And since I'm posting anyway, I thought I would put this, my first attempt at an Illustrator vector portrait, up on here as well, as a record of my inability to do anything very creative. I'm going to be honest - I like many of the elements of this sketch. It looks pretty similar I think (although perhaps a little...predatory? - that certainly wasn't in the original). And I also like the simplicity of it. No colour, and the almost wireframe like layering of hair is a really good aesthetic I think. Truth be told that's a convenient truth as I couldn't have coloured the thing if my life depended on it. More practice needed in that department at least I think. Still, I'm fairly proud of it for a first attempt (and it didn't take a geological period of time, which I had rather worried about). Helps when you have a good model I suppose ;)

PS - I have read literally shed loads this summer, and will at some point write some short reviews. Look forward to it.

PPS - Literally no idea why it has gone green. It was rather more elegant in white. Bloody thing.

Labels: bored, design, girlfriend

We have a house people! And what a house it is. Well, I don't want to big it up too much (it is, after all, still clearly a small place) but I think it's going to a) look fantastic, and b) be a dreamy place to come back to and forget about stuff. Plus it's really well located (in a neighborhood I know well from university days (love saying that, makes me feel like a real nostalgic). So, HOORAY!

I got so excited that I...no, not that...I made a mood board! I was in a bit of a rush actually so I didn't spend heaps of time on in, but I thought it would provide something of a double whammy: good inspiration for the house; and a good opportunity to try and replicate a moodboard-vibe digitally. Can't say it completely worked on either one of those fronts if I'm honest, but there you are. Life is full of small disappointments.

Labels: househunting, London

Found a nice place in Holland Park, listed: 'The Studio is specious with a nice kitchenette with full cooking facilities, a double bed, table chairs.'

The studio is specious. Unusual, but honest advertising.

Labels: househunting

The idea of moving into a new place should be an exciting one. Unfortunately, having spent hours of today trawling through flat shares and studios, I'm rather of the opposite opinion. I started looking for a place in London a few weeks ago. I'm moving in with my girlfriend (you may now, like the friends I have so far told this to, take a sharp breath of grinning knowingness, as if to say, 'this is the end of fun') and I've been really looking forward to finding the right place for us to come home to.

Now, I know the rental mark is absurdly inflated in London. But seriously, what the fuck. Who are these single people looking at properties we can't afford between the two of us? How does anyone pay the extortionate prices required in central London, let alone save enough money after the landlord has fisted your bank account in his monthly violation, to build a deposit for their first purchase? It really is a but of a nightmare. Let me give you just one of countless examples of the absurdity of the market.

A studio flat in the heart of Bloomsbury. £205 a week. Furnished.

So far so good I think, great location (the little script underneath the property gives me the distance to the nearest 11 major areas, just in case I knew London well enough to know where Russel Square was, but no clue where Angel, Camden, King's Cross, Holborn, und so weiter are. But wait, what's this? Kitchen separate but sole use. Right, so it's a kitchen which others have access to, but which really is mine. Well, I might have to be a bit of a kitchen Nazi to begin with, but that's hardly a deal breaker. One WC. I look at the picture. A set of what initially appears to be some bizarre plumbing arrangements materialises into a disabled handrail. While it sits uncomfortably on its sludgy terracotta gloss wall, at least saftey comes first in this flat. So, despite a few hiccups, things are going well. Time to hit the big stuff. It's (virtual) viewing time.

Well now there's a chair in there too. All that's done really is to make the large table seem small, and the small table seem really small. (And the TV shrink to fingernail size). That clever landlord though, he knows the difficulty that prospective tenants face, and he kindly deigns to reveal the true aspect of the room:

Oh there's that chair again...and that table. Which means that...which means that it's just a fucking corridor. A SMALL corridor at that. How do you fit a bed in? How do you do almost anything? It's like Alice in Wonderland except that Alice stops by Ikea first. More than anything, it's insane that anyone would pay for this. I really hope I sort out my place soon, but until I do, I am at least glad that somewhere, no matter how wretched my conditions, no matter how overvalued my room, some poor chump is living in a white box for the best part of a thousand pounds a month.

Labels: property

"The circle of human knowledge, illuminated by the pale, cold light of reason, is so infinitesimally small, the dark regions of human ignorance which lie beyond that luminous ring so immeasurably vast, that imagination is feign to step up to the borderline and send the warm, richly colored beams of her fairy lantern streaming out into the darkness ; and so, peering into the gloom, she is apt to mistake the shadowy reflections of her own figure for real beings moving in the abyss.

Sir James George FrazerThe Golden Bough

April 2010 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / August 2010 / September 2010 / February 2011 / April 2011 / August 2011 / September 2011 /

Messing with Illustrator / /homeless / The irony of househunting. / Househunting / Some old material / Favourite capture on Google Maps Street View / Idiot librarian / THIS IS NOT THAT DAY! / Confirmation (not religious) / love data? love data. /

The title of this blog comes from a poem by Coleridge, A Wish: Wriiten in Jesus Wood, Feb. 10th, 1792, Plus most blogs are moans anyway. Including this one. lol manuscripts

email me here
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I'm a 23 year-old student in London Cambridge London, studying English Literature Law. It's hard to really think of anything truly personal I can put here that might give you some idea of who I am, so I will just tell you that my favourite Shakespeare play is Richard II, my favourite chocolate bar is Snickers, and I have a bit of a thing for instant coffee, especially if someone else makes it for me.

I'm interested in Renaissance Literature, Higher Education policy, and libraries.
I'm completely in love with a Scottish girl.