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Linked-up constant update love-joy

Ask, and ye shall receive. Or at least want something really obvious and it’s likely to come to pass.

Twitter can now be used to update Facebook status. And the updates already appear in my blog sidebar. So, should I wish to inform all five people that make up my total audience in both places that I am scratching my arse while on the top deck of a bus bound to Barking (via my mobile, of course), I can.

Possibly this much-desired functionality has been available for weeks if not months unnoticed by me, but hey, I can be happy about it even if it’s belated.

Now that’s been achieved I have another request, oh twitterific ones. I thought, only yesterday, how exciting it would be if I could attach images taken on my mobile to my tweets (and indeed sound and video files… why stop at pictures?). It would then be the perfect all-in-one micro-blogging tool with the output available in multiple definable destinations and searchable in ways that the twitter team is already beginning to implement.

Shiny!

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Laura Marling

“I’m sorry you have to listen in the gutter next to two sex shops”.

The most significant thing about Laura Marling is not her age. It is remarkable, astonishing even, but it’s not the most important or even noteworthy thing about her.

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Hers is an extraordinary talent – voice, lyrics, music, presence. No wannabe celeb, aspirant popstar-babe. Rather a determined woman with an overwhelming desire to communicate through word and music.

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Last night, though, her age got in the way.

It wasn’t clear why no one was being allowed into the Soho Review Bar even after the support acts were supposed to have been on stage. A long line of people, held behind a roped-off area, snaked along the alley alongside the building and round the corner into the larger road. The gig had sold out in advance and many had queued for returns. Members of her band stood on the cobbles chatting and smoking.

Suddenly a diminutive figure appeared from inside the venue. Bleached blond hair shining under the many-coloured lights of Soho’s sex trade. Wrapped in a black duffle coat, frayed gold canvas pumps on her feet, no makeup.

“They won’t let me play because I’m not over 18” she announced, after asking if anyone had come to see Laura Marling. So she and her three band members lined up against the metal-shuttered window of a shop and played their set, right there in the narrow space between high walls.

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It was an extraordinary event and performance. The fire and passion of the woman were clear, her determination (and, I thought, bravery) obvious too. “We’ll just keep going til we’re moved on” she said. Fortunately nobody came to interrupt the six songs (Hg counted them). The drummer, presumably usually behind a full kit, knelt on the stones in front of one small drum which he caressed with his brushes. Another band member carried an accordion which he didn’t, in the end, ever play, presumably because its sound in the space would have drowned out all else.

We had, for twenty minutes or so, an utterly unplugged, bare-bones bravura performance. Even the unsteady, heavily tattooed bottle-toting passers-by waited until she was between songs to stagger past, voicing their appreciation as they went. It was a thrilling, unique and highly memorable occasion.

At the end of the last song I found myself standing next to Laura Marling’s mother, who had been pointed out to us (God knows that I love her). “Congratulations” I found myself saying in that utterly absurd fashion that one does on such occasions to complete strangers. Possibly because I’m easily old enough to be Laura Marling’s mother myself. She was, needless to say, proud of her daughter. But couldn’t understand why she’d been prevented from playing. “She’s done gigs all over the country. They know she’s 17. She’s never been stopped from playing before.”

Ultimately, selfishly, I’m glad it happened. Because I was part of something special, something that I’m sure won’t happen again and I was there at the beginning of a career which I believe is going to go a long way and produce some very beautiful music.

(Hg filmed the first song on his mobile, but after that gave up the distraction preferring to give his full attention to the music. His review is here. Thank you so much for suggesting we go! I took pictures, trapped behind a lens too long for the confined space.)

UPDATE: There’s more about Laura Marling here, with her new haircut and there’s a review of her iTunes session here.

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Prejudice with buttons on

I found myself, about a month ago now, at the checkout in the enormous Asda in Dumbarton. Lying on the belt moving slowly but inexorably towards the chirpy checkout girl was:
* a bar of cadbury’s fruit and nut chocolate the size of a billiard table;
* a cut-price dvd of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightly;
* a packet of hair-dye;
* a packet of tampons (assorted sizes).

My companion, A, ran his eye over the selection and remarked that, given the evidence of the pms cliché purchases before him, I was remarkably well-tempered.

