April 2013 GlossyBox

The April Glossy Box box is finally here… but first, how did I get on with the contents of my March box?

Inside my box was:

Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream – Fragrance Free: Although this is a really nice product and good for lips, cuticles and eyebrows, I’m not sure I could justify the price and I quite missed the distinctive smell of the fragranced version. To be honest I probably wouldn’t buy this but it’s a great all purpose product for the handbag cosmetics bag.

L’Occitane Imortelle Precious Cream: This rich moisturiser smells amazing – kind of like a spring garden just after rain. I found it great for dealing with stressed skin while traveling.

Jelly Pong Pong Lip Blush: I really liked the intense red colour of this lip stick. It wears well and leaves a decent stain after the top layer has worn off. It’s probably not as moisturising as it’s claiming to be and like with most long-wearing lip colours, I found that it dried my lips.

Nails Inc in Bruton Street: I didn’t get to try this because my box arrived just after I had had a Shellac manicure but it’s a nice colour so I’m hoping to use it soon.

Tresemme Salon Finish Extra Hold Hairspray: Surprisingly this was the absolute winner of the box and I ended up vastly preferring this budget product to the super expensive Wella equivalent I recently bought. It’s light wearing but long-lasting and holds hair in place without looking gluey. It also smells great. Will definitely be buying this.

The April Box

This month’s box had a vintage theme, with the gorgeous floral box designed by model Pearl Lowe. While I love the idea of this particular theme, I’m not completely sure how the contents of my box tied back to it. Inside my box was:

Sunsense Daily Face SPF: A tinted factor 50 facial sunscreen supposedly suitable for all skin types.

Nip + Fab Dry Skin Fix Body Butter in Mango: Yet another body butter. This one apparently contains something called Aquaxyl^TM, which improves the skin’s water reserves.

Sleek Makeup Blush in Suede: This is a brownish shade, which is nice for doing nude make-up and a good handbag size, especially since it comes with a mirror.

Yves Rocher So Elixir Purple Eau de Parfum: First impression is that this is a strong floral scent, probably too heavy for day time wear.

Essie Nail Lacquer in Canyon Coral: Love this feisty, bright coral shade from the SS13 range. Perfect for the transition from winter into spring.

Things I have been cooking lately #31: Italian style potato salad

With spring finally making an appearance, I feel like it’s time to celebrate barbeque season. All South Africans are born with an in-built “braai” switch that flicks the minute there is a hint of sun sending us clamouring for coals, chops and a fireside brew. Unlike British barbeques, which seem to the uninitiated eye to be a somewhat haphazard affair that involves incinerating a bunch of low quality sausages over an open flame before it starts raining, a South African braai is an art form which requires creating the perfect mix of proteins, sides and libations. With this in mind I have been subtly converting my husband to my sub-Saharan way of thinking and turning him into a real man. In South Africa, you are not a real man unless you can handle a pair of braai tongs.

While I do know women who take charge of their own braais and it was me who taught Paul how to make a cooking fire, the woman’s braai role is traditionally in the kitchen, doing the much more challenging job of creating delicious side dishes. One of the most popular standards is of course, potato salad, which I love… but I don’t love the lashings of mayo that always seem to come with it. With that in mind, I present to you a twist of the classic potato salad that you might want to try at your next braai – all the flavour with much less fat.

Italian style potato salad

1kg new potatoes, halved or quartered if large
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh basil
Salt
Black pepper
¼ red onion, finely chopped

Put the potatoes in a large pot and cover with cold water by an inch. Season well with salt. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes, or until you can easily push a fork into the potato.

In the meantime, whisk together the oil, vinegar, basil, garlic and salt and pepper to taste.

Drain the potatoes and run a little cold water over them to bring the temperature down. When the potatoes have cooled down a little add the onions and toss in the olive oil mixture.

The flavours intensify as the salad is stored and it keeps well so you could easily make it the day before and pop it in the fridge in anticipation of your braai.

Serves 4 -6 as a side dish

GIG REVIEW: fun. @ Hammersmith Apollo – 18 April 2013

It’s always hard when a band you really like breaks up and you feel like you’re going to miss out on hearing a really unique voice – I guess you hope they’ll pop up again somewhere else with a new project but it so often doesn’t happen. When I first heard We Are Young by fun. I was immediately struck by its earworminess but also convinced that I had heard that particular voice somewhere before. It took me just a little longer to figure out that the person belting out the massive chorus was Nate Reuss erstwhile frontman of The Format, a lovely little indie-folk-pop band that released two charming albums in the mid-noughties and then vanished.

