Viva Barcelona! Day 3 (Sunday)

Woke at 9 and slowly stirred myself into life. We took our time getting ready as I needed to pack my bags, and we ate a leisurely breakfast indoors where I went back to tea (I’ll miss gorgeous Spanish coffee) and ate toast and fig jam. Dismantled my painting from the walking gallery and managed to squeeze it back into my handluggage (I am quite proud of this feat).

At 11 we drove out to Montjuic, so named for the Jewish community that once lived there. I loved the car journey, peering out at the city through the zesty wind. Once we’d parked and walked up a lotta steps, we were met with the unmistakable sounds of ‘Rage Against the Machine’, and just below this noise, a tenacious busker struggling manfully on with his guitar.

We decided to visit the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (National Museum of Catalonian Art), which is famous for its Romanesque, Gothic, and modernist collection.

The first wing we entered boasted astonishing religious works from around the 15th century. I’m always intrigued by depictions of Mary and Jesus; in some Mary is insipid and barely concerned, in some she is the rounded mother figure, in some she is a haughty birthday girl showing off her best present. I swear that most renaissance artists had never once clapped eyes on a baby – in so many of their paintings they paint the baby Jesus like a man shrunk down to miniature, with a tiny head and skinny arms. If Jesus had looked like that as a newborn he would have never survived beyond toddler years, and a whole lot of trouble would have been avoided.

There were also a number of amusing ‘George and the Dragon’ depictions – in most the poor dragon looked little bigger than a pet dog, and appeared to seeth with as much killer instinct as a dishcloth. It made George look more like a pest exterminator than a hero; most likely the princess was just a bit of a wimp and any good flyswot would have done the job, without getting a Saint in.

But the modernist galleries were remarkable: beautiful furnishings and posters from the art nouveau era, including work by Mucha and Gaudi; Picasso’s figures; and some wondeful richly coloured realist work by Marià Fortuni, who was a bit obsessed with orientalist themes. Plus you were allowed to take photographs!

Skirted past an expensive touristy mohito stall (though I was gagging for a drink it was so hot and cloudless!) and took a leisurely drive back home past the botanical gardens. Back home, Alicia showed me how to make proper Paella! However the lesson was hampered by the fact that we started drinking the Sangria we’d made the night before, so my notes become increasingly less legible and dotted with more and more exclamation marks; but basically there are two golden rules – don’t touch the dish for 20 minutes once you’ve added in the rice, and never use chorizo!

We also whizzed together some super-size tomatos, a bit of onion, and cucumber, oil, salt and pepper, to make gazpacho, then took this up to the roof of their building to eat with olives, while we looked out far over the city. They have simply stunning view – flowing out from above Park Guell, right through main sites of Barcelona and out to the sea, encompassing the green mountains which roll around the city.

After eating a heavy plate of gorgeous paella – a rich mixture of subtle flavours – we gathered our bits and drove out to a beach outside the city (a bit closer than Sitges beach, which they love, but still far enough out so it wasn’t packed with people). Here Alicia and I waded out into the waves and swam – I always forget how very salty sea water is! Pleugh! Then tried to get as much of a tan as possible before heading to the airport.

Turned up at the airport still wet, wearing my swimming costume with a skirt and smelling of salt and Paella. Also Alicia had left me with the last of the Sangria, which was the perfect medicine against my nervy flying as, once combined with the paella and sun, it knocked me out for the entire flight! I think I’ll aim to make every flight home along similar lines.

Viva Barcelona! Day 2 (Saturday)

Woke at 8ish to the scent of rosemary. Fabien and Alicia had already been cooking lunch – meat flavoured with rosemary from the hills of Provence, where Febien’s family live.

Went with Alicia and Fabien up to their favourite cafe further up the mountain. Had cafe con leche (the Spanish favourite for breakfast) and Fabien had a second, stronger coffee, because he is French and they drink an astonishing amount of coffee. Next we visited the adjoining bakery where we bought croissants, chocolate strips, and mini glazed pastries, then up some steps to hang our feet over Alicia and Fabien’s favourite wall, which gazes far out across Barcelona and out to sea.

From here Fabien went to get shopping as Alicia and I had decided that we wanted to make Paella (well, I wanted to learn how to make it) and to make proper sangria. Meanwhile Alicia and I bent our energies to sorting out our paintings to take with us on the ‘Walking Gallery’ we were taking part in at 6pm. Lots of sticky-tape later I had arranged my four etchings of the couple on horse-back, which I’d squished into my hand luggage to get here, into a long strip supported by cardboard. Alicia had strung up a life-size nude female torso to hang around her neck (provocative!) and a painting of a pair of legs.

By 1 we were ready to head into town, and we walked down to catch the tube to see two of Gaudi’s most famous designs, Casa Battlo and La Pedrera, on the Passeig de Gracia. Casa Battlo has THE most stunning windows. It looks like a castle from the city of Atlantis. In fact many of Gaudi’s constructions look like they have floated up from the sea bed. It was too expensive to go in but it was beautiful from the outside. Also La Pedrera, not as stunning from street level but with awesome iron gates made to look like leaves of the palm tree.

As Alicia and I walked along we might have wished that we could travel down Barcelona’s streets at roof height, because that is where most of the city’s best beauty resides. A mixture of modernism and Moorish influence, carved stone and smooth ceramics. Also popped into Casa Amatller, which had a beautiful glass ceiling, and a wonderful dragon lamp.

Tried to have a look in the smaller, modern, art galleries along one of the roads off Pg de Gracia, but they were all closed, either for lunch or for the whole of Saturday afternoon. Weird! Most shops in Spain do close from 1pm – 4pm, which seems very odd!

