The Farmstead

So, the sad news is that I had to take my spiky shoes back to the shop, because they were too tight and as it was I wasn't going to wear them enough that such discomforts in the name of IMPACT were worth it. However! The good news is that I have bought some other shoes instead... They are less exciting, generally, but intrigue me because they break a number of my general norms:

1. They are casual heeled shoes. I don't generally wear these, but I thought it was time to try (again, since terrible attempts in 2008). Because I'm grown up and shit / AW13 (which is looking very nice BTW) makes me think it's time to be a bit more dressy.

2. They have a big block heel like it's 1997. And a platform! (They are ankle boots, just for more horrors of such styling.) Now, when I was ickle and into the Spice Girls, I did indeed admire their stompy platform shoes. However, by the 2000s I like any sensible person realised that block heels are pretty bloody ugly, and never intended to find myself in anything that wasn't tapered nicely (don't like straight stick stilettos anyway... and that 2004-5 foray into sculpted heels that go in and out again is best left forgotten along with the T-bar brogues... yes; we can see why I don't really buy heels - and why I have to break rules if I'm ever going to buy anything.)

3. They aren't even real leather. And considering I was just harping on about this to Boggles, I think we can all appreciate how great a sin this is. Or how rarely serious my whinges are. Either way; they were the nicest style and they were cheaper, so I'll feel less bad if I banish them in the spring for being a huge mistake.

Anyway, I like them! And they do make my legs look very nice. The only problem is my skinny jeans - at least the burgundy pair I'm wearing now - are a bit obscenely tight, and while I usually just pretend that no one will notice that my bum and thighs are basically right there in people's faces, walking around with everything elevated off the ground a few inches seems a bit grotesque. Considering these four pairs of skinny jeans are (not even joking) the only bottom halves I have to wear on a day-to-day basis, I either need a lot more bum-covering tops, or some other trouser-based options. (But I tend to have issues with trousers, because my thighs are apparently large for the rest of me, so everything always clings awfully or I can't sit down or whatever... At least with the jeans it looks intentional - and they're stretchy.) I think midi/high-calf skirts are in and I kind of like the idea of them again. (Maybe a leather one. A vintage leather one!) But... Nowhere's selling them. Because apparently shops don't work out the implications of what they stock? Topshop have just got a bum-length jacket in, and if they had a nice material at some point I could probably live in that all winter. But there is danger ahead!

Oh, but they look really good with a coat I picked up on holiday that I may or may not have mentioned. So that is aces. :P

PS. I saw a teenager today doing the high-waisted-turned-up-baggy jeans with little trainers and a crop top (+ long sleeves) look today... She looked really great and I was jealous. :'( Not that I would have ever worn that look at 15 anyway. Although those jeans might well be the fashionable equivalent to big black Criminal Damage silly jeans...

PPS. The doctor reckons I have athlete's foot. :(

But I think I would have been too stressed travelling around this weekend, not least because I skived on Thursday to go to the Proms! We stood for the first one, but my mum managed to get some jammy tickets to the Nigel Kennedy who was aaaaaaaaaaaamazing. Check it out on iPlayer if you can! (It's Prom 34.) Was very excited to see in some publicity article for it in the Times (wot my Mum reads) that the Nige is doing a collaboration with Massive Attack on another version of the Four Seasons which is meant to be released in the Autumn. It's going to be epic.

I also just bought some shoes. They are... Characteristic?

http://www.office.co.uk/view/product/office_catalog/2,10/1163391601

So, if you have Netflix... Watch this show!!!!! If you don't, um, ...



This is the only non-spoilery video I could find. But meet Piper Chapman! She's a well-off, liberal, self-involved party girl who just wants to keep her line of artisanal soaps in Barney's. She has a nice fiancé, who's a writer who's going to make it big one day (though his Upper East Side parents can cover for him in the meantime). The statute of limitations on the money trafficking Piper did that one time ten years ago is twelve years, but unfortunately she just got named in the bust on her drug-importing ex-girlfriend Alex (who, by the way, is played by Donna from That 70s show... You can't say that you never wanted to see her again in another role), so now she's in prison. Sad times.

But that is only the beginning! What follows is the long and lengthy deconstruction of someone who lives in their own little narcissistic world who is finally and consistently forced to face consequences for every single action they take in a bubble/fish-bowl like environment. I'm not a huge fan of novelistic television, but for a drama this has all the best elements of sitcom - a small world, a slightly heightened reality (just enough to stretch everyone into distinct characters), with tight and well signposted plotting. And Alex is brilliant. And this is exactly the sort of plot I love - because it's not just deconstruction; it's also transformational. But I don't want to ruin it by telling the whole story, though the great thing is that you can see it coming anyway. Just enjoy watching it play out! Because everyone's great - every single character has a good side and a bad one.

And if you've seen it, talk to me about it!! Although I have to stop my head reading everything in the way most of the characters talk. It makes the me inside my head sound ridiculous.

