The War Room - Public Service Broadcasting

I love it when you come across a band, album or just a song that grabs you and won’t let you go.  I recently came across Public Service Broadcastings EP The War Room and have found myself listening to it a few times a day ever since.  The EP evokes a real sense of history during World War II in Britain.  The use of the samples from old public information films and propaganda work with the bands music to create the sense of anticipation, fear and national pride experienced during this horrific period in history.  

If War Should Come, the first track on the EP, creates a brilliant sense of anticipation and fear at the prospect of war.  I admire the bravery shown through the old speeches and the way the music builds up brilliantly evokes how I think Britain must have felt, on the brink of war.

“No-one in this country wants war, but if war should come don’t be alarmed, keep of good heart, whatever happens, Britain is a nation prepared”

The track ends with the recognisable quote from Prime Minister Chamberlain, “I have to tell you now, this country is at war” The whole sense of the build up, the fighting spirit and then the melancholic tones stating that the war has started is so moving and stirs emotions that no text book could ever evoke.

London Can Take It begins with the haunting sound of the air raid siren, I can’t imagine the fear that must of struck upon hearing this and having to put your life on hold until the night was over.  The sample used in this track really evokes the bravery of Londoners during this time.

 “These are not Hollywood sound effects, this is the music they play every night in London, the symphony of war”

London is personified throughout the track, and even compared to a boxer; “The sign of a great fighter is can he get up from the floor after being knocked down. London does this every morning”. As a Londoner with so much passion for my home city, this track creates a sense of pride for the cities ancestors who lived through this terrible time with such strength, as the track repeatedly states, “London can take it”.

Spitfire comes as a welcome relief from the intensely moving tracks previously and the music really evokes the excitement of the planes that were used, which is still felt by thousands of families who attend air shows every summer! I used to love running into the garden on a really hot summers day to watch the warplanes fly over on their way to or from an air show.  However the samples used demonstrate the horror of these machines (which I think we can easily forget).

 “It isn’t exactly a bird I’m creating is it, at least its a curious sort of bird, a bird that breathes fire and spits out death and destruction, a spitfire bird”.

Dig For Victory is the penultimate track, much calmer than Spitfire however still with the driving force powering through it demonstrating the power of civilians, “Young men, young woman, children, old men: they know that food is just an important weapon of war as guns.”. Dig For Victory is a phrase most people must be familiar with and this track brilliantly evokes the sense of powering together to support troops overseas and to support each other. The driving rhythms really evoke this sense of camaraderie.

The most moving and evocative track on the EP is Waltz for George, with significantly less instrumentation and a near continuous sample telling of the horrors at the end of the war, with soldiers "tired .. blood stained" with "boots that hadn't been off for five days".  

The EP ends with a sentence that I find truly haunting as the music fades to nothing, “It was outstanding to walk along carriage after carriage full of soldiers and to find in each one … silence. And so the men of the BEF came home” The simplicity of this track makes it one of the most beautiful and evocative tracks on the EP.

I love this EP; I love how it makes me cry and feel such pride for my ancestors and what they did for Britain.  I’m going to see the band live in March and can’t wait to see how their live shows are put together, and if you haven’t heard the EP yet, what are you doing? 
Listen to it here - http://publicservicebroadcasting.net/music/ 

5 Goals for 22!

With just a few days until I turn the big 22 I’ve found myself reflecting on my year as a 21 year old and what I hope to achieve when 22.  I couldn’t wait to be 22 when I was little, mainly because it is the door number of the house I have lived in for my whole life and, as embarrassing as it sounds, I always thought it would be amazing to be the age which is also my door number. I feel for people who live in numbers they are unlikely to reach …

Anyway, moving on from that revelation, I thought 22 would be an age where you’re pretty sorted – how naïve I was! Most people make lists of things to do before they are 30, but as that’s still 8 years off I’ll make a slightly more realistic and hopefully feasible list of things to do before I’m 23.

