"Is that guy your boyfriend? Because if you're living here I don't want any couply stuff"

I got home at an acceptable hour this evening to find my bed had tripled in size. My 'bed' being a futon mattress, this upwards expansion signalled that although I might sleep comfortably this evening, it was going to be as means of a swansong in my current steal of a gorgeous, taxidermy-filled Williamsburg flat. Believe it or not (easily unbelieved, due to the poor blogging show), tomorrow will mark four weeks of having lived in New York. Four weeks also being the length of my current dream sublet.

Last weekend was a horrific blur of relentless flat-hunting. Like most things in New York, once you've done it here, it will seem an absolute breeze in most other English-speaking western countries. If I thought most aspects of my young adult life have been fraught with competition: surviving the UCAS lottery, battling it out for work experience and competition places, finding even summer jobs, let alone the graduate malarkey in the laughably competitive world of journalism - renting a nice, inexpensive apartment outside of a ghetto in New York is way up there.

It works like this: the weekend before you become homeless, you search frantically on a website called The Craigslist. Known for being riddled with scammers and people who will spam you forever more (my old email account answers only to people who say I've won a lottery or that I need to help them), The Craigslist is also the most effective means of finding accommodation in this insane city. So, up at 9am to check the darned thing, scouting for listings that are spelt correctly, aren't in BedStuy and are within my price range. Cue string of slightly desperate emails emphasising the fact that 'I'm a British intern at Nylon magazine, freshly graduated from university and a respectful, clean, laid-back and fun roommate'. Cue a handful of phone calls, followed by hurried appointments being made in moleskines. At 85% of the doors I turned up at, both myself and the renter had trusty moleskines in hand. The shame. Arguably, most of these places were in Williamsburg or Clinton Hill, but there's nothing like living up to a cliche.

So, on a totally beautiful freakishly hot weekend, when essentially all the trains that service Brooklyn were out of service, I entered strangers' (of varying weirdness, the title is a real-life quote from one of them) and nosed around making unnecessarily polite musing noises whilst thinking where the nearest exit was. Of course, I ended up taking the place I had first looked at. Because the extra sting in the tail of NY apartment hunting is that it is essentially a personality contest. One reasonably priced room in the heart of 'touristy Williamsburg' as New Yorker friend calls it, (rather than the Hispanic grubby outskirts) gained fifty responses within hours of the craigslist post. I had made the lucky first six to view it. If they like you, they call you. It's not even the case that if you like an apartment you can say 'yes please, here is my money'. It's like apartment speed-dating, except you're about a four on the hot scale and the person you're trying to pull is a ten. I was lucky -  all it took for me to find a match in a swish Bushwick penthouse was a weekend - albeit a hungover, sleep-deprived, sweaty weekend. On the plus side, I know a lot more about Brooklyn's geography now, having walked a cumulative 25 miles.

I also know a fair bit more about the Lower East Side's weekend nightlife, after a nocturnal two-on-a-bike jaunt around it last Saturday. The bike was called The Love Tycoon and belonged to fellow Nylon intern Caitlin Smith. To ease the pain of her fleeing New York on a rainy day to the bohemian lure of her native San Francisco, I've been taking the new-in-town graphic design zine intern Holly Black out to a series of  Williamsburg date places we didn't realise were quite so candlelit upon entering. As a result, we had to head to the grime of Monster Island to watch Kevin Morby play and for me to pretend to be a Nylon TV camerawoman, and renowned dive bar Levees for $10 pitchers - just to set the tone back comfortably. 

This week's discoveries include:
- SoHo's answer to Ben's Cookies in the form of Vesuvio Bakery. I fear now I've discovered their cookies, I won't be able to stop.
- That tbs is on channel 8 at breakfast time, which means SAVED BY THE BELL. The original crowd. ON TV. It's like I'm eight again, except now I can really appreciate the retro fashion and poor script-writing to the best level. From tomorrow I'm not going to live anywhere with a TV, but it was sweet while it lasted.
- That ridiculously posh SoHo deli Dean & Deluca may play classical music and force their staff to wear chef hats, but will serve up a mighty fine bagel a lot cheaper than any bagel cart in town.
- That you can buy blankets with faces of varying North American animals on (wolf, bear, lion - not strictly from America -stag) in K Mart for under $20.    

I want a Jeremy Scott meat dress, but made out of poptarts.

I'm averaging six hours of sleep per night at the moment. However, unlike the guilty, educationally-associated sleep deprivation I have bemoaned before, this type is from having ludicrous amounts of fun. I'll admit it, I love the 9-5 (or 10-6, whatever). Especially when the hours you're meant to be at work are spent at New York Fashion Week shows, or interviewing your latest girl crush, or running around NYC smuggling packed-lunches into swanky SoHo cafes.

My optimism in organising my internship around NYFW's S/S shows paid off - I managed to witness four shows in as many days this week. Granted, this is hardly a packed schedule in comparison to that of Susie Lau (whom I could spy sitting opposite during Sunday's Preen show), but considering I was turning up to every one in thrift-store finds, it's not bad going.

A 1982 SLR definitely makes me out as a serious fashion journalist and not someone who just blagged their way into a Preen show...

