Tag: London

Friday Links

“There aren’t enough days in the weekend.”
~Rod Schmidt

Another day, another Friday, another batch of internet linkage. I’ve intentionally kept most of it light and interesting since the news this week has been particularly bad and disheartening, from Ferguson to ISIS. This weekend I’m doing some volunteering, some writing, and hopefully a good bit of wandering since work (and the weather) have conspired to keep us mostly inside and I’m likely to go crazy without more exercise. Share anything worth knowing in the comments and let me know what you’re getting up to yourselves.

IMG_1678

Last week I shared the story of a guy who liked everything that appeared on his Facebook feed. This week, the tale of someone who did the opposite.

Journalism, behind the scenes.

This editor at The Atlantic defends the email, which I did not entire realize was apparently under attack.

Iran has a problem with sex, namely that people aren’t having the “right” kind or amount. The most chilling aspect of this article to me is the recently passed bill to ban and limit certain aspects of contraception.

And speaking of, a journalist sent out a tweet about tampons for a story she was covering and the backlash was… pretty much everything that is wrong with the internet rolled into one.

A Downton Abbey blooper to whet your appetite for the next series.

A pair of roommates decided to spend a year not buying anything. This intrigues me because both Jeff and I work extremely hard but, like many of our generation, have student debt that really impacts our finances. Plus we live in an amazing but expensive city. We constantly look for ways to budget to save even a tiny bit because even with strict family rules, most of the money we make is spoken for with little left over to go into savings. (Also, one of our laptops just died and the other is on the brink. Ugh.)

J. Crew launched fragrances this week. I’m grateful that poverty keeps me from impulse purchases because I’d be all over this otherwise.

Interesting piece on a major flaw in the farm-to-table movement, as perceived by a chef dedicated to the cause. Increasingly obvious to me is that in America especially, we’ve restricted our diet to foods that are unsustainable in and of themselves. We need to branch out and eat more widely.

A 19th century guide to avoiding London pickpockets. Still relevant.

Rise up, citizens!

I loved this New Yorker piece on reading to impress yourself. Part of the reason I came up with the reading goals in my 101 in 1001 list was because even though I got an excellent education in many ways, it was very uneven in others. The two high schools I attended were wildly different and the second had some major failings (though I met, and am still in contact with, one of the best and most important teachers of my life from that school). As a result there are a bunch of important, classic novels I’ve never read. Things like my list and my Goodreads help me check them off for no other reason than I want to.

Like I said, it’s been a rough week the world over, so here’s what bestie Xarissa called, “a bright spot” in the dimness, a 4 year old reviews one of the most reviewed restaurants in the world.

 

Meeting the Queen…’s Residence

“Be thine own palace, or the world’s thy jail.”
― John Donne

Jeff and I dedicate a substantial amount of our time off to going on “wanders” (some people verb nouns, we noun verbs) across the city. Quite often we’ll just pick an area to explore and set off down any street that looks interesting. We wend our way through tourist areas, obscure roads, hidden squares, and vast parks. It’s a lot of fun, but occasionally one of us is surprised.

A couple of weekends ago, as we ambled through Westminster, Jeff casually remarked that he had never really seen Buckingham Palace. I stopped short.
“What do you mean? It’s one of the main sites and you’ve lived here for two years now.”
He shrugged, “Just never got around to it.”

We happened to be crossing a wide, ornate lane at the moment and Jeff glanced up the tree lined road.
“What’s up this way?” he asked.
“Buckingham Palace,” I said dryly.
“How handy,” he replied and tugged me towards the residence.

 photo palace1_zps2b275bc1.jpg
Good find, love.

 photo palace2_zps99bc0431.jpg
Nice pad.

 photo palace3_zpse5985e50.jpg
Louis XIV is beyond not impressed.

 photo palace4_zpsb9de26a3.jpg

St. James Park, just next door.

Friday Links

“There is little chance that meteorologists can solve the mysteries of weather until they gain an understanding of the mutual attraction of rain and weekends.”
~Arnot Sheppard

Another big week. We had our friend Lark in town last weekend and through the start of this week, it was delightful to see her! Beyond that I had meetings, copy writing, and work enough to make me glad for the weekend. Although the weather has turned cold and rainy lately and shows no signs of stopping. The notoriously short British summer might have already come and gone, kittens!

The links this week are quick and dirty, please add anything you’ve read or seen worth sharing in the comments and let me know what you get up to this weekend!

 photo westminster_zps6b25bc53.jpg

Interesting piece about complaining!

As a military brat, I find this fascinating. Cheese?

