September 15, 2011

CV(isualizations)

oh! OH! That's right people. I smacked you down with an awesome pun of a title for this post and now you don't know what to do with yourself! 

Ok, well maybe you do, but you should have a look at this anyway. 

A few months ago I signed up to be a part of the beta for vizualise.me - a nifty resume beautifier. Kind of on par with zerply, I think that what visualize.me provides is something quite nice for those of us that think that black on white just isn't going to cut it in today's brutal job market.

Look, isn't it pretty!



September 14, 2011

Depres-songs

If I know how to do one thing well it's make a bad decision. My stupidity ranges from drinking wine then gin in the heat of a scorching June day (hello hangover)... all the way to thinking that I can be the exception to the rule (We're just not). That's right, today is a bit of an FML day. 

In honour of my general stupidity and the consequences of it, here are 5 songs I find are particularly good at making a grey day just a little gloomier. 


1) Feist - Let It Die 


2) Death Cab for Cutie - The Ice is Getting Thinner.


3) Elliott Smith - Miss Misery


4) Adele - Turning Tables*


5) Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven**

 



*There might be some form of uplifting message in Adele's album 21, but I'm afraid I'm past the point of trying to find it, it just saddens me. 

**The most tragic of circumstances for ever writing a song. Beautiful tribute, but depressing as hell. 


Ps. This is all for your listening pleasure on Spotify here. Feel free to add to it. 

September 12, 2011

Watch Listen Tell: The Result

The other week I posted about Watch Listen Tell: an ingenious idea from director David Tree. My friend Stephan recently had me film him and some friends playing some tunes on the beaches of Jersey.

As promised, here's the result:


Stephan Metcalfe (ft. Henry Matson and Tom Le Coq) - She Just Might 
 


September 01, 2011

Watch, Listen, Tell.


"People and fans should get a hint about the personality of an artist" ~ Dave Tree


When I look for music I like, I often find myself reaching for the video of the acoustic performance, the live performance, the remix.

Many times this has led me to one particular channel on Youtube called watchlistentell, where I can often find well-filmed videos of favourite and newly discovered artists alike.


In an interview for itsnicethat.com, WLT director Dave Tree explains that in simple terms 'it's a unique music channel, featuring new artists playing live music'.

While many of the artists that have played for WLT are well-known, some - as was Florence + the Machine at the time of their WLT film - are unsigned. WLT's increased visibility over the last few years has meant that it is a great platform for unsigned talent.

Here are a few of my favourite videos:

Young the Giant - I Got






Bombay Bicycle Club - Dust on the Ground






Lucy Rose - Night Bus




Over the bank holiday weekend, I took a leaf out of WLT's lengthy book and filmed my friend Stephan Metcalfe in a similar vein. We drove around Jersey (Stephan's home) and stopped at a few beach locations to film him and a couple friends playing their music. I definitely feel like we managed to encapsulate the spirit of WLT and also Stephan's own vision for the videos - showing off how beautiful his home is and having a good time with his friends. 

While he is yet to edit a final cut of each of the three videos, but I will definitely keep everyone posted.




August 06, 2011

The Graduate

*Insert intro from Simon & Garfunkel's 'Mrs. Robinson'*

I had every intention of writing about this the week it actually happened, but as luck would have it, certain family members took their sweet time in sending me the photos from the day.




All in all it was an interesting day for both myself and one of the administrators at the ceremony who collapsed right as I was about to walk onto the stage. 
 

Now, my mother and aunt were sitting approximately 10 feet above all the action and couldn't see this moment unfolding. Needless to say they thought it was me who had collapsed and my mother's instincts kicked in and she ran down the stairs, meanwhile Mrs. Admin had been dragged (literally) over to a chair and the graduation proceedings continued. In her haste and high heels on the stairs, my mother actually missed me actually graduate entirely. Well done Mum!




I can honestly say that it still hasn't sunk in that I have my degree - despite the fact that there's quite a fancy looking piece of paper sitting in my room somewhere. While I realise that there are so many positives about finishing my BA, but at the moment I'm really only thinking that I can no longer go into JRUL with an air of false importance one gets when they are a student. 
For everyone that made any sort of impact - positive and even negative - thank you, your words, actions, and non-actions have helped me get this far without too many screw-ups.