I only got round to watching the film a few days ago and it stinks. It’s just *terrible*. Keira Knightly is utterly utterly wrong for Elizabeth Bennet. She appears to be aspiring to a look which is the bastard child of heroin chic and Kate Moss, whilst attempting to audition for a low-budget vampire flick advertising a particularly low-quality brand of over-applied and much smudged black eyeliner. Acting is a concept which is entirely alien to her. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Feeling besmirched by this experience I had to undertake the only possible cleansing ritual. I closed the curtains, put on the gas fire, snuggled under my favourite blanket on the sofa and watched the BBC P&P from beginning to end in one glorious life-enhancing five-hour session. Unfortunately the bar of F&N had not survived the depredations of the children but apart from the lack of chocolate all was perfect.

I’ve seen P&P so many times now I could practically recite all the parts. This time I concentrated on the costumes, and formed an overwhelming desire to possess a form-fitting, empire-line-necked, long-sleeved, bust-skimming warm outer garment such as is worn to delicious effect by the splendid heavingly-bosomed Jennifer Ehle as Eliza. See, for example, the brown garment in the second and third pictures on this page. The neckline is higher than other similar garments (ideally it would be more like that of the dress on this page) but otherwise you get the general idea.

I confided this perhaps rather unusual longing to F over coffee the following morning. I knew she’d understand. It transpired that among all her other accomplishments (I knew she designed and made hats and shoes) she also studied costume design, pattern-making etc etc and had, on several occasions, made copies of historical garments for herself. The most awe-inspiring of which must be the copy of the coat worn by the French nobleman as he escaped the terror and the guillotine.

One thing led to another and we wound up discussing haberdashery in general and John Lewis’ in particular. And how I’d had a very long-standing credit of £19 on my store card. And how I could go and treat myself to a bit of ribbon and a button or two without actually, you know, spending anything.

This is why I am now knitting furiously. Because of course there was a pattern book on the table of the knitting section in John Lewis. It was, of course, open at the page displaying a cropped empire-line-necked fitted top. With a ribbon round the waist. And lots of buttons. (Bottom left here, if you’re interested). The inevitable happened, even though they didn’t stock the recommended yarn (Castello) or even have any information about it. I substituted Noro Kochoran and am hoping tension and yardage are comparable. Shade #47, a beautiful mix of pinks and greens and mustards. And pink ribbon and buttons.

new project

See how gorgeous that Noro yarn is? entirely edible.

scrummy yarn

But the furious knitting isn’t of the cardigan in question. No, such is the scale of my WIP (work in progress) backlog and concomitant shame about it, I am rattling through a couple of things before allowing myself to start on the empire-lined goodness. First up is this scarf, now finished.

scarf

The yarn, a single ball of (I eventually discovered after having lost the label) Colinette Giotto, was purchased on an impulse when I visited Tall Girl a few months back. It’s knitted up into a beautiful scarf – amethyst, aquamarine, eau de nil and petrol blues – and I had to track down the yarn for the people who, seeing it in progress, wanted to make their own.

yarn detail

Now that’s finished I’m on to b r o o k l y n t w e e d ‘s Red Light Special hat (which is so popular it even has its own tag on flickr). I first saw the hat on R’s head on Holy Island in March this year and he pointed me to the pattern, and the superb blog on which it resides.

hat overview

I’m using up 4ply from my stash for this one so at least I don’t have yarn-expense-guilt, but I did buy two sets of circular needles for it so it’s not entirely cost-free. The green bit is the lining which will be folded under and knitted in at the appropriate point in proceedings, the outer part of the hat is turquoise with orange and pink fair isle.

hat detail

It will be very useful when finished if I continue to hold out against turning the central heating on. I’m wearing a hat indoors at the moment.

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We wore our red shirts

red shirts for burma

And told everyone we came across why, particularly secondborn at school apparently.

Last night I went to dinner with friends. There were five international news journalists round the table. “What’s going to happen in Burma” I asked. “Give me the top line.”

“Well of course it’s very difficult to tell,” started one, “information about the military and what their thinking is…”

“It’s quite simple,” interrupted another, a financial journalist. “The protests will be put down by the military, ruthlessly, possibly as ruthlessly as they were in ‘88. The international community will do nothing beyond the usual public hand-wringing. None of the countries with any economic clout will do anything to jeopardise their investments. And Sarkozy,” he said, turning to the European news specialist, “is such a hypocrite. Nothing is going to touch Total‘s involvement in Burma. China, India and Thailand, the biggest regional investors, aren’t going to lift a finger either.”

Depressing. And past experience tells me it’s probably correct.

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Red shirt for Burma

Today!

Still not too late to put one on, if you haven’t already, to show support for the people of Myanmar/Burma in their peaceful protests against the military regime.

Take a picture of yourself/selves and upload it to make that support available to Burmese with internet access.

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links for 2007-09-27