This is why I like it cold...

Was walking in the snow today on my way to lunch. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but then again it was snowing and it's never as cold as you think it is when it snows. Being enveloped in a powder of white that you can dust off your scarf, your coat and your hair is definitely one of my favourite all-time memories, the type that sticks when you remember everything that is beautiful about life that comes for free.

There was a moment there as I reached the glass door at my destination that I glanced upwards to look for the handle, and realized that there were snowflakes on my eyelashes. I see now why it's one of the "favourite things".

What About Now?

One of my favourite music videos (link in title):

Daughtry - What About Now?

Shadows fill an empty heart
As love is fading,
From all the things that we are
But are not saying.

Can we see beyond the scars
And make it to the dawn?

Change the colors of the sky.
And open up to
The ways you made me feel alive,
The ways I loved you.

For all the things that never died,
To make it through the night,
Love will find you.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
What about now?

The sun is breaking in your eyes
To start a new day.
This broken heart can still survive
With a touch of your grace.

Shadows fade into the light.
I am by your side,
Where love will find you.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love had never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
What about now?

Now that we're here,
Now that we've come this far,
Just hold on.

There is nothing to fear,
For I am right beside you.
For all my life,I am yours.

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love had never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?

What about now?
What about today?
What if you're making me all that I was meant to be?
What if our love had never went away?
What if it's lost behind words we could never find?
Baby, before it's too late,
Baby, before it's too late,
Baby, before it's too late,
What about now?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

merry christmas!,
originally uploaded by anzyAprico.

It snowed two days ago here in Sammamish and it's beginning to look and feel a lot like Christmas - namely empty offices and empty halls as people work from home to avoid the "snow", massive "get this done before Christmas" fire drills, and the crazy rush of weekend traffic and shoppers beating recession blues and credit crunches to complete Christmas shopping before the deadline next week looms near.

But I like Christmas (generally). Top 10 reasons why I like Christmas:
10) Big(ger than normal) dinners
9) Christmas lights in town
8) Pine trees, mistletoe and holly
7) Winter punch and warming drinks (like hot chocolate)
6) It's the one time of the year that red and green go together without fault.
5) Excuses for free firework displays
4) The opportunity to exchange the random presents you've been buying all year.
3) I actually like Christmas puddings and fruit cakes.
2) The concept of being cold but cozy
1) Being able to hum Christmas jingles without anyone looking at you too oddly

This year's Christmas song award goes to "Winter Wonderland", as the most frequently played song in both the UK and the US.

Sleigh bells ring... are you listening?
In the lane snow is glistening
A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight
Walking in the winter wonderland

Gone away is the bluebird
Here to stay is a new bird
He sings a love song as we go along
Walking in the winter wonderland

In the meadow we can build a snowman
And pretend that he is Parson Brown (I never knew this lyric!)
He'll say "Are you married?"
We'll say "No, man, but you can do the job while you're in town"

Later on, we'll conspire
As we dream by the fire
To face unafraid the plans that we've made
Walking in the winter wonderland

Language of the Kiss

If English is my heritage, then this is my birthright. In true 20/20 hindsight, the choices that we make make our choices. Did you know that then?

Laughter like a language I once spoke with ease
But I'm made mute by the virtue of decision...
Oh, the fear I've known
That I might reap the praise of strangers
And end up on my own

But you told me if I had my way I'd be bored
Right then I knew I loved you best born of your scolding
When we last talked we were lying on our backs
Looking at the sky through the ceiling...
The alphabet of feeling

I am alone in a hotel room tonight...
And I'm working through the grammar of my fears
Oh mercy, what I won't give
To have the things that mean the most
Not to mean the things I miss
Unforgiving the choice is
The language or the kiss.

History of Us

Indigo Girls - History of Us,
originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Revisiting an old, favourite song.

So we must love
While these moments are still called "today"
Take part
in the pain of this passion play
Stretch our youth as we must,
Until we
are ashes... to dust.
Until time makes
History of us

Although I didn't go all the way to Paris, I might have gone all the way to Prague.

Interestingly, this song's evocation keyword was "Leonardo da Vinci".

America

Razorlight - America,
originally uploaded by metaphoric.

I'm in America at the moment. Each city/country/place to me is like a person to get to know. I know it's been said before, but I do honestly think that.

America, to me, is one of those friend/colleagues that is at heart a really nice person but sometimes so difficult to work with you feel like throttling them at the throat.

So I did another matrixed, sequenced, on the surface trite evocation piece.

There are three ways to read this (a guide this time because it's not as free-form as the others):
Top to Bottom are Themes - Purpose; Pleasure; Pose
Left to Right are Time Frames: Appeal; Real; Ideal

And the song choice? Well, that's a no brainer - it was America, by Razorlight.

Leona Lewis/Snow Patrol - Run

Leona Lewis/Snow Patrol - Run,
originally uploaded by metaphoric.

I'm really obsessed about the imagery of this song - can't believe it took so long (and Leona) for me to find it.

I keep hearing light, in shades and tones, in light, flickering breaths drawn that I had to search on 'light' for this one.

Light up, light up.
As if you had a choice.
Even if you cannot hear my voice,
I'll be right beside you, dear.

On another note, what is it with Snow Patrol's recent trend of soft, mumbling, almost monotonous verses only to hit with a thundering, swelling, glorious opus of a crescendo chorus? It worked for a while with Run, but after Crack the Shutters and Please Just Take These Photos from My Hands, doesn't the swelling chorus style sound a bit repetitive?

Run

Shame it took Leona Lewis to bring this song to my attention. Thank you Snow Patrol - I want you in a car with me on a long, straight road to infinity. I want you lying next to me, staring at a blank canvas ceiling, doing absolutely nothing.

I'll sing it one last time for you
Then we really have to go
You've been the only thing that's right
In all I've done

And I can barely look at you
But every single time I do
I know we'll make it anywhere
Away from here

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

To think I might not see those eyes
Makes it so hard not to cry
And as we say our long goodbye
I nearly do

Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

Louder louder
And we'll run for our lives
I can hardly speak I understand
Why you can't raise your voice to say

Slower slower
We don't have time for that
All I want is to find an easier way
To get out of our little heads

Have heart my dear
We're bound to be afraid
Even if it's just for a few days
Making up for all this mess

My Deco

This site is beginning to become my favourite when I'm bored...

