A cheeky update

Hi folks! I'm writing this from my desk at work - don't worry, I'm on my lunch break, not skiving - as this seems to be the only free time I have at the moment. As I've already mentioned, my commute to work is nearly two hours each way, which doesn't leave me with much time to myself in the evenings. Joe and I still haven't moved into our new house as there's lots of work being done on it, however, quite a bit of my spare time (and a lot of his, as he's doing most of the work!) is being spent on sorting things out for it; I spent most of Sunday painting the newly plastered ceilings in our bedroom and bathroom. My arms were killing me by the time I'd finished, as I was using a roller on a big pole so that I could reach and it was seriously hard work! Still got a lot more painting to do, but maybe I'll end up with super-toned arms? Here's hoping...

Anyway, I thought I'd do an update post for June as I've not done one in a while and I like talking about things that I like... because, well, I like them! (Don't I have a way with words?)

I'm currently loving;

Once Upon A Time. If you've not heard of this, it's kind of understandable as it's on Channel 5, which is the one terestrial channel I (and most other people) never seem to watch. The basic premise is that the evil queen from Snow White banished a load of fairytale characters to a town in modern day America, however none of them have any memory of their previous lives. So Snow White is a schoolteacher and Jiminy Cricket is a therapist. Anyway, it's down to Emma, a bounty hunter, (and also Snow White's daughter, just to confuse things...) to beat the evil queen, aka the mayor of Storybrooke (yep, that's the name of the town). It sounds silly and it is to be honest, but I'm a big fan of fairytales and I like how it flashes back and forward from the fairytale world to the present day. Plus, I love love love Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Snow White. She's such a cutie!

Obnoxiously neon nails. Seems like everyone's rocking the neon at the moment. I bought a box of four cute little neon nail polishes from Primark a few weeks ago but I only tried the green polish recently. I've had so many compliments... or maybe just comments from people remarking on how bright the colour is. I think it was about £3 for the four polishes, which is rather bargainous, considering, as Selena pointed out recently, no other high street makeup brands seem to be doing neon nail polish and the American Apparel one, while lovely, is also a bit on the expensive side.

No7 Vouchers. Boots have done it again and brought back those pesky £5 No7 vouchers. I can't resist them, it's so silly! I'm currently absolutely fine when it comes to beauty and skincare products, I have everything I need and am not running low on anything, yet every time I get a voucher I just *have* to buy something. They were initially due to expire on 17th June so I spent my last voucher and breathed a sigh of relief that there'd be no more coming, only to be informed by the sales assistant that they've now brought a new voucher out that doesn't expire until July. Aaaargh! I've now managed to accumulate two more (I practically live in Boots...) so I'm sure my ever-growing collection of No7 products will soon be growing a bit more...

Buyapowa. I mentioned this in my most recent vlog, but Buyapowa is a seriously addictive site. Basically, it's a co-buy site, so the price of something drops the more people sign up to buy it. They get loads of high-end beauty products on the site, so it's a great way to get your mitts on things that you can't justify buying at full price. I recently bought OPI Nail Envy from there (check out the massive box it came in! They clearly got a bit packaging-happy on that one) and I'm constantly eyeing up the 'coming up' section of the site as they list everything they'll be selling over the next few weeks. Guttingly, I've missed the Caudalie Beauty Elixir co-buy twice; I assume it must sell really quickly because of how much hype it's received. Next time, you're mine you elusive little bugger!

This video. Oh my days. I am the biggest musical fangirl ever so this to me is way too exciting. I love Hugh Jackman and I'm sure he'll be amazing as he's done actual Broadway shows anyway. I'm intrigued to hear Russell Crowe singing though as I just can't imagine it and his character has an amazing song near the end. Also, I love the fact that Samantha Barks, who was one of the contestants of I'd Do Anything (the Andrew Lloyd Webber TV show where they were looking for someone to play Nancy in Oliver!) has got the part of Eponine, which is, most would argue, the best female part in the show. She's only 21, comes from the Isle of Mann and made her name on a TV talent show. Now she's in a massive Hollywood movie alongside some of the world's biggest stars! Amazing. It was rumoured that Taylor Swift was going to play the part, but she's rubbish and has an annoying face so I think they made the right decision.

Anyway, that's enough musical rambling - apologies if you're not a fan of musicals at all, but I really, really am! We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

I'm currently hating;

Whoever makes the buying decisions at Boots in Liverpool. As much as I love Boots (and I mean LOVE it), the Liverpool one is frequently disappointing me. I think I mentioned a while back that I found it bizarre that they stocked every type of Denman brush possible, apart from the backcombing brush (or 'Dressing Out Brush' as it's officially called), despite the fact that Liverpool is quite obviously the backcombing capital of the world. After weeks of frequently checking the brush section of the store just in case it was out of stock, I gave up and bought it from Amazon instead. No big deal, but I just found it weird. Well I've been disappointed again this month by promises of Essie polishes that simply haven't been fulfilled. As you probably know, the Essie diffusion line is now available in some branches of Boots and Superdrug, which is wonderful news for a nail varnish obsessive such as I. Unfortunately though, once again, Boots have let me down; no Essies at all! Why would they do this? Why? WHY?! Luckily, there's a Boots not far from where I work, so I've taken a couple of lunchtime trips with my partner in nail varnish related crime and got my mitts on a couple of bottles. But still, I'm not happy. Liverpool Boots, sort it out!

