My Illustrative Life

Hallo.

It may be spring, officially (or it may not? I’m not actually sure), but that does not mean it’s warm and balmy. No, I still need a double-layered underskirt and wool shorts to keep me comfortably warm. And a fine-knit woolen sweater.

I was going to hang around in the garden and draw flowers and bits of wood and such, because illustrating backgrounds (or; anything that isn’t people) is something that I don’t much do. Because I don’t like to, and subsequently when I need to it doesn’t come out very well, which again - makes me like it less. NO NO SHAMEFUL LAZINESS. Draw from life, draw from life!

But! Like I said. Too cold for only one skirt means too cold for bare fingers, so alas I must stay indoors.

I use my house arrest to watch the latest Linkara review and do other kinds of study. Today, I swallow my mad pride and study Tove Jansson’s Moomin* expressions. They are so painfully good. I say “mad pride” because, in my arrogance, I hate to admit that people have skills and knowledge I do not! It is ridiculous!

And so, la! Theme work!

‘Ow do you like my new scarf-pin? “New”; I found it in one of my local-ish antiques centers. How truly antique is it? Who can say! I don’t much mind; it does the job I need it for, and looks like an anemone. It doesn’t have the middle-nub, but I figure everyone’s entitled to modesty. Anemones are my favourite. Plus, it makes me feel a little safer and more practical. You never know when you may need to pin something to something!

Wore it to make my fire, too.

*I know, I know - I had the Little My nightmares too. But that was the cartoon, not the gorgeous gorgeous books or comic strips, and in the books? Her character is wonderful. My very favourite. Referring to her as an “action girl”, which TVTropes does, is a massive injustice. And she doesn’t have THAT VOICE.

Coming later today or tomorrow: Makeover Movie Madness SPOILERS edition 2: Desperately Seeking Susan

Unrelated: How good would a Vanessa Paradis / Kana duet/battle album be??

Remember when I planted a bunch of bulbs including some garlic?

They grew, of course!

>

That’s the garlic. Isn’t it fine? It’s not done yet, as you can see, but when it is.. there will be a lot. And I shall use it ALL!

Irises and crosuses (crocii still sounds better) too, though they’re in or nearing their prime already:

I think this type of iris is so weird looking. Like alien mouths.

I don’t know the names of the individual types of crocus. But I know that they are ridiculously easy to grow; put them in the ground, forget about them, be pleasantly surprised by small flower-cups!

This was an interesting texture - a rose hip that’s shriveled on the plant.

I hope I never stop being amazed at the colours that can be found in wood. This is burburis, which is apparently a very defensive plant. It’s danger-yellow when grazed, I’m told it’s poisonous-bitter, and it’s extremely thorny. Extremely. Ouch.

I spent twelve til four building and tending a bonfire of all the scrubby old dead crud left over at the end of a garden’s winter. It was a job of heaving and smoked eyes, trampling and poking and blowing and propping and coaxing and HEAVING HARDER. Ivy and other scrub tangles as easily as hair if left to its own devices! But I had a big shiny fork to help me, which was nice.

I’ve got no flippin’ clue why or when this went so crap. It was fine and sharp when I finished editing it.. fantastic.

It was a little bit like I had slain a forest spirit-beast; the branches on top of the bonfire were antlers and the weeds were its flankshag. Not the kind of death that makes you a villain, though. The kind that forges respect between the two involved, and makes you responsible for that area of woodland for example.

My sister, and my foot again. I’m just unable to colour things without using yellow. Why, I wonder? I barely ever use white for highlights, even when I’ve built up enough pigment to block out the paper or canvas. Or if I do use it, I start to hate it and feel put-upon.

Don’t worry, I’m not gonna be posting these every day!

Plus: I’ve been twittering my discontent with Ian Holt and Dacre Stoker’s “official” sequel to Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula; Dracula: The Un-Dead. I drew this in the night, after reading a particularly enraging, faith-breaking passage. Please excuse my vendetta.. Dracula is just too darn GOOD.

Warning: Possible rape triggers

My Grannie, due to failing eyesight, has given us a whole stack of art supplies. Since there are few things more motivational than seeing someone unable to do a thing that you both enjoy - and giving their chances to you - today I have been trying to get a handle on pastels. Oil and chalk. I haven’t used this media for years, because to work on a scale that will allow me to put the amount of detail I’m comfortable with - and create a story in an image - it would mean I’d be obliged to work on an ENORMOUS scale.