How to Clean Stuff .NET

The website that I would go to when I remember that I need to clean... Remind me again why it wasn't a bad idea to Google "how to iron a shirt"?

Hotels should have this...

If only just to spook guests out... I would have them in my home if not for that:

1. I hate cleaning
2. I hate fish
3. Bored goldfish + Electric Toothbrush probably do not = joy

My dream home will have one of these!!

Resisting temptation to have a "things I would buy if I had the spare cash lying around in wads frivolously" tumblr blog, my dream home must definitely have one of these unfortunately named Suck UK's slide displays...

http://www.popgadget.net/2008/10/suck_uks_slide.php

Oh, and I wouldn't mind the cat thrown in for free with the sofa too!

Not Tonight, Josephine

Josephine Deux,
originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Every now and then an expression and a form coalesces into such a clarity that it begs articulation.

Evocate.

Put the music on, load Mosaic Maker, type one word onto Flickr's Search.

Pick your cherries. Stick them like jotter book collages that you used to do.

Except post them back online, the sum more than its parts, drawing emotions from music, from images, from flashes of synapses firing in close sequence.

Add poetry. Add lyrics.

I ask you to listen to Josephine by Tori Amos while you look at this collage.

Gasp at the delicate nature of her beauty, wrought from the work of hands. And wait.

It's Probably Autumn Now

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
- John Keats, To Autumn

The season of mists has begun. As it normally does, in rain, cloud, and infrequent bursts of sunshine, not unlike a temperamental child. This year, autumn has come early, as if in retort to my earlier scepticisms of a warm September and a frosty April. I don't normally like Septembers (my favourite months are December and February) and this year, September feels like September. No illusions of summer past it's time, no clinging on to hope that things are other than a dull and bland month. I like it that way. It's real, no pretensions, 100% pure honesty.

If we could break up the periods of one's life into months, I'm probably coming September by now. Assuming uneven months, it feels at this time of the year that the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed months of spring, the successes of an earlier summer have faded into a mellow and warm, coffee-drinking, bossa-nova listening, warm-coloured season. It's the season that holds off the seduction of crisp frost in December, the season that is wise to the innocent white of January's pale lips and skin, the season that says, "Tell me as it is and give me nothing more." It is the wise woman of the fates, the mother, the matriarch, the empress.

Eat with me the plum fruits of bliss,
Watch golden rays of sun caress the edge of night
Dance gently in falling leaves and fading light
Intoxicated by the season of mists.

One Art

Over packing and getting ready to move, and watching "In Her Shoes" in which this poem featured, Elizabeth Bishop comes back to become a rather good friend:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

As it always seems to me upon moving, and packing, and relocating,

The art of packing isn't hard to master, and quite the same,
Though different; as losing,
Yourself in labels and boxes with a name.

Pack something every day. Put another part
of yourself in a box, draw lines, imagine
That you can be divided up, a mind, a heart.

I packed two photographs, from two
Places, two faces, some memories lost
Another preserved, unused, untrue.

Even then it's impossible to lose; the
Fear of losing overcome by fear of use
The art of packing isn't hard to master
The fear of losing forgot the fluster.

27

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

There is very little, and then very much, about growing up, and growing old. At the end of 26 years, the one thing I've learnt is the value of persistence.

The persistence of time, of dreams, of hope, of love.

A year, then another, then another. I'd stopped celebrating my birthday at 21. Or so I thought. This year and another, a vague and futile effort to try and make a day special. Just because. Commemorating the turn of another year, the hope of all things new, the dream of stepping closer to where I'd want to be, the belief that having someone special by your side makes things somehow better, despite being miles away from...

So I went up the wheel I'd sworn off 8 years ago - the persistence of time/
I finally got the one gift I've been waiting for - the persistence of dreams/
I found myself a dream job (although I didn't apply) and convinced myself that I'm moving closer - the persistence of hope/
And I baked myself my own birthday cake - an Oreo cheesecake, proving to myself that I could actually bake without much assistance - the persistence of love.

Each year I try to coop myself up in silence and think deep thoughts. I didn't end up doing it this year. But I did manage to get my deep thought of the year:

The risk of realising your dreams too early is that you stop knowing what to do for the rest of your life.

Be careful what you wish for.

onestringbag

Just when I am trying to eliminate plastic bag in my frenetic response to the 10p tax law proposed and withdrawn, I was shopping at the supermarket the other day wondering about the even more excessive number of plastic bags that turn up from weighing fruit and vegs.

Those bags are even worse than plastic carrier bags, they're not recyclable, and are too small to be of any reuse value. Just as I thought that there must be one smart person out there who had figured out how to avoid using those bags - onestringbag appeared.

The one smart person who designed and created the onestringbag for grocery shopping happened also to shop at my beloved Victoria Market, and lives in one of my favourite cities. She's even now got the onestringbag open sourced so you can make them yourself using instructables - and in case you don't want to go through the trouble, you can buy them too.

Seven and Twenty-Seven / time like memory

[memory] is what happened.
[memory] is a poem i once wrote.
[memory] is a poem that then writes me.

and visceral fantasy / dwelling in the reality of previous / our former selves staring at us / some dead, some forgotten, some writing love letters / "to your ego at twenty-four" / who says we can only give advice to our children / we can write letters to our future selves / if we would heed them when the time comes anyway / advice is cheap (and forgotten) no matter by whom / knowing my foibles, i don't think i'd take myself any more seriously at seven than twenty-seven / i'd look back and laugh at my naive insanity all the same.

funny though, how we haven't words for future besides future / but we have adjectives, nouns, verbs for what has come before / previous, former, past, ago; future, future, future, future / frevious, perhaps, fast is taken, the verb 'will be' / funny how 'will' suggests determinism sometimes / not everyone would agree we have a choice.

i am obsessed with time and the notion of clocks / tiny time pieces ticking destiny in regular motion / i didn't think time slipped by in seconds but we need some way of counting i suppose / like a metronome keeping rhythm when the fact is i am out of tune. / did you think we'd need a watch other than to meet the time to meet each other by? / these days i take to meeting you whenever / a location and an uncertain hour (you are always late anyway) / and if you are meant to be there then perhaps you will be / (and i will break up with whoever i unfortunately never managed to meet). / these days, late means time has passed and i learn to expect you two minutes after / and late to me becomes the endless waiting for someone who will never then arrive / a truly late. and perhaps then "the late mr darcy" takes on more significance than someone who is simply held up by traffic.

i just got myself a watch. / and not just a watch. / a very expensive watch / a watch that i'd wanted since i was 17.

it was the gift i'd rejected at 18, yearned for at 21, and finally got - at 27. i'd gotten it to honour a memory, and as memory-serves, memory now honours me. it's the same memory, only different - mirror imaged. the giver and not the given reversed.

do you wonder if you would know if something you've been waiting for has arrived? when the moment steals by, unspoken, unknown, unannounced?

lately i've been staring at shadows.