19/52, & 20/52

The Mercury Prize is an award which many people, including myself have a few reservations about. On the one had some truly amazing albums have been recognized in a way that they perhaps otherwise wouldn't be. Yet on the other, past winners and nominees have emerged from the race and disappeared into relative obscurity. As for last year's winners The xx - we have still yet to see what has come of them since the award ceremony last September. While I usually keep my opinions to myself, this year I've decided to share a little snippet of a few of my favorites from this year's nominees:

There is a good reason I follow the masses when it comes to James Blake's cover of 'Limit to Your Love'. While yes it is a cover of Feist's amazing recording, it is something special in its own right. With a stripped-down piano intro as opposed to tambourines, Blake evokes just as much emotion as Feist's distinct vocal does. In all, Blake has made it his own and this track certainly pushed him into the limelight this year.

19/52
James Blake - Limit to Your Love 



Nominee #2 that I am backing in this year's competition is Everything Everything's album Man Alive. Everything Everything have been a band whose music floated about the Fuse Fm offices quite a lot when I was bigging up the music dept. Released in 2009, 'MY KZ, UR BF' climbed our playlists that year and we all wet ourselves in anticipation for the album. Ok, maybe not, but I was pretty excited when it was released.

20/52
Everything Everything - Qwerty Finger


Even if James Blake and Everything Everything are not your thing, there are 10 other albums that comprise the nominees, including the likes of Metronomy, Adele, and PJ Harvey.

What do you think about the Mercury Prize? Who are you supporting in this year's competition?

July 20, 2011

18/52

Well over a year ago I went with a few friends to see Wild Palms at the Ruby Lounge in Manchester. This gig had come out of the fact that a good friend of mine's sister was involved with the guitarist - a good enough reason as any. Also, three members of the band had slept in my now-ex boyfriend and I's bed a few months prior while we'd been away and well, we felt somewhat entitled to see them for free.

While I enjoyed the gig, I don't think at the time, I realised how much a year later I would enjoy their debut album Until Spring. Touted as a 'Band to Watch in 2011' by the Sunday Times, they have enjoyed a good amount of success,although they are very mush so deserving of more.

'Delight in Temptation' is their first major release from Until Spring. Before it was even tipped as a single it was pretty clear that this was a standout track on the album. Catchy guitar riffs mesh well with a good layered beat, making this one of my must have tracks on any Summer '11 playlist.

18/52
Wild Palms - Delight in Temptation 


July 11, 2011

Going Underground?

As a Londoner through and through (SW14 represent!) I have spent a good deal of my life on public transport. As much as I always complain about trains breaking down and various signal failures, I still feel incredibly blessed to live in a city like London that has such a wide variety of transport to choose from. When I was at school it was all about Southwest train services in and out of Clapham Junction during the week, and trips around and about southwest London on the 33, 337, and occasional N10 buses on the weekends. 

Today it is all about the underground.



I haven't spent this much time on the tubular since... well this time last year, but with an increased amount of time on the tube each day you begin to look at travel in a different way. In particular I've begun to look at the iconic underground map more closely. I think in recent years the map's artistic beauty, with its coloured straight lines, has taken over it's practical use as a guide of London, which it was never intended to be.

The people at London Tubemap have in light of this, taken it upon themselves to redraw the underground map as we know it. 


The new map is a much more fluid approach to London's over and underground geography. And while is doesn't paint the travel zones that the traditional map does, I think it would make for a much better tool for London's tourists who often use the traditional map as a 'accurate' representation of the city. 

Two perspectives: 



What do you think? Should Transport for London consider a change to a new map with a more accurate representation of London's geography? Or should they keep the traditional map alive?

16/52 and 17/52

I've found that I'm a bit of a broken record, repeating apologies every week for having forgotten to post the previous week. I should probably stop playing Angry Birds and Cut the Rope on my commute and actually put some pen to paper or fingertips to touchscreen and write something. 

I thought that being a student you were always busy having to write essays and read articles. Work life is twice as busy and working from 10 till 18:30 everyday leaves very little time for anything else, this includes cooking real food, cleaning, and having a social life during the week. I've also officially said goodbye to napping in the middle of the week. 

Anyway, I digress. 

