WEEKEND READING LIST: PICTURE BOOKS OF 2015

I've sworn off buying books for a while now, not for any noble green reasons (although you must consider these), and have been dutifully been borrowing all my reading from our wonderful libraries here. Truth is, I simply have no more shelve- or indeed floor-, space for one more book, and yet... I couldn't resist these. 
These are all picture books, and are about drawing, a talent which I've been neglecting - I havn't picked up a pencil to sketch in ages, and I suppose these purchases are meant to inspire me to draw in the new year (and not act as dust magnets). Fingers and toes crossed, guilt-drenched.

How can you resist Gruau: Portraits of Men (with a come hither cover like this)? 

How to resist anything by David Downton? I squawked when I saw it and flew down to Kinokuniya and bought it in a flash. David Downton: Portraits of the World's Most Stylish Women is not unrelated to Gruau and his work is very much in that tradition, although Downton doesn't acknowledge that debt. I don't agree with Downton's pick of "most stylish" - Coco Rocha? Dita Von Teese? Really? - but still.

Finally, my niece Sharon very kindly ordered the book Harry Bush Hard Boys - and she promptly added one into the cart for herself! I think she said she bought it on Book Depository, but whatever it was, it arrived to make an excellent Christmas present for me!

WEEKKEND READING LIST: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

My new obsession is Stephen Tennant: An artist and writer, he was also a great beauty in early youth (he was the Kate Moss of the Jazz Age!). Mostly he's that very English thing - an eccentric. The Philip Hoare biography of Tennant, Serious Pleasures is one of the best books I've read in ages - a serious, addictive pleasure. 

WEEKEND READING LIST: ALL ROADS LEAD TO THAILAND

The last time I was in Bangkok was literally the eve of the anti-government demonstrations last November; the hotel manager called me that morning soon after breakfast and instructed me to pack my bags and leave just as I can because he had received advance information that demonstrators had begun to move towards the road leading to the hotel and would close it to traffic; he couldn't say if things would get violent but was advising guests to evacuate. Something in his tense voice over the phone made me pack my bags at once, and within an hour, I left in the hotel car. Turning back for one last look, I saw the crowd of demonstrators marching in, flags waving, with something of a festive air, but guards were beginning to bar entrances with barricades, and the streets were noisy with shrill whistles and clappers.

I felt like Sigourney Weaver in A Year of Living Dangerously.

Fast forward to (more or less) six months later and I'm simply longing to visit Bangkok again. As you know, for most Singaporeans, Bangkok is simply an obsession and a habit. I have not heard of any Singaporean who didn't like Bangkok; and according to my luxury brands PRs, the local press are always keenly enthusiastic about Thailand press junkets (as opposed to those to Hong Kong and etc ones, although arguably the press here salivate like a komodo dragon at any mention of a junket, with eyes bulging and ropes of sticky drool, cankerous tail waving). I wonder if it is thus for your country?

This last weeked I was reading 2011's Thoughtful Gardening by Robin Lane Fox, one of my favourite (living) writers and amongst the riveting chapters on cuttings and pests, Mr Fox remembers his visit to Bangkok as a young journalist. In particular he mentions the Phukae Botanic Garden, a gigantic park in Saraburi, some 60 miles outside Bangkok. Within the city, Mr Fox remembers Wang Suan Phakket (Lettuce Farm Palace), the lovingly tended garden of the late Princess Chumbhot. He took the bus number 3, which delivered him to the door of this "tranquil retreat". 

Reading about these gardens made me simply long to visit Bangkok.

I called my Thai sister Ms O. All my visits to Thailand are preceded by calls to my Thai sister.

She was busy making T-shirts.

What for?

Ms O was involved in what promises to be the mother of all demonstrations; she was making T-shirts for the anti-Thaksin army. Ms O said: "Honey please don't come between 5 May and 17 May. Millions of people are going to demonstrate to oust Yingluck. May not be that peaceful. Come after." 

Sure enough, the papers are full of dire reports on the impending demonstrations which will climax with new, and surely contested, elections in July. 

With this wearying warning in mind, it could be months before I see Mr Fox's Thai gardens.  

