A Week Is a Long Time for a Third Assistant Director

I went to see My Week with Marilyn with Balham Babe on Saturday, although the fact that I haven't blogged about it until now is probably indicative of my relative ambivalence towards the film. I had been looking forward to seeing it since it was suggested as a possible surprise film at the London Film Festival. Since then, however, I've made the mistake of reading and listening to too many reviews of it, most of which describe it as fun and frothy but overly ambitious. This seems fair to me, although as these reviews lowered my expectations, they may well have reduced my enjoyment as well.

As the film opens, it is 1956 and, we are told by the title cards, Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) is at the peak of her career. The ink still damp on the certificate for her marriage to Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), she is all set to come to England to film The Prince and the Showgirl, directed by and starring the imposing Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh); Marilyn's role was portrayed on stage by Olivier's then wife, Vivien Leigh (Julia Ormond), but Viv was deemed too old to play the eponymous showgirl on camera.

Meanwhile, in a castle/posh estate somewhere in the English countryside, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is lamenting his fate as his family's 'spare' rather than its 'heir.' But this status does mean that his family can humour Colin's desire to work in the movie business and they help to put him in touch with Olivier's production company. Through sheer persistence and some quick thinking, Clark manages to talk his way into the role of third assistant director on TPATS; task one: find a big house near the studios for Marilyn and her entourage (including her acting coach Paula (a very funny Zoë Wanamaker) and her manager Milton (Dominic Cooper, whose Noo Yawk accent could have been better)) to inhabit during filming.

Clark is terribly excited driving into the set on his first day, loves every bit of his job and promptly starts seeing the wardrobe assistant Lucy (Emma Watson). But the rest of the crew despair Marilyn's inability to: a) turn up to the set on time, b) learn her lines, and c) show suitable respect to her eminent co-cast members like Dame Sibyl (Dame Judi--a casting that wouldn't be out of place in a Private Eye parody). She does rather take a shine to young Colin, however, and before long, he's standing up Lucy and sneaking out with Marilyn to show her his old school (Eton, natch) and his godfather's place of employment (the library at Windsor Castle), and to go skinny dipping in the Thames. He soon realises just how troubled the actress is, even if he is rather flattered to know that he is the only person on set who can encourage Marilyn to do her job--and show up on time.

Perhaps fortunately, the film doesn't focus too much on Marilyn's problems, focusing instead on the fun and frolics of the film set and the unlikeliness of a young, green 'second son' becoming her closest confidant for one week only. Williams looked stunning and her performance was solid (she seemed to be channelling Jen Lindley in the Dawson's Creek finale). Redmayne was also charming as the eager beaver Clark (I first saw him playing Jack in Pillars of the Earth and he'll soon be in an adaptation of Birdsong, and BB and I were worried that he was way too young for us but apparently, he's nearly 30). Their friendship (or romance, or whatever it was) was convincing and they had good chemistry. MWWM is also a nice film for would-be film buffs like me--it's always fun to see what might have been going on behind the scenes in movies like TPATS. Many cast-members are, of course, somewhat underused but that's OK.

My most important question is: how do I get to become the third assistant director on Clive Owen's next film?

History Does Not Repeat Itself; the Historians Repeat One Another

This afternoon, I found myself scanning Thursday's newspapers in search of stories about the research I've helped to promote, as I do most Mondays. We only get the broadsheets delivered and it's always interesting to see which stories some papers avoid and which ones are, in Private Eye's words, exclusive to all newspapers. By the time I've finished, I usually feel like I would have done really well on the BBC News's 7 Days quiz if only I'd read them earlier.

This is a long-winded way of justifying why I was reading Thursday's Daily Torygraph and why I found a short piece by Alison Weir, who is pimping her new book about Mary Boleyn (a review of the book will follow as soon as I've read it; it's still on my shelf at the moment). The story is hooked to the announcement that Hilary Mantel's sequel to Wolf Hall will be published next year, but Weir quickly gets on with dissing the rather cavalier approach to the truth and historical accuracy taken by the film of The Other Boleyn Girl and the now, fortunately, defunct TV show, The Tudors. She then asks:

What is it about the Tudors that we find so compelling? Easy to answer: they were the most charismatic and dynamic of monarchs, who ruled over an age of great change. A king with six wives, two of whom he beheaded? A young woman (Lady Jane Grey) executed after nine days on the throne? The first women to rule? You couldn’t make it up.