At work, when I'm not actually staring at spreadsheets and mobile app-related sites, I do get to spend free moments looking for music. For the last 16 weeks I've been able to compile these tracks onto Spotify, however tracks 16 and 17 are pretty special and can only (for the time being) be found on Youtube.

Both tracks are by a new band I've discovered called Young the Giant. Recently they've been getting good press as a 'one to watch' and I have been. Their eponymous album is a great summer listener and I suggest 'Every Little Thing' and '12 Fingers' as great tracks. However for the Mixtape I have chosen a Two Door Cinema Club remix of their single 'My Body'. Mixing the best of both bands, this is a really good blend of what each band does well.

16/52
Young the Giant - My Body (Two Door Cinema Club Remix) 



While I don't follow the hype that surrounds the voice that is Adele, I do think that 'Rolling in the Deep' is a tune and a half. I also think that this Young the Giant cover is something super special and one of the better covers of this song I have heard.

17/52
Young the Giant - Rolling in the Deep



June 28, 2011

15/52

I might have been a little worse for wear yesterday. Sunday was a wino-fulled, overly sunny, declarations of love to the sons of old family friends kind of mess of a day. Hence no post AGAIN on a MONDAY. I realise that there is little point in calling it the Monday Mixtape if I am going to forget every week to do it on a Monday.... but hey now, it'll happen one day. 

Johnny Flynn is pretty cool. Still not an artist I know a lot about, but this is great song with certain lyrics which might have been applicable to the situation this weekend.  I wish I had time to write more, but I am still working through my embarrassment of Sunday afternoon. 

15/52
Johnny Flynn - Tickle Me Pink



June 23, 2011

Technological Transformations

I write this post from an Android handset. As trying new things has extended from my personal life (leaving university, living on my own etc), to my work life as well. I shall explain:

Three weeks ago I started a job as a marketing assistant at an interactive media production company that also have a smaller sister company that makes mobile phone applications. I work primarily for this sister company. My previous experience in marketing was at a music label where I did a digital marketing internship last summer. The world of mobile phone apps it seems is a different beast altogether.

While my main interest when it comes to marketing is music, I was not going to pass up a good opportunity to have a job in which I could learn in and develop my marketing skills. But mobile apps is something that I'm definitely still learning more about everyday.

While I can't say that I'm unbiased towards our apps, as a user of them for the first time on my first day of work, I felt that as a user I really did enjoy playing the game app Nano Panda that the company developed. It works on a similar format to other popular game apps, but it has pandas and atoms (did somebody say awesome?!)



While I'm definitely not trying to sell you anything, if you get a chance, try out the free version, it is genuinely a lot of fun.

Aside from playing and marketing the game, I've also learned a lot about how apps (of both the mobile and online (i.e on Facebook) variety) work. Today I spent the day in a studio listening to and providing help for a voice artist in making demo sounds for an internal project. These sounds will then be passed to animators so that the actions of the character match the correct sound. Sounds simple, but the work that these people do to make these apps exciting and innovative is incredible. I feel like I need to do their work justice when it comes to the marketing in order to make everything "worthwhile".

With most jobs like this there comes a perk and this one is no different. My company phone has not only helped me understand mobile apps and phone technology, but weirdly is also helping me with my depth perception issues.

Double win?

I used to be quite closed minded about new technologies: mp3 players, blu-ray, touch screens.etc. but I really think I'm beginning to embrace these things (except maybe blu-ray, I still fail to see the point when DVD players still exist).The fact that I can write this post in a 'Blogger' app proves to me that this type of technology really is the future and that the innovative minds that I work with are going to the ones that take us there.

June 22, 2011

12/52, 13/52, and 14/52

I hope that having exams, going to interviews, and starting a new job are sufficient excuses for being relatively silent over the last few weeks. Needless to say, I am super tired when I get home from work (hello commute). However, I have been thinking about awesome tracks to put up in the time away and have a few for your listening and visual pleasure now. 

There is no denying that songs have stories: whether it's a story within the lyrics that evoke emotion or if it's something that you - the listener - have experienced that the song conveys well. It could also just be a moment in time that you remember well because you were listening to a song that will now forever be remembered because of what was happening in your life. 

