Happy Halal, Brother Brown & The House of Love!

Yes yes – I know, it’s true - I am officially the world’s slowest blog updater. It seems to have evolved into a quarterly publication, so here is the third quarter of my time in London.

February was Fashion Week. I managed to secure myself a month’s work doing PR for Julien Macdonald’s show. My days were spent in his studio in Golborne Rd, which was abuzz with chain smoking Russian Vogue stylists, rooms full of Central St Martins students crammed around tables hand sewing thousands (literally) of Swarovski crystals onto the gowns, cameo’s from Jemima Khan for dress fittings for Hugh Grants ‘Music and Lyrics’ film premier (they made her gown 3 times & she wore Chanel – the film was lame anyway) and the greatest lesson in PR I learnt was that life is all about the google. It goes something like this:

google results under one page – back row seat
google results two pages or more - middle row seat
google results two pages or more + images - front row for you!

Naomi Campbell took a break from her community service and managed to restrain herself from any phone throwing tantrums long enough to open and close the show. The after party was fun – all the gang came along & we got exxxtreeemley drunk on the lovely gin cocktails. We didn’t see much of Soph or Emily though as they spent the night stalking Perez Hilton (a drag queen pop bitch with his own (very funny) website – see www.perezhilton.com)






After fashion week I whisked myself away from a fun February to meet my lovely boyfriend Ben! We had the most amazing 2 weeks in Bintan & Singapore doing absolutely nothing, except for eating fresh seafood everyday, alternating between drinking beer & Veuve & baking (literally – to a crisp) in the sun.

Back to London and we had a brand spanking new home to move into with Crazy Bek & Erica. We moved east – just near Brick Lane & it’s so much fun! Moving was hilarious! Us 3 chic’s hired a van for the weekend. We picked up the van on Friday after work & drove to Ikea. By the time we were there we were all thinking we were pretty damn cool in that van! Erica was cruising, we were all screaming ‘woohoo! We can do anything!’ and then Erica took one wild swing to park the van. She misjudged and we ended up stuck between 2 cars. Every person in the car park was standing around our van trying to guide us out with literally millimetres between us and the other car (we were so close we even contemplated sliding a jumper between us and the other car as to not scratch it). Luckily the owner of the car came out at that moment – a cute middle aged Asian couple that just thought we were funny girls. The wife offered her husbands assistance by shouting out ‘Daddy dwive?’. I’m not sure if that was some sicko nick name she called her husband, or because she thought he was old enough to be our Daddy, but never the less Daddy dwove & steered the van right out of the spot. We drove to the furthest corner of the car park where there was not a car in sight & safely parked our van.

The rest of the weekend was spent moving & shaking. We found the coolest brown leather couch out on the street next to the bin. He sits in the corner of our lounge room with the velvet mint green poof. We call him Brother Brown - Happy Halal. You see we live right next to a mosque – so every corner store around our home is Halal, which is great for the food – not so great for the lack of alcohol. Needless to say we found the closest off licence & it’s 8 Stella’s for £6.50. I am sure in the 6 weeks we have been in the house we have bought at least 800. We have this little glass jar in the kitchen cupboard for the beer fund. During the week & at parties we fill it with change, then, when the alcohol runs out, we trot down the street (usually in weird outfits at weird times of the morning) with our little glass jar and count out the change on the man’s counter to see how many lots of 8 we can afford.

We had the funniest house warming – PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST was the theme. A fun play on words don’t you think? The dress code was ‘freaks & shieks’. Here is the invite & some pics - note the turban on ET’s head.













I had another Jo Moment when I forget that I was wearing a Sari and attempted to show off by doing a hand stand in front of everyone, my feet not making it even a metre off the ground before I face planted the living room floor.

The rest of the time has been a bit of a blur really! Just lots of parties, lots of drinking, lots of dancing. We have a happy home, we all sit down & eat healthy meals & drink red wine (it’s good for the heart) on the weeknights and skulk around Brick Lane & its bar’s on the weekends.

Here's a random (ugly) photo in a taxi:



Ben has gone back to Sydney for now, Michelle Luna arrived this week & is staying with us for a month, Mum & Dad are here for 2 weeks, Amanda’s mum has been here for a month so we haven’t seen much of her lately, Sophie’s sponsorship has been approved, Kas landed a cool job at a creative design agency, Nina aced an 8:30 am Monday morning interview after canning it all weekend & is now the Media Relations Manager for the healthcare system – with 6 weeks annual leave a year! Lucky bitch!

