ROME

When most kids my age were out drinking white lightning on the corner and popping their cherries in a back alley, I would be sat in my bedroom alone trying to copy drawings and learn the techniques of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and all the other grand masters. So I was never the norm! I’m not now and never probably will be, but I like it that way. I can’t explain or know why art came into my life. I don’t remember anyone being into art in my family when I was growing up or anyone introducing me to it: It was just there. I use to get books from the library on the history art and I would always go back to the pages with the Renaissance. It became an addiction. I got it into my head at the age of ten that I wanted to be the next Da Vinci. I started drawing and painting everywhere. I even started to recreate a Raphael on my bedroom wall when my mum stripped the walls to redecorate only for her to cover it up again with some white rainbow patterned wallpaper from BBQ. I won’t tell you what her reaction was when I said I’d like to recreate the Sistine Chapel ceiling in my bedroom!
So because of this passion of mine I have always wanted to come to Italy as, after all it is the home of the Renaissance, and Rome is the most amazing place to start with the Vatican containing some of the best of these work of arts! We arrived in the afternoon and with not much of the day left after we had sweated our way round half of Rome in the blazing heat trying to find our hostel, we decided to go just to do the Trevi fountain. Me being the movie geek that I am, I have always had this secret desire to wade through the fountain like the seductive Anita Ekberg in La Dolce vita. In reality this is quite hard due to the one billion bloody tourists all crowded around trying to take a photo every two seconds and also there is a policeman that blows a whistle at you even if attempt to put your finger in the water. So all you are left with is throwing a coin in the water and making a wish. Mine was for all the bloody people to piss off and for me to jump into the water. Yes! That's right people! Dreams do not come true!
The Saturday was what I was most excited about: Vatican city! After reaching St Peters square after running the gauntlet of people trying to sell you a crap tour, we queued for ages to get into the Basilica only for Romany Liz to be told that her skirt was too short and me screaming at the guard as he had just let in some Russian tart with a dress that didn’t cover her arse! It went on for 5 minutes this argument! Luckily Liz had some trousers with her and I’m glad as I would never want to miss what we saw. The grandest church I have ever seen, painting after painting that I had spent so many years looking at in books and then finally, I saw it after all these years. It was as I had seen it in all those copies but only better, but at the same time it didn’t seem quite real that I was there seeing it with my own eyes. I sat there and looked up and smiled at all the those familiar faces that I sketched for all those years and knew so well and they smiled back at me like old friends and I can say for that moment in time I was truly happy.
Today we went to the old Roman ruins of which the showcase is the Colosseum. It doesn’t look half as good as it does in Gladiator! I guess that was 1,500 years ago though! We then took a tour of the Roman Forum but didn’t really pay to much attention as we were all to busy staring at our American guide, Stan’s great arse and good set of pecks, which were much more interesting!
Tomorrow we are off to Naples which I’m not to sure about, as I have heard it’s a hell hole! Well I guess you should give everything a chance!


OBSERVATIONS

• I hate tour groups! They should all be shot! Especially the Japanese as they go round like Storm troopers and all wear silly matching caps to show they are all in the same group! Why?

• Romany Liz has taken to putting olive oil on her legs to moisturise them! One word: Pikey!

• I not feeling very attractive here as Italian men do not like a woman to be taller than them and they tell you so! “You pretty but too tall. Can not marry you!” I reply I don’t like short men and they shouldn’t worry themselves! It does mean that most of the male population is out for me!

• Italian women have the most amazing talent of riding a vespa with the biggest heels and shortest mini skirts you have ever seen in your life! You go girls!

WHERE AM I GOING?

Where am I going? Well Italy it seems, backpacking around for a month, with a my mad Romany friend Liz, who I've been traveling with before. God! If its anything like last time she will have us living off fennel and Mangoes! Actually I don't think they have Mangoes in Italy, do they? I hope not! I love mangoes but when she started going out picking them for free in the Cook Islands it was Mango for breakfast, mango for lunch, mango for dinner, mango for supper, mango juice to drink, even frigging mango with vodka! You can have to many mangoes you know. Apart from that Liz is a great laugh and is completely mad so we get on well. Anna, Liz's friend is with us for the first ten days and we have actually never met before. I'm meeting her for the first time at the airport tomorrow, so I hope we get on otherwise that could be a bit shit. Then when we get up to Florence Deb's and Becky B are meeting us. So we will be broke after that as debs doesn't understand the term backpacking or on the cheap. If we left it to her we would be staying in the bloody Hilton and eating at every 5 star restaurant in town. I'm not saying I wouldn't love it but I would be bankrupt which can be a problem! We start in Rome, go to Naples, down south to a little town called Tropea, up to Rome again, then Florence, a week in a villa (actually more like a cottage!) in Tuscany and then finally onto Venice. Bring it on.
Where am I going in life? Haven't got a clue! I've never been so lost in life as I am right now. Maybe I'm having one of those freak outs that people have before they reach 30! I don't know. There are some things I do know. I'm not sad, I'm not bitter, or angry. What I am is disappointed! Constantly! I'm disappointed by work, men and lifestyle, to the point that I don't get excited or expect anything, anymore. Maybe this is the worst thing to feel out of them all. With all the excesses of my life recently I have been trying to find some sort of excitement again but as the great poets Maximo park once said " the path of excess only led to boredom!" I'm not saying I'm going going away to find myself as I hate all that bollocks. No I'm going away to get out of my London routine that has become unhealthy and to be around the girls like old times and have a bloody good adventure. Well I'm taking my laptop with me so, I can keep you up to date with my Italian adventures.