One feature of the streets is the towers of balconies that are a feature of most buildings. Quite a lot are made use of in some beautiful or bizarre fashion – one building on the art gallery road had filled its balconies with lifesize papier mache figures, while in a balcony by the Dali museum there is a cardboard cut-out of Dali holding two whopping great fish gazing nonchalantly over the street.
Met Fabien at the Palau de la Musica Catalana, on Carrer de Sant Pere Mes Alt, which Alicia insisted was one of the attractions worth paying to explore. She was totally right. The building is squeezed out of the way in a narrow street, but leaps out from its boxy space with its vibrant colours and designs. Above the front entrance is a forest of pillars, decorated with patterns of tiles showing flowers and leaves.

While we waited for the tour to begin, we sat on some steps and ate the packed lunch Alicia had prepared – a spinach and tuna tart and gorgeous sandwich of meat and tomato, seasoned with oil that had been soaking with Provence rosemary for months.

Inside the Palau de la Musica Catalana the English language tour gathered with a guide who liked to drift into Spanish intermittently to keep us on our toes. The Palace was built between 1905 and 1908, and was funded mostly by the Orfeó Català choir and the middle class of the area, so there are no boxes for royalty or VIPs in the building.

The palace was designed by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, in the modernist style, and is intended to make audiences feel as though they are in a forest or garden. Pillars and windows are decorated with flowers and leaves, while the ceiling of the concert hall is plumped out with red and white roses. These roses are a symbol of Catalonia, whose patron saint is Saint George.

Legend has it that Saint George saved a princess by killing a dragon, whose blood became a red rose, which George promptly handed to the girl (how handy!). This legend has inspired Catalonia to treat Saint George’s day as a second Valentine’s day – all the men have to give their ladies red roses. As it’s also national book day, the girls traditionally have to give their men a book in return. In modern times men have had to start giving a rose AND a book, so as not to neglect their lover’s intellect...

The dominant feature of the concert hall is a stunning stained glass window in the centre of the roof – it drops down in a bulbous sun burst and is intended to resemble a drop of water. Through this bright window, the room is flooded with daylight. Although the Palace was one of the first buildings in the area to be supplied with electricity, in its earlier days only matinee concerts would take place, so all music was enjoyed in daylight.

My favourite aspect of the room was the chandeliers strung from the pillars – the pillars are shaped to resemble palm trees, and the ring of glass lights hanging half way up resemble the fruit of the tree. Each ring is hung at an angle to provoke the sensation that there is a wind billowing out through the forest.

Met Alicia afterwards and we had a quick drink in another modernist-designed cafe, which is apparently where Picasso had one of his first exhibitions. From here we headed to the Dali museum where we had fun with a door which featured a Dali ‘tache. Inside were hundreds of prints, photographs, sculptures and even a miniature version of the crazy Falla that Dali designed for the Valencia fire festival, Las Fallas (the original Falla went up in smoke, as was intended, at the festival). I particularly loved the prints in which Dali had messed around with ink, creating swirls and dollops across the page, then with a fine ink pen had transformed them into suggestions of crowd gatherings, castles or landscapes.

A mad dash back to Placa de Catalunya at 6pm led us to the start of the ‘Walking Gallery’. About a dozen artists congregated with paintings ranging from a vibrant street scene, to a Jackson Pollock-esque bicycle, to a brown paper collage. From here we rambled along Las Ramblas, dodging tourists and fancy dressers, with most eyes falling on Alicia’s provocatively placed nude torso painting.

Many of the artists spoke English, including Pablo the Mexican who had created a beautiful Surrealist scene in oils that looked like rich brown velvet, and a German artist who had created the red, yellow, black and white street scene. However a couple did not speak any English, which provided me with the opportunity to stretch my GCSE Spanish to the max and attempt a conversation! I was surprised by how much I understood when I listened, and I could almost make myself understood in return, although there were several moments in which I realised I was saying an Italian or French word with a Spanish accent, and once an English word with an Italian town at the end. Still, they were very patient, and when it all got a bit much I just smiled and ran away to the back of the line.

We got the most attention when we stopped in a square near Jaume I metro and took a load of photos of our artwork next to the large black and white photos that had been erected showing Franco’s time in power. These photos had already been enthusiastically and imaginatively defaced, and when Alicia held the nude torso over Franco’s, this was met with general public approval.

Franco and his fascist government is of course anathema to the Spanish populous, but in Catalonia there is a particularly focused hatred. The Catalan language had been banned under Franco and they had suffered greatly under his rule. Today many Catalonians are fiercely proud of their heritage, and many want special freedoms from the rest of Spain. There is even talk of teaching only in Catalan, with the Spanish language not featured. Alicia told me that some people in Barcelona will insist on talking to you in Catalan, even if they know you don’t understand it. It seems to me that to use a language to restrict communication rather than to facilitate it is quite bizarre.

As we left the square we noticed a group beginning to dance the local dance – everyone stands in a circle holding hands above their heads and some complicated footwork takes place below. Pretty, but I prefer a bit of fiery flamenco.

After taking the weight off our feet and the dust from our throats with a cool beer, most of the artists dispersed and Alicia, Fabien and I were left with another artist, Magnolito Oliver, who only spoke Spanish. Still we had managed to keep up a conversation for a decent amount of time. Shared the tube with him where he invited me to join their artists collective and made me their UK representative (this was all made clear by Alicia’s translating).

We hopped off the tube at Gracia, met Alicia’s friend, and headed to a tapas bar, where we ordered local favourite pan con tomate, (bread and tomato), Spanish omelette, chorizo and bread, and I had a much needed coffee.

From here we headed to the gallery, which has got to be one of the most bohemian hang-outs in Barcelona. There is an illegal bar at the back, squished into a tiny broken old courtyard, and the gallery itself is a renovated garage owned by an English girl and a Spanish man.

