'There's a new whole foods store here, they sell bio-degradable food'

Things have moved on considerably since the jet-lag hotel situation. Granted, I'm feeling a little dozy right now but I think that's from consuming a peanut butter sandwich, which, despite my best efforts to find bread without sugar in, was definitely considerably sweeter than a UK one and a whole load of grapes which need a couple of bites to eat without choking. My stomach's got a lot of sugar to deal with so it's nicking all the energy from my brain.

Enough of the pseudo-science and back to reality. Although, I'm still finding it difficult to believe I'm actually here - three mornings on and with a pretty hefty amount of Williamsburg and part of Manhattan investigated. Stuff I've got goonishly excited about so far:
- people gambling in the street under the railroad of Flushing Ave. Station on Broadway.
- Being able to buy a hotdog for $2
- Seeing the Empire State and Chrysler buildings from the warehouses of Kent St, near Brooklyn's coast to the East River whilst on my way to this.
- Seeing tiny pedigree dogs walked and carried EVERYWHERE.
- The fact that there's a stuffed deer head in my apt.
- Waking up to blue skies, bright sunlight and fire escapes on the buildings outside windows.
- The literal metres of choice of bagels and peanut butter and two 'Vincent' products in the supermarket.

The supermarket has been my latest conquest (shortly following the subway and the shopping streets of Upper East Side Manhattan). Not least because you have to squeeze through metal bars to get in, which considering America's obesity statistics is somewhat cruel. For all that popular culture can teach you about America, I was still left standing, gawping, staring at the shelves. I was Mr. Burns, picking up identical bottles of stuff and trying to decipher between 'Catsup' and 'Ketchup'.

Whilst I picked up an insane amount of asparagus for $1.69, buying a bag of Spinach would set me back double. A whole cooked chicken will cost you as much as some boxes of cereal. Poptarts come in every flavour except the 'produced for the UK' Choco-mallow. I picked up a box of 12 's'more' flavour ones, but after the sugar OD of sandwich and grapes I'm going to have to take a 'raincheck' on them. Strawberries are cheap, win, prepared salad leaves are not, fail. Journeying around Key Food I found my brain's feeble mathematical capabilities going into overload - not only converting everything into sterling, but creating a weird kind of food ratio, e.g: huge lump of Parmesan : one bottle of 'magic soap'; 'jar of pesto : 24 poptarts'. Maybe that's why I'm sleepy too.

Meeting other lovely Americans has also brought to light the most unlikely aspects of British vernacular which remain unrecognised in the US. British accents are pretty much un-commented on here; only when I asked if they stock Rimmel in Sephora (FAIL) and spent a good while trying to pay for a bottle of Snapple's Pink Lemonade (the addiction that started in California aged 11 has come back to haunt me) with change have my home county tones become apparent. However, words like 'fortnight', 'stone' (as in weight) and 'pastiche' are apparently Brit-centric, if not in need of definition. Fortunately so far my new buddies are cultured enough to know what I want when I ask for the loo, as yet the dreaded 'restroom' has not been uttered from my lips.

Some things, however, seem not to change across the pond. Yesterday a septuagenarian commented on my shoes, which then struck up a long conversation about dance footwear and comfort over style - this has happened at least three times before in Blighty, and it makes me feel all the more at home here.

101 Dalmatians. In mole form.

Although I love it when scientific friends tell me fun facts, in general that whole scheme of things goes somewhat over my head. However, yesterday I got a fun, relevant AND scientific fact through my inbox! Obviously, when the subject heading of an email is 'Internet Mole Facts' it's seriously exciting because:
a) it might be about the subterranean animal
b) I like facts.

But when the content turned out to be the following:

"Beauty spots they may be, but many people with prominent moles consider them unsightly. Having a high number of moles could be a very good sign indeed. It could mean that you are biologically six or seven years younger than your actual age. A study by researchers at King's College in London found that people with more than 100 moles tended to have longer telomeres than people who had fewer than 25.


Telomeres are the bits of our DNA that tend to get shorter as we age. What that means is that moley people may retain youthful looks and delay the onset of the diseases of ageing by more than half a decade."

I was ecstatic. Thing is, I'm a pretty moley person. In fact, this blog should probably be called 'Moleface', except it sounds a bit creepy and I dread to think what the google image results may look like. But this is great news! Finally, being covered in tiny brown lumps and being flat chested until the age of 17 pays off! I may well stay young-looking and smug far longer than my smooth-skinned companions.

