I just bought a ticket to see Emilie Autumn again in Bristol next January! I’m going alone as Dave doesn’t want to see her again and we don’t have a babysitter, alas. I’m SO excited as I was pregnant with Oscar last time we saw her and I wasn’t really able to dress up. This time, though I am going to be going in full Victorian Whore regalia!

I need to get a ticket to see Lacuna Coil as well and hopefully we will be going to see Lostprophets too!

We went to Exeter yesterday so that Dave could sell his mother’s CD collection at a record fair while I took the boys shopping. It was a long, long day but I think we had a lot of fun. I bought all manner of random things like Flower Fairy melamine plates (I can’t resist children’s dining sets), a talking Waybuloo toy for Oscar, glittery Christmas craft stuff for Felix and all sort of other things.

I finally bought myself some BeneFit High Beam, although I am still not entirely sure how to use it! I am wearing some from a teeny tiny sample that someone on Make Up Alley sent me in all my favourite photographs of myself though so figured that I should probably invest in a bottle!

I also bought some goodies in Lush – some Christmassy bath ballistics, solid Olive Branch and Snow Fairy perfumes, Snow Fairy shower gel and a shimmery glitterbug as I always used to have one on the go in my younger, more carefree days and it really cheered me up to buy one again.

 

We had lunch in Giraffe, which was nice. I had a hot chocolate and the vegetarian brunch and the boys had pizza foccaccia fingers, chips and apple slices, which they mostly seemed to enjoy! I love Giraffe. The one in Exeter is pretty infamous as it was the scene of one of the most inept terrorist bomb attempts of all time when some local nutcase seriously injured himself while attempting to detonate a home made bomb in the loos.

One of my favourite things about this time of year is the gorgeous special Christmas drinks in the coffee chains. I had my first Starbucks Gingerbread Hot Chocolate of the season yesterday, which was simply divine. I can’t drink coffee so ask for the syrup in hot chocolate instead, which I think is probably even nicer! I also bought a bottle of syrup to take home too, forgetting that I had run out of hot chocolate! Can’t wait to have a Dark Cherry Starbucks next time I go in!

I had a Mint Hot Chocolate in Costa later on too, which was also really gorgeous.

All in all it was a really successful day, albeit a sad one in some ways. I really like shopping in Exeter, although the shops are far too small and there is no MAC counter.

Oh yes and Oscar got his first ever pair of shoes! He is thrilled with them.

Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset

I adore those madly over the top full length seventeenth century portraits. This is a particularly fabulous example, depicting the infamous Lady Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset.

Frances was born on 31st May 1590, the daughter of Lord Thomas Howard, later the 1st Earl of Suffolk. As a young girl she was much admired for her enormous beauty and became a great favourite at the court of James I, who may have had a preference for young men but was still keen to surround himself with lovely young women as well. Frances was married at the age of fourteen to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (son of Elizabeth I’s ill fated favourite who was beheaded in 1601) who was a year younger than herself. The young couple were immediately separated to prevent the marriage being consummated and it seems that they took a bit of a dislike to each other as well.

The young Earl of Essex travelled the continent, while his young bride made herself at home at court where she dazzled everyone with her charm and beauty. Amongst her conquests was the handsome and rather stupid Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset who was one of James I’s most adored favourites. James doesn’t appear to have been a jealous lover as he seems to have been quite delighted when Frances and Robert fell in love and gave her his full support when she decided to annul her marriage to Essex and marry Carr instead on the grounds that her marriage had never been consummated.

The process of disengaging herself from her marriage was a difficult one as all of the details of the case were conducted in public and was the focus of much gossip and speculation that could only have hurt her reputation. Not only that but Frances had to undergo a humiliating physical examination to determine if she was still as virginal as she claimed. She was examined by two midwives and ten matrons, who found that she was still a virgin, which was probably a bit of a surprise all round. In fact as Frances had insisted on wearing a veil throughout, it was speculated that the daughter of Sir Thomas Monson had taken her place.

After much drama involving accusations that witchcraft had rendered the Earl of Essex impotent and much meddling by Somerset’s close advisor Thomas Overbury who really didn’t want him to marry Frances, the annulment was granted on 25th September 1613 and Frances married Robert Carr and became Countess of Somerset on Boxing Day that year. However, their happiness was to be short lived as Thomas Overbury, who had been imprisoned at the request of Frances’ family and James I, who loathed him, was found dead on the 15th September, just over a week before the annulment was granted. At first his death was said to be from ‘natural causes’ but then in July 1615 it was discovered that he had been poisoned.