Exciting designer newbie Ann Yee's presentation in SoHo the next evening followed - inspired by Blade Runner, her pretty, accessible silk jumpsuits and crop-tops with flouro accents suggest that she'll be hitting the NYFW schedule in the next few years. The next evening saw Samantha Pleet's Chelsea presentation on behalf of green fashion week, which was breathtakingly beautiful. With a video starring this season's muse Victoria Legrand of Beach House forming the backdrop to a collection of vintage and fishing-inspired whimsical dresses, jumpsuits, blouses and bikinis named things like 'rust red walkabout shorts' and 'ivory moonbeam blouse', there was little else I could do but eat the free cupcakes and feel deeply inadequate - in a thoroughly inspired way, natch.

All of this intelligent, classy, accessible ready-to-wear was, however, blown out of the water by Jeremy Scott's celeb-tastic, 1970s NY homoerotic punk-inspired, screamy, pouty, sexy S/S collection. With guys built like tanks being sent down in bondage-style mankinis, girls wearing everything from bodega-bag-vests to meat dresses (Gaga, eat your heart out) and only a straight-jacket wedding dress pre-empting Scott's own lap of victory around the front row in an angel-tipped leather jacket and kicks, it was beyond amazing. Sitting opposite Kelly Osbourne and Kanye in the front row was pretty surreal, too.

To round of my celebrity-stalking in a more laid-back way, I caught up with newly-discovered girl crush Rebecca Schiffman. Full details on her greatness are to come in Nylon's November issue. However, two facts: she LOVES pigeons and bought me a hotdog. 'nuff said.    

For news about what I get upto when I'm actually IN the office, my first guest post for awesome aspirational writers website Wannabe Hacks made it up this week. As for now, my day off consists of far less glamourous things - wondering what's happening to my clothes at the laundromat up the road, contemplating what new flavour of poptarts I'm going to buy and itinerising my way around taxidermfest at the Natural History Museum... Oh, and happy Yom Kippur!

losing various virginities.

So much for the daily blogging. Bowlface, like my normal diet, has been somewhat neglected over the past week. What used to be my sole output of journalistic musing has become a well-loved but ever-so-slightly superflous friend in these days of insane tipping rules, glossy magazines and wierd brown stuff in plastic cups that everyone carries everywhere. Think it's frozen coffee. They're attached to peoples' hands here at all times.

So, I left off at the Supermarket saga and I begin again after my first real day of culinary success and initiation. Initiation not into gross types of viscous cheese (once. never again.) but into real Mexican and then excellent home-cooked pescetarian/vegan cuisine. My tummy is beginning to love me back after the serial (ha, cereal, Dad joke) poptart incidents. Mexican corn on the cob is potentially my new obsession. Costing around two bucks, this vegetable treat comes tossed in a small amount of normal, solid cheese, chilli and lime - and I just found out there's an establishment selling them around the corner from my office. WIN.

See you at breakfast.

In between the struggle to fit in three meals a day this past week many more New York firsts have been ticked off. First $20 mani/pedicure (a dangerous habit, I'm sure). First under-Williamsburg Bridge rooftop nighttime impromptu photo shoot. First randomer calling me obscenities for no apparent reason in the street. First venture into 'real' Chinatown under Manhattan bridge. First standing up guilty $1 pizza-slice consumption. First 'real NY party' in a dingy club on the lower east side. First getting-on-the-wrong-bus-and-ending-up-in-Malcolm X-street. First time I've had to put on an American accent to ask for a bottle of 'waahh-derrr' to be understood. First buying-a-futon-off-Craigslist and shifting it up six floors. First visit to The Container Store. And, most notably today, first 9/11 anniversary. Those cloud-hitting lights which mark the position of the Twin Towers were the only sign of Manhattan that could be identifed from a placid Ridgewood barbeque this evening.

Plus, of course, my first week at Nylon. There's so much to be said about my experience of editorial internships in New York that to smush it in the bottom of this post would be frankly ridiculous. Furthermore, there's news of my first day coming up soon on an excellent website created by a few clearly success-bound wannabe hacks. I know it hurts, but you'll just have to contain your anticipation a little bit longer. However, to keep you tided over, one more first: my name on the Nylon blog. Right here.

'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.

Bake Blog

Yeeoush. Long gap from the last written post. During which, however, I have been slaving to high end retail (it almost goes without saying), involved in certain freelancing activities, maniacally making lists (to-do, reading, shopping...all of which constitute my deceptively literary-looking moleskine) and even jetting abroad.

How best to sum up the last 22 days? Well, to be quite honest, it's a task as threateningly dull as its results would be to read. So, here are my highlights:

Discovering Gary Hume has collaborated with Marni (granted, this broke a while back amongst fashion circles, but the Shire is somewhat distracting in getting news hot off the press)

Compiling a mental 'irony playlist' out of the multitude of retro CDs at work. Tracklisting includes Queen's 'I Want To Break Free', Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven Is A Place On Earth' and Roy Orbison's 'I Drove All Night (to avoid Bicester Village)'.

Watching films with androgynous heroines and their desirable boyish costume wardrobes, e.g., Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, Dianne Keaton in Annie Hall, furthered by amazing styling like this.

Plus munching amazing Malaysian-Thai hybrid food in the open windowseat of Makan London whilst people watching at Portobello Market; taking photos of dogs in Turkey and, most recently, getting hooked into a programme called 'The Great British Bake Off'. Anything where grown, overweight men cry over a sunken sponge whilst announcing they're a 'pastry and pies kinda guy', which incites conversations between Mummy Bowlface and I about the consistency of a sponge mixture and, best of all, involves the narrator saying 'classic ganache' the same way Jeremy Clarkson would announce 'six cylinder engine' knocks Dave Lamb right off my culinary TV top five. Furthermore, the genius assessing the quality of the cakes is no other than the ULTIMATE CAKE LADY herself, Mary Berry.