This is, of course, all rather academic - and in more than one sense. After all, I spend most of my time in NHS spectacles, high waisted jeans and dubious knitwear reserved solely for, and often bought from, the elderly. Which brings me onto another equally amusing and shocking inbox delivery.

Upon remarking on just how good a word 'fancy' is with my sister, I was reminded of a childhood literary favourite: Fancy Nancy. Normally I'd include and explanatory link here for all the poor souls who have been kept in ignorance of FN's greatness. However, something heinous has occurred and the internet seems to think that FN was an invention of 2005, complete with a totally lame illustration. This was brought to my attention by a Maternal Inbox (Un)treat, subjected: 'LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO FANCY NANCY!' It's true. All over the internet there is no trace of the original FN, a girl who, rather than this feather boa-ed travesty, helped her Gran grout the bathroom and fought old ladies for handbags with whales on in jumble sales. Indeed, a girl who clearly had a formative influence as I spent most of my childhood watching my Mum grout bathrooms and, admittedly only two years ago, did unsuccessfully battle old women for 20p vintage treats in a jumble sale in High Heaton.

Bowlface has a new mission on its mucky paws: returning the original Fancy Nancy to the interweb, and fast.

G is for Gaga and Grandparents

Went on a Shire road trip to visit Grandpa Bowlface today. He's 92, lives in an unwittingly amazing house decked out in enough kitsch and vintage furnishing and wallpaper to stock most overpriced Shoreditch interior design stores for several decades, and takes me out to lunch to places where they paint 'CONGRATULATIONS' and flowers on a plate with free fudge for 'graduating' (which I haven't officially done yet, but what kind of weirdo turns down free fudge?) We drank Earl Grey, ate a load of cake and talked a lot about birds and converting to Judaism. It was the best.

As if my day off couldn't improve much, I come home to find THIS little bloggy nugget on twitter.

Yes gents, contrary to model rumour, this is Telephone-head Lady Gaga herself rocking the androgynous look. Two of my favourite things coming together in a beautiful slightly-Prince-esque way. For, nearly exactly a year after that ridiculous hermaphrodite Glastonbury motorbike scan(man)dal, Gaga has now shown exactly what her lady (gaga) bits look like in the Telephone video and demonstrated that so girly is she that she can even be a man. I've always backed the 'Gaga's a Man!'-dle, in that, hell, if she was a bloke, she was doing a bloody good job of being a lady. 

This piece of styling genius is down to Nicola Formichetti, internationally renowned stylist who I can pathetically name-drop after working the desk at Dazed and Confused during an internship. It took me at least two hours to work out how to put through calls from important types from the likes of Prada and Giles, always asking for 'Nicola' on strict first name terms. Shouty, continental fashion types are scary at the best of times, let alone when they keep being accidentally hung up on. 

Moving on, needless to say I am seriously considering getting a subscription to Vogue Hommes Japan now. Granted, I won't understand much of the text, and I'm not a Japanese man, but who knows which celeb may come under the androgyny treatment next?   

For non-pet people, animals really love our house.

Unfortunately, due to the success of Justin (shitmydadsays) 's once-pathetic living at home existence which happily coincided with an elderly parent, this post isn't going to have quite the same pizzazz nor book-writing novelty. However, as my parents are not (yet) elderly and it has taken me three years of living away from them to realise the pure unadulterated and often worrying gold that leaves their mouths, I can be given this one as an epiphany.

For, in a mere two weeks, my parents could have aided numerous wannabe BBC 3 comedy writers with their bizarre and unwittingly amusing utterings. Arguably, that could be construed as not so many, but it's definitely something I've never really noticed before. Sure, there were always the classics; like when my mum dubbed a social networking site as 'myface', or referred to Radiohead circa '99 as 'that moany band your brother likes'. But it's reached a whole new level now. Particular favourites include:
- My Dad on hearing that yesterday was the anniversary of Micheal Jackson's death: 'that was all rather unfortunate, really'.
- and in general regard to the news: 'What are they doing wheeling that old dinosaur on?'
- My Mum on Australians: 'well, they're all descended from convicts anyway'.
- and on my graduation outfit: 'you better try that on again in case you've put on weight and you can't fit into it'
My favourite responses include: 'stop taking the piss out of the deaf presenter man, Mum'.