What followed was one of the greatest scandals of the seventeenth century when Frances and her new husband, by now the darlings of James I’s court were speedily implicated in Overbury’s murder and imprisoned in the Tower where they were tried and found guilty of murder. Frances would admit to being involved but Somerset refused to confess, despite angst ridden messages from James I begging him to confess his guilt so that he could pardon him.

The couple were sentenced to death but were pardoned and remained in captivity until 1622.  Frances gave birth to their only child, a daughter, Lady Anne Carr in the Tower of London on 9th December 1615. Lady Anne was to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become known as one of the greatest beauties of Charles I’s court before marrying the Duke of Bedford.

Weird family stuff

I have been quiet again. Mainly because I have been busy working but also because I am trying to make some headway with my French Revolution novel, which is still stuck in October 1789.

I went to Winchester yesterday to visit my grandfather and uncle, which was nice. I came away with a  French Revolution bicentennary mug from 1989, my favourite bear as a small child, the very first Georgette Heyer book that I ever read and photographs of me as a little girl dressed up as Anne Boleyn. All historic in their own way. I must post pictures!

I also found out that my great great grandmother was the sister of the famous Fred Russell, who is known as ‘the father of modern ventriloquists’ and the first to sit the spooky dummy on his knee during his act. Her nephew was the famous theatre impresario and managing director of Associated Television Val Parnell and through him I am related to the guy who played the spontaneously combusting drummer in Spinal Tap and the human conductor of The Muppet Show orchestra. How cool?

The thing is that I am terrified of ventriloquists so it amused me no end to find a photo of my great great uncle Fred Russell and his puppet ‘Coster Joe’.

The thing is that I have always adored the idea of Victorian vaudeville and the music halls and stuff like that so finding out that my great great grandmother was at the heart of a big family who were heavily involved in all of that sort of thing in London is really quite thrilling.

The other interesting thing is that Fred Russell started out as a journalist with ventriloquism as his hobby until 1886 when he decided to work in the music halls on a full time basis, leaving behind his job as editor of the Hackney and Kingsland Gazette. Imagine if he had stayed there for another two years?

Anyway it is nice to know where my decided turn for melodrama, the gothic and heavy make up comes from!

Can’t quite believe that I am the great great neice of a music hall ventriloquist though! Those things scare the hell out of me!

On this day in history…

Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Hapsburg-Lothringen, fifteenth child and youngest daughter of the Empress Maria Teresa was born in the Hofburg Palace, Vienna on the 2nd November 1755.

I think that pretty much everyone has worked out by now that I am totally obsessed with Marie Antoinette. I think that it has always been this way as I really can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in her and her life. One of my earliest memories is of wandering around my grandmother’s rose garden aged four in a long white nightdress with a straw hat on my head and a basket over my arm, gathering the heads of flowers and singing to myself as I ‘played Marie Antoinette’.

I was a weird child. I also liked to dress up as Anne Boleyn and recreate her final walk down from her cell to the scaffold. Who doesn’t?

Happy birthday Marie Antoinette.

We just bought one of these (Fisher Price Stroll Along Walker and First Baby) for the boys as Felix has been wanting a pushchair and baby doll for a while and Oscar loves to push things around.

They both love it but are currently rowing about who gets to push the baby (who is apparently named ‘Boy’ like a rakish old gent in a Nancy Mitford novel or horrid Eton educated bully in a Evelyn Waugh book) around the sitting room. It’s very sweet.

Mesh – A Perfect Solution

The new Mesh album ‘A Perfect Solution’ came out yesterday and of course I hastened straight to iTunes to buy myself a copy! I have only managed to listen to it a couple of times since then and so it hasn’t had a chance to grown on me properly yet. I do really, really like it though, even if it is much darker than their last few albums. This isn’t a BAD thing, I hasten to say, just different.

Anyway, let’s have a quick listen.

‘If We Stay Here’ is again what I would consider to be classic Mesh with a really meaty beat and lovely waves of melodic synth. Again, it is dark but there is a haunting sadness here that keeps it uplifting.  The lyrics: ‘If we stay here, we die here, with nothing left to say‘ have been on my mind ever since I first heard it and really resonated with me for some reason.

