26/04/2013

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.

19/04/2013

Little Blue House

tools for pottery
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!

11/04/2013

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

09/04/2013

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, 19252013 

05/04/2013

muted coloured single-breasted wool jacket hanging on an s-hook 
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.

Plaid umbrella with wood-buttoned fastening