I love The Maccabees.

*fangirl post.

Never ones to disappoint me (except for disappearing for nearly two years, that was lame), The Maccabees pretty much solidified their come-back all of five minutes ago, with the posting of a Guardian music blog premiering their video for 'Pelican', their next single, due for release at the beginning of 2012.

And here it is, in all it's glory, after the announcement of several new tour dates, it doesn't even matter that we still don't know when those will be going on sale. Enjoy this Windows '95 homage, it's weird and lovely.

Little White Lies - Drive edition.

Those who are regular readers may have read that I now love Drive and pretty much everything about it, from the cinematography to the soundtrack.
Before watching the film, but knowing I would have to resist reading it, I bought the latest edition of Little White Lies.


"LWLies is a bi-monthly, independent movie magazine that features cutting edge writing, illustration and photography to get under the skin of cinema."

And it's beautiful, I love it. I love the paper-weight, I love the graphic design. Urgh, I think I loved this issue nearly as much as I loved Drive. I also love that I pretty much agree with everything Little White Lies is saying, it's very rare for me to find a magazine that contains reviews that I don't want to chuck away, we clearly have similar taste in film.

I bought the Jan/Feb edition Black Swan issue, and I did enjoy it, I just was never able to get another issue after that. I think I may spend money wisely and subscribe because it's lovely. I really like that it's not too hipster as well, that aspect of it really appeals to me.




The current issue of Little White Lies is now sold out in stores, but it can still be viewed online, along with other back issues and you can also still purchase a copy at the Little White Lies online shop.

Little White Lies also sells prints, which are just as beaut, I have my eye on the Steve Zissou one, but for the next 24 hours you can get 10% off a print of the current Little White Lies cover of Ryan Gosling (below), just use the code: LOVEGOSLING10.

(via Little White Lies on Facebook)

Little White Lies print shop

Happy Friday!

I removed myself from the Internet yesterday and didn't get involved with anything job-hunt related. I spent the day working on editing the photographs in my portfolio. I also had a driving lesson which involved a lot of tooting because my instructor forgot to put the 'L plates' on. I painted my nails, using 17's new magnetised polish (more on that soon) and finished up the afternoon watching 'The Believer', which I thought was really intense but good.

I'm not sure what else to say other than I'm feeling a lot fresher and less teary than in my previous post. As I haven't got anything of my own to share with you at the moment, I thought I would share some things I've enjoyed and appreciated this week.

TV Shows:

I love it when Autumn rolls around, telly is always much better during this season, and it makes such a nice change from the endless repeats on every channel, I could have just watched Dave.

Fresh Meat, Channel 4 — A hilarious new comedy drama from the creators of Peep show, really made me nostalgic over my first year at Uni, apart from I was good and managed to get into halls.
Educating Essex, Channel 4 — I never want this documentary series to end! It's so good, it's funny and sad, as well as being well filmed and un-intrusive. Another programme that I can relate to, I think everyone had a teacher like Mr Drew.
The Great British Bake-Off, BBC Two — I think this may have been better suited to the summer time but I still enjoyed it. I love the design of the tents and the over-use of Cath Kitson everything. Now that the winner has been crowned, I was rooting for Janet but that didn't happen. The competition programme has been replaced by a very uncharismatic cookery show of the same name with the lacking in chemistry duo, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, please don't think I mean this version. No wonder they didn't get a lot of screen time during the competition stage.
New Girl, FOX — I was a bit skeptical of this Zooey Deschanel comedy, not being a big fan of anything Zooey is in, but she's won me over. If you watch any new American programme this season make it this one.


Topshop, £15

Topshop might actually have produced something I would actually want and might be able to afford to buy! I reckon it's titch and probably wouldn't suit me but it is cute and anything less than £20 at Topshop is nothing to be sniffed at, I will have to investigate further.

Beard by Matthew Rainwaters

I kind of can't wait for this book to be released over here, it has the neatest portraits inside. I know Moon would love it.

(via Hello You Creatives)

(via The Daily What)

Flickr Stream from Niagra Falls' Nightmares Fear Factory. Hilarious set of photos showing visitors shocked expressions and reactions to the 'most haunted house in the North West'. It seems like a fun place to go, and if you get really scared, you can gain some internet stardom.

I'll get back to posting the standard stuff soon, I have some nice things planned for the weekend, and I'm hoping to head back to the carboot. ♥

Recipe: Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I suppose I'm somewhat trying to create a bit more structure to my blog and have less really long posts about several different things.

Here is another thing I did at the weekend which I mentioned in my previous post. Moon and I baked cookies!
I know it's actually quite bad of me to bake these kind of things but every now and then isn't going to do anything except make me happy with a full tum.

