We spent today in Acton High Street. It's about the same distance the campus was from "other" Hampstead last year. Calypso and I took longer walking there because we were distracted by a great charity shop, at which I fufilled my long urge for a harmonica and a gentleman's evening scarf. I can almost play Once Upon A Time In The West on it. The harmonica, not the scarf. We also narrowly avoided a Rorschach hat.
Acton is a chaos of scuzzy ethnic food places. It's such a multi-cultural area - coming from Guernsey, where the teachers confused our year's two dark-skinned girls for the whole of seven years despite the fact one's parents were Egyptian and the other South American, it's something I really enjoy about being in England. All the same, I feel guilty for not being more in touch. For example a lot of places were selling "halal" meat. I know it's an important religious thingy, but what is it exactly? There were lots of religious buildings - we found Acton mosque, Acton Catholic church, Acton Baptist Church and many others. Acton has wool shop, a great mask shop, a 17th Century pub and only the most tacky brands - Macdonalds and 99p stores were the only ones I recognised. Marvellous! A particular treat was the local lamp shop - very beautiful, a chaotic flurry of tasteless glowing tat.
We lunched at Acton Market, at Mr Sing's Express Curry stand - he's a friendly fellow who wanted us to test-drive a meal he is intending to sell. For a pound, he gave us an aloo tika with spicy chickpeas, drizzled with tamarind chutney. Calypso and I are thinking of making a small portable guide to foreign food - for example, I like pasta but am often tripped up in restaurants if they don't explain exactly what "siciliana" or something means. Especially important now we're all vegitarian too.
We finally found Acton library - a puny little thing, but our membership gets into lots of surrounding libraries so I'm sure it'll be OK. Cool, but frustrating, there are huge non-English sections. I loathe non-English books - they always look far more interesting than anything one could read. Calypso made a girl laugh by badmouthing Twilight. We secured internet connections! Woo hoo! Disappointingly, we are too old to come to the library's Fairy Princess day.
Calypso got "The Good Giving Guide", the truth about charity and how best to help, a Terry Prachett book and a book about sustainable living - I carried off "Costume in Detail 1730 - 1930", a book of drawings of women's dresses; "The Four Feathers", a film I adored about gung-ho heroics and people with more honour than sense and "Save the Last Bullet", the memoirs of a mercenary from the Balkans and Somalia. I shouldn't really be indulging my love of angst and guts, but there wasn't any Alastair MacLean there. I feel a little bad - when it's the movies, I can sort of justify the kick I get out of violence; a factual book will make it seem far more like a dirty activity. Finally for my graphic novel fix, "Hellblazer: Roots of Coincidence". I still feel a certain debt to Constantine for getting me into comics, even though I've found them increasingly repetitive.
We also got some DVDs. There were about two there I would ever deign to watch - when in company, I seem to get snobbier about film. One of them was Mullholland Drive. Our last stop was the local Scope, where Calypso found a 30s dress and I got a cheap DVD with two episodes of Danger Man on it. So it was, in a way, an expensive day - but we now know our area better.
We are using one of the spare see-thru jars, and filling it with colourful origami stars made from the junk mail. Dinner was lentil bake - semi successful, but we'll know how to do better next time - and Kate Bush. Afterwards, we watched Queen Sized - a Lifetime movie starring Nikki Blonski about a fat-girl-turns-Homecoming-Queen. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. For example, I kinda expected Maggie to be dressed really unflatteringly throughout, before the inevitable makeover moment. Y'know, get a haircut and suddenly she's being played by Lindsay Lohan. The idea of an ugly woman is faintly ridiculous - ugliness or beauty is all about the way you present yourself, and any figure can be flattered with smart choices. But actually, she was glamourous and friendly all the way through - it was purely an issue of perception - and Hollywood did not require her to turn into a skinny bint and go on a diet. Little touches like this made the movie pleasingly non-patronising, to the extent I can't really take the rack out of it. Also, she was haunted by an invisible version of her mum. I know self-critical is hard to dramatise, but it added a really nice surreal edge.
I'd like to do a truth-beauty essay one day. Dorian Gray is ugly inside, but everyone believes he is good because he is beautiful. Frankenstein's monster is good inside, but becomes ugly because everyone believes he is. In Beauty and the Beast - clue is in the title - Belle is good because she can see through the Beast's ugliness, but her reward is him turning back into a handsome hunk. The Ugly Sisters are evil, while Cinderella hides her beauty in rags. And so on. There's a point to be made in here somewhere but I can't see it. It's the Beauty and the Beast one that strikes me as most strange.
