NORMALITY CAN BE EXTRAORDINARY

I wonder what it feels like to be genuinely extraordinary. The kind that makes people stop and stare, the kind of extraordinary that justifies the definition in the dictionary: very unusual, remarkable.

 I simply wonder for I am quite normal, just like the woman who gave me my Time Out magazine this morning is (or at least seemed), just like my housemate eating his lunch next to me is. We conform to a standard, that which is usual, typical and expected of us: that which is normal.

 But we have been given a means to change the way the world sees us: social media. It has become a powerful weapon of choice for many self-made modern-day celebrities. Many would say it is not a power-giving weapon however but that it is, or will be, our downfall. Alice, a self-confessed social media avoider, pointed out: “If you’re on social media, you don’t have to meet people. You just have to stand out.” It is a way for people to capture their world, filtering it if they like but always documenting, supposedly, every single aspect of it.
 

WOMEN OF THE HOUR

This girl. It just doesn't get much better.

And I can't believe I never got into Girls! Crazy.

Having recently stumbled across Lenny Letter, Lena Dunham's new newsletter, I can now say I am a total fan girl and addict of her words. She just gets life.

Her sentiments are heartfelt and funny, comforting but harsh. Her life has not been all plain sailing and she is not about to hide that fact. 

MADEMOISELLE PRIVÉ

On a rainy October morning I found myself, umbrella clasped firmly in hand, queuing outside the ornate gates of the Saatchi Gallery, awaiting my turn to finally view the Mademoiselle Privé exhibition.

I'd left it rather late and so, as the exhibition was entering its final weekend I marched myself down there to see what all the fuss was about (never one to miss out on a hype).

I stepped through the incredible columned stone doorway of the Saatchi Gallery and gone was the overcrowded, wet dog-smelling tube and the inevitable irritation it produces. 

In its place were a faint smell of flowers wafting from somewhere near head height and exquisitely dressed French people greeting me at the desk.

After hurriedly downloading the app, of course I hadn't been organised enough to do it before, my Chanel experience began. 

I had of course read many reviews before going, some positive, some overwhelmingly negative but I wanted to make up my own mind on arguably one of the most awaited exhibitions since Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty.

HI FROM PARIS

This is just something I spotted on Instagram a while back.

Garance just gets it so darn right.

Now her blog is, well I think at least, the best in the business.

Her easy breezy chatty snippets are interwoven with more serious writing and of course beautiful pictures of beautiful people.

And so much of what she says resonates with what I'm thinking at that precise moment.

How does she do it?!

ENDLESS OPPORTUNITY

Wouldn't it be amazing to go to New York? I wonder when I'll be able to afford an Hermés handbag? Just two of the questions buzzing round my head as I pieced together the collage you see before you.

Insightful, I know.

If you are looking for an explanation behind the chosen torn pages that make up the collage, you are not going to get one. I have no idea what made me put Julian Assange's well-lit but slightly wrinkled portrait next to a how-to-make your own Hermés bag out of paper.

And that, really, is the beauty behind the experiment.

REVIEW: MACBETH

MACBETH

Director: JustinKurzel

Actors: MichaelFassbender, Marion Cotillard, Sean Harris

Rating: 15

Running Time: 113 minutes

Verdict: *****

          “Instruments of darkness tell us truths,” breathes Banquo at the start of Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth, a declaration that Kurzel demonstrates right from the start of his epic film. It opens in darkness, in total silence, and, as the mist creeps across the barren landscape, hooded figures dressed all in black materialise on the screen.

                Kurzel is innovative in his opening. The first image is not one of the bloodthirsty battles and murders that Macbeth is so famed for. Rather it is of an angelic, blue-tinged little boy, wrapped in a shroud and lying on a funeral pyre. The grieving parents, assumed to be Macbeth and his wife, clasp each other as they bid goodbye to their son, the father laying coins over the little boy’s eyes.

LET ME TAKE A SELFIE

The selfie.

A phenomenon that is as ridiculous as it is addictive.

I mean how many times a day do you either see someone else adopting this pose, or indeed find yourself in it??

It's a crazy thing really. To think that everyone wants to see a photo of your smiling, often pouting face. Of groups of grinning girls, laughing at an imaginary joke. At couples doing some serious PDA-ing.

When did that become acceptable? No wait, even cool?