, mainly because heeled boots are rendered impractical, unless of course you are Nicholas Coleridge and have chauffeur-driven car. Wasted.

5. Decide warmth and safety are paramount and no one is going to look at what an intern wears anyway.

6. Put on ALL clean clothes from The Clean Pile – good combinations include different stripes together, jeans with broken zips, jeans with rips and don't forget the odd socks.

7. Tah dah! Admire very padded, very mismatched look. Congratulate self for totally channelling the Michelin Man crossed with Wurzel Gummidge look this season. SURE Lucinda Chambers will be doing same in A/W 10/11 Marni show.

8. Decide very wise to wear wellies to walk in, take suede boots to change into when entering W1 postcode. Upon removal of wellies, realise they are actually odd and one is wearing a green size 8 welly with grey sole, and one size 6 green welly with yellow sole. Laugh in public, as if a bit of a crazy. Curse damned dark under-stairs cupboard and pre-coffee brain.

9. Enter Vogue House, shudder, and vow to be better, prettier and more stylish tomorrow.

10. Repeat.

Back to black

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:26:00 +0000

I am a fan of black nail polish. In editorial. When it looks all glossy and neat, when it's paired with a super-cool outfit (probably including studs or feathers), painted onto short, sweet nails all ultra precise and lovely by some uber nail tech-trix. Then – and only then – does it look amazing.

At home, black just isn't the same – it often looks very DIY because it's totally unforgiving, so it's probably a bit messy, jagged round the edges, marked from your bedsheets or iffily smudged around the cuticle region, where a bright or nude colour could get away with not being superbly applied. What's more, black polishes tend to need at least three coats, even if you use a good brand (Essie, par exemple) and this only exacerbates the risk of mess-up.

What's more, I think black nail polish has a strong tendency to look a bit like door paint, or undercoat. That nasty not-matte not-gloss compromise ... a sort of Satinwood for nails. And that I do not like. I bring good news, though: I have happened upon a solution. Credit must be given to the therapists at Glow Urban Spa who introduced me to this little trick about a year ago... I've only just cottoned onto this as a home trick, though. It's tres simple. Paint on two coats of navy, dark green, dark red, or similar – whatever you want. Then finish with one thin coat of black – Essie's Licorice is ideal, or I'm using Bourjois So Laque! in Noir de Chine. It looks black, but not dull like house paint. You get the depth of the underneath colour which sort of tones the black, so it's almost imperceptible as a deep deep deep dark blue and just looks like a really great 'shade' of black. Somehow it also looks glossier, though a coat of Jessica Brilliance top-coat won't do any harm.

Hurrah! Smart girl's goth nirvana.

Forget cupcakes

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:48:00 +0000

I'm kind of over cupcakes. That may sound terribly self-conscious but there was a time when there was novelty in a giant, creamy, Magnolia Bakery style American cupcake. No longer – every Tom, Dick or Sally's setting up a kitsch-themed cupcake co from their kitchen and every other wedding has a tower of them in place of cake: no longer are brides content to send home guests with a slice of cake – each attendee must have their OWN.

Snobbishness aside, the trendy kind of cupcake is too big to be eaten elegantly at parties, too sweet to be satisfyingly finished and has far too much icing – you're always left with a lump of the crumb-y toothache inducing stuff in your napkin. So time for a change. How about a return to the fairy (or butterfly) cake of school fêtes and Sunday teas? Not small enough to be a canapé but not so large it could constitute a small meal (a few delicious bites and it's gone), cute beyond anything and not so sweet it should have the number of a local dentist printed inside the bottom of the paper. It's along these lines I've been thinking for a special recipe I'm trying to concoct for a friend's hen night, or potentially wedding – and here's the first incarnation below. It's a mini Victoria Sponge with a catch: it's filled with créme patissiere and a raspberry reduction instead of buttercream and jam and the sponge is infused with rosewater for a tiny twist. I think they've turned out rather well – next time I'm making a few amends and after my second 'draft' I'll let you in on the recipe...

Most beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:54:00 +0000

It occurred to me today that a wonderful moment in Sam Mendes' American Beauty, one which I actually recall on a day to day basis, may have been pretty significant; and if not significant then certainly representative. Ricky, obsessed by documenting the everyday and the beautiful, shows Jane (Thora Birch) a short piece of film – in it, a white plastic bag is whipped and rolled around by the wind. Somehow, Ricky, Jane and Mendes convince their audience of its overwhelming beauty: I certainly am always caught up in the gorgeousness of the mundane when I watch. "It helps me remember. I need to remember," says Ricky.

