This much is true.

In her ‘inspiring people’ series of interviews on her website, Oprah always asks her interviewee what they ‘know to be true’.  (I know, right?  But read the interviews; they’re surprisingly addictive!)  It’s a question that yields some fascinating and unexpected answers.

Thus inspired, here are the first facts that came into my head – some make me very lucky and some are sad.

I know for a fact that:

My mum loves me.

I will keep writing, for as long as I can, no matter what.

You can never completely know another human being.  (But you know that you can trust some people to do their best.)

Being really good at something is no guarantee of anything.

I will never like the bottom half of my body.

Exercise makes you feel better.

Not everything happens for a reason.

And here are some things I wish weren’t true and cannot seem to grasp:

Kurt Cobain is dead.

Chocolate spread will make you fat.

Red wine will give you a hangover.

I do not suit short hair.

Stage Whisperings

Last week I went to see Charlotte Gainsbourg play at Somerset House, my most eagerly awaited gig of the summer.

I love Somerset House – I would go so far as to say it’s one of my favourite venues; certainly my favourite outdoor one.  In 2004, Jimmy and I – not long acquainted – went to see PJ Harvey playing there.

Eight years later, I was thrilled when Charlotte Gainsbourg was announced for the 2012 Summer Series.  I adore her – her cool/angelic singing style as well as her personal style and varied career – and she doesn’t play live much, so this was exciting.

I was not disappointed – she was unimpeachably cool in an immaculately skinny all-white outfit, and she is as charming live as I might have expected.  She did many of my favourites – Heaven Can Wait probably being the top one – and, another highlight, a perfect cover of Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes, which I’ve had jammed in my head ever since.  She didn’t speak much, which kind of added to the allure, as when she did it was like a little treat.

It was the first warm and dry evening we’d had for ages; as the evening drew on, the darkening sky above a lit-up Somerset House was a sight to behold.

As you might expect at the gig of a fashion icon and film star as well as singer, the crowd were as fabulous as Charlotte herself was.  Everyone was overdressed, in a very casual-cool-whatever kind of way: I wore head-to-toe APC and spotted a LOT of Isabel Marant and more high heels than I think I have ever seen before at a gig.  Everyone seemed to be French and sexy – it was like a little secret corner off the Strand had been turned into bohemian Paris for the night.

It became most apparent that this was a fashion event as much as a music one, when someone shouted out the best audience-heckle of the concert: “Charlotte!  Are your shoes Margiela?”.

Dreamy.  My kind of place.

My top 10 albums of all time

Yikes.  Here it is.   The order is not concrete and I reserve the right to change my mind, frequently.  I’ve probably forgotten something crucial.  The rule is one album per artist, or this would just be impossible/carnage.

Nirvana – In Utero

PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea

Leonard Cohen – The Future

Hole – Live Through This (although I very nearly chose Celebrity Skin or My Body The Hand Grenade)

Cat Power – You Are Free

Joni Mitchell – Blue (although Court and Spark also gets honourable mention)

Nick Cave – The Boatman’s Call

Placebo – Without You I’m Nothing

Kate Bush – The Hounds of Love

Shakespears Sister – Hormonally Yours

Just missing out on the Top 10 are favourite albums by Sonic Youth, The Lemonheads, Fleetwood Mac (Rumours, obv), Nico, David Bowie and Lou Reed, and probably loads of others.  I may have to mull this over and come up with a definitive Top 20.

Mookychickery

Short public service announcement: I’ve written a little article for the very cool teen/feminist/culture website Mookychick!

Behold!  My ‘10 Ways To Win At Chazzing’!

http://www.mookychick.co.uk/how-to/how-to-guides/10-ways-to-win-at-chazzing.php

Dark Places

If you can get hold of it - I think it's kinda obscure - I highly recommend that you dig out this 1973 British horror film forthwith.

It has some of the bad elements of 70s horror but ALL of the good ones, which are massive.  I am of the opinion that horror films made in the 70s are the scariest of all.

