Autumn Menu with a Hint of Halloween

Delved into my bookmarks and consulted good old oracle Pinterest in order to compile an Autumn menu with recipes slightly out of the ordinary, without obsessing about it - and a hint of the unexpected. It had to be a poetic menu to spell out loud, with each dish almost akin to a verse by Edgar Allan Poe...

Think velvety monochrome textures, smoked flavours, dark syrupy fruit, gooey sauces, messy blends, unusual colours and rare alcohols, to keep you warm inside and chill you out at the same time! Red splatters to keep you on your toes... All in all, a grown-up Autumn menu without the hearty pumpkin chowders, versatile enough to celebrate not only Halloween but also All Saints' Day (Catholic calendar, 1st November) and Guy Fawkes Night (Great Britain, 5th November) without stating the obvious!

So let's get those taste buds into overdrive and that kitchen ready to sizzle!

A P É R I T I F 

The Black Heart by Julep

Cranberry & Pomegranate Spritz by Donna Hay

Pitaya (Dragon Fruit) Margarita by Muy Bueno

Cocktail Snow Cones by HonestlyYUM

Palomitas de Curcúma by La Baguette Magique

E N T R É E

Beet-Pickled Curry Deviled Eggs by Viktoria's Table

Fig and Goat's Cheese Tart by Donna Hay

Spicy Corn Bisque by Bakers Royale

Roasted Red Pepper Tortilla Soup by Cookie & Kate

M A I N     C O U R S E

Vegan Winter Harvest Hummus Bowl by Heather Christo

S I D E S

Roasted Carrots Cooked in a Pomegranate Syrup by Un Déjeuner de Soleil

E N T R E M E T S

Blood Orange Granita by Cook Republic

Pomegranate and Greek Yoghurt Panna Cotta, via Cooked

D E S S E R T

Beer-Laced Sticky Toffee and Ginger Pudding by Delicious

S W E E T     A F T E R S

Raspberry Brownie Ice Cream Sandwiches by The Bojon Gourmet

Juniper + Smoke Marshmallows by Local Milk

Further Resources:

• For a little otherwordliness that remains firmly on the safe side, visit my K ° Mystique Pinterest board.
• Ideas to ease you into the Halloween spirit with a little chill and none of the tack.
• Robert Doisneau photography: black and white, atmospheric and - if you are looking for it - spooky.
• Cocktails that are odd beyond the odds, The Gibson's Cocktail Menu has it by the muddler! Their cocktail list flirts with the quirk and the bizarre in equal doses, if not the borderline bootleg (Scandal in Bohemia, a mixology 'high' of Sweet Grass Steeped Woodford Rye Absinthe + Hemp Cannabis Poppy 'Opium' Oil + Preserved Oriental Lemon Brine + French Confetti Candy Syrup + Forbidden Jelly Ice + Smoking Wood Mushroom)! You couldn't make this one up if you wanted to! For a cocktail slightly less far fetched in terms of ingredients, the Way of the Dragon might persuade an enlightened Classic D&D gamer to give it a try, if only for the rambunctious dragon that is served with the drink: 8 years old Bacardi + Gibson's Seabuckthorn Liqueur + Madeira Wine + Lime + Fresh Rambutan & Mangosteen + Butternut Squash & Walnut Conserve + Galia Melon. Good grief! I'll have a simple G&T anytime!

Way of the Dragon cocktail by The Gibson Bar, Shoreditch, London

Watch Out, There's a Hipster in Your Coffee!

I can't quite figure out how it came about. As my spoon cuts into the foam of my cappuccino and the cocoa constellation dissipates into the milky way of my cup, I look up across the packed out café and smile absent-mindedly. I vividly remember the turning point. At the turn of the millennium, the coffee revolution took us almost unawares and I welcomed it with open arms and a big kiss. In one swell swoop, it swept aside the shameless kettle and Nescafé combo, the gritty coffee pot at work whose treacle-like substance would be laced with lashes of full fat milk and a spoonful of sugar to tone the bitterness and general malevolence. The conservative coffee machine would not fare any better either if you were to self-proclaim coffee maestro. And tumble would the slightly higher-brow cafetière (French Press) that only ever had pride of place in those households that vacationed in France and Italy.

The London Coffee Festival 2015

At that point, coffee had ceased to be that monochrome, low budget, one-dimensional, nonchalant affair, black or white, one sugar, no sugar. Strong and you call it espresso like you're in the know. Weak and you call it Americano, once again if you want to flaunt your two words of Italian (three if we add 'pizza').