Lazy writing (Fifty Shades of Grey). So there's been a lot of hype recently surrounding a rather (and by rather I mean really really really) racy book by the name of Fifty Shades of Grey. Being the massive FOMO-sufferer that I am (FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out) I quickly headed to Waterstones and bought a copy of this supposedly brilliant book. Oh how foolish I was. To be fair, I don't know what I was expecting because I had already heard that it was a rudey so I should have know it was never going to be some kind of life-changing reading experience. Even so, it is crap. I'm a few chapters in and it's not so much that the story is crap (which it is) but the writing is so damn lazy! Maybe it's because I did English Literature at uni so I'm a bit overly critical when it comes to novels, but MY GOD, it's so badly written. For example, the protagonist (Ana Steele, who is a massive dweeb) frequently refers to her best friend Kate as being 'tenacious'. By frequently, I mean, IT IS THE ONLY THING SHE SAYS ABOUT HER. This is Kate. She is tenacious and nothing more. That's only one example but it's one that's really stuck with me and pissed me the hell off. I'm very tempted to send a strongly worded letter to E L James advising her to invest in a good thesaurus. E L James, learn some new words! Apparently, the novel started life as a piece of Twilight fanfiction and you can definitely see similarities between the main characters of the two books, which also annoys me, because surely, SURELY nobody would want to base their characters on Edward and Bella would they? They're rubbish! Anyway, apologies if you've read the book and liked it, because I know a lot of people have. I doubt I'll bother to finish it as I don't want to waste valuable reading time on what is basically a weird, X-rated Edward and Bella fantasy when I could be reading something, you know, good.

Yeesh, that turned into a bit of a rant there! Apologies folks, but sometimes I have a lot of anger.

Have you read Fifty Shades of Grey? What are your thoughts on neon nail polish? How do you feel about your nearest branch of Boots? Tell me things and make me happy!

Between those gaps and the holes

Wahey! Two blog posts in two days? I'm back baby! Having a very chilled out Saturday today, which is nice - tidying, catching up on TV and doing a bit of blogging. Might even film a video later, depending on how the light in my room is. Hope you're all having lovely weekends whatever you're up to!

I'm currently loving;

Downton Abbey. I've been majorly slow to jump on the bandwagon with this one, as it's been out for ages but it was just one of those things I never got around to watching it. Anyway, my Mum got the first series on DVD for Christmas and I am ADDICTED. It's so good! Even Joe's enjoying it and he really didn't think he would as he's not a big fan of period dramas. Give it a go if you've not done so already!

2012. I've decided that this year is going to be the year I finally sort my life out and become a proper, real grown up. I've already got a new job lined up (starting in a few weeks!) and Joe and I have been house-hunting like crazy. It's all very exciting but quite daunting at the same time, part of me thinks I'm Peter Pan and will never really grow up but I think it's time to accept that. actually, I'm 24 now and need to take on some responsibilities instead of procrastinating all the time. Aimée, who writes The Lost Girl, posted four new year's resolutions and one of them really stood out to me - Be Pro-active. This is something I really need to work on, so I've decided to steal borrow it and make it my resolution too! Thanks Aimée!

My babies. I know I said in my last post that I'm not feeling particularly inspired when it comes to nail art at the moment, but I'm still loving painting my nails as much as ever. I realised recently that I've always loved collecting things - throughout my childhood I went through phases where I was obsessed with, in no particular order, Pogs, Polly Pockets, Puppy In My Pockets, My Beautiful Horses, Beanie Babies and, for a while, I had absolutely loads of those weird alien toys that came in Frufoo yoghurts - anyone remember them? Anyway, now the collecting obsession seems to have moved on to nail varnishes and I can only see this getting worse before it gets better...

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I was a bit hesitant to go and see this, because, having read the book, I was scared that it was going to be very hard to watch. To be fair, it was quite horrible in parts but I knew what to expect so was prepared when those bits came up. I did enjoy it though - Rooney Mara is absolutely brilliant. They did change a few details, but for the most part, the film stays very true to the book, which is always a major concern of mine when a book is made into a film. I know a lot of people think it's mad that the Swedish films were only released in the past couple of years, so it's silly to do a remake already, but I guess it means that all of those people who don't like to watch films with subtitles can still see it? Obviously, it's really just another example of Hollywood cashing in on a successful foreign film (Vanilla Sky, The Ring, Let The Right One In, etc etc) but I did actually think it was very well done, so I can't criticise the Hollywood bigshots too much!

