in ur ed .... (brgh)

i always do this. i get absolutely addicted to writing blogs, then something will disrupt my routine and i'll forget the concept of blogging ever exsisted. it's probably got something to do with me actually leaving the house a few times recently. in the past few weeks i've embarked on the largest excursions my little stumpy legs have ever seen.

my date with mr. megabus was a beaut. the purpose of such a journey? to visit my very dear, very camp, very kenyan friend brian (above) who promised me a weekend of gay bar clubbing, the likes of which i'd never seen before. but as luck/uncontrolled student spending would have it, when i arrived brian declared he had no money. but hey, it's not like i travelled 10hours on a coach and had the man sitting next to me steal my sudoko book for half the journey, was it? oh wait...

to fill in that part of the weekend that was actually my stay in edinborough, here are some images i took whilst there. highlights included: house warmings, french lesbian neighbours with cats, packaging parties, vertigo 2ft up arthur's seat & strange glances everytime i said "blimey" and/or "ain't". southerns ay?

everybody's going to be happy

yes its another blog involving animals. i have been deemed a modern day beatrix potter due to the amount of animal content my blogs have to offer, but everyone loves animals so i shant stop now!

moments ago, daisy and i had been discussing my love of my cat bailey. i think daisy was trying to insinuate that the love sometimes went too far, but i think she's just jealous that she doesn't have a cat as cool as bailey. "you wanna see my pet duck," daisy proclaimed "well it's dead now." cue laughing fit number one.

so daisy sends me this picture of her duck, clint:


simultaneously i am listening to this song by the kinks. cue laughing fit number two. me and my mum have this concept of song's "looking like" pets. this term means that a song fits well with something, as in the song could be this things soundtrack. its usually funniest when animals are involved, like with this duck - clint.


daisy found this concept a bit perplexing at first. although discovering songs that look like animals should be a spontanious and coincidental event, in order to educate daisy, she sent me images of her pets which i then added soundtracks to. this image following image i accompanied with this song :



daisy then felt comfortable with the concept and attempted her own putting this song to this image:



...laughing fit number three quickly ensued.

and as an extra, here's a song for bloggers that i just danced round my bedroom with bailey to.

love emmie twee

thoroughly fiona

i love it when coincidence appears in the really mundane things in life. like i love when something reminds you of something else and causes other things to happen in a chain reaction. for example today.

this morning i woke up with the worst hair ever so in an attempt to redeem it i wanted to wear my headband with the flower on it to distract from the horror that was the rest of my head. i searched high and low, but alas it was no where to be seen so i got frustrated and flustered and decided to get out my room and clean and tidy the rest of the house to keep my sanity.

usually, i just give the place a quick tidy but today i decided to be thorough, so thorough that i was even going to wash the pile of bath and tea towels that had gathered in the corner of the kitchen. i picked them up and shock horror, a dead frog. i ran round the house screaming, shouting "YOU BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the cats and other general hysteria. i returned to the kitchen, wondering how i'd remove the body without upsetting myself but the frog wasn't where i'd left it. i was greeted with this:

so fiona was returned to the wild. mission accomplished. and incase you're wondering, the aggression from myself at the end was chasing florence's beady eyes away from fiona as she seemed to hoping for round two of "who wants to traumatise another unsuspecting animal?"

the rest of the day carried on. i had calmed down from my headbandless rage of the morning and carried on with the organisation of my bombsite of a room. i stumbled across the mirror we'd used from the setbuild project which had a little picture of a frog painted on it. it looked just like fiona and to mark the occasion, i thought i'd hang the mirror on the wall. i couldn't find the tool box. all i could find was some sticky fixers, which seemed to do the trick. i waited apprehensively, knowing full well the sticky fixers wouldn't last long and the likelyhood of the mirror breaking and landing me another seven years bad luck was quite probable. as it unattached itself i saw it fall slow motion behind my little table. no smash. "how's your luck!?" i thought, as i picked it up still intact. and as if by magic, i pulled the mirror up and dangling on the bottom, stuck to a sticky fixer was my little lost headband. what a happy ending!

i am quite aware that you have probably stopped reading by now or have fallen asleep but it made me laugh. i do love life sometimes.

blog-blog-blog music

love emmie twee

"grown up yet?" "never!!"

