mercredi 25 avril 2012

Move Yr Frame!

Writing about my exercise class yesterday reminded me of another Thing I Currently Love.

Now, I feel a little fraudulent because I am not an actual Framette (Frame is a bit far away for me here by the seaside).  But I really love their website and find it quite inspiring, even if I can't actually go to the classes mentioned!

http://blog.moveyourframe.com/

I long to be a Framette - so, please Frame, can you open your next studio in Brighton?  Thanks!

mardi 24 avril 2012

Zoom

I know it's not cool.  I really, really know.  (That seems to be my caveat for everything - OK, I think we have established by now that I am not cool.)  But I really, really love Zumba.

This is not a new thing; in fact, I suspect that Zumba may be sooooo 2011.  However, I am just back from a class and wanted to share my joy.

It is so much fun.  I laugh my way through the entire class, whilst getting many of the moves wrong and not caring in the slightest.  I pretty much guarantee that you could have had the worst day ever (within reason) and it would cheer you right up.

Seriously.  I also noted whilst dancing tonight that it is one of the few occasions when I really love the fact that I have a slightly disproportionately large bottom half.  So, there's that.  Another reason why it should be given out on the NHS, basically.

I go with my friend Camilla, to a class down the road from me taught by a brilliant woman called Sherryn.  It is honestly the best fun that it is possible to have exercising, and I am saying this as one of the world's most miserable bitches.

So, thanks Zumba for cheering up my life!

lundi 23 avril 2012

Packaging the recent past

1998.  I am 17; on a Monday night (during school holidays, anyway), Neil and I go to a night at Heaven called Popcorn.  Upstairs (where you will find me) they play indie disco; downstairs they play 80s muisc, which is where you will find Neil.  On Fridays, we go to Camp Attack at GAY, where they play a mixture of 70s and 80s pop.

We love the 80s; we find them hilarious.  We often go out dressed like something out of 'Desperately Seeking Susan'.

My mum and stepdad, young parents by any standards, also think this is hilarious.  How can the 80s be retro when they were less than a decade ago?  Five minutes ago, in fact?  This is mental, what the hell is wrong with us?

Cut to the present day and it's my turn.  The 90s are having a retro moment.  I am the true classic child of the 90s.  My teenage years are now retro.

Sometimes I listen to Absolute 90s on the radio while I'm cooking dinner - while some of the early 90s stuff goes over my head (I was 8 when the 90s started), most of it holds strong memories for me and a lot I owned on cassette single.  I am now a packaged-nostalgia target market!

Last week, Neil and I and a group of friends went to see Steps on their reunion tour.  Steps are only relevant to anyone who was either a) a small child or b) a regular at gay clubs during the late 90s.  It's now well and truly nostalgic.

Occasionally a song will come on Absolute 90s that doesn't feel long ago to me and I will be shocked.  Or they will play Nirvana and I will baulk at the idea of that being part of a wider nostalgic consciousness - you know 'surely they were only mine!'.

In the most part, however, I love it.  Neil and I will (hopefully) be 80 and still be doing the Steps routines and laughing at how I can never get that bastard kick right.  The 'reminiscence bump' is a concept I love - that's a whole other blog post.

But I love those memories and I wouldn't be 17 years old again for anything.  Bring on old age and nostalgia - if you want us, we'll be on the dancefloor.

samedi 21 avril 2012

Sausages.

This has been up for a little while, but I feel I must draw your attention to it.

http://whatkimcookednext.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/tied-to-the-mast-rock-n-roll-sausage-curry-from-sawmills-studio-in-cornwall/#comment-196

My mum is really clever.  My boyfriend is really clever.  Sausage curry is the best.

Sunny Saturday Mixtape

So, it's a sunny Saturday morning here in Brighton.  I have been for a run and then home for a breakfast burrito and a cup of tea.  Later I will be going to the pub with some lovely friends  haven't seen for ages.  Good times.

As such, here is a mixtape of my favourite songs to listen to on such a day, preferably with the windows open and singing along loudly.  As Saturday is also often my day for household chores, these also work pretty well while you push a Hoover about, but I may give that a miss today.

ELLIOTT SMITH bled white
JONI MITCHELL free man in paris
BLONDIE island of lost souls
MADONNA nothing fails
MADONNA secret
PIXIES here comes your man
REM imitation of life
NO DOUBT artificial sweetener
VERUCA SALT volcano girls
HOLE malibu
PRINCE strollin'

lundi 16 avril 2012

The Decorated Hole

For some reason, I was thinking about this today.

"The Decorated Hole" was a play I wrote at the age of 13 - mostly on a family holiday in Spain, longhand in red Biro and a spiral notebook.

"The Decorated Hole" was also the name of the fictional tattoo/piercing parlour where the play was set. Genius name, no?

So, it was a hipster-mystery ("hipstery" - have I totally invented a genre?) about the staff of the 'Hole, their hipster musician mates, and (get this!) a conspiracy involving poisoned needles as murder weapon!

I was evidently undeterred by the fact that I had never before set foot in a tattoo (or, for that matter, piercing) parlour in my life. I still think it's rather a cute idea (although I'm not sure, despite the fact that it went on for multiple notebooks, I ever came up with an ending - mostly people just kept dropping dead, they all kept crying at funerals where bands played, then they'd get tattoos of the dead person's name [something like 'Evan' or 'Laine' or 'Troy'] and it would all happen again).

I wish I'd kept a copy. Maybe time for a 2012 version, just for fun?

mardi 3 avril 2012

Articles - new permanent page

In case anybody in the whole world is vaguely interested,  I have posted a new permanent page on this weblog (to sit alongside 'Questions' that nobody asked): a non-exhaustive and self-indulgent list of articles written by and about me, as well as some other random stuff that I have done or has been done to me.

Fin.