With that in mind, I was thrilled when I was offered a chance to check out fun. headlining The Hammersmith Apollo.  There was a time where I had my ear to the ground of the sub-pop music scene and would have known what a massive crowd to expect, but since I now live under a rock, I don’t think it had fully sunk in just how big fun. are.

And so they should be. I had managed a couple of listens through both of the studio albums they put out so far pre-gig but I will openly admit that I didn’t go in knowing ever word of every song. The reason I mention this is because I always think it’s a excellent indicator of a band’s goodness, no matter how big they are, if you can get sucked into the show without already being an uber-fan.

Fun. have several really powerful weapons in their arsenal. The first is indubitably, Ruess who is an absolute pocket-rocket.  His endless energy and enthusiasm is infectious and his absolute colossal voice sounds as good live as it does on the biggest of singles. They’re also blessed with a heady indie-pop-rock sound that artfully blends 80’s guitar solos with brass interludes and some funky percussion. Pair all of this up with lyrics that manage to be uplifting but ultimately very real and great band chemistry and you can’t possibly go wrong.

They got the pacing of the show dead-on, keeping the audience fully engaged throughout with the added coolness of an awesome backdrop that included a brilliant animated city scape, complete with metro train running along the middle of the stage.

The sing-along inspired by Some Nights is quite potentially one of the most satisfying I have ever experienced and I will admit to a tiny tear in my eye for The Gambler, but ultimately the climax of the show was always going to be the encore of We Are Young. The only bum note was the seemingly odd decision to follow up We Are Young with Stars as the finale. After the climax of We Are Young it meandered somewhat and left the audience rather restless.

In conclusion fun. are exactly what they have obviously set out to be be – about as much fun as you can cram into 90 minutes.

Photo by fun. touring drummer, Will Noon

A return to the days when the wild things were actually wild

It’s been some time since I did a journal type blog about my weekend. Mostly because these days I generally spend my weekend pottering around in my PJs, but every now and then my inner twenty-four year old comes out and I end up having a couple of nights out that are worthy of the early years of Where The Wild Things Are - back when it was all stolen traffic cones and snogging… kind of like this weekend.

On Friday night Jen V and I were supposed to go to book club and go home. I am not going to pretend that our book club is something that it’s not. I mean we do all read the same book and talk about it but we do also drink a silly amount of wine and Friday was no exception. We had set up camp in The Porterhouse in Covent Garden, which is always very busy but perfectly pleasant – especially if you decamp to the basement. It was going well until a band of middle aged men set up and started doing David Grey covers (kill me now!). Laura and Emily sensibly decided to go home but Jen V, Jen P and I had the Friday feeling and Steve from work was sending Jen V cryptic messages that indicated that he and some others might be in the Endurance on Berwick Street.

Unfortunately our sojourn in the Endurance was short-lived, since they called last rounds just after we’d swiftly sunk our third (fourth?) bottle of cheap red. Jen P and I were (un)lucky enough though to find ourselves outside having a smoke with one of those South African guys who has decided not to give up a millimetre of his Jo’burg Northern Suburbs schtick and made a point out of calling us both bru and telling us that he still hadn’t acclimatised to London after eight years here and couldn’t understand why anyone would want to live here. I think I might have told him just to go back and stop whining. Oops. There’s nothing I hate more than an ex-pat with a chip on their shoulder. If you want to go home… just go.

After being booted out of the Endurance we surveyed the nearby gay bars – Soho is Soho – but everyone was charging way too much entrance, leading to my cunning plan of heading to Crobar and waiting from Jen P’s boyfriend, Rob, to meet us. Crobar only charges £2.

When Rob found us we were squashed into a very damp corner with Jen P being chatted up by Thor. Well, chatted up is possibly too strong a description. He was just sitting next to her with a longing stare on his pretty Nordic face. He was way too drunk for actual words. He was so smitten that even the arrival of Rob failed to oust him and his friend and to come and gently shepherd him away.

By the time I eventually stumbled into the night, I was a bit sick of metal (although I was still recovering from the fact that they played Bad Medicine by Bon Jovi at one point) and came up with the genius idea of streaming Call Me Maybe on my iPad and dancing to it on the night bus… I am the coolest person that ever lived.

