Cox, Cookies and Cake

I love the new cupcake store opened in Soho by designer Richard Cox. The cheekily named Cox, Cookies and Cake. Delish.
The black marble interiors and neon signage fit right in with the area's seedier side.

Muji Christmas

I'm consoling myself this week (see previous post re: Mondayitis) with the Muji Christmas catalogue. Few can make alarm clocks and stationary so desirable.
MMMMmmmuji.

Wellcome to the weekend

I had an excellent weekend - despite the cold snap in England - visiting the Wellcome Collection for the first time. For a "free destination for the incurably curious" as it calls itself, it is an amazing place, they even have a Blackwell's bookshop attached!
The High Society exhibit exploring the history of drugs was most interesting.
Sadly, now it is Monday.
Ah, working for the weekend.

Review

This book look great!
Combines history, politics, French intellectualism and China - all interesting topics in my opinion.
Am very much looking forward to catching up with my reading over the holidays.

Does this make you laugh?

...And does it want to make you read The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?
The review in the Guardian is, as with Padgett Powell's novel, written entirely in questions. You can tell, I think, that reviewer Stephen Poole is enjoying himself:
"Am I halfway through this review yet? Is it getting difficult to keep asking questions? Is it getting difficult to keep reading them? Would you like me to stop? Have you, in a curious way, almost forgotten what a simple declarative statement sounds like in your head, its comfortingly parabolic music? Do you feel as though you are talking to a teenager? Or are you fully acclimatised, by now, to the interrogative mood? Do you even like it?"
After reading this, it seems to only proper way to respond to such a book. Perhaps a reminder that often its not the answers we love, but the questions.
Read the full review here.
Enjoy (?)

Mon beau temps de ma vie

I am lusting after this diary from O-check design - isn't in fantastic? Makes me think of myself writing wistful entries about suffering and art and life, sipping an espresso and smoking a gauloise à la Albert Camus.
I think in reality I would more resemble a female version of Jason Schwartzman in Wes Anderson's film Rushmore.
Oh well, we can but dream.

That's my girl!

"Interviewer: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea?
Palin: Well, North Korea, this is stemming from a greater problem, when we're all sitting around asking, 'Oh no, what are we going to do,' and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do. So this speaks to a bigger picture that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies – we're bound to by treaty....
Interviewer: South Korean.
Palin: Yes, and we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes."

All I can say is, Palin for 2012.
Watch the whole car crash in full slow-mo at The Guardian.

Hipster hate

 

I was interested in this recent article into the emerging trend of hipster hating, as seen in tumblr Hackney Hipster Hate, Look at this Fucking Hipster. And now, after discovering What White people like, you can ind out about Stuff Hipsters Hate. As someone who only this Sunday made yet another trip to East London's Brick Lane markets, and has also ventured to the hipster enclave of Williamsburg in Brooklyn this year, I'm quite amused. Did these people think they could take up space in cool coffee shops with laptops, fedoras and conceited attitudes forever? Did they?

Also, you know something has reached cult status if it is immortalised in the always amusing Toothpaste for Dinner comics.

Enjoy.

Movie soundtracks

I have been thinking about movie soundtracks lately...I find them such an excellent source into music I probably wouldn't have heard otherwise. The Wackness probably rates as one of my all time favourites.
As The Playlist says "While, the film's soundtrack is heavy on the hip-hop, the movie also features '60s reggae artists, The Pioneers, late '80s indie-pop act Vomit Launch, and tracks by Donovan and Mott The Hoople*." Including:

Nas - "The World Is Yours"

Raewkon "Heaven and Hell"

Notorious B.I.G. feat. Method Man "The What"

DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince "Summertime"

Donovan - "Season of The Witch"

Biz Markie - "Just A Friend"

Total feat. Notorious B.I.G. "Can’t Ya See"

A Tribe Called Quest - "Can I Kick It"

Faith Evans - "You Used To Love Me"

R Kelly - "Bump N' Grind"

The Pioneers - "Long Shot Kick de Buckettfont"

Vomit Launch "Exit Lines"

Craig Mack - "Flava In Your Ear"

The Wu Tang Clan - "Tearz''

Mott The Hoople - "All The Young Dudes"

 

 Any other ideas?