Tumblr is a source of all kinds of wonderful baked good and these cookies are no exception. Moon posted the link on his Tumblr and that was it settled, we were baking these when I got down to his! The original recipe can be found at How Sweet It Is and we basically followed the recipe exactly, it's just ours look a bit different, and we changed a few things to adapt to our basic British baking knowledge. They were delicious though so I thought I would share the recipe with you, with pictures!

I recommend once baked that you enjoy with a glass of milk, which is exactly how Jessica over at How Sweet It is feels, you can't have anything Oreo without milk.

We followed with American measurements because I have measuring cups and vaguely know the quantity from sight but to get a conversion to weight follow this link.

Makes around 15-20 medium to large sized cookies
Ingredients
1 cup of butter
1 ½ cups of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups of plain flour
½ cup of cocoa powder (we had ¼ cup of cocoa powder, ¼ cup of Lion milkshake mix)
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup of chocolate chips (they didn't have any at Tesco so we put in chunks of milk chocolate)
1 cup of Oreo cookies (we used a whole packet, -2)

Instructions:
1. Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
2. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and mix until combined.
3. Crush your oreos.
4. Fold in chocolate and crushed Oreos.

5. Add dough to cling film, compact and roll up.


Thankfully this isn't what he usually looks like.6. Refrigerate dough for 2-4 hours (or even overnight).
7. When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 300 or Gas 6 and cut through your cookie dough roll and place dough onto greased up baking tray (foil/baking paper will also work).

8. Bake for 12-15 minutes then remove from oven and allow to cool.

Once cooled, enjoy!

It may look like a brownie but they easily taste better than any supermarket cookie, delicious.

Fancy nails.

Now I definitely don't do this, ever, but I'm very proud of the fact that I've finally managed to kick the habit of biting my nails, afterI would guess around 12-13 years. This isn't a very good example post as I've just cut my nails because I'm still getting used to long nails and although I want to, I don't really like to keep them too long, plus a couple broke so Just cut them all.

I often read through fashion and beauty blogs and nowadays every other one will have a piece about nail art so I won't bore you with it as my design is very basic and there are tutorials everywhere. I found my method through Gem Fatale (I knew about her before she was on that Superscrimpers programme. fyi), and used this tutorial which is really easy to follow and best of all didn't have an annoying dancey soundtrack.
I think Gem's right when she said that it works on all lengths, seriously excuse my stubby nails, and I actually mean it. What is worse is that they must have been even shorter when I bit them... why?



Base/Top: Maybelline Forever Stong Pro 77
Base colours: Models Own: Purple Passion; Stargazer 157
Spots: Accessorize: Teal; Models Own/WAH Nail Art Pen
Collection 2000 Nail Care Sparkle Top Coat on 157.

I even got around to doing my sister's so I'm getting really pro at it!

I just thought I'd show off my stubby nails because after this amount of time I'm genuinely proud of my achievement, despite it not being so obvious in these images.

I recommend that you check out Gem Fatale's blog for nail tips because she has quite a few ranging from nail care to nail art and much more in between. I'm a total creep by the way, I just stumbled across her blog and followed her, I don't know her or anything, the internet is so weird.

Post-Glasto Laze.

We made good time today.

The 'film' has taken up most of my 8GB memory card. I'll start editing and whittling when I get back to Surrey on Wednesday I think. I also managed to shoot some film.

Glastonbury was great. I was definitely lulled into a total false sense of security last year. However, despite the incredibly strange, not to mention changeable weather, overall I saw some great music and had a nice time. I think Sunday was my favourite day because there was a lot of sitting down involved. I managed to survive the mud and didn't fall over! I did however lose my welly once, which was horrible but I got rescued by a stranger pretty quickly so it wasn't too bad.
I actually hate wellies now, I hope the next festival that I get myself to doesn't involve them (there isn't another Glastonbury until 2013, and judging by the state of the farm, it doesn't surprise me). I'm glad I snapped up my snazzy calf-length starry wellies from Office for £15 though because they were pretty comfy for what they were, and despite the fact I hate them.

My favourite acts of the festival were Mumford & Sons (of course), Paolo Nutini, Kaiser Chiefs and Beyonce. Coldplay put on an amazing show in terms of visuals though and despite not knowing many Elbow songs I think they were my overall favourite for crowd interaction. I pretty much enjoyed every band that I saw the whole festival. I also saw, The Midnight Beast, Ed Sheeran - who also had a brilliant crowd and sounded beautiful, Dry the River, The Joy Formidable, TV on the Radio, Eels, Ok Go and Those Dancing Days. I also managed to catch the end of Tinie Tempah and Bombay Bicycle Club, neither of which I'm great fans of but they both seemed to sound 'CD-quality'. I also saw Robin Ince, as per annual tradition.
I didn't manage to see U2 because I was too cold and wet by that point, but that's what iPlayer is for.

