only fools on horses

And maybe only fools dye their hair at home!!
Today wasn't too hot, was fairly nice, bit of a breeze and even a wee shower of rain. Went to a little cafe today, had a coffee, and decided to dye my hair. Trying to grow it out is such an effort so needed a change. I know that blogs that talk about this sort of trivial stuff are boring but will just show you some photos of the changes. Plus, saw some police men on horses today. Why still on horses? Who do they catch? People breaking the speeding limit? Looks cool but I do wonder about the usefulness. Am starting to think about jobs more seriously, so my interesting holiday posts might slow down a bit. Still a bit of time for great fun though! Miss everyone heaps, and the winner of the question of who played Guy Warner was answered by Andre Hansen, who will recieve a mystery souvenir. He correctly told me that it was Craig Parker, and he also played an elf in one of the Lord of the Ring movies. Congrats!!!!!

From this

to this

How can this possibly be the same girl? I am now pretty officially a red head. Don't know how long it will last, it looks better in real life than on camera. But change is as good as a holiday!

I met the ferret man

HELLO! how is everyone? things here are good, this weekend hasn't been as scorchingly hot. Yesterday Crystal, Katie and I went bridesmaid dress shopping. We tried on about 11 dresses, it was lots of fun. Haven't chosen yet, when Kirstie comes we will decide I think. Last night I was invited to Clint Sullivan's birthday party. I had some funny drinks: pimms, cosmopolitan, champagne cocktail and a strawberry daquiri. It was fun but I was again the crazy person there, wearing some of the decorations as a head band. I'm just a little unbalanced!!!!!!!!
In town when dress shopping saw this guy with a ferret. He had a little red leash on it. He said he has 12 ferrets. I wish that when I took his photo he smiled, had missing teeth and he was classic. I especially liked the camo pants.

ABOVE: I know it's not PC, but this teeshirt just seemed to be funny.

LEFT: the ferret man

RIGHT: me being a mental with this guy at the party. I bet me acting like this is no surprise!

the hot underbelly of London

Hold on tight to them there drink bottles lads!

put them in your bags or pocket them quick

there's a group of unwholesome cads

coming this way, looking for a drink bottle to nick!

Hold on to your water dear sweet lass!

It's hard to come by and o so rare

everyone so thirsty and wielding a cutlass

to cut the bottle from you without a care.

Hold your bottle close, kids,

don't share, and don't let it go

there's bad men who've flipped their lids

they'll do anything for a drink, that's all I know.

Miami Vice & London Virtue?

So today was to be the big day to finally go to this damn Sam Shepard play. Bought my ticket everything. Then it gets cancelled, due to power cuts in the city. There's a curse on this play and me. Will have to go next week.
Where I bought the ticket was where yesterday I found those handprints. Turns out I'm a blind idiot because there were heaps of them not just those 3. Meryl Streep, Jim Carrey, Jeremy Irons, Sigourney Weaver, etc etc. This is the place where they hold the premieres of films.


Today they were setting up for the european premiere of Michael Mann's Miami Vice, the big screen version of the iconic 80's tv show. I thought about staying on once the play was canned to try and catch a glimpse of the stars, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell but there were so many people already and I'm not that desperate to see celebrities. Besides, yesterday I saw an ex-Shortland Street star so I'm not complaining. He was on it before I used to watch it, played the brother of Dr Chris Warner, I think he was called Guy in the show? First person to tell me his real name wins something.


So instead I had another coffee at Flat White, and did a little walking, which unwittingly led me to Carnaby Street, which was a pretty neat little shopping and bar street. I liked it.








I also went to the National Portrait Gallery. I find portraiture very interesting. and perhaps one of my favourite subjects in art. They had an exhibition of Angus McBean's photographic portraits there, and this was great to see, mainly comparatively as just before I left Chch I saw Cecil Beaton's portraits and these two were exact contemporaries. McBean's pictures looked older, the poses, the clothes, the people. Strange. He used double exposure a lot, so technically they were very clever and they were interesting in terms of the influence of surrealism on his work. I have never seen this sort of work done in photography before. On the whole though I think I preferred Cecil Beaton. There was a portrait of McBean in Chch in Beaton's work and there was a portrait of Beaton today in McBeans collection. Circle of life.
They also had the entries to the BP Portrait competition on display. These were awesome. I think most people know I like to boast about having been a portrait model, and these classes I went to taught me a lot about the technical and aesthetic aspects of portraiture that make it so unusually appealing. I liked some and hated others. Worth checking out though. Very cool. I wish that one of the paintings of me was in there, I would've been stoking.













Was 37degs C today! Cooking! We have been watching Big Brother UK it's funny they have a guy on it who has Tourettes.