THE MAD HATTER

I love hats. I wear them all the time even if people think I look like some idiot fashion victim in them. I don't really care! I'm a great believer that people should wear hats all the time like they did in the old days. I would do anything to go back in time to the 1920's and 30's just so I could wear those hats.
So at the moment I feel like I have lost my right arm after my favourite hat (My straw Trilby!) got stolen off my head at Standon calling. It wasn't my best hat, as it had a huge hole in it(Some old guy sat on in on a bus in Indian), but, me and and that hat have been on some travels together. It was my lucky travel hat. In fact there have been three of them. That one, one that I gave away to my Volcano guide in Indonesia because I thought he looked like snoop dog in it and another that my friend Peter Frank borrowed for the moustache party to complete his Hercule Poirot outfit, but he got so drunk he can't remember what happened to it!


Anyway I have been looking around desperately for another, but its really hard to find a good hat, you just can't pick any. I have found a few potentials. The first is a Panama from Lock & Co. This company have been around since 1676 and is one of the best hat companies in the world. I've been in the shop a few times for work and its like stepping back in time. Unfortunatley the prices aren't. The Mauritius Panama I want is £118. I have expense taste!

On a more affordable note is Mr h hats from Italy. My housemate Oli has two of their hats and they are great. I think I might try and pick one up in Italy even cheaper. Prices start from £40

OBSERVATIONS

* Don't bother with clubbing, bars or the internet anymore, the new place to find hot guys is Tesco's in Hackney Central on a Tuesday night around 7.00pm. They were everywhere, I didn't know where to look! Note to one's self next time I go: don't look like a total dog again, put some make-up on and wear a very short skirt. Also the Fruit and Veg aisle is where most of them hangout.

THE CASE OF THE STOCKINGS!

One never usually knows, what one wants to wear for a wedding, but I knew there was one item of clothing I was going to wear: stockings! They are only a recent addition to my wardrobe, but now I'm slightly addicted to them. They make you feel so good! You could be wearing a bin bag and looking like shit, but if your wearing stockings underneath you still feel like sex on legs, that's how good they are. Also, they drive men wild! As it was my old school friend, Nicky's wedding back in Warrington, I decided to splash out and buy myself a new pair of Agent Provocateur one's, as my Jonathan Astons had a few ladders in them. I decided in the end to go the full works and get really dressed up by wearing my Stop Staring dress, with side split and red heels for maxium effect! As I walked down stairs feeling in high spirits, my mum and Lil (My nan) greeted me with smiles.
"You look lovely" they beamed.
"Thanks" I said "And do you like the stockings!" As I flashed them, my mum's face dropped!
"Well you can't wear them, you can see them!"
"That's the whole point mum!"
"I like them" Lil, chipped in.
"Well I don't think there very appropriate" Mum snapped backed
"I wear them all the time in London." I retorted!
"Well you might do a lot of things in London, but this isn't London. You know what the men are like here. You'll probably get raped if you go out wearing those!" said mum.
"They remind me of when I was a girl. You know in the war they use to draw them on and.." Lil said before she was interrupted.
"Yes thank you mother, but this is not the war! This is a wedding and these are not appropriate! You'll give all the Grandads a bloody heart attack!" Mum went on.
"OK! I'll sodding take them off then!" I screamed as I stormed up stairs. I felt like I had reverted back to my youth. You know when your told you can't go out looking like that and comments like "Is that a skirt or a belt!" The difference is I'm 29! I guess I should know better, but I realised a few things that night. I sat around watching my old friends, all in couples, all with mortgages, some married and the rest will be soon and I realised I have never grown up. Does it worry me? Sometimes, but that's the way I am and it is the path I have chosen and I wouldn't change any of the decisions I have made in this life, even the bad one's, even wearing stockings, which I will still continue to wear, just not to weddings! The wedding itself was great and it was nice to see and catch up with old friends. Even after all these years we are all still the same girls, just with better hair and dress sense.


DRESS: Stop Staring
SHOES: M&S
BAG: Second Hand
FLOWER: From my Florist Mother's stock
STOCKINGS: Agent Provocateur









OBSERVATIONS
Being back in Warrington I have made lots of observations, most of them being on the in fashions of the town. So this observations is dedicated to "SO IN RIGHT NOW!" in Warrington:

* I'm afraid the trackie bottoms tucked into Rockport look is still a major fashion statement.

