Fashion Heaven

I have just visited the Guardian 'Life & Style' section (as I do on a daily basis) and have come across what I consider to the absolute epitome of style heaven - Rosamund Pike channelling Grace Kelly in Monaco. I simply had to blog about it (despite my total lack of readers) because it is quite literally amazing. My admiration for those two women knows no bounds - Pike's portrayal of Helen in 'An Education' was so clever and amusing (and not to mention incredibly stylish) that it practically made my 2009 (I am that tragic) and Grace Kelly is an absolute hero, both in style terms and in general. I do feel that Rosamund Pike is the modern day Grace Kelly (a cliché I know, but I don't think any other actress around today fits the bill to quite such an extent) - she is a truly fantastic actress (I've seen her on stage a number of times) and certainly reminiscent of Kelly. This photo shoot, then, makes me think I've died and gone to fashion heaven - I only wish I could have still been interning at the Guardian when it was going on!








(When I grow up, this is what I want to look like. It is the absolute pinnacle of style and pure coolness - there is no better word. Fantastic.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/mar/13/fashion-fashion-designers?picture=360318742

Neighbours from Hell Part 298

Whilst at University, I reside in a semi-detached house and my bedroom is, unbelievably unfortunately, on the attached side of the row. Even more unfortunately, the neighbours are - probably literally - from hell.

They scream at each other all day long, hit each other with frying pans, play awful music (they played a karaoke version of 'Don't Leave Me This Way' which I'm not opposed to when the Communards do it but, otherwise, just no) at 3am and even once threatened to kill us for leaving our bin on the very edge of the pavement for about 20 minutes longer than it should have been there. Oh and that occurred at one o'clock in the morning. What utterly charming people. I'm not much good at suburban living and these bobby dazzlers just make it a hundred times worse.

I've taken to wearing ear plugs at all hours of the day. That seems to me to be a very sensible solution - although mine are hardly as glamorous as Holly Golightly's.

On a happier note, the article attached to the above picture was absolutely fascinating and certainly took my mind off the Jeremy Kyle contestants from the hovel next door.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/05/breakfast-at-tiffanys-audrey-hepburn

Killing the Obituary Editor and other tales of my time at the Guardian

Without a shadow of a doubt (out come the clichés!), The Guardian is my absolute favourite newspaper of all time, bar none. I'm not some mad, raving lefty but I think it is - and I am - fairly modern and open minded these days and, even if it (and I) wasn't, I really wouldn't care. Look at the above photograph; There is only one word for it - A-mazing; Any newspaper supplement which can dedicate its front page to my very favourite activity is certainly all right by me!

In actual fact, I love the G2 more than the paper - let's face it, a lot more. Whilst I aim to be a 'serious' news journalist (perhaps crime correspondant?) I aim to be a 'serious' news journalist wearing Chanel. All I really care about outside of 'work' is fashion, clothing and style. Since the age of about 11, I have devoted my every waking moment to planning outfits and dreaming of Paris Fashion Week...

To me, the G2 section of The Guardian combine hard(ish) news with the 'frivilous' (not my word, ever) world of fashion perfectly. And so I was absolutely thrilled to be able to intern at the Fashion Desk for the University Christmas holidays.

The experience was varied, tiring, stylish (ha) but mostly it completely and utterly backed up my thoughts for the last decade - that I was, quite simply, born to be a reporter. I might not be God's gift to journalism but the absolute rush of excitement that comes from seeing your name in print / face on the 'news' (as, clearly, I know so well (or not) thanks to my many and varied 'journalistic' activities at University) simply cannot be beaten. My Mother, who was a journalist for 40 years tells me that it is 'the very best job in the world' and I am inclined to believe her.

It is, in my opinion, an absolute tragedy that newspapers are dying out... One of the happiest activities in my life is sitting down with the G2 and a cup of Earl Grey (the ultimate tea) and just being peaceful and content. You certainly can't feel like that whilst reading articles on a laptop.

The Guardian is so lively and vibrant and I hope it continues for as long as it possibly can - long enough, anyway, for me to get a column for it. I doubt that would happen but life aims are important!

