This week it's denim and as I went to type this, it dawned on me, I don't do denim anymore. I don't do it at all. In fact, thinking about it, I've not done it for years. It has quietly joined a list of things I don't do, like short sleeve t shirts. You just wake up one day and things that seemed perfectly acceptable the day before all of a sudden just seem wrong. They don't fit with how you feel. It's a strange strange thing. But like we always say in The Kingdom - never say never!. Maybe someone will put together a look that will make me want to dip my toe in the denim pool again. Who knows!
I'd just like to say Thanks to everyone who has taken part and extra special thanks to Anna, I've had lots of fun judging your looks.
The lighting in the Royal living room is a right royal disgrace.
Another light fitting has committed suicide and crashed to the floor, smashing into a thousand shards of glass and almost giving me heart attack. So here I am typing beneath a bare bulb. It's just not right, I'm a Queen you know...
So I was thinking maybe a 'book chandelier' from Lucy Norman would be perfect.
They say -
More books are printed every year, read and discarded. Even though many are taken to charity shops, they mostly go unsold and the charities have to pay for the books to be sent to landfill. For example 10,000 books a week from one charity will go to waste. There is currently no infrastructure set up to recycle the paper from books because the paper is low grade and the glue on the spine must be removed. These wasted books are used to create an attractive chandelier.
However at £295 it's not so light on your pocket. I wonder if I could make one out of my old mills and boon stash???
As well as having the most upsetting week possible at work, I have put my back out.*
As a result, I am having trouble even standing up straight. If I hadn't already decided to go as 'poison ivy' to the Optimo Halloween party, I would have gone as a witchy old crone. I have the perfect posture for that , although at the minute I don't think I'll be going anywhere.
When I popped down to see QM and Prince B last night, I was reliably informed that the heat pad on my back was not the way to try to sort it. Apparently I should be putting something cold on it. Prince B recommended a bag of frozen peas. Vegetables!!!! come on B think about it, all I have in my freezer is a loaf and some cornettos, neither of which I think will do the trick.
Maybe what I need is this genius snow rug complete with sled coffee table from the divine Hidden Art Shop
At £645 it's not cheap, but if I thought lying on the snowy rug would help sort my back, I would happily start pawning the crown jewels. *sigh*
Queen Marie
*Oh and in case you wondered how I done my back in? I simply bent over. I freakin' bent over. How lame is that!
As well as being her favourite holiday, it is also her wedding anniversary!
Happy 19th Anniversay to you and Mr PG from The Kingdom
xxx
But this year she is taking it all a step further. A zombie step to be precise.
She is organising The 1st Annual Zombie Walk . Costume is optional but zombie walk is compulsory.
If you are lucky enough to live in Westchester NYC then just zombie walk to her site for details of how to join in. We might not be there in body but we will sure be there in spirit...
I have to share one more video with you today. This is a band Lady Maxine and I were massive fans of. We were discussing them on Sunday and how good their shows always were. Sheep On Drugs. The name alone deserves a post!
This is Track X. Expect me to post more from these guys as I'd totally forgotten just how good they were!
One of my favourite bands of all time has to be Dead Kennedys.
I never got to see them play sadly, and a few years ago Jello Biafra came to Glasgow as part of one of his Spoken Word tours but I couldn't go and sorely regret it.
His spoken word performances are amazing, even though I might not always agree with his commentary. It was Jello who inspired me to write to the Tippor Gore, wife of Al Gore and head of the PMRC, in the 80's to protest against censorship in music. He was targeted by the group for the cover of Frankenchrist which they deemed to be sexually explicit.
The PMRC released a list known as the Filthy Fifteen which was a list of songs they found the content of to be particularly offensive and many of the songs on the list were by bands I was into at the time. They also believed that heavy metal bands were putting subliminal satanic messages into their records which could be heard if the record was played backwards - suffice to say I ruined many a good bit of vinyl trying to find these mysterious messages!
The PMRC called for warning stickers to be placed on records which were said to contain offensive content. When Metallica released Master of Puppets many copies, one of which I had, had a sticker on it which said "THE ONLY TRACK YOU PROBABLY WON'T WANT TO PLAY IS "DAMAGE, INC."
DUE TO THE MULTIPLE USE OF THE INFAMOUS "F" WORD. OTHERWISE, THERE
AREN'T ANY "SHITS," "FUCKS," "PISSES," "CUNTS," "MOTHERFUCKERS," OR
"COCKSUCKERS" ANYWHERE ON THIS RECORD", as a way of poking fun at the labelling system proposed by the PMRC.
My letter to Tipper Gore may have made zero impact, however, had it not been for Jello Biafra I would not have been quite as politically aware as I was, well as much as a teenager can be of course.
So here's one of my favourite tracks: Too Drunk To Fuck. Fitting for the weekend, non?!
Last night I watched a documentary on BBC4 about The Bright Young People. I have neither read Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, D.J Taylor's Bright Young People nor seen Stephen Fry's Bright Young Things, which is a dreadful foresite on my part since my interest in the 20's and 30's is quite extensive.
The Bright Young People were a set of party going socialites who frequented the jazz clubs of the 20's/30's, dancing, drinking and indulging in excessive hedonism - a generation of people who were fighting against the values and rules of the previous generation who'd become, in their opinion, dull and jaded due to having experienced the horrors of the Great War. They lived this life under the misguided belief they could escape the sobering attitude of their elders.
The Bright Young People would indulge in treasure hunts across London, where they would have to procure items such as the Prime Ministers pipe. The treasure hunts were so renowned that the largest newspaper at the time even the printed clues. They caused outrage among the general public because these young people would race around London in their cars, driving drunk and causing complete mayhem. They would have notorious Bath and Bottle Parties at swimming pools where the invite required you bring a bath towel and bottle of alcohol. It was also these people that began what we would now call the Cult of Celebrity and gave fodder to what was the gossip columns of their day.
The footage shot in the jazz clubs was amazing and the of course the 20's/30's remain one of my favourite style eras.
It was a fascinating insight into generational differences, and the parallels between them and more recent generations who rebelled against their parents' values and way of life can be clearly seen. Ultimately of course they could not escape the effects of the ecomonic climate of the time nor could they sustain their lifestyle without tragedy occurring.
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