To celebrate this TV hour of cake-dedicated national pride, and a relevant holiday snapshot, here is Daddy Bowlface sporting a cake moustache. Bon Appetit.

Shire Syndrome and possible cures

if more american apparel adverts looked like this my self-esteem wouldn't get such a bashing after Vice popped through my door every month

Some of you may be glad to know that since the pity posting things improved dramatically. I deleted 300 of my facebook friends, booked some flights to Munich and started some fantastical plans to become Jennifer Grey. Clearly leaving the Shire on a 48 hour impromptu dirty stop-out trip to London was highly necessary, otherwise several other cheap European flights would be under my belt and I'd be trying to get euros out of my minus money.

Being a dirty stop-out obviously wasn't my intention when abandoning the beloved Yom-mobile in the most economically friendly of Milton Keynes' station car parks at the peril of bored and potentially neglected local children. Instead, I was headed for a reunion with old school buddies at Camberwell College of Art's end of year show. This chap, in particular, as well as being a completely lovable long-lost friend, was luring us in with shiny invitations. I've been a fan of the comic geek since it was transformed into something Seth Cohen shaped in the O.C. However, Harvey's comic books, including 'Have Love Will Travel' and 'Not News Comix' are super great and funny, and accesible on his site. If Bowlface was the type of blog wise enough to have 'top tips', buying them would be one of them. Another top tip would be to bear in mind that 'Have Love Will Travel' was created in a week and a half with a brush, which makes it the product of such talent that my mind is a little bit blown.

It was, however, the second mega-inspiring exhibition of the day as I stumbled across the Sally Mann exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery whilst trying to avoid wierd hair-model scouting types on Oxford Street. Southern America + freckly kids with attitude + dead people + a load of clever silver screen photography techniques and that makes for one incredible first UK solo show. Especially when Mann's kids bicker with her in a video about touring photos of them as small naked children, which was like a much cooler art version of what happens when my mum thinks it a good idea to dig out the family videos.

Other than trying to smush Harvey's non-smushable face, my girltime companion and I figured we needed to calm down from two cumalative hours of inner-city bus travel with some inventive tea and ludicrously good cake at Soho's Yumchaa. This was just the start of an international gastro feast which partly justified the dirty stop-out-ing, (alongside the knowledge that if I returned to the Shire I would book some flights and maybe start stalking Harvey's native Shire-based home) and continued via a Chicken Sagwala and some Sunday lunch Dim Sum. According to a discussion going around the table at the time, Dim Sum translates roughly to 'little delights' which is simultaneously cute and creepy. I'd say the same description could well apply to Dim Sum itself; such as the fact you eat pudding (egg custard tart equivalent, well lush) before savoury and many dishes apply the term 'cake' in the loosest possible sense. However, it does mean that after last weekend's oyster experience I have made new food virginity loss a second consequetive weekend. If next weekend falls into a similar pattern I can see myself developing a new and scarily addictive kind of church.

pity post

I would promise that this wouldn't be a few hundred words of snivelling, self-deprecating pity post action, except it is. Surely the fact I'm blogging, sober, on a Friday night having chewed through the bottom of a tub of slightly old ice-cream (n.b, verb use of 'chewed') and switched off the TV after seeing that the episodes of My Super Sweet 16 are re-runs is enough to explain the title alone?

This time last week I was nursing foot bruises from awkwardly rocking to Bon Jovi in those shoes at the grad ball, and about to embark on a nine hour pub crawl before losing my oyster-eating virginity (like the first go at most things, it was awkward and a bit gross) on Northumberland street. 

A sneakily-taken photo of my friend sneakily planning my shock oyster eating experience.

Now, however, I am back in the Shire. Hopefully for the last ever time of permanent temporary residence, although those are potentially words that are waiting to come back and pleasantly smack me in the face. Delightful as it is: punnets of raspberries with post-it notes saying 'For Alice's pudding! Enjoy!' in the fridge, near-constant parental love, a cleaner, carpet that doesn't have stuff stuck on it and Joan-replacement, my beloved Yom-mobile; an early noughties Corsa (which apparently smells of dog but is pleasantly homey to me), a lack of young, intelligent people and any kind of society is numbing my brain.

I'm finding myself conducting life bitterly through the Internet. Just another symptom of my regression to a teenage state. Despite having stripped my bedroom walls of life size posters of general idol and all-round indie heartthrob Karen O and other geeky 'I'm into my music' teen paraphernalia, I'm still reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, becoming introverted at work because of my jumble sale handbags and moaning because we've run out of Shreddies (arguably, this still happens in my 'grown-up' life, except, as the person who buys them, I've only myself to blame). This Friday evening the closest I've got to social activity is the handing out of my parents' mobile numbers to old college friends so they can gatecrash their weekend activities in Lincolnshire. I wasn't even invited. I think the only difference between my teenage self and my current state is that I've not hit the gin supplies. Not because drinking alone is a level of loser I've not yet reached, but because my parents have probably locked the cupboard. On the plus side, I've just found Ferris Bueller's Day Off on Film4.

deja vu deja vu

Despite being occupied with new activities daily, namely, dealing with the ever threatening prospect of leaving my beloved Newcastle, the deja vu blog post theme continues. Indeed, the theme is one of such recurring frequency that perhaps I am having deja vu about deja vu in a never-ending cycle... Enough of the metaphysics. This deja vu issues from one Jesmond takeaway pizzeria and yet another comparison to a bizarre early 90s film character. Sounds familiar, non?