This video. Joe's band, Man Get Out, are launching their new single at the end of the month and they've just done a music video to go with it. I think it's rather bloody good, if I do say so myself! If you're based in or near Liverpool and fancy seeing some very lovely live music, the launch is taking place on January 28th at Mojo and is being presented by BBC Radio 2 DJ, Janice Long, who's a big fan of the boys. (shameless plug over...)

I'm currently hating;

Erm... nothing really! Happy days!

"The prettier the flower, the farther from the path"

Bonjour my little chickens! How are you all? Good weekend? I certainly hope so! This weekend I mainly did a lot of eating (surprise surprise), some singing and dancing (at Into The Woods rehearsals) and plenty of snuggling up with Joe watching stuff on 4OD/BBC iPlayer. Now that the nights are getting darker so much earlier and it's SO DAMN COLD there is literally nothing better than a good snuggle I say!

So this is my November Love/Hate post, I've completely given up trying to come up with monthly pun titles, my brain just isn't as good as it used to be...

I'm currently loving;

Hollyoaks. I'm not even embarassed to admit this. Yes, it's mainly just a lot of stupidly pretty people whose acting skills leave A LOT to be desired but OHMYGOD how good was the Halloween episode?! The whole Silas-is-a-serial-killer storyline went on for way too long, but by golly they did end it very well. If you don't watch it, you won't have a clue what I'm talking about, but in a nutshell; there was an old man called Silas, who was secretly a serial killer and on Halloween he accidentally killed HIS OWN DAUGHTER because he thought she was Lyndsey because they were both wearing the same Halloween costume!!! Dun dun dun!

ANTM. Season 17 of America's Next Top Model (yes, that's right, there have been SEVENTEEN seasons of this show and it only started in 2003) is absolutely brilliant. Basically, Tyra "I'm literally completely mad" Banks has brought back contestants from all the previous seasons and is forcing them to take part in just the most ridiculously bizarre tasks ever. The best one was when all of the models had to write a song about themselves and then Tyra told them they also had to incorporate the lyrics "Pot Ledom, that's Top Model backwards" into their songs. Just... so very mad and so very wonderful.

Glamour magazine freebies. Even though it meant having to buy a magazine with Old Misery Face on the cover (I don't know why she irritates me so much, but she really does), I managed to get hold of a free Nails Inc polish. There are four to collect; Picadilly Circus - a dark plum, Basil Street - a nude beige, Tate - a dark red and Victoria - a red/black (oxblood?) which is the one I got. I LOVE FREEBIES!

A blast from the past. I spotted these in Poundland last week and couldn't resist. Please don't think I'm some kind of baking heathen (I know how bloggers are supposed to be excellent bakers, but quite frankly, I'm just not) but these reminded me of when I was little and used to go to my Nan's house every Saturday. She'd buy My Little Pony cupcake kits and I remember how amazed I was the first time she explained that the little stickers you decorated the cakes with were made of rice paper. Paper you can eat. PAPER YOU CAN EAT!

Beyonce's new video. How flippin' gorgeous is this woman?! I think the styling for this video, and the makeup in particular, is just stunning. Apparently everything she's wearing in the video is from American Apparel, so if you wanted to recreate the video, look for look, you literally could do that. Not that that wouldn't be a weird thing to do, but if you wanted to, you could do it.

I'm currently hating;

My hair. I feel like I desperately need a new 'do, but I'm so darn indecisive. It's a tricky one because it's naturally curly, which limits what styles would really work (for example, I can't have a fringe because I'd either have to straighten it every day, or clip it back, which kind of defeats the point). Also, I don't really want to lose much of the length, because I like that when it's straight, it reaches really quite far down my back. I'm also a bit scared of hair dye, because once you start dying, you can't really stop. Basically, I need a style that works for long, naturally curly hair, that can be worn straight or curly and doesn't require much maintaining at all. Does anyone have the answer? No? Right, I'm off to buy a selection of wigs instead...

August-us Gloop

I can't believe it's Friday already - this week has flown over like a flaming bat out of hell shot from a catapult (that's fast!). Hope you've all got nice things planned for the weekend! I'm off to the Jacques Townhouse event in Liverpool tomorrow - I can't wait! Has anyone else been/is anyone else going? I know they've done one in London too, it looks so fun! I'll probably write a post about it next week. This here is my monthly update post for August (it's very difficult thinking up punny titles each month - this one is rubbish, I know, because it's not really a pun, but seriously, the word August is a tricky one! If you can think of something better, please tell me!) I'm aware it's a bit late, and my Products of the Month for July is VERY late :( I've actually filmed the vlog, just haven't uploaded it to Youtube yet, I promise I shall do so very, very soon! (Maybe even now...)

Anyway, with all the nonsense that's been happening in the UK over the past week, I'm not going to do a "currently hating" section this month, as it seems trivial and silly. It's just going to be about love this time. "All you need is love, la la la la la...."

I'm currently loving;

This video. I was tempted to write a separate blog post about the riots but to be honest, I don't even know where to start and so much has been said already. My lovely friend Jay is a singer/songwriter/genius and has written this cover of the song Made In America (from the new Kanye West/Jay-Z album Watch The Throne) as a response to the riots. I think it sums up how most of us are feeling pretty well.