Work by 6 different artists hung around the walls – a real mixture. Here we met Alicia old friend from Uni and his Argentian friend – a bubbly blonde girl who upset my notion that all Argentinians would be more tanned than Spanish people. After taking lots of silly photos with Alicia’s illicit picture we moved on to a bar where the two newcomers could grab a bite to eat (it was nearly 12pm).

We found a bar serving gorgeous chunky sandwiches and sat round while they ate. Alicia’s friend was hilarious – he was saying how he was constantly paranoid about death, whether by bear, psychopath, or shark, depending on his geographical location.

Although that couple were going on to a house party, we decided to head home as we had an early start. Got in and tried a drink that is like almond juice, apparently another instance of Arab influence in Spain.

We also had to make up the Sangria because apparently good Sangria has to ferment at least overnight. It’s a simple recipe: half cheap red wine to half juice (orange or pinapple or a mixture of anything citrusy); a good dollop of a white spirit (we used a mixture of Cava and white rum); whop in a bit of sugar; and cut in ripe juicy fruits like orange and peach. Keep testing it to get it to your ideal flavour, then chill it for at least one night so the flavours mix.

Finally got to bed at 2ish, totally knackered but very happy.

Viva Barcelona! Day 1 (Friday)

First stop on Friday morning was Parc Guell – my first real encounter with Gaudi’s crazy creations. Parc Guell was staggering! Gaudi designed everything and it has an overall sense of organic shapes – from balconies that echo the shapes of palm trees, to a smooth balcony that lolled around the park like an underwater plant covered in bright intricate mosaic. His buildings look like sandcastles, or chess pieces blown hugely big. I love the mixture of simple, flowing, organic forms and the bright complication of the tiles that adorn them.

More Gaudi feasting followed with the Sagrada Familia which I walked all around, then saw that the queue for tickets stretched half way round the circumference of the building, so I moved on! It's still a building site but the bits you can see are amazing - I particularly liked the Cubist figures. What's astounding about Gaudi is not only his mind but the fact that he was given the opportunity to realise his crazy ideas on such a huge scale!

I walked down Carrer de Mallorca to see Casa Macaya, but you could only see the facade and the inside seemed to be filled with builders who called me 'chica guapa' and gave me funny looks. The Arc de Triomf caught my eye in the distance, so I walked down (there is a weird bat figure carved in the stone!), then walked back up to Placa de Tetuan and a long the very busy and dusty Gran Via de Les Cortes Catalanes. I think I had the wrong idea about this area - apart from Barcelona's answer to the London Gerkin (the multi-coloured Torre Agbar), there's just a shopping centre (though the loos here were very welcome!). There was also the largely underwhelming Els Encantes flea market, where a scary guy called me 'idiota' for trying to take a photo :-P

By now I was dying so I struggled back across to the metro and got the tube to Catalunya. Gasping, I finally found the street Las Ramblas (a favourite attraction of the city) and stumbled to the nearest peaceful-ish cafe I could find. My favourite section along Las Ramblas is probably the Boqueria Market, which is under a shady roof and crammed with stalls bursting with fruit, veg, fish, meat, and some tapas bars. Here I became instantly addicted to the small cups of fresh juice sold by the fruit stalls (banana and coconut, mmm).

My biggest expense of the day was 12 euro suncream, which was required when I realised I'd turned a fetching shade of fushia pink.

Once I'd laquered myself in suncream I grabbed a beer then met Alicia from work. Had a bit of a wander up and down Las Ramblas – a street filled with weird spectacles – lots of people in fancy dress to have your photo taken with, flower girls, fairies, and two demons that looked like they might be the next career move of the band members of Lordi. Also stalls selling birds of paradise, lizards, flowers, wooden flowers, and food.

There were also stalls selling overpriced sangria – Alicia got very mad about this when I suggested that we might like to get some sangria. She says the restaurant sangria is massively overpriced and that in Spain it is normally only students who drink sangria because it is so cheap. You make it specifically with cheap red wine, add in juice and a white spirit, sugar, and fruit, and leave it to ferment at least overnight. The tourist restaurants just add juice to cheap red wine, pop in a slice of orange, and charge 15 euros a litre. This was a subject of great passion for her.

There are lots of buskers in Barcelona – on my way to meet Alicia I passed one group playing I think it was the ‘tequila’ song - and an old couple and a couple of old men were bopping along to the music in the centre of a crowd.

Met Alicia and Fabien at Jaume I and we immediately headed towards beer - most restaurants serve the local beer. After a glass of this gorgeous stuff at one of the outdoor stalls, we headed to one of their favourite restaurants. It opened at 8pm and we had to get there early because there was normally a huge queue – it’s very popular with the locals. Inside the door you are immediately met with a counter of fresh fish and seafood – seafood so fresh it made it living presence known by sometimes spilling out of its shell like a tongue sticking itself out at you (I didn’t select these ones to eat!)

We chose fried tiny squid, crab salad, tuna steak, and calamari rings, as well as a bottle of zesty white wine. I have to admit I was a bit daunted by the seafood (after my squeamish mussel incident) but the fried squid and calamari were delicious, especially with the aioli sauce, which is basically mayonnaise and garlic. After this we were totally stuffed, so we spilled out onto the warm Barcelona streets like slipping into a warm bath, and meandered around.

Fabien (who is himself a great fan and a bit of a practitioner of graffiti) says that Barcelona is famous for its graffiti. The city has several walls dedicated to graffiti art, and there is also a graffiti festival each year. We spotted lots dotted around the narrow, butter-yellow-lit streets. Some are on paper pasted onto walls and the metal doorways, some are painted or sprayed on directly, and also onto pillar boxes, dustbins - anything stationary. Fabien says there is more paper graffiti now, while the painted one is more traditional.

