Yesterday I went to Bristol and found the most amazing bookshop by the river.  It was part of the Arnolfini gallery and basically contained books and magazines about design, art, fashion, textiles, photography, architecture and furniture!!  It was like all my favourite books under one roof!  I stayed in there for 45 minutes and could literally have bought the whole shop.  I came away with just two purchases, a book about the Festival of Britain (which fascinates me because of its influence on British design) and a notebook for meetings where all the pages are photos of different wall surfaces to write on!  Cool huh?

Moleskine are launching an exhibition and book called The Hand of the Designer – 450 original sketches by famous designers donated to the Italian National Trust.

Following the exhibition, the original works will be auctioned at Sotheby’s to support the maintanace work of the Villa Necchi Campiglio, a grand example of rationalist architecture in Milan, set of Luca Guadagnino’s latest movie, “I am love”.

The exhibition opens on Saturday the 10th of April 2010 at Villa Necchi Campiglio and at Triennale Bovisa in Milan and will be up until the 9th of May.  I would love to go to this!!!  I would also like a copy of the book….

I found a beautiful shop yesterday in Stow-on-the-Wold – the sort of thing I dream of owning…  It is called As Long As It Sparkles.  The owner looks younger than me, but the whole shop is done out like a pink rertro boutique.  It is beautiful.  They sell all kinds of jewellery, clothing, accessories and one-off vintage pieces.  I love it!

I get very upset (to the point of tears) when trying to buy trousers.  How difficult can it be?  There is only one category of jeans that I have found (in the world) which fit me.  They are the NEXT boyfriend fit in size 10 long.  Yes, they are a little big on the waist and back and a little snug around the thighs when you first wear them and a teeny bit long (but regulars are a teeny bit short) but they do at least go on.

What has happened to the shape of trousers? Is it just me?  My problem is that I am not an english apple shape (slim legs, any weight goes on the belly, slim frame), I am a pear.  I have a significant bum, hips and thighs and a small waist.  This shape is not allowed in trouserville.

I went to the Swindon outlet centre the other week hoping to find one pair of jeans that would fit.  I must have tried on 11 pairs in different shops (Levi’s, Crew, etc etc) and I couldn’t get a single pair over my knees, or if they did go over my knees there was no room for a bottom and certainly not to do them up.  Even if I had tried a size 18, they would not have fit.  Every cut, every style.  I kept looking at the size 10 jeans I was wearing and thinking “surely I cannot have put on this much weight?!”  (This just a day or so after my Grandma giving me her ritual speech about how much I am ‘filling out’).  I was ready to cry and give up, so I went to NEXT to Nothing and bought two pairs of Boyfriend, 10L.  They fit perfectly (apart from the slightly too big waist etc).  What on earth will I do if NEXT stop making these?!  Please can people make trousers with legs and bums again?

I always regret the fact that I dropped history as a subject when I was 14.  We could choose, for GCSE, between 2 languages, or geography and history.  In retrospect, a history GCSE would probably be of more use to me now than a Russian GCSE, much as I enjoyed it.

The reason for dropping history, was that we started our historical study ages 11 by looking at ancient Chinese dynasties.  This was largely done from a textbook (I am not a textbook learner at all), with the waffling input of a teacher who was practically a piece of decaying history himself, wandering around the classroom twiddling his thumbs upon his large belly as he spoke….And spoke…..And spoke.

Frankly, I was bored witless.  So I made my choices at the beginning of year 9 and then, unfortunately, started to really enjoy the subject, as we got on to British history, with a much better set of teachers.  Ah well.

Anyway, I still find some history to be a bit like chewing dry muesli, but one thing that does fascinate me is the history of buildings.  There is a website that I find really intriguing, called 28 days later.  This is a team of people who break into derelict/disused buildings that have been sitting empty for a while.  They take photographs of what it now looks like.  This is probably not entirely legal, but somehow brilliant.

I was looking up the history of the Axiom the other day, a building that really fascinates me and one which saddens me greatly because it is no longer with us.  28 days later ran an article on it here, showing what the building now looks like inside.  I love it!

The Axiom has a fascinating history, it was once W. Ride & Co Grain Merchants Cheltenham.

There used to be space down the side for 8 horses!