Milka Chocolate. As a chocolate fiend, it's hard for me to say which brand I like the best - Cadbury? Galaxy? Lindt? At the moment though, my bar of choice isMilka Happy Cows. Look at it! It's patchy, like a cow! Cow print chocolate, bloody brilliant. I physically can't stop buying it. If you haven't tried it, seriously get some, it's yummy!

Twinings Revive & Revitalise Lemon and Ginger Tea. Another food-based one. I randomly found one bag of this in our kitchen cupboard (Lord only knows where it came from) and I liked it so much I went out and bought a box. I've had a cold this week (damn rainy weather) and this has been the perfect remedy to help soothe my throat and clear my head. Lemony gingery goodness.

The Killing. My boyfriend and I have really gotten into this series on Channel 4. It's an American remake of a Danish series and follows the aftermath of the murder of a teenage girl. I don't normally care much for crime dramas but this is seriously addictive TV; it's full of unexpected twists and turns. I thought it was just going to be a three part drama type thing, but I checked on IMDb and there's actually thirteen episodes, which is a bit frustrating as I really want to get to the conclusion!

Sudoku. This is an incredibly geeky admission to make, but I've actually become obsessed with Sudoku! My Dad buys The Times most days so is providing me with a constant supply of puzzles to feed my habit. I like to think it's making me smarter...

I've been making a bit more of an effort at finding new blogs to read lately, as quite often I tend to just stick to my favourites. If you have any blog recommendations let me know! I always check them out. Here's some I've been enjoying recently;

Lucy Boots
Laura-Lurahh
Amy Acorn
All Swamped In Flowers
Head Over Heels

June know who I am?!

WHOA! It's been a while hasn't it? Really didn't mean to go this long without blogging; I got back from Lanzarote on 7th June and since then it feels like I've not stopped!

Anyway, thought I'd do a little update post (these seem to be happening monthly now and I'm really enjoying them!) and I filmed a video today with my shiny new video camera so, youtube Gods willing, that'll be up in the next couple of days too. Blogging-a-go-go!

I'm currently loving;

Cheeky holidays. As I've just mentioned, my boyfriend and I decided to book a little last minute break in Lanzarote. I realised it was the first time I'd been properly abroad for about six years - how did that happen?! We ate and drank lots, discovered some pretty beaches and even hired a car for the day to drive around the island and see some sights (driving on the wrong side of the road is scary. And I was only navigating!) It was lovely. Got another holiday lined up for July with Tash - I'm getting a bit of a taste for this jet-set lifestyle ;)

Magazine freebies. I'm sure most people are already aware of this, but just in case you've been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks - Glamour magazine are currently giving away one of three Benefit products with the July issue. You can get your mitts on a mini High Beam, Benetint or Posie Tint absolutely free! Since the mag only costs £2 and the freebies are worth £8-£10 each it's a pretty bargainous offer! I was a bit greedy and got all three, but I'm sure lots of other people have done that too - it seems silly not to! Also, Elle are currently giving away a free Reiss vest top designed by Garance Dore - couldn't help but get myself one of those too!

Dr Faustus. Not the play by Christopher Marlowe, but my sister's new kitten! Yes, that's his name - God only knows why, but Liv has always been a bit *different*. Did you ever see anything as flippin' cute as this?! We're going to be cat-sitting when Liv goes on holiday and I absolutely can't wait - I've got A LOT of snuggles planned.

This video. Anyone familiar with Auto-Tune The News will have seen this sort of thing already, but when my friend Liam posted this Jezza Kyle remix on my Facebook wall last week, I knew I had to share it. Absolutely brilliant.

I'm currently hating;

Insane weather I know that British folk spend their lives complaining about the weather, so this is an extremely mundane thing to mention, but my issue isn't so much that it's too cold or rainy, it's that every day seems to bring with it three different types of weather for the price of one. This sort of mix and match weather is a right bastard because you know that at some point during the day your outfit is going to be rendered completely impractical. I actually walked to the bus stop swearing at the weather last week because the clear blue sky and lovely sun had provided a cunning disguise for what was actually an insanely windy day and my flippy skirt/jersey blazer combo was just no match for it at all. Weather, make up your mind what you want to be and stick with it. Nobody is interested in your identity crisis you little bugger!

Rubbish sequels. I went to see The Hangover 2 last week and thought it was absolutely horrendously bad. It's the exact same story as the first film except with a few tiny details changed and a lot of less funny but more offensive jokes. Sadly, it seems that I'm the only person who thought this because everyone around me in the cinema laughed uncontrollably all the way through. Apparently all a film needs to be considered funny these days is a drug dealing monkey in a denim jacket...

So how've you all been? Have you bought this month's Glamour yet? What did you get? And what did you think of The Hangover 2?

Also, don't forget! My competition to win the Sleek Paraguaya palette ends in a mere few days - if you've not entered yet, get to it, pronto!