Below: I've seen Ashton Place, Ashton Grove and Ashton Funeral Services, but haven't taken photos of any. Then today, when I saw this, I realised I've been fooling myself - as has been declared (at the Bai Yok I believe) that "His name is ART!"

Jude's hands and Johnny's tee shirt

Today I partook in a bit of retail therapy!! Thought I should do that, considering I quite enjoy it. I went back to Topshop. It was hot in there, and even after trying on a skirt that made me look like a tartan jellybaby I wasn't put off and continued looking. I didn't try any more skirts, I almost traumatised myself with the first try-on. I ended up purchasing a few things including this rocking tee:

I didn't realise that when I put this tee shirt on I look suspiciously like a boy.

And when wandering around, I found some handprints not unlike outside the Chinese thing in Hollywood, except these were just beside a fence and no one cared and there were only three, but I uphold my opinion that it was like the Hollywood ones.

Picnic in the park

Today I was invited by Isabel to a picnic at a park in north london with her friends. It was a great afternoon, some nice food, and meeting some new people. Of course, catching up with Diesel/Nathan Wolfe made it even better! Ole Diesel came up for the day and made it to have a wee picnic too. It was cool fun, and nearly spent as much time at the picnic as I did getting there and back! Haha!





And alalalalalalalala to Willy, for his miracle,
and to Sharty and Chewy for helping create
the funniest comment dialogue ever.
Please keep it up, cracks me up.



And also took the first of the requested photos for Cletus: two guys playing football in the park without their tops on, just funny.

What's a mook?

Shopping yesterday in Top Shop, that shop is the size of Midhurst. Full of girls. Crazy. Bought two tees in the Mooks shop, just to encourage people to ask me that inevitable question that is the title of this post. Went to the kiwi cafe too called Flat White, it was the best cafe I've been to here in ye olde London town. Today done nothing. that's fine. Just had my first critical comment given to me in person about my blog - that it's boring. O well. I'll just go have a cry. I hope you like this photo of this weird bear toy that was in the Mooks store, it's wearing a slightly Hannibal Lecture leather face mask. Freaked me out but compelled me to photograph.
O and to reply to Cletus comment - will try to do this, have seen many a fashion faux pas here but it's difficult to photo without them knowing, will take some pics with cell phone then infared them to blog. Maybe slightly bad quality but will sate your desire nonetheless! I thought this was a great idea and will add to the blog immensely.
"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." said the sweet teddy bear.

A bloody history

I've been here just on two weeks, and already veiwed by the public as one of them. Today on the tube, 6 people asked me for directions. The man sitting next to me said, in his funny little accent "you need sign that say Information!!" True, although I probably sent some people the wrong way, hahahahahahahaha!!!
I was going to go to the play, but the plan was thwarted when I realised that there is no matinee on a friday, so I will go to it next Thursday. Instead, I headed to one of London's top tourist attractions: The Tower Of London

Right: Waterloo underground station

O, the violent and gory times had in the tower of London. The moat was filled in during Victoria's reign, I think, due to the Thames no longer doing its job by washing out all the sewerage and it becoming a right stinking mess. Now its just grass, still separating it from the main city. There are 20 towers in all, the biggest and most impressive being the White tower, where the King and his sprogs lived, and the rest being prisons, or housing artillery, or the resident doctor. Each night they still lock the place down, drawbridges up, the two still original portcullis' lowered, and a password used each night for those who wish to move into the Tower after midnight. All very secretive. Aside from the crown jewels, there are a lot of other antique things like armour and cannons to protect.
I arrived just in time (after parting with 15 pounds to get in, unable to get the lady to believe I was under 15 and therefore only play 9.50) to join a tour group.

Left: my tour Yeoman Warder, telling us everything

The tour was a great idea, and was free. The group of people in the tour was maybe too many, but I learned more through him. About the executions of most people up on the Tower Hill not far from the Tower, and the private executions performed on the grass in the middle of the island, like that of Anne Boleyn. Apparently you needed some good contacts to procure yourself a private execution. Her body and that of some others buried beneath the Royal Chapel where dug up some 150 years ago and reburied with a marker. Of all the graves under the chapel only a few bodies were able to be identified - Anne Boleyn being one of them, since she had 6 fingers on her right hand. It was a funny coincidence I learned that today as I'd spent the morning on the train looking for someone with 6 toes. Everyone is wearing sandals, and in the tube you don't really look people in the eye, so I had to find something to do!
Below: some towers
In the Beauchamp Tower, which was just prison rooms, not really in solitary, one could see the graffiti made by these men hundreds of years ago. Tortured and terrified, they scratched messages onto the stones. It was pretty wicked.