But! That is small-thinking left over from highschool, and I do like drawing with colour. And, like I said, Grannie. So here are two of my hand and one of my foot, in order of drawn - concrit appreciated!

This one makes me think of Archangel in those 90s art-only issues of X-Men they put out sometimes.

My mum and sister had half-term last week, so we took an overnighter in Buxton. To walk in nature, and.. look at stuff. We stopped at Chatsworth House (because my sister is a big squealer for Pride and Prejudice), which as you can see above is quite delightful. This is the view from one side of the bridge:

One of several reasons I am proud to volunteer for BW: Waterways are wonderful. So pretty! I drew as much as my freezin’ fingers would let me.

There are links to more pictures (reference/stock) of these gorgeous landscapes in the righthand sidebar.

Also fascinating was the toilet paper, where we stayed. No really, take a gander!

Lots of charming pokey shops, too; antiques and bookshops aplenty. A surprising amount of clothing, in the antiques emporiums in and around Buxton actually - maybe it’s a local thing, but ‘vintage’ seems to be creeping in all over where it was once disdained. I may be being overly romantic.

There was the most excellent bookshop. Second-hand, antique to current, FIVE FLOORS. It had free tea and coffee! That you could make for yourself! It was glorious, and I kick myself for not being in the right sort of mood to really appreciate it. Then again, I really can’t afford to be stocking up on old, old thick books with the sorts of covers that make you want to weep from the perfection of illustration.

Where was my mind? Photographic evidence:

The horrors (and adventures) of my youth.

Truth be told I came out with exactly what I did want - Teacher’s Pet by Caroline B. Cooney, a Point Horror (remember those?) that chilled me so royally that I refused to use the downstairs bathroom for years. I’ve been looking for it for months; I wanted to see if it still had the power.

In the story the heroine finds a rough workmans glove in the woods, which turns out to still have a hand in it. My dad keeps his work gloves in the downstairs loo. I was a nervous and imaginative child!

So, watch out for THAT review, coming soon..

It snowed! The end!

I aquired this advert page (got my sister to rip it out of a magazine (she was in the corner, I was in view) in a cafe) last weekend. And not for the reason you may suspect! Compared to my beloved this dude is weaksauce. Not to disparage his objective attractiveness..

I think that the current ad campaign for Gaultier’s Le Male (and whatever the girly version is called) is pretty much super-great. Because it’s a male/female pair, and both versions are almost exactly the same. They’re both soft, but not too soft. Both a little bit fetish-y; the corset for the lady, the sailor outfit for the guy (I love his little hat!). Mimifroufrou.com says

The advertising plays on the ambiguity of a masculine image that is appealing to the gay community for its Querelle de Brest reference but is shown in the TV commercial to be heterosexual.

I don’t know if that’s the intention or the precise direction of the direction (I can certainly believe it) but I do know that I enjoy the heck out of it. This “appealing to the gay community” isn’t just doing that - it’s appealing to the me community.

I don’t want to see ‘traditional’ manly man men man in adverts. They’re boring; I’ve seen them since forever. They don’t interest me because I like balance.. and that applies to all areas.

I like to see trad-masculine balanced with trad-feminine. Why does Hokuto No Ken appeal to my heart so well? Because it’s about uberdudes whose hearts are crying even as they tear off heads. Why do I like to read Being Manly? Because it’s about ‘manliness and masculinities’ (emphasis masculinities) approached in a gender-inclusive, polite way that makes me (a lady!) feel welcomed, and talks about gender relations and gender roles in a positive way. Why do I like to wear Dr Martens and a heavy leather coat on my wide shoulders and army surplus(/inspired) hats? Because I really like to wear pink skirts! Why did I make Laurence Llewellyn Bowen my style icon (and nickname, though I didn’t make that happen, so much) in sixth form?

Because I was at an all-girls school and most of my friends were vocally into lipgloss and high heels. Why do I love the Runaways so hard? Because they were girls who wore girl clothes and who were assertive and who weren’t ladylike and sang about screwing and drinking. I did a whole great long poorly formatted post early on in this blog’s life about my enjoyment of Jean Claude Van Damme movies due to the, perhaps, “masculine femininity” or “feminine masculinity” of the majority of them. Why do I stare so hard and long at my beloved’s Disney-princess eyelashes (other than the whole “I love him” thing)?

For the same reason as why I think these two adverts are the bees knees. Because they’re not so flippin’ gender binary as most of what gets thrown in my face in the everyday.