GNASA

[Don't forget to enter my giveaway here to win the Sleek Paraguaya Palette and some secret goodies!]

So, last week I went on holiday. A glamping holiday.

Glamourous + Camping = GLAMPING

Myself and a group of lovely friends (Tash, Lauren, Dot and Nikki) headed across to Berridon Farm in Bradworthy in Devon where we stayed in a luxury tent, played A LOT of Pictionary, learned how to cook on a wood burning stove (here's a little hint for you, cooking anything on a wood burning stove takes a LONG TIME. You want a cup of tea? You're going to be waiting about two hours), met a seriously badass goat and saw literally THOUSANDS of gnomes, but more on that later.

Basically, glamping, as you've probably guessed, is a much fancier form of camping. You stay in a tent, but it has a proper floor, beds, running water and a toilet. There's no electricty, so you do have to go right back to basics when it comes to entertainment (board games are a must), and with no lights apart from candles and torches, it gets seriously bloody dark at night, but it's A LOT of fun.

There was an episode of TOWIE where some of the gang went 'glamping', however, apart from them having a pink floral tent, I don't really understand what made it 'glam'. At one point Joey Essex and Harry tried to make a toilet in the ground by hitting it with a stick. I don't care how you look at it, that is just not glam.

This isn't glamping

THIS is glamping;

On arrival at Berridon, Farmer Dave warned us about Barclay, a "rogue goat" in the field. He proved to be something of a handful...

Our tent.

Inside the tent. Fancy! You can just about make out the door to the loo (on the left), then, at the back of the tent (through the sort of doorway bit in the middle) there was two "bedroom" areas - one with bunk beds, one with a double and then on the right you can see my cupboard bed!

Cupboard bed! It was VERY cozy.

Told you he was troublesome. He climbed onto the chicken coop and it broke. He looked guilty for about five minutes and then just climbed back on. The little scamp.

Pigs! No idea what their actual names were, but Lauren christened them Alfred and Hitchcock. Just because.

One of the first things we spotted on our way to Berridon Farm was a sign that read "Gnome Reserve". We knew that we couldn't leave Devon without finding out exactly what a "Gnome Reserve" was, so on our last day, we took a little trip. Oh, the things we saw...

We discovered that a "Gnome Reserve" is a place where there are more gnomes than you can possibly imagine. And they're all doing different activities. Here, you can see some gnomes who are doing a classic gnome activity; fishing. We also saw gnomes at the fair, gnomes in planes, gnomes at the beach and gnomes on the toilet. Really though.

Wearing our obligatory (fabulous) gnome hats. From left to right, Tash, Lauren, Me, Dot and Nikki.

Apparently, Gnomes drink "Blue Gnome" and their rockets fly from "GNASA". It's all about the little details.

I don't think I can emphasise enough just how many gnomes there actually were. The woman who ran the Reserve said that on the last count she had over two thousand. TWO THOUSAND GNOMES. That's a lot of gnomes.

After the Gnome Reserve, we went to Westward Ho! which is the only place in the UK that has an exclamation mark in its name. That's pretty special. It was lovely and beachy.

The whole gang at Westward Ho!

So that's glamping. If you fancy spending a few days getting away from civilization, but don't want to sleep in a cold, cramped tent, then I thoroughly recommend it! The company we used was called Featherdown Farms - they have loads of glamping locations across the UK, but I picked Devon because I've never been before and like beaches.

Have you ever been glamping? Would you consider it? How do you feel about gnomes?

May day, mayday!

Wow, it's May already, this year is flying by like crazy! Thought I'd do another summary type thing, the last one seemed to be quite popular...

I'm currently loving;

Royal wedding-o-rama. I think it was hard to not get caught up in all of the excitement on Friday. I'm not particularly fussed about the Royal Family at all, but let's be honest, what girl can't resist a good wedding? Plus, it's nice to have something that we can all 'take part' in as a nation. Usually the news is full of depressing stuff; naughty politicians, celebs having affairs, Katie Price existing, so it made a pleasant change to turn on the TV and see coverage of a genuinely happy occasion. I think Kate looked beautiful, though I've only just made the connection that she wore a McQUEEN dress - hahaha! I went to a house party where muchos cake and tea was consumed. My very clever friend Jenny made this lovely Union Jack cake (above) - it was amazing!

Chocolate chocolate chocolate. Although Easter was a week ago, I've still got A LOT of chocolate left over. I have quite a big family and all of the aunts/uncles/grandparents etc buy Easter eggs for all of the kids. Fortunately for me (unfortunately for my waistline) at 23, I'm still considered one of the kids, so I received SEVEN eggs. So far I've eaten three. I've still got two more Cadbury eggs, a really fancy Marks and Spencers one and a Green & Blacks one to eat. I should probably do something sensible and use loads of the chocolate for baking, rather than gorging myself on it over the next couple of weeks, but let's be honest, I'm probably not going to...

