Cate Le Bon vs Bonny Prince Billy

As a huge birthday favour I would like someone to make it possible for me to see two gigs that are on at the same time on the same night in Edinburgh please, that would be a good present. Bonny Prince Billy is playing at the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh on 25th April, and Cate Le Bon is playing at Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh at the same time. I am sorry Billy but I bought tickets for the Cate Le Bon gig, it was a close call though. If you live in Edinburgh please go and see Bonny Prince Billy and then tell me all about it so I don't feel like I lost out.

Snow Black's Birthday plan

For my birthday I am going to spend the afternoon doing what I said I would do last year, which is sitting in my favourite chair eating cupcakes and drinking tea, I think I will read my book too, or listen to some music and maybe take a nap, Lucky has been sat by my side in the windowsill looking for birds, she obviously knows it is my birthday, or maybe she just wants biscuits. I am going to wear my new tap dancing shoes to get used to them for my first lesson next week, they are not as good looking as I hoped they would be, they look a bit like the shoes Dorothy wore in Wizard of Oz before she got her ruby slippers, you know, sensible black farm girl shoes, that is what i will be tapping in, farm girl chic....i'm going to wear my peach dress with little orange flowers on it, It looks a bit like a dressing gown but I am still going to wear it out later today when I go to the arcades at Portobello and then for dinner and a cocktail... or two....maybe being 28 wont be so bad after all..

I'm your man

mister deprez's trapeze show

first the moustache, then the hat, then the braces---3 wardrobe malfunctions in one show! enjoy!!

Whats it called? Cumbernauld

I've been working on a collection of drawings for a few months now, without giving too much away its a set of illustrations about ill fated modern architecture, i'm not going to say what it is exactly or someone might steal my idea, be much better at drawing than me, and get it published and make enough money to retire early and I will claim the idea was all mine but no one will believe me...one of my favorite drawings is all about the lovely town of Cumbernauld, its always getting awards for being one of the U.K's worst towns, but I have to disagree. Whilst I was doing some research for my drawings I found what has to be the best distraction from work ever, the Scottish Screen Archive website, you can type in a subject and it comes up with loads of films or clips from films from the past, there are some real gems in there, like a 1970s film for women about what it'd be like to work in a bank; when I typed in Cumbernauld I found an AMAZING film from 1970 (see it here) when Cumbernauld was a brand new town, it captures the excitement about this new place to live, and I loved every 26 minutes of it, the old cars, the fashions, the babies in massive prams, grannies playing bingo, but best of all, 5 minutes in, is the clip of the lampshade shop with a sales assistant in an amazing outfit! I would have loved to have lived in Cumbernauld in the early 1970s, I would get a job in that lampshade shop and wear clothes to match the lampshades, I think i'd make a really good sales person there, then I could go shopping after work, maybe go for a game of golf, then join the grannies for bingo in the evening, what a life!

"If you can imagine it, Middlesbrough probably has it"

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Middlesbrough, the town where I was born and spent my first 19 years, when I left 8 and a half years ago the area known as "over the border" was a no go area...prostitution, dodgy nightclubs (more likely gentlemens clubs...) and boarded up houses, that kind of thing. The nearby area known as Middlehaven was home to only three things which anyone ever visited, the Transporter bridge, The Riverside Football stadium, and the nightclub boat with a revolving dancefloor, given to Middlesbrough when Newcastle got a bigger, better boat. If you did a google or flickr search of the St Hilda's area (which is over that notorious border) or Middlehaven at that time you'd be likely to get images of gypsy horses, abandoned homes and maybe even the greasy spoon cafes. But then,a few years ago now, before the recession hit and the construction industry and property market went down the pan, Middlesbrough was promised a new Riverside development, apartments, cafes and shops...Will Alsop, FAT architects and lots of other big name architects came in and drew up a masterplan, it was full of colourful apartments and images of people on boats on the river, now if you google "Middlehaven" you'll get computer generated models of apartment buildings that look like sugarcubes and lots of people (who definately dont look like they come from Middlesbrough) drinking lattes on their way to work.
That was before 2007, then the recession hit, and everything came to a stop, a college was built that hurts my eyes to look at, then they invited artist Anish Kapoor to create some public art, and so "Temenos", or the "giant pointless fishing net" as I prefer to call it, appeared, and now the first apartment block, designed by FAT architects is near completion, when I was at Middlehaven, I had a look around (but couldn't get inside) the timber facade reminds me of one of those toys for toddlers where they have to fit shapes into the right holes on a ball and the apartments at the top reminded me of the old man's house from the Disney film "Up" which I loved.