Cooking for Engineers

This site is right up my alley...

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/

Simple Human Kitchen Designs

As part of the dinner divas and life hacks part of the blog, I spotted today the most perfect, well designed dish rack that's just the thing for enuwy. Now I wonder if she's looking for a dish rack.

What I love about it - it comes with a drip tray for water to run into the sink, looks beautiful and is compact enough for small spaces.

http://www.simplehuman.co.uk/products/index.asp?cat=5

Dog Names

Woke up this morning with a brain wave of names for my next dog...

I reckon dogs don't come as individuals anyway, they come in packs. Therefore, they need pack names in the variation of a theme.

Colours are popular:

• Blue
• Gray/Grey
• Pink
• Scarlet
• Maroon
• Blanc
• Matt
• Noir
• Hazel
• Cream
• Mint

Pairs:

• Bonnie & Clyde
• Mills & Boon
• Heckler & Koch (probably good names for Dobermans)
• Ernst & Young (maybe Ernie...)

Food:

• Cookie
• Butter
• Peanut
• Almond
• Dough
• Sugar
• Candy
• Honey
• Carrot (Had a dream I had a Westie called Carrot which made everyone laugh)
• Cabbage (I have spoken to a real person whose name is Cabbage. Found it hard to keep a straight face.)
• Peach
• Apple
• Cheese
• Toast

Miscellaneous Items and Brand Names (I can never tell which):

• Mac
• Milo
• Horlicks
• Nokia
• Sony / Sonnie
• Heinz

Numbers, popular ones being:

• Three
• Seven
• Eleven
• Five

Positive Emotions:

• Jolly
• Happy
• Cheery
• Smiley
• Naughty

Culturally Aligned:

For Westies and Scotties

• Macduff
• Macbeth
• Tartan
• Mac (just Mac)
• Douglas
• Doug

I did say that I won't be getting another dog until I can figure out what their names are. That was the case with Beanie, but Beanie's rather an individual dog name, and I had trouble pairing it with anything else. I have to say that just for laughs, Toast is quite high up on my list. I'm also rather keen on Muppet but fear that the name would create a self-fulfilling prophesy.

If you have suggestions (and they don't even have to be good) drop me a comment to let me know. I'm hopeless at names.

Otherwise I just might go with Toast, Muppet or the first name of the Maroon 5 lead vocal.

Deja Vu Redux Again

london cycling,
originally uploaded by lomokev.

How's that for putting two and two together? I was browsing my favourites on Flickr and just realised that my first fave photo (taken by lomokev) was actually of Imogen Heap.

Not that I liked that many of her songs, but she was just recently mentioned in a blog comment I came to after some time.

Soundtrack of My Life

In an answer to a question posed a long time ago, if you had 13 songs that made up the soundtrack of your life, what would those songs be?

And curiously (this disturbed me a little) - there were a lot of song titles with the word "dream" in them. Entirely coincidental, I convince myself.

1. Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
2. The Cranberries - Dreams
3. KT Tunstall - Suddenly I See
4. Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
5. James Blunt - 1973
6. Heart - These Dreams
7. Bread - Goodbye Girl
8. Damien Rice - 9 Crimes
9. Anna Nalick - Breathe (2 am)
10. Indigo Girls - Love Will Come to You
11. Craig Armstrong (Liz Frazer) - This Love
12. Sarah McLachlan - Good Enough
13. Bent - Private Road

Oddly enough, these are nice songs, not all of them are my favourite, but all of them are very apt.

--

Gave it more thought and came back to this one. I can't wait until I turn 30, because there'll be 3 decades of music worth mentioning at least in my life. I break them up into phases -

Decade 1: 0 - 10

Where the music influences of your life really depends on the music other people are listening to at the time.

1. Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over
2. Erasure - A Little Respect
3. Depeche Mode - Somebody
4. Whitney Houston - The Greatest Love of All
5. Bread - Goodbye Girl

Decade 2: 11 - 20

The longest, most mixed up mix-tape possible.

1. Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
2. The Cranberries - Dreams
3. Heart - These Dreams
4. Indigo Girls - Love Will Come to You
5. Sarah McLachlan - Good Enough

Decade 3: 21 - 30

Progression...

1. Anna Nalick - Breathe (2 am)
2. Craig Armstrong (Liz Frazer) - This Love
3. Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved
4. James Blunt - 1973
5. Bent - Private Road

Youth is a funny thing. When you have it, you spend your time wishing that you don't - and when you don't, you spend the rest of your time wishing that you did. I guess the same could be said of many other things better seen in hindsight, but it's the one thing regret cannot touch.

Ou est Christophe Willem?

This one for Enuwy - the "turtle" winner of France's version of American Idol - Christophe Willem has 4 albums!! And I don't have a single one... a sure one to look out for next time I'm at Gare du Nord!

And while I'm at it, Yael Naim is not too shabby too: Check out Too Long: http://www.deezer.com/track/314819

Another one on the playlist of life

This one has been in circulation over the radio and somehow made itself into my in-the-car playlist.

I also wanted to use this time to demonstrate the use of some cool technology. Clicking on the link takes you to a permalink on Deezer with the song so you can hear how it sounds like in case you don't know.

Not that there's much relevance to the music, but I'm planning on going back to previously tagged blogs and adding the songs if they're available!

Stop and Stare - One Republic

Stop and stare...
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared
But I've become what I can't be, oh
Stop and stare
You start to wonder why you're 'here' not there
And you'd give anything to get what's fair
But fair ain't what you really need
Oh, can u see what I see...

