Me again...

This is becoming a bit routine.... I don't post for about a month and then a flurry of posts and then nothing! Well, I suppose it doesn't matter too much as I'm not sure anyone actually reads my blog - so this is in effect very sad that I am even bothering to continue (queue violins!)

I do have lots of catch up posts to do, I've been on holiday, and just trying to remember what else I've done since my last post and the fact that I can't doesn't bode well- old age is setting in!

Stay tuned for more profound musings... or not!

Austique Design a Dress competition

Austique, a lovely boutique on the Kings Road are currently running a competition from now until the end of May to design a dress for their SS11 collection. I wish, wish, wish I was gifted artistically but even my stick men look dubious so I am working on learning to draw in the next couple of weeks so I can submit something. I think it is such a cool competition, giving someone the opportunity to have their design made and sold! The beautiful artwork is courtesy of Natalie Hughes of Canned Fashion who does the most beautiful illustrations and has done some really pretty ones on the Austique Girl blog.

So take a look at the Austique site for more info Austique's Design a Dress competition

Volcanic ash above Britain (and lots of other places)!

I know that everyone has been banging on about the Icelandic volcano erupting, who's name is impossible to remember, but I wanted to jump on the bandwaggon, as standing on the platform at Victoria the other day I had to giggle about an ash related announcement over the tannoy system:

"Ladies and gentlemen, due to volcanic ash above Britain, Heathrow is closed on the Picadilly line"

Now, maybe no one else found that amusing, but I really never thought it was something I would ever hear! And it is awful how many people have been stranded, but I do think that the whole issue seems to have been dealt with very well and NATS and all other aviation/weather/travel bodies involved have offered coherent statements and policy which I think was quick off the mark and boringly, quite sensible. And this is very selfish, but as I do live under a busy flight path in South London, it has been bliss waking up and not hearing planes flying over every few minutes over the last few days, and I do wonder if it has helped cut down carbon emmissons at all- although thinking about that, with a volcano spewing out all sorts of gasses etc not sure if it really helps at all! Anyway, good luck to everyone who is stuck abroad or even in the UK, fingers crossed restrictions are lifted soon.

Night busses, the joy of!

Summer seems to be almost here- two days running of sun! Almost too exciting for words! It means that everyone in London seems to come out of hibernation and starts wearing summer dresses etc which I am just prepared for! Not ready for wearing summer clothes at all, I do need to ease myself in! So this weekend has been spent in South London, between Brixton, Clapham, Tooting and slightly off track, Shoreditch. This post is primarily about the joys of night busses in London (easy to guess from the intro)! They don't run often enough, never have enough space and the driver is always very pissed off, and admitedly if I had to deal with some of the drunken idiots I saw last night I would be pretty pissed off too! But I do have rather a soft spot for them; making random friends, they are super cheap and you get a night time tour of London- is that me trying to be too enthusiastic about night busses!?

I always find it is fun to make friends on night busses, especially the N35 to Clapham Junction (thankis TFL) as it makes what is a tediously long and boring journey, quite entertaning and bearable! Last night was no exception, there was some complete idiot talking at the top of his voice at the bus stop about nothing, everything and generally being quite foul! Needless to say when he got on the first bus that came along we all heaved a sigh of relief and waved him off- he looked quite confused, but it did mean that a few of us bonded and subsequently realised we all sounded like our Mums and realised we all needed to get out more or just go to bed earlier! But it does show that London isn't as unfriendly as it can seem. People only seem to have time for themselves and no desire to speak to new people. Maybe drink loosens peoples tongues and the fact that it is silly o'clock in the morning makes people more willing to chat but I do enjoy it. But I can't say it's something I enjoy doing every weeeknd though (one can only be so sociable!!), taking the night bus that is and next weekend I am pleased to say it is a
Tooting night out for St George's Day and I need to find a red and white costume, and suggestions?

Tripbod

So summer is coming and it’s time for travelling and holidays- I’m off to Lisbon at soon and then hopefully later in the year off to Singapore, Cambodia and Malaysia- very excited! However I write this post it sounds PR-ie but I am going to plug Tripbod! This is a fantastic company founded and run by a couple of great friends Dot and Sally- it’s a service which connects you with local experts at the desitnation of your choice. So when you go on holiday you can see the country as a local and have insider info about where to go and what to do instead of the usual tourist places you can get a real flavour for the place! I am also a Tripbod for London, and all the other bods are fantastic and I wish I had the time and the money to use Tripbod all the time! So if you do want to go away and want someone to help you plan a fabulous trip and pass on some insider info check out Tripbod and I promise you’ll be a fan!! and it isn't just for trips abroad, you can also have some help planning a trip to somewhere within the UK!

And if you’re interested, here’s a link to my profile!

Bad bad bad Ali!

Bad bad bad Ali… I know I always say this, haven’t posted anything for a while… blah blah blah! I will turn over new leaf and post things all week… well as you can see I haven’t so I won’t promise to regularly update my blog but here is a long overdue post!

Naked Heart Foundation

Last night was one of the biggest parties during London fashion week, the Love Ball and it was a charity event held to raise money for the Naked Heart Foundation, set up by beautiful Russian model Natalia Vodianova, to build play parks in Russia. Natalia grew up in Nizhny Novgorod and is very open about her childhood poverty which is why she want to give something back and allow children the opportunity to play and be children! Now because this event was held in London, some of the money raised will be put towards building a handful of play parks in the UK as well as Russia. I went along to help spot in the auction Christies were running and generally help out and had a really fabulous night! There were so many celebrities there it was at first amazing and then I think we all very quickly got bored with star spotting but met some fantastic people working backstage- Shu Uemura were doing everyone's make up and were brilliant (another post to follow) and the cocktails were AMAZING!!! I had my make up done at the Mac shop in Covent Garden before the event- it took some getting used to (drag queen cam to mind) but I am told it looked good. The girls in the office convinced me I couldn't go to such an event without having my hair and make up done, so one out of two ain't bad! But a big well done to Amy and Hony who work at NHF and did a great job of organising what was a great event. I am hoping to get some photos at some point but for the time being this will have to do.

