Prussia Cove Sandy Lamp

Here's a lovely little trick I learned from family holidays to an estate in south Cornwall. They used wine bottles but you can use any type of bottle - here I've used an old olive oil bottle.

What you'll need:

• An old bottle


• Sand from your favourite beach


• A small lampshade A bulb (60watt)


• A bottle lamp holder adaptor (I used this one)

First thing's first - get the sand into the bottle. By hook or crook. If you're brighter than me you'll use a funnel... Bang the bottom of the bottle on a hard surface a couple of times while filing to shift the sand down into it: Next, attach the lightshade and lightbulb to the adaptor:

Hey presto: plug it in and switch it on!

The Craft Homemaker

Recessions are a good enough reason to dust off the sewing scissors and set to work designing and creating your own masterpieces at home.

I admit to being the seamstress for our school fashion show 15 years ago - largely because I was the only one who could work a sewing machine. From there I went to art college and painting took over. I never really sewed again.

Here I am at 30, cautiously dipping my toes back into the lost crafts of homemaking - knitting, sewing and upholstering, among other things.

It's nice. It means I get to furnish my home with bespoke curtains, lamps and cushions and I don't have to pay the ends of the earth to do so.

Enjoy x

New-Age Anonymous

You used to be branded a recluse if you were a techno-geek.

Now it appears the tables have turned.

Last weekend Google-lovers in the Bergerhausen area of Essen, Western Germany, apparently egged houses whose owners had opted to blur them out on Google's well-loved Street View.

Not satisfied with a good old-fashioned egging, the vandals taped 'Google's cool' notes to their mailboxes.

Yes Google's cool, but is criminal damage on Google's behalf really that cool? Really? Nothing more imaginative going on up there? Nothing better with which to ocupy your time? I'm already shuddering at the possible IQ of the perpetrators.

Google was quick to "distance itself completely" from the craziness saying of those who chose the blur: "we respect their wishes".

It's quite some world when you can't even choose anonymity for fear of being targeted as a kill-joy.

My other-half remains free of even Facebook. I know this is a serious slur on new-age humanity but each to their own, no? In years to come my Grandchildren will probably disown their wayward Gran for her online idiocy, while Granddad takes the limelight of their affections. The rough with the smooth, you see...

A Middleton class wedding

And so it is. A few hours ago my news-gland twitched with this little sentence from @BBCBreaking 'Clarence House has said Prince William is to marry Kate Middleton next year.'

You know, I already blogged about this - 4 years ago. Romance on a plate. This time it's ('exclusive') romance on a thimble. And this time it's actually happening.

Charly said he was "thrilled, obviously, thank you. They have been practising long enough". Living in sin - that's what I like to see from a modern-day Royal Couple.

I'm also loving New York Times reports that Kate's "solidly middle class" mum said to have previously "chewed gum and used unaristocratic words like “toilet” and “pardon” in front of the queen." What's wrong with pardon anyway? I was always told that was preferable to 'what?'

Dave of the Cam has bizarrely admitted he slept rough on the mall the night before Charly and Di's nuptials. Imagine that. I shall expect nothing less from him next year.

Wills is said to have asked Mr Middleton's permission for Kate's hand - I hope Kate's paid the same repect and asked Ben Fogal for Wills'.

The Mail are triumphant that Kate has 'worn William down', as every good woman does to her man, of course. The Sun's calling Kate Wills' 'African Queen' presumably because got engaged last month in Kenya - anything to sex-it-up, eh Murdoch?

The Guardian is awash with anti-royalist 'do we get a day off for the wedding - and then another for the divorce?', and you know the digital age has truly arrived when Queeny tweeted it as @BritishMonarchy. I'm sure they could have come up with a better twitter name for her than that...

All that is left is for 9 months of media-glare, fanfare and souvenir production. Good luck to you, middle-class Kate. Your face is already on the tea towels...

First there was Coco Pops

First there was Coco Pops who bizarrely tried out a whole new (rubbish) name.

Then at the beginning of last year Cornwall Council announced to the world it was changing its branding and unveiled its new logo.
The rejected Cornwall Council logo

Then thousands of people went the old-fashioned way and signed a petition against the 'un-Cornish' branding and the council backed down, throwing thousands of pounds in the bin as they did so. I've got to say, I rather liked it. The logo, not the petition.

And now Gap have done it the technological way - reacting to Facebook criticism they've gone and binned their new generic, bland offering, saying "We've heard loud and clear that you don't like the new logo. We've learned a lot from the feedback. We only want what's best for the brand and our customers".
Gap's rejected logo

So why do organisations go to all the bother of changing if they weren't 100% sure about the logo they unveil in such a glorious fashion? Gap, especially, centres its marketing around its brand - most recognised through its elongated logo. What were they trying to achieve by the new logo, which let's face it, is about as interesting as a vacuume cleaner?

It looks like they were going for digital - new age, and in doing so simply became as generic as every other page on the web. And they could have probably bought few dozen Dyson's with the money they wasted.

Is all lost under Red Ed?

I got a text while sunning myself in Portugal at end of last month. It was from my boss, and it read, simply "Ed- 1, Dave - 0". It took me just a moment or two until I realised what he was telling me. Red Ed had snatched victory from under his brother's nose.

On my return I found out it was even more serious than that. Ed won on the back of the trade union vote - allowed a bigger proportion of the vote than individual members of the Labour party.
Pic c/o PA

While the country reels from quick, harsh public sector cuts from the Tories (I'm not even going to mention the Libs as they are now Tory in my eyes) I've been reliably informed the speed and severity of the cuts is no accident. It means services will be irreparable even into the next term, so Labour's chance of snatching victory and then quickly mending our battered country is even slimmer.

And who's going to vote for Red Ed? Are enough people die-hard liberals to vote for him? Wasn't Dave our chance of easing back into Labour in an un-frightening, charismatic manner?

I think, terrifyingly, all might be lost.

Tate for Tate

UPPDATE:

The BBC are reporting that the Tate is now having to stop people from walking on the 'seeds' due to the toxic dust it's sending into the hall... what a shame.

BLOG:

Loving this exhibition at the Tate's Turbine gallery right now.

Pic c/o TheBerry.com

As What's On editor Lee Trewhela points out - I wonder how many seeds people will try to pocket as a souvenir...

The Tubine Hall is such a versatile space. One of my favourite exhibitions there was The Weather Project which shone your eyes off the moment you walked in. People would bump into each other walking around because they were too busy looking at the 'sun'. I miss not being able to pop in on my walk back to the station from work anymore.

We're not bereft of lovely exhibitions here in Cornwall though. Yesterday I was shown around the Contemporary British Silversmiths exhibition at the Royal Cornwall Museum (which despite its facade-hiding scaffolding is in fact open!) by charming founding committee member and Cornishman Charles Hall. Read my review here.


The Tate in St Ives has also welcomed home one of it's old masters Peter Lanyon. Although the works themselves are at some points so dark you feel like crying, the exhibition itself is an important one. Read that review here.

I've simply swapped one for the other, perhaps.