I think Ricky's need to capture is significant, and maybe even sparked in myself a need to do the same. To create merely by documenting is appealing to the artistically lazy, after all. His panic is resounding – he can't bear for that moment – any moment, it sometimes seems – to go unrecorded. Whether it's access, mere zeitgeist or the digital age which has brought it about, the need to document seems to be stronger now – friends turn into paparazzi, work colleagues blog what they've eaten for dinner (artfully posed with laundry pile cropped out, no doubt), while Facebook and Twitter allow a certain distillation of self until one merely becomes a redhead who drinks Pimm's, wears blue nail varnish, and enjoys the music of Fleet Foxes. And these distillations are so much easier to swallow than your real self. Describing oneself in 160 characters might make us sound better (there's certainly no room in there for awkward contradictions, sad moments, regrettable actions, embarrassing moments...) But isn't that a bit of a shame? In framing ourselves are we doing ourselves an injustice? Is the cropped out laundry pile the really interesting bit?

I'm reading Sebastian Faulks' On Green Dolphin Street at the moment, and incidentally totally loving it. I've just read a moment where Charlie lounges under a Southern French tree and muses upon a biography. He becomes rather philosophical and gives his thoughts on writers thus:

"From what he could gather from novelists' own diaries and letters, the urge that was common to them all was a need to improve on the thin texture of life as they saw it; by ordering themes and events into an artistically pleasing whole, they hoped to give to existence a pattern, a richness and a value that in actuality it lacked. If after reading such a novel you looked again at life – its unplotted emergencies, narrative non sequiturs and pitiful lack of significance – in the light of literature, it might seem to glow with a little of that borrowed lustre; it might seem after all to be charged with some transcendent value."

This rings so true to me - what, after all, do we do in any art at all, but reflect portions of life and in framing, cropping, distorting or reflecting them, attempt to make them look beautiful? And why? Because sometimes when we see them again, we really see them, and they really do look beautiful. Look out for that plastic bag. And now, in the social media age, we do it to ourselves. We hope that in framing our quirks and pretty intricacies, photographing our beautiful moments and drawing attention to the activities we feel define us, when we live them, breathe them, share them, they will seem beautiful to us and ours, and from beauty we will find happiness.

Here's hoping.

Product Crush #1

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:47:00 +0000

In my capacity as a beauty journo (for the time being anyway - in These Times it seems cavalier to call oneself anything when one may soon be churning espresso for dollar) I get to see product upon product and sample product upon product. Yes, it's as good as it sounds, there's no denying the perks of the job. The drawback, of course, is that we can't always write about them all - we do try, but sometimes they just don't fit into the piece whether visually, price-wise or whether they're too similar to something else we have to include because the brand advertise. So that's why I thought I'd start my Product Crush 'series' - the products I really rate (of course it's personal and skin/hair/nail-type specific but I'll try not to mention anything I think will disappoint anyone) regardless of brand, price, availability, or packaging.

This will be my only foray into beauty on this blog - I think about it enough already. But if you're after more beauty home truths, do check out Miss Malcontent and her Truth in Beauty - her recommendations and reasoning are all solid and super entertaining.

So onto #1...

Label.M Resurrection Style Dust

Label.M is a brand that has crept up on me rather, with its fabulousness. I was introduced to Resurrection Style Dust by Cos Sakkas, one of Toni & Guy's top stylists and I loved it so much I went so far as to buy it, considering there was none hanging about in the cupboard and I'm not one for asking. If your hair is lacking in volume this product is like the holy grail - a mere sprinkle and a ruffle with the fingers will build volume where there was none before. And if halfway through the night (for this is really for eveningwear, unless you're either very sparing or you wish to look like a hockey-playing toff) you see flatness returning, a mere brush through and a little zsush will see the volume 'resurrected' (aha) with no need for more product. It's a bit like Aveda's Pure Abundance Potion, only better. The drawback? It needs to come in an enormous pot because I'm addicted to it. Also by Label.M check out their volumising mousse which comes as a spray, perfect for fine hair, and their masks kick some dry hair ass.

Bad girl's back, alright

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:29:00 +0000

At least, I think I am. It's too soon to tell but I think the urge to self-publish has overcome me once more.