We wandered around the gothic area just off Las Ramblas – lots of people were also meandering around, and I noticed several icecream and coffee shops that I swear weren’t open in daylight hours. The streets were punctuated with romantic pockets of buskers – including one small square filled with the sweet sound of a man playing the harp. We headed to find Barcelona’s other favourite drink after the beer – super fresh mojito. We found a not-so-crowded bar and the waitress made us 3 drinks with heaps of fresh mint and limes from a bowl on the bar. It was so gorgeous and tangy!

Decided to save money and make more mojitos at home but in fact by the time the night bus had reached the area where they live – Gracia, above Park Guell, we were all super tired. (I keep saying ‘super something’ because that’s a favourite phrase of Alicia’s, and now it’s stuck in my head!) So we headed to bed at 1ish.

Another little poem...

Part II- She

She is the opposite
Of what he asked for.

She lacks in style and grace,
Dirty boots, but a pretty face
When she smiles.

She is so different
From what he expected.

She paints red, her bitten nails,
She always falls, and fails
When she tries.

She is not like
All his other friends.

She is too soft and warm,
Tousled hair, but a perfect form
When he looks.

She is the opposite
Of what he asked for.

She is light and space,
Raspberry silk and lace,
If he could see.

She is more obvious
Than he would like.

When she laughs too loud,
Sings off-key in a crowd,
She is.


By Emma

A little poem by Ems...

Part I- The Kite

he smiled and said
‘look, a kite’
she tilted her head
and looked his way
you’re beautiful
she tried to say
he caught her stare
and touched her arm
warm and bare
she felt hot and bold
and shivered with cold
she brushed her hair
out of her eye
willing him to care
he lay on the grass
and let eternity pass
she couldn’t lie
watching the kite
he couldn’t try
to touch the girl
who he knew
he wanted too
she gave it away
before the wind died
before he could say
‘watch the kite with me
always and forever
you and me’

By Emma

10 Ways to be more English

Good Day Sirrah! Or should I say, cor blimey luv, it’s time to be more English! Here’s how:

One) Get yourself a big old hunk of meat or fish, roast it for hours (no “rare” food here please! Make sure it’s very very dead!), add some delicious roast potatoes (Mmm, Nigella Lawson ones = to die for), a few other veg (this writer enjoys mashed carrots and swede, broccoli and sweetcorn), and pour a generous amount of Ah Bisto gravy all over the top. But this delicious meal must NOT be partaken of on any other day but a Sunday. You will be shunned. And you have been warned.

Two) Queue. Just queue. You are allowed to look annoyed, but you will NEVER say anything. Just queue.

Three) Listen to the Beatles / Rolling Stones. They are British institutions and they rock the world. Here’s my favourite of each: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntpgeMdcdcU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VbImuG71M

Four) Have a picnic in any weather. It will make you truly English if you can peel and eat your boiled egg whilst huddling behind a sapling in gale force winds / sleet / snow / rain. You can also eat in the car: this is a fun family trip out:- drive to a park, sit in your car in the car park and eat your boiled eggs / pork pies / crisps / juice cartons etc. Go for brisk walk around park for 2 mins in your macs, then run back to car and drive home. Perfect day out.

Five) Read Moll Flanders. I double dare you. (Take that, Madame Bovary!)

Six) If you are female, watch “Pride and Prejudice”, the BBC version with Colin Firth, at least 6 times (that’s only 36 hours, and you don’t have to do it in a row, though it is nice). If you are male, watch it anyway, you might love it.

Seven) Learn how to talk about the weather. This is crucial to being English. Most conversations start with a missive on the weather: “Gosh, isn’t it cold / wet / sunny today?” and “Did you hear it is the wettest / driest / windiest day / month / year on record?” are two of my personal favourites. (Delete as appropriate, do not try and say all those things at once, people will assume you are mad. Though they will be too polite to say it and will probably agree that it is indeed the wettest and also driest AND windiest day, month AND year on record)

Eight) Never let a member of the opposite sex (or, indeed, the same sex, if you are that way inclined) know you are interested in them unless you are drunk first. You do not let people know you like them until a) you are sure they like you (which you will never know because of the aforementioned rule) and b) you are drunk enough to do some bump and grind in a club. (Fi and her flirty shoulders may disagree with me, but I rest my case based on the fact that after Uni, when we were all so drunk that some of us actually got partners, post-Uni all my single friends have remained single. The dating world in England is tough. So have a drink.)

Nine) Have a Barbeque. You know you really really want to. And don’t forget to talk about the weather.

Ten) Moan about, but simultaneously protect ‘til the death, the British pound (and that’s about as political as I’m gonna get folks)

Disclaimer: This is in NO way mocking the Brits, I am English and love my country, I just tell it like it is.

Next to receive the Em treatment (unless I get complaints about how racist I am being): Italy! Ciao for now!

10 Ways to be more French

Boobjour! (boob day?!)

From Faux French land, here are some French themed ideas for your day (tout et la fruit!):

Un) Buy yourself some brie, bread and olives for lunch today and wash it all down with some French red wine, (alternatively, try some of these amazing sounding French foods: saucisson, pomme de terre (apple of the earth, LOVE it), pamplemousse, petit pois – just saying them makes me happy!)

Deux) Listen to some French rap: la belle et la bad boy by MC Solaar being my fav: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwEH6LYr4-U

Trois) Go on strike (now that’s French)

Quatre) Have an affair (it’s a totally normal, free love, mature approach to relationships in le chic France: you know you want to)

Cinq) Buy a red and navy outfit and swan up and down your local waterway smoking a cigarette with plenty of black eye-liner. Tres mysterious.

Six) Read Madame Bovary. I dare you.