Other regular visitors to the house have been Jon Peters, who stumbles in & out the door at odd hours of the night & day, his friend Noah the actor who once passed out in Erica's bed with an eye mask covering his eyes, ear plugs in his ears & toilet paper up his nostrils in attempt to have pure dreams because he believes that sounds and smells that occur in your surroundings can affect your dreams (o.kkkk!*?), Bek's friend Jorge (pronounced horrrheh) from Gran Canaria who became an innocent victim in Ben's english teaching project, Ben only teaching him english from Borat. Jorge's favorite phrase was 'itz niiiiccee'. He's taken a bit of Ben & Borat back to Gran Canaria.

But everyone is happy & healthy! The sun is shining, the days are warm (in the early 20’s), I have ditched my tights & am wearing open toed platform shoes with short dresses & we’re all sporting a lovely summer glow thanks to a few afternoons in the park and daily applications of Johnson’s Holiday Skin. We have a big big balcony with which we plan to recreate The Great Australian Dream complete with astro turf, a bbq, banana lounges, a blow up pool & pink flamingo's in preparation for the balmy summer nights ahead!

Happy Days... Happy Happy Halal Days... in the House of Love!

xxxx


p.s. between writing & posting this blog the sunny days have disappeared and the grey skies, cold winds and wet drizzle have returned, but it is London after all.

Kathy, Karaoke & Krakow...

It's been a while I know. Christmas has passed & had me busy training in how to get fat. My skin feels like a cheap 'happy birthday' balloon that's been attached to an industrial pressure helium tank.

I have just returned from 4 days in Poland with Kathy where I didn't manage to learn one word of Polish. I had this theory that if I started every h and a with a back of the throat 'hhhh' and 'aaaa' then surely they would understand me. Something like 'hhhhellooo, my naamme is Joaaanna, can i have some vvvoooodka?'. Instead they just looked at me like I was a fucking idiot but at the time I assumed it was because I was asking for vodka at 10am and the bar hadn't actually opened - we had just crashed the cleaning ladies party.

I also managed to spend a ridiculously large sum of money (that could have acquired me the black patent miu miu peep toe pumps I am in love with) on street clothes I would have worn when I was 18 and attending Sublime on a weekly basis. Note to self, don't go shopping when drunk & unable to correctly calculate the curreny conversion. I couldn't return the fucking things either since I can't speak Polish, so instead have decided to embrace my new street look - launching it in about an hour when I leave for a warehouse party in east london. White pointy sneaker boots & hoodies are so hot right now!

Highlights were the karoake bar, where all but one song were in Polish. The one english number I can only hope to god was lost in translation as the words were 'rape me, hate me, suck my open sores'. And there was this weird girl with a manky bandaged hand hogging the microphone and kept asking how old we were & then going 'hahaha, I'm only 20'. Like fuck off! This didn't stop Kathy taking her to the corner & pulling down her pants to show off the new tattoo on her ass.

oh yeah - & the other highlight - Kathy got a leopard tattoed on her ass while 6 young Polish guys took it in turns to pop their head through a round hole in the wall checking her out. We broke their toilet door though we were so pissed (you thought I was kidding when I said I was fat...) so I think it all worked out even.

We also managed to forget, every single time we left the house, the piece of paper with Kathy's research on jazz bars in Krakow (Krakow is renowned for it's cool jazz bars) so we ended up in a tourist trap (our fault - any bar in the main square with a big flashing pink neon sign saying 'Jazz Club' is clearly not the best the town has to offer). The lady's 'jazz' repertoire consisted of 6 songs that she sang over and over including 'I am alive' from Priscilla. Now that's Jazz!

On a more serious note we did go to Auschwitz, which was, one of the most upsetting things I have seen in my life. The energy in the place was so eary, bizzare and sad, you could even see the pain & the spirits in the trees. We lasted an hour and a half before we couldn't be there anymore. It is even more painful to me knowing that friends of mine (and all of us) grandparents were there, people we see & touch & were in our lifetime actually experienced such horrific things. horrible.

& now I sit on a Saturday night, getting ready to go out with no cigarettes & no Polish vodka to consume for 2 reasons. 1, I miscalculated the exchange rate & thought at the time vodka was no cheaper than it is in england (it's about 1/3 of the price) & 2, when I was leaving Poland I had stabbing pains in my kidneys I honestly thought (& this thought never enters my head) that I wouldn't drink for a few weeks. Needless to say that lasted a day. I now sit drinking my cheap white wine dreaming of a lovely vodka on ice and malborough light.