This first song is not only amazing in its own right - just listen to that main riff in the melody - but I will probably always remember my last trip home from Manchester, you know 'the trip', the last time you'll be a student trip when you say goodbye to your housemates, not knowing when all of you will be together in the same place again. It was the end of an era and I'll always remember Friendly Fires 'In the Hospital' playing as I was driven down the M6 towards London with one of my housemates. Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the unique setup that the van required for us to get home (let's just say it was a two seater van and I was in the back sat on a deskchair between a bicycle and the door). 

12/52 
Friendly Fires - In the Hospital




The next track is a bit more 'I just like this band/song' of me. 

Looking through my albums you might notice that I like a number of bands with the word 'club' in their names: Two Door Cinema Club, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Tokyo Police Club are definitely a threesome that express this. Weirdly, TDCC and TPC have actually toured together; I can only imagine the billboards advertising that might have been a bit of a mouthful to read. 

Tokyo Police Club are from Canada and released an impressive second album Elephant Shell. I'm still working through the third one Champ and have yet to determine if I like it as much as the second (the album that increased their visibility). Anyway, 'Tessellate' is from Elephant Shell and is a good example of their sound.

13/52
Tokyo Police Club - Tessellate





This week I discovered turntable.fm, you need to have friends on Facebook that are already registered in order to gain access (an air of exclusivity perhaps... nah, just pretentious). However, it is an amazing amount of fun. I think I wasted 20 minutes of my lunch hour playing on it. I decided to go where most of my friends were which was Katy Simpson's 'Pop Etc.' room. I know Katy from my student radio days (which let's face it, were the other week), and I played a few rounds. You can vote whether you like the song or not and if your song is terrible you get booted off the virtual decks.

So in honour of the awesomeness that was turntable.fm I have added one of Katy's picks, '3 Little Words' by Frankmusik to the mixtape. It is a slight departure from my usual set, but hey it's about 'trying new things'.

14/52
Frankmusik - 3 Little Words




May 31, 2011

11/52

Today I was offered my first 'real' job as a marketing assistant in an interactive media company. I start next week and I'm very much so looking forward to this new step in my life. As I was getting the tube to the interview (hello long commute across London), a track popped up on my mp3 player that reminded me that even if this opportunity didn't work out for me, everything would eventually fall into place, much like it did with university three years ago (that was an ordeal if I ever saw one). 

So for all my friends that are currently panicking about finding jobs/internships, or for those that are just trying to figure out life. It's going to be ok and you will eventually find yourself doing what your supposed to be doing, it might just take a bit of time.

11/52
Mystery Jets - Miracle

May 28, 2011

Degree = Done.

Yesterday I finished my last exam for my undergraduate degree. Three years of university have gone by incredibly quickly and right now I'm living in a period of uncertainty since I have no set plans (so far) for the remainder of the year. 

While I know that ultimately I should be celebrating, I've decided to spend a couple of hours tackling these binders - throwing away notes that I no longer need and keeping essays that I'm proud of.


There are 17 of them . It might take a while.



May 23, 2011

10/52

Well after the last week I've had it would be a mere lie about my musical listening life to post anything but a Two Door Cinema Club track. Recently reentering my life over the last week I have fallen in love all over again with an album that got lost in the mix about eight months back. Tourist History defines Two Door Cinema Club's sound, however, in the eighteen months since it's release I can only assume that there has been much more growth musically and lyrically. Some of this is displayed on a track 'Kids' which can be found on the deluxe version of Tourist History (worth every penny of its £8 pricetag). I eagerly await their next effort. 

10/52
Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work

 

May 20, 2011

What A Big Weekend



Given that I live in London and most bands that tour the UK will ultimately gig there, going to Radio One's Big Weekend  was a pretty special experience. For those that have never heard of The Big Weekend, the idea is that BBC Radio One take a weekend festival to different locations across the UK, usually to places which don't have large concert venues and are often left off the map for inter/national tours. There are only 20,000 tickets available for each day and usually over 75,000 applications are sent in. To say that I was lucky to get tickets for BOTH days is an understatement.


My friends from Fuse Fm and I got our tickets through the Radio Academy Masterclass. The Masterclass is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to get into radio as a career. Throughout the day of lectures you meet some influential people and get to pick their brains for any information that might help you break into radio. While radio is not really my passion in life it has been important to me in the last three years as it something that has allowed me to develop skills within an area that I would like to branch out into career wise - marketing. 