It’s some kind of mad dream to see a “I just had sex with a lady” gent doing anything other than thinking “I am SO AMAZINGLY THE BEST because getting ladies means you WIN”. It is some kind of madder dream to see a post lady-sex guy doing semi-submissiv, emotion-based flexing about in tight pants and trousers, putting on a little hat (for his own enjoyment!). I’ve got no idea what these scents smell like, but I am fully pro-them.

You see? Advertsising CAN make me want to buy things! It just usually does the opposite.

They ain’t perfect. She could have a smirk after smelling the pillow too. But that? Is a pretty small complaint, considering.

Yesterday my mum and my sister and I visited my Great Aunt, who lives a fair way away in (my ancestral) Coventry, and took her to Coombe Abbey. Coombe Abbey, if you haven’t been, is awesome.

I haven’t taken any pictures of one reason it was so awesome, because that is probably illegal - there were tons and tons of kids there. Loads. I know it’s half term and all, but it was a joy to see youngins running about yelling at ducks, enjoying forest pathways, climbing banks, shouting “I AM THE TALKING BUSH” and shaking branches from inside evergreens which branch from ground-level, walking dogs, and QUITE CLEARLY being on dates. Too cute. If you are ever thinking, “oh alas children do not like nature any more, only wii, how sad!”, you should go to Coombe Abbey (at half term).

It has buildings, and grounds (lots), and just about every type of country landscape you could ask for. There’s a pond at the front of (what I think is) the hotel that has a sort of aqueduct non-bridge pathway across it; on one side it’s nature free and wobbly and undergrowth, on the other it’s nurture - angular and groomed, statues in the water, box-shaped box hedges.

There are paths to follow in various directions, which managed to turn me completely around and take me by surprise. I thought I’d reached a new building, but it was the one we started at. Cunning! The whole place has a sense of mystery though, the way it’s lain out - there’s always something just visible through or past or behind what you’re looking at.

The grounds were really, really pretty. These don’t do them justice because I am not a good photographer (and the camera I was borrowing is kind of weird and colour-bleaching/non-focusable).

Coombe Abbey also contains the spookiest tree-bourne sculpture I have ever seen. The black dog in this picture was being called forcefully by its owners, but I was willing it to stay in the frame long enough for the darn picture to take..

Seriously, is that supposed to be.. what is that supposed to be??

What’s a day out without a fitting outfit? NOTHING, THAT is what!! In a moment of great serendipity, my super-fantastic dreamskirt from Modelle - via the NASTY GAL sale - arrived that morning..

I was sure I would be able to see my own foot through the trunk’s various holes if only I stretched far enough..

I couldn’t.

BONUS: Me totally failing to replicate the awesome height achieved by my first run-up, which my fool sister MISSED CURSE HER.

And with that, I’ll go back where I came from.

Has anyone else noticed that all the Valentines-themed window displays this year are red (with silver or black accoutrements)? Red to hot pink, at least. Where is all the marshmallowy pink, the fluffy powder colours, the teddy bears swearing eternal affection? Everwhere I looked, in town yesterday, there were red satin undergarments with the spindliest of garter belts (they won’t work, don’t you want your sexy to be practical too?), and shiny metallic balloons.

I did consider that it was a display of solidarity with China, any British-Chinese or visiting tourists, Chinese New Year falling today also. Red being an important related colour. But there wasn’t any gold involved, and besides - shop windows don’t tend to be that inclusive.

I hope you’re having a fine day, whatever you’re celebrating or whatever you aren’t. I do think it’s a shame when people are vitriolic against Saint Valentine’s Day, because being martyred because you refused to disallow soldiers to marry is pretty bloody admirable if you ask me. And technically, by visiting my blog, you did. Ha-HAH! I think it’s a day to celebrate, unless you prefer to make it a day for activism - St. V died for the cause of marriage for a portion of the population who higher-ups felt shouldn’t be allowed it. Who knows what his views on homosexuality would be, but luckily for us (and the whole point of this is that) he’s dead - so he can’t complain if we use his Day to say “Hey, Governments - Let Your People Marry”.

I was unconsciously mirroring the red red world, when I ventured out into it to search out records with my newly-drivers’-liscenced sister. My reds were deeper though, because straight-up primary colours make me look startled. And besides, I like the mystery of a slightly dirty hue.