Sociology Flatmate and I have developed a tradition over the last three years in which we call each other during our journeys back to the house for various reasons:
a) establishing if the other is in the house
b) discussing the purchasing of food
c) providing necessary chat during walking.
Thus, I should not have been surprised to find myself sitting alone in Mistletoe Pizzeria a good four hours before they expect any of the usual drunken clientele (approx. 18.30 hours) as a phone call of the aforementioned description revealed Sociology Flatmate's pitifully desperate need for pizza. I couldn't go home to such a sad, cheese and dough-deprived, face.

This is Mistletoe Pizzeria's quaint letterbox. I wish it would say 'pizza' instead.

Just as I was dealing with a cocktail of emotions - love for Sociology Flatmate; shame from sitting in Mistletoe Pizzeria at 6.30pm and, mostly, a strange absence of drunk Lancastrian men sporting mullets - the pizza proprietor switched on the sound system as a means of customer recognition. With it came a near-spiritual moment. Granted, it's probably got something to do with my current heightened emotional state, but music seems to be, wait for it, 'speaking' to me. I know, but carry on reading.

For example, a woeful departure from dear friends was accompanied by my i-Pod's shuffle choice of Neil Young's 'Don't Cry', only to be followed by Simon and Garfunkel's 'Only Living Boy In New York', my location as of September. Most than anything it probably shows I need to stop raiding my parents' record collection, but I was a tad spooked.

Add to the mix the following announcement from the pizza sound system: 'Welcome. Welcome to the end. Do not be afraid. The world is changing.' Weird, in many a way, but not in the least when this bizarre 'welcoming' broke into Black Eyed Peas' smash dance hit 'Boom Boom Pow'. Sociology Flatmate's adorable Dutch surname has resulted in our calling of her 'Boom' - the pizza sound system, therefore, was serenading her pizza with her own name.

As for the likeness comparison, the deja vu fails a little in that it emerged not from the Mistletoe Pizzeria, but from Jesmond Tesco's Latest Resident Big Issue Seller. In the past he has tried to persuade me to part with my hard-loaned cash with crude statements and catcalls. However, this time L.R.B.I.S posed a question of sorts so I couldn't just leave it at a withering glance.

Caught off guard, probably trying to buy essential Shreddies milk in so as to expose my homewear for as short a time as possible, I was told that I reminded L.R.B.I.S of someone famous, although he couldn't remember who. I did not suggest 'Superman's Girlfriend'. Necessary dairy products purchased, he cornered me on my way out with the opener 'you know Wayne's World'....

Turns out I look like 'Garth's girlfriend', a.k.a Honey Hornee, a.k.a Kim Basinger. She's blond. Despite this, I'm going to relish the retro-film theme to post the best educational/transformation movie montage of all time:

Yes, yes I am Teri Hatcher.

Sociology Flatmate thinks that he might have got confused because Lois Lane was a journalist.

Students don't relish in Bank Holiday weekends. Especially ones in May. Especially ones that were spent in Berlin this time last year. Sad, slightly bitter evidence that my life is thankfully not Groundhog Day. As a result, I'm sat blogging under a blanket (where did Spring go?) having consumed half a can of sweetcorn to constitute 'tea', rather than attending any of the five events facebook claims I am.

Might also be because I'm a little weary from working the door at a Crystal Antlers gig last night. The air of authority Sociology Flatmate and I must have unwillingly given off can only have come from How to Communicate Effectively. Man, that book is potent. Anyway, after most of the bandmates had incomprehensively nattered to us all night about how 'totally spaced out' and Californian they were, Guinness, other people's incomprehensible accents and 'Harlem douchebags at parties that, like, steal beer tokens and party in their own rooms?!', we finally got round to seeing them and they were grreeaaaattt. And more than a little naked. We disappointed them all by refusing vague 'party' offers, and oh boy am I glad because the walk home via the all-night pizzaria was an encounter with a walking cliche I hope never to forget.

Mr. Stag Night was apparently sober. He was, naturally, in a blonde eighties mullet wig, muttering racist abuse at the pizza chaps and had an air of mild aggression. Halfway through ordering the cheapest pizza on the menu (margherita, 10", £3.80. God bless Newcastle), classic 'ice-breaker' arrived in the form of: 'are you off the tel-leh?' Having not yet achieved that level of fame, I answered no, obviously. He clearly thought I was lying: 'You are. Superman's girlfriend.' Uh-huh. 'What, Lois Lane?', 'Yeah!'. Seeing as I was six when I last remember watching the early 90s Superman series, the chances of me acting as a full grown woman in it is highly unlikely. I asked him if he thought Teri Hatcher would be scrabbling around in her purse for two pound coins in an all-night pizzaria in Newcastle's (arguably more salubrious) student suburb. He replied by asking 'if he looked like Pat Sharp'. When we said yes, asking if he was meant to be him, he said 'no'.