1.     Get a job – sounds simple but have a feeling it won’t be. I have started applying to a few positions so we’ll see. Dream situation in a year would be to be settled in a job I love with enough money to sustain my shopping and Café Nero fudge cake habits

Heaven on a plate!

2.      Live in London (and not Croydon) – also sounds simple but probably won’t be, it is somewhat reliant on number 1 working out. Also preferably live in a really cute quirky place, Hugh Grants house with the blue door in Notting Hill would be quite nice … I can dream.

3.     Keep practising the violin – now that I have decided I do want a job rather than just trying to wing it as a musician for a bit I’m determined to keep practising a little bit every few days (it’s surprising how quickly you start to loose it!)

4.     Go on an amazing holiday again! 2012 saw me visiting New York and Dublin so I want 2013 to bring me another great adventure.  Somewhere hot would be nice, especially if a heat wave that lasts longer than 2 days fails to appear yet again here in sunny Britain

5.     Learn to walk in heels. I love the way heels look and the way they can bring a whole outfit together yet, at a fairly tall 5ft10ish, I am yet to master the art of walking in them without looking like a penguin stuck in a desert.

Aiming too high??
http://eu.christianlouboutin.com/uk_en/shop/women/very-prive-patent-9.html

I’ll stick to five, seems fairly reasonable. Let’s see how I do over the next 12 months!

Magazines, Chocolate and Sketches - Pure Escapism!

For me not much beats buying a new magazine, bar of chocolate and settling down for an hour or two pouring over fashion I’m unlikely to ever be able to afford and outfits I’m unlikely to have occasions to wear to or, depending on the magazine, working out what high street shops I’m next going to hit. I openly admit that sometimes a book just won’t do it and I need a magazine, judge me if you like! Some people literally do, during exam time at Uni the library is a sea of stressed people and when I visited the shop to get myself the latest episode of Company, alongside all the chemistry students firing equations at each other in the queue, I have to admit I felt slightly out of place.

I had an interesting exchange with the guy at the till –

Shop Guy - “You study here?”

Me – “Yes” 

Shop Guy – “Why are you buying a magazine?

Me – “Ummm”

Shop Guy – “You don’t have exams?”

Me – “Well … no … I like magazines, ok?”

Talk about judging me! I went back to my room and savoured being able to pour over the pages in peace.  I don’t have a favourite magazine; it varies from Cosmo, Company and Glamour to Elle and Vogue. It depends if I want to be slightly more realistic or experience pure escapism into a world of luxury! 

My favourite thing about reading magazines like Vogue or Elle is the gorgeous fashion shoots – I love making sketches from the images in the magazines.  There’s something therapeutic for me in choosing my favourite images and trying to recreate them.  Here are some examples:

Fashion, Fairytales and Beatles

I love going to exhibitions on my own, today I had some time to kill around Waterloo and so happened to walk past Somerset House and remembered hearing about an exhibition there. I went to see Tim Walker: Story Teller, the exhibition showed the fashion photographers work alongside some of the props used in his shoots including a giant spitfire, oversized insects playing musical instruments and a huge doll (which may now occur in my nightmares).  

My worse nightmare!
http://timwalkerphotography.com/recent_work.php

The exhibition was really well done, with each room showing fantastically surreal and breath-taking images of gorgeous clothes.  There was also a series of short films showing fashion shoots taking place with accompanying music, which made for a slightly surreal viewing experience as they were shot in quite a grainy quality.   I love the stories that are told through his photography and how the fashion is not necessary the focal point of the photo, the whole scene compliments the fashion and creates a magically world you want a part of. The best thing about visiting an exhibition on your own is that you can completely immerse yourself in what you are looking at and have an inner dialogue to accompany the visuals you are seeing. 

I also visited Valentino: Master of Couture which featured over 130 of his couture dresses – heaven.  I stumbled upon the exhibition completely by chance and loved every second.  The highlight may well have been eavesdropping on other peoples conversations though.   In the first room were documents and press cuttings from Valentinos career including letters from various celebrities. One of the letters was from Anna Wintour, she did admittedly have very large hand writing however a woman next to me commented to her friend that no one with handwriting like that should be successful, how could someone with handwriting like that actually achieve anything … about Anna Wintour! They wouldn’t dare say that to her face.  