officially been a citizen of dirtford again for an entire week now. i've given back to the community in a number of ways:

catching swine flu
recovering

organising my room
living in pjamas
catching up with big brother
bunking the train
walking home barefoot at 9am
baking cupcakes
bidding fairwell to bridie
battling with stag beetles
saving earth worms
fashioning palm trees out of bluetack
crimping my hair
crying at sad films
cuddling cats
blogging
becoming overdrawn

it's fair to say that i needed to do these things to feel like myself again. i feel like i've had a mini detox. i do miss chatham though, in a strange way. i miss that little room i'll never be able to call mine again, but to be honest, it never felt like mine in the first place. it was more of a limbo. still, i'm going to miss having everyone within a couple of stairwells of eachother.

its been a strange old year. the best and worst things of my life have happened. i should've grown up a lot, but it's probably had the reverse effect. my peter pan syndrome has now become severe, i want to stay 20 for the rest of my life.

here's some emotive pictures of my last moments in my room. me and mum attempted to make them appear unposed. i think we failed.

the burglars forgot my bed linen so came back. wankers.

the river, my only friend "...i hate you..." shut up river!!

friends?? - no, they all went home early remember? - oh yeah

top of the blogs

love emmie twee

house of hucknall

it all came out today. i've been continuously probed for weeks by 90's singing sensation mick hucknall about my ethnical background but today i finally broke. the interigation became too much and i realised it was time to stop living a lie about my family's entrance into this country. as you may or may not be aware, my full name is ridiculously long. "emanuella may margherita tondina" points inexplicitly to my being of an italian background, of which mick has persistently questioned. i have felt personally victimised as the trauma of coming here was possibly the worst experience of my life. no i did not come on the back of a lorry. nor did i just overstay my visa. neither did i apply for a student visa.

back home in italy, my family were wig makers by trade. we had a thriving business until we made a fatal error and made one too many ginger wigs. due to the sheer number of unwanted ginger mohawks left over, we hit a finiancial crisis and sought help from uk corperate wig company "house of hucknall". they offered us all the known world. all the gold that we could eat. we believed we were to be moving our business over, setting up in a part of their warehouse and working in partnership. but no. they screwed us over. instead of a warehouse and outlet for selling our ginger wigs, they gave us an italian restaurant and told us our success in the future could only be determined if we worked there and pretended we were the dolmio family.

so there you have it. no more lies. no more deceit. i did not arrive like this.

now scooza me but tai yam off te cooka de pizza.

song for bloggers

love emmie twee

"so long, fair well, aufweidersen today!"

what an emotional old day. at 7.05 tomorrow morning my dear friend bridie catherine patricia mccann will be boarding her plane and leaving for sunny cyprus, one way. and 'ark at me getting all teary about it! she weren't THAT good a friend. gosh. she'll be back in a couple months anyway, knowing her she'll get bored and want a roast off her mum next weekend.

the earlier part of the day was spent looking like snow white and completing a million and one housework tasks INCLUDING baking homemade muffins from scratch. woah yes. here is a picture of my beauties, i think i ate about 8 of them in the end.


i chose the two roundest and least drunk looking muffins and decorated them with pink icing and little metalic multicoloured balls for daisy's birthday and bridie's leaving presents. daisy's had a candle and a obligitary hand made daisy on the side, whereas bridie's turned into more of a lagoon island with a solitary palm tree placed dead centre. i was dead chuffed with the blighters. bailey sat watching like this for the duration of the cake making:



and as a last little bit, i've decided to add a new feature to the end of each blog. just a little song to sum up the events of the day/content of said blog post, whether it be literally true, reminiscent of moments gone or just a bloody good tune. i ain't, as of yet, worked out how to upload mp3s but once i do, i'll be sure to chuck em up here.

song for the bloggers

love emmie twee

the female of the species

simon the stag beetle

the drama for this evening involved my cat florence and every poor unsuspecting little critter in my garden. florence seems to think that our house is not full enough with a mum, a dad, a uni student, a teenage school girl, a siamese cat who thinks he rules the roost and a idiotic kitten who shits herself at any noise or movement. the constant battle to move in half dead garden creatures into our hallway often results in me nearly crying, febi squealing, dad quickly becoming "unavailable" and mum quickly becoming fed up that its her having to deal with the carcass AGAIN.

