Happy New Year

A very happy new year. clearly my moustache obsession shows no sign of abating. oh dear. 

Quilts

Hannah reminded me this morning quite how fabulous the Quilts exhibition is at the V&A. I went to it a few weeks ago, strangely enough, dressed as her, for a feature we are doing on swapping wardrobes. the usual skyscraper heels, 1950s dress/1940s pencil skirt and red lipstick and nails for that night was swapped for tweed plus fours, a stripey jumper (I'm allergic to stripes usually) woolly tights and clogs. I knew she would love it, and not only because i was dressed as her that night.

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It's not only the skillfulness and visual impact of the quilts on display which impresses, but the emotion that you can feel has been poured into them - whether they have been created as a means of creative rehabilitation (for contemporary prison inmates or 19th century injured soldiers), to maintain the craft (by 1920s W.I members), to make a political point (as Grayson Perry makes about abortion), to commemorate a historical event, or, practically speaking, to make a living. one of my favourites (above) sees a women sew historical scenes into her 19th century coverlet, into which she also sews images of herself - you can imagine she would be the sort of person who now might copy herself into a picture of Gordon Brown and Obama having a chat and hold rabbit ears over their heads. but cooler, obviously. some of the very old quits also seem incredibly chic and contemporary; this is about as far from twee as you can get, which, i'll be honest, surprised me.

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Surprisingly and utterly captivating. It's on until 4 July.

Bad Sex

My most favourite bookish party of the year was on Monday; Bad Sex, thrown by The Literary Review at the In and Out Club on St James Square. I started going when i used to work at The Erotic Review, and now go (well, gatecrash) every year. it's such fun. anyway, the prize is supposed to be for a bad sex scene (a sex scene written badly as oppose to a scene about terrible sex) that has been needlessly inserted into a good book, and this year's winner was the above - Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones. And indeed, the excerpt that was read out was indeed rather odd... (though not the worst of the selection if you ask me: see Amos Oz's Rhyming Life and Death).

"Her vulva was opposite my face. The small lips protruded slightly from the pale, domed flesh. This sex was watching at me, spying on me, like a Gorgon's head, like a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks. Little by little this silent gaze penetrated me to the marrow. My breath sped up and I stretched out my hand to hide it: I no longer saw it, but it still saw me and stripped me bare (whereas I was already naked). If only I could still get hard, I thought, I could use my prick like a stake hardened in the fire, and blind this Polyphemus who made me Nobody. But my cock remained inert, I seemed turned to stone. I stretched out my arm and buried my middle finger into this boundless eye. The hips moved slightly, but that was all. Far from piercing it, I had on the contrary opened it wide, freeing the gaze of the eye still hiding behind it. Then I had an idea: I took out my finger and, dragging myself forward on my forearms, I pushed my forehead against this vulva, pressing my scar against the hole. Now I was the one looking inside, searching the depths of this body with my radiant third eye, as her own single eye irradiated me and we blinded each other mutually: without moving, I came in an immense splash of white light, as she cried out: 'What are you doing, what are you doing?' and I laughed out loud, sperm still gushing in huge spurts from my penis, jubilant, I bit deep into her vulva to swallow it whole, and my eyes finally opened, cleared, and saw everything."

Charles Dance presented the award. He is HOT. i have had a major crush on him for years and it went stratospheric.

Blitz party

Well, there definitely wasn't any sign of wartime austerity at The Blitz Party, and thank the lord for that, though everything else was perfectly in place at the themed WWII party in shoreditch. i drank copious amounts of the most amazing cocktails - the best of which was a champagne, vodka, elderflower and lemon juice concoction which got me drunk, dancing to the big band music and leering over men in second world war uniform in a major way (no discriminating between army, air force or navy, don't fret). thankfully sandbags were everywhere which protected me from laddering my seamed tights as i careered into the exposed brick and low arches when being spun about to the music by dashing soldiers (on leave one supposes) - jolly lucky. revellers had pulled put all the stops, the women's 1940s curls, slashes of vermilion lipstick, polka dot and floral tea dresses and fur stoles more than matching the jaunty trilbies, dapper suits, braces and twirled mustachios of the men, with nurses in bloodied aprons sartorially pitted against soldiers on crutches. and lest anyone lose perspective, silent 40s films were projected onto the walls, filling the room with agonising parting embraces and troublesome flights over enemy territory. super.