And then I came across Love Song which I've been humming and didn't know who the song was by...

"I'm not gonna write you a love song..."

A faded kind of mellow

This love, this love is a strange love.
A faded kind of mellow.
This love.

This love.
I think I'm gonna fall again
And even when you held my hand
It didn't mean a thing.

This love.
Now rehearsed we stay, love
Doesn't know it is love, this love

This love.
It hasn't have to feel love.
It doesn't need to be love.
It doesn't mean a thing, this love.

Eloquence is.
Liz Frazer, Craig Armstrong.

This is why.
This is when.
This is because.

The Bag Lady in the 21st Century

In the 2008 Budget, a carrier bag legislation potentially imposing a tax on carrier plastic bags in 2009 should usage not fall was pledged.

Plastic bags have become the new enemy. They are the new fruits on trees, they take ages (if at all) to bio-degrade, they're unnecessary, they are everywhere. In Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer and other supermarkets, the recyclable bag-for-life or green alternatives have started to become the fad and increasingly the norm.

Fashionable, reusable shopping carriers is the new big market, as Anya Hindmarch found out by scratching the surface, and like a pair of nice, white Birkies, I too would like to own a well-designed, hand-made shopping bag from Greenwich Market.

I'm starting to take on the belief that the only thing plastic really ought to just be my credit card, and am finding myself gravitating, almost moth-to-flame-like, to the fad of fashionable yogurt in glass bottles, eggs in cardboard cartons and clothes in cloth bags. From the technological innovation it was 20 years ago, plastic has become the sticky bane of modern society.

And quite frankly, why not? Your liquid shampoo in a posh glass bottle just seems nicer somehow, doesn't it?

These days, hippie is the new posh.

Interestingly, in this new fad that I'm starting to really think is an incredible smart idea faintly marketed, not only do you not have to be rich to be clever (tm), this particular hippie posh fad might actually have material benefits, unlike the fads that came and went before. You just have to know how to get the look.

Shop Local = Niche Grocers, not Designers.

Not only does this bring unimagined conveniences having everything you need literally next door, hippie posh dictates that you will be on a first name basis with your niche greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger, who will reserve the freshest, latest and greatest catch of the day for your royal highness's enjoyment.

The Ideal: Your buff and fit butcher bloke (if Italian, add extra points. If also doubling as a delicatessen importing ham from a relatively unknown area of Italy with a population of 25 who all make ham, add maximum points.) slices and dices your meats to your liking, and flashes brilliant, flirty smiles when you walk into the store in your sundress and sandals.

The Look: Name drop your butcher, all the previously unheard of places in Italy where produce is home-made by nonni and wait for friends to ooh and ahh.

Recyclable Bags = Designer meets Supermarket.

A finer excuse to carry an Anya Hindmarch to a supermarket I have not yet come across. This should be a no brainer. Of course you don't use cheap (free) Tesco branded plastic bags! That's so last century and unenvironmentally friendly. Your bag for life is not a plastic bag (tm), it's either a suitably sized Anya Hindmarch or, if you didn't make the queues, a hand-made, one of a kind shopper's from the likes of Greenwich Market.

The Ideal: An "I Am Not a Plastic Bag" by Anya Hindmarch. Cautiously disclose the fact that you had walked, not driven to your nearest Sainsbury's to stand 3 hours in line to get the look.

The Look: A close contender would be a hand-made one of a kind from as exotic a market as you can possibly can get. Double points if you're bagging a bag from Morocco, Istanbul or Tunisia. Maximum points if you had hand-made (personally) your bag using recycled scraps of kimono fabric purchased from a bric-a-brac shop in central Tokyo.

Walking the Walk = Showing off designer footwear.

Top marks for the very Singaporean art of wearing shorts and Crocs to Orchard Road. I lie, do the very opposite and look for casual, understated and comfortable. Because unlike the Gucci heels you used to wear, you do actually have to walk in these.

Yes I know, it's a slight inconvenience. But on the bright side, it is almost an impossibility to be reading, working or otherwise pretending to be distracted by something more important than being on the tube when you're walking, so you have got your fellow walking commuters absolute attention. You now have an excuse to perfect your street stride for more than 60 seconds.

The Ideal: Kate Moss in a recent cosmetic ad did this to ultimate perfection. As she sauntered confidently along the street to turning heads... if street lamps had eyes, they would turn too. Add points for coverage if you're listening to an upbeat tune on your iPhone/iPod, double points for stepping to the music.

The Look: Dress up for walking. Invest in swishy skirts and long legged trousers and take that stride on, baby! And yes, you now have a shameless way of assessing people by the shoes they wear.

Kissing A Fool

Strangely enough, I found the Michael Buble version more compelling than George Michael's. Not going to go into why.

You are far.
When I could have been your star, you listened to people, who scared you to death and from my heart.
Strange that you were strong enough to even make a start.
But you'll never find peace of mind, until you listen to your heart.

People... you can never change the way they feel.
Better let them do just what they will.
For they will, if you let them, steal your heart from me.
People... will always make a lover feel a fool.
But you knew I loved you.
We could have shown them all, we should have seen love through.

Fooled me with the tears in your eyes.
Covered me with kisses and lies.
So goodbye... but please don't take my heart.

You are far.
I'm never gonna be your star.
I'll pick up the pieces and mend my heart.
Strange that I was wrong enough to think you loved me too.
You must have been kissing a fool.

Curiously enough, for the first time, I thought of Yvaine and Stardust. It was an odd what-if. What if Tristan went back to wed Victoria? What if Yvaine had crossed the Wall? What if the two had fallen in love, but never picked up the courage to see love through, and Tristan shook the hair out of his eyes and left Stormhold?

A strange, cold thought.

My Life is (not that) Cool

On a whim, and because I know I'm not that good at keeping up links/appearances/contacts/friendships/acquaintances/anything at all/in general, I decided to click on Rambo Tan's blog.

Now reading Rambo Tan's blog always brings a smile to my face. Not merely because I actually know the author of the blog personally, but also because to me, and to me only, the author seems a kindred spirit (we were school mates, and walk-out-of-exams-early'mates) to the tune of this-is-one-version-of-how-my-life-would-have-turned-out.