Anyway, it was an interesting weekend to say the least. Because of the Masterclass taking up 4 hours into festival time, we unfortunately missed the Arctic Monkeys set. However despite this we still saw the Foo Fighters headlining as well as Swedish House Mafia. Both sets were good for different reasons: Foo Fighters were good because they knew that the audience was mostly Foo Fighters illiterate and gave them the 'for dummies' set - a good mix of old and new tracks. A number people had hyped up Swedish House Mafia for me throughout the day and I was pleasantly surprised that I got quite into the set despite never really liking house music.

The odd thing was that the most fun I probably had that day, perhaps even over the weekend was during a Pete Tong set on the outdoor stage. Absolutely high on life and the atmosphere, it was just ridiculous.


Come Sunday and it was much more my scene on the In New Music We Trust Stage: Two Door Cinema Club, Noah and the Whale, and The Strokes. 

Two Door Cinema Club
Two Door Cinema Club are a band that I've known of for about a year and a bit, but only began to love quite recently. With only one album under their belt, and five singles (one released three times in 18 months), they - in my opinion - are only going to get better.



Some might argue that seeing the same band twice in two weeks is excessive. I say that it's awesome. Especially when it's my favourite band - Noah and the Whale. They played a good range of stuff across their three albums. While I can't say anything bad about these guys in regards to their music, it would be nice if they could play more stuff from First Days of Spring in their festival set.

Noah and The Whale



After side-stepping to the main stage to reclaim my youth while listening to My Chemical Romance for twenty minutes, we returned to watch a pretty decent set by The Strokes in the INMWT stage. I like the Strokes, I do, but they are a band that I often forget that I like and I usually have to be in a very 'Strokes' mood in order to sit down and listen to them. I did however really enjoy their set and since last weekend I have been making the effort to listen again. 

The Strokes

In all I think there were a couple of highlights, musically there was nothing extraordinary about Two Door Cinema Club, but with their set came the push I needed in order to get back into loving their album. Additionally the other highlight was just having one final Fuse send off before I graduate. Fuse has been a big part of my life for the last three years and I think it was good to end on a high. 




May 16, 2011

9/52

This week I've found something completely new for the mixtape. This beautiful song by the relatively unknown HoneyHoney, reminds me of one of the first days of this year when I returned on the Amtrak train to my Dad's home in Los Angeles from San Diego. For some reason this song makes me feel as contemplative as I felt that day. Even more so, it makes me miss my second (third?) home in LA and all the people that I know and love there, so this is also for you guys. 

9/52
HoneyHoney - L.A. River



May 09, 2011

8/52

Today's mixtape find is in memory of this guy:

Tiger: 1993-2011
Tiger was a pretty awesome cat - he used to let me dress him in my doll's clothes when I was little, and as I got older he was often subject to me lifting him up a la Simba from the Lion King.

So in honor of my Tiggles, my 'top cat':
8/52
The Top Cat Theme 


May 06, 2011

7/52

On Tuesday I was spontaneously taken to see Noah & the Whale - my most favourite band in the world, by Jeremy - one of my most favourite friends in the world. It was the fourth time I had seen them live and after turning in my dissertation (over and out Hungarian refugees!) it was the perfect surprise. In honour of their awesomeness (because I interviewed them in 2009 and they were super awesome) they have this week's mixtape track.

7/52
Noah & The Whale - Give A Little Love 

May 05, 2011

The Visitors

I wake up to our next door neighbour's dogs barking on a daily basis. However yesterday I was surprised when the barking seemed a little louder than usual. Turns out it was because they'd knocked through the fence separating our gardens and decided that our garden was a fun place to have an adventure.


Unfortunately we now have to fix the fence.

April 29, 2011

The Royal Cup-ple

Today I swapped my morning cup of tea from my usual Wonder Woman mug into something much more extraordinary: 

The Royal Cup-ple. (Well, half of it)
In celebration of today – the day that our great nation's hope for a modern monarchy, Prince William Arthur Phillip Louis of Wales married commoner/'fashion icon' Catherine Elizabeth Middleton – I ate brunch. To be honest I like brunch to mark many occasions, however this one was made extra special: I wore a dress at 9am in my living room, I drank champagne at 10am, and I plated the brunch on only my finest Royal Doulton china. It was remarkably quite a nice and pleasant way to mark the morning’s event. 

