Me and the Bombed Out Church

Reading:  Twitter
Listening to:  Dead Skeletons
Smoking:  A rollie


Liverpool this last fortnight has been outraged by the rumour of the Council's plans to sell off a much loved building to private developers.  St Lukes, or the Bombed Out Church is one of the cities most recognisable buildings.  Probably the rest of the world thinks of the Liver Buildings, or the cathedrals when they imagine the architectural icons of the city but ask a Scouser and the Bombed Out Church will be high up on that list.

During the Blitz of 1941, the church scored a direct hit.  Since then it has remained a shell, and a constant reminder and memorial to all those people who lost their lives in the german bombing of the city during WW2.  For many years now it has hosted various events, yoga classes, film screening, concerts and today it was closed while a band filmed a video in there.  It's a versatile space and we love it.

When I asked the very talented artist Katie Craven to design my blog header, I wanted an iconic building on it which would instantly identify my blog with the city.  St Lukes was a no brainer.

With all these in mind, I decided to do a series of street style pictures on the steps.  The steps where many have waited for a hot date, have rested before the trek up Hardman Street and where many a drunken bag of chips and pizza have been consumed in the early hours.

I was accompanied today by a student photographer, Victoria Hyam (who will be guest blogging here in the future).  Victoria is using me as the subject of her 2nd year project.  Photographing me photographing people.  The premise of her project is that street style photography will be seen in years to come as a valuable source of documentary material about the times we live in now.  I'm sure she will keep you updated on this here.

So the point of all this?  Well every day this week, I will be posting some street style from the steps.  The steps of hopes, dreams, lost love and chips.

More information about events at the Bombed Out Church can be found here Urban Strawberry Lunch.

Photo Credit:  Victoria Hyam  (dead talented isn't she)

Disgusted

After buying Vogue and the other glossies religiously since the mid eighties I've now totally given up on them.  Why?  Well because I am getting rather fed up of spending money for the sole purpose of being flogged a load of overpriced goods which I don't want.  Page after page of glossy ads for the big fashion houses, minimal interesting and innovative articles (if any) and more selling in the editorials, well at least they are pretty.

There have been countless articles about the decline of the printed word, books (sad), newspapers (a bit sad) and magazines (haha).  Blogs and the internet are getting blamed for this decline.  Well in the case of magazines, they are dinosaurs and internet is their extinction event.

Yesterday I bought two magazines, one Oh Comely which I will come to in a bit and  AnOther which is edited by Jefferson Hack.  For the grand price of £6.95 I had to flick through 57 pages of adverts before I got to the first article.  OK I thought, they've got them all out of the way to make way for lots of great articles.  Nope, every other page is yet another ad.  In balance it does contain some beautiful pictures in the fashion editorials, of which there is a lot.  Then I looked closer, each outfit was for a designer, not a styling mishmash using these amazing clothes to show the unique creative vision of the stylist.  More selling.  There is a bit of text accompanying each fashion story, which was such pretentious twaddle I had to laugh out loud.  Once again, for balance, there was one great piece on Edward James who was a fascinating character and an OK interview with Ai Weiwei.  This was however, not worth £6.95 and it left me feeling empty and just a little bit depressed.

Back to the aforementioned Oh Comely, this magazine is a total delight.  With minimum adverts it gets stuck right in.  Interesting articles and examples of new writing as well as some fresh fashion, it is exactly what I want to spend my money on.  Priced at £4 it is published every two months.  This magazine is a real item of beauty, fabulous photography, great paper and even an item on how to make cheese, something I never thought I'd want to read about, let alone enjoy.  I finished reading this magazine and felt uplifted and looking forward to the next issue in two long months time.

I think I'll email Jefferson Hack and suggest he changes the name of his publication to Disgusted.

October Inspiration

As I am stuck at home recovering I thought I would treat you to some images which have warmed my heart whilst lazing in bed.  Enjoy.

All images have been taken from the following Tumblrs:

thecommonpursuit.tumblr.com
theyardpdx.tumblr.com/#69

Rabbit

I told you all I couldn't resist a cape.  The only thing that could top this picture is a photo of an owl in galoshes.

Picture is from the following blog:  http://hanselfrombasel.tumblr.com

November

No sun, no moon
No morn, no noon
No dawn, no dusk, no proper time of day
No sky, no earthly view
No distance looking blue

No road, no street
No t'other side the way
No end to any row
No indication where the Crescents go

No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people
No courtesies for showing 'em
No knowing 'em

No mail no post
No news from any foreign coast
No park, no ring, no afternoon gentility
No company, no nobility

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds
November!

Poem by Thomas Hood
Photographs from top 
Grijs
Toast
Plumo
Neest

A Blog of Utter Beauty

Well if the wind and rain lashing at the window and the increasing leaf crunch underfoot is anything to go by, Autumn is well and truly here.  As much as I love the romance of this season I am sad to see the end of summer.  Hello Neest is a blog which perfectly encapsculates every season.  Photographs of such beauty and longing I never know whether to feel elated or melancholy.  They also sell some well chosen homewares which you will never find in the shops here.  Get the kettle on and have a peruse, you will thank yourself for it.

Photograph is from Hello Neest.