Cheese-Bag

While I'm not so hot on shopping tips, I am disproportionately smitten with my cheese shop tote. It reminds me a little of the New York Herald Tribune / Á Bout de Souf bags and t-shirts we printed at the start of the decade, only nicer. With grey web straps and a gusset, they're a mere £2.50 from Paxton & Whitfield's well-stinky shop on Jermyn Street.

Beep Beep

I can ferry a whole week's groceries on my bike if I cycle super-slow. Occasionally though, I just have to load up the little car with Lisa Jones goodies. One such upcoming event is the seasonal sale at Hampstead Womens' Club, which I do in the excellent company of Alice Tait. I'm sure she'll have an exceptional collection of prints for sale, including the bus below.

It'd be dumb to deny the car's leading role in our eco-dystopia, but it's always interesting to see the graphics of a more optimistic/naïve era; like Marimekko's infamous Bo Boo fabric or Galt, who (while under the auspices of Ken Garland Associates) could do little wrong.
 

HWC 4th Annual Holiday Market Place
Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead NW3
Saturday 28 November, 10am - 3pm

Sweet Stuff

There's some contention over the spelling (sometimes they're Pastis other times it's Pasteis de Nata), but why should I care? Either way those little Portuguese Egg Custards are plain delicious. Hence, no contest when asked to join an illustrious list of contributors and illustrate something sweet for the amazing Dessert Girl.

Spent fireworks always had a residual spark of melancholy in their rain-run colour and obliterated graphics. I still have trouble reconciling these earth-bound, day-lit husks with their sulphurous spectacle at night.

Ruth Duckworth, 1919-2009

There's a flurry of fluorescent post-it notes in my 1977 edition of Art of the Modern Potter, mostly marking Ruth Duckworth's pages. This short feature on her touring retrospective is a few years old, but makes for an exceptionally inspiring 7 minutes.