The London Coffee Festival

Coffee would be and it would be much more: a coffee named desire. Coffee was going to finally exist, express itself, albeit with attitude and a price tag that yells out indulgence. The Italian vocabulary would expand, and be re-invented should its linguistics become suddenly too limitative. Enter Frappuccino, the foam-at-the-mouth, shirty, expansive creation that makes the paltry espresso look like a size zero, deflated, monastic model. Savvy marketers gave themselves carte blanche to jazz up, sex up, amplify and yuppify coffee and make it indispensable under its new guises. Under the new paradigm, coffee became art creation, indulgence, a liquid brunch - and a neat, no-questions-asked multi-billion-dollar endeavour at the check-out.

The London Coffee Festival North 2016

The revolution would redefine coffee to the point where it would take a long sentence to define your drink to the barman, sorry the garçon, sorry the barista. Just so you can listen to yourself saying it in that all-knowing encompassing 'I'm in the club' way while the punter behind you in the queue quietly rehearses their prose before their grand finale, a brief, sudden verbal diarrhea of a purchasing interjection, cured by a fancy drink that costs a pretty penny.

The London Coffee Festival North 2016

Along with that morning white that suddenly became a long Ethiopian roast skinny decaff latte, the staff behind the counter would be redefined too. Enter Barista, full steam ahead, the busy body that is all arms, concentrated like a strong coffee! They whizz their magic within a few square feet perimeter on the other side of the counter like a storm in a teacup, precise, repetitive movements, attached to shiny expensive machinery with pumps and gaskets, and through the steam, the pulls and the metallic thuds, you would be forgiven to believe they're operating the Orient Express. They add the drama that you bought and paid for to your humble cup, tick boxes and scribble ancient codes on it, spin a thousand variants and combinations around coffee like they're the key to the Graal's safe, so many of them, they've morphed into algorithms. They froth up a hot beverage like a coiffeur teases a curl, with painstaking dedication. And if the impermanence of coffee art weren't fleetingly irrelevant, you have latte art to ponder about.




Now to the crux of the coffee is that correlation of late between fancy, jazzy, niche-market coffee from the café in the know, and the hipster. If we are to believe the hype, it's being percolated to us like it's non-negotiable.

Coffee has become art and science, especially in its percolation. Coffee is edgy: it has become the new absinthe. And in its heyday, absinthe was the poison of choice to the creative mind losing its mind in the buvettes of Montmartre. Modern creatives or wannabe creatives display their edge by drinking connoisseur coffee, a safer healthier option! They still look like the 1890s never quite went away, bar for the rolled-up sleeves displaying elaborate tattoos on their forearms. They wear the bushy beard, checkered shirts, suspenders. Unroll the sleeves to hide those arms, and the chaps wouldn't be out of place on those long-forgotten family photos circa 1890. But why, oh my, did fancy coffee and hipster become an item, if only for the fact that both are stuff of a fashion trend? I doubt I will eat my words on this one: fancy coffee will outlive the hipster but for the time being, chance is you'll spot them together like two coffee beans in a pod behind the counter, about to squeeze into that ristretto.




Hurry up if you wish to catch a gulp (sorry, a slice) of the action! The London Coffee Festival is taking place in a couple of days, 6th to 9th April, Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London.

Blogposts with Attitude #BWA - February 2016

If you missed LBM's #BWA January feature, you need to head over and check it, as you can expect attitude in spades, with flowers and grace! #BWA is back this month - and hush! - the feature might well turn into a fixture! February explored boldness under its many guises: bold design, bold decisions, and bold reversals in fortune.

So, here we go, in chronological order, my five favourite posts this month. Enjoy the read and feel free to add on to the list: -


No.1: Reopening London's Mail Rail by The Conversation

The London Post Office Railway, a.k.a. The London Mail Rail, is one fascinating feat of engineering which - as a cog in the wheel of Britain's bold, efficient and fearless industrial legacy - operated sleek, fast, automated, driverless underground train services, over a 75-year period, facilitating business right into the core of London's sorting offices and two of its train stations, along the Paddington-Whitechapel corridor, dodging ground level delays and traffic jams, tucked out of customer sight and right at the front of the mind of the postal services. At its peak, it transited no less than 4 million letters a day! As with what happens with the idiosyncrasies of post-industrial - erm - industry, such a bold innovation would have to be scrapped eventually. Royal Mail closed the operation down in 2003, in line with its on-going streamlining of operations and year-on-year drop in mail volumes. And as with cogs in the wheels that once drove our industry, they end up either getting scrapped altogether or as a museum display - which is exactly what is to happen to London Mail Rail. Check The Postal Museum's preview on the matter. If you prefer your preview on the raw side - understand down and dirty - check the documented footage direct from the frontline by Place Hacking (back in 2011).

