"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.    

No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

So. I am in Jamaica - the one in Queens, NY, rather than the Caribbean island. It's 05.18 here, but my frustratingly consistent body clock had me up at 4am. After forty minutes or so of rolling around and huffing, I figured I'd do something constructive with myself and create a massive sleep debt with a little Bowlpost.

It seems a long time since the Fancy Nancy discoveries - since then I have packed, re-packed, taken out some definitely essential knitwear, denim and shoes, packed again and underwent varying tedious airport things. The flight consisted of me catching up on some heavy cheekbone-action from Tom Hughes' bad boy performance in the Gervais-Merchant hillaire that is Cemetery Junction, eating some not unpleasant airline food and sending myself off to sleep with a G&T. Once I'd got through the rigmarole of security, in which I repeated that yes, I was staying just in Brooklyn for 90 days, about eight times to three increasingly terrifying men in uniform, my bag had kindly fallen off the baggage carousel for me to establish that one of its straps had decided to retire to make the most of its 'vacation' in NY. I gather it was just very keen to be searched by blue-gloved hands unsuccessfully for something that wasn't clothes or Marmite.

A little wander down the dark streets of Jamaica, past a couple of Gentlemen's Clubs and even a Liverpool St and I arrived as a sweaty wonder in the hotel. Four hours of sleep later, and here I am.

NY fulfilled-cliches and discoveries so far:
- I am old enough to be called 'ma'am'
- A 'Bodega' is a corner shop.
- American people do say 'lift' instead of 'elevator', but they might just have been humouring me when I questioned its whereabouts.
- The aforementioned lifts are so far the same size as most of the bedrooms I've rented.

OK, fairly underwhelming list but if you check back: I've been in this country eight hours and asleep for half that time. I've not even switched on HBO yet on my insanely huge TV, which is directly opposite my insanely huge bed and in front of the insanely huge shower.

Just one hour until I can run downstairs and gorge myself on (hopefully insanely huge) pancakes. Excellent.

Fancy Nancy is BACK

Back, back, baaacckkk! Yes, FN Fans, she's been returned to the internet. In her righteous, 1988, authored by Ruth Craft, illustrated by Nicola Smee, glorious, old lady-battling form. I'm so in love with these books that I've semi-permanently attached them to my face so that I can type and be close to them at the same time.

This is possibly the most degree-relevant thing I've done since graduating - and I can't help but think that my Childrens' Literature tutor would be mildly proud and potentially distressed at the excitement I'm experiencing.

Re-discovering FN is also fairly life relevant round about now, as her noughties counterpart is New York based and I'm heading there on Friday to try and become a real journalist and eat bagels and whoopie pies. If I wasn't worried enough about people misinterpreting my love of irony for rudeness, or asking me to repeat words like 'snooker', or having to ask where the 'restroom' is, or indeed giving up within seconds and throwing myself under a yellow taxi the minute I escape from JFK - this Fancy Nancy business is enough to lose sleep over. Alas.

As a comfort blanket, then, I've scanned in the most life-affirming (and potentially influential) moments of FN. FN Gold, if you will. I've also picked illustrations where FN's mum is wearing similar clothes to those I favour - classic 90s mum.

Note excellent skipping and satchel efforts from Fancy Nancy and similarly pleasing cardigan/jeans/jazz shoe combo sported by Mum.

Fancy Nancy fights large overdressed lady for the elusive whale-covered bag.

Fancy Nancy befriends somebody else's animal on public transport. Standard.

That's better. Now I've shared FN's original greatness with the world I can happily tuck myself into bed with these fine publications and dream of a New York experience that involves dancing around in a star-spangled banner on a fire escape staircase whilst smothering myself in S'mores.

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.

Mole-stuffing and Munich

Yeouch, evidently I've broken the two-posts-a-week rule. Bad times. As ever, this is due to:
a) not much happening, and
b) too much happening to get to blogspot.
Yes, that cruel paradox.

Last week pretty much comprised of slavery to high-end retail, minus the amount of customers which make such slavery bearable. As a result, we came up with means of entertainment including trying on all the ugliest clothes in the stock room (ok, so that was just me, but everyone else enjoyed it), discovering mutual love of Shakira and discussing the metaphysics of The Stray Cats' lead singer. What if he really was a cat? This is what infinite repeats of 100 Hits of the 80s CDs will do. I would embed the video but I fear that listening to it in a non-work context may result in my brain imploding.