Therefore, when the aforementioned childhood-friends-come-of-age-village-parent-lunch-party was described as a 'champagne avalanche' at 11am today, I knew it was time to get involved. I was, however, mildly distracted by a small maternal shriek, which was immediately followed with 'THERE'S A SPARROW IN THE KITCHEN!' Even in the dual context of 'shire' and 'parental outbursts', this really was the stuff of fiction.

Whilst Mummy Bowlface has an irrational fear of cute newly-fledged sparrows under an all-encompassing feather fear, Daddy Bowlface has an entirely rational love and fascination of fowl. Especially buzzards. When driving. But I think that's just a Dad thing. Anyway, I walked in to the kitchen to find Mr. MiniSparrow (or Spuggy, as Kirsty Golightly so adorably calls him) perched happily on top of the antiquated toasting-grill above the aga, inside an inglenook. Add some alpine foliage and it could have been a Christmas card. I tried to take a photo of him, however, like most creatures I aim my early 80s SLR at, he swiftly flew off, settling for the microwave. After a bit of bemusement with a Jamie Oliver sugar jar, he found a bottle of vitamins as the next appropriate perch, before finally settling on his rightful place on Daddy Bowlface's shoulder. Never before has the Shire produced such a cutcopy of a Snow White and Zipedeedoodah video hybrid.

Fathercraft and other creative ventures

Another bleak morning, another Woman's Hour-inspired post title. It was all good - about Victorian and Edwardian fatherhood; which tapped happily into all the notes on Victorian fiction I threw fairly unceremoniously out yesterday afternoon - until yet another episode of the cringe-inspiring drama attempting to portray the domestic life of a gay couple came on. And off with the radio.

Fortunately, there is a video offering from the Creators' Project to fill the gap left by Radio 4 historians. The Creators' Project being pretty much what its name would suggest: a lovely jumbly showcase of envy-inspiring creative types both established and about to conquer the world. It's quite something to be fronted with of a morning. This video shows Mark Ronson being somewhat blase about 'playing in some New York clubs' as a means of starting out and then making some fun beatbox noises about half-way through. From here I'm gunna check out Pheonix, CSS and maybe Nick Zinner as a kind of Goth-Elf desert. Yum.

Whilst I'd like to say that would merely be the start of a thoroughly creative and successful day, I know that all I'm really going to do is sit in an old lady cafe and maybe see some taxidermy. Still, yesterday turned up a few trumps after the somewhat negative morning prediction. For a start, I managed to complete the grudge shoe buying with relative success; after accidentaly throwing the lid of a lipstick somewhere under a pile of croptops in Topshop and getting odd stares from the assistant in Dorothy Perkins when trying to match my acid yellow dress to any of their mainly horrific shoes I got a cracking five inches of heel for £15 in the sale of a department store I'm too ashamed to name.

What I was most greatly cheered by, however, was the re-appearance of a busker on Northumberland St who, in my mind, is called Carlos. This bulky Hispanic chap is wooing the eldery of the North East with his leather jacket, slicked back hair and crooned out versions of ballads of the fifties. It seems I spend most of my life walking up and down Northumberland Street so I've become pretty familiar with the effect he has on his audience, positioned outside M&S. You can always expect to see some slightly goofy smiles, invariably accompanied with a foot-tap. Sometimes they hide their love for him behind a grandchild, who is rocking out to 'Hound Dog' when The Big C decides to step it up a little. These children often act as a medium for Carlos-eldery flirtation when he bends down and sings directly into their eyes. An unnecessary translation, you may think, but bearing in mind the threatening look on Carlos's wife's face when she turned up in a matching leather jacket, I'd say she was all too aware of the amorous grannies' advances. Anyway, yesterday it was taken to a whole new level, in which the Grannies had clearly won out: crooning 'I can't help falling in love with you' directly into her eyes, Carlos was a mere metre away from one lucky blue rinse. I've never walked into M&S with such a facial expression.