The iPhone S (shown in Rose Gold)

No.2: A Message to Our Customers by Apple

If there is one brand that still oozes Silicon Valley free spirit, then Apple is it. And when we thought it had met its demise with Steve Jobs' passing and the company's multi-million-dollar market share in the mobile phone industry would sell out its credibility as an edgy brand, it proved otherwise. Now Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has taken it one unprecedented step further, in reaction to the US government's request to be able to access customer data, via a master key of sorts, a 'backdoor' to the iOS (iPhone operating system). Apple boldly refused to execute the command, and clearly laid out the reasons for encrypting customer data. You can only admire a company for refusing to compromise its core values in terms of privacy laws and digital security, while still abiding to the American Constitution, yet refusing to be part of the police state that the government is building, one bit of code at a time. Apple, you stand well out there in the wake of America's founding fathers for whom liberty was a right, not an option, and I hold you in high esteem!

No.3 Dogs Run Over, Cats Thrown in the Trash: Victims of 'No-Kill' Policies by PETA

'No Kill' or not 'No Kill'? That is the question raised by this article, when shelters have ceased to be shelters and ceased to welcome every animal in need, because they no longer operate an open-door policy, for whatever reason, genuine or otherwise: over-capacity, overcrowding, long waiting lists, management difficulties, selection criteria, or simply to keep turnover low, 'make it look good' and secure further fundings. As always, the unwanted, abandonned pets are the ones left to suffer and pay the ultimate price of neglect and cruelty. PETA notes that “No-kill” policies don’t prevent animals from dying. They simply leave animals to die elsewhere—and often miserably." The solution is not in No Kill, it lays in educating people about responsible pet ownership, and adhere to a spay-and-neuter programme.

A life of tears on Necton Hall Pig Farm, Norfolk, England!

No.4 My Face Off Challenge: Filming in a Typical British Pig Farm by Juliet Gellatley @ Viva!

Viva! Founder and Director Juliet Gellatley braved the night and the inhospitality of her surroundings. She pushed the door of an ordinary British pig farm (Necton Hall Pig Farm, Norfolk) to show us what is really going on behind closed doors and beyond the myth of happy husbandry. She unveiled to us an ordinary tale of daily cruelty, ordinary in its commonplace, ordinary due to consumer love for meat, and a finished packaged up product that desensitises them from the reality of a once-living animal, all flesh and bones and sentience, behind that lump of meat surrendered to carnivorous appetites. And the cruelty on the farm leads on to the antechamber of the abattoir where horror awaits. The tragedy of the farm animal happens everywhere in the world where animals are traded commodities. In fact, human rapport with animals is short of humane, and may be summarised by The War against Animals by Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel, Lecturer in Human Rights and Socio-Legal Studies at The University of Sydney. The tragedy is more acutely emphasised under the industrial farming model (whereby 10 million pigs are slaughtered in the UK each year!), where an animal is a living product with a price tag on its head. Viva!'s shock tactics are sure to pull on the heartstrings of the blissfully ignorant meat eaters out there. Some of them will end up joining our vegetarian ranks, while the rest will turn a blind eye and remain complicit of the pain on their plates. Years ago, thanks to organisations like Viva! I took the decision to stop eating meat. Simple question for you: if you truly love animals, why would you want to eat them? Hone that thought before you reach out for that BLT!

No.5 Oscar-Nominated Film Forces Pakistan to Confront 'Honour Killings' by The Telegraph

It is easy for a young Western woman to take for granted that general sense of freedom that comes with the territory, in terms of her choices around higher education, employment, fashion, travel, and love relationships. Our society is tolerant of our choices and orientations, and today's parents have taken it in their strides with greater ease than their elders. The permissiveness of the West stands out from the die-hard traditions and customs of patriarchal cultures from Africa, the Indian sub-continent and Southern Asia, where girls and young women have their choices taken away from them by strong family pressure for them to conform to cultural legacy, which includes forced mariages. If they do not abide, they are not only disgraced by their families, but also run the risk of losing their lives. Oscar-nominated documentary A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness by Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy relates the fate of 19-year-old Saba Qaiser, in a poignant true story of love and (t)reason. Every year, more than a thousand girls and young women are the victims of religiously-motivated honour killings in Pakistan alone!

Don Draper, Eat Your Heart Out!

Dust off your DeLorean machines for a short time travel away, 53 years back in time to be precise, and let's land in the heart of the UK Mecca of Mad Men advertising, London's answer to New York City's Times Square, and just as technicolor brash and electric: Piccadilly Circus! And there's a delightful branding revisit in the offing: Coca Cola, Guinness, BP, Wrigley's, Skol and Co. Have your pick!

The technological prowess isn't brought to you by crazy Doc but by the no less crazy team over at London FullScream motion design agency. The short animation is based on archive pictures superimposed with old weather reports and processed together with a state-of-the-art colouring and animation software. The moody grainy sepia rendering is hypnotically grand! Loving it, and let's wish the FullScream creatives will have another dab at this to offer us more (and longer) urban montages.

(Pict source)

Piccadilly Circus 1961 by FullScream from FullScream on Vimeo.