I think I could really get up the nose of a future Home Owners Association with one of these gorgeous things!

A world of only Facebook “likes” is a world we don’t want to live in.

They shall remain nameless at present but I have multiple friends with manuscripts being reviewed by publishers and would just like to refer them to these. When I am so lucky as to join them, I shall certainly take inspiration.

Correct, because it is excellent.

Word changes are interesting to me, not just how their usage shifts around over the centuries, but their pronunciation as well. Grammar Girl has a great list of a few such developments.

This gorgeous handbag line was featured in Liberty a while back and I’ve started seeing it pop up elsewhere, so clearly we need to help get the word across the Pond as well.

Brace yourself for our future robot overlords.

It’s Shark Week and the annual controversy is alive and well.

HONY is out of New York this summer…and amazing, important things are happening.

There’s a lot in this piece that resonates with me. I grew up a military brat and worked in a police department for five years, and in that time I do feel I caught a glimpse of this militarized cop mentality which concerned me. In this country, soldiers are not cops and cops are not soldiers, and there is a reason for that.

London Snapshot

“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
― Winston Churchill

Britain’s in the midst of honoring the first year of WWI this year, but this monument is one of my favorite wartime memorials in London. A little vague, still deeply appreciated.

 photo WWII_zps99e860b3.jpg

A handbook was issued to American GIs stationed in Britain during WWII that cautioned them how to behave to British women. It pointed out how most of the women they encountered, whether in uniform or out, had been at war a lot longer than they had and had already sacrificed time, skills, labor, and lives to the cause. They had mobilized to grow food, work in factories, provide medical and military service, run businesses, protect communities, and perform critical work to keep the nation together. As such, the handbook stressed they deserved to be treated respectfully as comrades in arms. So say we all.

Friday Links (Chose the wrong month to go off sugar, Edition)

“What hath night to do with sleep?”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

The links post is a text heavy one this week. Why you ask? Because I’ve spent nearly three days on a massive editing project that turned out to be much more labor intensive than anyone anticipated and was up to four in the morning reconciling drafts. I have digested a lot of text this week (including three books, surprisingly), so must you. It good for us.

This weekend I’m doing some volunteering and some napping and am pretty excited about both. Dinner this evening with Ruth and Teri also promises to be a much needed delight, though I might turn into a pumpkin and plead bed at a shockingly early hour. Here are your links, tell me what you’re up to this weekend in the comments!

2014-07-17 22.01.04

Goodness, are we already doing this? Live in the moment, entertainment industry! (That being said, I’m fairly intrigued by the next Pixar film…and In Heart of the Sea…and Crimson Peak…okay. Guilty.)

In related news, the first promotional images from the film adaptation of Into the Woods are out.

This woman has turned Beyonce songs into dramatic monolog. Required viewing, obviously.

Occasionally, yes, it does happen, someone needs to be rewarded for their online excellence. There’s a site for that.

Hooray, we’re doomed!

Interesting short piece on a Burmese skin/beauty product you’ve never heard of before.

A truly excellent response to the Women Against Feminism tumblr, which I will not link to here. (I initially thought I was reblogging and linking to it on my tumblr, which I use mostly for fun and to track images and stories I think are interesting and beautiful, but I didn’t realize that I had accidentally reblogged it on WordPress. The trial of too many media sites! That happened on Tuesday, and I took the post down, in case you saw it and wondered where it went. I’ve got nothing against reblogging in general, but I’ve never done it here so I thought it best not to start. Plus I want this author to get the clicks and the credit in her own right, because she basically dropped the mic.)

Congratulations. We have advanced to new and surprising levels of narcissism.

Interesting piece from The Atlantic on how we have too many lawyers…and several of them are trying to get out of the profession.

Science!

 

 

I scream, you scream, etc.

“Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.”
― Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love

One of the great tourist-y pleasurable things you can enjoy in London is exploring the famed shopping area in the West End. Bond Street, Regent Street, and Oxford Street have a bunch of high street shops that are plenty interesting, plus the city of Westminster goes to great lengths to make it accessible, especially during the summer, but the ream gems are the remarkable department stores like Liberty and Selfridges. Not only are they noted for stocking all the luxury brands, but many of the great British department stores are great at forming partnerships with brands (some big, some new) for events and launches. This year the European ice cream company Magnum is celebrating 25 years, and apparently this is a Really Big Deal on this side of the Atlantic. I thought the idea of throwing a celebrity-studded bash over ice cream was a bit much myself…but my grinch-like heart softened eventually. Because, ice cream.