Head rush

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:30:00 +0000

Ribbons + buttons + clips + newly blonded hair + event = self-indulgent fascinator creating...

Summer dressin'

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:57:00 +0000

This is my last day of 'between jobs' freedom and I'm oh-so excited about what I have planned. The To-Do list is lengthy but there's only two nasty things on there (1. Pay parking ticket 2. Pay gas bill) - everything else is along the lines of, 3. Try on outfits, 4. Go and buy wedding card, 5. Buy ribbon ... you guessed it, dear reader, I'm off to a wedding. Or more accurately, a wedding after-party.

Summer weddings are the grown-up version of my undergraduate summer balls which were a delight and a tradition. Set in the picturesque quad of our college, for four years in a row (I went back for one) my first year roomie and I dolled ourselves up for the glam meets alcoholic-sham all-nighter. Often the getting ready was the best part; it's certainly the part I, er, remember best. Ball/party/must-wear-dress events are my favourite kind of outfit planning. I adore deciding whether or not this dress requires earrings, what shade of nail polish should be worn, which shoes are dressy enough without being matchy matchy - everything going towards creating the elusive elegant yet kooky, sexy yet subtle special effect. Event-dressing is the perfect opportunity for finishing touches you wouldn't normally have time for - G and I always used Summer Ball as an excuse to do something fun from fresh flower corsages to ribbons in the hair, vintage bags and belts, big time blow dries and Grecian maxi dresses, there was always something new to add to the mix. Alternative flat shoes had to be worked into the outfit, and the process was without fail smoothed along by champagne, strawberries and a lungful of Elnett. Yum.

Excuse my reminiscing; hopefully tomorrow's festivities will match up. Hopefully my outfit won't match match.

Raspberry hooray

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:31:00 +0000

I've talked before about my blind love for baking and never is it more fun than when you are either procrastinating or bored as anything. Yesterday, I was both.

I was rummaging through the fridge when I chanced upon half a punnet of raspberries that Housebunny and Mr. Housebunny had neglected. Well out of date and looking a bit squishy, I was reluctant to chuck or compost them as raspberries are heaven in a berry as far as I am concerned; I just didn't have the heart. That was when I remembered culinary queen M waxing lyrical about a raspberry sponge she once made. So I gave it a go.

What deliciousness emerged from the oven 15-20 minutes later! A magnificent sponge was studded with the little pink gems which had formed fruity starbursts throughout the cake. I can't get enough of this baked goody. Try it, and serve with cream. You could experiment with other berries, or a mix, but you're morally obliged to let me know how you get on.

M's royal raspberry sponge

4 oz self-raising flour
4 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
2 eggs
As many raspberries as you have, or your heart desires

1. Grease and line a cake tin or two (if you want to do a sponge sandwich, double these quantities and make two). I used round tins about 1 1/2 " deep and the size of a large side plate. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.

2. Cream together the butter and sugar in whatever method you prefer - I am currently using a whisk attachment on my food processor as my hand mixer has bitten the proverbial dust. If you're lucky enough to have a KitchenAid, I'm jealous.

3. Add the eggs and then the flour, little by little. Don't worry if the batter seems a little thick - this only means the mixture will hold the raspberries better and they won't sink.

4. Fold in your raspberries gently and try not to squish them too much - you want them to stay intact so that they form little bursts throughout the cake.

5. Spoon into your tin(s) and bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on it though and as soon as a skewer emerges from the centre of the cake clean, and the sponge springs back with a vengeance, it's ready. Cool in the tin for ten minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack.

6. You could sandwich this together with whipped cream and more fresh fruit, or just serve with pouring cream. De-licious.

Sew improvised

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:58:00 +0000

I've been to Saturday drama classes. I'm the veteran of summer theatre courses (Grease in a week!). I've done GCSE, A Level, heck I've even done a degree in drama. So I can improvise all right. [Freeze!]

Which is a good job because I've started sewing some new additions to my wardrobe and gosh darn it, improv is an essential tool to have in your needlework box. Second only to fabric scissors which I soon realised I wouldn't get too far without. My first creation was a nipped and tucked sassed up versh of an old dress; my second I began today and it's going to be - thimbled fingers crossed - a swishy dirndl skirt in a fun print. The material's an absolute biatch to work with though - it puckers and creases at any available opp and my machine has endless issues. The needle breaks or it runs out of thread or it won't move and I don't know why... I'll never be a seamstress, though I'm enjoying these dabbles.