I guess it's back to reality now because once Glastonbury is over, despite the hype, it's over.
Stay tuned for some photographs and videos, it may take a while though because I'm covering Malden Fortnight again this coming weekend.

(Source: Glastonbury Festivals)

NUJ Delegate Meeting roundup.

So, I've had a little bit of time to reflect and catch up on the extreme lack of sleep I had to deal with over the weekend and I have realised what a brilliant weekend NUJDM was.
I've met some great people and if I gain nothing else from working with the NUJ Student Team, I've got that great experience. I don't know what I was so nervous about but now I know I could do it again and for some reason my confidence actually feels as though it's through the roof.
A link to all the work I did has been set up on a profile on the NUJDM 2011 website.

Eventually I'm going to get round to uploading my personal images from the weekend, but I think between editing my profile and looking at other people's articles that that is quite enough for today.

Now it's back to reality and concentrating on starting my project report for my final unit as well as finishing off my RDB, not as exciting as tweeting and photographing all day. I've got some fun things planned for the Easter break but I really do hope that I can muster up the enthusiasm to get this work out of the way, just because, apart from Viva, that's it.
I hope the weather stays nice for me, just because I've basically been underground for 5 days and it would be nice to catch some rays.

Here is a photo of me taken by fellow student delegate photographer, Dougal Wallace, it looks much better than I thought it would when he took it. The girl who thinks that she isn't in the photo is Angie, she was my roommate for the weekend, I definitely want to keep in touch with her.

Done and done.

I've finished, everything is off my back.
I actually finished on Friday but now it feels like I really have because the work isn't just sitting in my room, it's actually gone and it's actually going to be marked. I really hope I do well.

I have about 5 ideas for the next project, and I've already started one aspect of one of them, so I guess it makes that one official. But I don't really want to do anything properly until at least next week.

Tomorrow I'm going on a course social and on Friday I have life drawing. Then, a week from Friday, it's Disneyland again ♥.
P.S, yesterday I learnt how to make .gifs.

Over.

Best thing I've seen all year.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

Last thing I have to do before my hand-ins is get myself a cutting mat to mount one of my final half-Chinese images. I also might get some labels to number the images and match them to their text panels, but I can do that on Monday. I like being ahead of everything. I'm still stressing over the eventual (probably average) mark, but I don't have to run all over the place trying to actually get the work done.

I need to start thinking about the time scale of my next project. I could start it from today, as I purchased something. Or wait until the 1st February so it's during Semester 2. I might do both and see if they think doing it from now is fine or not.
I remember one girl getting told off for using photos that were a couple of months old during Art Foundation, but I guess that is a different kind of course.

Dissertation, done.

Ah, feels good. 9,894 words, 51 pages and just over 4 months worth of work. ♥ ♥ ♥
I'm actually looking forward to getting it printed on nice paper and getting it bound.

I'm back off down to Portsmouth tomorrow. There's so much to sort out before Monday, oh, life.

Snow Time-lapse.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo via PetaPixel.

Here is a time-lapse video by Michael Black that takes place over 20 hours of a blizzard that hit the East Coast of the USA. I'm definitely surprised that everyone is still complaining about the snow in the UK.

Winna!

So, I'm better at my course than I thought, apparently my idea is progressing very well and I just have to keep going in the direction I'm going. Very big 'phew' moment, as I thought I was majorly behind and completely stuck. This is why tutorials can be good, I feel like I have a bit more of a goal.
I need to start really thinking about what I want to say.
Overall I'm quite happy, I think I can get up to date with myself by the weekend, which is great. Plus there are people who haven't even got a solid idea yet so...

Martin Usborne makes me love dogs.

Doesn't matter than he is 'big' because he was in the Taylor-Wessing Portrait Prize for a serious person portrait, his photos of dogs are the best.
This is from a series called, "Life as a dog in the recession".

© Martin Usborne

His latest project, "MUTE: the silence of dogs in cars" is at theprintspace gallery from 21st October until 9th November.

© Martin Usborne via theprintspace Blog

Ikea Cats. ♥

This is my favourite advert at the moment.
I love cats and I love Ikea, so it was only natural.

Scott Pilgrim.