However there were a few things I learned along the way: 

1)      Never, shall I again open champagne in the manner that I did. It did not spill everywhere, but was in general a rather unladylike approach to the task. 

Most undignified
2)      There was too much food for two people. 

Royal Brunch
3)      I know more about waving than the newly anointed Duchess of Cambridge.
4)      Apparently I know ‘too much’ about the British Royal Family. 

I think that the first two points are fairly explicable by the photographic evidence, but I think it might be worth me commenting on (3) and (4): 

A friend of mine – well a ‘celebrity’ friend of mine I suppose he now is – Mr. William Hanson is the youngest etiquette expert in Britain and he knows a thing or two about these sorts of protocols. As I write, he is covering the royal wedding for the day with an incredible amount of enthusiasm which one can only expect of a young man who teaches people how to be refined as his day job – so, quite a lot I can only imagine. However, as a prelude to the wedding celebrations William was invited to be the ‘Mystery Guest’ on the BBC3 Television show ‘Russell Howard’s Good News’. For those that have never seen the show the premise of the segment is simple – the host has to guess who the mystery guest (someone from the recent news) is. And because William’s the youngest of the nations experts there had been some press about him.*

I somehow don’t think that I can do the clip of William much justice as it was about the etiquette of waving and that’s a rather physical thing, but the point was that when asked to wave - he host was a bit too vigorous, or ‘ferocious’ to use William’s words. After showing the audience a more polished wave, I’d learned my lesson and I had royal waving down! However it would seem that one such royal-to-be had either not quite gotten that lesson on the day or had just not showed up entirely. I realised right away that she was doing it too ferociously and jokingly mocked her for it for all of five minutes.

 As to point (4) This fact was brought to my attention by my friend Georgia during a several hour stint in front of the television this morning, waiting to see what would happen during today’s most anticipated event. I learned that not everyone has the same depth of knowledge about the Queen and her extended family as was pointed out to me during a moment when I commented on the event. In between pretending to be Kate by declaring 'Pippa, my train!' every five minutes and trying to lip read what dignitaries and the like were saying, this occurred:

Me: ‘Oh look, there’s Lady Louise Windsor’ (The daughter of Prince Edward - she was a bridesmaid fyi)
Georgia: ‘Who?’

This response made me realize that while I believe that Georgia should perhaps have known more, I probably should get my head out of books on the monarchy and go get a life. 


*For those that who are in Britain and would like to watch RHGN, the episode can be found here.

April 25, 2011

Bloggy Naysaying

I will be the first to admit that the idea of blogging can be construed as a bit of an ego trip for some people. My mother has been doing this for a number of years and from the beginning I thought two things (1) I kind of resent having a mother who knows how to use, and likes using technology and (2) I find her style a bit too personal and revealing for my liking. I think the worst thing is when she's mentioned myself or my siblings in a post it can become a bit 'did you really have to mention me'.* In all I have just bucked up and accepted that she has an active online presence ranging from her Facebook profile to her two (yep, two!) blogs she regularly updates.

However recently a third revelation has become apparent: (3) I have become a hypocrite for laughing at her blogs while writing my own.

While some people write about their innermost thoughts and fears, that is not my style. I find that a bit weird. I think the way in which I have commented on things that have occurred in my life over the last couple of months has been decidedly less 'I feel (insert relevant emotion)' and more 'this is the shit that went down' about the situation at hand. I realise that it is almost impossible to not evoke emotion into a personal piece of writing such as this, but I make an effort to leave my private emotions 'at home'. After all this started as a bit of fun to share some music, some tales of university life, and the odd interesting photograph.

I know that there are people out there that laugh at the mere thought of my doing this.  I have narrowed them down to a two types: 

(1) Those that read my blog once and laughed and just thought it was stupid, and (2) Those that read every post (or most of them) and laugh, think it's stupid, but continue to read 

I have no problem with either one. I think it's a perfectly reasonable thing to laugh at what someone writes and then decide that it's 'stupid'. I encourage people to have opinions and even if it's not a great one 'stupid' is an opinion. Three months ago I might have even been with the Type 1 group, laughing at the ridiculous stuff that people posted about their lives on the internet like the best of them. Although while I have always drawn the line at verbalizing any nastiness, it is in the nature of the internet for people to hide in their anonymity and say whatever the hell they want to. That is probably one of biggest freedoms the internet gives us, no matter how dangerous it can be sometimes. And so while I know that the Type 1 exists, s/he and I have no issue. At least not until one of them verbalizes it to my face, which I've accepted will probably happen sooner or later.