Rambo Tan's in Singapore, living a life that I would have/and have had led, were I in Singapore. It's a sometimes happy life. A single, unfettered by most of the family, away from domestic chores but otherwise needing to fix-things-for-oneself life.

It's only been a year and a half, but looking back, that life seems so far away. Granted it was spent with loved ones, and there were friends, family, mates to hang out with at hand, but it seems now a life that I almost cannot imagine myself spending.

And the difference. Oh boy, the difference.

Singapore-Self looks upon England-Self now with some lack of understanding.

Singapore-Self wonders about:

• Personal crises - what to wear when you're hanging out in Orchard Road and Holland Village, what my mother will think if I stay in a permanent state of almost-married, moving out before I'm officially wed, my family's health or lack thereof
• Food - where the best char kway teow can be found (Commonwealth, I maintain), how much prices of ordinary pleasures (the teh-C kar dai) is rising, the costs of tomatoes in Cold Storage, whether most people eat in food courts or fancy restaurants
• Society and Culture - What my mother thinks my aunts will say when they meet me for the first and only time in the year, whether people really dislike the government despite living in creature comforts and wouldn't vote otherwise anyway, if independent women really attract fewer Singaporean men
• Self-Sufficiency - paying for a part-time, once-a-week maid, purchasing more than I can consume, affording platinum credit cards, doggy classes, the dog groomer clips my dog's nails because I'm afraid to do them myself

England-Self is consumed by:

• World crises - global warming, energy conservation, income inequity and gay marriages
• Food - the difference between organic and free range, whether chickens are bred with hormonal additives, buying local to reduce carbon footprints (see point above), approving of the office cafeteria switching to free range due to popular demand, cooking local cuisine with foreign ingredients
• Society and Culture - the difference between the English, the Europeans and the Americans, learning to live in a high context society that is so conscious about the personal situations of everything and everyone around them, amusement at the stark similarities between English and Asian cultures, working with the Germans, working with Germans who aren't very German
• Self-Sufficiency - doing my own cleaning, cooking, ironing, changing the lightbulbs, doing the laundry, walking the dog, dremelling the dog's nails because it costs 15 quid to get someone else to do them and they'd clip them anyhow and won't do such a good job

I understand now why people want to leave, and why people want to stay in Singapore. In my mind, there are no stayers or quitters, only those who favour the waters in different ponds.

Viewed from the other side of the river, Singapore-Self would perceive England-Self as silly, unnecessary, backward, unsophisticated and manual, while England-Self would view Singapore-Self as silly, self-absorbed, spoiled and small-minded.

Someone said to me the other day that it was remarkable that I had found myself, found my voice, in a place, in a culture that was difficult to understand, difficult to adapt to. Past the initial cynicism of whether that remark was true, I wondered if the purpose of coming here was indeed to find myself, or indeed, if in coming here, I had lost myself and hence needed finding myself again.

In any case, I hadn't left Singapore without a sense of self, as folklore would have had it, neither had I lost that sense of self in a foreign place, as myth would have said.

I see it now that there are merely two selves, like two sides of a coin, multiple facets of a personality that broadens and deepens with experience and exposure to different places and different cultures.

The Teochew girl side of me draws on an analogy - of a fish that takes on the flavour of the water they grow up in. This fish preferred the flavour of the waters of another pond, and swam in it.

And I have to say, I like the flavours of channel fish.

April is the busiest month of the year

Budget Wallpaper 2008,
originally uploaded by metaphoric.

People develop traditions to bring continuity and purpose to their lives.

I've just decided that every year in the busiest month of the year, I'll get myself something special to focus my mind and keep myself going through a hard time.

This year, April's the busiest month of the year, and by my reckoning it will be until I change jobs. The inaugural theme will be the seasons, so my treat is one of my favourite photos of all time.

Easter Rising

I just wanted to say, while I'm at it and blogging, that I am frankly aware that a number of readers on this blog read it just to know that I'm still alive, with that faintly quiet reassurance that the blogger isn't:

• A dog (mine, a Westie, to be specific)
• A significant other (but nobody specific)
• A neurotic necrotic
• A glitch in the stream of consciousness

No, jokes aside - I am well, and very much alive, and living - actually living (imagine that!).

It snowed on Easter Sunday.

I've always been warned, and this year was no exception, by the weather service and well meaning colleagues and radio broadcasters that it typically snows around Easter. Why it snows in spring here instead of winter is always going to elude me. But come Easter Sunday, after a sunshine filled dawn, a swirling, white powder began to fill the air, and danced in front of the window.

There was a strangely sweet sort of pleasure watching visibly white bits swirl in front of your eyes. I'm not quite sure what it is. This Easter was celebrated in strangely sweet, quiet sort of ways. I baked a carrot cake, I gave up Coke (the soft drink, not the other kind) for Lent, I walked the dog for an especially long time, I watched Grey's Anatomy.

And then I realised what this small, quiet joy is. It's the comfort that one gets when baking cookies on a sad day. It's the warmth of a kitten's cuddle on a cold day.

It is often said that on Easter, Christ's rising from the the dead is like the breaking of dawn after a long, dark night. It's often represented as the glorious, bright and resplendent ascension of the sun, choirs of angels optionally included.

I like to think instead that the breaking of dawn on Easter day is like any other dawn on any other day. A silent peace that creeps upon you, small and quiet, on a gentle breeze lightly kissing your cheek as you stir and open your eyes, semi-conscious of another day laid like dreams at your feet. Filled with promise, with hope.

No choirs of angels. No fifth symphony.

Love, like redemption, like grace, like promise, like hope, comes without a declaration, arrives without notice, departs without a by-your-leave.

How do we know today's the day among days? And that yesterday, things were different than they were tomorrow?

We mark the moments in our days, months, years, the hours that tick by. We keep our watch through hands that move in circles.

And I just can't get over the idea that one day, just one day, I'm going to wake up with everything around me different and yet the same, and in that instant that it happens, in that very moment, I'm not even going to know it.

Standby Buster

The next time I am back in Singapore, I think it would be brilliant to bring a couple of these. I've been recently obsessed about saving electricity/the environment/water/money/the world and these fit right into that ethos.

