Wanted
An office for two girls who are bored out of their minds working at home highly committed and experienced journalists. Views over Manhattan desirable impractical (we live in South London).
Happy to share with other like-minded people who will engage in pointless chit-chat, highly committed and experienced journalists.
Please get in touch with us if you know anywhere that might fit this bill in S E London (theantistylist@hotmail.com).
Anatomy of a fridge door
What’s in my fridge is perhaps a post for another day. A day after I’ve been to the Londis. But what is on the door? … ah, that I’m about to (real) reveal. In principal I don’t really like things on fridges. But in reality I have no office, no pin board, and I work at the little yellow Formica table in the kitchen. So the fridge is what I glance up at, and it’s a place of inspiration, reminders and, er, stuff I don’t want to lose. You ready?
It started just with the lady in the middle…
She’s my inspiration for practical Spring 2013 daywear. I’m typing this in a knitted fruit turban, so that one paid off…
More inspiration. A postcard that just fell out of a book. It’s of The Minack Theatre, west Cornwall, a place where I watched many plays and was in some too, as a child. The most beautiful theatre in the world. And look at the colours of the sea, and the pink thrift.
A cutting from the Cornishman, illustrious paper of my home town. It’s all about a dispute over whether St Ives town council should put up a plaque commemorating the hippies that they tried to run out of town in the 60s.
An image entitled “The Madame Hadley School of Dance’s at Streatham Baths, 1935.” Food for thought…
And lastly a quote from an article about some lab where they store washed up whales. They weighed the dust! So that, and a flyer for a local sash window company, is what lives on my fridge. Possibly more revealing than the contents of my handbag. What’s on yours?
The Concrete House – an update
About 18 months ago we ran a post about 549 Lordship Lane in Dulwich – a crumbly ruin that I discovered, with surprise, is architecturally significant. Built in 1873 by Charles Drake, it’s Grade II listed and the only surviving example of a 19th Century concrete house. Read more about it here.
I’ve just been past it on my bike and can reveal that it now looks like this…
A transformation don’t you think? Proper ‘leafy Dulwich’ with a new wrought iron railing out front, landscaping and everything. I used to cross the road for fear of rats running at me – Lord knows what the builders found when they started clearing the site – but I was proper close today with my camera.
When it’s finished, the building will contain five social housing flats and I’ll be admiring it en route to our favourite cafe in the hills.
My holiday to island paradise
AKA Millport. I posted before about the wonderfully preserved 50s Ritz Cafe in Millport, the tiny and only town on the Scottish island of Cumbrae. Well I finally got to visit. A May weekend that was hot enough to swim, on a deserted beach where no one could hear me yelling. I went to The Ritz and had peas and vinegar out of a Beryl Ware bowl. I looked out across the water to other islands, by day and by night. And when I came back to London I hated everything and didn’t want to speak or hear a car ever again. OK, so that didn’t last, but to try to recreate the effect here are my uninterrupted pictures of Millport. It was the colours that were so amazing. The sand was pink, the pink of the last house here. Imagine…
Read: A Very Good Place
New online magazine A Very Good Place has launched. Edited by Clare Gogerty, the title encapsulates its aims to showcase considered, environmentally conscientious design and ways of living. I’ve been lucky enough to work with three of the people behind it (you can read about them all here) so I think it’s lovely. But actually, it is also lovely.
It’s split into five parts – including a hearty houses section called To Live – and the inclusion of films and shareable content makes the magazine feel genuinely online. As opposed to the print-magazine-plonked-on-a-screen look. There are moving pictures on the contents page!
It’s also free and the team intends that it stays that way.
I’m shameless enough to flag up a feature written by yours truly.
And also, a pod in Scotland that I now want to book for my holidays.
Go see and report back.
See: Karen Chekerdjian at 19 Greek Street
My parents are here, which, among other less selfish interpretations, means free babysitting. Last night myself and Mr MFH took ourselves to the opening of Designing the Middle East (Part II: Beirut) at 19 Greek Street. The focus was actually the work of one designer (and her studio), Karen Chekerdjian. It was a lovely mash up of traditional Middle Eastern sensibilities with totally contemporary ideas. Like her Cookie Paper stools, which are effectively upside down cake cases made from tinned brass. They’re also ‘in homage to the pleat’.
You can just about make out the Islamic-style imprinted pattern on the top of them – a detail that appeared on many of the other tables and poufs on display – all of which were made from metal. Poufs, you heard it here first, though this is the first time I’ve seen metal ones.
Check out our Instagram page for more detailed photos, because I failed to take any on my normal camera. Again. Anyone else find juggling social media with proper photographing and having actual live chats with people tricky as all hell?
The exhibition is on until 19 July and FYI the gallery owns a few of those stonkingly good Marni chairs.
Being Frank
Panic on the streets of Timperley…. If yesterday’s post was about a life lived in genuine, perpetual creativity, then so is today’s.
Frank Sidebottom, the papier-mache-headed singer, presenter and Timperley FC fan was a life’s work for his mysterious creator Chris Sievey. Frank is responsible for me having the phrase ‘Cockney Rhyming Orangutan’ in my head. And I once won a half pound packet of wine gums in a radio competition he did. They took literally six months to arrive in the post, which suggests to me that he really was administrating the whole thing himself.
The reason I’m posting about him today is that there is a project on Kickstarter to fund a documentary about Chris and his creation, with today the final day for donations. Here’s the link, and if this all a mystifying load of nonsense to you, here’s Frank’s version of Anarchy In The UK to explain a little. More punk than punk. And fantastic…