This, however, just encouraged a whole new line of talk. Turned out matey was up from Burnley on a stag weekend. Except that he'd been thrown into a police cell since 11.30 am for 'no reason' - "the police said they'd tell me later, but they didn't". They let him out, but only after giving him a cheese and tomato sandwich. I didn't want to suggest that perhaps he'd found himself passed out in Greggs and hadn't been arrested at all. Apparently, he'd only adopted the wig after being let out of the 'cells'. Then there was another conversation about who's stag night it was, 'James Edwards', obviously (we later found out he went to school with him) and another about how Sociology Flatmate MUST like gravy because she's 'northern'; how I 'sounded like one of his mates [he] met travelling, who was from Sussex, or Essex, or Northampton' and I'm a representative for the whole of the UK south of Burnley, as well as being Teri Hatcher. Wowzers, she's a busy lady.  

Patiotism fail.

So it was St. George's Day on Friday. Unlike last year, when I was made aware of our patron saint killing dragons by stumbling across a National Front protest underneath one of Newcastle's most prided landmarks, it was an M.I.T (Maternal Inbox Treat) that broke the news, and was, contextually, as unwelcome.

Because, rather than an electronic mail inbox treat, it was a more specific mobile phone inbox treat. The latter, foolishly, is never turned off and, during the hours of sleep, normally lives somewhere near my pillow. Sad admission, yes, but it's because it doubles up as an alarm clock, or something. Anyway, at exactly 10.50am on Friday morning I was re-awoken (double nap morning due to my inconvenient biological alarm clock and having walked into the house five hours previously) with a 'jolly' picture of red and white-clad schoolchildren and the announcement that Mummy Bowlface and her team of education monkeys 'had just made flags, dragons after play!' There is no crueler way to be reminded of the horrific things intoxicants do to your body than to be faced with the glowing energy of youth.

That was the patriotic moment of the whole day. Due to the early arrival of temporary summer yesterday a Blakean outside reading experience, doing my necessary university work whilst enjoying the sunshine, turned rapidly into sitting outside a cafe, with friends, staring feebly at the same book for numerous hours. Then came the I.B.P (Impromptu Barbecue Plan), which relieved work guilt as it was clearly a mission of near-military standards of organisation.

Within two hours we had located and cleaned a barbecue, bought necessary supplies, made a large panful of potato salad and even rallied enough troops to make the whole shindig worthwhile. An emergency late-night excursion for more charcoal briquettes even resulted in a new discovery/gatecrashing of Dexters Grosvenor Dance Centre, complete with ballroom dancing couples and an invitation to learn about lessons. It's not every day such an opportunity arises.

Today's not been much better on the work front. I have, however, caught up with last week's Glee, made chocolate butterfly buns and whipped up a risotto. Considering the dietary habits entailed in the last post, I think this is definitely a step in the right direction.

David Attenborough Live

Prime example of your normal hardcore 'horny pigeon' inner city stalking. Not, apparently, how they do it in the country.

Despite having little else but village life, parents and the internet as educative tools during my formative years, Shire experiences never cease to amaze me. Like, for instance, how right outside my window pigeons are performing a distinctly feeble version of Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On'.

As if Facebook, twitter, urban outfitter's newly-announced mid-season sale and green tea weren't distractions enough.

It's like a lame version of David Attenborough's Life down here. Except it's raining, and not super-heavy-monkeys-make-umbrellas-out-of-leaves rain, but thoroughly unwelcome grey not-yet-April showers. Furthermore, instead of close-ups, slow-downs and microshots (totes technical), I have a grubby window covered in intriguingly unidentifiable white stuff and a cut out silhouette of a hawk to stop fellow pigeons committing suicide by flying into it. This happened two Easters ago, leaving three All Saints-esque Gothic perfect pigeon prints with a collection of splayed wing/feet shots and, in one case, some poo.

It all started innocently enough with a bit of friendly grooming nestled inside the boughs of a Yew tree. Not dissimilar to that you'd see in the opening scene of Disney's animated classic Cinderella. Before I knew it, the dirty buggers were balancing on top of each other - scaly pigeon feet carefully placed into fluffy Shire-pigeon back plumage - and shaking whilst sliding down the lower one's back. Pretty weird. Mr Pigeon (I presume he was on top) was getting seriously puffed out by this point, in fact probably to the extent that lady pigeon flew away. That was it. Talk about anti climatic. He's been sat cooing miserably on the same branch ever since. He's still there, all the time I've been writing this. Loser.

In other news, I've found another reason why Heston Blumenthal and I should hang out. He writes today about his surprise at the lack of people getting excited about the asparagus season that's due to start in a month. I'M EXCITED, HESTON, I'M REALLY REALLY EXCITED. Furthermore, I've been really excited since February. Best kind of food spear around.

Newsagents: helping me on my way to obesity

It certainly wasn't the first time I've been aided in lady-business by a middle-aged Geordie of a stranger. However, much like the aforementioned, I certainly did not expect such a dialogue when guiltily scooting into the cosy newsagents to buy a Dairy Milk yesterday afternoon after some gallery action.
The Geordie-Asian accent combo is probably one of my favourites. However, this sage of advice and salesmanship had thrown in a little twang of Jamaican, just to make it really special. To keep things short, Bowlface is going to turn temporarily to scriptwriting:
Bowlface (B): peruses confectionery selection. Notices an absence of normal, 6-block Dairy Milk Bars and becomes a little distressed. Um, excuse me, do you have any normal sized Dairy Milk bars?
Newsagent (N): No, but we do have these big bars for 99p, which is really great value for money when the small ones cost 65.
B: Well, yes, the value is undeniable. However, I only want a small one.
N: adopts a Jamaican patois. The lady deserve some chocolate!
B: Evidently. However, not quite that much...
N: But you can eat a little now, and put half in the fridge?
[both N and B look at each other, B looking increasingly guilty, until a moment of dawning revelation]
N: You'll eat it all at once, won't you?
B: Yes.
N: Turning to a horribly-reminiscent GCSE Maths-style strategy of selling. But a chunk this size would normally cost 65p, so you're getting all the rest for about 25p.
B: Hands over a quid. Thanks. See you later.