I couldn’t physically be with my beloved for Valentine’s Day - actually, we’ve never been together on The Day (don’t worry! It’s never mattered, either) - and I’m not near any New Year celebrations as I thought I would be so I’m here typing.. Able to say that if you are feeling blue (and so quite out of place) then all you need to do is put on some dreamin’ gear and use that in-head laptop we call ‘imagination’ to fly you to where and with whom you really want to be. Look, I’ll show you:

Oh - and I beg your pardon, happy New Year to China, and anyone who celebrates!

Badly taken pictures, because I worry I will get robbed if I photograph on the street.

(To check my map; if you think I’m gonna indicate that I don’t know my way around in public, I laugh at you.)

More coming, if the Cathedral are cool with my sharing snaps from within. I couldn’t find a sign saying “don’t!”, but I don’t wanna assume.

Consequences Creed

Consequences Creed has great hair, especially for a professional wrestler. His body has an unusual chunkiness that looks dependable - I’m not worried for his health, or for the crowd of his opponent - and non-monstrous; he’s not scary thin or scary ‘roidy, he’s not super Hollywood-guy ripped but he looks like he is strong (especially in the thighs!). His costume doesn’t have too many elements to it, but it does have enough, and it makes me think of Wonder Woman a little. He doesn’t look nude like the guys who wrestle in pants, and the short shorts are sporty. I dislike watching matches where people are wearing those long spandexy leggings, because I think about them riding low in the crotch and feel sympathy irritation. The colours of his getup complement his skin tones. He springs about and is cheerful. This is a good wrestler image.

Awesome Kong

I am not impressed with the fact that Awesome Kong’s bodice didn’t fit her boobs properly when I was watching TNA semi-regularly. “Get her a tailor, management!” I shouted. But it looks like they did! I dog the Xena look, and I dig that she is FIERCE not a fuckdoll. She pulls great faces and tends to ignore the crowd, I think. She also has cool hair, and I like how she lets it fly about all over. I like her little wrestler boots! Her NAME is AWESOME. And she really, really does make good faces. Good wrestler image.

Sting

Gothy wrestlers (there are more than you’d think, unless you are a big ole wrestling fan) are some of the funniest things, in my opinion. But I like Sting! He is old, for one thing. Kind of. He has a neat gimmick (the lights go out. They come on.. AND THERE IS STING!!!!!!), and he reminds me of the Misfits I like Vampiro by default. I like that he paints his face, all spooooky and that he used to wear pink leggings with bleached hair. I very much enjoy that he had (has?) a major beef (or whatever wrasslin’ calls it, I forget) with Kurt Angle, who I find one of the most boring Entertainment Superstars around. Sting threatens to bite fingers off! He believes in respect, hence troubles with Angle. I dislike his coats, because great big muscular types need careful tailoring and better fabric and better, non-hideous stadium lighting to look purposeful in structured-flowing garments in my opinion. But I respect that he wears it! Good wrestler image!

Samoa Joe

I liked Samoa Joe because.. OK, I liked Samoa Joe because he had a slight rockabilly bent but mainly because his name had “Samoa” in and one of my favourite moments of Dog the Bounty Hunter is Tim yelling “MY WIFE IS SA-MOAN!“. But! Then I didn’t watch TNA (the only wrestling we get on our TV, which is good, because it is my favourite) for a while. When I came back, Joe had a sleeveless Hokuto leather jacket! And (I think?) different facial “tattoos”! And he went around doing peoples’ bidding, like he had been to the future and come back a badass brainwashed cyborg. Duh, obviously I like that. GOOD WRESTLER IMAGE.

Best of all: Booker T

He has a couple of namesakes to choose from. The musician, seen above, and the political leader Booker T (who you should read about). He wears pants, with massive great boots and sometimes T-shirts, which makes him look so nude that I am simply amused rather than squemish. His use of colour in his gear is skillful He also makes great faces, and pretty evidently has a sense of humour that I enjoy. He uses GOLD and CROWN MOTIFS in his ring-wear. He involves his wife! he wears his hair in a ‘princess ponytail’ sometimes, and his boots look like platforms half the time. I just froze the first video here on a frame that shows him jumping reeeally high, which I admire. He also also has massive thighs, which would alarm me in real life but just make me go wow, really?? when watching on teevee. And he just looks like a “nice man”, silly and subjective as that is.

My beloved adds, Booker T is cool about racism because he called Hulk Hogan NIGGA when he got carried away and then laughed and his wife patted his shoulder! She just pats him and stifles her mirth!

 
“A definite challenge there from Harlem Heat~”

Best wrestler image.

Aw, shit, wiki just told me he’s TNA No More. Shucks.