Sept) Have a Cannes Party with your friend: dress up, walk the red carpet, take photos of each other, watch some films, have an argument about said films, storm off in a huff, have a love-in reunion, drink loads.

Huit) Have a two hour lunch WITH wine every day. This should be made into a legal requirement: over to you ConservaLibtive-Democrats

Neuf) Only buy French made cars. Renault anyone?

Dix) Do not overly show boobs and legs. Dress classy. Think Carla Bruni (wait, isn’t she Italian...?)

Disclaimer: This is is NO way mocking le French, I love the country and the people! Next to receive the Em treatment: England! (Just to prove I’m not being stereotypical!)

Ems Gets Multicultural...

English Flowers

Here's a little picture I did on Saturday - I think I need to get a magnifying glass if I'm going to keep up painting tiny things! Fi :-)

Top 5 Worst Ways to Spend Your Time:

1. Ironing

2. Thinking about all the ironing you ought to do

3. Waiting for a bus

4. Unblocking the plughole

5. Watching anything starring Nicolas Cage

Elephant Parade

Here's how I amused myself this week! I've gone a bit cross-eyed doing all the detail! Fibs xx

SUBCONSCIOUS SHOPPING SPREES: No Woman Is Safe!!

As weather remains grim, and retail outlets continue to place dazzling ‘SALE’ signs in their windows, the British Medical Council have detected a surge in the worrying mental illness ‘SSS’ (Subconscious Shopping Spree).

The illness is most prevalent in city centres, and particularly in enclosed malls, where shoppers are liable to become too dazed by colours and cut prices to navigate to the exit. One Manchester shopper, Fiona Scoble, reported how she had suffered from this terrifying handicap:

“I just popped out of work to buy some new headphones in Currys. Suddenly I blacked out, and when I came around I was at the till in COAST buying two half-price cardigans.

“What I can’t work out is how I managed to try them on, along with a summer dress and a pair of shoes, in the dressing room, without ever regaining consciousness.”

Several major banks have come forward to offer counselling to women whose bank accounts have shrunk overnight without their knowledge, only to be replaced by heaps of reduced price accessories. Unfortunately the petition sent to the Bank of England, which called for banks to refund purchases made by those suffering from SSS, has been ignored.

While SSS predominantly affects women, men are not immune, though reports suggest that SSS tends to attack men when they are closer to video game stores, while women are most susceptible when in the vicinity of shoe shops.

Investigations are underway to find a cure for this devastating and prevalent disease. However, one spokesman from the British Medical Council did suggest that as a preventative measure, women should only enter a shopping centre after donning very dark glasses, and after stapling their credit card to their desk.

Fi

The Trials of Living at Home with the Folks, episode 1: Who's the Boss

Following Fibi's trials and tribulations with the gas man, Emma laughed, Emma smirked, Emma giggled. Then Emma realised: she has nothing to laugh/smirk/giggle about. She is living at home and will be 24 in 19 days time. And she is caught in her own eternal catch-22, whereby she loves it and hates it, she is a baby and an adult, a child and a friend to her parents...

Top 5 Reasons why its a confusing old time to be living at home:

1) Going to bed at the same time as the parentals. Lame, yes. Occasionally necessary, yes. Especially if a) your parents room is above the sitting room with the TV and your dad is a very light sleeper (and prone to thump the floor with his slipper if it's up too loud, which is any volume at all), and b) you are like Emma, and get scared when you are downstairs in a big house on your own and in charge of 'locking up'
2) You want to cook your own food, but you sulk when your mum doesn't make you anything/ doesn't even THINK about making you anything
3) Begging to borrow the car (which you feel guilty about anyway, cos you never put any petrol in it), but its better than begging lifts/getting smelly expensive bus (why so expensive if so old and smelly? But I digress...)
4) The power struggle: Mum vs. Daughter. Who is bossier? Dad doesn't know and he's hiding under the stairs anyway.
5) Luxury. Let's face it, in a rented house/room you're never going to have all the hot water, heating, log fires, fully stocked fridge, washing/tumble drying done and sorted out without you noticing. Yes, I need to grow up. but do I want to?

Next time: Episode 2 - Getting your own way

The Trials of Living Alone: Episode 1, Replacing the Gas Meter

Useless Fi has struggled to get up at 7am to avoid being in her nighty when meeting the gas man who is coming to replace her gas meter. She is now on her 3rd cup of tea and burning shirts as she attempts to iron. The gas man finally turns up at the door:

Practical Gas Man: Are you the Gas Meter?
Useless Fi: Ummm Yes.
Practical Gas Man: So where is it then, let’s have a look.
Useless Fi: Ummm (trying to smile winningly) I’m not actually sure where it is! I was hoping you might have some sort of innate ability to find it.
Practical Gas Man: (Silently judging) No. Can you show me?
Useless Fi: Is it this?
Practical Gas Man: No, that’s your stopcock.
Useless Fi: Is it this?
Practical Gas Man: No, that’s your boiler.
Useless Fi: Is it this?
Practical Gas Man: No love, that’s your fuse box.
Useless Fi: Ah. I don’t really have any more ideas.
Practical Gas Man: (Briefly raises eyes to heaven) Do you have a cellar?
Useless Fi: I don’t know.
Practical Gas Man: (Brief disbelief) I’ll see if I can find it.
Gas Man wanders off, finds some stairs, the cellar, and the gas meter. Does his stuff. Meanwhile Fi burns some more shirts. Gas Man returns and hands Fi some numbers which she immediately loses. Gas Man runs away.

Artist's Impression of My Day at Work:

Molecular Structure of Fibi:

Things that I have done this week:

1. Read a book about telepathic spiders

2. Tried to pay for a pair of tights in M&S using a red pepper: the same colour as my wallet, and also in my handbag. A lesson to us all to avoid sporadic grocery shopping.