Not that that stopped the likes of The Tudors sexing it up to the max. I did used to enjoy The Tudors during the first season. I tried not to think about the inaccuracies and the campness of it all, but it was good fun and at least if people are watching this show, they might learn a tiny bit of history, which you can't say for the "structured reality" crap that seems to dominate most TV schedules. < /rant > The trouble with a Tudors TV programme is that when characters are popular, you can't exactly write the script to allow them to live on for another season; after the death of Anne Boleyn, The Tudors was hanging by a thin thread.

In her biography of Anne's older sister Mary, Weir, it seems, is on a mission to debunk some of the myths perpetuated by The Other Boleyn Girl, which will be interesting given how little information there is available about Mary. Weir writes biographies and historical fiction and I've enjoyed both genres, so I'm looking forward to her treatment of the elusive Mary Boleyn.

Truly Blue

When it comes to movies, I don't tend to watch a lot of comedies but even so, Terence Davies' The Deep Blue Sea is seriously bleak, with only the slightest glimmer of hope at the end of 100 minutes of despair. As the film opens, it is London in the early 1950s and Hester (Rachel Weisz) is composing a suicide note. Apart from Hester reading the note aloud, we don't get any dialogue for a good five or ten minutes. Instead, we see Hester turning on the gas and lying down, slowly shutting her eyes. She is "saved", in the end, by her landlady and one of the other tenants but as they warily leave her alone, she starts to reflect on some of the events of the previous few years.

Her husband William (Simon Russell Beale), a successful judge, cares for her deeply but their life lacks passion and they disagree over the importance of this. "Beware of passion, Hester," William's humourless mother tells her, "it always leads to something ugly." But Hester just runs upstairs and makes a call to her RAF pilot lover Freddie (Tom Hiddleston) and tells him she will be, "back in the city soon, darling." Of course, William overhears and wants to know who else she calls darling and when he finds out, he refuses to give her a divorce and tells her he doesn't want to see her ever again.

In most other films of this ilk, you would expect to see a decent chunk of the film showing Hester and Freddie being happy together but in The Deep Blue Sea we get about 90 seconds in a pub in Oxford, most of which is taken up with Freddie and his friend Jack (Harry Hadden-Paton) doing comic interpretations of their glory days in the war. Instead, from Hester's flashbacks and from the 24 hours that follow her suicide attempt, we see that although Freddie is the love of her life, she may not, perhaps, be his as he proves unreliable, forgetting her birthday, and is prone to loud, furious rages in inappropriate situations. In the present day, William, caring as ever, finds out about the suicide attempt, and tries to be helpful, offering to give Hester the divorce and begging her to come home. She is caught between the devil and the eponymous deep blue sea. It is only later that she realises that the way she feels about William, is probably the way Freddie feels about her (minus the sex and passion and all that).

So, not one for a grand happy ending then. The performances of the three lead actors are all very strong, Weisz's sad voice catching in almost every line she speaks, conveying Hester's desire and desperate need for more than just a platonic love and her despair at her impossible position. Russell Beale's William is very sympathetic, while Hiddleston is, by turns, charming and funny and then cruel, thoughtless and insensitive. The film itself seems to alternate between a somewhat melodramatic Brief Encounter (complete with haunting strings music (Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, I think)) and a very quiet, serious stage play (with no music and no background noise). To paraphrase Brief Encounter, The Deep Blue Sea wasn't a very happy movie but it was well executed and with very good acting.

Is It a Bird?

After aeons of construction, King's Cross, where I work, is finally starting to get a little bit more interesting. First, came the art students from Central St Martins. Then, came eat.st, N1's (small) answer to Exmouth Market, with a selection of different food stalls every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The Red Herring Smokehouse's bacon sarnies and Homeslice's pizzas have been my favourites so far.

Then last week, a giant birdcage appeared. This is art, apparently--the Identified Flying Object, more specifically--and eventually, the cage will have a swing inside and will, once a month, be lit up and suspended from a crane. And yes, the artist is French (a nicer sight for French visitors entering St Pancras than the smug Olympic rings, I suppose!).