WAH nails. The very clever people at WAH got me all inspired yesterday as I was having a browse through their blog and decided to do a mix of drippy and two toned leopard print. I find drips really difficult to do - does anyone have any tips? Also, can anyone recommend a good topcoat as I'm currently using a Sally Hansen one but it takes about twenty five years to dry.

Summer Heights High. If you've never watched this show, I seriously recommend it. Basically, the idea is it's a documentary (a bit like The Office) filmed in a school in Australia, but the creator of the series, Chris Lilley, plays three different characters - a ridiculously camp drama teacher, a spoiled, bitchy girl and a Tongan boy who's always getting into trouble. It is hilarious! My friend Liam put the series onto DVD for me, so I've been re-watching it all recently, but you can probably find it on youtube. Here's one of my favourite clips;

I'm currently hating;

When it feels like your razor is punishing you. I bought a pack of BIC Miss Soleil razors a couple of weeks ago and oh my goodness I coudn't recommend them less. I've used BIC razors before; I imagine most people have, but I've never tried this particular line. They're a pretty standard disposable - three blades, moisturising strip etc, but for some reason every time I use them, it feels like I'm shaving with a particularly malicious cheese grater. So very, very painful! I hate shaving my legs anyway because it's such a faff, but these razors make me want to do it even less. I think it's time I took up waxing...

Blogger's formatting issues. I'll hold my hands up and say that I'm a bit OCD when it comes to paragraph formatting in my blog posts. I hate having big gaps between paragraphs and I always make sure that everything is fully justified because I just think it looks neater that way. For some reason though, Blogger seems to have gone mental and whenever I write a post, I have to spend ages battling with Blogger to make it look nice and neat. Why are you adding unnecessarily massive spaces between lines, Blogger? Can you just stop please? Has anyone else been having this problem? And how do I make it stop?!

Continuing with my aim to keep sharing the love through the mystical world of the blogosphere, here's five ladies whose work I've been enjoying of late;

Couture & Crumpets

ghostparties

being little

Writer Extraordinaire!

Sophie Isobel

moving fast and bright as a firefly

There was a time in my life, say between the ages of about 4 and 13 ahem 9, when cartoons were pretty much the only things that mattered to me. The Care Bears, My Little Pony, a lesser known cartoon called Maxi's World about a teenager with her own chat show, they were what I lived for. Saturday mornings were a time for scarily bright colours, ridiculous theme songs and fighting with my little sister over the remote control.

Bearing this in mind (pardon the pun), I couldn't help but get a bit excited when Bargainista Fashionista blogged about these Care Bear tees from Uniqlo;

I hardly ever wear t-shirts, but I can never resist a bit of 90s nostalgia and at just £7.99 each, these are too cute to miss out on. There's 10 designs in all and each one comes in two different colour options. The Tender Heart one at the top of this post is my favourite - I had a teddy of Tender Heart when I was little, he was wonderful.

Uniqlo is a brand I pretty much never bother with, but after investigating the Care Bears tees, I had a little browse around the rest of the site and I'm now really liking it. It's a shame there only seems to be stores in the London area; Uniqlo, listen up, THE PEOPLE OF LIVERPOOL WOULD LOVE YOU!

For some annoying reason, all of the Care Bears videos on Youtube have had embedding disabled - grrrr! However, if you click on the image above, it'll take you to a video of the theme song, which is brilliant and features the wonderfully optimistic lyric - "if you can dream, just send a wish out in the dark" - making it worth a listen, even if you're not familiar with the little balls of fluff.

"How can you be so mean to me when I only managed to line one eye?"

When it comes to putting the days of the week in order according to popularity (because we all do that, right?), Monday comes right at the bottom of the scale, somewhere between traffic wardens and Kanye West.

Sorry Monday, that's just the way it is.

I call this picture "The Happy Days?" - note how one of the days looks vaguely psychotic. That's Wednesday, obviously.

However, at the moment, Monday, no matter how dismal it may seem, is always perked up, when it suddenly dawns on me that there's a new episode of True Blood out. Joy joy joy!

The main reason why a Monday evening viewing of True Blood is just so darn marvellous?

Jason Stackhouse, aka Ryan Kwanten, aka Vinnie from Home & Away!

Forget about the cold, pale undead; for me, this show is all about Jason, his adorable accent, his tanned arms and his lovely confused face. In fact, I'm going to go and watch the newest episode right now, swoon swoony swoon...

[Image of Jason from truebloodguide.com, stick man drawing by yours truly. And believe me, it took A LOT longer than you'd think.]

what a saga

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week - since the UK gets about 3 1/2 days of sunshine a year, I had to make the most of it by spending as much time outside as possible. And as much as I like the idea of blogging al fresco, I can never see anything on the laptop screen when the sun's all bright and lovely, so it's just a no-go.

Anyway, I promise regular blogging will recommence very soon. I've got so much to talk about!

I'm actually posting this from work; THAT'S how committed I am to this here blog. (and how unwilling I am to do work right now...)