Now to the Type 2. I just find it amusing. If you find my writing 'stupid' or uncalled for in anyway, why do you still read it? If it's to gather fuel for an eventual attack then I will suggest now that you might need to speak to a therapist now before it gets to that stage, otherwise why don't you put down the mouse for a minute and either embrace the fact that you're secretly enjoying reading it or quietly transform yourself into the near-harmless Type 1 and just stop reading.

The fact is I write about stuff that a lot of my University of Manchester counterparts have knowledge of or are thinking about themselves. In the words of a friend: 'Rosie, you write about the library, that's funny'. 

I hope it is.

I had one small aim when I started writing and that was to not give up and I haven't so far - so that's a minor success. So if you want to piss on that, do so, just keep it to yourself in your heads. I'm not asking you to be opinion-less, just be considerate of others when forming them.

If you're not enjoying what I'm writing, don't read it. It really is as simple as that. 



*So I mentioned her here. I'm not above retaliation. 

6/52

A fan of what has be dubiously dubbed the 'West London folk scene' by a number of journalists, I took a little longer than most - approximately a year and 3 months - to listen to Sigh No More by folky, accordion-playing, delightfully handsome, Mumford and Sons, despite having one of their earlier singles being mailed to me by their PR agency the same month as the album's release (a result of my position in local student radio at the time). I'm not ashamed of the fact I didn't get into the album sooner, and while yes I suppose I now am one of the 'hangers on' to the earlier fans, I don't care. The album is beautifully written and hence deserved it's #2 spot in the UK chart and Mercury Prize nomination. 

There are about four or five tracks which I would potentially post - and might do across the remaining weeks of the year's experiment - however I think the title track is a good start. 

6/52
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More 


 

"Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, It will set you free"

April 24, 2011

Happy Egg Day

I hope everyone has a good day whether you partake in an egg hunt or not.





April 22, 2011

Such is Life

Where I would like to be sitting: 

The park outside my window

Instead I enjoy this view:



Such is Life.

April 18, 2011

4/52 and 5/52

So, my recent vacation was not just a holiday from my dissertation, but also from everything else it seems. So without further ado: 

Moon River is a song that I can listen to in any form. I've only sat through Breakfast at Tiffany's once in its entirety, but it's a song that has accumulated a lot of listens on my last.fm profile. I think one of my favourite versions is by Barbra Streisand, but for tradition's sake - here is the clip from the film. A clip I find no fault in whatsoever. 

4/52
Audrey Hepburn - Moon River

 

While walking around Boston on my recent vacation there were a couple of songs that would not leave my head and my friend Katie and I decided to sing and remix multiple times.One of these was the theme from the late television series Gilmore Girls. So to do the song justice I've posted a Carole King version (she's adjusted the lyrics somewhat), not any sort of home recording of us butchering a classic.*

5/52
Carole King - Where You Lead




*Although, it really was something special

April 16, 2011

Dissertation Hiatus

So I recently decided to ditch the books in (well for the most part) and take a quick week off in Boston in the good ole' US of A. I have only ever really had one reason to go to Boston and that has been to see my best friend since the 7th grade. Katie is a junior at Tufts University and this year I decided that I would head back to Massachusetts to see her again. The first time I was in Boston was two years ago, but did not get to see as much as I would have liked. This time around I decided to remedy that. While much of what I did would not constitute an interesting post - namely singing a lot of Elton John in public (Bbbbbennie and the Jets)  and buying dinosaur mood rings and raccoon finger puppets - there were a few days where I ran round the city on my own having some  fun. 


The first of these interesting days was when I was dumped in Harvard Square in the middle of the afternoon. Now, I am the kind of person who can find stuff to do for an afternoon, especially when it's sunny and I'm on one of the oldest university campuses in America. After a very intimidating hour and a half walking around the Harvard Yard I came to two conclusions: (1) I'm really glad I don't go to Harvard and (2) I think that the University of Manchester (a) needs more grass and (b) needs brightly coloured chairs to relax in on said grass. 