If it wasn't bad enough to be seen maniacally scoffing one acceptable hand-sized Dairy Milk bar all the way through town, trying to subtly snap little bits off a giant bar whilst on the go was considerably more difficult. Thank God for the many and varied pockets of a Barbour Jacket. Needless to say that a mere seven squares remained by the time I'd reached my lecture theatre.

Finding dead stuff in the pub, the perfect post-exam celebration.

Thankfully, this wasn't taken in The Cumberland Arms,

but just on another occasion of pheasanty goodness that happened a little while back.

Every now and then I get reminded of my Shire roots in Newcastle and it gives me a humble little thrill. Such a thing happened last night, when, whilst ordering at the bar of so-traditional-you-get-evils-for-interrupting-the-folkies, The Cumberland Arms, I noticed a Tesco bag hanging off the front of the bar (they have hooks on there for such purposes). Anyway, it had a couple of feathers sticking out of it.

The Shire origins came shining through. I quickly identified these long plumes as belonging to a pheasant. This is because they're always stopping in the middle of country roads waiting to get killed, and I once opened the kitchen curtains to find one staring me out, oh, and there's a stuffed one in the house. It's a kind of taxidermy heirloom that Nick Hewer amongst others is a big fan of. Prodding the bag a little after making such an observation I announced (probably louder than really necessary) "HA! There's a brace of pheasants in that Tesco bag!"

This was met by a fair amount of disbelief - we were in the non-folkie, non-Geordie, kiddie side of the pub - including that of the barman, although it became apparent that this kind of thing happened fairly often. After waving the bag around for a while a bloke who looked like the least likely suspect to kill anything, let alone decapitate and pluck it, claimed them as his, most casually.

This in turn led to a massive discussion about taxidermy, something I'm personally a massive fan of - not necessarily doing it to endangered creatures now, but certainly making dead zoos out of all the poor blighters the Victorians got so much fun out of stuffing. Given the context of vegetarianism also at the table might not have been the best admission. Needless to say we moved swiftly onto discussing whether Cheryl Cole is in tune with second generation feminism in her recent Glamour interview by luck, judgement, or a PR company.

Obligatory Festive Post

Technically, it's Boxing Day today in the Shirehome of Bowlface activity. This is because yesterday was fake Christmas, happening a good fortnight or so early due to festive travelling on Baby Jesus' actual birth. Double Christmas = good times.
Actually, it's more like triple or even quadruple Christmas, as I've been milking most Christmas-related excuses dry over the last couple weeks. Not least being the Christmas party, which we later discovered the best theme of a party ever. It's totally easy to do, I got to wear a nappy, like, comfiest thing, and we watched a hell of a lot of George Michael and weird Bowie festive videos.
Second Christmas activity came in the form of a carol service, usually one of my favourite parts of the season. However, outside of the Shire it would seem that students don't really sing and the festive spirit isn't quite right - even if there is an abundance of Greggs' mince pies. You live and learn. On the plus side, my mate was playing in the wind band, which was led by a seriously socially awkward conductor, which always makes for smiles.
The 'real' deal, however, was Fake Christmas. Essentially a cramming together of the normal two weeks of Christmas paraphernalia into a day. We went and got a tree in the morning, had decorated it to Band Aid by lunchtime and, after a walk, a load of rare beef and some slightly Cava-induced present opening, we could have created a music video. If Bowlface was of the sentimental blogging type, there would probably be something about the real message of Christmas and family love inserted here.

"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.

My home-tech teacher was in a film I watched last night.

So, it's my last morning in the Shire and who knows what's to become of my blogging habits upon returning to the North East. Without the company of the middle-aged, the inebriated elderly and even the slightly inbred, I'm worried these posts may take an even more pedestrian turn.

Therefore, making the most of it, I'm blogging in the last twenty minutes before my departure for a five hour coach. On a Sunday morning. Yesss.

Last night I was taken out to the cinema and for dinner by the parents, which was very nice. The film choices were 500 Days of Summer, The September Issue and Julie and Julia. However, I don't think that even the Vampire Weekend inclusion on the 500 soundtrack would convince the parents and I'd clearly be the only person in the whole of Milton Keynes enjoying The September Issue, we settled with Julie and Julia, because my Dad loves Meryl Streep.

I was somewhat dubious - going only on an overheard critique of it as "two women just cooking their way through their lives", I figured I'd come out hungry and riddled with feminist angst.

Instead, I came out with a warm fuzzy glow from having laughed out loud in the cinema (and sneezed, but that's not entirely film-related). It turns out that Julia Child, posh American cook of 50s Francophile proportions (Meryl Streep) IS the same person as my textiles and food tech teacher, Mrs Sloss. The high-pitched squeaking, the fuzz of brown, tweaked hair, even down to the erratic whole-body movements over food - something I came into contact with twice a week during my teens.

