yum

of

the

week

yummy yummy Danny Cipriani. Born 1987, plays rugby for Wasps and of course England. The next best thing, he's amazing on the field, clearly beautiful off the field, and not even afraid to get his kit off for the Cosmopolitan centrefold to raise awareness of cancer.

lucky lucky Kelly Brooke!

my life in pictures #1
happy birthday Joe-bo.

I miss you, I wish you were here and not there, [I wish you would answer your bloody phone], I wish you a very happy 21st birthday, and I love you more than I've loved anyone in the whole wide world.

xxx

the [problem with the] bookshelf

i'm having a slight problem. I'm packing, getting all excited for my move-into-flat day on Saturday. The dvds I want with me are packed, the exclusive CDs are packed and the rest on iTunes........ and then there are the books.

I want to take all of my books with me. Yes, all 78 of them!!! There's just one problem - I know for certain that they will not all fit in my tiny tiny tiny tiny dorm room.

So which ones do I take? I love them all, and if I leave them behind they will surely find themselves in the trash can [the brother is moving into my room].

This made me think of something as I looked at all of my wonderful books -which is your favourite book of all time? I found mine hiding on the top of my bookshelf whilst sorting out my collection:

Danielle Steel - The Ring

"In the turbulent days of Germany nin the Thirties, Kassandra von Gotthard met the man who changed her life ... Dolff Sterne.

She was the beautiful wife of a wealthy banker. He was a famous Jewish writer.

Together they shared a love that happens only once in a lifetime. But theirs was a love fated to end in tragedy.

The fateful day came when Dolff was wrenched from Kassandra's arms by Nazi soldiers - leaving her heartbroken and humiliated. And Kassandra decided that her life was no longer worth living. All that she leaves for her descendants is her memory of pain and a diamond signet ring. A ring that will carry the destiny of the von Gotthards to new lives and new loves..."

My best friend from Australia sent it to me to read about a week before we lost touch forever, so this book really means a lot to me. It made me cry absolute buckets, but it had me gripped all of the way through.

And it's definitely on the take-to-dorm pile!

year 3 english : studies in literature and film

Term One
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811)

Term Two
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw (1898)
Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon (1930)
Raymond Chandler The Long Goodbye (1953)
Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1983)
Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)
Dodi Smith, The One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1956)

Films
William Shakespeares Romeo +Juliet, (Luhrmann, 1996)
Shakespeare in Love, (Madden, 1996)
Hamlet (Almereyda, 2000)
Hamlet (Olivier,1948)
Hamlet (Zeffirelli, 1990)
Hamlet (Branagh, 1996)
Miss Austen Regrets (Lovering, 2008)
Pride and Prejudice ( Leonard, 1940)
Pride and Prejudice (Wright, 2005)
Becoming Jane, (Jarrold, 2007)
Sense and Sensibility (Lee 1995)
Sense and Sensibility (Alexander, 2008)
The Innocents (Clayton, 1961)
The Maltese Falcon (Huston, 1941)
The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946)
The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973)
The Color Purple (Spielberg, 1985)
Beloved (Demme, 1998)
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Disney animation,1961)
101 Dalmatians (Herek, 1996)

Going to be a good year! Although I'm so fed up with studying Hamlet for the past 4 years, and now I have to watch FOUR versions of the film! Enough to send anyone mad..

gossipgossipgossip

i'm really loving The Hallam Brats, a new blog I discovered a few days ago when trawling through some random blogs. It's like our very own Gossip Girl, and has added to the many distractions keeping me away from writing!

I'm not sure whether it's fact or fiction, but either way it has me constantly checking for updates on the world of the rich kids. I love Lilly, hate Summer, can sympathise with Camps, and think Josh is a total hottie. And it's all only just started!

http://thehallambrats.blogspot.com/

yum

of

the

week

William Chalker,the face of Louis Vuitton's SS08 campaign.

Aged 28, from Sussex.

I quote the ex-construction worker: “Before I became a model I was quite content in any profession that allowed me to use my hands.”

Yum.

work in progress

So far I've completed 539/2000 words for my entry to Company/Galaxy/LBD's short story competition. How's everyone else doing? I'm sure most have been written, edited and sent by now! I'm not leaving myself a lot of time, although I'm quite pleased with what I've written so far.

My idea's quite quirky and I do like it, although the whole short-story idea gets me so nervous! I've never written a short story, ever ever or ever. I'm hoping to get it finished and sent off by tomorrow, with only the chance of praying that it gets there on time!

How many people have entered? I don't know what's made me enter this year, I nearly wasn't going to until an idea popped into my head whilst on holiday. It gets me back into writing though, which I'm pleased about, although I'm guessing I won't have time to do much of anything after uni starts again next week.

Good luck to everyone that's entered and I hope we get more success from this fabulous magazine compared to you-know-who!

the bookshelf



I love my parents' work book clubs. Look what my mum brought home for me today, all shiny and beautiful with the promising of a great read. And all for a fiver! Has anyone read My Best Friend's Girl or the Cupid Effect yet? The Chocolate Run is why I'm so excited about reading the other two - I love that book SO MUCH. It's amazing, please go and buy yourself a copy if you haven't read it already! It's one of the best books I've ever read, it really picked me up and made me laugh and smile as well as the usual ahhhs of romance. The trickiest bit about this collection is deciding who to give my spare copy to!



My two weeks in Spain were amazing, loved almost every minute of it. I knew I would love Lucy Diamond's Over You as soon as I read the first page. I don't intentionally pick up novels about family life, although I thoroughly loved every part of it, so much that it's now creased, bent and full of sand from me lugging it around with me everywhere I went. I genuinely cared about Josie and all of the decisions she made, and felt like laughing and crying with her all of the way through. A very fabulous novel, I loved it.

I wasn't so keen on Be Careful What You Wish For. It is written from the main character's point of view and written in such a simple way that I thought she was a teenager, not in her thirties. It was a good storyline although not used in the best way. I found it a bit annoying, and found myself reading quickly through it to get it finished rather than to find out what happens next. I also wondered why, if everything she wished for came true, and she was so devastated when her bag was stolen, why didn't she just wish for it to come back?

Bridget Jones was as fabulous as expected, and even funnier than the original. I loved Beach Babylon. It really made me laugh and you have to kind of read it twice after remembering it's all real and has all happened. I'm gutted that I can't find Fashion Babylon anywhere, I'm really looking forward to reading it too.

i think it is safe to say that Caroline Smailes' Black Boxes widget is the best thing since sliced bread!