Why Don't These People Decorate Their Driveways?

Hello again! Thankfully that niggling sore throat has just about gone away, and I feel ready to post again. Especially after the eye-tingling sight I saw on the way to my wonderful Nana's house (which I believe I've mentioned before :)) back on Tuesday. She lives in a small suburb of Brighton called Rottingdean, and there's this long road spanning two or three hills leading up to the convent-turned-residence where she lives. And along it there are several identical houses, with big gardens. And that all sounds very pretty and positive to have a garden, but that will change once you see the real thing!

 These driveways! I mean really. They have such a huge opportunity to decorate a front garden of a size like that, but they choose to leave it in plain stone. Tut Tut. Some people. It's made even worse by that shadow from the brick wall. Even less picturesque.

 Maybe this one with the crazy paving is a little better. I always like all the mad cracks, they're disorderly but fun. Only they sort of fade away into dirt at the edge, a sign of low maintenance. 

But I HATE THAT IRON GATE! It's almost as if the designers have tried to conceal the empty driveway by putting in fake über-security . Honestly, things like that belong in a manor house, not an average suburban family home. Know what you design, as they say.

This next one I actually quite like, amazingly. I love the loneliness of that skinny little tree, an island in a sea of driveway. It's a very small decoration but very effective. 

These gardens with the exotic plants (and some very impressive pampas grass) are also great, and if we had a garden in London then I would love some of those plants. Even though they're from such distant lands, they fit in anywhere, including the outskirts of Brighton. And that smaller one with all the tree-lined pathways looks like some enchanted wood out of a fairy story.

So, garden designers of Brighton, I've told you what you're doing right and wrong. I've told you that empty driveways are bad and exotic plants and grassy gardens are more attractive.  So this should suggest a logical course of action!
-DP :)

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making

Can I just note that I didn't call this post as weird a thing as I did for no reason. Nor did I make up this seemingly random sling of words. In fact, an American author called Catherynne M. Valente did, and it was in fact the title of a surreal and Dramatis Personaish yet gripping and exciting 2011 novel by her. I've been reading the fore-mentioned book for around two weeks now and I'm almost finished (I have a busy life – naturally it takes me a while to read books), and I'm really enjoying it, so I thought it might be nice to share it with you. So enjoy my review-in-chatty-style-so-it-doesn't-seem-like-it's-for-school!

Anyway, enough long and boring hyphenated parentheses. Now I'll actually start talking about the book. It's a traditional fairyland yarn but taken to a new level, notably with its more poetic and flexible language. While it isn't in the first person, the main character, a 12-year-old girl named September's thoughts are emphasised more than in old-fashioned fantasies, if her general manner is a bit naive for a 12-year-old (and I sure know!). September basically gets whisked away on a leopard to the world of fairies, which sounds stereotypical for a fantasy novel, but turns out this Fairyland has a lot of human-style laws. These include forbidding of flying for most creatures (which causes them to have their wings bound back in sorrow), and have been in place since a supercilious child known as the Marquess came to the throne. The plot mostly revolves around September having to retrieve a magic spoon stolen by the Marquess from two witches named Hello and Goodbye, and their husband Manythanks, and subsequently having to go to the supposedly forbidden Worsted Wood to receive a mysterious casket. Oops...maybe I've revealed too much...anyway I won't spoil it any more!

Possibly the best thing about this quirky little tale is the wonderful visual quality, which is why when reading I constantly imagined it as a film. First there's the places; the Fairyland capital of Pandemonium, entirely woven from wool, and the baked-from-bread land of the spriggans (exempt from every law), among others, full of colourful settings and features. And, of course, as in every Fairyland story, there are fantastic characters, like September's companions, A-through-L, the Wyvern (basically a dragon) son of a library, who only knows subjects from the first half of the alphabet, and Saturday, a blue boy part of a race born out of rain clouds. And my personal favourite, Calpurnia Farthing, passionate about riding velocipedes, or bicycles migrating to the Autumn Provinces. Yes, you read me correctly.

This whole book, the positivity, quirkiness, slight naivety and unprecedented darkness when September reaches the Worsted Wood lightens everyone up a bit, particularly me this weekend, when I read a huge chunk as I was ill with a headachey/sore throaty thing DURING HALF TERM (soooo irritating!), and had some time to rest. Fortunately, I feel better now, and can post this accompanied with cover artwork and a link to Amazon here! (NB this image isn't mine) 

I hope you guys enjoy this book if you happen to read it, if you're doubting it in any way I strongly urge to go on your positive instincts! Hope you enjoy it!