Inevitably, I had to take advantage of the birdcage with a few leaps, some of which look like some seriously advanced pole-dancing. The other advantage of having the art students around is that you're never going to be the weirdest person on eat.st...

Bex's Christmas Gift Guide: Stockings and Secret Santas

This is the third and final part of my Christmas and holiday gift guide for this year (part one is here and the second part is here). All of the items listed below cost £10 or under (with one exception) and should suit a range of different people, including Secret Santa recipients.

Food and drink

1. Vosges bacon candy bars (available from Selfridges). $7.50 (about £5). Chocolate is great! And really crispy smoked bacon is great! So, of course chocolate with salt and tiny bacon bits is amazing! As they say on their website, "Welcome to the bacon revolution."

2. Gold and turquoise tin plate from the Wallace Collection. £4.99. This plate is almost too pretty to use. But not quite!

3. Kitchen magic whisk from Anthropologie. £4. This is probably the most stylish kitchen product you can find with a £5 price-limit. You could even buy some eggs to give with it: perfect for a Christmas breakfast (although possibly a little fragile).

4. Shot glasses for chemists from Urban Outfitters. £10. I think these are a little over-priced but it is still the International Year of Chemistry so if not now, when? Besides, what else are you going to buy for your favourite chemistry geek? An autographed crystal structure?

Beauty

5. Mavala mini nail varnishes. About £3.50-£4.25. I'm a bit of an OPI and Essie junkie when it comes to nail varnish but those brands cost £10 in the UK (they are much cheaper in the US) and usually, they start to go sticky long before the bottle is finished. I recently discovered Mavala's mini nail varnishes, which are cheap and come in small bottles but which are pretty good quality. Minsk, a dark grey with a hint of purple, is my current favourite.

6. Vaseline Lip Therapy in crème brûlée. £2.99 from Boots and Superdrug (not all stores have it in stock, however). My favourite lip balm is Fresh's SPF tinted lip treatment in rosé, which is the only lip product I've ever finished, but it costs about £14. Vaseline's Lip Therapy range are much cheaper — even the yummy crème brûlée limited edition is only £2.99 and if you are on a £5 Secret Santa budget, you could even throw in the cocoa butter version.

Miscellaneous

7. London Walks book from the Tate Modern shop. £8.99. Quirky London walking guide meets graphic novel, this is definitely more fun than a regular guide book.

8. Love message in a bottle from Liberty. £10.50. This bottle contains three blank scrolls for you to write your own love letters—or cries for help. This is currently out of stock at Liberty, but you could easily make your own version, which would probably be cheaper too.

9. 'Paper tweet' notepad from Liberty. £4.95. Everyone knows a Luddite, who insists they will never start tweeting but this notepad should ease the transition. On a related note, I am planning to give the 'social media citations' version to my Secret Santa recipient at work; I don't know which person I am buying for yet but it would be relevant for most of my colleagues.

10. Metal hook with coloured ball from Little Yellow Birds. £4. Simple idea but very cute.

Finally, Selfridges have released their annual Christmas shopping voucher so from 24 to 27 November, you can get 10% off beauty, fragrance and wine (in store and online) and 20% off most other products. Woo hoo!

Bex's Christmas Gift Guide: Guys

This is the second part in my mini-series of Christmas gift guides (part one is here and this is the third part). Today I'll be picking out some gift ideas for guys. NB: Some of these presents would work equally well for women (including me!) but as I don't plan to put together a unisex guide, I've included them here.

Out and about
1. Paul Smith cycling helmet. £60. If I were a boy and if I cycled, I would definitely want to wear this stylish helmet. In fact, it's cool enough to make me wish I were a cyclist—although not quite enough to make me wish I were a guy.

2. Digital photography course from London Photo Tours. Prices vary. London Photo Tours run a variety of short courses for making the most out of your digital SLR or even your digital compact (£90 for a four-hour session). Their sessions have small groups and involve practical photo shoots in central London locations.

3. Crema coffee maker from Bodum. £16. Give a man a macchiato and he'll be caffeinated for a few hours. Give him a French Press and a bag of Square Mile Coffee and he can caffeinate himself for years to come. The beans and/or a custom-designed KeepCup would make good gifts for someone who already possesses the power of coffee making.

4. Sloe gin from Sipsmith. £23.49. I had the pleasure of sampling Sipsmith's Pimm's-like Summer Cup at my college's ball earlier this year and it has encouraged me to try their gins too at some point. Not cheap, but worth it.