Hello clichéd 'blogging an opinion that most people already have or have read'.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a great movie!
This article pretty much sums up why I think you should see it; /08/go-and-pay-to-see-scott-pilgrim-right-now.html

It's funny and definitely different from any film I've seen, also like Youth in Revolt, Michael Cera is actually a little bit less like his character from Juno, which is always good, and even better than Youth in Revolt - which was also pretty good by the way - he plays his age, finally. He's no longer 16 and he can be his age, my age, and he might belong to me rather than people my sister's age, who ruin everything.

The girl who plays 'Knives' (Ellen Wong), looks like my cousin Mandy, uncannily, particularly in the part of the film where she has long hair.
"You punched the highlights out of her hair!"

Biffy Clyro.

More won tickets - thanks Andrew Moon.
This summer is going brilliantly, although it is getting a bit annoying that there is loads to do all at once as it makes the few days in between seem very boring and slow.
Can't believe it was this time last year, minus a month that I saw Jamie T at The Roundhouse for the iTunes Festival, seems like ages ago, so much has happened to me since then, I feel like I've changed a lot but also that I've stayed the same.

I must remember when attending any music events to carry a bottle top in my bag incase water gets taken away from me and I buy some water but the lid is withheld from me, it all gets very annoying, I can't put a lidless bottle in my bag and I don't think I look like the kind of person that would wee in a bottle.

Biffy Clyro were wicked at The Roundhouse last night, the constant standing, as with any gig was a bit much and their support act, Pulled Apart By Horses weren't exactly my thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even if the 'Machines' they played last night wasn't even half as good as the 'Machines' they played when I saw them at The Apple Store last October. It's not like it's the only song I know by them or anything. I must say, last night made 'Bubbles' grow on me a lot more than it tried to before and my mind was blown when I noticed the resemblance between Simon Neil and Kurt Cobain, I'm not a big Nirvana fan, although I guess there'd be people who'd accuse me of blasphemy for this, but it's undeniable when you're face to face with his mannerisms and stage presence.
We weren't at the front of the queue despite arriving at the venue a whole two and a half hours before but that didn't matter, we were still at the front of the gig and as far away from 'Donna Redhead' as possible - Google her, it's entertaining.


Pulled Apart by Horses

I was quite distressed that Simon Neil's bum was nearly popping out but I think his jeans and performance made up for it though.

© Ruth Johnston 2010.

This was another occasion for which I was impressed with my camera, I was only using my G10 but I think it's captured some pretty good-quality photos.
This video is of Biffy coming on, I was so happy that they played the same intro music this time as they did when I 'saw' them at Glastonbury, it was made much better by the fact I could actually see them.

I enjoyed having dim sum with my boyf very much, we went to what is now our 'usual', London Chinatown, the service is bordering on rubbish but it's cheap and they do the best char siu pastries ever, so I'll put up with it. I didn't take any photos of it yesterday because I was so hungry from accidently stumbling into Soho that I scoffed it all as soon as it arrived, I felt so full afterwards, I could barely speak.

I'm Here.

The short Spike Jonze movie, 'I'm Here' is currently being streamed on the official movie website.
This makes me very happy, I won't talk about The Creators Project and not being able to go anymore.

www.IAmHereMovie.com
UPDATE; watched it, amazing, do it, it's half an hour of your life you should happily give up

Great Ad for DJ Hero..

...right at the end.
I really like this video, and it's quite unusual for this genre of music too. I'd like to say that all of Kanye's smug bigheaded stuff is forgiven, but I just can't, even if he comes off pretty cool in this.

via The Boy Who Ran Away.

Going to Topshop Mecca now to find some kind of bag and shrug to complete my Grad Ball outfit, brb.
I hope my new bra comes tomorrow.

Glasto.

Here is my compulsory Glastonbury photograph set, as I've mentioned, it was amazing, I've already registered for next year's festival. I'd like to think some of these photos are better than the ones NME put on their website, which I felt were only about 20% good. I wish there were more professional photographs showing the actual scale of it, but now it's over and once it's over it's over. Even if I hadn't enjoyed Glastonbury as much as I have, I would have still come away feeling as fit as I currently do, it's really helping with this whole 'no time' thing. I have the most fantastic tan lines fyi,right down to where my flip flops are.

This is the crowd watching the football on the Wednesday, it's got quite a big reaction, the noise they made was amazing, even if England can't play football very well.

I found this carpet in The Deco pub in Southsea, it is also here, it is similar or the same to the carpet we had in 7 Sandringham. I love it.

This is Mumford & Sons, I wish I got a better photo of them, but I didn't. I really enjoyed them though. :)

Shangri-La during the day

I don't even like Muse, but they were pretty epic.

I wish this wasn't so long, because I really want it for my desktop background.

© Ruth Johnston 2010. except the ones I'm in.