There's my face, there's my face!

Many of you don't know me in real life. To you, dear strangers, I dedicate this post.

That little photo to the right, and these black and white words on the page, give you a glimpse into my character. But it is merely that: a glimpse. And who is the real Hattie Crisell?

Let me paint you a picture. I'm the kind of lady who likes to lounge around her palatial apartment in a gold lamé dress with huge puff shoulders. I wear orange lipstick and backcomb my hair. I wear tan tights. I am not afraid to dress like a figure skater.

Let's get on to my beauty regime. When I take all my make-up off, I look suspiciously like I'm still wearing huge amounts of eyeliner and mascara. But I powder very very good. I'm very dramatic.*

Well hello! Welcome to my blog. Now please sit back and enjoy this video** of my new lifestyle inspiration, Brenda Dickson (thank you Miss Catriona).



Brenda Dickson is real. She is a real treat from 1987. After you've enjoyed that fabulously informative documentary, you may like to watch this very very funny spoof by Deven Green. Go on.

Welcome To My Home Part 1 - A Comedy Parody by Deven Green


*Some or all of this information about myself may be false.

**Nooooo! Since I posted this, Ms Dickson herself has forced Youtube to take it down. Words cannot express my disappointment that you won't all be able to see the video - it's hilarious. My apologies on behalf of her nonexistent sense of humour.

The hattiehattie playlist returns

Last week I posted a link to a Spotify playlist. Later that day, Spotify went down and my playlist became inaccessible (cheers for making me look like an idiot, Spotify). BUT, it seems to be back today. And I've added another song (Multiply by Mobius Band). Give it a go.

Of course if nobody comments on it again, I can just assume Spotify's still not working. So at least that's like a nice protective hug for my ego.

Batman in my bedroom

On Sunday morning I woke up in Paris with a feeling sometimes known as... The Fear. It was that abstract unease that often accompanies a bad hangover, when you wonder exactly how obvious it was to all your friends that you had one too many shandies last night (or in my case, caipirinhas), and exactly what you were conversing with the taxi driver about. In French. When you don't speak French.

It all started well. On Saturday night, after a lovely afternoon with Barry and Marion, I headed out to meet my old university friends Sarah and Alex in a shabby but irresistible sci-fi themed bar called UFO, on Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud. One fast caipirinha later, we were skipping off to a cheap and cheerful pizzeria (not very French, I realise) where Sarah (who had been drinking for a few hours) kept saying "You've got to catch up!" and topping my glass up with vinegary red wine.

Then we got to the main event: Eurovision. For those lucky enough not to know what I'm referring to, the Eurovision Song Contest is an annual celebration of Eurotrash in the form of a music competition. Every country in the continent (or most of them) submits a song, and then everyone votes for a winner. A good Eurovision song must meet at least most of the following criteria:

• As Alex sagely pointed out early on in proceedings, it must have someone playing gypsy violin.
• Everyone on the stage must be wearing a hideously tacky costume, featuring sequins, cleavage, lycra and feathers.
• Wherever it comes from, at least part of the musical number must be sung in heavily accented English.
• Any male who features in the performance must be unbelievably camp.
• Each song must feature some sort of faintly disturbing dance routine. If a skirt or two gets ripped off, so much the better.
  

Then when it comes to the voting bit, each country has its own (debatably) good-looking TV presenter to come and announce the points awarded. This presenter will usually attempt a series of crap jokes and puns before getting to the points, perhaps in the hope that this could launch an international career for them. Also, it is a given that every country will give the highest points to the countries nearest them. It's all political. It's fabulous.

So the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was on Saturday night, and Alex insisted we find somewhere to watch it. Disappointingly, it turns out that the French couldn't be less interested in Eurovision, so we ended up in a tiny English pub which had three other customers: two silent English blokes and one incredibly drunk Irish man. We'll call him Pat, because I think that was his name.

While Sarah, Alex and I sat in a corner, knocking back rum and cokes and shouting at Norway, Pat kept stumbling over to our table, asking us where we were all from, shouting about Ireland, spilling his Guinness and then trying to give us all hugs. Charmer. The reason we were shouting at Norway was that Norway won. By a landslide. Their song heavily featured a virtuoso gypsy violinist.

By the end of the contest, I was in such a good and patriotic (and drunk) mood that I was on the verge of doing my own performance of God Save The Queen.

I was just about to ask the others how they were getting home when Sarah cheerfully announced that we were going to meet her friends back at UFO. My head said no, but by this point my heart was driving.

So off we tottered to the bar, which was now overflowing with Parisian hipsters. At least that's my hazy memory. I also remember having a conversation with a very good-looking and arrogant French boy on the stairs. I have literally no idea what was said or whether I even managed to string a sentence together.

It was at this point that I turned to Sarah with a look of panic in my eyes and said firmly, "I'm really drunk." I remember turning down the last caipirinha. That was probably a good choice. Soon afterwards I headed back to the hotel, which is where I awoke eight hours later feeling a bit sheepish.

To sum up, I had a fucking great time in Paris.

Also, I thoroughly recommend the hotel I stayed in, which was one of the cheapest I could find (apart from hostels) and couldn't have been more comfortable and stylish. It's called Mama Shelter; it's a Philippe Starck designed hotel and you can check it out here.

Here's me in my lovely room (snapped in the mirror):


The only slightly creepy (or cool, depending on your perspective) thing about the hotel is that there are Bruce Wayne masks hanging in the rooms. You can imagine how I felt when I opened my eyes on Sunday and was confronted by Bruce peering at me, his face inches from mine.


Paris, I shall miss you. London, I'm still happy to be back.