Thriftiness is certainly in style, if that's possible. You can hardly pick up a glossy supplement or free tabloid rag without being told all about credit crunch fashions - works for me as I am about to begin a six month (hopefully career enhancing) unpaid stint and it's certainly a stylish office. What better reply to a compliment than to say your skirt is home-made? This relies on getting the compliments first, of course. It's much much more difficult to pick out a second hand skirt or to sew a top than to pick a garment off a rail at (insert fave shop here) and have the result look good. Unfortunately, thriftiness doesn't make up a percentage of style - you don't look better just 'cos it's vintage. In fact, you're more likely to look worse - hence the cachet that comes from getting second hand/vintage/own-made/reclaimed right. Instant style credit that never crunches.

So when I finish my twirl-able navy skirt I'm going to have to force myself not to be sentimental (a feat the writers of tonight's episode of Gossip Girl were unable to manage). That's if I ever finish it. Turns out the folks at Burda Style were optimistic when they said "Beginner" and "hour or two". They hadn't figured TBOG might be at the pedal.

Wish me luck.

That Bad Messy Girl

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:54:00 +0000

God damn, I am messy. I mean, really, seriously messy. I don’t think you have ever known anyone as messy as I am. I just distribute the atoms of my life in packages, parcels and piles all over and around any environment I enter. I have at least six wardrobes; one in the car, one in the hallway, one draped over the banisters, one in the bathroom and at least two on my bedroom floor. Oh the actual wardrobe? Well that’s reserved for glitzy show costumes from when I was six years old. Obviously.

I just can’t help it. I think it’s one part laziness, one part genetics and one part self-destructiveness. Maybe subconscious fear has a part to play too - like, I can never fall too hard if I have all this stuff around me to cushion the impact. I do love mess a little bit, though. I remember watching Lost In Translation and going all gooey over the artful abomination that is Charlotte’s (Scarlett Johansson) hotel room. So much more life-embracing and comfy than the clean (puke) lines the room is designed with. I don’t mind clean and tidy rooms; I LOVE messing them up, though. Just not thinking and strewing stuff everywhere - it’s my stock in trade. Everywhere I go I leave a little trail of make-up products, cocktail rings, restaurant receipts, blue nail varnishes, old novels, new mags, broken pens, half-filled notebooks, disposable cameras, partly empty coffee pots, totally empty wine glasses, screwed-up cake wrappers, undone leather belts…

My messiness does totally screw me over, though. I can’t find things, I tread on (and break) things (then get glass in foot), I constantly (and I mean constantly) feel I should be tidying up and I do think that if my house was impeccably tidy, my life would be perfect. Of course, it wouldn’t be. But it might exist in a better looking frame.

Home and away

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:16:00 +0000

I'm taking a little time out between jobs, so recently I've been a homebird. It's rather nice; there's time to do all the things you always meant to do but never got round to. So far I've painted my front door a nice navy blue, turned my £3 M&S market bought dress into a sassier version of itself - complete with ruffles - whipped up a mean chilli for pals and cleared out the kitchen dresser (in the process stumbling across a darling little vintage watch which must have been Mama's).

This evening I also got around to watching a movie I've been meaning to catch for ever - The Motorcycle Diaries. That's when I realised there's something else I never got around to doing; I forgot to ever go travelling. It's something I would like to do but honestly I don't think the time has ever been right. If I was going to go away for plenty time, it would have to be exactly right. The repercussions of Guevara's travels in the movie (certainly I ought to read up as well; I intend to) are vast and really, I would want any stint away to have a great impact on me too. Not that I am ever going to become a Communist revolutionary - more's the pity - but an extended holiday would just feel pointless. Travel for travel's sake is a huge luxury and if I was going to capitalise on it I would at least need to feel that I had the made the most of the opportunity, whether through making a physical impact or forming personal ideas.

Adventure comes out of the blue, though - you don't have to hop on a plane to find it. Prettiness itself, M, told me a friend of hers will often take a different route to work just to add adventure to his day. Or you can take a trip back in time like I have done today, simply by rifling through my kitchen drawers. Guaranteed you'll make discoveries untold.

*Just as a footnote, is there anything more beautiful than Gael Garcia Bernal?