Acton is a chaos of scuzzy ethnic food places. It's such a multi-cultural area - coming from Guernsey, where the teachers confused our year's two dark-skinned girls for the whole of seven years despite the fact one's parents were Egyptian and the other South American, it's something I really enjoy about being in England. All the same, I feel guilty for not being more in touch. For example a lot of places were selling "halal" meat. I know it's an important religious thingy, but what is it exactly? There were lots of religious buildings - we found Acton mosque, Acton Catholic church, Acton Baptist Church and many others. Acton has wool shop, a great mask shop, a 17th Century pub and only the most tacky brands - Macdonalds and 99p stores were the only ones I recognised. Marvellous! A particular treat was the local lamp shop - very beautiful, a chaotic flurry of tasteless glowing tat.
We lunched at Acton Market, at Mr Sing's Express Curry stand - he's a friendly fellow who wanted us to test-drive a meal he is intending to sell. For a pound, he gave us an aloo tika with spicy chickpeas, drizzled with tamarind chutney. Calypso and I are thinking of making a small portable guide to foreign food - for example, I like pasta but am often tripped up in restaurants if they don't explain exactly what "siciliana" or something means. Especially important now we're all vegitarian too.
We finally found Acton library - a puny little thing, but our membership gets into lots of surrounding libraries so I'm sure it'll be OK. Cool, but frustrating, there are huge non-English sections. I loathe non-English books - they always look far more interesting than anything one could read. Calypso made a girl laugh by badmouthing Twilight. We secured internet connections! Woo hoo! Disappointingly, we are too old to come to the library's Fairy Princess day.
Calypso got "The Good Giving Guide", the truth about charity and how best to help, a Terry Prachett book and a book about sustainable living - I carried off "Costume in Detail 1730 - 1930", a book of drawings of women's dresses; "The Four Feathers", a film I adored about gung-ho heroics and people with more honour than sense and "Save the Last Bullet", the memoirs of a mercenary from the Balkans and Somalia. I shouldn't really be indulging my love of angst and guts, but there wasn't any Alastair MacLean there. I feel a little bad - when it's the movies, I can sort of justify the kick I get out of violence; a factual book will make it seem far more like a dirty activity. Finally for my graphic novel fix, "Hellblazer: Roots of Coincidence". I still feel a certain debt to Constantine for getting me into comics, even though I've found them increasingly repetitive.
We also got some DVDs. There were about two there I would ever deign to watch - when in company, I seem to get snobbier about film. One of them was Mullholland Drive. Our last stop was the local Scope, where Calypso found a 30s dress and I got a cheap DVD with two episodes of Danger Man on it. So it was, in a way, an expensive day - but we now know our area better.
We are using one of the spare see-thru jars, and filling it with colourful origami stars made from the junk mail. Dinner was lentil bake - semi successful, but we'll know how to do better next time - and Kate Bush. Afterwards, we watched Queen Sized - a Lifetime movie starring Nikki Blonski about a fat-girl-turns-Homecoming-Queen. It wasn't as bad as it sounds. For example, I kinda expected Maggie to be dressed really unflatteringly throughout, before the inevitable makeover moment. Y'know, get a haircut and suddenly she's being played by Lindsay Lohan. The idea of an ugly woman is faintly ridiculous - ugliness or beauty is all about the way you present yourself, and any figure can be flattered with smart choices. But actually, she was glamourous and friendly all the way through - it was purely an issue of perception - and Hollywood did not require her to turn into a skinny bint and go on a diet. Little touches like this made the movie pleasingly non-patronising, to the extent I can't really take the rack out of it. Also, she was haunted by an invisible version of her mum. I know self-critical is hard to dramatise, but it added a really nice surreal edge.
I'd like to do a truth-beauty essay one day. Dorian Gray is ugly inside, but everyone believes he is good because he is beautiful. Frankenstein's monster is good inside, but becomes ugly because everyone believes he is. In Beauty and the Beast - clue is in the title - Belle is good because she can see through the Beast's ugliness, but her reward is him turning back into a handsome hunk. The Ugly Sisters are evil, while Cinderella hides her beauty in rags. And so on. There's a point to be made in here somewhere but I can't see it. It's the Beauty and the Beast one that strikes me as most strange.
Comments (4)
Acton is a chaos of scuzzy ethnic food places. It's such a multi-cultural area - coming from Guernsey, where the teachers confused our year's two dark-skinned girls for the whole of seven years despite the fact one's parents were Egyptian and the other South American,
I assume you mean Saffi and Jessie there? what about Loucynda and Rosie? anyway, I think that says more about the teachers than it does about their colour - I remember Anne and Natalie always being mixed up, but not Saffi and Jessie.
I was still being called Robyn in upper bloody 6th!
also you watched a Lifetime movie?? why??
I think you're forgetting bits of Beauty and the Beast as well..him being pretty again isn't her reward, it's his. He starts off a twat, so gets cursed with ugliness by some witch. The curse will only be lifted if he turns nice and can get someone to love him for his niceness despite his ugliness.
I don't think she's ever seen Beauty and the Beast LOL!
And Em, if you get bored while having no internet, you can always teach Calypso the Hoedown Throwdown. Then send me a video of you both ^^