On the side of The Axiom today, you can still see the old sign – I love this kind of thing.

Anyhow, the Axiom was turned into a very cool arts venue.  The upstairs (the grain store I believe) was a large gallery to display the work of up and coming artists, including school children.  Downstairs there was a cafe and there was also a gig venue.  The hippies and vegetarians of the 90′s loved it, but so did many other people.

The building was eventually closed, due to fraudulent activity, never to be opened again.  This to me, is an absolute tragedy.  More tragic still, is that the building has been bought by a London developer who is quite happy to let it sit and decay.  Apparently (although I have no idea why), the council have no power to tell this developer that they must do something with it, in order to improve the appearance of the town.  Great.

There is definitely something missing in the town without this:

A perfect venue for (albeit incredibly 90′s!) arts.  Now, Martin Horwood has said that a new arts venue is high on his agenda.  Unfortunately he is not listening to the people.  His primary idea for a site is the Quadrangle!!  For those of you who don’t know, this is the single ugliest building in Cheltenham.  For years they have been trying to pull it down because it is such an eyesore.  Why, oh why, would it be fit for an arts venue, when art is all about image?  I don’t mean ‘image’ in a negative way, but the very definition of art suggests something that is beautiful or interesting to look at.

Now Martin, if you are reading this, you might see the Axiom as a shabby old building, but here’s the thing.  If you pulled the Quadrangle down and built a brand new, state of the art, custom arts building in its place, the location would be perfect because Montpellier is beautiful (and no, not a series of rectangle boxes with fluorescent strip lighting and cheap carpet).  If this cannot be done, then an old, red brick industrial building in a good location that is quirky in a good way (not a bad way) is perfect.  If it has some original features and a really good story attached, then even better.

There is a project that runs called Meantime.  It is really good in that it covers the workshop and project space side of things, but it is not well-known sadly.  I still feel that we need something a little more….  Anyway, that was my historical building for today.

So I called 02 to cancel my contract because usually when you do this, you are put through to their department of nice people!! I asked for my PAC code and of course they started the whole “Why are you leaving??  Booooohooooo!” syndrome.  I told them and they were horrified. They offered me a deal which is not on their website so here it is folks if you want it too:

Simplicity:

£20/month
600 minutes
1200 texts (pic messages = 4 texts, which new 02 contracts don’t offer – they just charge for them)
unlimited internet

Now I may look like a mug who has just signed my life away but I have also been put on a rolling contract (month to month) so I get more time to cool off and decide what to do.  I get to leave at any time still if I want to, but am not being ripped off left right and centre in the meantime (I should have mentioned before that I have had two astronomically high bills which they will deny unless I can ‘prove’ that they are wrong – how?!  This was the other issue – they said they’d look into it and didn’t!)  So whilst they have not backed down about the £100 theft, I am at least now in control, because I can ditch them at the drop of a hat if anything else happens.

I am furious.  Why do 02 think it is ok to take £100 out of my bank account with NO AUTHORISATION for 2 days and then randomly credit it back?  When I phoned them up, they said “All we can do is apologise”.  Well I’d love to see the look on the face of the magistrates when I turned round and said “All I can do is apologise” when I’d nicked a hundred quid off someone else who struggles with cashflow.  I am so sick of the fact that they can apparently get away with this.  I asked for some compensation on my account (at least) and they said “Why would that be appropriate?” I replied that I was paying for a service that I was not getting, because the contract does not include theft and customer service that refuses to help you.  GRRRR!!  Funnily enough, my contract is up.  Android phone anybody?  New iPhone on a different network?  Hmmm…..

As you will know I am a bit of a geek when it comes to branding, logos etc.  I always love it when you find a hidden trick.  Today I wedged open the window in our sitting room with a Toblerone bar (it was just the right size to let in some air and prevent two eager kitties from getting out!!)  Now call me slow, but I have only just noticed the hidden bear in the Toblerone logo!  Look!

Can you see him?  Click on the image to make it bigger if you can’t.  I decided to look into it in case I was going mad and there are many theories about it (some hilarious).  However, apparently the mountain is Matterhorn mountain symbolizing the town of its origin and apparently Toblerone was invented in Bern, Switzerland. The national symbol for Bern is the bear. Bern is Swiss for “Bear” and in the centre of Bern there’s a bear pit.

