Infinite Improbability Drive

Last week I left work early and travelled into the City Centre to go to the cinema.

On my way there I went into a bookshop, where they were playing “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac (1988).
I picked up a copy of “The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” and stopped at a coffee shop.
Four paragraphs into a book that is still very much a happy place for me, the coffee shop PA started playing “Into the great wide open”, by Tom Petty (1991).

Those two songs were around when I was reading H2G2 for the first time.
I really am not sure how the book arrived into our house. My brother gave me his copy, but I couldn’t tell you how he’d heard about it.
Those were dark days: information travelled on paper, via the wireless or a cathode ray tube. In other words, extremely slowly.
It was hard to find out what to read, or what to listen to, although perhaps we were safer from fads, fanboys and fanbases.

Back to the coffee shop, I was pretty sure I had gone back in time 20 years, although luckily I no longer lived in a small town, I had disposable income and my stubborness in teaching myself English had obviously paid off.

***

Music has always been a big part of my life. It soothes any pain in ways that no other passion or pleasure does. Whenever I am at a great gig I am always reminded that no pain is too strong and no trouble too big, as long as I can hear music. It’s a reaction that I have never had with running, sewing, swimming or any other (not family-friend) activity that I enyoy.

On Thursday my friend and I went to see State of the Union, the collaboration between Boo Hewerdine and American guitar legend Brooks Williams.

Boo Hewerdine is the author “The patience of angels”, but more importantly he wrote two of my favourite songs of that late-1980s place I was catapulted in last week: “Graceland” and “Honey be good”.

When I started to follow music again properly a few years ago, I made a point to finally go see Boo Hewerdine play live – he’s brilliant, check him out if he’s near you.

Based on this, if you told 13-year-old me that one day I would have been at a Boo Hewerdine gig the Infinite Improbability Drive wouldn’t exact have been revving in delight(*).
Even the gig being in England wouldn’t exactly help the Improbability. Nor would the fact that I was wearing a rather odd dress made by me. I might be The Wayward Middle Child, but some things were always there.

But if you told 13-year-old me that Boo Hewerdine was going to sing one of my favourite Pet Shop Boys songs, then I would have told you were insane. And I would have stood and watched The Heart Of Gold do the famous 2²⁷⁶⁷⁰⁹ to one, and probably some more.

And yet it happened, it was great and I extended the fun making my friend guess who the song was originally from. He failed. The 1980s are the only weak point of his otherwise astounding musical knowledge.

There is no shortage of improbability in my life, and it’s mostly a happy journey, but this one leap was an absolute delight.

(*) Yes, I know The Heart Of Gold is not a car!

Sunday round-up: 24.06.2012

Tags

buttonholes, cosmopolis, cronenberg, fast girls movie, improv, running

I decided it was time for a long overdue step back:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |  4   |     |  4  |     | 6  |     |  19  |
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It was a week of some bad news, much working, lots of hanging out with lovely people and spending time at the cinema.
I saw Cosmopolis on Wednesday.
You know a Cronenberg movie is good when some of it it’s amazing and some of it looks like a student movie parodying Cronenberg.
This one is no exception, but it must be well made since at one point I had forgotten I was watching the guy off Twilight. That’s a result.

All in all a decent week, but it was time for some rest.
Yesterday’s run was halved and partly replaced by eating crisps and drinking red wine whilst watching the olympic trials .

I was brought up to hate passive sportsmanship, and I still do.
People who use “we” when talking about a football team they support anger me no end, especially when I can see that they themselves last broke a sweat because the Last Orders bell startled them.
I had a brief period of going to watch rugby matches and, whilst some of it was pleasant, they just seem to go on for much longer than was actually enjoyable.

This attitude is one of the main reasons why I came to enjoy sports very late, when I was well into my thirties. Without an interest in them, there was no inspiration.

These days I feel entitled to watch other people sweating (a lot more than I ever do, obviously), because it inspires my own efforts. I admire Kathryn Bertine and I love her writing, and I owe my decision to enter the marathon to reading the right Chrissie Wellington quote at the right time.

It is with this in mind that on Friday I went to see a British film called Fast Girls, which is very good despite the terrible title.
Yes it’s cheesy, and soppy, and possibly simplistic, but it’s also very inspiring. It made me love running and miss Improv (“the relay is about timing. And trust”), even more than I already do.
And that is saying something.

In other news, naff-all sewing this week!
This is due in part to life getting in the way (work, lodger moving in, doing lovely things with lovely people) and in part to the difficulty of finding a worthy follow-up for the dress of awesome.
What little sewing time I had this week was spent trying to make a decent buttonhole on Judy.
I am not quite there yet, but I will soon – stay tuned!

Sunday round-up: 17.06.2012

This week was pretty awesome, despite me getting little sleep and work being busy as anything:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |  5   |     |  3  |     | 11 |     |  24  |
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I hope the sleep situation gets better soon, because work is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.
Still, running keeps me sane, so I will be alright.

On the subject of sports as a means of keeping sane, and aptly enough on Anglo-Saxon Father’s Day(*), you must read the last chapter of London Calling, by Kathryn Bertine.