As you can see, the second thought was just out of pure jealousy of how happy those students looked. In regards to my being glad about not being at Harvard - I think the amount of pressure that there is on students at Harvard is immense and I think that if I were to actually go to there I would probably break down in front of a tour group at some point. However despite this, I imagine that Harvard is a hard place to say no to. The prestige alone gets to many people, and I like to believe that the sheer amount of Harvard University related merchandise you can buy really persuades a lot of kids.*

After my self tour (I couldn't bring myself to follow the crowd for two reasons: it wasn't free, and I risked looking like a tourist - which granted I was, but I don't like looking like one), I decided to head towards the Charles River. I'd purchased some snacks and a second hand book so thought that I could definitely kill a couple of hours sitting by the river bank. Needless to say when I got there I discovered something even better: the Harvard 'crew' teams were practicing. I put 'crew' in quotes because quite frankly the Englishwoman in me just calls that a rowing team. I watched them for about an hour in the late afternoon light and spent a good deal of time taking photos as I walked from the boathouse down the river.

'Crew' Team

The Harvard boat house
My next solo outing was a couple of days later on a day with decidedly different weather. Now don't get me wrong, I live in England, our weather is nice and rainy most of the time, but this rain annoyed me as it rain-out the ball game we were going to (I adore baseball and was ticked off to say the least). 

Rain, rain, rain. 


However the rain meant that I could spend more time in the Museum of Fine Arts. I think in order to get around to all of it you need about 4 or 5 hours. I however was incredibly distracted by the European and American art. In the American wing I got to see a number of works by artists I have admired for years including Edward Hopper, Scott Prior, and Norman Rockwell. One of the more interesting things was my discovery of what in Boston is a popular painting - 'Boston Common at Twilight' (1885) by Frederick Childe Hassam. 


Overall I found the MFA to be a great museum, kind of like the kid sibling to the Met in New York. Museums are one thing that I find that the American people do very well - the Getty Center in Los Angeles is also amazing.

While the rain hindered our plans to visit Fenway Park to see the Red Sox (or as my mother (a Yankees fan) calls them the 'Red Sux') - Katie and I finally found something I'd been looking for all week. In  1941, Robert McCloskey wrote and illustrated one of my favourite books as a child - Make Way for Ducklings. In 1987, a statue was erected to celebrate the story which has since been declared the official children's book of Massachusetts. I had been looking for these ducks all week after purchasing a nice second hand copy of the book. Luckily by the time we reached the ducks it was the evening, it was raining and there were no small children around which meant that a small photo shoot of the ducks ensued. 


I was the ninth duckling

Definitely not the first and certainly not the last to do this

After all, what's Boston without riding a bronze duck? Nothing, nothing at all.**

*I don't actually believe this. But I was blown away by the amount of crap you could buy.
**Boston is also good if you go on the Freedom Trail tour with a man dressed up in costume, this is also more amusing if you are the only two people on the tour. This was the situation two years ago.

April 05, 2011

3/52

I managed to completely forget to post this week's musical musing on a Monday, so please accept my apologies with some awesomeness. 

(500) Days of Summer is close to being a desert island film of mine. And even though the song is quite old (1981) with Joseph Gordon-Levitt dancing (swoon much?) it brings Hall & Oates to a new and much younger audience. I started my day this morning by watching this and already feel better for it. 

3/52
Hall & Oates - You Make My Dreams (from (500) Days of Summer) 

April 04, 2011

I've Found Someone New...

Dear John Rylands University Library, 

I have a found someone new - his name is Samuel Alexander and he also has a computer cluster. He doesn't let silly rules like 'no eating' get in the way of work.* He's quiet and doesn't disrupt my essay writing. He's respectful and organized, he tells me when he's busy and has classes going on. He lets me work in peace John Rylands. More than you ever did. From now on our relationship is strictly about the books as you insist to be the largest university library on campus.

I hope we can still be friends,

Rosie

*After writing it would appear that Sam Alex does have a no eating rule, but it's in tiny letters, not plastered all over the walls - he's polite like that.

It took me 10 minutes to figure out where it says not to eat - this is literally the only signage in the room that has this rule on it.