WEEKEND READING LIST: One Thing Leads to Another

Bla and I were both inspired by PH's improving habit of systematically eating at one new cafe a week, reading one new book a week, going to one exhibition, one performance, watching one movie, every week. He'd been doing this since the new year and he has the notebook as proof of his resolve, on each rather dog-eared page are lists and dates, in his poor scribble, of all the new things he's seen and read and watched and (hopefully) absorbed. 

And so last week, one very hot afternoon, Bla and I, to kickstart our very own effort, visited the Asian Civilisations Museum, Empress Place, to view the rather special Secrets of the Fallen Pagoda: Treasures from Famen Temple and the Tang Court (till 4 May).  It's a rather lively and interesting show (see the tortoise container above? It's so cute and a real luxury item don't you think?) and I urge you all to go look at it if you haven't already.

Anyway, that led me to want to learn more about Chinese history and this led me to randomly pick up a book, without much thought from a shelf about Chinese history. It was a lucky chance find. I'm now swiftly devouring A Brief History of the Dynasties of China by Bamber Gascoigne (2003). I can't put it down. I'm sure it's not as pedantically academic as it can be, but it's exactly what I need at the moment. You see, the focus is oddly personal and Mr Gascoigne just seems to zoom in on all the sometimes odd details and character that does bring out the flavour of each of the periods he's writing about; It's a quick guided tour of over 2,000 years, and Mr Gascoigne's concerns, are thankfully like mine, heavy on the arts and culture (and the odd fact or two), and less about warcraft and politics. I like that it's quite a subjective focus, and it's beautifully, humourously written. This isn't to say that Mr Gascoigne is without erudition, it's just that he uses his learning to convey his own passions for his subject. Of course this is just an entertaining launch pad for more specific reading. 

I learnt a lot from just one swift reading. For instance, did you know that Marco Polo was only 20 years old when he was made a high official in the court of Kublai Khan? He later waxed lyrical of Kublai Khan's appearance:

"He is of good and fair size, neither too small nor too large, but is of middle size. He is covered with flesh in a beautiful manner, not too fat, nor too lean; he is more than well formed in all parts. He has his face white and partly shining red like the colour of a beautiful rose, which makes him look very pleasing; and he has the eyes black and beautiful; and the nose very beautiful, well made and well set on the face."  

Isn't this a marvellous detail to highlight? I was simply entranced that this 20 year old Venetian boy is studying this great Mongolian emperor as if he were some model come for a casting! I would never have thought that the thing that struck one about Kublai Khan (above left) would be his beautiful black eyes. Highly recommended.

Weekend Reading List: Fashion

“There’s only one thing in life and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.” - Diana VreelandI forgot to say before that just before Christmas I recieved a couple of books that I wanted but never got down to buying; I guess I didn't want them badly enough. One was Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel. I spent a very pleasant afternoon looking over every page with BG on his sofa, feeling excited and inspired. After that we went outside and repotted a cactus, and pruned back his passion fruit vine. Reading and gardening: I can't think of a more agreeable way to spend a Sunday afternoon - unless it's to work on a painting or drawing, but that's just me.
Lots of you would rather hit the gym, I'm sure, or trawl a 'sauna', but different strokes for different folks, as they say (I'm quite sure it should be 'folk' not 'folks', by the way).Anyway this book made me look at Carine Roitfeld's Irreverant with a bit more perspective - not that Irreverant isn't a splendid overview of Ms Roitfeld's work so far. It is, and much of it is excellent and definitive, and I'm her fan. Also, I like the personal bits of information, and the archival photos of her family. The thing I object to is the title, as well as the sense the book projects that her work, or her attitude actually pushes the moral or aesthetic envelope in some extreme, innovative fashion. You must be very short-sighted to not see that what she does had already been done half a century ago at least. Her ouevre is but an echo of the truly shocking (and yes, irreverant) path scorched by Helmut Newton, Chris Von Wangenheim (see below), Guy Bourdin and Robert Mapplethorpe. So accomplished, yes, irreverant, hardly.And can someone tell me how someone as immaculately stylish as Ms Roitfeld begot a daughter who looks so common? In Julia Restoin Roitfeld's every slutty outfit, one can see that Carine's style really isn't for everyone.
I'm also struggling with the magazine Industrie (the one with Franca Sozzani, the editor of Vogue Italia, on the cover) and also Love (Kristen Mcmenamy). Poor Ms Sozzani is striving, isn't she, to fill Ms Roitfeld's heels, to be the queen of fashion? The grizzled one wants to be irreverant too! But she succeeds only in being disagreeable and frankly repugnant - the interview amply illustrates the reason why fashion people have such a negative vibe, and why they should remain behind the masthead and not appear on the cover. Plus she looks like Madonna with all the filler vacuumed out of her. Oh, and Industrie has a story on Glen O'Brien.
Does anyone even need to know one thing about Mr O'Brien?
As for Love, the less said the better. A quick flip shows that the magazine has no direction whatsoever. Since I'm way behind in my reading, I'll struggle with Love no longer - into the bin it goes! Ms Mcmenamy's 1992 Vogue Italia cover (Steven Meisel) directly 'inspired' the 2010 Vogue Paris cover.