The Wacky Warehouse

When going round offices, you get the feeling that workspace design was accounted for under next to zero budget. And the likelihood is that most of us aren't that chuffed about our style-less, charm-less workplaces. Or if indeed we are chuffed, this might have not been the case at previous employers... I've worked in offices that range from the sublime (understand posh, trendy, light-bathed, design-led, Warholeque showroom type) to the darn right ridiculous (as in grubby, gums stuck to that knackered old brown carpet c.1972 matched by grime-caked Dickensian walls prospect)... So yes, I've worked in a few places from the sublime to the ridiculous and vice versa, but now I wish I had at least experienced Google!

I'd heard about Google's wacky uber trendy workplaces, from a friend of a friend who had worked at its Mountain View HQ. She had described to me the use of bold primary colours for the interiors that are supposed to excite those neurones (a bit like those tacky colours at McDonalds restaurants are supposed to excite those taste buds!). My friend had also mentioned the sleep pods where Google employees could catch 40 winks during their long shifts. Now this is the kind of concept that would get our European trade unions reel in horror and throw in a picket line straightaway. But what is interesting here is that - although I don't know whether those sleep pods were exported across the pond - Google's revolutionary wacky office format has certainly been teleported to the European cities of London, Dublin and Amsterdam, as featured in Fast Co.Design and The Telegraph, bringing fun, quirk and comfort into offices! You can see that the designers had a ball with the brief as they let their imagination run wild à la Lewis Carroll! Adios teary palettes of grimy grey, yawny magnolia and dirt-alike beige, the old clunky metal furniture that jars, the cheap carpet tiles that curdle and the small dingy windows that let the cold in and no natural light! Google's offices were designed to love you and be loved back. Now this is more than revolutionary, it is a novelty, right?

Liberace's Boudoir? I Think Not! This is a Conference Room at Google London's Super HQ!

Safe Room at Goldman Sachs? No, Padded Cell Room (Meeting Room) at London HQ!

Iron Man's Ejector Seat? No, It Belongs to London HQ!

TriBeCa Youth Centre? Google Amsterdam Offices More Like!

Latest Mr Bean Movie Set? Nope! It's a Meeting Room at Google Amsterdam!

Alice's Tea Party? Or Google Amsterdam Offices Featuring Stroopwafel Ceiling Tiles?

Photo source (from top down):
(1) to (3) = The Telegraph
(4) to (6) = Fast Co.Design

Oh, Hello Spring!

Spring is my favourite season! Just the sound of it makes me 'spring' into action after the bleaks of Winter, as I awaken to the new possibilities the year has to offer after I spent the winter strategising and researching business opportunities. Spring feels like a renaissance. Corsica awakens too. In fact, it unfolds with Spring. The air is sweet with the aroma of heather whose clusters burst out on the exposed hillsides. Rosemary is in full bloom and a magnet for pollinators that are buzzing out of the woodwork and filling the silence with the reassuring sound of nature at work. Songbirds are now joining in the chorus as they celebrate the coming to being of a brand new day, at the perfect point when night breaks into dawn. Meanwhile cytisus and genista are opening up to the world and casting their bright yellows into the delightful pantones of green that velvet-clad the rocky landscapes that tumble into the sea.

Not meaning to sound pretentious, but I've literally photographed thousands of wild plants since I first set foot in Corsica 4 years ago. Yet when it came to choose one that would symbolise Spring for this post, I thought about a happy compromise between this island and that other island, Britain, where I spent 16 years of my life. Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the delightful Centaurea cyanus (British Cornflower), brought over to you by a bag of seeds from the honorable Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, no less!

The Cornflower (Centaurea cyanus) peps up meadows, fields and prairies

Total Recall - Product Reviews

Wahoo almost there! And thanks for sticking with me, guys! For Total Recall Day 7, we'll have a blast with our product reviews. Now I am acutely aware that if I had chosen to religiously go down the (retail) product review road with this blog, day in day out, I would have made a killing in terms of online visibility, and I would have thousands of followers in the process! My blog's Google stats are pretty eloquent!

Sometimes in my thirst for fame I am tempted to go down that route well travelled and 'give them what they want', but I have way too many interesting personal things I wanna share with you for me to sell out to the well-oiled formula of blog success. I mean it's like having to choose between Walmart and the local deli, or between E.L. James (a.k.a. the author of Fifty Shades of Grey) and P.D. James (established crime novelist), or - come to think of it - between P.D. James and Agatha Christie. I choose to remain unwealthy - yet healthy - as the purveyor of intelligent food for thought for a lifestyle with attitude, rather than some supersize lifestyle fodder!