STOP singing? no

O god. i really must stop singing. i can't, basically (sing well that is), but i also can't seem to stop. There i was, totally happy at the opening of the new Lalique Haviland shop on Conduit street on Wednesday night with the delectable Edwina and Amy, the former looking like a fashion forward and super sexy wicked witch of the west (minus the hat), the latter like a fabulously sleazed-up red riding hood; we were sipping champagne, nibbling Tuscan antipasti, ogling highbrow slebs like Henry Conway and Emma Noble, admiring the OTT twinkling jewels and art deco inspired china whilst being jostled by sloanes and still we couldn't resist the lure of Lucky Voice's new pop up shop just off Carnaby Street. isn't freeloading from one organisation enough in one night i ask you? apparently not. set up to promote the above home karaoke kit the pop up shop is like stepping into LV world with the LV screensavers on the shopfront's windows and the site's graphics made into a hanging mobile suspended from the ceiling. There's free karaoke there (29 Foubert's place, W1) till april 5th, so for god's sake go and stop me returning. no, i will never be in Banarama, no matter how much i want to be. the end.

The New V&A Bookshop

I am obsessed with the shop at the V&A. The postcards, the knick-knacks, the jewellery, the scarves... well, just about everything, especially the books. The V&A's in-house publications are amazing - by my bed i have Shocking Life, Elsa Schiaparelli's autobiography, From A to Biba, Barbara Hulaniki's autobiography and The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion, by GhislaineWood; all published by the V&A. So i was v excited to hear that they've extracted the books dotted around the museum shop and consolidated their collection in one, big, shiny, ubersleek Bookshop, thus also leaving more room for glorious exhibition ephemera on the mainshopfloor (BTW the Stephen Jones curated Hats exhibition at the mo means there some fabulous hats on sale). The bookshop's opening was on friday, and i went along to kick start my night of generally careering around town trying to do too much in one evening. It rocks: it's cool and bright and airy with a design minimalism that lets the books speak for themselves. I mainlined the books posters on sale... coming away with Vanessa Bell's illustration for the cover of Mrs Dalloway - which i've had my eye on ever since i featured it in my Christmas gift guide last year for work. actually, i subsequently worked out that even with my discount it would have worked out cheaper if i'd bought it online, but anyway, i really enjoyed carrying it into the various parties i went on to. not. especially as one was a birthday and there was an awkward moment when the birthday girl might have thought it was meant for her. that was fun. still all worth it in the end, now it's safely home and waiting for a good seeing to by the framers.

Lucky Voice?

Despite having lost my voice, diagnosed by the doctor as having laryngitis and being prescribed some gargantuan inhaler contraption that sings if i suck too hard (seriously, i know - i wish every reaction was that effusive), i MORE THAN happily skipped along to Amy's studio on Monday night for the making of the video for the Lucky Voice Home karaoke site and party box. do you really think it takes a little think like having LOST MY VOICE for me to sack off a karaoke party? clearly not. especially when the dress code is glam. i wore my trade mark polka dots (dress form - black with white dots), serious fuck me shoes and accessorised with a neon pink beret and my Sonia Rykiel belt with the neon pink apple (with a bite out of the side): to better compliment the website theme colour and the insanely cool, seriously covetable pink microphone. you can never accuse me of not trying. being in a room with some of my most favourite people, not least of all Eddie and Dan (above, aaah), and being directed in a generally dominatrix fashion by Amy to move, dance, sing and quaff champagne while being filmed is my idea of heaven. too much fun had all round. verdict: voice never likely to recover. oh well, i never used it that much anyway... errr, right.