Weekend Reading List

Isn't this a nice cover? It's designed by Megan Wilson and pictures a detail of a dress from the V&A. On the subject of reading, I'm still struggling with P D James's (91) Death Comes to Pemberly - it's been three weeks since I bought the book in a swoop of joy (a cross of Pride and Prejudice with a crime thriller), but oh dear, it's so ploddingly dull. I'm puzzled by this book's glowing reviews. This is hardly Austen's style - there's no irony, no wit and no sparkle. Poor Elizabeth Bennet has lost all her spirit.

Weekend Reading List: Excellence is Pretty Fairly Divided Between the Sexes

Because I'm reading the Isabella Blow bio Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion, I've decided to dip into Jane Austen's spoof of the gothic novel Northanger Abbey. The latter sparkles with wit and light compared to the bio, which has the fascination of a car crash. A fashion icon right up to the end, Mrs Blow's life seem destined for tragedy right from the beginning. The bio by Lauren Goldstein Crowe is sympathetic, inspite of the monsters and gargoyles of its story - as A said about A Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurst) "all the characters are aweful and repellant". I had skimmed through Blow by Blow previously, by Detmar Blow, and I think A Life in Fashion is the better book, with more emotional distance, and obviously researched by a professional writer. This is a fast and easy read, like a book-length article from a glossy, focusing equally on her work in fashion world as on her personal life and her obsessions with property, the aristocracy, sex and the gothic aesthetic.From Northanger Abbey:

“My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies’ ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal.”

“I have sometimes thought,” said Catherine, doubtingly, “whether ladies do write so much better letters than gentlemen! That is — I should not think the superiority was always on our side.”

“As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars.”

“And what are they?”

“A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.”

“Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of disclaiming the compliment. You do not think too highly of us in that way.”

“I should no more lay it down as a general rule that women write better letters than men, than that they sing better duets, or draw better landscapes. In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.”
- Jane Austen

Weekend Reading List

This last week was spent in retreat, walking, swimming and sunning by the pool and studying the books from the resort library. Don't you love a resort which has a library? It's civilized, I have to say. I had the pool all to myself most mornings, as the tourists all go on tiresome expeditions after an early breakfast. The library, which looks out on the newly-mown bright emerald lawn, too, is wonderfully deserted all day.
After some leisurely laps in the pool, I would sit on the teak decking and open the day's volume; and then I'll look up across the Mae Kok River and try to spot the novice monks in the clearing of the bamboo forest. Their saffron robes show wonderfully against the jungle green, and sometimes they come right to the edge of the river and splash in the muddy, swift-flowing water.Amazingly, the library had the fascinating Mughal Painters and their Work, which included analysis of the paintings, portraits, calligraphy and translation of some of the poems. Time fairly whizzed by as I studied the book, and I turned slowly brown.

I'm too tired by the time I droop into bed at night to read seriously but what fun to flip through the People magazine's tribute to Dame Elizabeth Taylor (commemorative edition) in bed to the soundtrack of a hundred insects in the jungle and the rain splashing down. The archival pictures are stunning (I love the one with Grace Kelly and Taylor getting off a plane), many I haven't seen before, so someone out there is doing something right (Mr B, this one's for you). The pictures carry the weight of the magazine which otherwise basically comprise long captions plus quotes from her friends and admirers - almost all were men. Well what do you expect?