3. Fallen in love with THIS bird:

4. Tried GIANT AFGHAN FOOD: a hunk o’ meat the size of my arm, on a naan bread the size of my face.

5. Sat next to a penny whistle player at a pub gathering of folk musicians. Tried to blend in by bobbing and weaving to hide the fact that I was the only one there without an instrument.

6. Danced in a Ceilidh, sometimes pretending to be a man, sometimes with a Spaniard.

7. Forgot where I lived.

8. Learned how to say ‘you’re crazy’ in Arabic.

9. Drank mint tea which reminded me of Morocco, and Cinnamon tea which will now remind me of Asem’s mum’s kitchen.

10. Ingested my yearly quota of pancakes. Prompted by Pancake Day, rediscovered the pancake food group. Got through 12 eggs in 1 week. Don’t want to look a pancake in the eye for at least another 12 months.

Fi

An Ode to Fi's Tea

For too many years I failed to see
The wonders of the World of Tea,
Green or chai, black or white,
I never knew the comfort of a cuppa at night.
But Fifi, she knew,
That the cure to being blue,
Is a steaming hot cup,
For a chatter and a sup.
So all hail to thee, the Queen of Tea
(To you and me, that's Mademoiselle Fi!)

An Ode to Emma's Cakes

There ain’t no baker like Emmylou,
Queen of Icing and Cake Mix too.
She’ll whip up cupcakes in a flash
That look so tempting, I would dash
Through storms and seas to grab one bite!
I’d even hold vigil every night
To make sure no one came between
My tastebuds and the Cupcake Queen!

Fi

More Cakes (made by Em, but Fi could do it too!)

Fi's Tea and Em's Cakes, part deux

So... we love cake and tea. Fact. And what better way to celebrate that than a regular tea and cake fiesta. In my dreams, Fi and I open up a beautiful little cake and tea shop, where I make red velvet and chocolate cherry cakes, and we drink tea all day, make some money out of it, and also use the shop as our art gallery/production studio... Ahhh, dreams. Maybe this will become the blueprint for the revolution: tea and cakes as a means to combat bad stuff. And maybe, Fi and I will start this off in our living rooms NOW, making it a regular kinda thing for anyone who's interested. Watch this space...!

Em's Cakes and Fi's Tea....

Emma's To Do List:

1. Work out how to make myself invisible
2. Learn how to make own champagne (and drink it)
3. Destroy evil capitalist corporations
4. Party with Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, Gandhi, Blondie and the Dalai Lama
5. Invent a new type of cake
6. Re-decorate Buckingham Palace (I'm thinking shades of purple...)
7. Participate in Mexican knife fight (and get non-life threatening but cool scar)
8. Learn to love soya milk
9. Stop time
10. Pick up dry cleaning

Softy Southerner meets Northern Aerobics, and expires.

I know they’re made of sterner stuff up north, but their aerobics instructors are a truly fearsome breed. It’s not like I’m new to the peculiar world of aerobics – I’ve spent many an hour prancing about to ’80s remixes and catching my sweaty “mad woman of the woods” reflection in the wall mirror (the public can think themselves lucky I don’t often jog outdoors).

I’ve grown accustomed to the wrath of instructors as I trip over my own knee caps when attempting to grape vine and bring down the other women like a stack of lycra-clad dominoes. I’ve long believed that I burn more calories in a class by having a fit of hysterics at the back than by following any of the steps. I’ve met instructors in many shapes and in various stages of neurosis, from the merely highly strung to the one who stopped the music mid way through, divided the class into under 25s and over 25s, and made us perform a series of ‘tough man’ challenges until the over 25s won and one girl had a bloody nose.

What I had not yet encountered was the peculiar Mancunian mixture of bitter mockery and sincere threat that seems to hold sway over Northern fitness. Perhaps it would make sense if I’d ventured into ‘kick ass judo for the burly and vengeful’, but all I’ve attended so far is body balance and yoga!

Body balance, despite mostly consisting of movements reminiscent of a kitten encountering a piece of lint, was enforced without mercy. The class was guided by a rotund woman with a voice capable of giving a regiment of the French Foreign Legion an attack of the jelly legs. Woe betide anyone who chased their imaginary lint in the wrong direction; if tasers were allowed in gyms, hers would be the first name on the order form.

Dear reader, I write in a state of difficulty, having heaved my mangled body away from this evening’s encounter with Mancunian yoga. After two hours of careful teasing, I’ve managed to remove my toe from my left ear, and the stabbing pains in most of my body are beginning to subside.

Part of the reason I’m in this state is sheer panic; when a man threatens to sit on you if you don’t straighten your back while sticking your neck between your legs, you straighten your back and to hell with the vertebrae! I’d never before associated yoga so much with the word pain, but as he guided us through each pose, laughing callously as joints snapped and tendons juddered, he informed us that we’d know when we got it right when the pain kicked in. Never before have I aimed to acquire a burning sensation in my spine. I do not intend to do it again.

Fi

March of the Grannies

Each year, a truly remarkable journey takes place as it has done for millennia. Woolly clad grannies in their thousands abandon the tea scented security of their homes and clamber onto the frozen ice to begin their long journey into a region so bleak, so extreme, it supports no other wildlife…

The Hazards of Housekeeping

I’ve decided I’m not going to do any more cleaning – I’ll just leave things to mass until the mice break in and eat the surplus.

The following things have occurred since I opened and attempted to construct and use my new hoover:

1. I caught my thumb between the hose pipe and the metal bit when fitting them together.

2. I punched myself in the face when trying to pull the hose pipe and the metal bit apart again when they got stuck.

3. I pulled all my jewellery across my hall when the lead got caught round my bedroom table.

4. I didn’t find the magic hoover pipe extender switch until too late and gave myself a hunchback trying to use the improbably short hoover pipe (see Diagram A).