Beauty is ballet

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:01:00 +0000

Get hippie

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:34:00 +0000

After our slightly psychedelic gig experience last week myself and C, fellow housebunny, have come over all 1969.

C has taken to wearing silk Hendrix headbands over her curls and her burgeoning collection is strictly second hand or home made. I spent the weekend baking and S was happiest strumming on one of my collection of vintage guitars - truly the weekend passed in a kind of idyll. Now it’s over but here are the lessons I have learnt from our pseudo-commune.

To market, to market: Saturday was market day. I bought many ‘recycled’ items which would have set me back many, many, many pounds in a tarted up vintage shop. Instead, 1 x floral belted dress, 2 x dirndl skirts, 1 x pair of diamante embellished Dita-esque shoes, 1 x bottle-green Roberts radio and 3 metres of sumptuous silk stung me all of £13. Take lots of loose coins, attend market and repeat.

Bake, rattle and roll: It’s not all about occasion baking. I made Banana muffins to use up stinky black bananas; I whipped up chocolate cookies as a procrastination device. Baking takes president over most things, especially tidying up breakfast rooms. S and C left me polishing my halo and packaging up bags of charity shop bound clothes and returned to find me in a sinful cloud of cocoa powder and flour. Dee-licious-lightful.

Get your rainy day book out: This weekend, we went back to schoolday hobbies. Coloured pencils, sketchbooks, plenty of paper, dressing-up boxes, sewing - the idea is that whatever you were good at á l’ecole, you’d probably still get stickers for. I’m getting arts and crafts out of my past and starting a new rainy day book. I’m looking for inspiration for the future.

Do stuff a bit local: Monday night, rainy sky, West End far away… turns out there’s a divine Indian right on our doorstep. Hurrah. The joy of this, of course (apart from the fact that hippies went to Goa and we went to Bombay Brasserie) is that - unless you live somewhere a bit upmarket - things that are nearby are generally independent, or as this wonderful website will have it, Unchained. From now on I’m patronising the locals as a priority and hoping I’ll get my £1 coins back as change in the Post Office. What comes around, goes around.

Let’s all become Nu-hippies. Or Post-rebels. Or something.

Tim Walker, Pictures, Design Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:30:00 +0000

Chilly, drizzly London Sundays are made for museums. So off I went to the glorious Design Museum yesterday, in order to see the Tim Walker, Pictures exhibition. It was glorious - simply one of the best exhibitions I have seen in a long time; undoubtedly Pictures left an inspired imprint upon me that I haven't felt since I saw Anglomania, at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pictures was probably even better, as far as exhibition pragmatics go - I didn't have to jostle with anyone at all, it wasn't necessary to buy a time-alloted ticket and the Design Museum is just a great space, with lots of light, a wicked shop and Monmouth coffee in the café. Hurrah.

Back to Tim. One of my exhibition companions, S, commented the photographs were, 'the most English thing I have ever seen.' Englishness and childhood are indeed the prevailing themes in Walker's work, with the clothes, from Glastonbury wellies to Paris couture, neatly fitting into the narratives of his Pictures. What a great title, as well, for these are pictures - the word photograph speaks too strongly of documentation and detail where Tim Walker's work tells stories and explores ideas - these are pictures painted in the same way Lewis Carroll painted pictures of Alice.

One of the things the three of us found most striking about the work - at least, what we talked about afterward in the most English pub we could find - was the purity and clarity of Walker's ideas. We remember having ideas like these as game-playing children - as C so rightly commented, if we could get the dressing-up box out in the process it was a bonus - and one can’t help but feel that this is just how Walker works. His ideas are derivative of nothing but his own memories, experiences and idiosyncratic way of looking at the world - and he just so happens to have the best dressing up box you can imagine at his disposal. Plus, Lily Cole, Karen Elson and Erin O’Connor are all ready and willing to come and play.

Go see - you might bump into me as I am just not sure I can let this exhibition hurtle toward its 7th September close without another visit!

Greatest wallpaper on earth

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Fri, 23 May 2008 18:45:00 +0000

I think I’ve found it. It’s everything I want it to be – whimsical, fantastical, non-girly, patterned enough to patch up crumbling 1906 walls, theatrical. I found it on the fantastic The Shop Floor Project which also stocks small selections of most things in the world, all by very covetable designers in incredibly beautiful designs. This wonderful wallcovering is by Daniel Heath; also check out the headgear by Karen Henriksen and the handprinted tattoo tights by Mhairi McNichol and Chloe Patience which I'm dying to wear with a cream Mayle dress.