Other highlights last week including STUFFING A MOLE. I know, it's a pretty big highlight for a taxidermy fan. A local rookie taxidermist friend is constantly on the hunt for mini furry victims of natural death and animal-suicide to give a second life to, and lo and behold, parentals Bowlface found a mole of such unfortunate circumstances in our garden! Everyone (me and local rookie taxidermist friend) was very excited. Anyway, it's been stuffed! and called after the real Bowlface familial name of Vincent! And we (see above generic plural) really want to dress him in tiny Victorian garb! Here's a pic, the squeamish may want to look away - despite his friendly giant-pawed gesture he's got a bit of a bloody jaw.

This week, however, has been enslaved to high-end retail for only the latter half. The former half I went to Munich on some super cheap flights for social reasons (getting out of the Shire). Cheap flights involved a fair amount of coach travel. However between Memmingem and Munich I really got into the Deutsch of things and cracked open Slaughterhouse Five and Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express to accompany me along the borderline Black Forest autobahn, which unavoidably caused images of Nazi propaganda (the prettier ones with fields in) to come to mind. Once in Munich, time was mainly spent getting excited over the taste sensation that is Weissbier and cycling around on 'rescued' (albiet by means of sawing off a chain, prior to my arrival) Holga, the prettiest once-abandoned bike in Munich.

Munich is made for cyclists; the cycle paths are as wide as the roads, they have their own traffic lights and pedestrians who walk in them tend not to out of shame (massive contrast to England where I feebly ring my bell before shouting CYCLE PATH in the face of whoever I nearly crash into as a last resort). Holga, naturally, had a basket which we shoved copies of German Vice magazine, Brot und Kase and other fun picnic stuff into, before embarking for the 'English' Garten to swim in fake rivers and giggle childishly at wierdly shaven old naked men.

Holga, I miss you so much.

I also listened to Belgian artist Michael Borremans in conversation with an undeniably critical German chap about his awesome paintings, how easy it was to find Nazi magazines in Belgium and how much he ripped off Caravaggio. I think it helped that he'd removed his brogues and sat happily in bare feet, or that he had a ginger beard, or that he retorted to the challenging philosophical art questions with lines like 'well, yes, she could just be sat in a bath of chocolate...or shit', but I fell a little bit in love with him. Here's one of my favourites:

Aaaand that just about takes us up to riight now. There's another big social event in the village tonight (the Shire is just one huge social whirlwind - should probably set up a new label for it), except this time it's in my parents' garden. I've been warned by Mummy Bowlface 'not to write anything nasty' about her on the blog -even though it stems from deep, deep affection and pride - so tomorrow's review may well be censored. I can, however, say this much: there has already been conversations both about and with the furniture this morning. As ever, I'm going to make a fashionably late entrance, not because I'm cool, but because I'm working. Exciting times.

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.

Library Tweets

It only took 48 hours for the library novelty to wear off. I knew there was a reason I had boycotted it for all this time. Even situated in a library-crew dominated part of the 'learning lounge', next to three large windows allowing sunshine and scenic views (of the Great North Road and some foliage, albeit) and a mere five metres from the cafe, it still only took me approximately five hours to crash and burn, groaning loudly in public and then banging my head into a copy of The Interpreter of Maladies.

A highlight of my day, however, (which really puts things into perspective), was the discovery that Newcastle's Robinson Library has its own Twitter account. Bearing in mind the recent Twitter addiction - new procrastinatory measures are essential in such times, and it's a fun way to find out news, and it's updated internationally so I can find out what's happening in other time zones when other people are having Sunday morning lie-ins - and the temporary love of the library, this was pretty epic stuff.

You can follow the library here, but for non-tweeters I can't help but feel it's necessary to share the wealth. @nulibrs has a lovely shot of the external 1970s brick delight that is the Robinson Library from its 'good side', i.e., near a tree, but also updates shockingly regularly on just how busy the library is. For example, on May 9th at 3.03pm, we learn that 'the library is very full at the moment. All the laptops are out on loan and the clusters are very busy' - pray tell, just what is the library tweeting on? Fret not, though, as @nulibrs does offer handy, thoughtful advice, such as: 'We are open til midnight tonight. Why not come along in the evening when the Library is quieter and you have a choice of desk space...' I love the use of elipses. It's like the library is asking you out on a date or something; "you can choose your own desk, library user".