Back in London town, I am turning 27 & homeless! yay! I'm staying with Kas & Amanda, sharing Kas's bed, which is comforting in these cold winter months. If Kas wakes in the night & see's I am cold she pulls the dooner up over me & tuks me in & I cuddle up & make cute faces. And if I wake & see she is cold I ask her if she's ok & say's she's only cold because of the gap between us so we spoon. It's a loving relationship! Boys, don't get too excited, we are also surrounded by about 20 soft toys and dressed in flanny's, big woolly socks and sweaters.

It snowed for the first time 3 days ago! It was amazing! A real winter wonderland! Until the afternoon when it had melted and turned to muddy slippery sludge. And that was that. No more snow.

& life goes on, life goes by. London is fun. London is hard. It never turns out how you expect it to. But that's life isn't it! So you just keep smiling, keep your chin up & do your best to enjoy every moment. (& occasionally allow yourself nights in bed with beer & magazines ruining the pretty pictures of Posh with your tears).


xxx

There have been celebrations a plenty this week in lovely London town!

The 31st October was Trick or Treat Tuesday. Halloween was a bit special this year. Kas threw us a party that was so amazing I actually felt like I was on the set of a Beverly Hills 90210 Halloween Party scene. Kas now wears the crown of Queen Martha Stewart with her amazingly carved pumpkin, attention to detail theming (we even had halloween sweet bags with halloween sweets in them), and the most delicious feast (catering with specialised dishes for the beefno chicken, chickennobeef, beeforchickenbutnochilli, nomeatbutlotsofchilli, nomeatnochilli eating guests). check out her pumpkin:



Even the front door was in keeping with the theme:
(that's Kas's flatmate Lilly on the left & Soph on the right)




Saturday's celebration was Guy Falks day, or should I say week. Fireworks are the chosen method of celebrating this day and there were literally fireworks going off ALL NIGHT ALL WEEK! (the novelty pretty quickly wears off!) Fireworks aren't illegal here, which means any pyromaniac geeza can pick up a few on their way home from work when they're grabbing their one pound can's of beer. The man in the 3rd floor apartment 2 doors down from me obviously couldn't be fucked trying to find a friend with a garden & was setting fireworks off out his window. like, Duuude! & the oddest thing of all about Guy Falks day is it's name. You see Guy Falks was the man who tried to blow up Parliment House. But one would assume that England is celebrating the fact that they flawed his plan & saved Parliment House. So why then, have they named the day after him? It would be like America sendng of thousands of fireworks every year on September 11 in celebration of Osama Bin Laden. Can you imagine? "Osama Bin Laden Day". It seems a bit odd but anyway.

Monday came & well, there was no actual reason to celebrate on Monday, but somehow my Monday celebration (funnily with a guy named Mike Monday) ended on Tuesday night, & then resumed on Wednesday afternoon with a grand finally at 4am on Thursday morning, leaving me with me just enough time to have cat nap before work on Thursday. I don't know what we actually did, just galavanted around town going to various parties & clubs, me appreciating the fact that I was in London & there are actually really good clubs on every night of the week.

& then the next Saturday came! & my friend Kristie Rogers has just come back from a season in Ibiza. bitch! We had the lovliest stroll around Portobello markets, spent the afternoon in a pub (what else would you be doing in London?) then spent the evening huddled in her apartment reminiscing about Ibiza, listening to our favourite songs & mixes, just being silly girls really, but so much fun!

& the cold has finally come! But I am loving it. Rugging up in the cutest beanies & scarves, having rosy cheeks from the crisp air, coming home to a warm heated house & putting ugg boots on, drinking red wine (not that I ever left this habit just for winter, but it feels different in winter), buying big bag's of veggies at the markets & making huge pots of soup. mmm. It's all still in the novelty stage for me! & It's funny, the ugg boot fashion thing here seems to only have just taken off, but people are obsessed, even the girls I have been working with at the media agency wear them to work. I'm still not sold, though I do have to say they look remarkably better on girls with thin pins than thick legged creatures.

Of work... I have been working in various media agencies, the latest one in Farringdon. I have never been to Farringdon by day (only very late at night when en route to Fabric). It has the most amazing places to eat! I wonder around half an hour every lunch time like a kid in a candy store deciding what to eat! My favourite place (which I haven't actually eaten at but love the look of) is a gourmet german sausage restaurant. They have cheesy lines written on their blackboard out the front like 'the "wurst" sausage' and 'the "wurst" meal ever'. It still makes me giggle every time.

here's a funny photo of me when I discovered the i-photobooth on the mac at work:



& that's me to today! While I've spent my week being led astray coming home after extended periods of time looking like a cat that's stuck it's paw into an electrical point, Nina's been in Vienna, Bek's in Canary Islands this week then Italy next week, Amanda's had about 3 weekends away in as many weekends, Paris, Venice & Prague and Soph has just left for a month at the Roosevelt in LA. jetsetting bitches!

ok, time to go, much love from me to you! In precisely 24 hours I will be commencing what I can only imagine will be an 'interesting' 2 month stint in London with Kathryn Michelle Baker. yeah!

xxx

The 2 most interesting things that happened this week:

1. I got my hair cut.

2. I broke my toe falling down the massive flight of 2 stairs in my apartment.

Don't you all wish you had my life!

xx

me with short hair:

Kassie Macdonald is my neighbour! & that is the highlight of my week! Could I ask for a cooler neighbour?

