One

I know it's super British to have one eye on the barometer, but we're not entirely alone. Even the French writer/director Marguerite Duras synched the climate directly to the psyche. Luckily, a fortnight back, the weather was glorious for a small garden party in celebration of the boy's first birthday. Someday I'll post pics of Duras' beautiful château in Neauphle, here's a corner of our cluttered home instead. Now the boy's mobile, this place will need one radical rethink.

Seven

Launching today 10am-6pm, Poundshop 7 will run Tues-Sat, 10am-5pm, until June 22nd! You can find them showcasing their fine roster of established and upcoming designers (including us) at Manchester's Chinese Arts Centre. The bespoke interior is created by agency, Music, but not to fret if you can't make it, they're online too.

Poundshop's promo patterns are usually taken from generic paper bags, this one's my fave to date.

This week's downers include a couple of council reps putting the kibosh on our plans for home improvement... on the plus side, we've been wearing sandals! (Is it wrong to want the black pair too?)

As the adult incarnation of the archetypal nerdy kid, I've always enjoyed reading. Conversely, Edward didn't really read a book until sometime in his mid-teens. These days we seldom make it to the end of an email, baby food recipe, or some review for anti-wrinkle cream. It's hard to imagine we ever expressed an opinion on the future of the novel.

I recently took a pile of experimental 'ideas' novels along to the charity shop, though not before photographing their exceptional dust jackets. All bearing a kind of stylistic date-stamp, the first cover, Project for a Revolution in New York, is an excellent graphic example of ASCII.

Six Memos for the Next Millennium differs in that it's not a novel, but comes highly recommended by hordes of those-in-the-know. All I remember is some mythological account of the creation of coral. (While Ovid's Perseus rests,  petrifying blood from the severed Medusa's head spills onto seaweed.) And why it sticks in my mind, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the arbitrary genesis of a strange and delicate beauty from such noxious horror, or just the idea of sleeping soundly by the shore.

Congratulations to our neighbours who, after yonks of cohabitation, sooo got hitched last weekend. I found this cute-but-kitsch bit of wedding ephemera in lieu of a card and got to wondering why chimney sweeps spelled such good luck for happy couples. I figured they might form some kind of symbolic repository for filth, a way of keeping the nuptials pure-as-driven-snow. Turns out it's some dreary tale about George III and a bolting horse.

Next time I'll just make it up.

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

If you've been here before, you may have noticed how I enjoy making odd little scenes to photograph a new design. I recently denied myself this minor pleasure by getting a whole load of cards printed elsewhere. This means the new styles don't arrive in bloggable dribs'n'drabs, but all at once in ink-stinky boxes of 500. Here's three from the latest delivery.

Bee Reprieve

The hive is a buzz with good news as the EU ban the use of pesticides believed to be behind the decline of apian populations. The first time I've ever signed an online petition!

• Bees and Beelines, Judy Hawes/Aliki Brandenberg, 1964 (this edition: Adam & Charles Black, 1969). Found here.

Seeing Things

I've been lucky enough to see some wonderful paintings recently. First up was Alice Neel and Carel Weight from the Towner's current display of portraits in Eastbourne and, last week, the Mamma Anderson show at Stephen Friedman Gallery. There were three or four I thought exceptional but this was my favourite, it's as though Luc Tuymans painted a John Bratby still life.

• Mamma Andersson, Humdrum Day, Oil on Panel

There's a great Grahame Greene short story, The Innocent (1937), whose narrator visits his childhood town and becomes intoxicated by memories of first-love. He finds the worn out knot of a fence where he once posted a declaration and, to his surprise, the undelivered note still nestles inside. Only, there's no poem on the scrap of paper, or even awkward prose, just a brutally smutty anatomical drawing, an inarticulate outline of amorous intent.

Time does have this way of saccharine-sprinkling our memories; I wince at mawkish moments of self-expression in colourful old correspondence or get a shock when some photo proves my favourite top was a little too small... and maybe not such a great colour after all.

Something similar happened coming across these two pics from the mid-90s in box mis-labelled Record Deck. Edward says he'd swear his hair was more James Dean and less Jamie Oliver, while I'd all-but-forgotten I'd ever had my nose pierced!