The Corridor of Dresses!
http://www.ella-lapetiteanglaise.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/157210057PM00006_Valentino_.jpg

The exhibition was stunning, with the dresses all assembled in a long corridor as though at a red-carpet event. My only criticism would be that you are given a booklet with numbers and details about each dress however sometimes it is not always mentioned when a famous figure has worn the dress, which was a shame. I only discovered when doing some online research back home that one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition had been worn by Jennifer Aniston for the Along Came Polly premier. The booklet did however point out the gown that Julia Roberts wore to the Oscars. It was interesting to guess the time period for the dresses as sometimes it was very hard to figure out, styles did not necessarily dictate the era expected. One very Doris Day like outfit was actually from the 90s!

http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/157210057PM00008_Valentino_-550x359.jpg

One dress received it’s own space, deservedly, and this was the wedding dress of Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece. It was stunning, you felt as though you were in the presence of something truly exquisite and approaching it from above on a staircase gave justice to the detailing on the veil.

The last space in the exhibition showed how different techniques used in the dresses displayed were created with videos and small samples.  This only furthered increased my awe at the dresses and they hours of hard work that go to create such beautiful masterpieces!

As well as Somerset House I also found myself outside the National Portrait Gallery so decided to pop in and say hello to my favourite painting.  It is a portrait of Paul McCartney, painted by Sam Walsh entitled Mikes Brother. I love this painting because of the way it looks as if one brush has just been stroked across the canvas and Paul face appeared – I think it really captures one moment and has so much energy to it! 

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw08201/Paul-McCartney-Mikes-Brother?LinkID=mp05537&search=sas&sText=mccartney&OConly=true&role=sit&rNo=1

Although to my dismay yesterday the gallery displaying the painting was shut. A woman started talking to me in the queue for the toilets asking if I’d seen everything yet and she looked slightly bemused when I said “Oh no, I just popped in to say hi to Paul”. 

10 Reasons Why I Love Doris Day

1. Her wardrobe is amazing; I would happily dress like she does in her films all the time (apart from maybe Calamity Jane – not sure the cowgirl look is acceptable on a daily basis). I love how everything matches, the coat, shoes and bag all effortlessly coordinating, particularly in Pillow Talk.

Maybe I wouldn't wear this ...

If only people still got this dressed up for drinks!

2. Not only is her day wardrobe amazing, but even her nightwear is always gorgeous, she wouldn’t be caught dead in an old t-shirt and mis-matched shorts.

Check out that nightie! Not many people could pull that off

3. Her voice is effortlessly stunning, she never sounds likes she’s straining her voice and her songs immediately put me in a good mood. The lush, soaring strings in most of them help too!

4. She gets to co-star with Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Frank Sinatra – no further explanation needed.

                                     

5. Her characters are always such strong-headed women with hearts, from Calamity Jane to housewife/soap spokeswoman Beverly Boyer in The Thrill of it All.  

6. Her apartments and houses always seem to be so cool with all the latest gadgets and are also tastefully colour coordinated.  I want a kitchen with turquoise cupboards now.

7. She throws the best stroppy tantrums, any woman should master her storming out of a room sequence as seen in Pillow Talk.

8. I love how she totters about in her shoes and pencil skirts – she somehow makes it look so sophisticated.

Moving away from the rom coms!

9. She may come across as quite typecast however Midnight Lace and Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much show her as a brilliant actress away from the typical rom-coms she is best known for.  A bit of a surprise to suddenly find yourself watching a Doris Day film from behind a cushion when you're used to the usual rom-coms. 

10. She left the glamour of Hollywood many years ago and set up an animal welfare charity which is still overseen by Miss Day to this day –  further to endearing her to her fans. 

Saying all this, in reality her life was far from the 'girl next door' persona reflected in many of her films. She has gone through many personal challenges which makes you appreciate her movies even more, and how she could bring such optimism to the roles despite the difficulties in her personal life.