5. Alessi parrot corkscrew from the Conran Shop. £32. Yes, a corkscrew is a bit of a boring gift but this one is really funky. [I almost didn't include this product because of the bad typo in its name (as with the "guady" [sic] tin in the girls' list) but I do like it.]

Art, etc.
6. London type map from Bold and Noble. £43. If you love typography, maps, London or even Cambridge blue, you'll probably like this poster map. They now sell designs from a range of different cities and countries, including a New York City map (although I prefer Axis Maps' version of Manhattan).

7. Susan Bradley Fin bookend from Magma. £18.95. For the auteur, cinephile, francophone or poseur in your life. Susan Bradley also makes cool London-themed book ends and letter racks.

Geekery
8. Cross stitch moustache cufflinks from Hannah Zakari. £16. Thanks to Movember, many girlfriends, wives and children have come to fear the 11th month of the year. So why not buy these 'tache-stitched cufflinks and make a donation via the Movember website instead?

9. Romantic star projector from Infmetry. $22. Yes, this is probably aimed at kids but it's awesome! You can even programme it with your own location for a personalised star show. Seriously, even Clive Owen looks dodgy with a 'tache!

10. Moshi Moshi phone handset from the Conran Shop. £24.99. Sometimes, it can be really hard work holding your iPhone against your ear for long periods of time. Fortunately, this brightly coloured handset, based on 1950s designs, can be plugged into your iPhone or computer and acts as a speaker and microphone (it also works with Skype). If you think this is an overpriced iAccessory, check out this iTypewriter from Anthropologie; surprisingly, given its £698 price tag, it is currently out of stock.

Edit: Selfridges have just released their annual Christmas shopping voucher so you can get 10% off beauty, fragrance and wine (in store and online) and 20% off most other products. Woo hoo!

Bex's Christmas Gift Guide: Girls

Yes, I know, it's still only November but although I'm a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to Christmas, I do love to shop so I've put together a short series of posts with my ideas of gifts for girls, gifts for guys and stocking fillers/Secret Santa fodder. Here's part one, with my present ideas for the ladies in your life (part two is here and this is the third part):

Jewellery
1. Personalised initial necklace from Allumer at Wolf and Badger. £45. This is basically three different necklaces because you get a solid gold letter charm and two chains, one blue and one dark grey, which can be worn together or separately. There are plenty of other initial necklaces on Etsy, many of which are much cheaper. Or if you're in New York, check out Market NYC for many fab (and reasonably priced) jewellery options.

2. Silver bird jewellery stand from Oliver Bonas. £14. I really need to get a jewellery stand as I currently use a sculpture of a hand, which doesn't provide enough hanging room for my many necklaces. This one also comes in a gold colour, which is only £8.

Bags and accessories
3. Starry night scarf from French Connection. £35. Scarves have recently become one of my "things" so this list wouldn't be complete without at least one.This scarf has a fun pattern, which would work for Christmas parties as well as brisk winter mornings. I also like this spotty scarf, also from French Connection, and this colourful dove print scarf from Oliver Bonas.

4. Exclamation mark tote bag from Alphabet Bags. £12. This would have been even better if they made totes branded with my favourite punctuation mark—the em dash—but exclamation marks are still fun, as are the bags in the typographic range.

5. "Live Colorfully" [sic] iPad case from Kate Spade. $50 (probably about £35). Because (most) Apple products are just too monochrome these days... This colour-blocked iPad case from Smythson makes a stylish (and much pricier) alternative.

6. Colour-changing London skyline umbrella from Squid London. £25. What better present for the crappy English winter than a monochrome umbrella that magically becomes colourful when it gets wet? They also do a New York version. Heal's have a pretty, colourful brolly too.

7. Dazzle dot Stevie bag in heather grey from Kate Spade. $345. It is perhaps fortunate that this light grey felt bag, trimmed with leather and 14k gold, and punctuated with colourful buttons, is an online exclusive and therefore not available in the UK because it's so damn pretty. The charcoal grey version is more widely available but doesn't have the coloured buttons.

Stationery
8. Cadre floral notebook from Paul Smith. £11. I had thought of including one of the Moleskine gift sets in this list but as I mentioned before, they are overpriced. This flowery notebook in autumnal/wintery colours is a much better—and more stylish—option.