After all that you’d expect a quiet Saturday night in, but Jen, Karen and I had promised ourselves a girls night out and dutifully chucked some slap on and headed back to Soho for an impressively odd night at Thirst.

The first thing that struck us was that there wasn’t a single man in the whole place. In the (somewhat inappropriate) words of Gary from Geordie Shore, “wall to wall clunge.” I have never seen anything quite like it. Of course, I am married, so lack of men has no impact on my night, but it was weird. We went as far as checking the bar’s website to see if we had missed a memo on it being lesbian night but at about midnight, we realised we hadn’t – as a sudden horde of “men” magically appeared from wherever else they’d been warming up.

The most amusing example of the rather pathetic specimens on show, were a group of guys who had obviously been watching too much Made in Chelsea. One was clearly supposed to be a cut price Spencer, the other a bargain basement Hugo and the third… maybe their butler. They immediately marched into the bar and pitched up in front of the mirror fixing their hair, before congratulating themselves on their obviously amazing looks. We imagined the conversation to go a bit like this:

Tesco Spencer: I want to jizz on you.
Asda Hugo: No, I want to jizz on you
Tesco Spencer: No, I want to jizz on you.
Asda Hugo: No, I want to jizz on you
Tesco Spencer: No, I want to jizz on you.
Asda Hugo: No, I want to jizz on you
Tesco Spencer: Or maybe we could jizz on this stupid looking blonde girls
Asda Hugo: You are so smart. I really want to jizz on you…
Butler (to himself): I wish one of you would look at me. I want to jizz on both of you

While these two rejects tried to charm the girls sitting next to us, a group of very drunk teenage boys wearing sunglasses and letting their Primark labels hang out, arrived and alternated between trying to make eye contact with us and dazzle us with their brilliant dance moves.

As more and more posers rolled in, there was a moment of tension when a second round of MIC wannabes turned up and threatened to usurp Tesco Spencer and Asda Hugo through the power of better suits, but everyone stayed in their own territory and no one’s hair came unslicked. However, the threat of unwanted male attention became so present that we had to resort to tag team smoke breaks out of fear of leaving any one “team” member alone and open to threat.

This backfired on me, when I headed out alone, only to be propositioned by a fifty year old Frenchman, with a jones for tattoos. He seemed completely affronted when I told him I was married and acted as if I had made an advance on him. Sigh.

We left not long after that. Despite the fact that we had had rather a lot of cocktails, we were not drunk enough for the rigors of late night Thirst. This was probably a good thing, since  we needs or wits about us to get home. There were no night buses and we weren’t able to get a cab until Karen reserved one using her Addison Lee account. We later found out that there was a massive accident on Aldwych, which had closed the roads for two hours. When we zipped past the bus stop on The Strand next to Trafalgar Square in our taxi there were still about 300 people waiting for a bus. I do home they all managed to eventually get home.

So after feeling like I was twenty-four over the weekend, today I feel like I am seventy-four. To think I did this every weekend for about four years…

Film Friday #127

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) and her daddy, Wink (Dwight Henry) live in a community on the Bathtub, an abandoned piece of land in the Louisana Bayou, away from the prying eyes of civilisation. Left mostly to her own devices the six year old Hushpuppy fends for herself, worries about the ice caps melting and tries to stay out of Wink’s way when he’s been out on the lash. When a terrible storm hits the Bathtub (presumably Hurricane Katrina), Hushpuppy’s already fragile way of life is thrown into chaos and she must find out what she is really made of. This is a film about dichotomies. While Wink is completely unsuited to parenthood, his desperate desire to take care of his daughter is very touching. As is Hushpuppy’s intense love for someone who neglects her so wantonly because he is all that she has. And while Hushpuppy is dirty, underfed and uneducated, there is something beautiful about how free her life is. Whether you are drawn in by the somewhat disjointed and overly self-aware device of having a story told through the eyes of such a young protagonist or not, this film is a must-watch just for Wallis’, performance. There are no words to describe how magnificent an actress she is. 3.5/5

So what you’re trying to say is that I should cancel our trip to Kentucky?

