An incredible resource. This exhaustive archive of newspaper cuttings was assembled by Edda and Hans Tasiemka, and is now housed at Hymag in Woolwich Arsenal, London. Bulging foolscap document wallets in muted yellows, pinks and blues have themes jotted on ad hoc printer paper spines in Sharpie, groupings like Crimes Committed by Children, Accupuncture, Coal, Sienna Miller, Whales. Each file is bursting with hand cut articles from the British press on these very subjects. I spent a productive day there last year, reading and writing in the run up to recording our second album.
I used Freecycle for the first time a few months ago when I was moving house and needed to pass on a few odd things. I didn’t expect it to open up a whole community to me, and to provide me with so much joy and entertainment. I’ve met lots of nice people on there. It’s also a reminder of how many people in London are really struggling and relying on free resources to get by. I recommend signing up to the daily digest of new things on offer in your area. I love to read through the post titles. Yesterday I opened the digest to find:Relief for aching muscles! Mini American Football and Diablo, please take bothPurple Bean Bag CubeAuthentic Danish setteesUrgent! Wanted non smart TVMcirowave
I was first given this by my friend Elizabeth who bought it at Books Peckham, an excellent second hand bookshop in South London (highly recommended!) run by another old friend, Peter Willis. It’s homemade by a woman called Sophie and contains Lavender, Clary Sage, Majoram, Mugwort and Roman Chamomile. I realise this is quite a mysterious description but if you find yourself in London go to Books Peckham and it will be there. It makes a tour bus smell like home! And when you are staying in a different bed every night it offers a familiar and heady smell to fall asleep to.
A designer specialising in romantic, funny, slouchy, pre raphaelite cabbage leaf clothes. If you want to look like a grumpy baby in a long christening gown and at the same time a medieval vision emerging from a lake with some pond weed trailing then this is for you. I hope I can own some one day. At the moment they’re a little out of my league financially speaking ;) but for now I’m ok to enjoy them with my eyes only. But the need is great. I think they’re the most beautiful clothes.
I love this podcast. It’s about language. More specifically you could say it’s about conversational speech, intonation, and the host John McWhorter does a great job of bending his voice around the phrases and words he’s talking about. He’s a fan of musical theatre and plays a few show tunes with lyrics which relate to the themes of the episode. I like to have podcasts, or tv, people talking, on pretty much all the time I’m at home. I also need that on flights (I don’t like to fly but I have to do it often). So this podcast feels like a friend.