-DP :)

A Pretty Respectable Clothes Haul

Hello! Since this is my first post in the second year of The DP, I thought I'd post about something I've never broached before on this site: fashion. I do like looking at clothes on the Internet, in magazines and shops but I'm not somebody who will specifically go somewhere just to buy clothes. Usually, it'll be to buy or do other things as well. And I'm also not somebody who remembers the exact label of all the outfits they own or who buys clothes just for their brand. I mostly rely on simply how nice they look.

But I try to be as versatile as I can when I write this blog, and that means blogging about a variety of topics and not just sticking to one isolated theme or to my prime circle of interests.  And my latest show of blog versatility is me writing about my small but though-I-say-so-myself impressive haul of a V-neck jumper and a summer dress/tunicy thing. I got them on Thursday at a little second-hand sale selling pretty much anything from short shorts and Abercrombie & Fitch hoodies to label-less and in my opinion nicer-looking pieces (me buying the latter). You're probably dying to see the photographs of said items that I bought, so I won't hestitate to show them to you.

I love the colour of this thin little tunic! It's lilac but still dark enough to avoid wimpy light purples, and purple but still light enough to not be synonymous with black. I also love the summery feel, and I think it'll be great to wear over maybe black or dark-coloured leggings when the weather gets warmer. It's from American Apparel, which I'd heard of but didn't know much about, so I Googled them and came up with this image (NB: this picture isn't mine), which I thought was just as cool as the purple dress. My favourite outfit is the pale green dress with the gold leggings. I think those two colours work really well together, especially in this context.

This one's more for warmth than fashion, as it's just a simple v-neck. But - and this is a big but - it's CASHMERE!!! It's so warm, thick and fluffy, and I'm sure it will serve me well in future winter nights. It's also a very pretty colour, which is what attracted me to it, a bit darker than the picture because the flash was being funny, more of a turquoise. And it's also from a hilariously named label called - wait for it - CUSS! I can't find it anywhere on the Internet, but my Mum says it's Italian. But despite the unfortunate name, it's a fantastic jumper.

I am pretty impressed with these new purchases, and I hope all of you guys are with yours, if you've made any. Happy shopping!

-DP :)

PS School broke up yesterday for half term, so I hope to be able to post LOADS!!

The Dramatis Persona Has A Birthday!!!

WOW. WOW WOW WOW. This is incredible. This is a relatively strange feeling. My blog is a year old! I have been recording my everyday thoughts, wonderings, pictures, imaginings and facts for 365 amazing, enlightening days (well, actually 366 because 2012 was a leap year, but do we honestly care about precise numbers of days? No.) It's been an entire twelvemonth since I wrote down my strange fantasies on 11th Feb. 2012 in the wintery post Whose Tracks?, unsure about the aims of my blog, never ever imagining I'd still be writing away a year on. And no, I never thought I'd ever write about panda-shaped burn marks on chopping boards or large-sized plums, or even blue olive-like fruit.

And the funny thing is, I never actually intended to blog. My mum was the one who first became enthusiastic about the blogging revolution. She wanted to start her own, and I decided to help (Why? I thought it would be cool to say at school "My mum has a blog about the tat she picks up at charity shops, what about yours?"). I watched a video tutorial and did some research, but she still couldn't bring herself to start her online diary. So naturally my family suggested I start one instead, as I was probably more enthusiastic than her. And the rest, as they say, was history.

Thank you to everyone in my family and circle of friends who supported me sometime in this fantastic year, and everyone I don't know who has subscribed, commented, voted on the poll or simply briefly viewed the blog. Without you I wouldn't have (at the time of writing)...

36 posts

2020 pageviews (not including my own)

11 devoted public followers

4 devoted email subscribers

16 published comments

and 4 popular polls!!!

So that's The Dramatis Persona in numbers. But what you're probably more interested in is this delicious-looking birthday cake my mum made today to celebrate my blog-aversary (fantastic word!)

I think it's a great reminder of my lil' ol' webpage, and it was pretty tasty too! Sorry to make you envious. The picture should be tasty-looking enough.

Once again, thank you everyone who's had a look around my site, be it my best friend or someone who randomly found it while browsing Bloggers who love Rihanna and Taylor Swift. Myself, among many others. I hope I can keep The DP  (and you as readers) around for another year, or maybe many more!

-DP :)

This Proves Graffiti Can Be Awesome

Street art has been a large part of the atmosphere of my neighbourhood for a long while now, but it isn't the usual kind of graffiti. This graffiti is more than just somebody's signature and a few love hearts, this takes art to a whole new, accessible level. In my twelve  years of staring out of the kitchen and walking through painted alleyways to gleaming skyscrapers on my way to school, I have realised that this is more than vandalism. Anyone can see talented spraycanning without having to pay a penny.