I saw the crown jewels too. They were very sparkly, almost fake looking. I wonder if they could be fakes? Surely that would be false advertising. I liked the state trumpets the best. They had blue ribbons tying on a little cloth with the monarchs emblem. The crowns themselves were the most ludicrous, purple velvet with a white fur trim. Maybe I'm being treasonous by not liking the crown jewels! I did like seeing them, there were some awesome gold things, like this massive gold bath that I thought might have been used in christenings, turns out to be what they put their wine or punch in! So much for using the chilli bin, they've got a 24carat tub. The doors to the crown jewels were thick silver, looked like the ones on the safe in Oceans 11. Outside a Beefeater wearing his whole kit kept guard of the building. He must have had a sweat on. His had was huge, and he had to stand still while this annoying american kid yelled at him. There has only ever been one time when the crown jewels have been stolen, and that turned out to be an inside job, the King having organised it to get the insurance. Funny!

Right: the beefeater, in his kit, stands guard over the jewels.

Again about the portcullis - the one under the Bloody Tower (renamed that from something boring after the little Princes I forget their names but one was 12 and the other 10, the eldest was about to have his coronation, but they were murdered in their beds, either suffocated, or daggered to death. Their bodies weren't found until much later when one of the Henry's did some renovations and they were discovered buried beneath one of the staircases) is still the original and weighs 2 and a half tonne. Amazing! The sharp spikes on the bottom look pretty scary! The story of the little princes was sadder than James Scott (the Monmouth guy however you say it) of Jane Grey, just cause they were so little! I guess that Jane Grey was only 17 so that's pretty horrible too.

Left: the bloody tower and the spiky bottoms of the portcullis.

The White tower was in the very centre, and was the control booth, the nucleus of the island. The thickness of the walls is 15 feet at the bottom tapering to 11 feet at the top, and all stands on like 30 feet of concretey foundation. Four turret things on the corners, three square one round (I forget why!) all have a crown, then a weather vane, apparently so that we don't forget that although the royal family no longer reside here, this is still a royal palace. As if anyone could forget! Who else would charge that much for admission and then ask for donations in every room!! Inside this is mainly armour and weaponry from the ages. Pretty cool, rooms full of guns and swords and cannons, some horses even! It seems that each kings horse was modelled and they are all in a line together in there. Very strange! Every staircase in the place was a spiral, and I longed to have a sword fight up and down. How terribly romantic!!
In here there were loads of suits of armour, a couple which stood out and I photographed - Henry VIII because he had a massive metal protector for his crown jewels and Charles I because it was so much smaller than Henry VII (who must've been a fat fella) and looked so much older, made in a different metal I think. Here they are: Henry on the left, Charles right

Something else cool were the ravens. Sleek black birds, reeking of witchcraft, and evilness - used to fulfil some supersition from long ago. Rumour has it that if the ravens fly away, the kingdom will fall. So some law was passed hundreds of years ago decreeing that there always had to be 6 ravens at the White Tower. At the moment there are 8. In the wild, due to their use in witchcraft and other evilness they only live to about 10-12 years old, one at the Tower is now 18 and once they had one live to 44. They didn't fly around, they just hang out behind the fences around the White Tower, sitting on the walls, or on the lights, or on their cage. They were pretty neat.

Above left: two ravens on their cage. Above right: watch out for the black bird!

Left: the White Tower. Above: St John's Chapel in the White Tower, in the Royal Chapel I couldn't take photos

After reading V for Vendetta, Alan Moore's controversial graphic novel, and then seeing it on the plane, it was great to see a big display about it in the White tower, detailing this proto-War on Terrorism plan to blow up the Parliament in 1605. There was information, mini-videos and more to inform people about this. They seem to sensationalise it almost, with big signs and bright colours, which didn't happen anywhere else, other displays were quite sombre and serious. It was interesting, I didn't realise the whole motive behind it, now I do. It was an attempt to bring down the government, kill the King and Queen and reinstate their own people in power in an effort to bring the persecution of Catholics to an end. Protestant England, naughty.

Right: there was a picture of all the conspirators. I zoomed in on Guy (Guido) Fawkes, he's in the middle of this little trio.

Below: the wee rhyme

Left: this is ridiculous, on several fronts. The most important however, is this puts a real obstacle in me marrying Will.

So, years after religious, political and personal prisoners were kept here, and eventually killed, I wandered around, limping a little bit due to my blisters. It was a real eye opener, thanks to the Variah for mentioning I should go. With the Thames rolling by nearby, and the Tower Bridge near by, I found the Tower of London worth the cost and having to see it with heaps of other tourists. From the Spanish wood used in the roof of the Royal Chapel under the orders of Henry VIII so that his first wife Catherine of Aragon could pray underneath the trees of her homeland, to the funny toilets from medieval times, this was a great day!