Stop-everything-immediately-worthy French toast

I have recently come across what I can only describe as the most amazing French toast this side of the channel. Courtesty of in Foxcroft and Ginger in Berwick St Soho, right up the road from my regular Saturday morning breakfast spot Flat White.

And yes, you may notice it has ham...with golden syrup. Somehow this works perfectly, as does the oozing cheese billowing out from between two layers of eggy bread. Accompanied by both salt and pepper, never has savoury and sweet been wedded so well. Truly toast to write home about.

Bad Movie, Funny guy

For your enjoyment, an article in which the actor Rainn Wilson discusses his favourite movies from NPR, who are, of course, (at least according to the Fox news chairman) Nazis....right.
Wilsons's character Dwight K Schrute in the US version of The Office is one of the funniest characters ever.

OOOOOOObama

Nobel peace laureate, leader of the free world and comedian. Is there anything the man can't do?
Enjoy.

Happy Friday!

Need I say more?

Four Ate Five

This looks like a good breakfast place to try when I get back to Sydney.
I just don't think you can beat a good "brekkie"...including coffee and papers, of course.

Party Time

Hooray, The Go Between has a new header.
Enjoy.

What we have all been thinking

I think the cover of yestedays g2 liftout from The Guardian couldn't have said it better...

We wish you many days of fishing...

Sarah Palin's Alaska digested by The New Yorker.
Enjoy.

The Twisted art of the Documentary

One more fascinating article from the New York Review of Books, this time about the documentary as an art form. This made me think of the recently released The Arbour, a film which blends fact and fiction to explore the life of playwright Andrea Dunbar. Despite the reviewers comment that it "blazes a trail to nowhere", I am still eager to see it. I also enjoyed the comments berating the reviewer.
Enjoy.

"Politics, noun. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

An interesting article from John Kinsley, founder of Slate magazine, about intellectual honesty.
I'm sure most of this could be said to apply universally to politicians, not just those in in the US.

The Greatest Films of All Time

I loved The Guardian's recent series on the greatest films of all time, organised by genre.
A movie marathon may be in store over the Christmas break.

Um...fantastic.

The above is courtesy of the blog Palingates ("The Sarah Palin Watchdog Team").
Hahahahaha
                  ...hahahahaha
Enjoy.

The latest facebook-related post.

Zadie Smith's article Generation Why? for the New York Review of Books is one of the most interesting things I have read lately, encompassing as it does a review of The Social Network, a riff on intergenerational differences, the effect of software itself on us (this what somewhat of a paradigm shift for myself) Toussaint and Jaron Lainer's You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, which, needless to say, I am now desperate to read.

Quite a jump from Molly Ringwald being chatted up on the computer in the schol library in Pretty in Pink.

I often find the best writing manages to make a broader point about society, the human condition, the nature of existence - whatever you will call it - from a seamingly self-contained topic as Smith does here with such lightness of touch. Surely that must mean a masterly talent for observation, as well as being able to write. Truly great, in my humble opinion.

Madrid

This put a smile on my face all day.

From The Sartorialist

A tale of two cities

I am not the first to notice how clever this is.
Enojy.

Smile, it's Friday!

Decison Points

A handy guide to George W. Bush's just-released memoir Decision Points courtesy of The Daily Beast. I have to admit I am now curious to read it myself - something I never thought I would admit.
Enjoy.

What does your profile picture say about you?

I recently saw the excellent The Social Network starring Jesse Eisenberg, from one of my favourite films The Squid and the Whale.


I also read an article about profile pictures and their so called "hidden meanings". Not really much you could deduce yourself...but I particularly like the last paragraph (Although the last sentence is the clincher).
What is the strangest profile picture you have seen?
Enjoy.

Egg, bacon, chips and beans

Egg, Bacon, Chips and Beans is a blog dedicated to the London greasy spoon. I think a good breakfast is truly hard to beat, and although I don't have the stomach for a fry up every day, there is nothing like a full english at Bar Bruno in Soho after a big night out. White buttered toast, runny eggs, bubble and squeak and hefty mugs of tea. Pop down to Bar Italia for espresso before or after.
Legendary.