Warrior

Warrior follows the stories of two men as they prepare for and take part in a massive MMA tournament. Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) is an emotionally damaged former US Marine, with a substance abuse problem, trained by his until recently estranged father (Nick Nolte). Brendan Conlon (Joel Egerton) is a high school teacher and committed family man fighting to keep his home against the wishes of his loving wife (Jennifer Morrison). While Tommy has become an internet sensation by destroying a favoured opponent, Brendan is the ultimate underdog. As more of Tommy and Brendan’s stories unfold, the connections between the two men and both of their chequered pasts become clear, giving this “fight movie” ad added level of complexity. The acting is solid from all parties and Tom Hardy employs his usual chameleon like ability making him totally believable as man expressing his pain and frustration as rage. Worth a watch… even if just to perve on Tom Hardy… gulp. 3.5/5

PHWOARGH!

Elles

Juliette Binoche plays Anne, a bourgeois Parisian journalist researching university students who have turned to prostitution for an article. As she gets to know Charlotte (Anaïs Demoustier) and Alicja (Joanna Kulig), she discovers that while her privileged but boring life appeals to them, their seemingly exciting uninhibited lives are oddly alluring to her. Scenes of the two high class call girls with their clients – some genteel and some brutal – are interspersed with scenes from Anne’s mostly mundane life where she struggles to control her wayward teenage son and argues with her husband. Binoche is great and some bits of this are interesting but I struggled to understand what director, Malgorzata Szumowska, was getting at –  and not in a good way. 2/5

There’s a little girl on the phone. She says she’s found your chicken??

Detachment

Substitute teacher, Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody) drifts from one school to another making a concerted effort not to make connections or take on any responsibility in an attempt to free himself from having to feel anything. When he takes a job at a dysfunctional inner city school he finds himself drawn to fellow teacher, Sarah Madison (Christina Hendricks) as well as bullied student, Meredith (Betty Kaye). His detached home life is further unsettled by his snap decision to take in a child prostitute (Erica). This is much a study of the pain of isolation from those around you as the frightening state of modern education within the USA. This an emotionally intense watch throughout, but I found the hardest thing to stomach was Henry absolutely squandering his potential because he didn’t believe himself worthy of love. Beautiful but bleak. 4/5

My outfit’s ridiculous, In the club lookin’ so conspicuous.

Things I have been cooking lately #30: Gluten-free gooey dark chocolate cookies

Gluten-free recipes can be a bit hit and miss but these cookies do not disappoint. Despite having no oil or butter in them they are rich and chocolatey with a satisfyingly chewy centre. I took them to work and they disappeared within minutes. I will admit that I wasn’t sure they were doing to work while I was making them but stick with it because the pay-off is totally worth it.

Gluten-free gooey dark chocolate cookies
Adapted from divine-baking.com

3 large or 4 medium egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
2 ½  cups icing sugar
½ cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon rice flour
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cups (about 180g)  good quality dark chocolate chips (or if you can’t be bothered with chips, just hack up 2 slabs of Green & Blacks. The quality of the chocolate makes all the difference, so don’t skimp.)

Pre-heat your oven to 180 C. Put a pot of boiling water on the stove and rest a glass bowl on top of it. The bowl should not touch the water. Add one cup of the chocolate chips to the bowl and allow to melt, stirring occasionally. You can melt the chocolate in the microwave but if it goes wrong there is nothing you can do to salvage it. I prefer the old school, safe method. When the chocolate is completely melted, set aside to cool a little.

Now beat the egg whites to soft peaks with the cream of tartar using an electric mixer. This can be tricky, so here are my tips for doing it right:

• Always use a glass or metal bowl – never plastic.
• It won’t work if there is a drop of fat or yolk in the bowl so separate your eggs carefully and wipe your bowl with a piece of kitchen roll and a drop of vinegar before you start
• The cream of tartar really helps
• You will know you have soft peaks when you can lift the beater out of the egg white and it makes a little peak that flops over at the end. If the peak doesn’t flop over, you’ve gone too far!

Once you’ve got your soft peaks, add one cup of the icing sugar a little at a time, continuing to beat. Once all the sugar is in, keep beating until you get a creamy marshmallow texture. It shouldn’t take more than the few minutes. Don’t panic if you become surrounded by a cloud of white powder. Just make sure you vacuum after.

In a separate bowl, mix together another cup of the icing sugar, the cocoa, flour and salt. Now turn down your mixer to a slow speed and add the dry ingredients a little at a time. Then stir in the melted chocolate and remaining chips.