(*) Some parts of the world celebrate Father’s Day on 19th March, St Joseph. Which parts of the world? I’ll let Monty Python answer that question.

FO: The dress of awesome (Simplicity 7073 II)

Tags

cars, DIY, dress, Haynes, Haynes manuals, motors, sewing, Simplicity 7073

The Facts
Fabric: Haynes curtains by Next, 50% cotton, 50% polyester. Free from a friend. I love curtain fabric!
Pattern: Simplicity 7073, already used once so I am calling it free.
Year: 1975. Like all the best things! I am going to make this joke every time I am successful with a 1975 pattern, and be completely unapologetic about it.
Notions: Blue zipper, thread. Both from stash.
Time to complete: Three and bit evenings. Two to place the prints on the pattern and re-draw the front darts, the rest to put it together.
Soundtrack: Bill Nighy in a Charles Paris mistery (great fun if you’ve ever been around luvvies) and A seance on a wet afternoon, a great story I wasn’t familiar with. Soundtrack kindly provided by BBC Radio 4 Extra.
First worn: For a lovely Saturday of friends and comedy.
Wear again? Hell yeah! This is the dress of awesome.
Total Price: Zero, zilch, nowt, free.

Dear readers,
Are you familiar with Haynes Manuals?
If you aren’t, here’s an extract from their Wikipedia page:
The Haynes Owner’s Workshop Manuals (commonly known as simply Haynes Manuals) are a series of practical manuals from the Haynes Publishing Group aimed at both DIY enthusiasts and professional garage mechanics. The series primarily focuses upon the maintenance and repair of automotive vehicles. Each section has step-by-step instructions with diagrams and photographs of an actual stripdown or rebuild.

They are very much an institution if you are a DIY-petrolhead, and I have often admired their amazing illustrations when I have come across them in a bookstore.
So you can imagine how I felt when I was offered this particular set of curtains:

Is this amazing or what?

We all know how much I love curtains. These were also blue – could anything be more meant to be? Of course not!

So I pulled out good old Simplicity 7073, that I have already traced with extra room for my hips.
I corrected the 90-degree angles in the front neckline because I use self bias tape instead of facings, and I struggle around those.
On the back I raised the neckline but forgot to round up the 90-degree angles, so I struggled around those with bias binding. But I managed in the end.
This pattern is so easy and flattering. If I had known this when I bought it I wouldn’t have bothered with the other 20+ dress patterns I picked up on eBay.
Those will now spend a lot of time at the bottom of the queue, as I will be picking them when I want to learn a new skill rather than when I need a pretty dress.

I spent a lot of time placing the pattern pieces around the fabric to make sure the print remained intact. This proved tricky, since the individual illustrations are fairly big.
I also spent a lot of time re-drawing the darts at the front to make sure the dress was still flattering but the prints weren’t affected. I feel I did a good job, considering I had no idea what I was doing.

The result, ladies and gentlemen, is the dress of awesome!
Full-figure shot with my beloved turquoise Converse:

In 2012 I got my job back, moved back into my own house, and made this dress. And we’re not even halfway through!
Of course I know there is more awesome to come, but this year is seriously running the risk of peaking too soon.

Back detail. I allowed the back darts to bother the prints.
I also sewed one the Haynes tags that came with the curtains to cover the end of the zipper.

I love, love, love this dress! I am not sure how much use I’ll get out of it, but I love it!
Sadly, if I wore this to work the dress policy will break, and all the computers used to write the dress policy will break, and all the servers that connect those computers will break. Because this is the dress of awesome.

Now I need to concentrate my efforts in making some sensible separates for work. It’s not really dress weather here in the UK and it looks like you can have too much of a good thing. Or two wardrobes full of dresses.

Thanks and love to everyone who took pictures and put up with me being blowing my own trumpet today!

Sunday round-up: 10.06.2012

Trooper? You bet:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |  5   |     |  3  |     | 10  |     |  23  |
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On Monday and Tuesday I got up a 6AM local time (5AM in the UK and in my head) to make sure the running was done before it got too hot and before going to the airport.
During a working week waking up at 5 isn’t much of an issue, but being on holiday means a much more laidback lifestyle, and it’s really tough.
There is also some kind of spell on the bedroom I use at Mum and Dad’s. I can sleep and sleep and sleep some more (unusual for me) but I pay for it by having the most horrendous dreams. They’re not quite nightmares, but they’re not nice nonetheless (getting sack meets animal cruelty means all kinds of nonsense).

Work was insane this week. With Bank Holidays like Easter and Christmas the rest of Europe slows down with us and catching back up is easy even when we are closed on different days.
Alas, none of Europe stopped for the Jubilee (how rude!) and we were one man down for the week, so we’ve been very busy. It was a truly WTF week. Because were at work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, obviously.

Finally, yesterday I managed 10 miles in the pouring down rain on very little sleep. Had some serious motivation issues, hit rock bottom and rose back up again. But I did it.
It’s nothing new, but I run because of what it does to my head more than anything else.