Tali and Ophira Edut a.k.a. The AstroTwins (pict source)

• Fancy a Brazilian? (31/03/2013) >> I actually had a lot of fun (and pain!) writing this review! A light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek approach to the latest craze in town! Not for wallflowers or shrinking violets though!
• March 2012 - FRF - The Vintage Tea Party Book (26/03/2012) >> I got a great Twitter accolade from Angel Adoree, the lady who wrote this delicious book that I purchased from Selfridges London. This made my review even more so special!
• February 2012 - FRF - The AstroTwins (18/02/2012) >> This is a tribute to some of my favourite astrologers, twins Tali and Ophira Edut. Exposure to the article went stratospheric after I tweeted the link to the twins! A case of success gone viral, and above all for me promoting a great website by two passionate sisters!
• Beauty Review - SkinCeuticals Serum 10 (24/03/2011) >> My best-seller of all times (in terms of page views that is!), and I am rather proud of my photographic prowess too, challenged by a basic digital camera and natural Winter light.
• Fashion Review - Doc Martens (24/01/2011) >> In my early twenties, I got acquainted with a pair of Doc Martens shoes and these really defined my style as an undefinable woman: Doc Martens (associated with punks and goths) worn with cords (Seattle grungey) + a fitted beige raincoat (Kinda East Coast à la Reese Witherspoon) + vintage style flower shirts + an ever changing hairstyle from PJ Harvey to Courtney Love + 1960s style make-up... I mean everyone had reasons to feel confused about me, myself included!

That's it for now, but don't forget we've still got one day to go and we will have covered 40 great baguette posts! As always thanks for your support, and please do not hesitate to spread the baguette love to your friends and family! See ya tomorrow!

Total Recall - In a Travel State of Mind

On Day 3 of our Total Recall, I'm taking you down a physical journey that is akin to a personal journey, since I firmly believe that travel or living in another country for some time is an important component of personal development. And by travel, I rule out those expat lifestyles cut out from the reality of their host country, or those on luxury cruises who'll boast that - say - they know Singapore, purely because they were on an 8-hour stopover there. Travel is a state of mind, and you'll capture some of its essence in our following posts:

Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park, photo by twoGiraffe, via Flickr

• Plan A (21/11/2012) >> OK, so I didn't stick to those 2013 travel plans that I had made at the back end of 2012, but maybe I wasn't quite emotionally ready for the big leap yet... In the meantime there is no harm in dreaming, and yes somehow the frustrated armchair traveller in me does realise that my personal fulfillment includes travel. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life in the place where I am currently living and, after a 16-year stint abroad, the appeal of foreign lands beckons more than ever!
• An Acute Case of the Wanderlust (12/09/2012) >> From a young age I ambitioned to quit my small town life and hit the road less travelled to places as diverse as Guatemala, Brazil, Kenya and Bhutan. When the girls in my class were dreaming of a shopping city break in the preppy French seaside resort of Deauville, my lofty ambition was that one day I would get the opportunity to land upon the infinite sand stretches of Baja California, Mexico, and embrace its coastal biodiversity.
• The (Late) Lowdown on London (05/09/2012) >> Welcome to my light-hearted travel guide to Central London in a few pointers and snapshots!
• The American Soundtrack to My Life (28/08/2012) >> This post captures the essence of travel and free-spiritedness, via an American traveller I befriended in Corsica: venturing to places off the tourist radar, volunteering in environmental projects, staying in cheap hostels, living like the locals and befriending them, speaking their lingo - and leaving that travel guide on the bookshop shelf!
• Ill-Fated Journeys (08/01/2012) >> Not all journeys in life are geographical, some are metaphorical, and as with geographical travel, they're not always mapped out as should be...

I am positive you will enjoy this little travel selection of mine, and don't forget to join me tomorrow for our Total Recall Day 4!

The World's First Really Live Feed

Who said that awareness campaigns and calls for donations had to be stern and serious in their approach? In the UK, the animal welfare charity CIWF (Compassion in World Farming) came up with an innovative and interactive marketing campaign aimed at promoting the benefits of happy free range pigs!

Ingredients: take one free range country farm in Buckinghamshire, a posse of five happy-go-lucky cheerful and slightly peckish "Tamworth" piggies, and a giant interactive billboard down the road (London's Westfields Shopping Centre). Ask would-be benefactors to stand in front of the interactive screen, armed with the CIWF smartphone app in order to connect to a crazy-professor-style apple catapult strategically placed in the field, and part with £1.00 for the benefit of feeding one juicy green apple to the piggy brigade.

The smart thing is that the donator can literally see - in real time - where their cash is going. As soon as the £1.00 transaction has been processed, the apple is ejected into the field and a horde of happy gallivanting pigs comes for it, while the name of the benefactor shows up in big letters on the screen for that glittering 15 seconds Ta-Da fame moment!

All in all, this is a tongue-in-cheek fun experience that goes the light-hearted way - while striking a chord - to promote free range into the streets and educate consumers ... (vegetarians, look away now!) ... about their bacon! Over five days, 500 apples were thrown and the campaign reached out to 500,000 people, with the "to eat free range is to eat happy" slogan.

