penguin.

awful quality on these photos, sorry!

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to visit Penguin Books HQ on The Strand in central London thanks to my creative writing tutor!

The building was very big and very fancy and of course there was books everywhere you turned. Penguin Classics, Puffin Books, and Hamish Hamilton… the list goes on.

That’s one thing I learnt that day- Penguin itself is made up of several imprints covering a wide range of topics and genres. So Fig Tree for instance, focuses on books that are  'fresh, distinct, well written, clever, entertaining and sometimes funny’. Hamish Hamilton on the other hand, seeks creative pieces of literary world from all the corners of the world.

I really appreciated that the whole floor plan of Penguin was very open plan. Each imprint wasn’t locked away behind a door meaning everyone can communicate easily. PR can get in touch with marketing, marketing can go over and talk to art and design and so on.

I found out useful information about getting published and working in publishing during the day at Penguin, which has given me a small head start in (hopefully) working in the creative industry. 

∆

Last Saturday I got to see Alt-J perform live at Liverpool’s o2 academy. I’ve been overly keen to see the quartet perform since their Mercury award-winning album An Awesome Wave reached the Top 20 early last year.

The band remained still throughout their set-list and didn’t really connect with the space on stage. I’ll give it to bassist Gwil for trying to jerk about though. Both the band and the crowd held simple small movements- tapping a foot, shuffling along the sticky floor, mimicking lead singer Joe’s sway. There was no climbing of amps or the band asking for silly requests from the audience (how annoying is it when artists ask you to sit on the floor and jump back up at a concert?) Everything was plain and simple. For instance, the band's set mirrored the order of their album, with the exception of ‘Breezeblocks’ being saved for their not-so-surprising encore.

I found Joe’s I’ve-got-the-flu voice really distinctive when I first started listening to the band. It’s notable that he can describe a woman being murdered (hold her down with soggy clothes and breezeblocks) in a calming, matter of fact tone. At times, it is difficult to understand what he is saying and I’m guessing the crowd agreed; the only point the whole audience sang along was to the opening of ‘Matilda’.

The band played two covers: ‘Slow’ by Kylie Minogue and College and Electric Youth’s ‘A Real Human’; the first appeared to be under appreciated by the crowd but ‘Slow’, having been previously performed in Radio 1’s live lounge, was a pleasant surprise. The song complimented the minimalistic approach Alt-j had held all evening. 

new tattoo!!

I got my first tattoo over the Easter holidays. It's the Pisces constellation and if you know me well you'd know I'm into astrology. Before you jump to the conclusion that I have a crystal ball and take it everywhere with me or that I firmly believe if my horoscope says I'm going to go travelling in the middle of the month then I best get packing, I'm going to say no, I don't. I won't bore you with what I believe (not at the moment anyway as I really should be writing essays for uni).

It wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. If anything the noise of the needle scared me more than getting the tattoo itself.

Maybe it's the first of many... who knows *inserts horoscope joke*

cheeky photo in the bathroom just after I got it done. 

Ok, so back to working hard. Probably going to neglect this little blog for awhile. Essays/exams, you know what this time of year is like.

lion king musical

I'm not a musical person at all. Don't get me wrong, I'd happily sit and watch Grease with some popcorn but who doesn't love Grease? 

I loved the Lion King when I was younger and I'd still watch it now so I thought I'd give the musical a go and bought my little brother and I two (rather expensive) tickets to see the show at the Manchester Palace Theatre for his 10th birthday. 

IT WAS BLOODY AMAZING. The costumes, the set and the songs -to which I knew most of the lyrics. It was all amazing. 

But what else did I expect? The musical debuted in 1997 and since then it has managed to travel all over the world telling the tale of Simba who just couldn't wait to be king. 

The show got the film down to a T. I definitely recommend it, musical lover, disney lover or just in search for a great show. 

Dolce & Gabbana A/W '13

It seems ages ago we were all bombarded with Fashion Weeks! So many collections and not enough brain capacity to take them all in. A collection that stood out for me was definitely the D&G one. It was so dark and majestic due to the jewels and theme of Catholicism. Wonder what that new fella in the Vatican thought of it?

Had to include Queen Karlie.

 

ketchup.

Again I need to admit that I am a terrible blogger. The neglectfulness is all down to coursework. How I'm going to cope in third year is beyond me. So a bit of a catch up...

My last post was about the elections that took over university life for a week. Great news, I got elected as Volunteer Chair of the student's union 2013-14. (Whoopdewhoop. Big thank you to everybody that voted.) I found out on my birthday which was lovely.

My birthday was great and I got lots of lovely gifts (and the worst hangover to date- thank you tequila!)

(my babies)

Also, I saw Foals this month. BLOODY FANTASTIC. They're so good live, I can't stress that enough. Everybody should go and see them. Holy Fire is just a treat. Seeing Jack in a Lakers top was too.

election fever

So I'm running for a position within the union of my university. How scary (but also very exciting). Elections officially started today and it's off to a great start. I'm running alongside my lovely friend Johno as a slate because we share similar views. We targeted social media today creating a Facebook page and getting our own hashtag going on Twitter. I'm going to keep adding photos from the week here!

We did tie-dye campaign t-shirts!

All done! 

My amazing little brother showing his support. (I made him wear those glasses hah)