Naked Heart Foundation

Brits

All I have to say is, Peter Kay is a genius!! He was absolutely the saving grace of the Brits and sadly the audience didn't seem to get most of his jokes. Well I absolutely loved him! Best quote of the night about JLS "The black version of Bucks Fizz" Genius!

(I'll hopefully post a clip tomorrow!)

Winter Olympics

So I'm guessing the obvious post after a post about French organic skincare brand Melvita would be another beauty post but no, I like to mix things up! Currently watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony and I love it! I think it is the highlight of my sporting calendar as I love ice-based sports, so I may be a bit of a hermit the next couple of weekend! Although and not that I want to knock the British team but who designed there team outfits?! They entered the stadium wearing dark blazer style jackets with white hoodies underneath and little berets.... now I'm no fashion designer but it is a dated look and I am distinctly underwhelmed, which is a shame but not the end of the world! Anyway, that one tiny issue aside, I am very excited that Russian figure skater Evgenii Plushenko has come out of retirement and is back competing- he is a genius on the ice and I can't wait to see his performance! (although I am posting a link to his involvement in Eurovision with Dima Bilan, you can make up your own mind up about the artistic merit of both the song and the skating!)

(sorry currently having technological issues with the video!)

Melvita

Right it has taken me a week to write this but my Mum and I have been busy testing some fabulous beauty goodies from French brand Melvita, which is already a firm favourite in France but has recently become available to buy online in the UK. I think a quote from an e-mail my Mum sent me today about the two products she has been testing, the Regenerating serum and Naturalift, pretty much says it all: "My skin feels wonderful and I'm almost fluent in French!" Well... maybe Melvita can't promise the latter but a definite thumbs up from us. The products are made with natural, organic ingredients from sustainable sources which smell heavenly. It is slightly more pricey than I would like but I think if you are looking for organic, natural beauty products which really do what they say then look no further!

Check out the Melvita site!

Stay tuned...

So I haven't been as good as I wanted to be with my blogging... a slap on the wrist for me but I do have a few treats in store over the next few days (I've been saving things up) So stay tuned. I have organic French skincare, blockbuster films and general musings, exciting I know!

Chips with black pepper?

It was one of those evenings last night where walking home at 11pm I needed some chips (a couple of beers and no dinner meant this was a necessity), anyway a new chip shop has opened just outside of Clapham North station and I popped into sample its delights. The man in front of me was asked if he wanted salt and vinegar on his chips and sausage (unbattered), he said no salt and the asked if they had any crushed black pepper!! I was suppressing my giggles in the corner, anyway, his chips were duely served and the guy serving them poured a lot of salt and then vinegar on them much to the customer's disgust who then got very shirty and said he specifically asked for 'NO SALT'. So without missing a beat I am offered the offending portion of chips and I feel I have to announce very loudly that I like salt to the whole shop! It was funny, I mean who goes to a chip shop for crushed black pepper and in general to be healthy? I suppose I shouldn't judge as maybe for health reasons he can't eat salt but I find it odd to go to a place which serves such unhealthy food and try and be healthy, go the whole hog is my motto! Anyway to cut a long story short they were excellent chips!

Thought of the day

If you were on Mastermind, what would your chosen subject be? A good way to while away the time... if I was to be boring and think of something I could actually do well in, it would have to be something to do with Russia, history or art probably, but on the other hand if I try and think of slight random and pointless topics it might be quite entertaining. Celebrity perfumes; the twilight series; H&M stock turnover; train times from Waterloo to Salisbury... the list is endless! Please don't judge me on the fact those are the random things that sprang to mind

'Tir na nog'

At dinner last night amongst other things a few of us were discussing names of places in london and how we shorten them, e.g. Clapham is know by some as 'Clappers', Crappers', and my personal favourite 'Tir na nog' (thanks Tom), no one over the age of 35 lives in Clapham ( have a look next time, you'll be suprised!), it is the land of eternal youth!! There were others, Leicester Square is called Lezzie Square (just easy to say nothing more than that), I call Tottenham Court Road Station Totters and so on. But although I haven't gone through and done this with every single place/station in London, there were a couple that we couldn't get. Brixton and Battersea, so if anyone can help I would be really grateful!

Ok, I'm too over-excited with my new found blogging enthusiasm, so here goes, why do people insist on playing music so loudly when they're on public transport?! I was stood next to a man the other day who had some kind of Mylie Cyrus (not that I would know...) music blaring out- lots of sniggering was going on around him, I mean what grown man listens to that kind of music?! I took this to heart when the backstreet boys came on my i-pod this morning, very loudly and I just tried to look cool, I'm not sure I got away with it though! For those of you who want to know which song, Everybody (Backstreet's Back)!

So I have been so busy gyming (not) that I've not had much time to post anything over the last 2 months... or I am just awful at this whole blogging thing. Since I am now trying to post at least once a day on Twitter (work related of course) I think I should be able to manage at least one blog post a day... so you have been warned. New Year's resolution, bore people with regular mindless blog posts! Happy days!