Inspire Aspire - Vivienne Westwood

Her eccentric style and sometimes far-fetched creations mean that she may not be everyone's cup of tea, but Vivienne Westwood is certainly a cut above fashion glitterati! To her credit, she has inspired countless designers and artists in the making to go off a tangent to explore their passions rather than follow the mainstream avenues of formal education in order to get a foot in the door and get noticed. And to me, this is all down to one word which has been a driving force for the fashion darling.

(Pict source)

I remember quite vividly watching a fascinating TV documentary back in England a good four years ago. I found it enlightening and inspiring, to the extent that four years on it still plays in the back of my mind whenever I harbour a doubt as to my next direction in life, and whenever I try find a reason why I can't make it.

Casually and very humbly, Vivienne mentioned a couple of times during the programme that she was self-taught. Yes that's right, a self-taught fashion designer and seamstress. She wasn't fresh out of Central St Martins College, and she didn't have the family connections to get that red carpet out and ease that ambition up into the fashion circles. The woman who famously said: "I didn't know how a working-class girl like me could possibly make a living in the art world" thought outside the box. She came from punk, she came from that clothes shop on London's Kings Road outrageously called 'Sex' where she designed crazy outfits for the likes of The Sex Pistols. As far away from the lofty French fashion houses in Paris VIII as can be... And the irony of it all would be that years later those very same individuals who sniggered at her origins would cram up into her fashion shows and shell out the dough.

Anglomania Collection - AW2013-14 - Look-091

To some, self-taught might mean a roundabout last chance saloon way of getting from A to B. To Vivienne, it was a successful means to an end, where theory was experimented upon, fun was had with swathes of fabric, where ideas could just flow without the restriction of dos and don'ts, and opportunities seized in a 'right place, right time' mode. Carpe Diem. Self-taught is the best out of the school of life. And closer to us, self-taught has seen bloggers turn household names and YouTube sensations set up shop very successfully, and I can't resist the thought of this other self-taught guy - Sir Richard Branson - the very boss of the airline company whose flight uniforms are being designed by our Vivienne. How ironic indeed!

Unlikely Friendship

I've struck an unlikely friendship with a retired lady neighbour of my parents. Her name is Janine and she is old enough to be my mum. Since living at my parents, I would occasionally bump into her in the street, we would say "Hello" and exchange the odd nicety, nothing less, nothing more. Her and I were poles apart.

Then back in September of last year, we got chatting in the street quite randomly. We poured our hearts out to each other about our lives as islanders and I found out how lonely and bored she feels here... Janine is from the city, independent, well-off, sophisticated, ultra-feminine and more acquainted with designer labels than plant tags. You get the picture: she is no country girl. She also happens to be married to a retired intrepid adventurer who made a living in the oil industry, from Scotland to Cameroon, from Mexico to Gabon, and it was her husband's idea (not hers!) to retire on the island, so he could indulge in boating, fishing, hunting and other earthly "pleasures"...

So far from the London buzz...

Recently Janine and I stumbled across each other again and we struck that unlikely friendship. It started off with a walk down the resort followed by a hot chocolate at the local café. But soon enough we agreed upon the fact that this sedate lifestyle was getting too much for us, and we needed to spice it up! Since then we have jumped in her VW Polo and taken to the roads less travelled of Corsica - at our peril, set that adrenaline rushing to the temples as we found out that quirky narrow mountain road abruptly turned into a piste and we had no other option than do a U turn in a tight portion of dirt track, wedged between a cliff face and a ravine.

We've ditched the sedate café for the trendy bar with deep carpets, lamé surfaces, dark corners, risqué beaux and fashionista waitresses, swaying gently to that pre-party ambient groove à la Ministry of Sound, clinked Champagne glasses, laughed dizzily and indulged in a glimpse of the lifestyle of the Housewives from Bravo! I can still picture Janine raising a perfect eyebrow from above her D&G glasses and pouting: "You have no idea how solo dining in a restaurant is soooo not fun!" And we exchanged that knowing look as high-profile culinary escapades are to be next on our list!

The Mercedes E-Class Coupé

Oh, I'm liking it. And I'm liking it much more than my bank manager as this burgeoning friendship promises to be high maintenance and a potential threat to my overdraft. But it takes my mind off my mundane preoccupations, and makes me indulge in a more shallow part of my personality. Janine and I have already planned to hit the top-end tourist hotspots when the weather hots up.

As she readjusted her designer clutch in the trendy bar, pensively admiring her French manicure, she leant towards me and casually added: "And for the occasion, we'll make sure that we hit the promenade in my other car, the coupé convertible". Talk about getting noticed in style! In preparation, maybe I should start giving Net-à-Porter a bit more of the attention it deserves... and worry about the cash later! Ahh, life is a breeze - a seabreeze even!