The Broken Hearts

Somewhat uncharacteristically for me, i decided to fuck 'sacred and relaxing' Sunday evening this week and instead went to a 'Pink' party at the Met bar - part of fashion week celebrations. in the main reception area was a vintage circus, while upstairs various suites were given over to showcasing the a/w 09 collections of young designers. it all sounded so promising, but... one candyfloss machine, some bunting, and a big board with a strong man painted on and the head cut out (for poking your own head through) does not a circus make. still, there were rather delicious fruity vodka cocktails and champagne, and lots of extraordinarily dressed people to gawp at, so i wasn't complaining too much. also, after a while, there was a very cute-but-cool performance act in the shape of Skip Theatre, three gamine girls with cropped hair, big smiles and eyelashes with white beads on the ends, wearing navy vintage swimming costumes, navy lycra leggings, small boaters and rubber rings round their waists, who skipped to the music in a kind of on-land synchronised swim. simple, and more than a little strange, but such fun and completely charming! and they got the crowd skipping too - jumping with them by running in and out of the rope. Genuis. what i loved loved loved even more than that, though, were the DJs, The Broken Hearts. two petite girls both in dressed in short, sexy harlequin Pierrot dresses, vertiginous heels and conical clown hats perched on top of perfect heart shaped bobs which framed their doll-like, porcelain faces with their long, long eye lashes and ruby red lips. but it certainly wasn't all pomp and show - the music was relentlessly brilliant, skipping from 1920s shimmies to jolly tea room dance music to jiving, to 1960s bopping to The Cure and back to swing - i had to keep breaking off my conversation and into song. I basically have an enormous girl crush on them and want them around me all the time to bring extra burlesquey glamour to my life and create a permanent, evolving playlist so i am forever perky and always singing. the end.

Alley Cat

I am wondering whether Malcolm Gladwell is right in Outliers, and that if I spend 10,000 hours bowling, I might become a genius at it. last night, as I tossed the ball haphazardly down the lane in the All Star Bowling Lanes on Brick Lane (too many lanes in this sentence, surely) I certainly felt 10,000 hours away from being any good. Still, aside from the fact that a casual observer might have thought I had misunderstood the point of the game, I did actually have fun in the 1950s-style swanky alley, drinking red wine and generally pretending I wasn’t wearing horrid bowling shoes. It’s very cool in there, with girls in natty 50s garb, neon lit lettering, leather booths and shiny, high gloss retro kitsch decor. you sort of feel like you should burst into a number from Grease. I like all this overhauling of hitherto-languishing-in-the-shadows-of-utter-sadness pursuits – Roller Disco, Karaoke, Ice Skating et al. works for me at any rate.

The Birthdaymeister Strikes Again

It's been one long birthday party for the past few weeks, a lots-of-fun-when-the-skies-are-cold-and-grey blessing which is all thanks to the stars if you ask me: my cake-eating whirlwind habitually begins at the end of January and dies out mid-to-late Feb - the fact that i am friends with so many fabulous Aquarians cannot be pure chance, surely? Their dynamic with Sagittarians (moi) evidently ROCKS. In a major way. anyway, I’ve fancy footed it from the louche and grimily cool Bar 23 in Dalston to the reserved elegance of Claridges via the bright exuberance of CocoMomo on Marylebone High St, the shabby chic exposed brickwork and Baroque candelabras of First Floor on Portobello Road, the sultry basement and tapas menu of Cicala on Lambs Conduit Street, the West End slick meets East End spirit of St Germain in Clerkenwell and, err, Tuscany. Clearly i've had to hone my card and present buying talents and, as a result, I’ve become OBSESSED with cards by Rachel Bright and the Birthday Biscuits sold at Fortnums. The latter have a wind up device that plays Happy Birthday in a twinkly antiquated way – completely enchanting. They are filled with three types of biscuit; chocolate chip, lemon and shortbread. I discovered them because they have a birdcage design on the tin and the beautifully ornate bird is drawn by the art collective Container Plus, who put on The Evil Twins exhibition in the Le Gun Curiosity shop on Wilton Way, Hackney (just by London Fields) last year and which I absolutely LOVED (here's what i said for Kultureflash). and Rachel Bright's cards, well, they just make me smile. lots. and you can't better that. My two favourites are The Birthdaymeister Strikes Again, and A Big Smoosh Of Birthday Loveliness, but i can't find pictures, so here is another one to give you an idea...