Mrs Sloss was one of those iconic teachers that everyone pretends to dislike and yet finds themselves talking fondly of in their spare time. Classics like balancing everything on her bust during demonstrations, to the time she discussed her breast reduction operation (no more balancing), when she compared her daughter's afro hair to that of lambswool, telling me constantly that I needed to grow boobs, making up facts about silk worms, chastising my friend who is now a Central St Martins' womenswear student, announcing loudly at how tight/short/ugly the garment you'd lovingly made was, along with telling me off for taking my mum to see her on parents evening, "oh, she's only sitting here for praise" - mean that a big screen version is totally, totally brilliant. Especially when you'd be as equally shocked, and yet understanding, when they announced a tube of pasta was "as hot as a hard cock".

Julia Childs was apparently a far gentler beast, but she was channeling the Slossy all the way.

The film was also pretty good because of Julie's blogging obsession, and the fact her Mum was somewhat sceptical about it but yet is the only person to comment on it. Rings true... Clearly, all these similarities mean that I also will come home one day to 65 voice mails offering me a TV contract. Obv.

Mugging Cake Ladies

There's the glorified Shire dream.

My sister and I have always had this vision for when we're old and spinstery. Instead of going slowly round-the-bend alone, we'll live in a little house, have a couple of lapdogs to coo over and make and eat an incredible amount of cake. From that point on, we will decline slowly and happily into obese insanity and scare the local children. Kind of like the Gingerbread lady of Hansel and Gretl fame, but without paedophilia and cannibalism, natch.

The stimulus behind this quite possibly lies in Mary Berry. 50's celebrity cook supreme, and writer of the best baking Bibles on which the Bowlface home is founded on. I swear I was weaned the day I discovered there was a bowl to lick.

Much to my hysterical delight, local Shire town Winslow decided to open its newly debuted Farmers' Market with the cake goddess herself. Upon hearing this news in the Shire rag, the date was firmly marked on the Bowlface calendar and we were going to meet our cakey idol, goddammit.

It seemed few other people shared my excitement. In fact, I had to explain to practically everyone just WHO Mary Berry was. However, come Sunday morning, the gathering crowds implied just one thing: the Shire was hot for celebrity, and it came elderly-shaped.

That's some serious ribbon-cutting action right there.

There were about 300 people there, at 10.30am on a Sunday, which pretty much sums up the priorities of Shire folk. People hadn't come so much to buy overpriced offal as to gawp at all the other locals, have a gossip, take numerous increasingly-trodden-on dogs out and, the wee 5% that were left, to get some celebrity chef action.

She was literally one of the cutest things I've ever seen. My mum liked her jacket, but a tiny 5'1'' vision in pink was only slightly disappointing in comparisons to my hoping she would have baked her own clothes. After holding a clearly nerve wracking speech about EC funding (to great cheers of 'hear hear' - I can't believe that even happens outside of costume dramas) and pigs etc, we got down to the nitty gritty and pounced on that cake lady.

I'm not that kid with the eyepatch, by the way. She was my competition.

It was amazing. She congratulated my mum on covering her cookbooks in plastic, signed them with 'best wishes' (although not 'love', which someone else got...we'll gloss over that), and left a whole lot of joy in my heart that even cake can't reach.

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows: The day I became a sweet shop lady

She looks miserable in comparison to the glee on my face yesterday

Most people don't like to work on Bank Holidays. In fact, working on Bank Holidays normally comes within those lists of things people hate. Granted, if you work in some large corporate company selling disposable fashion items work in some large corporate company selling disposable fashion items you normally get double pay or something to ease the pain of serving everyone enjoying one massive paid day off. However, it's still pretty painful.

That is, unless, you've not yet reached the gruelling schedule of a nine to fiver, Dolly Parton's epic workplace tune presents a distant, quaint-sounding situation and you don't live for the weekends. For those people, like me, Bank Holidays are just when every road, service and public transport facility is at breaking point in desperate attempt to aid people's optimistic plans for the day.

Therefore, when I was offered to make some cash by working in a sweet shop on the Bank Holiday, I was pretty keen. In fact, that's an understatement. I made sure I'd picked exactly the right kind of vintage floral dress for the occasion, to make the living of the sweet lady dream even, well, sweeter.

Things got even better when it became apparent that, as temporary staff, I had no boring responsibilities such as restocking, cleaning, visual merchandising etc and was literally told to 'make myself sick' on as many free sweets as possible. That, and the nice wad of cash I got shoved before being told to 'close when it gets quiet'. Best negligent boss ever.

So, the afternoon passed fairly quickly, dishing out a few hundred grams of fizzy strawberries here, some white mice there, trying to persuade a small spaniel that flying saucers are much better than they smell, and other such sweet lady duties, all in an increasingly dizzy haze brought on by incessantly inhaling sugar.

Thus, at a slightly premature end to the day - it did get quiet - I headed home with a fairly bad case of post-kid's-party syndrome, caused solely by the combination of too many edible chemicals, and that slightly furry metallic taste which is what your mouth makes when it craves salt. Both were a small price to pay for basically being Mr. Ben for the day. It doesn't stop there, I'm living the dream at NME's offices this week - my inner sixteen year old is LOVING IT.