I was watching Twilight last night and just wanted to re-assert my stance on Edward Cullen not being all that and a bag of chips. Now I do think that Robert Pattinson in real life is actually quite handsome, but the way he pansies about in Twilight with his anaemic face and constant expression of being on the verge of vomiting does nothing for me whatsoever. There, I've said it. Now, according to die-hard fans (that's serious fans of Twilight, not fans of the Bruce Willis movie, Die Hard...) I need to read the books in order to fully understand how great he is. So maybe I'll read them, just to give the poor bloke another chance. But until then, I leave you with this image;

Wendell from The Simpsons & Edward Cullen - same pale skin, same silly hair, same queasy- looking face - you heard it here first, folks; they're clearly the same person.

FIERCE!

Cycle 14 of America's Next Top Model is well underway (seriously, FOURTEEN! And they've started casting for Cycle 15. It only started in 2003 and there's been 14 seasons! How does Tyra have time to do anything else?!) and all I can say is

I. LOVE. RAINA.

If more people had eyebrows like this, the world would be a better place.

( Images from CWTV.com)

I love you, I do

So Valentine's Day is just over a day away and while couples across the globe will no doubt be getting all gross and romantic and exchanging gifts covered in hearts/shaped like hearts/made out of their own hearts (eeeew, hopefully not the last one...) my friend 'Sheniqua' and I will be taking our hot, single selves to the cinema to see, what else, Valentine's Day. Now this is probably a bad idea as there's nothing like a good old fashioned rom-com full of beautiful, shiny people to remind you just how sad and alone you are. And being sad and alone on the one day of the year when it seems NOBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD is sad and alone, is really very sad indeed. Thank goodness I've got Sheniqua.

Anyway, while I may be sad and alone, I still have eyes, which is always a good thing, as you need eyes for looking at stuff. And you know what's really good to look at? Hot men, that's what. So without further adieu, I give you my Top 5 Fictional Valentines. Ta da!!! (I chose fictional characters, because more often than not I tend to have a crush on the character rather than the actor themselves. Plus, a fictional character is never going to disappoint you).

Number 5 - The Lovable Rogue

Sawyer, Lost (aka Josh Holloway)

The return of Lost to our TV screens is exciting, yet frustrating. I'm probably one of the few people that has actually stuck with it all the way from the beginning, because quite frankly, after about halfway through season 2, it became fairly clear that the writers were just making it up as they went along. But goddamnit, I've invested too much time into watching this show and I have to know how it's going to end. I have to. Sadly, we're now at season 6 and I feel no closer to knowing what the bejeesus is going on, in fact, after watching the first two new episodes, I'm even more confused than ever before. I can only assume that some kittens found their way into the basket of metaphorical Lost thread and had a good old tangly kitten time. Fortunately, there is always Sawyer, who is probably just as confused as us, but is so darn sexy it doesn't even matter. Nothing matters. Nothing at all. Only him. And the way he always calls Kate 'Freckles'. I have freckles, Sawyer, lots of them. Just say the word.

Number 4 - The One Who's Too Beautiful To Be A Real Human

Nate Archibald, Gossip Girl (aka Chace Crawford)

The thing about Gossip Girl is that everyone in it is stupidly pretty. Even the occasional tramp that's accidentally wandered into the background is still about ten times more beautiful than any of the normal folk sitting at home watching the show, going "look there's a tramp standing in the background! Wow. That's one attractive hobo". So I quite often find myself fancying every person in it. For a long time, it was all about Chuck, with his brooding and arrogance and smooth, smooth voice, but recently, he's gotten a bit boring, and he's really quite short. (Fickle? Me?!) And you see, Nate is so beautiful it's like he's been sculpted out of some kind of really delicious substance. Like the creamy icing you get on a Costco sheet cake. And I really like Costco cake. Plus, in the latest episode, he totally came out as the hero. Go Nate!

Number 3 - The Bad Influence

Daniel Desario, Freaks and Geeks (aka James Franco)

Just before Christmas, I discovered Freaks and Geeks; a show set in the 80s which came out in 1999 and only lasted a season but is quite literally one of the most brilliant teen drama/comedies to have ever existed. I don't understand why it got cancelled, because it was wonderful. James Franco (of Spiderman/Pineapple Express/Milk fame) played Daniel Desario, the stupidly pretty (and pretty stupid) stoner who tempted Lindsay (Linda Cardellini) over to the dark side of the 'freaks' aka the kids at school that your parents really didn't want you to hang around with. There's not much to say about this one; he's just very, very cute. Even though he frequently looked as though he was in desperate need of a good wash.

Number 2 - The Brilliantly Hilarious One

Cappie, Greek (aka Scott Michael Foster)

If there's one thing I would change about uni, it would be introducing the 'Greek system' to the UK. Seriously, it just looks like so much fun! If I could go and join a sorority right now, I would. And I'm not even at uni anymore. What makes Greek so brilliant is the man himself, Cappie. When you first watch the show, you don't even really pay him much attention, but then suddenly, without realising it, you're in love with him. Really though. In love. He's the epitome of the guy that everyone fancies and you don't immediately understand why, but then you have a conversation with him and it all becomes clear. He's awesome.