Standby Busters are remote controlled electrical sockets that you can plug into as a conduit between the mains (usually tucked behind a shelf and hard to reach) and the multiplug electrical board that powers everything in the house.

You now get to turn off the electricity at the mains with the touch of a radio controlled remote controller.

Lower Cost Arbitrages

I don't normally think about it in anything other than an economic sense, but spending some time in Shanghai is really making me feel the stark difference between a high cost market and a lower cost one.

In the first place, I exchanged a ridiculous amount of money before coming to Shanghai, which put into sharp relief what I had expected to spend in a week. But the prices here for food, accommodation and general shopping has just been absolutely ridiculous. It almost made me want to go crazy shopping. Almost.

• Good quality Chinese tea (tiekuanyin) for RMB 100 - £7
• All my snacks for RMB 39. That's about £2.70
• Good quality Chinese mushrooms for RMB 33. That's £2.30

It really takes some thinking about it to get a sense of perspective around what we get for our money anywhere in the world.

And that's not always easy when prices are rising, Shanghai is getting more expensive than Tokyo, and Singapore is probably slightly more expensive than Shanghai because of import limitations.

It didn't strike me fully until now that what we call a fair price is really subjective. We live in the places we live in, and take our purchasing power, after some time, for granted.

This probably helps explains why the fair trade movement is so much more apparent in first world countries which are high cost markets. Our ideas being in a high cost market of what a fair price is, is influenced to a high degree by our perceptions of what a £1 or a $1 can buy in our own countries and markets, not others.

Not that I'm against fair trade, mind. I fully support paying non-exploitative, fair market rates for the goods we buy. But I would also like to call to mind the use of the marketing campaigns like: "This man earns $1.50 per week for his coffee" and look at marketing campaigns for donations and grants in the same vein: "$1.50 per week from you... can help feed his family for a week".

I think I realize now the "multiplier" power our money can make in the markets that we buy in. While in the short run it makes me almost tempted not to bargain as hard as I otherwise would to, it puts into perspective that the small things we give up, can mean big things to people who receive them.

What stops them from actually receiving the full benefit, is a series of financial, logistic and socio-economic barriers that prevents us as consumers from buying the cheapest coffee in the world directly, and instead buying them from Starbucks or Tesco.

It makes me really want to find a way to overcome these barriers, and to exploit this arbitrage in a non-profit situation.

On Why Plates are Round

I probably have blogged this before, but honestly, as the years wear on, grow and extend, the single sole achievement of my life in terms of intellectual thinking has been, is, and probably will still be to have figured out why plates are round.

It's sad but true. And to be brutally and coldly honest, it probably is the one piece of truly independent thinking that I have ever done. Independent in the sense that it wasn't a thought that anyone else has ever thought of before - at least that I had come across so far. It really probably is because nobody else was bored to such a degree to have thought of it, but still - I am proud of this.

So, why are plates round? Or bowls and dishes for that matter? Surely because sinks are rectangular, and tables are rectangular (some are round, but most are rectangular) and the cupboards that we keep our plates in are rectangular, it would only make sense to have square or rectangular plates that would fit everything else in our world that we have? Why do plates mostly occur in a round form?

Several sensible suggestions have been offered.

• The industrial - Round plates are easier to manufacture [Not sure I bought this one, surely it's easier nowadays to cut several square plates from one big sheet]
• The anthropological - Squares/shapes with straight lines are artificial shapes and do not occur naturally. Our forefathers who first shaped equipment had followed the shapes of nature. [This has some merit]
• The practical - It's much easier to fashion a reasonably round shape than a perfect square/rectangle with straight lines [What if you cut wood?]
• The relativist - Well, spoons are round, so why not plates? [That's because square spoons poke uncomfortably into your mouth when you eat...]
• The child - The better to drink soup straight from the edge, my dear... [Perhaps the sole reason why most plates are round is because of the general lack of manners all round...]

Interestingly, I note (and the shrewd would point out) that not all plates are round. Most plates are, but there exist, for fashion, design features, and in some cultures, rectangular plates. So whatever the reason, it must apply to validate why most plates are round, but also validate why some plates are acceptably rectangular.

The reason I thought of, *drum rolls and cymbals clang* is a scientific one.

Surface tension.

Surface tension, as Wikipedia tells me, is the property of a liquid to behave like an elastic sheet. More relevantly, it is surface tension that causes any liquid to adopt a spherical shape, because a sphere has the smallest possible surface area to volume ratio.

Well, well, I see the similarities. But what has this got to do with plates being round, you might ask.

Most plates are made to contain food that while not entirely liquid, may contain some liquids (gravy, sauces) or items that potentially spill over when picked up (rice, mashed potatoes). While it's not culturally sensitive to assume we all eat gravy, sauces, rice and mashed potatoes, some combination of round-plate cultures typically use plates to contain a wide variety of potentially spillable foods.

The round plate is the most mathematically efficient shape for containing spillable food, because surface tension ensures that the roundness tucks away any sharp edges that threaten to break the surface tension and cause a spill. Since any curvature also maximizes area, it is also the shape that can contain the most bits of tiny objects or liquids, and makes sense for a plate and, definitely also a bowl.

More proof, the Japanese have commonly used wooden flat rectangular "plates" made out of wood. It's used to serve sushi, which are served set in pieces on the plate. Sushi is a self-contained serving of food, and does not contain liquids or objects which may spill over when picked up.

Why are plates round? The short answer is, "So that we can heap more food on it." The scientific gastronomical answer.

Did our forefathers somehow know this before Eular, Lagrange, Young, Laplace, physics and hydrodynamics? Were we somehow born with an inner sense that allows us to live and learn about our environment outside of the 5 senses?

It always struck me how nobody really needs to consciously learn that Gravity exists. All we actually really learn in school is which scientist named it, and by what name it's known. But a baby that rolls over and falls out of bed knows gravity exists, surely and definitely.

By deep thought, accident or conscious design, the longest lasting structures that we have built and designed have its roots in scientific efficiency. It makes me wonder whether aesthetics, at its core, is Man's way of validating scientific soundness without extensive calculations. I wonder if we have evolved with a skill to assess the success of science that was essential to our survival as a species, because it is the most efficient way to exploit the intrinsic mathematics of the world around us. After all, there is no resisting the laws of nature.