Why do I take this post to get all this opining (is this the correct word?) out? Partly out of frank enjoyment. Partly out of an inclination to let people know about stuff they might not know. And partly because I want to do my part, if possible, in making sure that we never, ever return to the days of..

“Wrestler hair”

That is exactly what “wrestler hair” looks like. Youtube, for example, Royal Rumble 1992. Or I could do it for you! Jake the Snake is a marginal offender, but watch for Sid.

He was NOT ALONE IN THIS.

Bad wrestler image

Picture credits here
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Sunday Sunday Sunday.

Well, I finally got to reading Tank Girl: Armadillo. I read it in bed, reading reading reading for a decent couple of hours like I always, always used to. Was it good? Should you buy it (or borrow, or.. loan it)? Let’s start at the start! And finish before the end (of the book), FYI; the second half is short stories and suchlike, and I haven’t read’em yet. You can do THAT for yourself.

There’re two prefaces, from the author, and I want you to read this little bit of one of them and understand why I didn’t read past it, in the common room lunch place at work, because of having “something in my eye”.

That’s kind. Kindness and fiction-appreciation are important. Honestly, I think this book is worth the purchase for that sentiment alone.

When I was reading I started out feeling uncomfortable, to be honest. You may be different and probably are but I really don’t find it easy to come in fresh to a story and start yellin’ WOOO, BLOW HIS HEAD OFF! I mentioned in the Jennifer’s Body SPOILERS how touchy I am about cannon fodder. I don’t need ameri-dubbing on my Dragonball to her “I think I see their parachutes!”, or whatever it was. I only catch six pokemon per game if I can manage it, for goodness sake, because shoving them inside a computer seems mean. I’m a big ole bleeding heart and hearing the idol of the novel say Okay, so we shot down a cop in cold blood. So fuckin’ what? makes me go “eeeeehhh” and squirm a bit. But what felt unusual is that the book (author/protag both) seems to acknowledge that. She say the italicised sentences in a page-chapter devoted to explaining how that’s not as muddy as it seems, how I shouldn’t judge her anyway, and how she doesn’t even care if I do. And not in such a deluded, self-convincing, distancing way as the way I put it makes it sound.

I still wasn’t completely cool with the thing of it, though. Which is why it was a relief when everybody revealed themselves to be such complete stinkers who were just as willing to solve problems with murder and carnage and pain as Tank Girl and her gang, only without being fun and kind and caring the rest of the time. In a world of shooting out brains before breakfast, motivation comes to be very meaningful. It’s an interesting authorial quirk, I think - the mixture of boisterous cartoonery and irredeemable-to-the-point-of-2d villains with the 3d motivation and realistic emotional resonance. Tank Girl really does, after a while, become a vessel for violent revenge/lesson fantasies. I don’t really feel ok thinking about feeding grenades to real world despicable people, or people who have crossed or simply annoyed me - it just feels counter-productive and even in my mental Holodeck I can’t ignore that people have.. well, whole people within themselves. But here? These people whose innards I can see are bad, bad, no-good people through and through. I have it on highest authority.

Tank Girl really was my armour, as I read this book.

It’s not just that though; Armadillo is a novel. It has a story. She and her peeps are making war on this one town full of heinous characters, who’ve ruined or messed with the lives of two (really three, I guess, but Sub Girl’s ex is never relevant as her ex) of the crew. It’s full of backstory, and re-weaving of now-story, and I think that makes it backstory for some of the previously published comics cos there’s no talk of any babies. I have no idea how Tank Girl canon works. I sort of don’t want to.

There’s also (I warned you in the post title here, SPOILERS) time travel. Which I enjoyed as a plot contrivance and a method to get extra emotional facts out there, but also because it was a very, very similar method to the one used in the film Somewhere in Time. I really dig that movie; Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, gorgeous clothing, heart-wrenching plot. Excellent rainy day movie, and the leitmotif is a keeper. Tank Girl yammers on about a movie (and a particular song from it) she accidentally managed to see as a child which no-one else had heard of periodically, too, so I figure this is an extra relevant tangent.

Reading this book made me feel better about things. She’s not “the perfect person” and she’s not, of course, “real”. I’ve said before that reading T.G. comics make me want to dress like myself, not like her, and want to celebrate being myself, not like her. And that’s true, because you know when you read her that if you were to meet her, then she would either think you were rad or disgusting - and thinking that oneself is not rad is not the way to go about encouraging Tank Girls esteem. Plus, she speaks a lot of wisdom:

Buy it.