5. I’ve half lost my voice from singing along to Beyonce too loudly above the hoover noise.

Surely, a lesson to us all to live in our own filth.

Fi

Dreaming

This etching is inspired by illustrations in my mum's ancient copy of Arabian Nights

Winning a Wife

This etching is inspired by a story I heard in Central Asia that in order to win the woman he wants to marry, a man and his potential bride are both given horses and the man must catch up with the woman, but she gets a head start so it's really up to her (unless she's as bad at horseriding as I am) Fi

Kashgar Monoprint

This is a monoprint on cotton of a nice wrinkly bloke and some camels :-) Fi

Walls are Talking at The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester

In presenting their new exhibition “Walls are Talking” the Whitworth Gallery emphasises the artists’ subversive use of wallpaper as a medium - how surprising that it can be used to discuss topics as serious as warfare, racism, and gender! It is as if they are anticipating their audience to find it farcical that artists might find wallpaper a useful canvas to carry their message.

Of course artistic battles have long been played out on the home front. From the Surrealists (Meret Oppenheim’s ‘Object (Le Dejeuner en Fourrure)’, 1936), to Pop Art (Richard Hamilton’s ‘Just What Was it That Made Yesterday’s Homes So Different, So Appealing’, 1959), to the YBAs (Tracey Emin’s appliqué blanket ‘Hate and Power can be a Terrible Thing’, 2004), artists have turned domestic materials into a canvas. Subverting the most everyday and familiar items strikes at the heart of people’s lives and their conceptions of identity and reality; it is one of the most useful tools to artists trying to get a message across.

The exhibition has a strongly surrealist tone, partly because the work it contains so often makes reference to Victorian social and aesthetic values; revolting against their Victorian predecessors was a major driving force behind the Surrealist movement that began in the early 1920s.

The exhibition displays many original examples of Victorian wallpaper. Victorian decoration was often guided by their belief that scenes depicted on their walls would influence the room’s inhabitants. In one example of Victorian nursery wallpaper, a diamond pattern contains scenes of children diligently employed through each of the year’s four seasons. Another displays a catalogue of scenes from Robinson Crusoe, intended to inspire self reliance and discipline in those nursery inhabitants confined between the images. In the seasonal design, barely any attention has been paid to drawing the children’s faces, giving rise to the suggestion of how little Victorians valued individuality in comparison to conformity and respectability.

Several artists in the exhibition subvert these intentions and designs, taking elements of the traditional motifs and incorporating additional, often shocking images of their own. Francesco Simeti’s ‘Acorn’ takes the decorative frames of traditional ‘print room’ wallpaper and replaces the images they contain with disturbing scenes of chemical warfare and figures in biohazard suits dealing with contamination. Another of his works, ‘Arabian Nights’, takes a traditional wallpaper design of tranquil landscape scenes. Within the motifs he incorporates images of Afghan refugees displaced by the war – they are displaced again within the rigid confines of the repeated paradise that echoes across the wall.

The repetitive nature of wallpaper design makes it the perfect vehicle for commenting on media culture and the proliferation of images. Who better to display as an example of this than Andy Warhol, whose “Mao Wallpaper” features a repeated design of the dictator’s face, just as Mao’s face formed the wallpaper of China as a nation. The work is at once imposing in Mao’s omnipresence, and reductive, as the controlled pattern relieves the face of its significance as it is subsumed by the rhythm of the design.

Many artists make use of wallpaper’s overtly domestic identity to comment on confinement and repression within the home. ‘Five Bar Gate’ by Kelly Mark is filled with lines that appear to mark out time within a prison, but imagined within the home setting they could equally be chores ticked off as they daily grind wears on. In another piece, ‘Cry Baby’, a repeating design of baby faces bloom out at the onlooker in claustrophobic deep pink, echoing the feelings many young parents experience of the walls closing in as they are confined with the constant demands of young children.

As the exhibition demonstrates, wallpaper is irrevocably associated with our living spaces, and as such can be of major significance to our memories and identity. Many people can remember the wallpaper of their house as children, and memories of this image become interwoven with the domestic scenes they formed the backdrop to. In times of physical or mental illness, insomnia, or confinement, the familiarity we gain with our own walls can make their image both intensely comforting and threatening.

Victorian women, for whom the outmoded adage ‘a woman’s place is in the home’ held sway over their entire existence, developed an intense relationship with their home’s furnishings. We need not join the ranks of the Surrealists or modernists to pick apart the misplaced values of this era; in 1892 Charlotte Perkins Gilman first published her 6,000 word short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. The story depicts the mental deterioration of a woman forced into confinement by her husband so she can recuperate from “a slight hysterical tendency". Forbidden from working, and totally lacking in stimulation, she becomes obsessed with the wallpaper she is confined by. As she descends further into psychosis she loses herself in the patterns of the wallpaper, imagining women creeping around behind the patterns, eventually believing she is one of them.

This excellent exhibition takes full account of the threatening, comforting, and even political role wallpaper has played, and continues to play. It is well worth a visit.

Fi

File under: Adventures and Escapades, Part Uno

The abridged and (hopefully) amusing version of Emma and Fibi's night in Cambridge, 24/9/09:

Chapter 1: Emma arrives in Cambridge at 7pm and her and Fibi set off on their merry way to pizza express where they glug down a bottle of wine, eat 2 slightly cold pizzas, talk about life the universe and everything, and Fibi tries to teach Emma how to flirt (unsuccessfully? maybe not! See chapter 11!)

Chapter 2: Slightly tipsy, our heroines hop in a taxi to the beautiful village of Grantchester, where they force themselves to drink another glass of watery but surprisingly potent red wine before staggering out in the dark down to the punt of doom...