Sometimes @nulibrs just takes it one step further, however. Granted, this was at around 3.45 yesterday, when the delirium was really setting in, but I did a proper not-suitable-for-public-use GUFFAW at this tweet: 'The student Nightbus service will not be running again until after the Bank Holiday - the bus has faulty gear stick.' The attention to detail is just beautiful. As is the sheer optimism in its followers, demonstrated in the following: 'For more info on how you can help keep the library clean and quiet during the exam period have a look at: http://bit.ly/9yfcPm.' There's procrastination and then means of failing a degree - desperation to the extent of wanting to look at that bit.ly probably falls into the latter. I can't imagine, nor am I going to stoop so low as to look at it to find out, what it says. Probably something along the lines of 'use a bin'. 

I am one of 28 proud @nulibrs followers. That's three more than how many follow it, which is significantly better ratio than on my account. What's really great, though, is the fact that it's following OTHER LIBRARIES' TWITTERS. There's this whole community of libraries-what-tweet, including the British Library, Sheffield, Liverpool and Leeds University Libraries, and, potentially my favourite, the 'gangsta' 'Toon Library' - being Newcastle's City Library. This could become a whole new flock of tweets to follow in these dark assessment days. 

In other news, I saw a crack fox in West Jesmond last night. I know, hard to believe in potentially the most salubrious student-dominated suburb ever, however, it did run out of a garage and along the metro line, so it gets some 'grit' points. Sad to say in the evening sunlight it was a beautifully glossy ginge colour, potentially over-large and certainly didn't offer me any 'blood from a cat's face'. Anyway, in celebration, here is one of my favourite bits of the Mighty Boosh about a crack fox. Enjoy. 

How To Communicate Effectively

This is the title of a real book. It's published in 1988, so it's like an archaic pre-internet artefact. Seeing as most of my communication is done through twitter, facebook, email or text message and none of these things existed when this book was written, I can definitely learn a thing or two from it. Exciting.

I stole it off Sociology Flatmate, who apparently has to write an essay about it or something. It's an improvement on the post-apocalyptic and consumerist nightmare novels I'm meant to be writing essays on, and furthermore the fact it's written in the form of Girl Talk-esque questionaires gives it an extra element of nostalgic fun.

So, I have compiled the best of the questionaire questions in this 96 page book so you kids can have a fun early evening activity and surmise absolutely nothing about how effectively you communicate.

1. Do you know what 'slow-blink' is and why it occurs?
2. Do you communicate impatience by drumming your fingers on the table when you are listening?
3. Do your glasses inhibit good eye communication?
4. Does your telephone voice differ from your speaking voice?
5. Can you recall the last time you looked up a new word in a dictionary?
6. Do you tell more than two jokes a week?
7. Do people tend to laugh when they are around you? (I really think this question should be accompanied with an 'if so, why?'

obligatory library post

OH, look, it's everyone's favourite three words. It can't really come to this time of year (being two weeks before hand-in date and the end of my degree) without a post on the library. Last year there were at least two, and plenty more mentions. I dare say the Robinson Library is feeling a little neglected. This might be why the library computer:
a) initially opened THAT site about Jesus
b) refused to open http://www.bowlface.blogspot.com/
c) opened Bowlface but instantly closed it down, THREE TIMES.
d) wouldn't let me sign in.

So, after much technical jiggery pokery I've beaten the system, promised the library it would get its annual post and here we are. I do have some relatively exciting news, however. After three years of university education I have managed to get the locating and issuing of a book down to less that thirty seconds. This is how long it should take, but I'm normally confused by the numbers or too short or looking suspiciously at that other girl from my course lingering around the same section for that one elusive, incredibly popular book on Vikram Seth. Yes, I know what you're upto.

BUT, even more exciting, I've discovered a SECRET LIBRARY ROOM WITH PRIVATE COMPUTER JUST FOR ME. Which means I can blog and check my facebook and do all those other things you're not meant to do because people tut in lovely, peaceful privacy. Shame the keyboard's so bloody loud. Ironically, this is probably the first and last time I'll ever use it, but it's nice to know I've got the best out of my tuition fees.