Weekend Reading List: Flight

Even as you read this, I'm probably on a plane off for the long National Day weekend. I've packed all the stories I printed last Thursday in the office and put them in a blue Prada folder. I packed those in first with my pouch of sun care stuff (Clarins and Sisley), along with the two books I'm reading. Then I chucked in my Capri sandals and zebra print pony belt and a bottle of Coramandel and then I left, feeling heavy-hearted and slightly sad.I'm already in the middle of the the long-awaited (seven years, to be precise) Alan Hollinghurst novel, The Stranger's Child, which is exactly what I like (that means 'country house') - it's like Henry James, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and - mostly - E M Forster modernised. It reminds me of Howard's End, and Maurice, with a pinch of Brideshead Revisited. It's glorious and I'm savouring it like a delicious, late meal. I read that it had come out in June in the announcements that it made this year's Booker Prize longlist. Critics and punters are speculating that it will win. This would be Hollinghurst's second Booker Prize, if so. His last book, The Line of Beauty won in 2004.
The call from Kinokuniya Liang Court came when I was in the cocoon of EN's beautiful car. In the rain, in the carpark behind Hilton. We were laughing at the pictures in my iPhone. I don't know much about cars but EN's car was palpably beautiful; it feels like you're inside a Kelly bag, with its tan leather interior and white top stitching. It's a deja vu moment. I've been in a car like this before, talking for hours, in just this carpark, in another rainstorm ages ago. So many things happened, in so many cars which circled, and stalled and went nowhere. The magical time in the car, with the radio on, and the aimless cozy chatter is like a bubble that couldn't stand the test of reality. You can't stay in the car forever, and so the bubble bursts, and you're there on the sidewalk with the rain in your face.Kinokuniya wanted to know if I still wanted their last copy of The Stranger's Child; I said I bought the book at Harris already. I hope a lovely young person buys that copy and becomes inspired like me.
It was raining sheets that morning; I had to pick my way out carefully in my sandals around the puddles from the cargo lift floor to the road so EN could pick me up for lunch. I saw the flash of EN's white smile when he saw me huddled under the Burberry umbrella as he zoomed past to the traffic light to make the U-turn for me and that lit me up, even though my toes were all wet by now and the new sandals ruined beyond repair. He didn't know I saw his smile.
What R said about me at the dinner at the Killiney Road S11 is true - I do love a challenge. The best way to make me do something is probably to say I can't, or won't. One of the things I printed out to read was Getting Bin Laden, by Nicholas Schmidle, about the ambush and killing of Bin Laden that night in Abbotabad. It's 17 pages long, and I find it fascinating. Did someone say I wouldn't like terrorist stories? The food, incidentally, was unexpectedly good; but it was damn hot. R and Mr B were both wearing skull pendants. R's was lime green plastic, and Mr B's was white gold with diamond eyes.
The other things I printed out: Alex Ross's essay Deceptive Picture on Oscar Wilde's writing of Dorian Gray, and Jackie O, Working Girl by Greg Lawrence, on the icon as an editor. Jackie O had a literary side, did you know? It wasn't always sunglasses and champagne.The other book I'm reading is The Classical World by Robin Lane Fox (I love Robin Lane Fox!). I'm at the chapter on Pericles - I told you, not everything's about sunglasses and champagne.