From the scenes from mythology on the wall next to Pizza Express to the frequent Banksy rats (my favourite was the line of rats on the red carpet, sadly painted over a few years back. R.I.P.), and the evocative local motto "Let's Adore And Endure Each Other", everything painted here has a certain shine to it. It's the kind of shine that backfires a bit, because it gives a notorious and offputting feel to the place (just look at all those swearwords), but the actual images have a certain symbolism and neighbourhood pride. The time when someone changed a cynical rat saying "London doesn't work"'s speech bubble to "I Love London" made me finally see the pride.

Anyway, all the artworks I've mentioned are old now. However, we have one of the strangest, funniest and DramatisPersonaryest just released in the area. And I thought, because I snapped while I could (the artworks sure go away quickly), I'd share with you guys. 

I'd love to know what on Earth this three-toothed thing (not sure what else to call it really) is, or whether he'll be a charitable or terrorising addition to the neighbourhood now he's FRESH IN TOWN. I suspect the latter. Anyway, he'll be a hopefully good friend to the model cockroach below.
-DP :) 

Remember That Story?

It's a long while ago now, but back in June-Julyish last year I posted about my conversion to reading on my new Kindle. On a similar literary theme, the PS of the post mentioned a 500-word story competition I entered at a similar time with the first line "Dad was flabbergasted when he heard the news", which was run by the children's books section of the Guardian newspaper. However, I couldn't publish for reasons concerning the story being elsewhere on that pesky ol' web. But I was quite proud of my entry, even though its theme, the possible end of the world, was not as topical back then!

So anyway, while I was in Sri Lanka, I read a very curious and helpful follower's comment on that post. They said, "so give us the story then!!". I had completely forgotten about the contest  (which I sadly lost to a very annoying, in my opinion, story about a girl stealing jewellery from a beach or something), but I vowed to tell you guys the story when I got back home and didn't have any elephants, monasteries or New Years to blog about. But now the results have been announced and my yarn is free to be published on this site. So here it is. And it is 500 words, I promise, count if you want. And I made a conscious decision to change the colour to differentiate between it and my normal blogging.

Dad was flabbergasted when I told him the news. And, to be absolutely honest, you can’t blame him really. I felt exactly the same way when the morning radio was cruelly interrupted by the strange voice. It was a beautiful yet supercilious female tone, reminiscent of the authoritative commands aliens hear through hi-tech communication devices in sci-fi movies. But all thought of heavenly cinema afternoons was thwarted when I heard what this mysterious woman had to say:

“People of the Universe, I, representing the official masters of fate, announce that, after many conferences with the supreme masters of every aspect of life, a unanimous decision has been made to return the Earth to how it naturally was. All life forms will end life in approximately 24 hours 46 minutes. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Dad’s immediate reaction when we heard the rerun was to blame me. Typical.

“Cassandra Perry, what were you thinking? Recording ridiculous speeches like this and wasting your father’s time! I should never have got you that voice recorder!”

“Dad, no. There really was a weird lady talking about the world ending. Honest.” I said unconvincingly. 

“Fine, then,” Dad replied, slightly sarcastically. “What d’you suppose we do, Miss-I-Live-In-Fantasy-World-So-Trust-Me-On-This-One-Perry?”

"Run away.” I said, as persuasively as possible. “Far away. Major disasters happen in thriving metropolises, and nowhere else.” I must point out that although I said that so cleverly, the core facts were mostly gleaned from alien movies. Given the situation, they seemed the best thing to trust.

“Alright. But don’t blame me if it all turns out to be a waste of time.”

News spreads like wildfire, and soon the extended family was coming on our Great Expedition. Mum’s Notorious Panics were in full swing, and Dad was hastily assuring her that “It was all Cassandra’s idea”. My little sister Naomi was shouting from upstairs:

“Cass, can I take the television?” 

“Don’t be silly, Naomi! Where would we plug it in?” I replied. 

And there was still trekking through the woods to come. The packing was calm in comparison. Naomi was constantly complaining of feet “literally falling off”, non-outdoorsy aunts stumbled over pinecones, my fashion-crazy cousin had torn her best jeans and Dad was sighing with dramatic discontent. I seemed to be the only one who got anything out of it. But the revelation I did eventually have benefited everyone:

“Dad, none of us is really having a great time. We’ll all die in a matter of hours, we must enjoy life while we can.”

Dad stared in disbelief, but the moment was short-lived. Soon everyone around us had heard the new edition of my Brilliant Idea and was nodding vigorously.

So here we are, with 23 minutes left. But it’s been a great five hours. We’ve relaxed, chatted to one another, had a last visit to our favourite places and, best of all, haven’t had to suffer Naomi’s pestering. Maybe it’s sunk in now. Would you rather exert yourself or enjoy yourself for your final hours?

Oh, and by the way, here's a funny cartoon I found while randomly searching the end of the world on Google Images (note: This image is not mine). 

-DP :)