but this time when florence scuffled through the cat flap with victim number one, crying "ma-o-ral-ral!" (which i believe translates roughly as "i've been a little cunt again") mum and dad were conviniently tucked up in bed, and could not hear me and febi's squeals. so simon the stag beetle latched himself onto a nearby pop sock, which in turn febi swung out the door on the end of a broom whilst we sung "we are sailing" and became a little bit tearful at simons departing. situation sorted. an hour later, "ma-o-ral-ral!". florence decided to try her luck with edith the earth worm.

all this time we thought it was bailey bringing in the "presents". sorry bails. the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

butter wouldn't melt

song for bloggers

love emmie twee

drink. girls, feck off.

i'm sooooo sooooo sorryyyyy

oh dear... in the words of father jack, i'm so so sorry my little blogkins. 3months without so much as a bye or leave is both rude and insensitive. i know, i know, i should've just let you know what i was doing but i was all caught up in the moment and didn't think how it would affect you. and for that, i am truely sorry.

but i'm back now! we can be friends again... right?

whilst you're busy finding it in your heart to forgive me, i'll bring you up to speed. i've finished the first year. its a bit of "WOOO!!! schools out for summer!" but its also equally a bit of "nay :( now everythings gunna change again. i don't want to grow up". i definitely suffer from peter pan syndrome.

i feel like i've just come back from a ridiculously good holiday which, to be honest, the past two weeks have been. me, daisy and kiran stayed at halls till the bitter end and well and truely got our money's worth. its been rather eventful but worth every minute, although i definitely over did it and caught myself a massive heap of swine flu for the last hurdle. i clearly can't handle the party life as much as i'd like to think i can. i'm also owed nearly 60quid for the infamous setbuild project, which my entire group seem to have conviniently forgotten and run off home with. thanks guys!

but anyway, just to let you know i'm still alive and home now. i'll post some nice pictures and videos of uni times in the forseable future, i promise.

and just to reiterate, i'm sorry. here's an upset puppy:


emmie twee x

or summin'

i feel all growed up. today me, charlie, shaun and wai-sum-lum-bum-cum-dum-yum-yum went to look at a house for next year. a modest little terrace house, just off of city way took the lime light when we all imagined our indebted selves going about our studenty ways inside it. a few vital questions need to be asked before we seal the deal like the cost of bills and the all important "can we have a cat?", but i think we're all pretty happy with it. there's a massive feud between charlie and wais over who gets the biggest room. the decision came through the flipping of a coin, which wai-sum lost, claiming that the method of deciding was unfair and that doing "a penalty shoot out or summin" would be a much better determination of who was more worthy of the extra space. being mature and of little income, i've decided to go for the smallest room, meaning i pay less rent and charlie is now in my taxi service debt for the year as his room is consequently twice the size of mine.

in other news, summer is on its way and i can't bloody wait. the plan: runaway as many times as possible, take countless reels of poundland film, say YES more, work work work, meet as many new and interesting people as possible and travel back to 2005 and see blink 182 reform. yes mark. yes tom. yes travis. take off your pants and jacket has been on repeat for 5 days running.

i. am. under, six. teen. years. o' age, fool

today was the longest day in the history of photographerkind. not only did i wake up with 4 snakebites' worth of a hangover, bridie in my bed and a homeless anthony on my floor, but i had to create and perform an entire presentation that would ultimately end up lasting FIVE HOURS. oh, and when i say five hours, i don't mean that my presentation lasted five hours, i mean the five hours worth of sitting listening to everyone else's aswell. i barely lasted five minutes of talking, let alone five hours.

the irony of it all is that at tap & tin's poundland i probably generated more work than i did for the entire advertising project. the photo's i took last night were even more experimental than anything i did in the last 4weeks, long exposures on film and all that jazz. even if they didn't come out great i had a laugh with it. i feel all inspired an' ting. jonas (my canon a1 35mm), will be coming out with me every night from now on. end of.

i'll scan in the produce of last night's labours this week and plop them in here soon. they may even make an appearance on facebook if you're lucky ;)

emmie twee

feline a bit bored

i spent saturday evening in with no internet, a cat and a webcam. here's how the evening panned out:









the last one being my favourite... i definately need to go out and get drunk.