Beauty, etc.
9. Glossybox subscription. £10 per month (plus P&P). Glossybox is a beauty subscription service where, for £10 per month, you receive five luxury product samples from high-end beauty brands (sometimes, you even get full-size products). It isn't as good as (or as cheap as) Birchbox, the US original, but so far Glossybox has been featuring some great brands (my boss, whom I talked into signing up, got three Dermalogica products last month). Oh, and they have just launched a version for guys.

10. Mini festive candles from Diptyque. £25. Diptyque have two holiday candles this year—the green, fresh, pine-based Epinette and the red, warm, spicy Perdigone. The packaging of these candles is, as per usual with Diptyque products, gorgeous.

Edit: Selfridges have just released their annual Christmas shopping voucher so you can get 10% off beauty, fragrance and wine (in store and online) and 20% off most other products. Woo hoo!

Coming Back to Haunt You

A few busy weekends in a row have meant that I'm behind on movies at the moment, as well as blog posts. I did get the chance to see The Awakening this afternoon, in the poky little room upstairs at the Mayfair Curzon (the one that makes you feel like you're in the private screening room of one of the area's mansions). This turned out to be quite atmospheric because as well as the main door to the screen, there is a little staff-only back door and throughout the movie, there were little noises and voices filtering through.

I thought about seeing The Awakening at the London Film Festival because a) I like a good scary movie and b) with Mad Men still not back on TV, six episodes of Dominic West in The Hour wasn't quite enough of a Don Draper substitute for me. Rebecca Hall stars as Florence Cathcart, who is a kind of 1920s, female Jonathan Creek. After debunking a seance séance at the start of the film, she returns home to find Robert Mallory (West), a teacher at a northern boarding school, waiting for her. He has been sent to persuade her to come to investigate the recent death of a young boy at the school and to banish the ghost everyone thinks was responsible (supposedly another young boy, who died a few years earlier when the school was still a private house). Mallory himself remains skeptical of Florence's skepticism and it is clear that they both have troubled pasts.

Reluctantly, Florence agrees and off they yomp to Cumbria, where she whips out her ghost-busting equipment. The boys are a little reticent about her presence but at least matron (Imelda Staunton), is glad Florence is there—she keeps a copy of Florence's book next to her Bible, she says. After a few days, Florence thinks she has solved the mystery, identifying the real 'ghost' and explaining the circumstances surrounding the boy's death. But as half-term arrives and most of the boys return to their homes, the spooky happenings continue, pushing Florence to question whether her rigid, rational world-view is in fact valid. Meanwhile, she must fight demons from her own past and deal with her growing feelings for Mallory.

With strong performances from the three leads and a strong sense of unease and tension throughout, I thought The Awakening worked well as a fairly straightforward ghost story. There is a big twist, which I half-anticipated (although I thought it was going to go in a different direction), and I think it worked well enough. Daniel Pemberton's score was also suitably haunting. A good film to see on a cold night, before hurrying home to warm up and unwind in front of a fireplace!

Faulks-ed Up

I like most of Sebastian Faulks's novels, Birdsong and The Girl at the Lion d'Or being my favourites, and I thought it was odd that I hadn't yet read A Fool's Alphabet, but when I was prowling my library looking for unread books to take to Morocco, I happened upon it and took it with me. Slightly embarrassingly, it took me 50 pages to realise that I had, in fact, already read it two years ago. Obviously, then, the opening wasn't that memorable and the two things that I did remember reading before were a) a reference to the protagonist living in a flat on a mansion block off Baker Street (as was I two years ago) and b) two errors, one of which was a misspelling of Bleecker Street in New York, and the other which had a California radio station saying that it was a scorching day with a temperature of 25 degrees--presumably not in Fahrenheit, one would imagine.

I did enjoy the book more on its second read and hope it will be more memorable this time. It tells the story of the life of Pietro Russell, a photographer born in 1950 to a young Italian mother and an English war hero father. Each chapter is named after a different location in the world and they progress through the alphabet--each place represents a story in the chapter of Russell's life, some significant (the meeting of his parents in Italy, for example) and others more random and they are presented achronologically, which I rather like. Having now read One Day, it reminded me in some ways of David Nicholls' book in that we drop in and out of the characters' lives, with much of the detail left to be inferred or discovered later on in the story. It's still not my favourite of Faulks's works, but A Fool's Alphabet is still worth a read.