* Beehives, but not in the trendy Winehouse, Rockabilly way. Its more like Bet Lynch!

* Orange! Not in clothes but on the skin! It looks like they have been Tangoed! Or maybe more like pork scratching's as some look like they have well over done those sun beds.

* The obese look with some crap tatoos!

* The shell suit still seems to keep going after all these years. Yes I still saw some people wearing them!

Actually I do have some other observations to make!

* My Grandmother who is 76 seems to have a better love life than me. What the hell is going on!

* I realized a few things this weekend. Lets just say they left me feeling in a better place than I have done in a while. I feel quite strong now.

MATERIAL GIRL

So I work in costume for TV and film. I often get asked what is it I exactly do? Mmh! I often ask myself the same question! My full title is costume assistant, which basically means I work on set while filming occurs and take all the shit from all the actors and directors! The hours are long and there is a lot of waiting around sometimes, but what I like is the unpredictability of the job and the odd situations you are put in. These include doing checks on the wing of an airplane at south end on sea airport on actresses who were pretending to sunbathe topless on it as the scene was meant to be Spain, but in reality it was a freezing February day in England! Then other day I was dressing an actor who was impersonating Gordon brown dressed in union jack boxers and socks with suspenders in a pool, surrounded by bikini clad beauties and then there is my favourite one is sewing a strap on to an actor as it had broken, while a big horny Alsatian was licking my legs! These are just a few of the weird scenarios that have happened to me while doing this job and believe me: you can't make this stuff up! I could never do an office job, I would go insane! My job suits my personality and you do get to meet incredible people and see some amazing places that I would never have gone to other wise. The most important thing that I do at work though is I know how to have a lot of fun and so do the people I work with and we try and mess around on set as much as possible. Well what do you expect. We are material girls!

STANDON CALLING

After the disaster that was Bestival (Or mudville as I like to call it!) last year I said I was not going to waste any of my hard earned cash on going to festivals this year. So when my housemates told me about a small boutique festival called Standon Calling in Hertfordshire I was hardly enthusiastic about, but after a little persuasion (It never takes that much with me!) I thought sod it and I'd take my chances with the English summertime. Luckily this time it was not a wash out. In fact it was the best festival I have been to. It maybe small but as we all know its not the size but the quality. It was so nice not having to try and not wet yourself while waiting forever to go to the toilet. It was great to wander off (which I have a tendency to do!) and know that you would find your friends again, but the best bit was getting up close to the bands and really feeling part of it. VV Brown, Paloma Faith, and Friendly Fires were some of the highlights (actually Friendly Fires were a bit crap!). My favourite band though were the Fabulous Penetrators who I've seen before in Catch bar in Hoxton, which was a crazy gig and came away from it with a bruised ankle and nearly their mascot tiger until they caught me and Jade with it! Oophs! Actually they didn't bring the tiger this time because they said that people kept trying to nick it! I drunkenly informed them that, that was me!
What was not so good was getting really drunk on the first night and kissing some guy that looked like a cross between David Essex and a terrorist bomber and ending up with the name FIGHT SNOG due to our feisty exchange. The housemates still keep calling it me and I bloody hate it! To make things worse I realised when sober that I had, had total beer googles when I saw him the next day at the pool (God who was so hairy! Like a bear!) I spent the rest of weekend avoiding him, but he just kept appearing from nowhere, much to amusement of my mates.
Lets get to the most important bit. The festival fashion! Of course I had the loyal Hunter wellies. So I geeked up, in a Where's wally style on the first night and someone stole my lucky hat right off my head but I was too drunk to react. Bastard! Me and that hat have been through a lot together.

Then Saturday was fancy dress day, with the theme being Space!. As mentioned in my previous post I had my supermodel dress which I teamed with a wasp belt which was very Tron like from Topshop and finished it off with silver sequin converse from Primark at the great price of £2 (though I do have the odd guilt trip over child labour!)

The last day I wore my brand new polka dot Dahlia dress which I love so much. Unfortunatley I have realised this is not the best dress to wear in windy conditions, as it blew up and I ended exposing myself to the whole of the festival on a few occassions. At least I was wearing some good knickers!

As for the others Ssam coped very well with her first festival and the her first time in the countryside (This girl has been in England 6 years!). She did have the odd relaspe of wanting CSI and concrete around her, but we will forgive her for that. Though she did say that she will never go into the countryside again!

Alex did very well also, keeping her clothes on for most of the time, apart from the posing in the Christian Dior bather and heels on the jeep and flashing us all, once, much to the horror of the family camping opposite. You see last year she did most of the festival wearing just a bikini and upstaged Jonny Woo during Gay Bingo by streaking across the stage! So all in all, it was the housemates normal behaviour. Bring on Standon again next year.