So why do I have the wallpaper blues? It’s £250 a roll, which pretty much excludes me from its target market. Sigh.

I'll never be a muso

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Went to see MGMT last night; overall, a fun gig. Certainly better than the last I went to which, if I remember rightly, consisted of a girl with flowers in her hair warbling loudly while a young, deceptively normal-looking chap played spaghetti, shards of pasta showering the audience as he, er, strummed. No, I didn’t go to art school and no, I didn’t manage to suppress my giggles. I digress.

MGMT – and Florence & the Machine, the support, for that matter – have a gloriously OTT vibe. I wasn’t sure they quite fitted in the down and dirty Astoria – their rainbow-shiny hippy-star pop-a-delica should be reserved purely for hazy fields under Indian summer sun so that the artistes aren’t the only ones who can wheel about and jump and shout as we would have liked to have done last night, whilst wearing, not Impeccable Interview Outfit but my pale wide leg flare jeans (which are definitely having a moment) and bare feet. Instead we were reduced to shuffling to and fro, time and again as fellow audience members with the navigation of moths attempted to hurl themselves through our group and down a set of non-existent stairs.

That’s the thing about me and live music – I don’t think we’ll ever be besty pals. We haven’t grown up together. An outrage when you consider my father was in about twenty-six bands and my Mother couldn’t have looked more like Marianne Faithfull if she’d tried *. I just manage to feel slightly annoyed that I like any one band enough to actually queue to go to a venue to see them, wait 45 minutes, drink beer I don’t like, and then bop along to said tunes next to some kid who manages to spill beer in my pocket. This is all the stuff that gig aficionados romantically refer to as ‘part of it!’ Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy these affairs – I just can never quite shake the feeling that the lunatic girl dancing next to me in a bikini top (these bikini girls must be following me) is having a way better time than me and I really ought not to be there.

*Gotta love poetic license

Prima premiere

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:33:00 +0000

In the summer months it's nice to avoid London's perilous underground network and turn the two-stop journey into a few steps walk to the office. The same on the return journey. Only there are some evenings when my head-down-scurry through Leicester Square is transformed into an elbows-out crawl through crowds of people - premiere night. Acres (perchance I exaggerate) of the Square are turned into red carpeted stages for stars as they sashay past in shimmering frocks - at least I imagine this is the case as the most I have ever seen are The Public's hunched backs and straining necks, lurking, smoking paps and policemen redirecting pedestrian traffic as I fight past them all in the never-ending struggle towards the station.

Gosh, did I wish I'd avoided Leicester Square tonight. After some rather pleasant Monday shoe shopping (more on that, later) I was faced with a rammed barge-fest across the Square, only fully realising I should have taken a different route when it was too late to do so. The reason? The mother of all premieres; or, the unmarried thirty something doyenne of all premieres - that's right, those four ladies are in London, it was the Sex and the City movie premiere. So there are all sorts of women, everywhere. Lenses poke me in the eye, leaning blondes knock me for six, ladies yell, "Should of got up here about two o clock!" and, "Can't you see 'er Shell?"...

This jamboree just puts me right off going to see a film based on a show I have admittedly always adored. Not for nothing did Vanessa Friedman ominously observe, 'The Sex and the City juggernaut has rolled into town,' in her enlightening FT piece on the commercial aspects of this mega-movie. The commercial bandwagon indeed seems to be one with plenty of room for all. I've heard radio sponsors, seen tv build-up, there've been magazine articles for months, 'leaked' screen shots, a transparent trailer, heck, even CU shoe shots of key stilettos from the movie. It just turns my stomach and puts me right off.

In the park at the weekend my two gentlemen pals Monsieur I and Monsieur M were indignant when I announced I couldn't wait to go and see Sex and the City: The Movie, just so I could hate it (reminds me of a Berger line, more than anything else). At first I was foxed and thought perhaps it was just me being contrary; now I think I've tapped into my own psyche a little better. All this hullabaloo is just too, too much. I watched SATC ad nauseum because I love the show and it was a teensy bit niche, not because I heard idents on a cheesy radio station. I adored the outfits because it was fun to fantasise about out-of-reach designers not because I want to spot which It-shoes to get on the waiting list for. And I loved Carrie and co because they were just a bit cool and y'know what, the last thing all this is is cool.