Hello Again

Well, it's good to be back.
I did like the days in Amsterdam a bit, but I prefer being home, to be honest. The roses and those Tudor style houses along the canals actually reminded me of England.
I liked looking out the windows from the Okura room at the people whizzing by on bikes and the badly dressed oldies (this isn't, I must say, a fashion sort of city) walking their fluffy dogs.
The pollen was flying in the Japanese garden where I had some very early, and very delicious Japanese dinners; I was the only one wearing a sweater and jeans amidst a sea of business-suited, sleek haired businessmen.
I have to say I prefer the Okura than the creaky, winding up and down boutique Pulitzer, which is in many ways, just a really big bed and breakfast. Its heavy gloom was not enlivened by the chatter I can hear from two rooms down, nor the constant slamming of heavy doors or the clatter of guests clumping all over the place.
I read rather a lot during the week(magazines and papers), and I'd especially recommend the novel Landfalls by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, about a Moroccan traveller of the early Renaissance. This is a heavily researched book lightened by jaunty prose. It does dwell enlighteningly on Islam, which one learns is more complex and less dogmatic and not completely abstract.One learns as one goes along, doesn't one?
On the other hand, my first trip up to Bangkok in four years was spent hectically catching up with friends I'd lost contact with for a while. I didn't manage to see everyone of them, but I managed at least to collect their numbers, so next time.I also made some new friends, as I was travelling with a young group I'd never travelled with before. The meals and traffic jams were made hilarious by the constant patter of rubbish from one young man called DH. This trip will always remind me of him, and his obsession with vintage jeans, sunglasses and watches. An afternoon spent giggling with DH in the back of a sedan isn't at all dreadful, I must say, even if it was pouring in sheets outside. Also the Greek-American model, 20 year old Christian, made quite an impression, and I only wished I had more time with him under the chandeliers of the gilt and mural Edwardian ballroom of the Oriental.
I love the Oriental Hotel, don't you? The rooms are so comfy, and the service civilised. Of course the food's really great. I ate quite a lot, I'm afraid.
The traffic jams are as horrific as ever, and the city is steadily, unstoppably transforming into one gigantic, dust-coloured mall. One morning, very bored, I bought on a beauty binge:1. Olay Professional and Pro-X products, including the age-defying day moisturiser (SPF 30), wrinkle smoothing cream and a deep wrinkle complex (don't ask).
2. Boots No 7 Protect & Perfect Serum.
3. Laura Mercier Creme Brulee Honey Bath.
4. Kyoku For Men Lava Masque which has mineral-rich mud, black sand and ash from Mount Fuji (don't ask, and let's not go there).
5. Tengan exfoliator which has shirasu volcanic ash, sourced from Japan's southern island of Kyushu (is it radioactive? Let's not go there). I do, in fact, have a thing for volcanoes.
But just to tell you that I'm not all vanity, my hair is all grown out of shape, and the grey is showing, but I can't be bothered to spend three hours at the salon.
Go figure, and have a lovely week ahead.
X

Weekend Reading List

I was tasked by father to borrow Turkey: A Short History by Norman Stone from the library and so I walked there, on possibly one of the hottest days on earth. It was so hot I could hardly think, and I certainly couldn't remember when I last visited the library. It was that long ago (can you imagine - my fines had slowly adding up to a nice tidy sum!).
On the way to history stacks, I came across a shelf full of 1980s books and so I borrowed Rupert Everett's 2006 Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. I'd never read this before even though, or because, I've read his other books. The bisexual Ms Everett is a tolerable writer, but not particularly brilliant, but gossipy and name-dropping (Madonna, Julia Roberts, Joe Mckenna, Catherine Deneuve, Sharon Stone) - quite fun and easy to read. You don't feel guilty if you skipped large chunks or even entire paragraphs, and you don't need to concentrate very hard.I'm also plowing through House of Versace: The Untold Story of Genius, Murder and Survival by Wall Street Journal reporter Deborah Ball which begins with the glittering funeral of Gianni Versace at the Duomo. It certainly was an era of excessive and egos, now wasn't it? Today, we have mediocre people like Ricardo Tisci and Hedi Slimane in the news. Catherine Middleton did her own makeup at the wedding of the decade. I guess we get what we deserve?