The Metro: transcending generations in beautiful ways

I rarely take Newcastle's inner-city public transport train system, a.k.a., The Metro, wunder-invention of the eighties; so when I do, I invariably witness pretty special things.
Whether it's 15 year-old Geordies oranged-up to the bleached hairline on a Friday night or old women eating Greggs out the bag, surrounded by Fenwick shoppers or commenting on my shoes, it's a pretty good opportunity to people watch.
Today I saw possibly the greatest thing I've ever seen on those funny little trains. The focus of attention was a small happy baby, and the two competing forces for it's laughter were old men. Neither of these varieties are in any way rare on the metro, but the combo today was incredible.
I was stood opposite the first old man who was taking pleasure in entertaining the baby. Whilst casually trying to hide the typically obscene American Apparel advert on the back of my Vice magazine, it appeared that he wasn't remotely interested with the latex-covered crotch of the model but with bending his forefinger at the baby.
He also happened to be wearing a bobble hathat with ears which were tied under his chin, a suit, shirt and tie and some quite incredible loafers. I probably could have flipped to the fashion shoot of the magazine to show him just how cool he was. Anyway, the baby and the man were in this beautifully symbiotic relationship of joy, when old man number two comes on the scene.
I didn't get quite such a good look at this chap, he was about four metres away from me and his elderly rival, and two from the baby. His act was not finger waggling but a series of whimsical rhetorical questions, like "ooh, what was that?" when my phone bleeped. A weaker technique, I think you'll agree. Old man number one OWNED that baby's love.
Unfortunately, I had to get off just as this was getting interesting, and as old man number two was getting into his stride. By God, imagine what might've happened by the time the train had reached Monkseaton, eh?

Bog off Gok, I've got a style adviser with much better facial hair.

My mystery stylist wouldn't call me "curvalicious", he'd tell me to put down the Greggs.

I'm a thoroughly independent shopper. This is due to a few good reasons. One, I normally pick stuff out that looks a lot better on, adapted or with a particular outfit. It's all about seeing potential where most people see dead people's hand-me-downs. Amongst the wrong crowd, this normally encourages such looks of disgust or terror that shopping becomes hugely destructive of any self-confidence. I'm better off checking the size of my arse in a mirror, sneaking the contents of the bag into the wardrobe without being seen and then whipping them out on a suitable occasion to applause.

Coming back to impress my lovable, but mainstream, fresher flatmates a couple years back with some early 90s stonewashed jeans, a pair of loafers and some jazz shoes after a successful charity shop raid, their looks of sheer horror deflated my retail buzz quicker than a chilled out puffer fish.

Number Two, such choices in attire invariably originate from stinky, messy jumbleholes. You need a certain stamina to put up with that. Any laggers get left behind.
Number Three, on the other hand, I get very sweaty in busy high street stores and waiting around for people in changing rooms nearly always ends in dehydration.
This is a shortened version of the list. Ultimately, I rarely rely on others to aid in style choices. Which probably explains a lot, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

However, something funny happened the other night which really changed my mind on the whole affair. Chatting in the pub to a friend regarding my current indecision as to whether I should get my hair coloured in an extreme fashion or not, a small, but vital, interruption occurred.

An elderly Geordie chap - whose existence I wasn't even aware of prior to his contribution - cut me off halfway, announcing "ee leave yer hair alone, like." He went on to explain how I had a very "natral" look about me, and that my current mousy brown shouldn't be messed about with.
I've taken his advice.
Because really, maybe small old men are the way forward in the style stakes. Not understanding current trends, but the vital essentials of fashion - as in, what looks nice - makes for a pretty useful guide. I feel like hiring him to sit in my living room as I proceed to show him every item in my wardrobe to a show of cards judging wearability. A bit like Come Dine With Me.
He wouldn't do a Gok and shove me in a maxi dress, whilst rubbing his head in my boobs and giving me an over sized handbag.

"Err, with HONEY in?": Looking for Gerhard in Middlesbrough

Caught unaware at the moment of embarrassing Southern misunderstanding.

Despite claiming to love the North East, I've actually only really snooped around Newcastle and a bit of Northumberland. Went to the centre of Gateshead once, don't intend to go again, never been to Sunderland, etc etc. It's because up here Newcastle is like the center of everything, which is really saying something, and as a result I've really no need to go elsewhere.

However, when I discovered that Gerhard Richter, German realist artist extraordinaire, was showing in Middlesbrough, I figured it was bound to be a fun day out. All I knew of the place is that its inhabitants go by the name of 'Smoggies' and it had been unfortunately dubbed the worst town in the UK a couple of years back. I had a craving for greasy food and German artwork and I wanted to be satisfied.