Smells Like Free Spirit (Part 3)

"I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957, Part 2, Ch. 4

How do I do it as a free spirit, I hear you ask? For starters, being labelled a free spirit is a revelation because I never thought worthy of such a privilege! I never saw myself that interesting! Now that I am taking this on board, I'd better live up to it and that might take some adjusting, after years of the 'obligated' conformist lifestyle, following lines of conduct, business protocoles and abiding to company mission statements, flirting with the upsides of capitalism and suffering from its downsides too.

Via We Heart It

Pretending to be someone I wasn't and looking for answers in all the wrong places, feeding off the fleeting buzz off a new material purchase or upscale social event, I was lying to myself and in those late-night blurs, in my darkest minute with caked-in make-up around teary eyes checking my reflection in the bathroom mirror, when suddenly hit by the solitude of it all, it would briefly dawn on me that this lifestyle would never satisfy me, my soul, my spirit, my heart.

I felt trapped. I kept thinking: 'Is that it? Is that all there is to life? To make money and to spend it?' Then I would brush my doubts off, get up and go back to where I had come from, the office, the long commutes, the airport lobby, the party, the fakes and the doppelgangers. I had to because questioning my choices at that pressured moment in my life would have been to admit I had been wrong all - or at least most of - the way, and it takes courage and a certain form of abnegation to get to admit that! The timing wasn't right. I had spiritedness as a state of mind but at that moment in time I couldn't liberate it and be myself.

'Sleeping Angel' (Highgate Cemetery), photo by Ben Jeffrey, via Flickr

So then for the sake of research, can we capture the essence of a free spirit? Or is it too rare, unique, evanescent and elusive to be bottled into an eau de parfum? Well, you can say that again! Actually if you described it as 'a little je ne sais quoi', you might get close to a definition. But if you're not happy with that, I will venture a few reflections. A free spirit stands out with their views (and for their views!) and their ways of thinking. They stand up from the masses and sometimes they stand alone. They do not tend to follow the herds, which is why seasoned marketers and advertisers must have a field day trying to 'sell' them the coolness of their brands!

Via Pinterest

Free spirits do not (cannot!) care too much about what everyone else thinks about them. You have to let go of prejudices and be tolerant, respect differences, be more detached or you'll get sucked back in; yet having said that, this apparent carefree attitude doesn't mean you don't care as a free spirit! The ones I know care too much for their own good! And as for one I am incredibly sensitive and passionate, verging on the compulsive dramatist at times, just ask those closest and dearest...

Free spirits are not necessarily creative, however their thinking is creative! On the other hand, being a creative doesn't warrant free-spiritedness. I know some creative types with regimented organised materialistic lifestyles who would never contemplate the more Bohemian aspects of a free spirit lifestyle, and who try to instill 'some sense' into my life. And that, I'm afraid, will get them a buh-bye from me! (to be continued)

_________

Smells Like Free Spirit is a 4-part series:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4

The (Late) Lowdown on London (Part 3)

So then what do I make out of my nine-day London city break? In an ideal world I might have made more of an adventure out of it rather than stick to the roads well travelled that span an area comprised between Covent Garden and Oxford Street but on this particular occasion I realised that I was more after a break than an actual city break.

I still managed to stretch my comfort zone to a long walk across The Mall and down The Embankment on that glorious Spring day, play the tourist with my latest digital camera in tow, massage my ego down Bond Street, pay Fenwick a visit and lose myself in the Britishness of Fortnum & Mason. I purchased some of my all-time favourite Charbonnel & Walker chocolates and Farrah toffee, succumbed to the joys of high tea served in plush tea rooms, treated myself to coffee & walnut cake - my favourite British delicacy. I sampled those already familiar little bits of (eye) candy that make Britannia what it stands for in my mind: well-packaged, delicate and exquisite. The devil was in the detail.

Down the line I even took the time to strike up lovely conversations with some lovely folks and even won a huge box of Thorntons chocolates from a random HSBC branch I was randomly walking past! These all made my day in their own special way!

London in a nutshell was a breath of fresh air for the city girl in me who had been living the rural island life for over two years now and who had been banging on about the buzz, the pulse, the vibe, the visual identity of the big city. I needed that. I needed to immerse myself in it, go crowd surfing, dizzily transported past tall elegant architectural buildings with things to notice, people to watch and a nod to familiar concepts from my career past: brand identity, retail theatre and consumer behaviour. Yeah as cliché as this may sound, you can take me out of marketing but you can't take marketing out of me!

The Covent Garden Academy of Flowers

The (Late) Lowdown on London (Part 2)

Sorry Mr Lou Reed but when in London I didn't "walk on the wild side". Rather I took the road well travelled. Staying so close to what the capital city has to offer in terms of "mainstream" action, I even had the luxury to be able to walk here, there and everywhere. No need for the Tube, for buses, carts or horses, yay!