Weekend Reading List: Royal Wedding Long Weekend

"Nothing has changed in the royal household since the time of Queen Victoria, and it remains a very old-fashioned house," Burrell warns, in a new interview. Be careful, Kate. Try to draw on the experiences of your late mother-in-law and understand that not everyone in the royal household has your best interests at heart." - Paul BurrellThis long weekend, I'm mostly pottering about and fussing with my plants (they are not looking all that well due to the wilting heat) and reading books inspired by the royal (to-do) wedding of William and Kate. Yes, that wedding. I remember immensely enjoying the vivid gossip provided by Princess Diana's controversial ex butler. Paul Burrell is a former member of the British Royal Household, and was a footman for Queen Elizabeth II when he begain service at the age of 18. I think I must have been one of the first to dash down to Kinokuniya in 2003, to buy Mr Burrell's just-released autobiographical book, A Royal Duty, which revealed frank details about life as a member of the Royal Family staff. It was fascinating, voyeuristic, behind-the-scenes tattle about the Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales at home in Highgrove and at Kensington Palace. It was no wonder that the book was an international bestseller because it was a complete tell-all, masquerading as a defense of Diana's morals and an apology for her behaviour. I'm a rabid anglophile and true royalty fanatic so you can imagine how I lapped it all up. This was followed by his 2006 The Way We Were. It became apparent that he was milking his connection with the late Princess for all it was worth: We learn of her tawdry Hollywood affairs, her happiness with Hasnat 'The One' Khan; The stable lad, etc. There was also that bizarre episode that involved the interment of the Princess's best friend's baby in the garden; Her ambiguous rivalry with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of Pork; And the seedy and tragic story of the affair with Dodi Al Fayed.I made another mad dash down to the shops for Tina Brown's 2007 The Diana Chronicles. It goes through much the same high/low ground as the Burrell books, but with less inane slobbering and much better subtext. It certainly was less sympathetic to Princess Diana (in fact, it was unsympathetic to almost all concerned, and no one, royal or otherwise comes off looking very well). And as ex editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, Talk and The New Yorker, Ms Brown certainly has more credibility, if less access, than Burrell the Besotted Butler. Ms Brown's book also has more bite: She described Dodi Al Fayed vividly as "an Egyptian lounge lizard". You like? I couldn't put it down - even today."Don't be afraid of the Queen. Her Majesty is one of the friendliest, most approachable ladies. The way to her heart is through her corgis, so accompny her on walks often. Make friends with the palace's downstairs. Make friends in low places, because it is the downstairs that makes the upstairs work. It's not the royal family who are the snobs at Buckingham Palace. The real snobs are the people who work on behalf of them." - Paul Burrell

Weekend Reading List

I wish Alan Hollinghurst would hurry up and bring out his new book The Stranger's Child. I can't wait for this to come out later this year (September). He's one of those gay writers who are real writers (please contrast and compare with mawkishly gay works of Paul Monette and I don't like Michael Cunningham either), if you know what I mean. I love Hollinghurst's books. Right now, I'm reading The Spell (1988) all over again, and loving it afresh. This paperback has followed me on quite a few trips around the world, and the pages are now tea coloured, but the language is still crisp and fresh and considered. I especially like the (anachronistic) fascination with house music and drugs, which reminds me of my own clumsy experiments so long ago. I still had my big monster Mac desktop computer then (it took up most of the rosewood 1950s desk), and I had just discovered online chatting.To counter all the (rubbish) reading I'm doing about the dreadful new round of fall shows, I've turned to The Illiad (Translated by Robert Fagles). This version comes highly recommended by Uncle C as being the definitive translation; He should know, he's an academic. If you're disenchanted by all else, pick this up. Do not go and get a tattoo or pierce your ear, or whatever people do when they get bored. I saw a fat lesbian who peirced the tip of her ear in the lift today; she wore a black stud, and ill-fitting cargo berms, and I felt like leaving the lift. I don't know what it is about lesbians who like to make themselves just as disagreeably ugly as they can. I don't see the point, do you? (The painting is my Illiad crush, Patroclus, painted by Jacques Louis David in 1780; Don't even ask me why I picked Patroclus.)
I'm never ever bored.
Last Friday, after a client meeting (I grinned and nodded for 40 minutes; My jaw ached, and I'd gone partially blind from blanking out behind my interested stare), I went to Chanel and smelled a lot of perfumes from those marvellous white ceramic blotters, and talked to Ms Loy about perfumes for an hour or so. Chanel doesn't use paper blotters - they are so classy that they use these white ceramic tubes that are fitted into a tabletop and you just pick each stick up and sniff at it. Very civilized. We sniffed and talked, sniffed and talked. I went away with a new fascination for Coco eau de parfum (1984), as they haven't added to thier Les Exclusif line after Beige.
I went home and climbed on a teak stool in the bathroom, and shifted three shelves of perfumes around untill I found my bottle of Coco. I also found the matching body cream, and a bar of Sisley bath soap. I put some perfume on while still atop the stool, got down, teased out the Luca Turin perfume guide, and read all about Coco. That night, I went to bed smelling of Coco, and read all the magazines (Vogue, Man About Town, etc) which I dragged home from the office, and fell asleep at 11.You see, I didn't rush out to get an extreme hair cut or tattoo, or pierce my ears so that I can look disagreeable, or wear hideous cargo berms with hideous new trainers.
I have a closet full of perfume.
I have friends who are interesting to talk to.
I have a bed with lovely grey Egyptian cotton sheets and candles from Laduree.
I read.