Last Sunday, Regent Street closed to traffic (something they’ve done every Sunday in July) and Magnum set up booths by the dozen to give away thousands of free ice cream bars.

 photo magnum1_zps003cd258.jpg

However, Jeff and I didn’t feel like standing in one of these lines. We decided to stand in a much snootier line instead!

 photo magnum2_zpsf9035f38.jpg

 photo magnum3_zps751e31d2.jpg

Selfridges had a super-fancy exhibit for Magnum in their famous Wonder Room, where participants could create their own ice cream bars with super-fancy dipping chocolate and super-fancy toppings. Alas these were not free, but we figured that VIP ice cream would be a fun weekend treat so we sprung for it anyway.
 photo magnum4_zps94a7765a.jpg

The decor was, of course, delightful. Selfridges is famous for their displays, primarily in their windows; I love their emphasis on visual design and engagement. But on to the main event!

 photo magnum5_zpsdd052fa7.jpg

 photo magnum6_zps93d24d67.jpg

 photo magnum7_zps62340528.jpg

Toppings were tossed together in cocktail shakers before being lovingly spread over the hand dipped bars. Jeff and I managed a combination of ice cream, dip, and drizzle that included all the chocolate variations, plus toppings that were just wacky enough to be interestinghazelnuts, brownie bits…and cornflowers!
 photo magnum8_zps4a774454.jpg

 photo magnum9_zps8b29d282.jpg

Too weird for your taste? Trust me, it was delicious.

London Snapshot

“If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

The dearth of posts is unfortunate but necessary, minions. I’m up to my neck in one of the heaviest work load weeks in recent memory. Things are good but busy and I’m quite looking forward to the weekend, since I’m pretty sure I have not left the flat in any substantial way since the last one. A writer’s life for me!

2014-05-11 13.55.28

Today’s snapshot is more of a PSA or plea than anything. Stop the tyranny of lovelocks! They’re collapsing bridges in Paris, it’s only a short time before their dastardly weight crosses the channel. Plus this is a construction site, probably not the best place to document your undying devotion. Just saying.

Daughter Concert

“For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!”
― John Lennon

Confession time, we have not been taking appropriate advantage of London in the summer and we need to rectify this immediately. Working from home obviously contributes to the problem, as does the fact that my clients are several timezones behind me and I often have to be at least partially available during hours that most people spend frolicking. Jeff also has a lot of studying to do for the ever present reality of tests, and weekends are largely devoted to the necessary errand running that we haven’t been able to do during the week.

But it’s summer. In London. We need to be outside absorbing as much Vitamin D as humanely and safely possible because the cold, dark days will arrive much sooner than we all probably realize. To that end, we’ve started making an effort to track down as many outdoor adventures as possible, while varying up the routine a bit.

If I’m a theatre girl, Jeff is the resident music guy. When we were deciding what to do for our anniversary this year (travel being out of the budget for a while to go, alas), I picked the midnight matinee at The Globe and he wanted a concert and found a great one.

Somerset House, on the banks of the Thames, has a long history. The site has been home to a Tudor palace, a residence for members of the Royal family and their entourage, and apparently later a barracks. It was demolished and rebuilt in the neoclassical style and has moved over time to house various arts and learning societies and is a popular venue for performances. Particularly in, hey! Summertime! We first heard about the band Daughter on NPR and Jeff snapped up tickets as soon as he found out they were going to be performing.
 photo daughter1_zps591a5cda.jpg

Not bad, venue.
 photo daughter2_zpsd80ec0de.jpg

Drinks boys circulated the crowd with these signs and easy-to-spot flags that I probably found entirely too funny, but that I clearly had to document.
 photo daughter3_zpsbcd0ddc8.jpg

No makeup and summer allergies, but pretty happy to be here!

The opening act was D.D Dumbo, an Australian artist who builds his songs while you listen (see more here, thanks again to NPR’s music reporting).

 photo daughter4_zps4bac89fa.jpg

A disproportionate amount of my music is tragic or vengeful, the blues feature heavily, so make of that what you will. Daughter makes music that is gorgeously sad and depressing, and the lead singer Elena Tonra has a perfectly haunting voice so she’s right up my street. The band is still learning how to tour and their stage presence could use some work, but the music is the slow, quiet kind that gets its claws into you.

 photo daughter5_zps9af3f39e.jpg

 photo daughter6_zpse60f0459.jpg

Just as pretty in the dark. Hopefully there can be more concerts in our future, as this has only been my third ever. My second, incidentally, was my first date with Jeff, so things are working out pretty well so far.