During my time there, I went on a fashion shoot, hairdryed a model (so embarrassing but rather hilarious for all concerned, I'm sure!), sorted out an entire cupboard of lookbooks (sorting out is something that I would never, ever do in my own daily life so I feel that that definitely shows commitment to my career!), opened quite literally 2,000 pieces of post - including a number of fan letters to Hadley Freeman (I think she is fabulous, but I'm officially jealous), made various embarrassing phone calls, sent back hundreds of beautiful pieces of clothing etc etc etc. But, my top three Guardian highlights are as follows...

1) Seeing hundreds of hardened hacks 'oohing' and 'aahing' at the falling snow on foggy London town

2) Dropping 20 very heavy metal clothes rails on top of each other, causing an unbelievable racket and seeing said hundreds of hardened hacks staring at my idiocy in disbelief. Oops.

3) My absolute favourite aspect of my time there, however, was my impressive feat of dropping (there is clearly a theme here...) a LOT of look books right on to the Obituary Editor's head... How ironic it would have been had I killed the Obituary Editor! The whole Obits department moved floor the next day; I, apparently, 'put the final nail in the coffin'.


Oh dear.

New Year, New Blog - How horrifically clichéd.

Well, I have decided to start a blog because I am a very thrilling person, lead an extroadinarily thrilling life and clearly everyone will one day want to know of my wonderment. Actually not.

Anyway - whatever trevor. Let us begin. I feel that having a blog is the right thing to do - I'm a bit of a keen bean when it comes to writing (although not at the appropriate time - e.g. in essays. Oops.) I could make it a fashion blog as all I really actually care about is clothing but I am also thrilled by les autre activités and my daily life is SO exciting that, you know, it must be about that too...

As today is New Years' Day, you would expect a (relatively) young person such as myself to be 'recovering' from last night's 'high jinks'. However, I was stuck at home last night being a sickly Pete as I have been - as my Mother keeps reminding me - 'Three times since October'. Exciting times indeed.

So rather than going to Brighton with my two bestest school friends Emily and Julia - I sat at home and played Trivial Pursuit, drinking Chablis and (paraphrasing Absolutely Fabulous - my absolute favourite thing ever. I am Patsy) was taken into the sitting room by my Mother to watch the New Year in on 'telly'. Oh dear. Never mind, perhaps I will be as healthy as a horse for 2010, let's bally well hope so. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!

And I have a lot to look forward to before heading - with a heavy heart - back to the horrific north and to University (on the plus side, in 5 weeks time, I will be half way through my degree and will never have to go north of Watford ever, ever again. Thank God)... I went to the Guardian (my favourite ever paper) for work experience before Christmas (and before I got snowed in / sickly) and am going again next week which should be thrilling. Clearly, there is a huge dilemna (just for the record, I can spell 'dilemma', I just feel it should have an 'n' in it for some reason. That's just how I feel) over what to wear - but perhaps outfit plans will come to me in a dream that would be a first... I really must concentrate on the work rather than the outfits though - that's always my downfall. Oops. And après that, I am going to Disneyland in Gay Paree with my most spethial fwend Hattie (and her sister Lucy and her best friend Bea) for Hattie's (aka Eddie - she is Eddie, I am Patsy - genius!) 21st birthday and I am soooooo excited. We went in the summer too, but we're staying in the nautical hotel this time so I'm sure lots of high jinks-esque sailor-y posing will be done... I so wish I was a sailor.

Righteho, Happy New Year and I wonder how long I'll keep this blog up... It's nice to have a record of what happened (and I've never managed to keep a remotely understandable diary ever, ever) but, on the other hand, I'm useless. We'll see!


P.S. (Can you do 'P.s.' when it's not a letter?) I know the blog looks rubbish and I want to get tea cups for the background but have no idea how to do it - I'm surprised I even managed to start a blog, to be perfectly honest! But I will work to get it looking fantastic (maybe) and also I know the title is rubbish but my sickness-addled brain may have stopped working - I can't even tell which is left and which is right at the moment. Oh dear.

P.P.S. (Now I'm certainly sure that you can't do a 'P.P.S' but I'm doing it anyway). The picture at the top is of a field near my house (contrary to popular belief, I don't actually live in a mobile home...) taken a few days ago when it was snowing (I didn't, heartbreakingly get to go sledging as I was so sickly) but I went for a walk to get apples or something mad with my Mother and a good 'journalist' always has a camera and this was the result. Ah-mazing.