Chapter 3: Emma and Fibi befriend weird beardy guy (who gives Emma a roll-up - which she surprisingly enjoys), punt lady, american punt lady, and Sam the punter who is apparently a novice and who wants to drink champagne whilst punting a boat of drunken people along a pitch black river

Chapter 4: Scary japanese film, amusing B-movie film, scary Birds attacking us movie (weird beardy Tom not happy about scary birds), scary scottish wicker man film. Lots of champagne. Pissed guy on boat jumps off to have a piss (ironic) and splashes in water. Emma mocks weak bladders, something she may come to regret, see next chapter

Chapter 5: Drunken people get out, apart from very drunken Emma and Fibi, who continue in punt on pitch black river with Sam and american punt lady, probably embarrassing themselves with comments and questions. Emma's bladder almost explodes

Chapter 6: Emma and Fibi arrive back in town, where a desperate to pee Emma tries to run out of the punt docks the wrong way and then do her business up an "alley" (in fact, not an alley, a busy road with many restaurants). They run up the street to the cinema bar thing, which hungover Emma cannot remember name of, and run into bathroom. Best.Pee.Ever

Chapter 7: Emma buys Fibi and herself another red wine (big mistake) but they do get a delegate's discount. They sit in an empty bar and talk deeply, meaningfully and profoundly about life (translation: drunkenly, loudly and stupidly)

Chapter 8: Fibi's then boss arrives, not drunk, joins their table and they proceed to talk to him through their hair (Fibi) and not be able to focus on him (Emma). He seems to know all Fi's secrets... Emma tries to stop Fi revealing more secrets. Fi worries about her lazy eye.

Chapter 9: Emma liberates a bag of revels from the Cinema

Chapter 10: Emma and Fibi wander around Cambridge (note from author: Our heroines actually can’t remember this part AT ALL. Their next memory is...)

Chapter 11: They go to get a vegetarian kebab. Emma flirts with the kebab man, who keeps touching her and saying "oh, Emma" and gives them free pizza. The kebab staff try to persuade a loudly disbelieving Emma and Fibi that Barack Obama came to the Kebab shop. Whatever. (Note to selves: get the photo they took of Emma and Fibi and destroy)

Chapter 12: They walk back MILES to house of doom, dropping the kebab and pizza along the way. They have a loud theological debate that makes Fibi's head hurt and which Emma cannot remember

Chapter 13: They sleep for 3 hours

Chapter 14: Within 20 minutes of getting up, they are in a taxi on way to town. The taxi drops them off and they walk in a circle back to where it dropped them to go to a little Italian cafe. Handsome cafe man can tell they are hungover. They eat yoghurt and drink juice, tea and iced tea. Everything tastes gross. Emma calls Barack Obama "Barack Osama Obama" They laugh a lot. They walk unbelievably slowly to the taxi rank, where they have an emotional goodbye. Emma gets a taxi to the railway station (nb. time is 7.58am), Fibi wanders off to find her bike

The End

Appendices: The following texts from Emma and Fibi followed directly after chapter 16:

Emma: "my pyjama bottoms just fell out of my bag outside the train station! Arg! Tried to pay taxi driver with euros, not impressed! really need loo Now this has become a stream of consciousness text! Have a good day chick, thank you for 1 of the best nights EVER! Love you long time xxx"

Fibi: "You fruitloop! Just sing aloud to yourself that'll help the varmit. After u left I walked round town laughing to myself and hiccuping. Then I bought some yazoo. then I found my bike and patted it on the handlebars like a dog. Love u mrs magoo! Ur ace!xxx"

Emma: "What's yazoo? Sounds gd, i want some.... Driest mouth ever. Gonna get a loaf of bread in London, and maybe some grapes. A v.posh business woman opposite me has an "Am I bovered?" ring binder. Weird!xxx"

Emma: "just remembered what yazoo is. I do want some!xxx"

Fibi: "I drank too much yazoo. Auauurgh... Hope you feel better! I have literally no idea how to do the work I've been given so I'm just squinting at the computer screen waiting for something to happen.xx"

Emma: "I just got here [work] and realised most of the clean clothes in my bag have some toothpaste on them somewhere...! Damn! Hope your work magics itself done!"

Top 5 ways of procrastinating at work this morning:

1. Trying to eat mini cornflake cakes one cornflake at a time without cracking any.
2. Trying to hear what's going on in the mosque underneath our floorboards without getting caught with my head on the floor.
3. Searching for obscure/distantly remembered songs to add to my Spotify playlist.
4. Making little animals out of coloured paperclips.
5. Moving my laptop around 3 different spare desks every hour on the hour.

Fi

Projects on the Go

As somewhere we can store our thoughts, we want to make sure we have all our forthcoming projects posted here (also as motivation to actually do them..?! Maybe we should have been Procrastinator Productions!) Some things we hope to post about in the future:

• Betty the Tea Lady (to know her is to love her)
• Short animated films - silly and fun, Fi and I play with a wind-up penguin and other random things
• Short stories, articles and poems (we have a backlog of these!)
• Plans for a real short film (script ideas in progress)
• Fi's art (check out polka dot lady above - she rocks)

Any more to add Fi?

Today though, I am flummoxed by my digital camera - not a good beginning! (Mondays...)

Ems

And so Polkadot Productions sprang to life to the tune of "It's Hip to be a Square", cos Goddammit it is hip to be a square, or at least a red polkadot. Manchester rocks, as does a) Fi's ability to open a wine bottle with a pair of scissors (photo story to follow), b) 80's music in a classy (?!) bar, c) copious quantities of wine, pretzels and Indian sweets, and d) best friendship. I'm back to London tomorrow and I'll miss you Fi.

Let's just keep gong Thelma. 'K Louise

Peace out

Ems