Below left: prisoner scratchings in Beauchamp Tower. Below Right: it's translation

AND TO FINISH TODAY"S POST......a shot of the royal throne!!!

Monopoly places

Pigeons, pigeons everywhere - thank the lord there's no seagulls!!





Today I thought I'd follow up on my contemporary art visit with some older stuff with a trip to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Saw Nelson's Column, and after the gallery walked around Leciester Square and past all the theatres and movie cinemas. It was really busy, I had an icecream and bagel and sat in this little garden to eat.
The National Gallery has several different wings, all housing time periods. I looked through three of the four collections, I perused the paintings from 1250-1500, paintings from 1500-1600 and paintings 1700-1900. I saw some more art pieces that I studied in art history, so that was cool. It was a pretty impressive place, but I didn't enjoy so much as the Tate Modern.
Tomorrow I am going to go to a play by Sam Shepard, starring Juliette Lewis and NZ's own Martin Henderson, on at the Apollo. Should be good.
It's funny seeing the streets and things from monopoly, like Pall Mall, Trafalgar, Euston. Very deja vu.

Went for a run with Crystal again this afternoon - and I saw my first squirrel! It was very cute.
It was hot again today, but great times. Hope all my readers are happy! Thanks to everyone who has been commenting, it makes my day!!

no uncertainty for this poet

Today was another fantastic day. I know I keep saying that recently but you have to remember last week I was a sniffling, pessismistic mess. The heat is crazy, apparently the temperatures in the tube trains is hitting record highs so I avoided them today, only to find that walking to the Tate Modern from Crystal and Nathan's place takes 2hours. Then I walked around the gallery for 2 hours, walked 20 mins to a bus stop for the 344 that goes to Clapham Junction to then walk another 20-30 minutes to their house. So my short little legs got a good workout. It was worth it though.

TATE MODERN
This was a real treat. What an enormously ugly outside, big brick former power station, that is like a tought shell to house and protect so much delicate beauty within. I hadn't much money on me and I wanted to bus home (not walk again) so I couldn't go into some of the exhibitions. But that didn't matter, because the two I did look at were awesome. I saw the exhibition called Material Gestures, which was all post-war painting and sculpture. This was awesome, including a whole dimly lit room with nine Rothko pieces, the Seagram Murals. His work is transcendental, it was amazing. Grand work that so dense with colour. Very cool. Here I saw some Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Monet, Lee Krasner, the snail by Matisse, Miro, Picasso, the lovely Billiard Table by Georges Braque and loads more.
I also checked out Poetry and Dream. This was nothing short of perfection. Having only a more soft spot for Dada art, surrealism is one of my preferences. Full of great art: the uncertainty of the poet by Giorgio de Chirico, those bananas and the torso almost garishly coloured; another of my personal favourites the metamorphosis of narcissus by Dalí - there were a few of his works there, along with more Miro, Man Ray, Duchamp, Cindy Sherman, Magritte (unfortunately not his great piece "this is not a pipe - ceci n'est pas une pipe" but others that still conveyed his wickedly dry and subtle humour), Tanguy, Bacon, Picabia, Gorky, some more Picasso, and some very different early Pollock that was unlike his "splatter"paintings that everyone knows.

All in all a very satisfying day and worth every labouring step to get there.
No photos were allowed in there, which was disappointing, but rationally reasonable. I did however take photos in the Turbine room, and I was allowed to there I wasn't being sneaky. Down there the exhibition was called Domestic Incidences. They were installation art which I kinda like not massively interested, only if it's real cool and possibly even a bit seditious to the hegemony.

After the Tate I walked along a wee way to have a lookie at the Globe Theatre. It was cool, I didn't go inside you had to take the tour and I had a suspicion it would be expensive. Plus I hope to go in soon and watch some plays.
I walked over the Millennium Bridge, it was written there the bridge was a "ribbon of steel"and indeed it is. It was actually really nice, and gave an awesome view. I think that I was spoiled to cross on such a perfect day - sun, blue sky and a wee breeze flowing down with the Thames.

Tonight we are going to see The Pirates of the Carribean II: Dead mans chest, and if you need to click on that link to know about the movie you must be living under a rock. It's the most successful movie ever, but I really need no excuse to go watch Orlando. Tomorrow is supposed to be the peak of the heat, so I might try to do something as low key as possible, just to enjoy the heat. Hope you aren't getting too sick of the frosts and the like, I try to feel sorry for you when I remember.