Wedding Envy

You have no idea how much this brightened my day at 08:00 as I went to work.

-- Posted from my iPhone

New Shop Alert

But I do pretty much already own most of the stuff in their tea section courtesy of my Nana. Including this beauty....Yes, it's coming to the Imaginary House and there's nothing you can do about it MonsieurB because it was a wedding present for my Nana and Grandad. Fuck you.

The Kooples

I am completely obsessed with The Kooples clothing. I went to Selfridges after seeing all the hoo haa advertisements (strangely, no magazine endorsements) and fell in love. Pretty, girly lace with skulls on - what's not to love? Followed by soft leather bag with leopard print pony skin inserts? Slap my name on it I'm up for it. When I win the lottery. Basically.

Submarine

It just goes to show that if you piss and moan about wanting to see something enough (i.e. stating to whoever will listen every time I walked past the poster on the tube that I wanted to see that. Even if I was alone. To strangers. And the tube is pretty saturated with said posters a the moment. Imagine that. Yes. Quite.) the Gods of film and ponce will smile down upon you and say, "Ah underling of very boring job - today I shall put you in the way of a screening with 10 other people in very comfortable arm chairs." And so it was I was that I settled myself for 90 minutes of loveliness.

Submarine is the new film from Richard Ayoade (him from that there IT Crowd, Nathan Barley and Garth Marenghi's Dark Place as well as director of Arctic Monkeys and YYY's videos) in conjunction with Film4 and Warp. Warp Films have a pretty much flawless record in my opinion and so I had high hopes for Submarine.

Briefly, it is the story of Oliver Tate, a 15 year old in a nameless Welsh town in an unspecified time. The films follow his attempts to lose his virginity and stop his mum (Sally Hawkins) having an affair with a mystic ninja (Paddy Considine complete with epic, epic hair and some very squeaky trousers).

I loved this film from start to finish. When asked what my favourite part of the film was I replied the colours - more precisely the colour saturation. It seemed almost like it had been filmed on really old film and (not surprisingly) the Arctic Monkeys' video for Fluorescent Adolescent sprang to mind.

All the actors are excellent but that's no surprise as the calibre is pretty high. Paddy Considine is just hammy enough to be funny without rendering his performance farcical. Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins are ace as two people who have accepted their fate as a married couple who don't really have much in common anymore. The actor who plays Oliver, Craig Roberts, and his girlfriend, Yasmin Paige, are as good as the established adult actors and hold their own.

The film has been described as a coming of age film and I guess that it is. I tend to associate coming of age films as when the main character learns something about himself that changes him completely. I don't think Oliver does do this in the film. He just learns to be less of a twat. After behaving like a massive twat. Even when he did something supremely stupid I wasn't rooting for him to right his wrongs for himself but for the sake of the others around him. But then all 15 year old boys are twats and for that reason there is no doubt in my mind that this is hilariously well written.

And for something completely different - a 3 word review:

Ayoade dunna good

Hibou

I wish I had invented this:

http://hungoverowls.tumblr.com/

Vingt-Um...

And so another debauched birthday has drawn to a close. I nearly didn't write this post because then it really is all over, which makes me so sadface. A brief overview of the shenanigans would go something like this:

Going for a meal with work colleagues when a man (more of a tramp) rushes in and starts to serenade me with a guitar he happens to have strapped to his back having rallied all the staff of the restaurant including the chef to come out and surround me whilst he sings the worst rendition of Happy Birthday known to man. I was mortified and no one was owning up to organising this disgusting piece of embarrassment. I was mollified by being given free Liminchello. Mmm, alcoholic lemon cheesecake.

Having a lovely lunch with MonsieurB even though I was ever so slightly hungover owing to starting to 'rip the arse out of this birthday' a night early. Then wandering around until my appointment to get my nails did which I love, love, love.

Having entered the evening I then hooked up with MonsieurB again to go shopping. As it was my birthday I was allowed anything I liked. So I had 2 bottles of nail polish which came to £19.90. Put it this way - women pay good money to have a face as tight as MonsieurB when he handed over the cash. But he refrained from his usual, "TWENTY COCKING QUID FOR NAIL POLISH", because it was my birthday. And I could have bought that Kooples T Shirt that I have fallen in love with which is triple the price.

Then because it was my birthday I did something totally decadent and went back, ordered room service and drank Sailor Jerry whilst watching Friday night comedy and playing on the Macbook Pro. Yup. That's how my birthdays roll when I'm hungover, saving myself for the next evening and enjoying good company.

Following being decadent I thought I may as well go all out and continue the theme the next morning and I basically ordered the best omelette I've ever had. To the room. Again. Whilst I sat and ate it in my pants watching T4.

Rousing myself from an egg based stupor we wandered to afternoon tea which was all very lovely and followed by a cabaret/burlesque type thing. Basically, this girl was a contortionist. Until she came on MonsieurB was having none of this turning around in his chair to watch the show malarkey. He's just too cool people. He likes to watching things the wrong way around in mirrors. That's what cool people do. Until some woman comes out and does things that (and please excuse me, I am about to be crass) made my lady garden actually water. And not good water. Like tears water. But from the garden of lady's. Then MonsieurB was interested. Ooooooh yes. And as a finale some girl came out and set herself on fire to this. Which was pretty impressive. It also reminded me a lot of a club I used to go to when I was underage. The song, not the fire bit. Although I did once set my hair on fire in a hairspray/cigarette based incident. I can't say for sure but I imagine that episode wasn't quite as sexy as the girl who set herself on fire. But then I could be wrong. Some people might like drunk teenagers running around screaming with their hair on fire. In a nightclub (remember when you could smoke indoors. Ah the memories).

Obviously the best part of the tea wasn't any of the above but the 65 year old woman who insisted on speaking to me for the whole (and I mean WHOLE) experience. I loved it. She is basically me but in the future. MonsieurB didn't love it quite so much. I know this because he remained totally silent whenever she was talking. Totally. My favourite bit of our lovely conversation was when she asked me if I'd seen the film Burlesque. Alas, I had not. She had though. She spoke to me at length about it. I love old people.

Preparations then began in earnest for the night ahead. I got mash up whilst I got ready. I put my outfit on and decided that I was just the right side of slutty for my age and continued to get mash up. The night is a blur but I do remember lots of drunken dancing, me breaking a ring to try and get rid of a man who just wanted to have sex (with anyone. Anyone at all), dancing to S&M like I was in the video, crying girlfriends (not me, for once), massively strong drinks, queuing for drinks that was akin to a Nam experience, holding a very drunk girl up who wasn't me and then the next thing I know she's been given a vodka red bull because "it'll wake her up" then being told that even if I "get rid of MonsieurB I'm still party of the fam because I have the tramp stamp now" and then not going to bed until about 6 because I was afraid if I went to bed I would die and no amount of stroking of my arm by MonsieurB would placate me. So I stayed up and watched a documentary about terrorism in Yemin on BBC3.

Refreshed by my Yemin based knowledge I woke up the next morning slightly tired but in a better way than I should have been in all fairness. Obviously I didn't wear any make up and I kept having 5 minute power naps but it could have been a lot worse. I could have been dead. I spent Sunday in a lovely fog of loveliness which was only sullied by the fact that I wasn't allowed a plate of roast potatoes. Then I fell asleep in the car on the way home.