IMPORTANT P.S.: There's an excellent breakdown of Eurovision - with photos! - here. Thank you Fug Girls!

Tout seule!

Bonjour! I'm finally in Paris. I'm typing this on my iPhone, which means it might be full of weird spaces and typos. More annoyingly, if I swear, the phone will disapprovingly change it to 'ducking' or 'shot'.

I'm currently listening to awful French radio in my hotel room, but let's not judge the trip by that. The hotel is totally gorgeous, the eurostar was very exciting and I'm meeting three old friends in a couple of hours.

It's weird (though exhilarating) to be here on my own. The first time I came to Paris was eight years ago. It was an 18th birthday present from my first proper boyfriend. We broke up soon after. All I remember from the trip is being surprised by how ducking huge the Eiffel Tower was.

I came again when I was 20 with Sandeep and Suzy, who were my university flatmates at the time. We stayed in a grim hotel in the red light district. The blankets on our beds were actually old curtains. There were suspect stains all over the carpet. Very quaint.

And now here I am 6 years later, staying somewhere cheapish but nice, and not in the last awkward throes of a doomed relationship, which is all good. But I am on my own, which is different. I'm quite capable of looking after myself and finding my way round, but I did feel a bit anxious trying to work out the ducking confusing Metro system. Going out tonight will be brilliant, but would be less scary if I were ten and my parents could just work out all the details. Being a grown-up is exhausting.

I'm going to wind this up now because I'm talking a load of shot. What a stupid aunt I am. A bientôt, blog. Many bisous.

Euros aren't what they used to be

Hello readers. I'm no longer in Crete, but not yet in Paris. I have a slight tan, several very irritating mosquito bites and very little money left thanks to the crippling pound-euro exchange rate. But all in all, it's turning out to be a wonderful week.

I thought I'd try a little experiment today. I'm not a music writer and I'm not ahead of the curve on bands, but I do take an interest in new music and I have a few helpful friends who point me in the direction of stuff I'll like. I've found Spotify to be a very useful tool in all this so I thought, using Spotify, I would put together a little playlist for you of songs I haven't been able to stop listening to over the past few weeks.

If you don't know what Spotify is, I highly recommend you download it (here)*. You just type in whatever you feel like listening to and it plays straight away, like listening to a CD - except you don't have to buy it, it's all free. You can't put it on your iPod, but that's the only drawback I can find. You can save whatever you like and build your own playlists and share them, as I have above. It's ingenious.

My little playlist is mostly electro pop stuff: Friendly Fires, La Roux, New Young Pony Club and so on. It includes one song I heard for the first time today, by Little Boots, who was recommended to me on Twitter by this lady. The main thing is that this kind of music makes me want to dance, which I see as a huge plus point. I hope some of you will have a listen, let me know if you like any of it, and maybe recommend your own current favourites or even post a link to your own Spotify playlist in the comments section. I hope you like this idea - to me it seems like a really nice use of technology - like us all sitting down together, somewhere in the blogosphere, and exchanging CD collections.



*Bugger. Just discovered Spotify is not available in America or Canada. So since not everyone can join in, here's the playlist in case you're interested:

Jump In The Pool - Friendly Fires
In For The Kill - La Roux
Paper Planes (DFA Remix) - M.I.A.
New York Girls - Morningwood
Fan - New Young Pony Club
Stuck On Repeat - Little Boots
Talking, Talking - New Young Pony Club
Lights Out (Tepr Emo Remix) - Santogold
White Diamonds - Friendly Fires
Suffragette Suffragette - Everything Everything

A round-up

Lately, a few people have complained that I've posted too many "Look what I found on the web!" type entries, and not enough "Listen to what I've been up to!" ones. That's because most of the things I get up to are either too dull or too interesting to share with the world. But nevertheless, here's a little round-up of the latest mundanities from my life.

SO. First piece of news (using the word 'news' so loosely that even the word 'potato' would probably be more accurate): I saw this today, and recognised it as more or less exactly what I am looking for in a man. Like Aidan from Sex and the City, but with a beard. Where are men like that? Do I have to move to America?

Secondly, I've come to terms with the trip to Paris (next week). I have come so much to terms with it that I have booked a five day trip to Crete just before it. I'm not going on my own to Crete, but I am going with someone who is terrified (loudly terrified) of flying, insects and germs. So that will be an exciting warm-up experience for my solo holiday afterwards.

Thirdly, I've had bridesmaid dress traumas this week. It's all very easy to find a normal frock to wear for work or a night out, but when choosing a dress that you will have to wear in daylight while people watch you walk down the aisle, and take endless photos, you start to obsess over details. I don't want to wear something that might make me look a bit chubby. I don't want to wear something that is a bit weird from certain angles. I don't want to wear something that is going to cause me to pass out from asphyxiation. I don't want to wear something that will make me look six months pregnant after dinner. I don't want to wear something I will accidentally rip on the dancefloor. I don't want to wear something that one of the other guests will turn up in.

This is the latest candidate:


It's McQ by Alexander McQueen and it's from Asos. (Obviously that's not me in the photo. I'm less extreme in the fringe department.) Thoughts? If you could just leave a comment below, putting yourself in one of the following categories, that would be helpful:

1. "Yes! This frock is surely woven with pure wedding joy. You will in no way look stupid or 'with child'."

2. "No! This frock will make you look like a pig wrapped in a curtain."

And finally: The Apprentice is on tonight, and for the first time in three or four weeks I am going to watch it when it's on, God damn it. I am not playing Apprentice roulette any more, where every person I meet the following day could at any moment blurt out "Did you see that guy with the fat chin get fired last night?" and ruin the whole show for me. I am going to be the person who might blurt that out. My turn.