Add: Sir John Soane’s Museum

Ahhh. This has to be one of my favourite places in London. And it’s the newest addition to the Britain’s Best Buildings series of videos on the Guardian.Sir John Soane was responsible for designing some of Britain’s most memorable buildings, so it’s only fitting that his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields should be one of the best buildings.In this video, the narrator compares Sir John’s architecture to poetry. The Soane Museum is the personalization of all of Sir John’s theories on architecture and light. If you’ve never visited it in London, I recommend that you add it to your list, especially the candle-light tour they give on Tuesday evenings.This video, combined with an article from last weekend’s Wall Street Journal Off Duty section describing one of the rooms at the house, with more than 120 mirrors, will give you an excellent idea of what a special place this museum has in many people’s hearts.

Add Castle Howard

The Guardian has just added the baroque Castle Howard in Yorkshire, designed by English playwright and architect Sir John Vanbrugh, to their list of the most Beautiful Buildings of Britain. I must say that I have to agree with this choice! It’s really a stunning place and has been owned by the same family for many generations.  Howard says they’ve been in the house through good times and bad times and that he will stay there until he “shuffles off to his mortal coil”.  He also says they “struggle on” which was picked up by commenters, but the narrator says that the struggle is to keep it in the family, and they’ve been working on repairing the house since a fire in 1940!The house is the first country house to have a dome added to it, rather like St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with its whispering gallery. Take a look at this wonderful little Guardian video, here.

Wallis, Edward + Madonna… It’s Not Good!

Word from the Venice Film Festival is that the new Madonna-directed film, WE, is pretty ghastly. Madonna makes very liberal  use of the truth, or the truth as it’s generally accepted. In fact, as she says in an interview, that she “wasn’t interested in making a straight-forward bio-pic” and that it’s her “point of view, after digesting all of the information and doing all of the years of research…” So she uses the story of a young woman named Wally to tell the story, going back and forth in time a la Julie & Julia, because the truth is subjective.  Madonna said that she used the success of The King’s Speech as “laying the groundwork for her film”.

Somehow, this view of W+E is about the last thing I think either of them would be caught doing!

Here’s the Guardian’s hilarious take on Madonna and the film, with a link to Xan Brooks’ scathing review, including a clip of Madonna’s press conference in Venice where’s she’s dressed in an approximation of Wallis herself.

Age: 53.

Appearance: Ghost of Gaga Yet to Come.

What has she done? She's directed a hilarious new film.

What's it called? W.E.

About what? Wallis Simpson.

You mean the loud American girl in The King's Speech? That's her.

What makes her film-worthy? Well, for one thing King Edward VIII abdicated to marry her. Then there are the divorces, her notorious love of clothes, jewels and wealth and the accusations of Nazi sympathies.

I guess. She's not exactly an obvious subject for a comedy, though, is she? Oh, the film's not supposed to be funny: it's a period drama. It's just laughably bad. At least according to the critics. The first screening, at this year's Venice film festival, had the audience rolling in the aisles.

What's so funny about it? Various things, not least the fact that Simpson's story is told in parallel with the story of a woman in 1990s New York, who, in the words of our reviewer Xan Brooks, "is obsessed by the woman to a degree that struck me as deeply worrying, but which Madonna presents as evidence of impeccable good taste". Oh, and sometimes Simpson's ghost visits the woman in the 1990s.

Any stand-out scenes? So glad you asked. As it happens, yes, one scene has made a particularly lasting impression: an extended dream sequence in which Edward spikes the drinks of his royal entourage, causing an intoxicated Wallis to leap on stage and dirty dance with a Maasai tribesman.

Did that actually happen? Almost definitely not, and if it had, they certainly wouldn't have danced, as they do in the film, to the Sex Pistols' hit Pretty Vacant. Which, while admittedly an anachronistic choice, does sum up just about every review the film's received.

Do say: "It's the film The King's Speech could have been."

Don't say: "Like a virgin, touching a camera for the very first time."As the Guardian also says, “It is certainly a slightly revisionist take on the story, with Edward coming across as a frustrated social reformer demanding better housing for the poor before sipping another gin martini.” Said the Guardian’s film critic of Madonna’s last directorial effort, film-goers were “in a state of clinical shock, deathly pale and mewing like maltreated kittens" after watching it.

However, I do understand that the costuming is spectacular, and from what I saw in the most recent Vanity Fair spread about the film, the clothes and sets are wonderful.

La Guerre des Post-it

That’s right – POST-IT NOTE WARS!It’s happening in Paris office buildings from Société Générale at La Défense to Coca-Cola and even in classic Paris apartments!Is this Michael Jackson, or someone jumping? The battle is between presumably underemployed office workers who are devoting large chunks of their days to sticking thousands of pink, yellow, orange and green notes on their windows to recreate pixelated images.Apparently, the largest of the images takes up three floors and had to be computer-generated to figure out the pattern. It’s now La rentrée, time for everyone to return to Paris after being gone for the month of August. I wonder if the Post-It note art will disappear?

Here are some others I found on Post-It Wars…

Mona Lisa in a corner TinTin, a French favouriteHmmm. Wonder what kind of computers they use? Rolling Stones Fan

Aren’t these fun! Would you ever do something like this in your office window? I totally would!

More Literary Homes for Sale

A few weeks ago, I wrote about J.K. Rowlings’ childhood home being for sale. Well, that has sold already, but there are two more literary homes on offer.

Daphne DuMaurier’s cottage in Cornwall, with the amazing name of Readymoney, is on the market. This is the house where she lived after she wrote  Rebecca and Frenchman’s Creek. The cottage was originally built as a coach house and stables for the nearby waterfront Italianate mansion, Point Neptune.From there, duMaurier moved to Menabilly, a grander house she had known for years and which is reputedly one of the inspirations for Manderley, the atmospheric but doom-laden house and estate in Rebecca.