For those of you that don't know Kas, let me give you a concise overview of the hot chick that now lives down the road from me. She is pretty, sexy AND cute! (check out the girl in the bikini on my myspace). She is god damn hilarious at the worst of times, she has a beautiful habit of drawing moustaches with permanent FUCKING markers on her friends faces when they're passed out, she doesn't know when to stop when having a good time & proceeds to go from cute, kind of almost funny moustaches to pictures of cocks & obscene words I can't repeat in my blog, & oh, did I mention she is funny? At least when I'm a size 18 London blow out I'll have tight ab's from laughing with her so much.

Kas & Bek in East London - pre moustaches.


Kas hard at work:


Results:


Also this week I had my first class at the London College of Fashion. My crazy friend Rebekka Zavatti & I decided we would do something productive with our lives & are back at school! The class, fellow students & teacher were all amazing. We were both humbled & inspired. A very cool moment! (including taking our inspiration for a de-brief at the pub & getting so pissed we both missed the last tube home, Bek even finding a night bus but falling asleep on it & having to get a taxi home anyway).

& While waiting for Bek before class I was approached by 2 journalists from The Times, who were preparing a fashion piece "Style in the West End" & asked so kindly if they could take my photo. Of course I agreed, stood in the most styled pose I could without looking like I had rehearsed the hip-casually-to-the-side look 1000 times before, all while feeling like a tool because I had massive ladders in my tights. I got through all that & thought I had done ok, until I saw the note book appear from the pocket & had the sudden realisation they were going to ask me details of where each & every piece of my outfit came from. Could I really be honest & tell them I was wearing a dress from TopShop, sunnies from a junk shop, bag from a designer rip off market stall at a tube station & even my havianas were actually "bavianas" because they were 10 euros cheaper then the real thing in Barcelona???? of course not! my dress was from Portobello Rd, my glasses from Barcelona, my bag from a boutique in Paris & my bangles (the only truthful response) from a Bollywood store in East London.

Life is kicking along, many of my days spent at the lovely Paul & Joe boutique. I had my first 4 figure sale this week! Can you imagine how much fun I have dressing these woman with too much money and not enough style putting all their faith in me to make them look cute. My winning sale of the week was with a woman who had her husband's 60th birthday to attend & wanted to ensure she reigned over all his ex-wiveS! (I was diplomatic & didn't ask exactly how many). Of course the X factor is my domain so we bonded over it in a - in the thousands - pound sale. oh & I served Jamima Khan & she asked me if my eyelashes were real. she didn't believe me.

& I am broke. London's finally got the better of me. Hence why I am sitting at home on a Saturday night writing my blog, but I'm actually bizarelly content with that?

On that note, I might wander down to the pub, have a pint & a cigarette & a chat with a crazy old man that will tell me the bizarre tales of his life! (this another new favourite hobby of mine, try it, they have REALLY cool stories to tell that make you feel quite conservative & boring in the process). Oh! & the seedier the pub, the better the stories.

xxxx

Now, I know it seems like I’ve been in London FOR-EV-EEEER & I should have my life in order, everything fallen perfectly in it’s place & my story so far a shining success!

So I will start by saying I LOVE IT HERE! I am so happy & off the subject, I have developed this weird new habit of when writing, putting words in caps when I would normally wave my hands in the air, put more volume in my voice and shake my head forward with my eyes kind of bulging out at you. So when you see caps, imagine the weird head/hand thing going on.

And then I need to say, that although I have been gone from Sydney for months now, I’ve actually only been alone in London for 3 weeks! So consider me a new kid on the block when you read my accomplishments so far & show me mercy babies!

I could write forever about all the wonderful things I love in this city. It is amazing, every day is wonderful & I can speak with such happiness now because the sun is still shining, the squirrels still in the park, the leaves still green & I still bounce out the door in my pretty summer frock & oversized eyewear.

Highlights for me so far:

Meeting Rachel Zoe (NICOLE RICHIE’S & LOHAN’S STYLIST!!!! ) when working at the Julien Macdonald show at London Fashion Week. She’s so sweet, smilie & small & so obviously Nicole’s stylist.