You learn something new every day.  The FedEx logo with its hidden arrow is another classic.  Have a look!

Why do people do this? Either it is design gone badly wrong (i.e. a feature you were supposed to spot and didn’t), or it is design at its best, whereby whoever spots it thinks that they have inside knowledge that no one else has and it therefore sparks off a conspiracy theory that gets everyone talking about the product – this outcome is genius.

Yesterday was what you might call “a turn up for the books”.  A sequence of events whereby, if they had happened in any other order, or if the timing had been different by a matter of seconds, then the outcome would have been entirely different.  Last night, we found Monty!  He had been missing since 27th January and has endured heavy snowfall, frost, torrential rain, dark nights, busy roads, etc.  He went missing in Charlton Kings and we found him in St Luke’s, near the town centre.  How is this for a ‘what are the chances ??’ story…. This is how it goes:

I worked late last night, for no reason other than that I was waiting to hear from JT, who had actually already cycled home.  He asked me what I fancied for tea and I chose his favourite dish, which happens to take a while to cook (and he had to pop to the shop for ingredients).  Whilst I was cooking, Mark called to say that he and Al were going to the pub and if we fancied it, we should come too.  Whilst we ate tea, Property Ladder happened to be on, so we waited a while longer than normal to watch the end of it.  After that, JT played a computer game and instead of going straight out I decided to curl my hair and put on some make-up.

Mark called again to say that instead of the Beehive or Jolly Brewmaster (our usual haunts which are just down the road from our house), Al fancied going to the Swan, which is near my work.  We decided to drive and decided to take a certain route, which we didn’t have to take.

There is a cut-through road, which we drove around and a ginger cat crossed the road right in front of our car.  I have seen quite a few cats and have stopped checking to see if they are Monty, because it had started to make me feel sad, but for some reason I said “Oooh….” and JT asked if I would like to check to see if it was Monty.  For some reason I said yes.  I got out of the car but a car drove up behind us, so JT had to drive a circuit.  I couldn’t see the cat when I got out so I called “MONTY!” and I heard very very loud miaowing and he came charging back towards me (he was heading towards College Road before I called).  He rubbed against my hand as I tried to see if it was him, but as it was dark I had to shine my mobile phone on him.  The face looked familiar, so I picked him up, as JT hadn’t got back yet.  He was incredibly skinny and light, like a kitten, which made me think it could be him (lack of food etc).  More cars were passing, which made him wriggle, so I had to put him down (I was terrified that he would run!) but he kept rolling over on the floor and purring and miaowing, so when the car came back I literally picked him up and bundled him into the car so I could see him with the light on.

It certainly looked like Monty, so we had to make a quick decision – catnap!  I called my parents and asked if we could bring him round for formal identification (we have moved house so we wanted to avoid confusion!)  I was a little nervous but in my head I was certain it was him.  In the car he was kneading my leg, purring and climbing all over my legs with relief.  My parents were a little nervous in case we’d stolen a cat, but as soon as we got him through the door I knew for definite that it was him.

We checked all his markings, target on one side, some black whiskers but mostly white, pink lips with black spots, white tummy and chest patches, ‘transformers’ logo on his head, lots of rings on his tail etc.  He miaowed and purred like Monty (you can’t hear him purr unless you put your ear on him) and more than anything, was STARVING!!  He went round saying hello to everybody (Tim and Claire were there) and then as soon as a packet of Whiskas came out he went ballistic.  I have never seen a cat so hungry.  He ate so fast that he started coughing and wretching a bit but was ok.

He looks remarkably well considering, but is very very thin, very hungry and very tired.  We are taking him to the vet this evening just to check him over.  He has bad breath and is coughing a bit.

We are so happy to have him back.  I am still in a state of shock because if any one of the details of the evening had changed by about 2 seconds or one slight decision, we wouldn’t have him back.  No one would be looking for him in town as there were no posters there.  What are the chances of us finding him as opposed to someone else?  What are the chances of him being alive after months of snow, no food, rain, busy roads, etc?  What are the chances of him crossing the road in front of our car?  Many questions, few answers.  The chances are millions to one.  The solution?  Jesus.  It was a miracle.