This has a spooky house, madness, evil plotting, a duaal time-slip storyline (yay), psychotic children and mega glamore.  The last element is provided by Joan Collins AND Jane Birkin.  In the same film!  How, oh how, did I not know that this existed sooner?

Reader, I die.

Gallo

Have I mentioned how much I love Vincent Gallo?  I think maybe I haven’t because I take it for granted that it’s obvious.  Like, how could you not?

I once wrote an article called ‘Boys Hate Vincent Gallo Because They Are Jealous of Him’.  This was for my own erstwhile fanzine ‘The Shocking Blues and Mean Reds’; as it had a circulation of around 50, you will be forgiven if you missed it.

Like so many of us, I was first introduced to the ways of the Gallo by his 1998 film ‘Buffalo 66’, which is still one of my favourite films of all time (in fact, probably the favourite).  He wrote, directed, starred in and scored the whole thing.  I love the fact that it’s one man’s vision, total clarity of intent.  And what a vision it is – if you haven’t I suggest you watch it immediately.  It’s beautiful, funny and gut-wrenching.  And, in keeping with the topic of this little missive, Billy Brown in his red shoes and tight trousers and ‘hold me/don’t touch me!’ dichotomies is perfection.

Gallo’s next one-man-show film was ‘The Brown Bunny’.  This is probably where I start to differ from the casual Gallo fan – everyone loved ‘Buffalo 66’; it felt like no-one but me liked ‘The Brown Bunny’.  I think it’s beautiful; it’s a work of art that should be hanging in a museum.  OK, if you watch it expecting a conventional film, you may be confused – but I genuinely believe that one day people will understand it’s a great piece of cinema.  Vincent Gallo rides a motorcycle, drives a car, cries, stares, has a shower, meets a few random women – I could literally watch this for years.

I love Gallo’s attitude in his film work.  This is summed up thus: ‘you can give me complete creative control or you can pay me up the wazoo’.  Although this has actually resulted in some really good films (such as ‘Tetro’ and ‘Palookaville’), some have been frankly weird (‘Trouble Every Day’, which I actually love) and, um, a bit crap (‘Moscow Zero’, ‘Hide and Seek’, ‘Get Well Soon’).  However, the thing they all have in common is that he is absolutely mesmerising to watch.  Whatever he turns up in, you cannot take your eyes off him, in a way that reminds you how little charisma most film stars have these days.  Plus, I think it’s a pretty cool and honest way to conduct one’s career.

His career is not only in film; I may start gushing now, but his multimedia exploits indicate that he is such a genius he can basically turn his hand to anything he fancies and excel in a way that makes other human beings look decidedly inferior.  I mean, as well as writer, director and film star, he’s been a model, an artist (he only quit his acclaimed painting career ‘out of spite’), a champion motorcyclist, rapper, indie musician (his solo album ‘When’ is stunning), and allegedly rent boy.  As if that’s not enough, his website is a work of art in itself.  I suggest you have a look, and marvel.

Edies

As I write this, I am wearing an outfit – thanks to our erratic English summer – that I have realised since leaving the house is a perfect synergy of my favourite fashion icons that happened to have the same name.

Black and white striped jumper.  Shorts and tights.  A peacock print headscarf.

The Edies.

Edie Sedgwick came first, for me.  The perfect dream future girl.  The youthquaker.  I could only wish to be that skinny and suit a platinum blonde bowl cut – but I could copy the stripes, the tights, the sparkling shift dresses and the eyeliner.  Even the drawn-on beauty spot.

Then came Grey Gardens and another two – Big Edie and Little Edie.  Of course, Little Edie has the look and the terrific dances, but they work best together – cocktails in jam jars and old housecoats as well as revolutionary outfits of headscarves and old furs and tablecloth skirts.

Put together and it really is revolutionary.

As ever, all of these women are a lesson in living bravely and brilliantly and dancing to the beat of your own sparkly drum.

In the meantime, ‘it always stays the same, nothing ever changes/English summer rain seems to last for ages’.  From the basement to the sky.