PS. It's also rated 18 (I think?) for a reason. Most of the graphic sex is in the first few episodes presumably to hook people the same way HBO does. Judge your company?

PPS. Also, how did I fail to recognise that Red is CAPTAIN JANEWAY? Also much missed. But found again!

Thanks for the comments on my fic, gang! Replying to them soon. The library's shut and I'm supposed to do some work at home today... But video!

ETA: OK, so the BBC embed code doesn't work properly. Link instead:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01csgqy

I dunno if it'll play outside of the UK...

Proper random, but browsing Topshop... I love this look, but cannot see myself ever, ever wearing it:

( ... )

This is basically the sad truth about a lot of where Topshop has gone recently. Maybe with a t-shirt that actually properly hit the top of those jeans? But also, I know, because I own some creepers, that I wouldn't be able to walk anywhere proper in those shoes without getting blisters, because my ankles have no grip at all. :'(

[Although, the more I look at this image, the more it seems obvious to me that the model's belly button must have been photoshopped in and she's not wearing the right shoe properly. So I'm happier to admire this as fashion photography that bears no resemblance to the potential of clothes in situ...]

Go, go, go: moriwen1's What is This, a Joke?

Spike and Aslan walk into a bar. Or, more exactly, Spike's on the hunt for his soul and ends up with a bloody terrifying lead. Cue a breezy-fresh short story with solid metaphysical credentials nonetheless. And chapter one has a twist that keeps on giving. brutti_ma_buoni already linked it, but I'm linking it again, because I don't want you lot to miss it!

In other news, which should probably get its own post so as not to sour the proceedings, I've been sucked back into The Voice? I think it must say something for the rejigging of the format, because it was about this time last year that I abandoned it. It's just a fact, though, that neither Danny wotsisarrogantface nor Tom Jones have any clue about production, which is such a shame, because Jessie J and will.i.am's people are the only ones who end up giving proper thought-through performances.

Everyone's clear favourite, as it should be, is Leah... Because this is just aces! I can't bear pop, but modern covers of disco I apparently like. Also, the vast heaps of sarcasm she pours over the lyrics are great.



But I also like Leanne, who got kicked off. I think she dreams of being Christina Aguilera, but she really needs to be on the dance circuit. That icy high register of hers is dying out for pounding electronics. As they started getting to with this:



Soz; I iz proper hyper on curry and Hotel Chocolat chocolate wot I couldn't resist on the way home.

So, in a fit of wanting someone else to find new music for me, I signed up to the subscription service run by Rough Trade, where you get six of their favourite new tracks for £2.99 per week. It says that they get tracks often ahead of release and you get additional material - so far, I can certainly say that these tracks do seem to be ahead of release and properly fresh in that way. Not sure what they're talking about in terms of additional material, but they do also say that this is a fairly new service and they're building it up as they go along, so we'll see what happens!

For as long as I go for it, I thought it might also be fun to keep a blog of my feelings on the tracks. I actually thought this would be more difficult than I'm hoping it will be... My general worry with the service was that, as sponsored by the Guardian, it was going to be a lot of samey Guardian-reader-friendly tunes aimed at 30 year olds, which ten years ago would have meant a lot of Pixies-esque stuff... I don't know if it isn't that, but there's definitely variety here and a clear identity between tracks. My fear now that I'm interested in three of the tracks enough to want the albums is that every Saturday could potentially start getting very expensive. :/

( Reviews )

Overall I think that was a success! Not pausing my subscription yet.

I like it when Newsnight packages the interesting bits into single videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22625480

(Also, this reminds me of how much I've enjoyed some articles in the Financial Times over the years. Sure, I have no money to do anything with this stuff, but it's very interesting. And the How To Spend It magazine is the best of all 'ogle expensive junk' periodicals, even if the ratio of men's stuff:women's stuff in it is a woeful reflection of the financial sector.)

(Yes, I went looking for yesterday's Newsnight. It's not up yet.)

So, I think this is exactly the same as a parka I bought a couple of months ago in navy blue (because everyone seems to own khaki now and getting a new khaki parka seemed like an insult to my old, beloved, knackered one)... Only it's got peacocks on it?

http://tinyurl.com/ce82atk

(Bearing in mind that the reviews are silly and I thought I didn't like my blue parka because it was unlined and a bit basic, but now spend most of my time walking around in it looking in shop window reflections and thinking how well it goes with skinny jeans and DMs.)

(Really, I think I want it. I just feel poor because I finally got around to dumping most of my savings in an ISA rather than having them floating around my current account. You like it too, right?)

ETA: Wellll... I hope I don't regret that in the morning. To be fair, I haven't been drinking recently. So that makes it OK.

Once upon a time a read a lecture summary or something on the Cambridge website about what would happen if humans upped and vanished one day from a large city (such as Cambridge)... I've never been able to find it again, but it stuck with me and was one of the main inspirations behind abridgement. And these images from Pripyat in the Chernobyl exclusion zone remind me of that too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-22246328

Can't get over that second image with the forest re-emerging between the buildings.