The home where Charles Dickens summered for more than 22 years is also on the market. Originally named Fort House, after he stopped going there the house was re-named as Bleak House, after his famous story. This house is where he completed David Copperfield, and it was where the idea of Bleak House came to him.  The residence is located at the top of a cliff with stunning views of the English Channel, where Dickens could watch the maritime trade passing by. Both houses are for sale in the vicinity of £2 million.

{Sorry for my absence the past day or two. I’ve been struggling with a bout of vertigo, but seem to be feeling much better now, thanks!}

I’ll Take This… Sully Island, Wales

I used to see this little island when I would go to the monthly car-boot sale, sponsored by the Sully Rugby Club. I’d look out over the sea and Sully Island would come into view. I always had a soft spot for this particular “boot sale” as it was there that I bought my little chandelier… and for the hunky rugby players who directed you to a parking space. Now I see that Sully Island is for sale. It’s actually pretty inexpensive – only £95,000, down from £1.25m only last year.  Of course, there are no buildings, no roads and no deepwater dock. In fact, the only way to get to the island is to walk across at low tide – and the tide in that area swings about 10 meters between high and low. Here’s what the estate agents have to say:

Home to an abundance of species of birdlife and fauna, and a highly regarded fishing spot, Sully Island is a beautiful and captivating feature of the South Wales coastline with its own chequered history dating back many hundreds of years.

From Romans and Vikings, to pirates and noblemen, all have used the island for their own purposes, foul or fair, and evidence of a burial mound and a hill fort, together with the timber skeleton of a wrecked vessel are visible on or around the island today. It is reputed before the First World War the son of the Marquis of Bute successfully cultivated a vineyard on the island to supply his father’s bottling plant in Castell Coch. Whilst the vineyard has long gone, it is believed that whoever owns the island retains the right to commission their very own postage stamps!What you can’t see on this map, but you can see in the image above it, are two other islands – Flat Holm, which was flat, and Steep Holm, which was steep!  There is a road running along the cliff and that was the road I drove going to work at the Castle.

Here are the details on the island, just in case you’ve got a spare £95,000 and a hankering for some solitude!

Vintage Charm (?) The French Way

As I was surfing around the Guardian this evening, I spotted a series of images whose title attracted my eye… Vintage Charm, the French Way.  Well, some of it I found completely charming, and other views of it were charmless. I’ll let you decide which is which.

The ordinary and the extra­ordinary exist side by side in Isabelle Puech’s Paris apartment – a converted carousel workshop in the 9th arrondissement, where merry-go-round horses were once repaired. The upper reaches of this vast, double-height space are accessed via a rusting spiral staircase, and three large, first world war battlefield medical kits – found, like much else, in the flea markets of Vanves and St-Ouen – are used as seating. Metal girders and factory lighting add to the industrial air, which is only ­softened by a wooden rocking chair. The workshop’s former office is now a kitchen, complete with distressed cabinets and charcoal-grey tiles. “Paris has been so done up that much of its texture has been lost,” says Puech, one of Paris’s best known maroquiniers (leather workers).The old atelier’s concrete floor, battered brick walls and beamed ceiling have been left, alongside a glorious tiled floor in the main bathroom. A second, smaller bathroom has its original sink.The bedroom has a reclaimed filing cabinet and a distressed screen that serves as a headboard – found in a flea market. The lavender bed linen picks out similar shades in the parquet floor. Animals hoofs and oil paintings – flea market finds – in the main living space.

So, what do you think?

Great Day at the Garden Fest

The Garden Festival at Ladew Topiary Gardens was a huge success, with the largest crowd ever! It could not have been a more gorgeous day, with temps in the low 70’s and a clear bright blue sky overhead!

One of the main attractions at the Garden Festival is the availability of things that you don’t usually find, especially plants and antiques. Both were in great evidence at the Festival.When Mum and I got to the Gardens, we headed for the barn where I spotted this great Chinese Chippendale-style bench.  I didn’t check the price of the bench, but the polo mallets were about $250 each. Shouldn’t have thrown the ones we had in our garage away!

In a lot of places, columbines grow wild, but they’re not native to this area. They are such interesting flowers, and when the seed-heads come in, they look like a tall pointy crown.  I am always drawn to the minute details of flowers, and ones I saw were no exception.

The plant in the bottom right image is a double file Viburnum, and it was just the most spectacular bush! It probably covered about 200 square feet and was about 15+ feet tall. The branches were covered in a double row of florets, and they were a bright white.   The flowers almost look like lace-cap hydrangeas, but they stand out on the branches like arms held straight to the sides.  It was really a stunning plant.

The antiques tent held a lot of treasures, as always!  Here, the men of Halcyon House are completing a sale, one of many many during the day!I loved this little bird-house with some of their great salt-and-pepper shakers standing in for real birds.  And what’s not to love about a great John Robshaw pillow? Here are some other things in the antiques tent that caught my eye.

Beautiful antique Philadelphia-made chrysanthemum plates Roll of old linen fabric. Gawd only knows how I managed to resist this! Two of my favourite things: Old iron urns and peonies! I loved this little set of Lloyd Loom chairs and ottoman with the great blue and white toile! These contemporary garden pieces from Pennoyer-Newman, are actually very light-weight, as you can see here. She looks like Atlas carrying the world!

Thanks so much to everyone who came up and spoke to me, and thank you so much for reading the blog! It means the world to me. 

Tomorrow: Pictures from the Ladew Gardens which are in spectacular form this year!