happy autumn!

Here are the little somethings that I will love this autumn:

Something pretty 

L-R: Leighton Denny in Supermodel, Dior in 257 Incognito, Chanel in 559 Frenzy, Topshop in Rainy Day, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in 330 Grey Area, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in 48 Mocha Mix and Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in 660 Pat on the Black

At the start of a season, I love picking the nail polishes from my collection that I'm going to wear (not that I always stick to it) and I'm especially excited by all these amazing neutral colours.

Something to watch

I've been infatuated with Diana Vreeland la magnifique for quite a while now.  It all started when I read Edie Sedgwick's biography. The ex-Vogue editor was the one who saw her potential and organised a feature about her in the magazine. I remember my curiousity being piqued by this seemingly visionnary woman. But I really became obsessed while reading Cecil Beaton's diary. Cecil and her had a profound friendship and I was always happy to see her name popping up on the pages because she had the most flamboyant behaviour and that made for an exciting read. Claire (from the blog Lola is Beauty)'s rubric Ask D.V. definitely sealed my love for this woman. I got my hand on her biography, D.V., and delighted in her witticisms and style. You can imagine how happy I was when I discovered that this month, a biopic on Mrs. Vreeland got released. I realised while watching the trailer that I had never heard her voice but it sounds precisely how I imagined it in my head. In Dublin, The Eye Has To Travel is being shown at the Lighthouse Cinema until the 4th of October 2012.

(image source)

Something to drink 

Autumn is especially exciting when it comes to tea because it means my local shop is now going to stock Christmas tea again.

I'll have it with loads of milk and 3 spoonful of sugar please!

Something to listen to

This month, Patrick wolf is releasing a compilation for his tenth anniversary in music years. He chose 16 songs from all his creations that he re-recorded and re-arranged for this special double album. He wanted to get to the core of the songs and took the parti-pris to use 3 instruments maximum. The first extract is Overture (from the album The Magic Position) which is one of my favourite songs of his. Favourite song period. It's painfully beautiful, listen.

Something to remember

The new season of Downton Abbey is on ITV at 9pm every Sunday!

Best...scene...ever

Something creative

Nothing screams autumn more than stitching. At least to me. I am sure I could stitch faster and better if I had a fireplace, a rocking chair and a cat.

Something to eat

Let's put it plainly, I can't cook but when the colder months come, one of my great passions is to make and eat soup. My favourite ones are either pumpkin or courgette+broccoli. But a tomato soup is quite lovely too. 

Something to read

Well I enjoy reading all year round really but doing so buried under duvets in bed and with the electric blanket on when it's chilly outside is otherwordly. I set myself the goal to read 5 more books by the end of 2012, here are the ones I picked: Breakfast at Tiffany's (Truman Capote), Gribiche (Colette), Life of Pi (Yann Martel), The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers) and Wise Children (Angela Carter).

Something to visit

Tim Walker for Vogue Italia January 2012

An exhibition about the whimsical (fashion) photographer Tim Walker opens its doors in London from the 18th of October to the 27th of January. A collection of Walker's photographs will be shown as well as giant props he used for fashion shoots (among them, the one in the above picture, if I'm not mistaken). It will also be occasion for Tim Walker to share with visitors, films that inspired his famous vision (The Red Shoes, La Belle et La Bête or A Matter of Life and Death) and his own short movie, The Lost Explorer.

More information here, free admission.

Something to keep me entertained

still from The Red Shoes (1948)

I love making lists of old films to watch when the nights get longer and colder (so I'm not sheepishly tempted to watch some crap on TV). I recently watched The Red Shoes and A Matter of Life And Death (inspired by Tim Walker's upcoming exhibition) and realised that on Youtube, you can watch films that have fallen into public domain. Pretty awesome I think.

Next on my list are Badlands, Metropolis and Paris, Texas.

Something to wear

Crew-neck jumpers are one of my favourite things to wear. Unfortunately, good ones are hard to come by, may it be because of their knit (they might loosen quickly), their shape or their colour.

Benetton, Topshop and Cos

Something cheeky

I always forget my gloves so I can dig my hands in his coat pocket.

Sushyphilis

Picture © Hot Grill

Never could I have imagined that hanging around too many times in the premises of Saint-Pancras Station (London) would leave me with a slight obsession for sushis. Thank you Simon... You might wonder what is the connexion between a train station and Japanese cuisine... and who the hell is that Simon guy. Patience my dears, the next few lines hold the secret of this sudden sushi-mania (if you wonder where the sound of rowing you're hearing right now comes from, that is me laboriously attempting to make the abysmal emptiness of my existence interesting... and at the same time, joyfully flouting any writing rule I may have learnt during my academic torture).
Where was I? Oh yeah sushis in Saint-Pancras... Well okay, there was no need to create a mystery around this, there just happens to be a sushi restaurant in the station (wrecking noise, anyone?). But but but, a highly play restaurant. Every time, I went past it, I had to stop and stare in the same way kids have their nose glued to the windows of Les Galeries Lafayette in Paris during Christmas.
The whole mise-en-scene seems to be directly taken from a sci-fi television show. Actually, don't trust my words because to be honest everything looks sci-fi when you come from the South of Brussels... From afar, it looks like a handful of men are the prisonners of hundreds of colourful flying saucers crammed in a traffic jam.
Fitted with specs and a logical mind (which I seem to be lacking of obviously), you will see that those men are cooks and the spaceships actually dishes. The kitchen of the restaurant is visible for every customers. It is surrounded by a conveyor belt where the cooks lay their creations. You are invited to sit at the belt, exactly like you would do at a bar. In front of you, there are taps of fizzy and still water (for 1.50£ you can have unlimited use of those), chop sticks (and wooden spoons for the desperately Western eaters), pickled gingers, wasabi (Japanese mustard), soy sauce and finally, the open sesame for the belt delicacies : the menu. This one is essential if you want to find your way around the 90 dishes parading in front of you. And I have to say it is quite a challenge to pick one of them (knowing exactly what is inside) and at the same time holding a sensible conversation with your meal partner(s) (to be true, I don't need a conveyor belt to be a pathetic conversationalist... oh well).
When you are finished, the waiter counts how many plates are in front of you. Each one of them has a colour matching a fixed price. It goes from 1£70 to 5£. And voilà. Quite a fun experience for the easily amused mortal I am.
Yo Sushi restaurants are mostly to be found in the United Kingdom (around forty, note that the menu might slightly differ from a restaurant to another) although there are some in Ireland, Russia, Malaysia and the Middle East. Now I am back in Belgium, you can imagine the state of despair I am in : how the hell am I surviving yosushilessly? I really don't know but that game called Sushi-Go-Round below seems to ease the pain somehow. The principle? Prepare sushis for customers sat at a conveyor belt. Sounds familiar?

NB : Oh and "Simon". Well Simon Woodroffe, he is the founder of the Yo Sushi restaurant chain. If you are interested by this self-made man, go to his wikipedia page or watch the first season of Dragon's Dens, a show about entrepreneurs broadcasted by the BBC in 2005.