Alltop is brilliant


Possibly I am incredibly late to the party (to use an expression I really don't like, though I do like "let's get the potato on the fork" and "let's open the kimono on this one", both learnt courtesy of Mrs Trefusis), but I've just discovered Alltop and it's genius. It's basically a huge, customisable repository of stuff from blogs and sites - so if you're after news, it's got all the news you could conceivably want, all in one place, but if you want cake recipes or techy stuff or interiors blogs or are interested in, I don't know, street food or romantic novels, or celiac disease or family law or makeup or scuba diving, or really anything at all, you subscribe (it's free) and spend a few moments clicking on the relevant sites so that you have a pile of stuff you like. Then Alltop puts all the stuff on one page - your page - with the latest five headlines from x site. And lo, you have news, and cake, and street food, etc etc. I'm not explaining it very well - watch the vid instead. But it's GREAT. 

Where the Wild Things Are necklaces
via etsy.com

Solid silver Max and solid silver Carol (one of the monsters. Carol seems like a singularly inappropriate name, but never mind) from Roadkill on Etsy. "Carol has scaly feathery textured detail on his legs, a bushy tail, a slight overbite and some shiny teeth". Sold as a pair in a limited edition of 100. Click on the pic to go to the seller's page.

Filed under  //   jewellery   presents   wild things  

Undercover with a Michelin inspector : The New Yorker
via newyorker.com

Clicking on the image will take you to John Colapinto's fascinating article - it's the first time a journalist has hung out with someone from Michelin.

Filed under  //   food   restaurants   things to read  

Pictorial Webster's


I just picked up a copy of this in Anthropologie and it's the most *wonderful* book I've seen in some time. Put simply, it's a compilation of all the illustrations that appeared in the C19th editions (1859, 1864 and 1890) of Merriam-Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language. The book is printed using the original wood engravings and copper electrolytes. It calls itself 'a visual dictionary of curiosities' and is basically a series of beautiful images of what was important to C19th America. It's amazing. You can read more about it, and about the painstaking, labour-of-love process of putting it together, here. Watch this, too:

Amazon has it for £14.95 (it's normally £25). Rubber stamp set from Papernation, here. Christmas presents sorted, as far as I'm concerned. 
Filed under  //   books   illustration   presents   print   type  

The 100 best quotes from The Wire

via kottke.org

Like it says. Via kottke, as per the link. I finished watching The Wire a few months ago but this is making me think it's time to watch it all over again. NOTHING WILL EVER BE AS GOOD. 

Filed under  //   the wire   YouTube  

Alastair Campbell on Jacques Brel

I enjoyed listening to this earlier today. Then I went and watched the below (look at the *ludicrous* line about 'the heart of the fries', it's making me die laughing even though song itself is v v poignant, if clunkily translated). If this is your cup of tea, you might also like my earlier post about Camille O'Sullivan (who plays the London Apollo from 7 December to 16 January).

 

Filed under  //   music   YouTube  

Blaggers' Banquet

Increasingly it is is the Bright Young food bloggers that I turn to for restaurant or eating-related information. They're enthusiastic, they're clever, they get about, they know their stuff, and you could argue - I would -  that they've reinvented food writing and made it fresh again. They don't write for money: they write because they feel passionately about their subject, and it shows. Also, they're not wedged halfway up their own backsides. Find the London ones here.

Anyway: on Sunday night group of them are running the Blaggers' Banquet at Hawksmoor in Commercial Street. All the food has been blagged, i.e. donated. "Bloggers will be the cooks and the sommeliers, front of house and the prep folk, the kitchen porters and the cleaner uppers. We'll staff the bar, make the cocktails and make the coffee, and best of all you can review us when we are done", says Eat Like a Girl. You can buy your tickets on eBay, here. I'm absolutely dying to go but unfortunately I'll be on the Eurostar coming back from Paris. I hope they do it again soon. More information here.
Filed under  //   blogs   eating   food   restaurants  

Children's toy theatre

My fixation with Nathalie Lete continues unabated. Having scored some of the lovely plates she's done for Anthropologie and swooned over her beautiful little makeup pots for Bourjois (available now exclusively at ASOS), I learn from Wee Birdy's blog that she's also done this absolutely gorgeous children's theatre for Pollock's Toy Shop (their blog is here). Thrillingly, I'm told Pollock's is now owned by Peter Baldwin, who played Derek in Coronation Street for 21 years. That sounds a bit snarky and it's not meant to at all - I loved Derek and Pollock's is really wonderful.  
Filed under  //   children   Christmas presents   presents  

Cardboard dinosaur of genius/ Monsters


Images via Black Eiffel, who found them in Anthropologie's autumn catalogue. I'm gathering cardboard boxes as we speak - I know a three year old who'd *love* this better than any shop-bought Christmas present.

The fantastic-looking giant book (stitched and made of cotton) in the second pic is Monsters of the Household Variety by Ruth Ashton, who happens to be British - I'm assuming the book is available in the UK Anthropologie as well as in the US. The London branch certainly sells her artwork because I was looking at it the other day.
Filed under  //   anthropologie   books   children   crafts  

Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique)

I so can't wait to see this biopic of the late, great Serge Gainsbourg. Check out Laetitia Casta as Brigitte Bardot's doppelganger and Anna Mouglalis as Juliette Gréco. It's directed by Joann Sfar, who's also written/drawn a graphic novel on the same theme. The film is out in France in January 2010. Hello, Eurostar day-trip. Found via The Spectator blog, of all improbable places.
Filed under  //   films  

About

I write books, and things for The Sunday Times. But I wanted a place to stick other stuff I like, and Posterous is unbelievably easy to set up. So here we are. Yet another work-avoidance strategy by me. You can follow me on Twitter, too - I'm @indiaknight. I know, right? The internet: where the fun never ends.

 

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