Call it taste, call it aesthetics, call it that preference that babies have for symmetrical faces. I wonder if we are each born with that intrinsic ability to validate this scientific soundness without being a scientist. It would certainly explain why the greatest of mathematicians sense a beauty in their discoveries, and why we can link certain numbers to art.

Somehow, there is a strange sense of comfort that we're all born knowing what we need to know, whether we study it or not. There's a strange sense of faith in the idea that we do have everything we need, whether we know it or not.

Laundry bags as reusable grocery bags

One of the biggest campaigns here that has captured the attention of the media and retailers is against plastics, particularly plastic bags. The Daily Mail ran a few articles yesterday about how Marks & Spencers will start charging 5p for each single use plastic bag they hand out. Instead, they are preparing to give away free bags for life to customers instead, to encourage less use of single-use plastic bags that are a key pollutant in British waters and land.

I re-use nearly every single supermarket issued plastic bags as rubbish bags anyway, but reckoned that they build up much faster than I can use them, so treat myself to intermissions of reusable, eco-friendly bags every now and then to make my supermarket issued plastic bag supply decrease a little before I start up again.

Here's an idea where something good can come out of something not-quite-as-good-but-which-we-do-anyway.

You know how most people visit hotels and end up pilfering laundry bags, shoe bags and shopping bags, especially the cotton woven ones that are usually provided by hotels in countries with low cost labour?

Yes you do. They're the ones that usually come labelled with a "Not For Sale", "Do Not Remove" indications.

Browsing through Eco Bags (http://www.ecobags.com/) today, it struck me how many of these eco-bags actually look like they may be exactly the same bags as the laundry bags many of us pilfer for free.

Why not do something useful with the petty crime? Reuse these bags as grocery bags on Wednesdays when shopping in Carrefour or bring a couple with you when you go shopping and refuse a single-use, standard issue plastic bag. It's not Anya Hindmarch, but can still do something for the world.

La Petite Moi

On the plane ride back yesterday night, I realized that I really don't like reading newspapers. And with that thought, came to a stunning realization about myself.

Some people have lifelong passions and interests that they take very seriously. They have strong likes and dislikes, strong loves and hates. And some people, people like me, I think don't have very many large, intense, long-lasting loves and hates. They have quirks.

It has always been a difficulty for me to introduce myself. I can never really think of what to say, which is impossible, because while I do believe that I'm a relatively interesting person, I don't think that I have relatively interesting interests.

Because it's so hard coming up with likes and dislikes on the fly, I've decided last night to compile an accurate list for future reference, a list of quirks, if you will.

By some strange coincidence of fate I actually believe that many people end up sharing these quirks, whether they realise it or not.

La Petite Moi, a profile in miniature

LIKES

• Drinking tea
• Thinking in the shower
• Singing

DISLIKES

• Reading newspapers
• Puzzling Rubik's Cubes (I've never successfully completed one in my entire life, and I don't think I'm stupid, I just don't have Rubik's Cubes' intelligence)
• Three Dimensions

I have switched to free-range chicks!

On the telly recently, to much controversial discussion, was a free-range bird movement, jointly supported by Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. Particularly by the former two, through two broadcast mini-series on the life of a broiler hen, Hugh's Chicken Run and Jamie's Fowl Dinners put a stark contrast to the lives of battery hens and free-range birds.

I met Hugh's Chicken Run with a bit of scepticism, but follow up Chicken Run with Jamie's Fowl Dinners, and it almost became too much. I've switched, to eating only free-range chickens and now, my next step, buying free-range and organic eggs from the Farmer's Market, up from the Tesco's Value Eggs.

And surprisingly, like the song goes, "It's no sacrifice... no sacrifice. It's no sacrifice at all!" Admittedly, free-range costs more than value chicken. But it's not twice the price, it's two quid more for 4 chicken breasts (and they are larger). The main difference would probably be in the eggs, 1.10 for 6 large eggs, compared to 0.79 for 6 unevenly sized ones. Slightly almost twice the price, but my bet in quality is on the free-range, organic variety.

So while the three chefs are trying to change Britain's eating habits from fast to freedom, I thought about how affordable the luxury of eating conscience is here, compared to the organic awareness back in Singapore.

Despite the various food/health awareness campaigns going on, Singapore hasn't quite adopted the free-range, organic movement quite as readily as consumers have in European countries. The sensitivity factor is price. Unlike a small step up in price which still falls within my buying power, organic and free-range costs exhorbitant amounts compared to the usual standard-of-living fare that we're used to, and while the brown-rice stigma is fading, a shadow still lingers over many products.

Can money buy conscience? Can we honestly grow to believe that our dollar can save the world, prevent global warming, help chickens lead a better life and make us lose weight and gain back taste and experience?

Perhaps. But in the meantime, tune in to 3 meals for a chicken recipes proudly sponsored on Hugh's River Cottage site:

3 Meals from one bird

Meal one: Roast chicken
Serve this with nothing more than a green salad to mop up all the herby, buttery juices.
Serves 4–5

1 plump free range chicken, weighing 1.5-2kg
25g soft butter
a couple of generous handfuls of fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives and marjoram, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 glass of white wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 220C/gas 7. Remove the bird from the fridge at least an hour before cooking it. Take off any trussing from the chicken and remove the giblets if they’re inside (keep them in the fridge and use them for the stock, see below). Put the bird in a roasting tin and spread out its legs from the body. Enlarge the opening of the cavity with your fingers, so hot air can circulate inside the bird.

Put the butter in a bowl, throw in the herbs and the garlic and season well with salt and pepper. Mix together with your fingers, then smear all over the chicken, outside and in. Place in the centre of the hot oven and leave for 25-30 minutes.

Then baste the chicken, turn the oven down to 180°C/gas 4, pour the wine into the tin (not over the bird) and roast the bird for another 40–60 minutes, depending on its size. You can tell when it’s done by poking a knife into the part of the bird where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear.

Open the oven door, turn the oven off and leave the bird for 15–20 minutes to rest before carving. Carve the bird in the tin, as untidily as you like, letting the slices fall into the buttery juices, then take the whole thing to the table so people can help themselves.

Chicken stock
After eating your roast, let the chicken go cold then slice, pick and tease every last scrap of remaining meat from the bones. Set this aside.

