for the curiosity of red bird

Red Bird tagged me a few weeks ago. I like reading these kind of things but I very rarely do them. For Red Bird, I make an exception.

**The rules are: Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag others if you wish.

What is your current obsession?
Soup.
Trying to find a rug for my living room.
Plants, especially climbers.
Frasier.
John Ashbery.

I always have more than one current obsession.

Do you like your hairstyle right now?
I'm happier with it than I was when I last had my hair done, which was December. Fringes do not suit me and I looked about twenty years older. Thankfully it's now grown out and I've left the seventies. I'm trying to go the whole year without getting my hair cut. As such, it is extremely long and I love it.

What’s for dinner?
Anything someone with a sore throat can eat. Pizza maybe?! :P

What’s the last thing you bought?
Set of 4 climbers (2 honeysuckle, jasmine and clematis) from the Guardian Reader Offers, and a Frasier DVD.

What are you listening to right now?
Storia Storia by Mayra Andrade. I picked this up in Porto and I love it.

What do you think about the person who tagged you?
Aww..dear Red Bird! I think she's an incredibly gifted writer, with soul and warmth and nothing but goodness to share with the world. Her poems are like little peeks into keyholes. I hope to meet her one day.

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Primrose Hill, London, with space for chooks and a garden.

What are your must-have pieces for summer?
An easy to put on (and take off) sun dress, flip-flops, Vaseline's Rosy Lips.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Back home to visit my parents and sisters.

Which language do you want to learn?
I would like to improve my French. If I were to learn from scratch....I'd have to say Portuguese! I loved Portugal and it would have been so much fun to say something other than "obrigado!" and other things I put together with my basic bastardised Spanish.

What’s your favourite quote?
Oh, there are so many... but we'll start with these...

"When you really want to do something, in your heart of hearts, you will find a way. But if you don't really want to do something, you will always find an excuse." - Pat Farmer

"This above all: to thine own self be true" - William Shakespeare

“To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all” - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot


What food would you want with you on a desert island for a period of indefinite encumberance?
If there was no limit to what I could take: spicy tuna sushi from Plush Fish in Melbourne with extra wasabi and pickled ginger, goats cheese, kalamata olives, a toasted mature cheddar and homemade apple and green pepper chutney sandwich, Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Brownie frozen yoghurt, chips from Leo Burdock's in Dublin, brie, manchego, strawberries, raspberries, passionfruit, Total Greek yoghurt, haloumi with fresh mint and chilli, almond croissants, raisin bread, ricotta pancakes, homemade "chicken", spinach and risoni soup, homemade lentil and mixed bean soup, yoghurt and pistachio icecreams from Pozzetto in Paris, M&S low fat hummous and fresh pitta, homemade pizza with marinated artichokes and basil, the swordfish and chocolate and pistachio tart from The Forge, Nutella crepes, mangoes, coconut yoghurt, fresh bread, chilli oil dumplings from The Shanghai Dumpling House, dense and moist homemade chocolate cake, felafel, almond butter, oatcakes, crisp apples, kumara fries from Burger Fuel, spinach and feta boreka from Victoria Markets, miso soup, Cinnamon Grahams, TS's famous omelette, homemade muesli, eggs florentine, cauliflower dhal, guacamole and tortilla chips, potato cakes, portugese custard tarts, peach jam. Gee that was a longer list than I thought. Now I'm hungry.

Who do you want to meet right now?
A literary agent that will propel me to dizzying heights of fame and fortune?! Ha.

I'm assuming we mean living people, if so I would like to meet

Nigella Lawson

David Bowie

Doris Lessing

Kate Morton

Natalie Goldberg

Elizabeth Gilbert

Paolo Cohelo

Sharon Gannon


What is your favourite colour?
I'll give you one guess.

What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own closet?
I love my new Topshop boyfriend jeans. I also have a vintage dress that I bought in 2006 and have worn almost to its death but cannot bear to part with it. It makes me feel like a million bucks when I wear it. I wore it on the Sex and the City Tour I did in NYC and the tour guides loved it! I have a picture of me on Carrie Bradshaw's stoop wearing it....oh, here it is....!


What is your dream job?
Writing. For myself or someone else, I'm not fussy at the moment.

What’s your favourite magazine?
I have lots - ambit, the london magazine, smoke, dujour, frankie......

If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
$100, that's about £50, so.....probably a new rug, or plants for the garden. I am a bit domestic right now.

What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
Oh, there's loads of things I think are incredibly daggy - shoulder pads for example - but I think if people are comfortable and wearing something that suits them then they should wear whatever they like, no matter what others might think.

Who are your style icons?
Sylvia Plath




















I found this on this site - how cool is this?!

Jackie Kennedy



















The House of Eliott

Image from this beautiful blog




















Kate Moss
















Pretty darn strange combination, if I do say so myself. But the things I tend to wear most are dresses, retro t-shirts, cardigans, big sunglasses and ripped jeans. And I'm nearly always carrying a book.

Describe your personal style.
I wear what I like. But lately I had my style overhauled by a Topshop Style Advisor! More on that later. But it was the best thing I've done for ages.

What are you going to do after this?
Go home and rest.

What are your favourite movies?
Two Days in Paris, Amelie, Little Women (with Winona Ryder), Broken Flowers, Love Is The Devil, The Sound of Music, In Her Shoes, Legally Blonde - anything girly, arty, funny or all three!

What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?
Vaseline (especially the Rosy Lips, it gives a lovely colour and sheen), sunscreen and Coco Mademoiselle. Eyeliner is good too.

What inspires you?
Strength, courage, seeing people follow their dreams.

Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
Oh lordy...style tips....apart from making sure I have deodorant in my backpack before I run to work every day?!

1. Moisturise, all over, every day.
2. Get lots of exercise - the glow you get from that is better than any makeup.
3. Book an appointment with a personal shopper! Worth it!

What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?
Go nude :P

Coffee or tea?
Tea.

What is your secret indulgence?
Oh, aren't guilty pleasures always the best? Going to museums or art galleries, and then getting some kind of cake in their cafe afterwards. Depending on what time of the day it is, I might have champagne with it.

I also love icecream, spooned directly from the tub, while watching old comedies I loved as a child, while it's pouring with rain outside.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I will stop on the way to or from work, at my favourite coffee place in London and get a hot drink and walk with it, slowly, while looking in the windows of all my favourite shops. It is the part of London where I cannot afford to buy anything :P

and the new question:

What is a poem you could recite from memory at the drop of a hat?

Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare.


~~~

MZ , Lauren, Betsy and Weeny, you're up, if you so wish.