Number 1 - My Vampire Valentine

Damon Salvatore, The Vampire Diaries (aka Ian Somerhaulder)

As far as I'm concerned, 'hot' and 'vampire' have been as synonymous as "Costco cake" and "delicious" since the dawn of time; ever since Angel skulked out of the shadows in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it was pretty clear that there was something about the bloodsucking undead that was actually very appealing. But over the past couple of years, vampires have become BIG news, with the Twilight 'saga' leaving a trail of weeping, shaky girls in its wake and True Blood stepping over them all, like its big (filthy) older brother. Well quite frankly, Edward Cullen can piss right off; aside from the fact that he spends about 80 percent of the Twilight movies seemingly fighting the urge to be sick (which is understandable really), it has recently been pointed out that he bares quite a strong resemblance to the Jedwards. If that's not enough to get you swallowing cloves of garlic whole and bathing in holy water, then nothing is. Anyway, there is a much better vampire in town and his name is Damon. The Vampire Diaries is crap, I'll admit it, but as you may have guessed, crap is a not-so-guilty pleasure of mine so I continue to watch it, regardless. The premise of the show is pretty much the same as all the other vampire stuff that's out at the moment; ordinary girl meets handsome vampire, they fall in love, trouble ensues. Except, in The Vampire Diaries, the handsome vampire, Stefan, is actually incredibly boring and things don't get remotely interesting until his brother, Damon, (also a vampire, obviously), rides into town and does some killing. Another stupidly attractive fellow, Ian Somerhaulder is a model-turned actor who played Boone in the first season of Lost, and was killed off in a tragic abandoned-aeroplane-falling-off-cliff-accident (although he made a cameo in the first episode of season 6, yay!) He's now rocking it vamp style as Damon, who combines smouldering good looks with a brilliantly sarcastic wit and a cruel callousness that means he might kill you just for a laugh. Perfect heartthrob material. Every now and then though, we get a very brief glimpse of the 'good' Damon, who's a bit heart-broken and damaged, which makes the character all the more appealing. He's currently the desktop wallpaper on my laptop. Yeah, it's pretty serious.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I think I watch too much TV.

Five colours in her hair

Following on from last week's post about the Chanel Couture show and all the lovely, pale blue streaked hair, I thought I'd post a few more images of technicolour tresses and colourful curls;

"MY HAIR IS BLUE!"

Don't worry, Kate, your hair is like, totally in style right now.

All-over neon pink at Comme des Garconnes Fall RTW 2009 & John Galliano Spring RTW 2010 does coral on blonde

Subtle streaks of blue at Giles Spring RTW 2010 while Proenza Schouler Spring RTW 2010 went for washed-out violet

See? Colourful hair is everywhere!!!

While I'm loving the kind of randomly sprayed effect they had going on at Galliano (seriously, coral and golden blonde looks so good together!), the one that seems to really be carrying over from the catwalk shows is the Proenza Schouler-esque 'my-at-home-hair-dye-kit-went-wrong'; I've seen so many street-style photos of girls sporting faded colourful streaks. To get that affect you would definitely have to use dye; I don't think a coloured spray or gel would do the trick because it'd add a bit too much texture to the hair and it's still supposed to look quite natural (well, as natural as purple hair can look...) Like I said in my last post, I'm not willing to dye my hair, but I'm still intrigued by this look. Definitely need to take a trip to Boots and to see what kind of temporary hair colourants are available. I'll keep you posted!

Now a lot of folks are putting the popularity of this colourful hair malarkey down to one Lady in particular;

"Who me? Nah, I'm to busy bluffin' with my muffin to worry about starting hair trends"

However, I noticed a couple of other famous faces who were sporting crazy coloured hair long before Lady Gaga was on the scene (can you even remember a time before Lady Gaga was on the scene? No, me neither. How different life must have been back then...)

Like an 80s version of Hannah Montana, Jerrica Benton had the good fortune of being rendered completely unrecognisable when wearing the pink wig of her alter-ego, Jem. Along with her pals, the Holograms, Jem sang songs, battled the Misfits ("We are the Misfits, our songs are better, we are the Misfits, the Misfits and we're gonna get her!"), ran the Starlight Foundation for Girls and, most importantly, rocked some seriously big, colourful hair. Apart from Kimber, who was allergic to hair dye so was forced to remain a ginger forever. She later shaved all of her hair off and forged a fairly successful career as a Sinead O'Connor tribute act. That last bit is all just speculation, but I'm pretty sure it's based on some truth.

Oh Frenchie, when Vi from the diner told you that your hair looked like an Easter Egg, you pretended it was caused by "a little accident in tinting class", but we all know the truth - you were way ahead of your time with regards to hair colouring and wanted a change from the backcombed curls and bouncy ponytails of the 50s. Ok, the fumes from all that peroxide may have played some part in the demented "Beauty School Dropout" hallucination involving Frankie Avalon and a whole load of tin foil, but still, you were a pioneer, Frenchie, and for that, we thank you.