This ad for Electronic Mail made me giggle. It reminds me of when my Dad worked for Data General in the 80′s, and had to explain this MAGIC to people.
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November 2011
All going well, I will be moving into a new house soon (xx, those are my fingers; twisted, knotted and wishing). Starting with blank walls, and empty rooms. Some decor inspiration:
It turns out my decorating wish list is quite simple; a Chesterfield sofa with a velveteen blanket, a big solid work table, and lots of bookshelves. How is it, that despite arriving in England with one book, I have acquired a few dozen more in just 4 months? Oops!
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Best Wild Animal Photos of 2011 | National Geographic
Elle Decor’s stylish guide to Antwerp | Elle Decor
Tjalf Sparnaay paints hyper-realistic pictures of food | Trendland
Money – an infographic | XKCD
Engaged to Prince William, a sculpture | A Cup Of Jo
Famous Albums on Street View | Vice
Alexey Titarenko, The Zombies | But Does It Float
Superlatives Used in Missed Connections, oh how I adore Craigslist | Center for Missed Connections
Marked, a series of prints made by hand | Karin Wolters
Jay-Z – a man of the year. “Jay’s tourist-bureau anthem, “Empire State of Mind,” comes on somebody’s radio, and for a block or so it’s like we’ve strolled into a montage.” | GQ
Late Bloomers – Why do we equate genius with precocity? | The New Yorker
Nathalie Lete, artist | Wee Birdy
aaaaaand my favourite of the week…
How to properly hide booze in your Facebook pictures | Celebr8wewill
Inspired this, I made my own PUPPY version. Check out the gorgeous Mon with her vodka & soda:
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My new happy place is Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It’s an architectural dreamscape, where Austrian clichés meet Christmas kitsch. Amusements include mulled wine, blizzards of fake snow, roasted chestnuts, animatronic moose heads, the carousel bar, reindeer races, fairy floss, pretzels, talking trees, ice-skating, krugs of beer, fun fair tokens, and of course, a visit to Santa.
It’s absolute madness and I love it.
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Belgium has a great mix of cultures – half Flemish, half French. Brussels in particular captures this spirit – it’s in the Flemish side of the country, but the majority of inhabitants are native French-speakers. It’s a lovely place to explore. You’ll probably notice a common themes running through these photographs; Brussels is famous for waffles, chocolate, frites, comics (it’s the home of Tintin), and the Manneken Pis.
Tintin and Snowy! Spotted from the train rolling into Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid station.
An example of the two languages living side by side. Also, Brussels has really nice trash cans.
(Is that an odd thing to notice?)
The Grote Markt (or Grand Place) was a square of breathtaking buildings. Gold, ornate, and utterly gorgeous.
Brussels has lots of cool street art/comics painted around town. There’s also a museum dedicated to comics!
The finest Belgian chocolate – in owl form.
A true polyglot, Brussels melds old and new architecture.
Putting the Pis in “piss-take” – there are tributes to Brussels’s favourite son, the Manneken Pis, everywhere.
Then after a night out and some excellent French food, it was back to London. I think we’ll be back to visit very soon – Belgium is only 1 hour 50 minutes away from London by Eurostar. It’s amazing to someone who has spent their entire life living on an island!
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Last Saturday I was a tourist in my own city. Which is quite easy to do in London. While I am beginning to know the East End well, the West is a whole ‘nother story. So I decided to get myself lost! I caught the tube to Kensington, then spent a few hours at the Victoria & Albert Museum, gazing at all the art. After a few inspiring hours, I walked through Hyde Park, around the Serpentine, making friends with a few birds.
Yep, I has wonderful time wandering in London; just people watching, stretching my legs, and admiring nature. Best of all, it was FREE. I spent about a quid on my whole adventure. (I really like saying the word quid in private, but not actually to anyone.) Which to brings to mind a saying I like (source unknown) that rather inspired my move here: “If you’re going to be poor, you may as well be poor in one of the greatest cities on Earth”.
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East London, walking to the DLR train in the morning. Every day it’s getting darker and colder. To beat the gloom I’ve planned my first mini jaunt to the continent. Two nights in Brussels, in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to the famous chocolate and beer!
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This week Thom and I zapped off on the Eurostar to Belgium for our first city break since moving to England. Being greedy ambitious adventurers, we figured we had enough time to see the sights of both Antwerp and Brussels. After getting up way too early in the morning for my liking, we caught a breezy train to Antwerp – one of Belgium’s Flemish cities.
The beautiful cathedral in the heart of the old quarter. We stayed in a quaint little hotel right behind it.
It seems like you can get waffles everywhere in Belgium – even from train station vending machines.
We stopped for coffee & lunch to escape the chill. Despite my mittens, I wasn’t prepared for how cold it was!
There are dual language editions of this daily newspaper, in two different colours (green for French).
Antwerp’s retro-winkels, AKA vintage stores were great. Best find: a set of antique chocolate moulds for €20.
We spent most of out time just wandering the streets, ducking into interesting shops, and taking photos. One evening we went spent a few hours in a tiny bar, making friends with some locals, and then later, the Frites man. It amused him no end to explain all the different chip and mayo options to two enthusiastic tourists…
Next stop: Brussels!
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A long Friday night at home, post-holiday, has resulted in a new blog design and logo. The look is inspired by semaphore - my favourite code.
Semaphore is a system of communicating over distances using flags, using different flag positions to represent different characters. When I was young, I really wanted to earn the Signaller Badge, but apparently it wasn’t relevant to the 1990′s Auckland lifestyle of a 10-year-old.
My friend Sian, who lived across the road, and I had to make do with a complicated referee whistle arrangement instead; driving the neighbours bonkers. They should have let us learn the flags…
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