Category: Totally random

2012: This year I…

  • adopted a cat
  • saw all my friends from home and from university in Germany at least once
  • hired two people
  • published 75 magazine issues as editor
  • helped to launch seven new magazines
  • read 61 books
  • learned to play my first song on the guitar
  • swapped my small keyboard for a full-size digital stage piano
  • saw both my (and my Dad’s) favourite bands, together with my Dad
  • saw my guitar god Richie Sambora play a solo gig for the first time in my life
  • took up baking and cake decorating
  • launched a baking blog
  • re-launched my German blog and re-designed Girl With a Pen

How my photo came to feature in Richie Sambora’s new video

As I may have mentioned previously, Richie Sambora is my personal guitar, singing and songwriting hero. His two solo albums have been a constant companion since my teenage days. Life changed, my tastes in music changed and bounced back, but those 22 songs from Stranger in this Town (1991) and Undiscovered Soul (1998) remained on top of my playlist throughout.

The more excited I was to find that, after fourteen long years, Sambora’s third solo album is to be released. In the run-up, his PR team thought out a totally interactive, socially networked competition: The first single, Every Road Leads Home to You, was released free of charge and the fans were asked to submit photos they associate with the lyrics via Instagram.

A selection of photos would be used to make the video for the song. Well, not the proper, official music video – for that they preferred to have Mr Sambora strolling, bleached blond and guitar over one shoulder, through the desert for four and a half minutes. Meanwhile, the fans’ creative contributions were used in the official lyric video – as I’m told, another new-is marketing effort undertaken by various labels. Presumably to pre-empt all those fans making their own lyric video, via Windows Movie Maker and Comic Sans, over the next few weeks.

And since I’m a hopeless fangirl, I dutifully instagrammed my photo into the Samborasphere. And one of them now carries the vital phrase “I’m” of the refrain line “When the bridge is burning and I’m losing my faith”, right after the solo, at three minutes thirteen, of the official lyric video. Staying in the frame for about a third of a second.

But, hey, my photo is in Richie Sambora’s video.


The lonely little bench sits on a hidden bit of beach just outside Zadar, in Croatia.

Playtime

…is a concept our little Fluffninja maybe hasn’t fully grasped yet.

But otherwise, he’s doing fine, and developing into a very cuddly cat indeed.

Meet the Wardrobe Monster

Let’s add a bit of cat to the internet. (Because, clearly, there aren’t enough cats on the internet these days.)

Two weeks ago we adopted a cat from Cats Protection North London*.

We named him Steadman (because The Boyfriend is a bit of a fan and spotted a certain similarity to Steadman’s cats), but mostly he gets called Fluffninja or Wardrobe Monster. Because, being the terrified little stray cat he has been for most of his life, he moved directly into the most hidden space in our wardrobe and hasn’t really come out much since. Except to eat some chicken.

He’s making slow but steady progress, though, so there’s hope that he will settle in soon.

And here he is, our little Fluff:

Night cat / day cat

*Awesome place, by the way. The lovely people at the adoption centre are doing a fantastic job caring for all those poor kitties, and were incredibly quick and helpful in sorting out the adoption.

Monsieur Plumeus goes to town

For a mystical creature such as Monsieur Plumeus, being plucked from its enchanted native lands in a distant universe and plunged into the manic life in one of the human word’s greatest cities naturally comes as a moderate to severe culture shock.

Nevertheless, after several weeks of hiding behind a cupboard in a small room of the Victorian townhouse where his journey began, Plumeus is feeling confident enough to venture outside and explore the strange world he has come upon…

Monsieur Plumeus goes to London
Having survived the most horrifying experience of taking an Underground train, Monsieur Plumeus emerges from the tunnels of doom at Charing Cross...
Monsieur Plumeus goes to London
...and poses for his first ever tourist shot in front of that old tourist favourite, the Number 15 bus from Trafalgar Square to Tower Hill.

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Masterchef, in a nutshell

Gregg Wallace and John Torode do the Buttery Biscuit Base rap. Because we all know that in the end, it all comes down to the pudding, really.

I think this is actually my favourite new song of the year.

The untweetable dessert

I just had a dessert that featured all of the following:

  • Chocolate flavoured fudge
  • Brownie
  • Belgian chocolate custard
  • Belgian chocolate mousse
  • Belgian white chocolate mousse
  • Belgian chocolate sauce
  • Chocolate chips
  • Whipped cream
  • Milk and white chocolate rolls
  • Chocolate icing

I was going to tweet about it, but my dessert is so big, it beats twitter by 67 characters.

Which is why you are reading this.