I'm happy to be advertised at to a degree but I don't want this film shoved down my throat - then it's just going to make me sicky, not swoony. More than anything else, I just want all these people to get out of Leicester Square and let me stride on through, giving me and my new shoes some space. Hmm, Manolos might fly, eh?

Wardrobe forecast

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:01:00 +0000

In London, we are having a burst of fine weather. (Perhaps we are having it in places that aren't London too...) Each morning I am attempting to evoke that celebratory but mistrustful vibe that to me speaks of style and sense. None of this hot-headed halter and hot pant malarkey - I'm leaving the bare legs and toes-out bravery to those who mal-propose (catachresis...) that the weather is "scorching". I hate these extreme and dramatic reactions to micro changes in the weather to which us Brits seem so prone. It's never cold but it's freezing and it never rains but it pours. Apparently. With these superlatives come wardrobe about-turns which are just plain annoying - just ask the girl in the bikini top on Oxford Street today. Honestly.

It's nice and sunny though and I can't deny that I am glad of it. Today, office chums V and N and I headed for G+Ts standing up in the sun and mainly spoke about hairdressers and shoes and shops and boys and girls and jobs and the girl in the bikini top on Oxford Street. Lunchtime drinking: a symptom of the side effects of sun. More side effects? Work-related apathy and social hunger. Somehow, the sunshine (and it's nothing to do with heat as it's not scorching and Our Towers is cool) instantly means I shift into go-super-slow mode. One morning's work equals a whole day's work in the sunshine. Sorry Ed.

Bring on the summer, proper, and legitimate bare toes and bikinis on beaches. Never on Oxford Street.

Image: C. R. Du'Pré

Get it off my chest

noreply@blogger.com (Sophie Gridley) — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:58:00 +0000

It’s not very often that I wear an outfit from the beginning of the working day right through to the end without becoming tired of it, uncomfortable in it, or self-conscious about it. I don’t know why, it just seems that what looks good in my bedroom at 8am looks naff in the lift at work at 9.34am and plain try-hard in the toilets at 12.49pm, and just scruffy by 5.37pm when I glimpse myself in a shop window. Such is life, I suppose - that’s what you get for being fickle and far from a fashion queen.

Today was an exception. I wore a very bargainous pale denim pocketed smock dress with an outsize grey cardi all tied up with a pale blue vintage belt. Black opaque and black patent wedges rounded things up. It was sunny today so it was a nice day. A feeling fine in a swing my arms/don’t mind the walk from the station/feel chirpy even in Tesco kind of way.*

When I was almost home, two young-ish chaps (how old does that make me sound? Allow me to clarify, I’m twenty-two and they were probably not much more youthful) walked past me in the other direction and one of them offered, ‘Nice tits.’ Hmmph. Now that’s not a mood-enhancer, whichever way you look at it. I suppose, really, it is a compliment but I just find it annoying, not to mention vaguely embarrassing. To me, the real insult is the reductive nature of the comment. It makes me feel like this is all I am, breasts. Maybe they are nice but how about my carefully put together outfit? Expensive haircut? Lips? Face? Handbag? Hey, wait - brain?

Let’s face it, this chap couldn’t care less about my brain and nor would he ever get the chance to find out. There’s the rub. If he really thinks I have nice tits what is even the point in saying anything? It isn’t going to get him anywhere. I tried to reverse the situation and wondered about what might happen if I walked past a guy on the street and commented on his bum, for example. I rather think the reaction might be amusement, a little confusion and certainly an ego boost. So what is it about women and breasts?

I think us girls have a strange relationship with our bosoms. Yes, they’re symbols of womanhood but they are also very tied up with what men like and desire to gain from women (whether sex or children or porn). Actually, I love mine but I didn’t grin and say thanks and share information about favourite bras and flattering necklines with this young gentleman, as I may have done if a woman had said the same. It seems as though breasts have become the page three symbol of male to female sexual attraction. If a man remarks upon them it’s almost as if he is crossing a line and intruding somewhere uninvited in a way that wouldn’t be the case had he remarked upon my smile. Similarly, would I have been so offended if I had teeny Trinny tits?

What do you think?

* Note that I quickly returned to my chirpy mood and have just consumed lemon risotto and two G+Ts with glee.