emmie twee

winkle pickered

bridie & i are spearheading a new trend. we've decided, impulse is in & inhibitions are out. our own version of the game in jeux d'enfants is now in full swing, the aim being to act impulsively & out dare eachtother.

game?
game.

today involved picking dafoldils, dances with benches, smashing beer bottles in the park and chasing fit winkle pickered men down chatham high street. as well as these events, we've decided to go to manchester for two nights some weekend in april, just on a whim. we also went to the cafe & had egg/bacon & chips & obligitory cup of tea.

emmie twee

d is for dog

i finally got the guts to open the package and get out my new camera. and yes ok fine i did cry a bit when i remembered trent. i wish i was joking. i've decided to call my new camera vincent and we're getting along swimmingly. this is the first picture i took on my vince and i've gotta say i'm pretty happy with it. this picture is of josh's dog Deefa, Deefa Dog. he doesn't get offended by the pun though, he can't hear. and even if he could hear, he's a dog.

emmie twee

someone stole my shoulders

daisy just directed me to the best music myspace ever. the infamous urban jew, whom she is actually acquainted with."urban back" is genius. this man is being serious.

the urban jew

hiatus

this summer, at one point, i plan to be able to travel back in time to look and behave like this:


how am i going to do this? by seeing blink 182 on their comeback tour. that's how. who's coming with me!?

polaroids of last night

a snakebite soaked fiver we stuck to the wall

just before i started causing destruction

oi oi leroy!

andre romelle young

so a few people definately forgot about the D.R.E last night. dre is like a religion. if you forget about dre then you forget your righteousness. dre will always be with you as long as you believe in him and always remember him. there was certainly a few sinners last night. we won't go into detail. you know who you are. utter. prick.

the rest of the night involved a lot of dancing and snakebite and red bull and me getting a bit over excited and smashing every glass in sight on purpose. i also tipped someone's drink over in my eastenders clearing-a-mantle-piece type rage - although it was more just a feeling of liberation as oposed to rage... i bought them a new drink, but forgot who they were and don't remember what i did with the drink after that. my mind was too busy, my memory regions completely filled with dre.

~ the product of my uncovered brutish ways ~

i woke up today with my phone open on a half written message to josh that went a little something like this: "right. how many times have i told ya? you don't impress no one. right, bridie just told me this mental long talk bout kpnyti: talki gprsiat". i think that sums up my state of mind last night, the famous last words being "i'm only going to drink enough to get me merry."

in other news, liam got a cat. i'm jealous. that's the first thing i'm doing when i move in with wais, shaun and charlie. we're going to name it fanny. end of. liam called his cat pan and she weighed 6 pounds, 4 ounces. but no cats shall compare to my bailey and florence. here they are having fun in a washing bag:

and here's a picture of bailey that i wish i'd taken...

i'm about to go to uni and scan the pictures of charlie cox and tommy nobbs. i'll post a blog with them when i'm there. until then, don't forget about dre.

emmie twee

the cocktail of last night left me slightly dazed for the rest of the night and most of this morning. after giving you all my dad's now infamous "shocker" recipe, i decided it was pay back and exposed him to a bit of photography/mod culture and made him watch 60s cult classic "blow up" with me. he tried to be interested but two shockers and a belly full of pasta is enough so send any dad asleep so half way through he climbed up the wooden hills to bedfordshire. i don't really blame him.

i thought it was a pretty awesome film but a bit hard to get your head round at times. there was definately some substances involved in the making process, but it was 1966 so 'll let 'em off. caroline thought i'd like it - i dunno what she was trying to imply - but she was right. the photographer in it is supposedly based on david bailey. he's all eccentric and obsessive about getting the photos he wants. if a bit extreme at times, it definately sparked an enthusiasm in me. the cinematography is beautiful. here's some other stills from it. why they're in black & white, i have no idea.


even though we've settled on noi the albino for set build, i might suggest it to the team just as another option like.

anyway, i'm off to do some collaging. until next time.

emmie twee

it's saturday night and i'm back home, having a night in with tv, dvds and my dad's mental cocktails. i've had three sips of a "shocker" and i'm already feeling the effects. i put the word shocker in commas as i've just looked up the recipe online. it goes:

2 shots vodka
1 shot aftershock
1 can red bull

that's definately not what's in my glass. it goes something more like:

1 shot quantro
1 shot grenadin
1 shot tequila
1/2 pint cider
and a squeeze of lemon.