Put your mixing bowl in the fridge for 10 minutes for the dough to stiffen up.

In the meantime, grease two baking trays with a little oil and put your remaining icing sugar in a bowl.

When your dough is nice and stiff, take a tablespoon of mixture at a time, roll into a ball and then roll in the remaining icing sugar to thickly coat. Place on the baking tray. You should get 9 – 10 per tray. Bake each tray for 10 minutes. Prepare to be amazed!

Makes 18 – 20 cookies

Film Friday #126

Spring Breakers

After Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) rob a chicken shack, they head off for spring break with their altogether more innocent friend, Faith (Selena Gomez). Initially the girls revel in the wild party atmosphere but soon things get out of hand and they are arrested. At this point white boy “gangsta” Alien (an almost unrecognisable James Franco) sees an opportunity and bails the girls out. From here on in it’s a rest of the girls’ limits – how far will they go in their exploration of the video game they’ve turned their lives into and who is really playing who? This is one of those films that you walk out of kind of wondering what the hell you’ve just watched. Everything is done to excess. The colours are all on hyper drive, to the point where it’s just a little too bright -  I believe purposefully. The soundtrack is intense. The nudity is… gratuitous. There is no denying that Franco has thrown himself into the role of the totally unhinged Alien with gusto and it’s an absolute joy to watch. If you don’t end up at home standing on your bed shouting, “look at all my shit!” after this, I’ll eat my hat. But whether there was supposed to be a message? I’m still not sure. 3/5

I have never felt classier than right this minute!

Trance

Simon (James McAvoy), an art auctioneer with a gambling problem assists a group of criminals, headed up by the suave, Franck (Vincent Cassel) to steal a painting worth £25m. During the robbery he is hit on the head and when he wakes up, cannot recall where he hid the painting. Franck is understandably livid and employs hypnotist, Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson,) to try unlock Simon’s mind. And this is where things get weird. It’s immediately obvious that Elizabeth has an agenda of her own – one that throws her into bed with both Simon and Franck – but what is it? And when you’re spending your time with someone who can plant fake memories, how do you know what is real? I wanted to love this film… but I didn’t. It’s slick and looks great but the story is unnecessarily convoluted and the characters behave in oddly illogical ways. Franck’s unquestioning belief in Elizabeth’s techniques and theories even when they are obviously bonkers, just doesn’t work. If you have always wanted to see Rosario Dawson’s perfectly hairless lady garden in glorious Technicolor, though this is definitely the film for you. You will get to see it. Lots of times. LOTS of times. And no… I don’t believe it was for “artistic” reasons. 2/5

I know this is not a picture of my vagina… but just be patient. You will soon be sick of it.

The Art of Getting By

Depressed teen, George (Freddie Highmore) is dragging himself through high school unable to really see the point of existence and squandering his potential. He feels disconnected from his teachers, fellow students as well as his highly strung mum (Rita Wilson) and interfering step father (Sam Robarts). However when he meets Sally (Emma Roberts) and her gaggle of hipster friends, he actually feels something. Something he might want to hold on to. But George has no idea how to tell Sally how he feels and he has competition from his older mentor, artist Dustin (Michael Angarano). This coming of age tale has a strongly autobiographical flavour and the often annoying George is dealt with a lot more delicately than he probably deserves. Maybe I’m too old for this one but I just wanted to shake George and tell him to get over it. 2/5

Despite having absolutely everything, George was so bored… he could pout.

A Separation

Simin (Leilah Hatami) wants to leave Iran to make a better life for her family but her husband, Nader (Payman Maadi) is reluctant to leave his elderly father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) behind. Angry and demanding a divorce, Simin moves out, leaving Nader with their eleven year old daughter (Termeh) and his father. Nader hires Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to take care of his father while he is at work but when he finds his father home alone and suspects Razieh of theft, he violently throws her out of the house. Later she miscarries and her angry, deadbeat husband (Shahab Hosseini) accuses Nader of murder. This gripping tale is as much about morality as it is about family and relationships. The characters are rich and multi-layered and you find yourself deeply invested in the fates of all the characters, not to mention the Iranian legal system, which is very different from the Western equivalent. I was blown away by this film and the quality of acting. An absolute foreign language gem and no surprise that it won an Oscar. 4.5/5

How many times do I have to tell you to stop throwing out my holey pants!