Ukulele Lady like a'you

It's not even summertime and i've already burnt my shoulders the same shade of red as my hair. As I gingerly rubbed aloe vera cream on, i decided that i need someway of keeping myself entertained while the sun beats down.

What can be a better way to cruise though summer than pluck away at my ukulele?

I've always had soft spot for ukuleles. Not only do they make me feel like a giant, but i can fool myself into believing I have a smidgen of talent when I pluck out "Ukulele lady"

If you like Ukulele Lady
Ukulele Lady like a'you

Belgian newspaper Lesoir get people with bucket loads more talent to perform with the Tiny Tim.

Check out videos from the likes of Get Cape.Wear Cape.Fly, Gotye, The Temper Trap, Born Ruffians and Okkervile River.

Post a picture

Tacked on walls and strung over the window sill, my collection of postcards has been bolstered this week when my sister dropped a line home from London. The handwritten note just says a quick hello, but it's million times more meaningful than a FB status update.

Stuck to the fridge, its a reminder that she's bundled up in a hat, gloves, wooly socks and heavy overcoat, as we wander barefooted and slathered in sweat.

With a passion for art but a purse fit for a pauper, I started collecting postcards a couple of years ago.

Still no closer to owning any originals, I'm not too fussed as i can line the walls in a smorgasbord of pocket sized prints.

Above are just a handful of my current favourites:

1. Textile design, James Leman (1688-1745), V&A

2. Nataraja 1993, oil on canvas, Tate

3. Le Liseur, The Reader

4. Family Home: Surburban exterior, Howard Arkley, 1993

5. Raboteurs de parquet, Gustave Caillebotte, 1875

6. Mauritius images

Flower Power

Oh spring time!

Finally the rain has cleared and pockets of bombastically bright flowers litter the urban sprawl. Delicious!

A Year In Provence

A Year in Provence is a book to lunch with. An undemanding companion, the novel unfolds in a casual undulating fashion, with each chapter devoted to a different month of the year. So enraptured by the countryside, it’s food and people, you learn little about the author (Peter Mayle).

Besides possessing all the qualities of an ideal lunch companion – it is essential to be in the process of eating whilst reading the book; otherwise to you are at risk of gnawing off your own foot.

The Provencal menu is dictated by the ebb and flow of the seasons – muddy truffles, lashing of golden olive oil, crusty bread and of course gallons of wine - Mayle’s descriptions of mouth watering gastronomic delights feature in nearly every chapter.

Not content to merely recount the menu, Mayle makes Food a prominent character equivalent to a Prima-Donna, bristling for attention when not centre stage and full bodied with sensuality. Even humble fruit melons are equated to tasting like a young woman’s lips.

When not tucking into a meal, Mayle cheerily recounts the bizarre bureaucratic process of purchasing the 200 year-old farmhouse, dealing with a band of cheeky renegade builders and entertaining a endless stream of “friends” turning up at their door.

My edition also features the following two books in the Provence Trilogy – “Toujours Provence” and “Encore Provence”.

Without pausing for a breath, I launched straight into book two. Unfortunately Mayle seems to be more self-conscious as he awkwardly acknowledges the international success of the first book has impacted upon his life in the Provence. Though three years on, Mayle still retains the wide-eyed enthusiasm for the Provence, however the novel lacks structure and substance. Mayle seems to be scrapping the barrel for ideas by including a whole chapter on a choir of toads.

Just like never being able to leave the table without feeling stuffed, perhaps I just had a Mayle overload. That’s why I’m leaving “Encore Provence” unread for a couple of months, so I avoid indigestion.

The sheer joy of food can also been indulged in:

- Like Water for Chocolate

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

- Sound Bites: Eating on Tour with Franz Ferdinand

- Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

May Lane

Most art galleries don't allow you to drive through them.

Nor do they let you munch on an apple as you contemplate the meaning and motives behind each art work.

They certainty don't let you contemplate touching any of the artworks or heaven forbid spray paint over any of the art.

May Lane does.

The May Lane Art Project is an outdoor gallery in St Peters (Sydney's inner west). Originally set up as five panels hanging in the window spaces in one of the buildings backing onto May Lane, artists are invited each month to create artwork for the panels.

The gallery space has unofficially sprung froth into adjoining buildings and walls, creating an ever changing kaleidoscope of colour and images.

The panels which are kept each month and can be found on May's website, the other walls are in a constant flux of change.

Lesson one of Photography:

Lesson one of photography:

Don't insert a photo SD card into the disc drive of a imac - not only with you break the fancy pants computer (resulting it in languishing behind the "genius bar" of the Apple Store for almost a fortnight) but you won't get any pictures uploaded.

Thankfully the computer is home sweet home, so i can finally finish season one of "Community"!

I also have a copy of Barbara London and John Upton's famed textbook "Photography" in the mail. Though somehow i don't think that the above lesson will feature in book's 10th edition...

Rotten Apple

I pity the fool.

In this case the fool is not the male "model" in the apple suit, but me. I unwittingly broke my sister's Apple Mac. Unfortunately the warranty does not cover stupidity.

It'll be another couple of days until i can get it back, in the mean time i've been running amuck at gigs and impostering Shirley Temple.

My hair is so ridicuously short, i've given up on anyone comparing me to Molly Ringwald from the Breakfast Club. Perhaps i need to employ some of those hair growth tips i posted earlier....