‘Only Better’ is the single from the album and is just as great after repeated listenings as the first time I heard it. It is heartfelt and beautiful and a worthy first single from an outstanding album.

Moving on to ‘Everything We Made’ which starts at full throttle so you know that you are going to be launched into a proper bounce on the spot Mesh anthem. Ah, it is fabulous. The lyrics seem to be along the same lines as that NIN song ‘Hurt’ i.e ‘I am a BAD PERSON and I am sorry’ but only in the hands of Mesh could a song about a promise breaking, committment phobic wanker turn into a euphoric anthem.

‘I never meant to hurt you so much, I’ve broken everything that I’ve touched.’

‘Is It So Hard’ sounds very sinister when it first starts and is one of the darkest sounding songs on here. Again, it seems to be a song about breaking up with someone but as with most Mesh songs, it is saved from awful maudlin misery guts self pity by the amazing vocals and uplifting, hopeful chorus. Or maybe it is about people who treat people badly without meaning to and kind of feel bad about it? I can’t tell.

‘Hold It Together’ follows hot on the heels and keeps up the good work with a really sinuous beat and a classic sinister Mesh sound. It reminds me of the ‘People Like Me’ era actually, which is no bad thing. Only, just when you think you have got a handle on it, the piano starts and wow, it becomes something else.

‘It’s Gone’ is really different. Wow. It starts off sounding a bit eighties and suddenly all those tedious comparisons with Depeche Mode start to make sense but then there is a little bit of Mesh magic and ah, we are safe with them. It’s a sparse tune and very lyric led with just, comparatively, the barest bones of a synth tune there. It’s quite refreshing actually in the midst of the rest of the album’s bombast and anthemic choruses. This one has a real wistful, sad feel. Are all of Mesh’s songs about break ups? Anyway, this is the one to listen to on repeat in your lonely bedsit while dining on Pot Noodle and Ben & Jerrys and photoshopping your ex out of your Facebook photographs.
‘How Long’ is a return to the usual Mesh sound and is bouncy and ebullient while at the same time faintly melancholy.

‘Who Says’ starts off slow but then kicks into a really pounding, stomping riff. It feels like quite a new direction and the inclusion of a female vocal works brilliantly here. ‘It only feels good when I’m treating you bad.’ This is a fabulous song. If I still went to goth clubs then I suspect that I would be hearing this played on a regular basis as it is very dancefloor friendly. Well, GOTH dancefloor friendly. You wouldn’t expect to hear this at Fabric.

No, there are still no bad songs on this album but let’s keep going.

‘Hope Dreams’ is more synth driven than the first few songs (I have NO idea what I am talking about! I’m an art history graduate not a muso, but you knew that didn’t you?) and seems like the most ‘bleepy’ song so far until the chorus kicks in and, yes, it’s proper arm waving stuff. God, I really want to go and see Mesh play right now. Shame I can’t get to either of their UK gigs really! I will just have to play this loudly, buy a T shirt (which will take a billion years to get to me thanks to the current vagaries of the UK postal service) and wave my phone around with the flashlight app switched on.

‘Every hope, every dream, just comes crashing down on me.’ Yes, this is another great song. Seriously, when was the last time they wrote something bad?

‘Want You’ is a bit of a breather in the midst of all the big tunes and is slow and reflective and a little boring until it suddenly breaks into a great guitar riff. It’s quite a sombre track, which some may find off putting and is probably my least favourite on the album but it is still good.

It’s followed by ‘The Bitter End’ which has a great intro and is real classic Mesh with a chunky beat, bittersweet lyrics and an anthemic chorus. I love its synthy slinkiness and suspect that this will be the one to get people dancing at the upcoming shows. I think that this might be my favourite track on the album actually as it is the one that I have been playing on repeat all day.

Right, you will no doubt be thrilled to learn that we have made it to the last track of the album and not only that but my husband and Hester have just come back and are on hand to supply me with words that mean the same as ‘anthemic’ and ‘euphoric’ but are different. Shame they weren’t here earlier really!