Student Life: something a broadsheet guide can never prepare you for

Oh god, I know, I know, all my posts these days seem entirely initiated by what I've previously read in the paper. Thing is, at this current moment in time, occupation and location, the broadsheet is my only source of intellectual wisdom. Sad, but true.

Anyway, A level results come out today. Right now teenagers will be rushing up to school gates, trying not to look like they care that this is what they've been built up for the entirety of their non-compulsory educational lives and they're on the brink of filling their pants.

The mere two years ago that I went through a similar experience seems like an age ago. Mainly because two years in university teaches you a hell of a lot more than the normal eight seasons. I'm not pretending I'm all wise and philosophically rounded now - how bloody boring - but I know enough that the Times' student supplement clearly hasn't been written by anybody who's graduated in the last three years.

Yeah, yeah, so they've got a whole page on Twitter and all that, but seriously, when do people drink 'half pints' on Freshers' Bar Crawls? Half pints? Half pints are pathetic, almost cute little things that I serve to the elderly in my village local. They even come in patronisingly miniature pint glasses to demonstrate the lack of intoxication. All good students know that Freshers' Bar Crawls are done once, and very rarely again, because they are the most restless and expensive way of having organised fun, and because the hangover you get from incessant shots of sugary forms of some kind of fermented animal is truly ungodly. Especially to those who've spent the whole summer choosing what kind of laptop to buy.

The feature on the £230 day-long pre-university cookery course also took me aback. Not least when one of the attendees thought of the potential to 'start up a supper club' was a brilliant idea, with menu inclusions being a salad of figs, goats' cheese and walnuts and homemade lamb-burgers. Apparently, it'll make 'everyone want to share', which translates to 'people robbing your food'. An average £15 per week student food budget goes on Shreddies, 3 kilo bags of penne and tinned tomatoes et al. Creative cooking comes in the form of mustard mash. Even if you do fancy trying some culinary talent, Fresher kitchens are invariably so disgusting that dinner becomes whatever you can create fastest and get the hell out of there. Never mind, they'll soon realise the delights of cheese on toast and angel delight, and Jamie O will get stashed to the back of the cupboard, or maybe used in an inventive drinking game.

However, the icing on the cake was found in a little column called 'The Knowledge' - apparently the Bible to getting though Freshers'. Some, very true: 'Girls who wear pink pashminas study history of art' - although in Newcastle that's practically everyone, and even up there I think the Pash may have died out by next year. 'You will be showered with freebies, all of which will be worthless' - again, very true. I think it was only the flatmate with the smallest chance of getting laid that used the Players Bar, 'Do Not Disturb - got lucky at Players' door sign. But then, again with the cringe, 'Retro is cool in clothes, children's television programmes and gadgets such as SodaStream'. Firstly, wrong. Anyone who likes 'Retro' also likes Flares, the 70s nightclub. Secondly, my almost-entirely vintage wardrobe is only admired by my flatmates for fancy dress purposes, my vintage record player marked me as a pretentious loser and anyone who still wears teeshirts with Zippy or other Rainbow characters on is clearly a mature student having a midlife crisis.

Enough rant. No doubt my 3rd year self will be just as sceptical of my 2nd year self should I get round to graduating. My advice? Never forget the trackies. I may not leave the house in mine, but they get nearly every student through hangovers/overeating/all-nighters.

Banana Guards: one of the more unusual teenage embarassments

I shuddered when I opened the paper on the culture pull-out today. In fact, I stared, shuddered, and then swiftly turned over the brightly coloured image of a Lakeland Plastics Banana Guard, below, so the builder wouldn't see me looking at it.

Thing is, in yellow, and as someone happily beyond adolescence, Banana Guards, "designed to accommodate virtually every shape and size", almost make sense. They also only look slightly obscene, in the kind of way that people desperate to make weak phallic jokes may pick up on.

However, when I whipped out a pink Banana Guard, aged 14, at school during morning break, I was the victim of much dildo-related accusation for a week; which feels very long when acne is the closest thing you've got to boobs, and you're still not entirely sure what a dildo is.

After such an incident, my stocking filler got thrown to the back of the Tupperware cupboard where I believe it still gathers dust. By this morning's reaction, I don't think I'll be taking it out any time soon.

However, the following double-page spread regarding Lakeland Plastics was something that brought a far greater warmth to the heart. I am the grateful spawn of a Lakeland Plastics fan. In fact, I swear our kitchen and the amazing foody treats that come out of it are in part built by Lakeland Plastics.

Whenever Mummy Bowlface comes home wielding a new Lakeland item, I am invariably hugely sceptical. Take, for example, the banana bag. It's pictured in its natural habitat - our fridge - below. Known affectionately as the 'banana sleeping bag', one of Family Bowlface's staple foods, the banana, is kept to perfect conditions in this contraption, and doesn't send off any bad banana fumes to the other fruit. Apparently.

That's pie it's squishing, by the way. Not meat, as it may appear to be.

Initially I accused the purchaser of wasting money on ridiculous novelty kitchen items, but, if used in the proper way, rather than being forgotten about - I won't eat stuff if I can't see it - it is quite good.

Clearly, had I not experienced such aversion to it so young in life, I would be one of the thousands of Banana Guard fans. Or even taken it as far as, G Harper, who commented online, "wish I had invented the banana guard!"

Having just caught myself getting all interested over silicone cupcake moulds I think the Lakeland-lover gene will inevitably out. Just think what they will have invented in ten years' time...!