That's Enough Birthdays (Ed)

I'm not the biggest fan of birthdays--not when they're my own, anyway--but although this year, it feels like mine ran on for days, it wasn't so bad (almost as good, even, as last year's in New York).

I celebrated with friends on Saturday, hosting a small gathering in my flat. The cocktails were pretty successful (you should be able to guess what I made based on the ingredients in the photo) and I managed to avoid buying any beers, which, if undrunk at the end of the night, would remain undrunk until I got around to chucking them out.

Birthday burger

Monday was my actual birthday and it was mostly spent working, but did involve a brief escape for some tasty pizza and a chocolate éclair from Exmouth Market and also some lovely gifts from Kate Spade and elsewhere. After work, I met my parents at Kettner's for a cocktail (their special Movember cocktail was surprisingly fruity and sweet) and then we went for a birthday burger at Byron. As she wasn't sure whether I'd manage a pudding, Maman arranged for the waitress to put some candles in my burger, which was definitely unique. I did, inevitably, find room for half a brownie. Finally, we went to see Tabloid, which was a very funny--but also scary--look at the case of the utterly bonkers Joyce McKinney.

Cocktails at the Savoy

Maman's birthday was on Tuesday, so we went out for breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien. Nothing like a boiled egg and posh soldiers to set one up for a long day's work (especially if the bread can be coated with LPQ's praline spread--not the slices that were dunked in the egg, I add). My parents had some vouchers for Gordon Ramsay's restaurants so we went to the Savoy Grill. After a cocktail in the hotel's classy bar, we went into the restaurant for dinner. Six rock oysters and a fillet steak had more than filled me up and as none of the puddings contained chocolate, I couldn't be tempted by a third course. Perhaps this was fortunate given that my second candle-clad food item in as many days was then brought out in the form of a chocolate panna cotta-like cake.

Now Now

I've been out every night this week and I'm a bit behind on blog posts but I just got back from a recording of The Now Show and I wanted to write down my thoughts while they are fresh. It was a fun evening but clearly, I should have read my own advice from the last time I went because we made some of the same old n00b mistakes.

Poor photo of Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt

We got there earlier than I did last time--6.45 (when the front doors open) rather than 7.15 (15 minutes before the studio doors open)--but there was a big queue outside Broadcasting House, with about 200 people ahead of us. Random security checking of Balham Babe's bag delayed us and meant we were the first people to enter the second holding room, rather than the last people to enter the first room. As all of the first room people got to go in first and there isn't a queuing system inside the rooms, this didn't work out too well for us, and we ended up in the second row on the balcony with two tall guys in front of us. We also missed out on getting to fill in an answer to the audience question: the woman in charge of our room asked why no one was giving her the answers and we explained we hadn't been given the sheets but apparently they had run out. The funniest answer (which probably won't get included in the show when it airs) was a hilarious example of someone missing the point of the question--or maybe just wanting us to think that...

That aside, it was a good show, with a couple of good songs, a reference to research I publicised, and plenty of naughtiness, although as ever, I found Henning Wehn's segment a little boring. One part, which described a wonderful new variety of a class A drug in the style of a Christmas advert for a popular, middle-class retailer, involved Pippa Evans reading out a number of long, jargony, science words, such as mesolimbic and "exogenous catecholamine transporter ligand" (straight from Wiki, I see). During the "retakes" at the end, Steve Punt made the mistake of asking if there were any chemists in the audience and of course there were, one of whom took the joke far too far by loudly correcting Evans's pronunciations four or five times, until the chemist was persuaded to pipe down. I know it's the Year of Chemistry, but still...

And yes, next time I really will try to arrive a bit earlier so that I can finally get to provide a supremely witty answer to the audience question of the week.

Some Methods in the Madness of Marrakesh

The souks

I returned home from Marrakesh this evening and was amazed that on my walk back from Paddington, not a single motorbike tried to run me over; nor did anyone try to sell me something! I don't think it will be too hard to adjust back to London life but here are some of my tips for making the most of a stay in the red city.