This is the worst review that anyone has ever written ever, which is ironic as it is one of the best albums I have ever heard but in summary, this is another brilliant album from an excellent band. I possibly don’t currently like it as much as I liked ‘We Collide’ but have a feeling that this will change once I have listened to it a few more times. If you already know and like Mesh then you will want to get this anyway and if you are entirely new to them and their music then this is as good a starting point as any.

Edited to add that ‘The Bitter End’ is one of my favourite songs now. I am still playing it on repeat and, hm, I’m considering running away to Barcelona for the gig next February.

Christ Church, Spitalfields

Looming like an uncomfortably angular white wedding cake over the ramshackle stained Victorian buildings that surround it, Christ Church in Spitalfields looks utterly incongruous.

It is hard to describe the unsettling atmosphere that surrounds it produced partially by its location at the very heart of the Ripper murders of 1888 but also by the oddly unbalanced appearance when you peer up at it.

Fans of Peter Ackroyd will of course remember it from his masterpiece (in my opinion) Hawksmoor, in which history is subverted and a modern day policeman Nicholas Hawksmoor is on the trail of a series of murders with links to the works of the seventeent century architect Nicholas Dyer,who is a fictional reworking of the real architect of Christ Church, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Still with me? It’s as confusing as hell but well worth a read.

Hawksmoor is the architect of six London churches, dubbed by me ‘The Creepy Churches’ because they all share the same overly orderly approach to geometric design and the same brooding sense of menace. They were commissioned in 1711 as part of the Act of Parliament ‘Commission for Building Fifty New Churches’, of which only twelve churches in total were ever fully realised.

The Commission was quite forward thinking – it was an attempt to replace the churches lost in the Great Fire and also to provide a spiritual focus for the several new communities that were springing up around the historic city as it expanded and consumed the surrounding villages and towns. Christ Church was designed to provide a church for the huge Huguenot (French protestants that had been hounded out of their own country) community that had settled in the Whitechapel area and made it a centre for the production of the Spitalfields Silk so beloved on the continent.

Christ Church was built between 1714 and 1724 and its startling plainess and austerity must have come as a huge cultural shock to a generation who were more used to the Baroque excesses that were so prevalent in contemporary architecture, although it also marks a turning point in taste as the Baroque gave way to the Palladian influenced style of buildings like Marble Hill House in Twickenham.

From Hell fans will of course recognise it as the church that looms forbidding and temple like over the churning, debauched streets of 1888 Whitechapel with the Ten Bells next door, tramps and whores sleeping in the once orderly churchyard and a warren of foul alleyways running around it.

Nowadays, it has had the benefit of a sympathetic restoration programme and is now open again for worship and as a venue for hire. The Ten Bells is still next door but is now an overly noisy, faintly bohemian East End boozer with a bad reputation, just like so many others. The alleyways are no longer frightening but instead are a useful means of getting to the curry heaven that is Brick Lane that lies behind.

Ah, I miss Whitechapel. My family come from the East End of London – my great grandfather was a manager at Truman’s on Brick Lane and took part in the Battle of Cable Street in October 1936 and my grandmother was always very proud of the fact that she and the rest of her family had been born within the all important range of the Bow bells (like most East End families we undoubtedly come from hot headed immigrant stock, either Irish or Italian) and I feel like on many levels it is my spiritual home. Maybe one day I will get to move back again but in the meantime I can plan more gin fuelled, cackling nights out on Commercial Street.

perfume

I have adored perfume ever since I was a little girl and had my first sly sneaky spray of my grandmother’s Chanel No 5. She clearly had a taste for the big, brash scents of the 80s as her collection also included Ysatis, Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass, L’Air du Temps, Giorgio Beverly Hills (just a whiff of this takes me back to a trip to Paris in July 1989) and, her favourite, Yves St Laurent Paris.

My own favourite when I was growing up was not, mercifully, Christian Dior’s Poison (unlike most of the girls at my school) but, perhaps more awfully, Guerlain’s Samsara of which I got through dozens of bottles. Yves St Laurent’s Champagne (now called Yvresse thanks to a law suit) was also a brief favourite as was Chanel’s Cristalle. I had expensive tastes and the nose of a middle aged, power suited female lawyer.