Anyway, turns out that this new building, or CIAC (Community in a cube) as its been named, will be the only building that was on the original masterplan at Middlehaven, which is a bit scary because its in the middle of wasteland, the ground floor of the building will apparently have a pub(there's no where nearby to buy a pint of milk, but you're never a few floors away from a gin and tonic and a packet of crisps), and I can imagine it turning into the J.G Ballard book "High Rise" where all the residents of a tower block end up getting to know each other so well because of the community living that they start to turn on each other, drowning each others dogs and vandalizing the building, but CIAC will be even worse because it is in Middlesbrough, and there is NOTHING to do in Middlesbrough, though the marketing for CIAC suggest a bit differently to what I think.....
"This place is home to industry, heritage, sport and culture. Where the cost of living is low, but the enjoyment level is high. As well as the bars and nightlife, there is an influx of designer shops, you have film, theatre, football, golf, fine food, comedy, concerts. In fact, if you can imagine it, Middlesbrough probably has it." It really doesn't, and I am allowed to say this because I lived there, as far as fine food goes,the most popular food seems to be the donut kiosk outside Next where the sugary scent lures in Tees-siders, who already are donut shaped, on their fag breaks for a dose of nicotine and a bag of jam filled grease, of course you are never more than 50 feet away fron a greggs in Middlesbrough too for a sausage roll,there is one cinema and if its comedy you're after, you can always rely on chubby brown to be on at the town hall.
I'm not a fan of CIAC, even though the area surrounding it is mainly wasteland, there are pieces of architecture nearby which have been ignored for years, and it seems CIAC has been designed without any reference to the context in which it sits. Granted, the area isn't an area rich with architectural gems, but there are some which I hope will be saved, and it seems more sense to me to put new life into existing, abandoned or forgotten buildings which might spark regeneration in the surrounding area rather than try and build from scratch without any reference to the area; it seems that CIAC was designed to fit only into a masterplan which wont go ahead.

Above: Middlesbrough's original town hall, now boarded up

Above: Everyone "Flickr photographer" who goes to St Hildas likes to take photos of the gypsy horses

Above, The old captain Cook pub, recently closed, and former landlady with hair that matches her blouse

Above: The Clock tower

Above: Customs House, no longer in use
St hilda's is home to Middlesbrough's original town hall, which has been boarded up for years, and to an abandoned customs house, to the old clock tower which now looks lost, and to the recently closed captain cook's pub, all of which have potential to have new purposes. I wish MIddlesbrough council would do something before these buildings fall into dis repair, but I just dont see it happening, oh well, I will have to accept that CIAC is the future of Middlehaven, but if you hear of a resident's alsation getting drowned in the River Tees, then I warned you first. I cant imagine who will live there apart from MIddlesbrough Football club players and their WAGS, if i had to live there I would live in one of the blue houses at the top that remind me of "Up" I would wear my pastel peach dress and, as inspired by the film, would travel to my "home in the sky" by a big bunch of balloons so I could avoid having to talk to the WAGS in the lifts.......

Lucky and Lucy Designs Launches

For anyone wondering why there has not been any posting of late-Snow Black's Dresses has not been abandoned! It's just been on hold whilst I have been working on other projects and there is only so much drawing and designing one person can do every week! There will be new posts coming soon-promise! they are all drawn out in my head and include my maggie thatcher milk snatcher outfits for if i ran the world, a post about my dream of living in a 1960s house and how I never want a slow cooker, one about living in a house like the one off Disney's "up" film, and one about fur hats (of the fake kind)...they will appear soon..promise!!


One of these projects that has distracted me is a new wedding stationery company which I have founded with my good friend Laura Simmons, (whose blog is here) Laura was my bridesmaid at my wedding back in september 2011...here we are

Our first collection is now available on etsy, please take a look....
http://www.etsy.com/shop/luckyandlucydesigns?ref=si_shop

And here is a little about us...
Lucky and Lucy is a new stationery company, with the aim of providing an alternative to very traditional, or graphics heavy wedding stationery. We love hand drawings, vintage fabrics and typewriter fonts; our first collection is of animals, so if you are looking for pink poodles wearing veils and elephants in a confetti shower, then you might have just came to the right place, let us tell you a bit about us....

Friends and founders of Lucky and Lucy, Laura Simmons and Linzi Deprez met at Art college in 2002, where together they survived endless life drawing classes and projects involving repeated drawings of kitchen and bathroom utensils. They went their separate ways to university for a few years and have now, 10 years later, decided to join forces to bring you Lucky and Lucy (which are the names of our cats) ; Laura's background is in Fine art and in art history, and her job at Lucky and Lucy is to draw, Linzi's background is in Interior Architecture, and her job is to come up with layouts for the drawings; they collectively come up with concepts (like squirrels having a picnic) and then sit for hours over endless cups of tea, deciding on the exact shade of purple for the text, or exactly how thick the outline of an elephant's foot should be.


Here are some of the designs...