Marrakesh: Atlas Leaped

Yesterday, we rose soon after the first call to prayer and headed off on our excursion into the Atlas Mountains. It was a gorgeous day and the sun was so strong that even after we passed the 2,000-metre mark, I was too hot in my jeans and t-shirt. Our route took us into the High Atlas, over the Tizi N'Tichka pass and into the Ouarzazate region, with plenty of stops en route for potential retail opportunities, photos and, in my case, leaps.

Marrakesh: Quel Gommage!

We accomplished two very Moroccan things today: haggling and a hammam. The first took place mainly in the souks and I am now the proud owner of a pretty, stripy scarf in four of my favourite colours (teal, turquoise, purple and pink) and some colourful pottery bowls, one of which is for my mum.

Marrakesh: Burn, Baby, Burn

Today was Eid al-Adha and, for a few hours at least, Marrakesh's tempo slowed down to a moderato pace. For the past few days we had seen sheep being carried around on motorbikes and today, all that remained were their heads being barbecued on street corners in the medina.

Marrakesh: The Girl Who May Have Eaten Goat

We finally made it to our riad at about 5.30 last night, where mint tea awaited. I was exhausted and a bit under the weather so it was lucky we had ordered a meal in the riad — both opting for chicken with pickled lemons. Instead, after soup and some spicy aubergines, along came a tagine with something else. Initially, I thought it was lamb but it may have been goat (in which case, goat tastes "like lamb").

Marrakesh: Into Africa

I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but as well as my efforts to pronounce 2011 as twenty-eleven rather than two-thousand-and-eleven, I also wanted to visit at least two new countries this year. I travelled quite a lot while I was a student but since then a combination of limited income and my love of New York have meant that most of my foreign forays have been limited to the US and France.

Still, my trip to Stockholm in March took care of one new country and tomorrow, I'll be entering a new country—and a new continent. My wardrobe, which consists mainly of two-inches-above-the-knee skirts and dresses, and almost no trousers, isn't exactly compatible with the advised dress code but with some opaque tights, leggings and knee-high boots, it should be OK. 

It will be Eid ul-Fitr while we are there--the festival of the sacrifice, which celebrates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and which involves the sacrifice (and roasting) of numerous animals. When booking the trip, I thought there was only one Eid — celebrating the end of Ramadan — and didn't realise we would be there during a public holiday. It will, no doubt, be an interesting experience even for this former vegetarian.

I'll be staying in a riad in Marrakesh for a few days, hopefully taking advantage of the in-house hammam and rooftop terrace. Mint tea, tagines, purchasing of argan oil and even some haggling will probably feature too and we have booked an excursion into the Atlas Mountains, which should allow for some good leaping photos. And thanks to a tip-off from a colleague, I really want to see some goats in trees and to investigate whether argan oil really is made from the argan nuts that have been, er, processed by goats!

Google Reader Round-Up

Even though I had been warned in advance, Google's confiscation of the social functionality in Google Reader earlier this week made me very sad, especially given it came with a design "upgrade" (and yes, "upgrade" in the sense of O2 "upgrades") that doesn't seem to work very well on my work computer. 

I didn't share posts within Google Reader very often but it was a useful place for me to highlight blog posts that might be worth a read to the people following me on Reader without having to send an email or copy and paste the link into Twitter or Facebook. Now if you want to share posts in Reader, you have to do it via Google+ and although I have a G+ account, I rarely use it and I refuse to let Google manipulate me into doing so. 

To try to compile some of the links I find from Reader in a single place, I thought I would start doing Google Reader round-ups on this blog from time to time. These aren't all posts I would have shared in Reader but they are all posts I find interesting, noteworthy or timely; some may be in-jokes. Here are the first batch:

• How to find your previously shared items in Google Reader (this only works if your shared items were public, which mine weren't)
• Five hidden London gems (Lounge Bohemia and Upstairs both sound great)
• 32 girly gift ideas from the Daily Candy editors (a good range of prices but everything is beautiful)
• Schedule for the food stalls on the newly opened King's Boulevard (today I had a slice of gorgeous, woodfire Margherita pizza from Homeslice; £3 for a big slice)
• Markets in everything: laser eye-colour changes (eek!)
• And finally... 32 witty comebacks (some of these are now hackneyed but I chuckled at others. 32 is clearly the number of the week: see above!)