Through the years I have jumped from one favourite to the next, generally following the prevalent trend but with a bad taste edge that was all my own. At university I still favoured Cristalle but then veered like so many others towards the world of wrong that is Thierry Mugler’s Angel (I still have my refillable bottle but am hesitating over actually getting some more – can I still carry it off?) before plumping for Viv Westwood’s Boudoir, which is crassly over the top, luscious and ridiculous all at once. I wore it on a trip to Paris with my ex fiancé and now the smell of it brings him to mind, which is more than enough reason to avoid it forever more.

Nowadays my taste is more sedate but unfortunately due to my husband recoiling in disgust from any smell more pungent than the lightest dash of vanilla essence behind my ears (according to my grandmother, all the housewives in the post war years would do this in lieu of proper, meaning French, perfumes) and also my much loved Chanel Coco Mademoiselle suddenly bringing on migraines, I stopped wearing most perfumes a couple of years ago except for occasional dashes of my much loved and now sadly dwindling BPAL Eden.

Well, no more! I still buy perfume guides then devour them from cover to cover (is that weird?), lurk around the perfume department in Harvey Nichols like a long lost relative who has come uninvited to the family reunion and then, miserably, apply the testers in a state of fear and shame before scuttling away in a panic lest I actually give in and buy something scary like Vera Wang Princess, which I am always drawn to despite myself. I spent rather too much time hanging around Sephora on my last trip to Paris, spraying myself with Princess and sniffing myself rapturously.

This has to stop. My once amazing perfume collection has dwindled to some Lush solid perfumes, a couple of BPAL bottles, Guerlain Insolence, Guerlain My Insolence and a few precious drops of Diptyque Philosykos, which is my all time favourite perfume OF ALL TIME.

Ah Philosykos. Just one sweet, coconutty, figgy whiff, redolent of summer breezes and happy days is enough to make me feel content. Dave, finding it inoffensive, has agreed to buy me a bottle for Christmas, which as it is rather pricey leaves me free to work on acquiring the rest of my Perfume Wish List over the coming year.

Marc Jacobs Daisy.

Donna Karan Be Delicious.

Giorgio Armani Code.

L’Artisan Perfumeur Premier Figuier.

Clarins Par Amour.

Agent Provocateur.

Viktor and Rolf Flowerbomb.

Gucci Flora.

Dolce & Gabbana Rose The One.

And now I am wondering what other lovely perfumes would work for me. Rock and Rose perhaps or Black XS or maybe Paul Smith Rose? Any suggestions?

We went to Cheltenham yesterday so that the boys could see Lazy Town Live. We have been to CBeebies Live a couple of times with Felix so had a fair idea of what to expect but Lazy Town was a bit different and was, I suppose, like a kind of neon coloured cyber opera for small children. Alright, let’s not go there.

It was fun though. Felix got very into it and even Oscar was shrieking and laughing and bouncing up and down and clapping his hands by the end so I consider it a massive success.

Oscar’s godmother stayed here last night en route to Geneva, which was nice. I made moussaka for the first time ever and, I’m going to be honest here, it wasn’t a great success. Dave complained that it was too minty, I complained about the aubergine and Hester was too polite to complain about anything. I’m making Quorn meatballs with spaghetti and vegetarian parmesan tonight, which should be better.

I love the run up to Halloween more than I actually like the event itself. One of this year’s best treats is the New Covent Garden Food Co’s Witches Brew pumpkin and tomato soup, which is extra good as some of the proceeds go to the Bat Conservation Trust. I tried it the other day, with some trepidation as I am not used to actually eating pumpkin and was surprised to find that actually it is really delicious! Felix was less keen but that’s okay as Oscar was more than happy to eat his as well as his own.

I have been reading this lately when I get a break from child wrangling, work and writing. Now, the concept of a cookery book written by a super model may be an unusual one and also perhaps rather bizarre but this one actually works and is not just a rather cosy, homely collection of recipes but also a charming memoir of Miss Dahl’s life and mis/adventures in the modelling world. I am really enjoying it and would recommend that anyone else who is inclined to approach with caution, gives it a chance too.

The boys are doing well. Oscar can say ‘mum-mum’ and ‘heyah’ as well as being able to run, climb, clap and kiss. He is rather into In The Night Garden right now. Felix is becomingly increasingly amazing at art and, it would appear, knows all the words to the Malcolm In The Middle theme song. Dave took him to see Up this week, which he really liked although Dave was rather less enthusiastic.