Wearing today addendum:

You may or may not know, my little (though actually bigger than me) sister is in a band. They do some of their own songs, and cover a bunch of songs in the Queen/The Who vein. I am very proud of her. But because of that, the fact that she can’t drive by herself yet, and the fact that her exams are over for now my family took a daytrip to the town where they’re playing tonight. Let’s explore Moreton in Marsh!

This first thing deserves a paragraph of its own - I walked around a tiny park, and the tiny park had no, I repeat no crisp packets outside of the bin. Say it with me: LET’S KEEP BRITAIN TIDY!

Moreton in Marsh is one of those confectionary towns. It’s “the gateway to the Cotswolds”; the main streets are just picturesque, all big blocks of sandstone, heavy doors (some giant, some tiny), great large windows on antique shops and gift shows and tea shops.

Speaking of tea shops. We ate lunch in The Marshmallow(where I got to read about four more pages of TG:Armadillo). I’d been pulling for Thai, but Dad pointed out that this Marshmallow had been honoured by UK Tea Council multiple times. And I do love a good cuppa. One of the Christmas presents I asked for - and received! Hurray! - was a subscription to the Twinings Tea of the Month club! I drank a pot of “Kenyan” (or.. was it “Kenya”?), because the menu described it as colourful. It was tasty, but it paled, actually, when lunch proper arrived. Cottage pie. Creamed mashed potato. Perfectly cooked vegetables. The end of my Mum’s beef casserole with cobbler. A fair bit of my sister’s portion of veg. A taste of my Dad’s liver and onions. I swear, I coulda kept going and going.

Would you like a loyalty card?
Dad says no. Of course. What do I say? Oh come on, you can guess.

I also enjoyed the wallpaper in the hotel the band’s (I did their logo!) playing at.

I felt just about right in what I was wearing, situationally (sweaterdresses + antiques = Just Right), but I think I’m gonna sew buttons around the inside of the hem and around the lower half of the neckline. I feel OK with a shorter skirt and a high neck, or a lower neckline and a longer skirt, but short and low (I know it’s not extreme. But it is for me! Especially with this long jacket warping perception) makes me feel a bit flashy. Dickies and faux-slips, from now on!

I took some video on the way home. The light was so beautiful, and the countryside really should be seen and appreciated! Good editing practice, too. Which reminds me! Can I get some volunteers to give me constructive criticism on a video? It would be really, really useful!

I’m still adding the new comments format! But I’ve figured out a way to keep them off the front page. Click the title, or normal “comment” button, and see!

A whole great BUNCH from the snowdays of Midlands, England..

(Underneath the above).. God save the Queen! I mean it, yeah. No really!

“‘Painter’ with cigarette holder”

“Business lady decided to put feet up and get sweaty instead”

“1930s slattern with money”

“And Face-of-Sticks said, if you do that again then Barth will EAT you.”

“Gone a bit He-Man, gone a bit Sorceress”

“I am lazy but I like my jacket”

Jacket close-up.. my mum thinks I’ve “ruined” the jacket, but I think it just looks excellent. Pulled a bit out of shape here.. Ignore that!

And that’s that, for this year so far.. I think!

Phew.

Hah. GET THE BEHIND ME, 2009!

Because today I’ve been learning, learning how to draw your steen-keen Doc-tar..

PLEASE NOTE I am drawing the character not the actor; I am not filled with hate towards these men and, should they be watching, they should not feel bad. Okay? Okay.

Learning! Yeah! It’s healthy!

I’m sorry David Tennant, Matt Smith, it’s not personal.

Call me, Panini!

Finished off my Christmas Shopping (in the COLD; two vests, a slip, bloomers, tights, a dress, full wool sweater, still shivered); got home to a fine spot of Ironside. It is SO well-directed, honestly! Those sets. That placing of actors within scenes! Keep checking my Tumblr, if you’re interested, I’ve a bunch of stills to add. And who should I see this time, looking out from the box? I said, “Bruce??”. And do you know, it was.

Just after he finished Green Hornet, I guess, ‘67. Doesn’t he look young? (And no, alas - it is said his character “teaches karate”, which is later replaced with aikido and judo without note. Sigh. Blame it on the characters?)

Anyway, here I am today.. With some snow.

Boots: Dr Martens, obv

Tights: H&M (”yellowish pink”)

Dress: Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (second-hand)

Jumper: Jaeger (gift)

Hat: RSPB’s Capercaillie Tartan