Weekend Reading List

I've been eating a lot of fine Chinese food over the Chinese New Year, and lots of yummy stuff cooked at home by mother, so pardon me as I leave a trail of drool as I stick my snout into the wonderful hawker food guide The End of Char Kway Teow and other Hawker Mysteries. It's by award-winning food blogger Dr Leslie Tay (ieatishootipost.sg) and it's gastroporn of the most delicious kind. Divided into chapters featuring all the heart-stopping Singapore street food like laksa, satay, rojak and other obsessions which I've not eaten in ages, it's a pretty definitive, opiniated, well-researched, guide including ratings and addresses and directions. I just want to tear downstairs and fly to the nearest hawker stand. Fortunately, the nearest one for me is Singapore's top biryani store (across the road); I don't like biryani, otherwise I'll be eating, not blogging.On a different note, I've been reading E M Forster's Collected Short Stories. They are queerly comforting, and read very much like period pieces. I didn't use to think so when I first discovered these in my 20s, but upon reading them again, I find that they feel anachronistic. It's truly a vanished world. Just downstairs, gay couples, with their Stussy T-shirts and sling bags, stroll in pairs of a Sunday morning, with nary a care in the world. They know no repression. They don't need polite metaphors for the love that once caused Forster panic and anxiety. They have their lattes, and designer flip flops and Lady Gaga.
Needless to say, I prefer polite metaphors and Merchant-Ivory movies.I just read in the papers that drinking more than two cups of coffee a day can be good for your health - specifically, some substance in coffee supposedly lowers the risk of diabetes. Alas I can only drink one cup a day, and never after 1pm for fear I would be tossing and turning the better part of the night away. However, I've been completely absorbed by the 2008 Korean drama Coffee Prince. I'm not ashamed to admit this because this is simply one of the best things I've seen in a long while and it's a very well made entertainment, perfectly cast (gorgeous good actors) and cleverly written to milk every adult tear still left in the desert of your folorn heart. It's completely escapist of course, with little that is realistic, but that's its magic I suppose. The girl is so poor that she has to disguise herself as a boy to work in a coffee house; No it doesn't make sense, and even her poverty never feels desperate or ugly, and is instead an excuse for very cute antics, and silly behaviour. There's no real crisis, no fatal illness, nothing upsetting or stressful, just the bittersweet romance of The Butterfly Lovers, or Yentl, or As You Like It, where the boy falls in love with the boy who is a girl, but with a Starbucks setting.
Gong Yoo, the leading man, is of course meltingly adorable (as yummy as the best oyster omelette), and has become an obsession. I can't believe how ideal they've made him, and how unrealistic and impossible to match in real life. So that's my discovery in the Year of the Hare, and if you find yourself all alone this Valentine's Day, do not despair. Go to your nearest DVD store and buy Coffee Prince - Gong Yoo is simply the best thing since... E M Forster?

Weekend Reading List

It's a particularly uninspiring moment in fashion.
The recent men's fashion season and spring couture seemed one of the most mind-numbingly boring in recent memory - there was alot shown, but scarcely anything to see. It's like the recent (Feb) GQ with the multiple covers (how many were there? Ten different covers? Twenty? One fails to care - it's marketing for nothing) with hardly anything to read inside. I flipped it back and forth (quick to do, it was pathetically thin) and found nothing redeeming in it. When did GQ become this dull, over-designed thing? The graphics seemed to have taken over the content as the vital thing, and this seems symptomatic. It's all bells and whistles, isn't it?Nursing a flu, I find great comfort in The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, the journal of a court lady of the early 11th century in Heian Japan. This form descends directly into the journal of today - the blog, and I can only wish blogs had this much to teach. The book was completed in the year 1002, and remains one of my touchstones. I'm sure Sei Shōnagon was quite a monster in her time, but at least she had something to say; She certainly had a point of view.
To round off the Japanese theme, I'm reading Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, published in Japanese in 1963, and translated into English in 1965. It's sublimely written, with the savagery of the everyday btween its tautly observed lines, so unbloated and unexcessive as to be the antidote of the flabbiness of everything else.