Very little sewing went on this week and I still haven’t cleaned the sewing room, which will have to happen soon seen as I am looking for a lodger and plan to show people around the house next week. But I’ll be back!

Dude, where’s my sunshine?

Nothing much. Back in the hood with the world’s worst case of Chinotto withdrawal and a touch of crushed bones from sleeping in the plane. It’s what happens when you get up too early to squeeze in some running before the heat takes over, and/or you have to go to the airport.

The consensus at work is I have olive skin and plenty of mosquito bites.

They say it’s nice to have me back but none of my colleagues will marry me to guarantee I can get back into my own house in case Italy leaves the Eurozone and the UK restricts entry to its citizen. The price of naturalisation is nearly three million lira(*) though, so best to start saving up now.

It’s raining, there was a crime wave in Sale (that’ll teach me complaining about Langworthy) and I still haven’t cleaned the sewing room.

(*) You have to pronounce this like Chris Morris at the Reynholm Industries board meeting.

Three fashion highlights of my weekend.

• Four times world Iron Man champion Chrissie Wellington finishes the Rock’n'Roll Half Marathon in San Diego:
  
• Lauryn Hill rocks the 1940s high-waisted, wide-legged trousers at Hot97′s Summer Jam.
• The dress and coat worn by the Queen at the river pageant yesterday, by Angela Kelly. White boucle threaded with silk ribbon and embellished with Swarovski crystals:
  
  
  Click here for more pictures of the Thames pageant.

Sunday round-up: 03.06.2012

Tags

30 rock, fashion, husky boys, Italy, liz lemon, ragazzi robusti, running, slight, sweltering, underwear

Do you know what Summer looks like when you grew up around here? It looks like this:

Try as I may, I cannot remember the last time I was visiting at the start of summer / end of spring, and the sight of a corn field always gives me that “school’s out for summer” feeling.

But back to the subject of running. Here’s this week:

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|  M   | Tue |  W  |  Th |  F  | Sa | Su  |  TOT |
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|  5  |  5   |     |  3  |     | 9  |     |  22  |
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I am pretty pleased with it, it’s bang on schedule and all that.
Having 10 miles done by Tuesday is hard work but it’s totally worth it. It feels good. I might try to do it again instead of doing 5 miles each Monday and Wednesday.

Here at Mum and Dad’s it’s 26 degrees with 85% humidity. It’s like living with a towel soaked in hot water wrapped around you.
After many attempts at drying my hair after a shower I was reminded of how I spent my teens convinced I had wavy hair. I don’t. It’s just the insane amount of humidity around here.

This is some of the worst weather I’ve ever run in. Plus I am staying in the countryside, so when you’re outdoors there is a cloak of not just sweltering heat but dust, dirt and insects that makes doing anything rather unpleasant, never mind sweating your way through a nine-miler.

I do not know for the life of me how I spent 20-odd years over here, with my last six years in Italy in Milan, possibly the only place where the heat is more cruel and the mosquitoes bigger.

Yes! The mosquitoes! After all this is a swamp. The town I grew up in was on average a ludicrous 15 metres above sea level and the underground garages of our house had a pump to keep them dry that broke pretty much once a year. When you are a child you think riding your bike in 8 inches of muddy water is fun! But only when you are a child.

The mosquitoes are the size of a Chinook but have evolved an amazing penchant for stealth. I have a 2-by-2 inch mozzie bite on my leg to prove it.

It’s not all bad though. Far from it.
Dad’s got a brand new bionic eye and it’s my usual Dad again, which is the best part.
Yesterday I watched most of Season 5 of 30 Rock whilst recovering from my long run, and I had forgotten how much I love that show.
The food is amazing, I got to see my friend and it’s nice not having to go to work for a few days.
I have even managed to get very tanned in 20 minutes of SPF50 – I still have vitiligo to worry about but it’s nice not to look Mancunian for once!

I shall leave you with another gem from the open air market, this one most definitely from Rico’s Husky Boys collection:

What man would want SLIGHT underpants?
But this is Italy, land of the overconfident male and of the non-existent foreign language teaching. And of Rico’s Husky Boys no doubt.

A 30 Rock fashion exclusive!

Tags

30 rock, blazer, fashion, husky boys, liz lemon, ragazzi robusti

Ever found yourself lusting over Liz Lemon’s blazer?
The “woman’s blazer from a very expensive blazer shop called Rico’s”?
The one from Rico’s Ragazzi Robusti collection?

I always knew I wasn’t alone dreaming of more Husky Boys fashion, and this morning I have discovered that Rico seems to have branched into childrenswear:

This total gem reads:

Fashion Horse / Cool boys / Fashion an since 1986 / Study Living

I don’t really know what it means, but it made me long for a Ragazzi Robusti blazer so I could pull this off.

In honour of this amazing piece of fashion, I shall quote that conversation between Jack and Liz:

Jack: I never thought you’d make it this far, Lemon.
Lemon: I know. Season five… we were supposed to be cancelled…
Jack: Not just the show. You’re an adult, dude situation and wearing a blazer from Rico’s husky boys collection.
Lemon: Is that what ” ragazzi robusti ” means?