Seriously good mirror frames though, eh?

70 ans

It's bon anniversaire for Jacques Dutronc this weekend as the French cultural icon turns 70. It's not that I've pasted my walls with his portraits or anything, I just remember it's the same date as Edward's. Here's Dutronc with his gorgeous (and more famous) female counterpart, Françoise Hardy. Watch him in action here.

Little Blue House

Sometimes it's difficult to recognise drawings as real, viable products until you see them in a shop or —very, very seldom— editorial. It was lovely to see our Little Blue House on the shelf recently while house-warming with friends.

In retrospect, I hope it took pride of place among the throng of well-wishes because it's cute and not just 'cos it's small!

• Paolo Soleri, 1919—2013, architect of under-populated Arizona ecotopia, Arcosanti. Wonderful pictures found here and here.

The death of Mrs Thatcher, that cartoonish super-villain of the 1980s, engenders some peculiar feelings. Compassion, forgiveness and magnanimity may make weak ideological attributes but as emotions they should still be cherished. I always imagined her as Lady Macbeth, trying to expunge the stain of humble beginnings like a phantom spot of blood.

There's an overriding sense of nostalgia in watching the footage rotate this week and thinking about the creative dissent she inspired. Not just alternative/counter-cultural comedy or cinema, but real mainstream stuff too; being seen to extol a message while wholly revelling in the glitz.

I spent half an hour researching contemporaneous lefty-pop for an evocative post: Ghost Town, The Style Council, that Blow Monkey's song with Curtis Mayfield, The Communards… you get the picture. Then I remembered watching the mighty Robert Wyatt's version of Shipbuilding as a bemused 12 year old... it's not something you forget in a hurry. 

• Maggie-Maggie-Maggie, 1925—2013 

 

The spirits of second-hand are strong as we progress through this remarkably wintery spring. So far this season my local charity shop has bestowed a cosy blanket jacket for me, a cute blanket-lined denim for the boy, some as-new Church's shoes for the fella and a tartan brolly against April (snow) showers. Hope I find something in madras, then I'll know summer's on the way.

The Cat's Whiskers

There once was a cat who just couldn't control his chops. People used to laugh at the cat's crazy whiskers, turning steadily clockwise, until someone noticed his furry facial features all pointing skyward at noon, when the sun was highest, or low to the ground come evening time.

Of course!

Nobody trusted the precision of this natural phenomenon at first, but these days everyone sets their clocks in accordance with the cat's clockwork whiskers. Now they're never late, passers-by always find the time for a stroke, snuggles, or as many treats as any pet could wish for.

Truth be told we've had the design for this clock around six months, just hadn't had time to print any! Today's time change from GMT to BST was the impetus needed to make a batch in blue... next up, red or green.

Topical Tale

 
• Egbert the Easter Egg, Richard Armour & Paul Galdone, 1965

• Jason Molina of Songs: Ohia, 1973-2013

Like Nun Other

 

What with this week's papal proceedings, I thought I'd post pics of this bonkers children's book from 1971. The author/illustrator, a minor TV celebrity in the 1960s and 70s, went on to write the odd book... increasingly odd; these covered guides to London cafés or the public restrooms of Paris and New York to compendiums of hangovers and disasters. Due to Routh's self-confessed inability to paint faces and fingers, each of his five books for children focus on nuns or Queen Victoria. You might say he made a habit of it.

• Jonathan Routh, The Nuns go to Penguin Island, 1971, Methuen

Easter Yummy

Whatever it was we did to get on the good side of Melt founder, Louise Nason, I'm sooo pleased we did it. I reckon this might be our fifth collaboration with London's most modern chocolatiers and, as the other vices of youth fall away, I cling ever more keenly to chocolate. Maybe that's why I'm unsure which aspect of receiving a Melt parcel I anticipate more excitedly, eyeing the beautiful packaging or devouring the contents!

Nestled in our Rita Rabbit box, Easter goodies are now available via their flagship store on Notting Hill's Ledbury Road; their concession in Selfridges or online.

Seeing as we're sandwiched between International Women's Day (yesterday) and Mother's Day (tomorrow)...

above familial studies from Nicholas Nixon, 1985 // below pages from Mary Kelly's Postpartum Document, 1975