This was one of the advantages about the Kingsley by Thistle Hotel, Bloomsbury Way. As you step out, you turn right and carry all the way up. Or you might nip to the back like I did and wander down the back streets in order to avoid the heavier traffic, past the British Museum, down Charlotte Street, and end up towards Harley Street (if vanity is your thing!). I actually had a bit of a field day down the Charlotte Street area, past the media agencies and advertising studios. That took me back years when I used to work in the industry.

As long as your London tastes are pretty tame, you will find the Kingsley Hotel to be at the heart of the action in relation to London's main shopping venues including Oxford Street and Covent Garden, museums (British Museum, Tate Britain) and entertaining hotspots (The West End). The beauty of it was that I could even nip back to the hotel during the day if I wanted to put my feet up for a while, change shoes, brew up a coffee or whatever tickled my fancy. This was no rock'n'roll city break, and this is probably why I got bored somehow!

In terms of refreshments taking you from AM to PM, there's only so many Starbucks, Prêt A Mangers and Costa Coffees you can handle. They have watered down the high street to saturation level and if you are telling me their expansionist mission has not yet reached its peak I scream!

On the retail front, some stores had me wobbly with anticipation but sadly didn't live up to my (somewhat inflated) expectations. Anthropologie (on Regent Street) was one of them. As much as I find the brand identity cool online, it fell pretty flat on the high street, in terms of store design and display. The wares looked lost in store. Interestingly I am told that Regent Street used to be a pretty exclusive shopping destination, once boasting an array of high-end one-of-a-kind flagship stores whereas now it seems to be nothing more than an extension of Oxford Street, pure and simple.

Kate Spade London (Covent Garden)

Talking of Oxford Street, I was left disappointed by another American brand that had me raving years ago when I first discovered it on a trip to Santa Barbara, CA: Urban Outfitters. The one on Oxford Street failed the test. The store design was a shambles and no wares actually caught my eye. I left empty-handed. Where are those cool vintage tee-shirts?

A trip to London wouldn't have been so without Liberty and Selfridges on the list. Liberty is still packed-full with style and character, despite my initial fears. Their stationery department is a treasure trove, and the iconic Liberty floral fabrics still have that magnetic hold on visitors.

Liberty's fresh flower stall

Selfridges is one big high-end shopping mecca, a house of mostly luxury brands that enabled me to get close and personal with the likes of Christian Louboutin and wonder what this is all about, unless you are planning to trade your looks as Belle de Jour... I wandered down the Tiffany aisle and then even treated myself to a deluxe microdermabrasion facial at Groom.

While I was at it, I even booked a hair colour from the Toni & Guy Academy (New Oxford Street) across from my hotel. I might as well have. The colour was fabulous and it made me feel good for the rest of my stay. (to be continued)

The (Late) Lowdown on London (Part 1)

Crikey, here is a piece I had planned to write on my return from London at the end of March! I got sidetracked somehow. I wish I had a valid excuse as to why I couldn't deliver the goods there and then rather than five months later, almost as an after-thought, but erm actually I don't have any excuses. Will you ever forgive me though?

There's probably a hidden message there somewhere. Sure there is. London was London, I just wasn't me for the whole nine days I was there. When I go to England, I go 'home' to Manchester, my hometown of 16 years. I just slip into that comfort zone, the familiar haunts, familiar faces, recapture memories and let my moods tickle my fancy.

London just isn't home. Nobody forced me to go to London, I just went along an idea I'd had with a girl friend of mine, Isabelle, and off we went.

The London I had experienced years ago had been exhilarating. The London I experienced back in March was... erm flat boring. I wanted excitement. I imagine the lack of it was a bit like how an out-of-body experience must feel: you are somewhere else but know you are not supposed to be there, your heart's not in it.

I stayed in luxury in a Bloomsbury hotel, but I'd had more fun times staying in grotty B&Bs those years back. Back then London was full of opportunities and possibilities to me. Now there was nothing it could offer me that I was looking for. No happiness, no satisfaction. No contentment. I tried to amuse myself with the London shopping experience, but once the initial awe had subsided after I stepped into Selfridges and Bond Street, I couldn't help but feel lonely, feel at odds with it all.

I became moody. I didn't like my own company anymore. I started missing people and that wasn't a good sign. Isabelle and I who should have got on like a house on fire, ended up avoiding each other and go our separate ways. As much as I love and cherish England, as much as I am a fan of London, on this occasion I wanted to go home.

Then as soon as I landed back on French soil, I got busy, I got caught up in life... Better, faster, shinier things to do and experience I guess than finalise that post about London... I put the blog on hold. I understand now that I had to come full circle before I could come to terms with that journey. As much as a geographical trip, it had been a personal journey, a life journey. I was lost and it took me five months to refocus my energy and determine where I stand in life. I am in a better place today and there is no stopping me! (to be continued)