my dad's idea of a shot is the equivalent of about 5. right, i'm even more smashed now since i started writing this, i've not even drunk half of it yet. my dad just asked if i want a top up. i'm gunna pass.

last night's london adventure was a laugh, if not slightly tamer than we'd imagined. being used to spending no more than 6quid on a chatham student night out, a £10.40 round of drinks came as a bit of a shocker (and not in the sense of my dad's cocktails either). still, i got suitably drunk and pointed at a woman stood next to me unnoticed for at least half an hour.

after a sleep that was repeatedly interupted by a siamese throwback cat on my face, i got myself up early to take more barnado's kids pictures. this time it was my eleven year old geezer cousin and his mate, charlie cox and tommy nobbs. even down to their names, they're proper little geezers. hopefully the pictures will follow suit.

oh and as a little request, anyone know the name of the photographer who did black & white documentary photography of skinheads in the 80s? there's this one picture of two skinhead kids, a boy and a girl, on an estate. its a brilliant picture. the bloke's name is really british 'n' all, like dave or steve or something. anyone know who it is? or got any more clues as to who it is? it's been bugging me and caroline since thursday afternoon.

emmie twee

six quid is all it takes

today i feel like this.

emmie twee

leg swapping

what an odd day. the plan:

go to the laundrette
go to town to get toothpaste, tea bags and bridie's birthday present
meet the set build team at 1.30 to take our group shot and start up the blog
get the medium format from stores for shoot with charlie
go to a tutorial
get the train back to dartford to take pictures tomorrow of charlie

simple. laundrette - accomplished.

went to go to town. bridie rings.
"em what you doing?"
"i'm going down chatham."
"can i come?"
"no."
"why not?"
"you just can't."
"why?! who are you with!?"
"no one?"
"no you are. who are you with?"
"NO. ONE."
"well why can't i come? WHO ARE YOU WITH???"
"I'M NOT WITH ANYONE BRIDIE."
"well why can't i come then!?"
"you just CAN'T, OK!?"
"EMMIE. I'M COMING. i need to get stuff anyway so i'll see you down there."
"BRIDIE. what day is it tomorrow?????"
"my birthday...?"
"yeah so why do you think you can't come with me?!?!?!?"
"oh.... well i'll meet you and get it after."

i didn't get it after. we spent too much time in greggs and playing the mullet game. i also got so hysterical about the idea of running into a fish & chip shop and turning over all the tables in an eastenders type rage that we ran out of time, ofcourse. my stomach hurt so "hassleblad"* by the end of it and i actually cried with laughter, not done that in a while.

i went to uni at 1.30 and wai-sum and james didn't meet us until 2.30 cos they couldn't be bothered to get out of bed. (by the way the blog IS up and running now. you can follow our progress at http://www.setbuild.ucreative.ac.uk/09/wordpress/?p=46 ). polaroid leg swapping is fun.

after the leg swapping was done, we set out to find our tutorial and stumbled across shelley's diesel photoshoot. it involved jak, leroy, girls in their underwear, a home casino set, alcohol and crisps. i didn't feel naked enough for the porn party so made a swift exit with a hyper leroy clinging to my back as i left.

the essay tutorial was actually very productive indeed. was able to choose a topic very dear to my heart - how the fashion photography of the 60's reflects its social youth era or visa versa. it needs rewording obviously, but that's the jist of it. gunna be focusing on good ol' mr david bailey and terence donovan for the fashion side of things then compare them to the documentary work of roger mayne, working around the same time.

YES DAVE.

YES TEL.



YES ROGER.

this essay had sparked ideas for my series an' sequence project 'n' all. had a little discussion about that, going to look at the way the 60's mod culture always revives itself. gunna start documenting the scene, got this idea in my head of maybe snapping everyone in a fred perry polo with the exact same framing. not sure if the ideas got enough kick to it but i feel like i've gotta get it out, see what happens with it. i'll start that within the next couple of weeks i guess so again, watch this space.

right, i'm gunna go jump in the shower now. i'm off to the mod rival hot spot in rochester, casino rooms. i plan to spend no more than a fiver.

emmie twee

*hassleblad: i was telling bridie how much people spoke about hassleblad cameras at uni and how much i hate them that the word is now a substitute for the word "bad".