You Are Viewing Uncategorized

I am convinced that Christina Hendricks is not human. She is a fembot, based on Jessica Rabbit and made specifically to appeal to men and fat women who wish they looked like her (*cough*). Look at that waist! Waists like that just don’t exist any more! I also love her hair slightly longer and straighter. It’s enough to make me reach for the Nice ‘n’ Easy. I have the same pale skin…maybe I could pull it off*?

Speaking of pale skin, I actually don’t think much of the colour of this Christian Siriano gown (what is it with celebs wearing nothing but black or washed-out nudes and peaches?) but I love the shape, I love the ruching and I love Christina for wearing something so dramatic and not just going for slimming black jersey or something. Unsurprisingly, she wins the Golden Globes fight for me.

Anna Paquin came a close second in Stella McCartney, but her shoes were all kinds of wrong.

Highly commended awards go to Drew Barrymore, Sigourney Weaver and Diane Kruger. I spent all morning putting lots more pics on The Nod if you’re interested.

*I couldn’t.

It’s been a long week. I think what everyone needs is a very long video of a baby polar bear snoring.

Now smile!

This is the TwitterSheep cloud for all my followers on Twitter. Predictable much?!

Not this week. Not only is it London Fashion Week, but the Oscars are on Sunday. I’ll see you on the other side. Follow my stuff at Catwalk Queen until then. Maybe one day I’ll get some sleep.

Happy 2009! It’s been a while.

I realise I don’t blog here very often. Sometimes I wish I still had a secret, anonymous blog where I could actually say all the stuff I contemplate saying on here. The problem with that is there’s always someone who’ll work it out and ‘out’ me, and while I’m not sure anyone out there cares enough to stick a spanner in the works just for the fun of it, it’s happened to me before.

It’s ironic that the more I blog professionally, the less I can do it personally. At least, not the way I used to. It’s all well and good for me to post pictures of whatever dressing table I’m now cooing over (for the record, it’s this one) but I’m not so sure it’s as good an idea to go on about how wonderful my boyfriend is (as much as he’d love that).

However, all that said, I’m going to attempt to keep up the blogging on here in 2009, even if it turns into even more of an interiors blog as time goes by. And on that note, I’m off to rearrange my bathroom…

I’ve just experienced my first real flat-related emergency. The radiator leaked. All over the living room carpet. This was a disaster waiting to happen, as there’d apparently been a tiny leak to the flat below for a while, but my plumber and the downstairs landlord hadn’t been able to communicate efficiently enough to get it looked. So my brand new boiler conked out (again) and then this happened…

Fun, isn’t it! Luckily, because my boiler was new when I moved in, the water was clean (apart from that rusty bit around the pipe) so when this dries, it shouldn’t be too bad. Most of the ’staining’ is just where it’s wet, rather than dirty. On the upside, I do now have a boiler that works and radiators that have been freshly bled. On the downside I have a sofa and table out of action, and a tiny fan heater sucking up electricity as it dries this carpet in sections.

I’m currently taking votes on how long it’ll take for the whole thing to dry out completely. I’m going with four days. You?

A few quick tips for up and coming online shops / ebay sellers photographing clothes to sell…

1) Get a steamer. Really. Clothes look better when they’re not creased to hell.
2) Stop making your models stand like morons.
3) Don’t belt things that are empire line. We want to see how they hang normally.
4) Don’t belt things that don’t come WITH the belt. It’s false advertising!
5) Don’t photograph things on clear plastic mannequins, ever.
6) Seriously…get a steamer. Or even an IRON!

It amazes me how many decent shops have ridiculously shoddy photography. Theoretically, the clothes should look better in the photos than they do in real life, not the other way around.

I think I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a trend. I put zebra print stuff in my living room because I had a faux fur throw that I needed to use somewhere. It worked out quite well, if a bit bachelor pad-ish. But it’s actually quite cool in the decorating world at the moment. Just look at this, a suggested design for the interior of the Red Room at the White House once the Obama family take residence.

Apparently, when the new family moved in, Congress will give them a hundred grand to spend on redecorating. I would make some credit crunch-related comment here about how that 100k could be better used. But to be honest, I’d want a lot of money to de-Bush the place, too. Not sure I’d go so inside-of-a-strip-joint in a political house, but I love the idea, not to mention the footstools!

In other news, my brand new boiler is broken. And it’s freezing. Fun!

Last night I headed to the depths of the City for the latest London Bloggers Meetup, which was my first meetup in a while (I’m still gutted I missed the one that involved custom Smirnoff cocktails).

This time around, Melanie was giving a talk, so if nothing else I wanted to go along to provide a bit of support. She was great, of course, and I also got to catch up with a few old friends / colleagues and fellow bloggers. It’s amazing how many folks I feel I know really well despite having only met them a few times, mainly because of Twitter. It’s very easy working in the online world to think you have this huge clique of mates, but you very soon realise that most of them would barely be acquaintances if it weren’t for the fact you congregate around a free bar any time anyone invites you.

Hey, it’s the credit crunch. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

On a completely different topic entirely, I went to Spain on a press trip. It was nice. This nice, in fact…

I know, I hate myself too. I was reviewing the ESPA spa at the Intercontinetal Mar Menor hotel in Murcia. The hotel was gorgeous (the room had a whirlpool bath, amazing bed, big balcony, more wardrobe space than I have in my flat, etc etc) and we were treated very well. And also, since I’m obsessed with interior design at the moment, check out the club room…

Pretty, no? You wait until you see the rest of it…

Despite the fact the flat still isn’t quite how I’d like it, I had my housewarming party on Saturday. It was a rather lovely little gathering of Very Important People, and involved a lot of girls wearing black, me drinking out of a slightly outdated ‘Happy 21st’ champagne glass and Katie colour-coding my DVD collection. Oh yes, I know how to throw a proper rave up.

Speaking of the flat not being how I’d like it, here’s my current eBay obsession, because I know you all love my interior decorating fixation.

Right now it’s going for £14. I think it’s safe to sat it’ll go for a lot more than that, and very quickly end up out of my price range. But I can dream. Look at the big mirror! Heaven! I’m already imagining the fabrics I can cover the stool cushion with. What do we think of this one?