& while I’m on the fashion week thing, can I just say that the models are FREAKS OF NATURE! (sorry, I know the cap’s thing is getting a bit hectic, but these models deserve caps!) Their legs come up to my head, seriously! (well, maybe not totally seriously, but almost..) & their waists are the size of my arm. I know the media like to reassure the obese, overeating population by telling us they are anorexic, don’t eat, blah blah, but I’m sorry, I could starve myself until I died & I wouldn’t look like these girls. Not eating doesn’t equal growing 12 inches in your sleep & your bones shrinking to the size of a tooth pick.

& just when I was already feeling like a fucking oompa loompa standing on the end of a 30m shiny black catwalk next to an Amazonian goddess having the 2 tiered platform of paparazzi testing their flashes on us, I get sent marching back down to the music (for the choreographers reassurance) & out struts Lilly Cole (who makes the other models look like MIDGETS) in 5 inch heels! It was at that point I decided no matter how much I wanted a career in fashion this was just embarrassing and humiliating, left the building & self medicated with a cigarette & a vodka. 4 days, 2 packets of cigarettes & a bottle of vodka later & I think I’m almost starting to recover….

Living right across the road from the loveliest park! I literally pick up my plate of dinner and glass of wine, walk across the road & have a picnic in the park. Or waking up on a sunny day off, making a fresh coffee on the stove, grabbing a cigarette & sitting barefoot on the dewy morning grass in the sunshine & watch funny men holding themselves up on one arm in cool yoga manoeuvres.

Meeting crazy new people! There are so many fun, crazy, bizarre, slightly wrong but fabulous people in this city!

Realising that crazy people are crazy people & we’re all the same where ever you go (NB, dress ups when trashed is the universal language of a dear dear friend…)

Sainsbury’s. It’s the local supermarket. Sad I know that I move to a new country & one of my highlights is the supermarket. But it’s just so cool! It has fresh vegetables, meat, wine, so much variety of everything & it's all packaged up so nicely & always on special, coercing me to make that purchase (& decpite knowing that the specials are factored into the original prices & are part of their strategic marketing plan to make me buy more by thinking that I'm getting a good deal, I still fall for it every time).

Wine: South African & Chile red’s are my new favourite & California for the lovliest, crispest Sauvignon Blanc’s.

& of course the pubs. They are literally everywhere, just like everyone tells you. They are cool & fun & the beer so tasty! That’s what London’s all about. Innit!

Till next time.

xxxxxx

ok, so the golf ball in my neck.... it was THE MUMPS!

THE MUMPS! Who gets the mumps anyway????

well, I did. I only found out what it was many weeks after the ordeal. If only I had known at the time I could have walked around the house with a scarf tied around my head & a scatty teady bear with holes in it under my arm, like the little girl on the poster in the doctors surgery.

All those childhood years I spent trying to catch the mumps so I could look like the girl in the poster & I get it in my first week in London at 20 something years of age!

stupid bitch at Ravenswood that gave me my vaccination must have missed my vein! bitch. perhaps they should start an employment program for yunkies giving kids their vaccinations. they would have got my vein for sure.

xxx

kids, after spending many moments writing the memoirs of my european travels in a blog, I did something that only I would do, I some how?*! in Ibiza, erased the username & password for my blog from my brain.

so, they are gone, into cyberspace, somewhere. If you click across them in your internet travels, kindly forward them onto me... I'd love to know what I got up to for 4 weeks. It seems to have blurred itself into one big happy fuzzy memory...funny that.

I am back in London, in the lovely Queens Park apartment that has become my home. 67B Harvist Road. I can sit on my laptop looking out the big bay window & see the squirrels running around in the park.

As I wandered down Portobello Rd last Friday with the sun shining, eating fresh raspberries I bought from the market on the side of the road, my life was looking so promising. I had a full 4 days from Sunday to Wednesday with appointments, interviews & meetings to acquire my perfect PR job. I spent Friday evening with my dear friend Jon in South Kensington followed by SOHO having drinks with some of his investors where I saw for the first time, real London money. Wealth on a scale I thought unimaginable (I think these people would spend more pounds on their sandwiches than I would earn in a year). So I was feeling happy & positive about my first day in London. Things were good.

Until Sunday. When I woke up with a golf ball in my neck that preceeded to enlarge at a rapid rate to what felt like the size of a tennis ball & I have spent the last 5 days in the apartment in bed (after spending 135 pounds on a doctor).

And that brings me to now. The golf balls have gone, my health is back and Ben & Langdon have arrived in town, the appointments are rescheduled and the sun is again shining!