The carcass that’s left can now be used to make a rich, savoury stock – a potential base for any number of soups, stews, risottos or gravies. Makes 1-1.5 litres

1 cooked chicken carcass
the neck and giblets from the chicken, if you have them, but not the liver
1-2 onions, roughly chopped
1-2 large carrots, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
a few black peppercorns
3-4 celery sticks, roughly chopped
½ a large leek, roughly chopped
a few chunks of peeled celeriac or parsnip (optional)
1 sprig of thyme (optional)
a few parsley stalks (optional)

Tear the carcass into fairly small pieces and cram them, along with any skin, bones, fat, jelly or burnt bits from the roasting tin, into a saucepan that will take them snugly. If you have the fresh giblets, add these too (minus the liver, which can make the stock bitter – save it for sautéing).

Add the vegetables and herbs, packing them in as snugly as you can so that you need no more than 1.5 litres of cold water to just cover everything. Bring the pan to a tremulous simmer and let it cook, uncovered, for at least three hours – up to five. Top up the water once or twice, if necessary. Strain the stock through a fine sieve, leave it to cool, then chill it. A layer of fat will solidify on the top, which you can scrape off – but I don’t usually bother unless it’s excessive.

Meal two: chicken risotto
If you use a good, tasty chicken stock to make a risotto, you need very few other ingredients to make a meal of it.
Serves 6

1.5 litres chicken stock
80g butter
1 small onion, very finely diced
400g risotto rice
1 glass white wine
grated parmesan cheese and a little more butter, to finish
salt and freshly ground pepper

Other ingredients: choose fromabout 200g peas or petits pois (defrosted if frozen)
about 200g sweetcorn kernels
about 300g mushrooms (fresh, dried or a mixture)
100-150g bacon, cut into little scraps
anything else that takes your fancy – including chopped, leftover chicken

Bring the stock to a simmer in a pan, and keep it simmering while you cook the rice. Heat the butter in a large pan and add the onion (if you want to use bacon, add this along with the onion). Cook gently for 10 minutes or so until soft but not coloured.

Add the rice and cook for just a minute, stirring well to coat it in the butter. Add the wine and cook for a few minutes until it has been absorbed by the rice. Now start adding the hot stock, a ladleful at a time, stirring now and then and adding a fresh ladleful of stock once the last has been absorbed.

The rice should be cooked (tender but still just slightly al dente), and the risotto at the right soft, moist consistency after about 18 minutes. If you’re adding peas or sweetcorn, do so after the rice has been cooking for about 10 minutes. If you want to add mushrooms, sauté them in separate pan and add, with any juices, when the rice has almost finished cooking. Leftover chicken can go in just before the end too – just make sure it gets thoroughly reheated.

When the risotto is cooked, turn off the heat, dot a little butter all over the surface, and sprinkle with a little parmesan. Cover and leave for 2-3 minutes, then stir the melted butter and cheese into the rice. Season to taste then serve, in warmed dishes, with more parmesan.

Meal three: the leftovers
Here are just three of the ways you can use up the cold meat cut from the carcass after roasting. And if none of these take your fancy, never forget that a good chicken sandwich – with fresh bread, crisp salad and mayonnaise – is a thing of joy.

The Harder Edge to Soft Paws Anti-Scratching Solutions

So, before going any further, this is a gripe. In fact, this should be a consumer awareness article, but I won't be going as far as putting it up on any review sites.

Some context to start. I love my dog. My landlord loves her too (or has come to think she's very very cute) but before meeting my dog, she had requested that we do something to protect her hard wood floors from scratching caused by nails. This got me very worried, and so having turned to Mr Google for solutions, came across Soft Paws, among many other things to do to prevent your dog from scratching.

Developed by a veterinarian, Soft Paws are vinyl nail caps that glue on to your dogs nails. This amazing product effectively blunts your dog’s nails to protect against problem scratching; protecting against:

• Damage to Household Surfaces: Floors, Doors, Screens, Walls and Furniture
• Canine Skin Conditions Aggravated by Scratching
• Protects You from Scratches from Your Dog
• Dogs and Their Owners LOVE Them!

I bought a pack. It comes with 40 nail caps and 2 tubes of Soft Paws branded super glue that you use to stick the Soft Paws to your dog's nails. And so I did.

It worked a charm, for a while. Until I realised that the Soft Paws which were supposed to fall off naturally didn't. The glue that comes with Soft Paws really is super glue. Over time, the nails grow as they do, and the Soft Paws formed a thick, acrylic layer over the nails, changing the way Beanie walked.

Imagine artificial nails stuck on your toenails for months without coming off. That's probably what my uncomplaining dog had to put up with. I reckon when her nails started to curl, she probably just walked much less.

Dog lovers probably won't read this blog. But over time, I've found alternatives:

• Skilled nail clipping - it's not something only the groomer does
• Dremelling - A sanding tool which files your dog's nails down straight
• A nail file - God bless Manicure, it smoothes not just your nails

Any one of these options were far less painful for Beanie, more natural, and she's still not scratching the floor.

A sharp reminder to me not to opt for the lazy way out and do the right thing for the one living thing who always looks happy when I come home.

Hello Country, Goodbye Nightclub

First post of the new year and I thought I might do a short note about what I think this year is going to be about.

In this year:

• Low-rise buildings, low-rise jeans
• Organic and free-range (food)
• Walks in the park
• Memories (like fire, radiant and immutable)
• Things of value = history, photography, old stuff

Out this year:

• Modern skyscrapers, long hair
• Cheap, mass-produced produce
• Shopping in the city
• New things, the future
• Things of value = money, bling bling, new stuff

In Auxerre, we bought a lovely Trousselier rotating lamp with Le Petit Prince prints on it. Initially I thought that I would love falling asleep to the Little Prince flying through the air in a slow motion natural rotation. But having placed it in a corner, I realised there was another undiscovered beauty to it.

In the corner, narrow bands of light wait in line to take off into feathered flight as the corner narrows band after band of light, only to stretch them out into a feathered quill, swirl them through the air, then neaten them up into a narrow line of light again in a feathery carousel.

I stared at them for hours, amazed by the simple beauty of a play of light.

Light. It was only light.

After a while, I'd realised it really is just the simple things.