The train took literally about a million years to get there. Not least because the line provides a nice sight-seeing tour of all the abandoned industrial sights of the North East along the way. Really should have taken a camera, but we're talking trailer parks and the kind of decaying industrial infrastructure you normally see around the made-up Hicksville-meets-dystopian-vision bit of theme parks. There was seaside too, which was nice. But essentially big disused towers, cranes, and the coincidence of grey clouds in the distance.

Once I'd arrived I saw a nuclear family set up ahead of me, except the father figure was smoking a joint. On the high street. My companion revealed that this was probably the best introduction to the place I was going to get and that we should be careful as my joke of an outfit may get us killed.

Anyway, we soon found the cultural oasis that is MIMA (Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art) with pleasant weird ambient music and a view over the totally mushed up Middlesbrough skyline. Oh, and some nice German artwork too.

But it's when we left that things got really interesting. It was getting to about 3.30pm, we were peckish to say the least and wandering around an unknown town ended up in a few places which looked dangerously like housing estates run by drug barons. After establishing that we were scared and even contemplated Maccy D's for a grease break (totally not greasy enough), we stumbled out of a tunnel to find the best street ever.

Four greasy spoon cafes, all claiming to do a weirder variety of international food than the last, and a few amazing charity shops. Going with the instinct that one eatery was completely rammed and the others as empty, we got involved with it and entered literally the hottest place in Middlesbrough. A film of grease smacked me in the face upon passing through the ribboned curtains, mmm.

After standing around getting in everybody's way for about forty seconds whilst trying to take off as many clothes as possible, two old ladies offered us up their seats whilst jabbering away to my smiley face. Then it was a matter of checking out the menu - when you can get a massive plate of full English for £1.80, the world really is your oyster. Opting for a couple of burgers, chips and a coke, all for under six pounds, I attempted to order without being totally conscious that I'd never felt more out of place. This was confirmed when I misheard the proprietor ask if I wanted onions for 'honey in'. Embarrassing to say the least.

We were joined at our table by a massive plate of gammon and a man accompanying it. Who munched, completely in silence, totally unaware of our presence. We wanted to stay for a £1.30 helping of jam roly-poly and custard, but the heat was getting near unbearable and we had to leave. I'll never go to a better cafe in my life.

Latest Discovery: old cars drive old people wild.

Mr. Nash, clearly not in his natural environment.

The other night in the pub I remember explaining to someone who was propping up the bar that, no, despite my middle-England-middle-class accent and Shire come-from, I have never been skiing in my life and I certainly am not enamored with horses in any way, shape or form. Stinky, foot-treading, constantly-aroused creatures.

Instead of taking up reigns as a pony person, I spent my youth struggling with musical instruments, going to Brownies, eating cake mixture (as previously discussed), drawing incessantly and, as I said to this bloke, "playing with my Dad's cars".

This isn't as rebellious as it sounds. Daddy Bowlface has always had a vintage car in the garage. My siblings and I have always been driven about in them, had naps in the back of them, burnt the back of our thighs on hot leather seats during the summer and distracted DB when he's working on them. Indeed, with one particular model it became more of a game of "how many children can we chuck in the back of this thing?"

The garage has always had that inexplicable smell of car. Which is an amalgamation of oil, leather, hot metal and man-in-overall and is always lovely.

Anyway, since becoming only a temporary Shire resident, there have been fewer vintage car rides, what with one thing and another. I had forgotten quite what an impact a 1936 Frazer Nash would have in our local town.

So, donning several large cardigans and scarves, I squidged into the car and off we went. Getting the odd look from a white van man at a roundabout is pretty much obligatory with these things, so I didn't take much notice.

However, once we'd got into the 'historic centre' of town - i.e, where Woolworths used to be, and general hang out of the elderly - a whole new experience happened. Suddenly, an old man with a flat cap raised his walking stick at us and said "good morning". We didn't know who he was, but clearly the car was a justification for happy greetings.

Then, a herd of trolley-pushers paused, as if struggling to comprehend what the hell was going on when my Dad was parking the beast. It was as if they'd literally never seen something as old as them still working before.

Thus, looks and stares continued, along with cries of "what a lovely old car!" which is quite nice, I suppose. Clearly we brought something into their day, and, on a more sinister note, stunned them to the extent that I could have technically mugged them all by the time the handbrake was up.

I mentioned this to DB when we got home. He seemed most blase about it, "oh yes," he said, "most of them think it's an MG".