As you all know I'm gripped with wedding fever with my upcoming nuptials looming on the horizon. Never one for doing things the normal way I thought I'd take the time to see if I could help the planet as I walk down the aisle as you can see here...

If you too want to come over all Eco friendly I suggest you start at Green Union and search their exhaustive directory but here are some of my favourites...
Tammam - Beautifully designed eco wedding dresses
Wedding Tree Favours - why have the usual chocolates when you can help the environment with your very own tree to mark your special day.
Utterly Sexy Cafe - gorgeous cakes as featured in Episode 1 of S2 here here

Happy Eco hunting!

Ami x

I've just spent lots of money developing some photos taken on a Diana camera. The Diana is a plastic box of magic, first marketed as a toy many years ago. It’s established quite a cult following on the basis that you can never quite predict what any of your shots are going to look like. Part of the appeal is in surrendering yourself to its whims, its random flashes of colour and contrast, your inability to focus it.

So hailing a cab in New York City looks exactly how it felt.

Ami x

The Police played the final show of their world tour last Thursday in New York and my man and I flew out there to see them and all the bright lights a’ spangling. An NYPD marching band came out on stage with them and banged away on their drums as hard

as they possibly could right at the front of the stage. The expressions of joy on their faces my favourite part of the whole gig….. oh, and then I met Tony Soprano….

Being in NY for only two days we didn’t want to keep it low-key. We followed the Sumner kids to The Box

where the last vestiges of the little girl in me were painfully extracted by the show stopping show. I couldn’t begin to mention what happened in there on this public blog but let me just tell you it was all ugly and you’d have your mouth agape the entire time if it weren’t for fear of flying excrement. Apparently those trendy New Yorkers have seen it all.

The following day we hit Central Park, a burger joint, and the Diesel Store before catching a ferry to Liberty Island to watch Radiohead playing at All Points West (AKA Coachella East).

Good golly gosh- as if their light show wasn’t enough, the huge stage backed by Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty really was a sight to behold. Too bad we spent the whole time searching for the bar (which we never found). After the video work I’ve done for the Police, it was cool to check out the Radiohead video screens- they used only six or so static cameras and split the screens up to show them all simultaneously- the result was what I’d call a juxtaposition of the honest and the arty.

After a quick ferry back and a disheartening 2 hour struggle to find a cab downtown, we were safely on our way across the bridge into Brooklyn. The previous night at the Box, while I had been sharing inane and obscene words with two hot gay men, the gloriously straight man in my life had been chatting with Brooke, the owner of the Glasslands Gallery. The place is what you might call a Brooklyn Jazz Club with a giant shrimp on the wall.

We headed there to hear Jon Spencer (of the Blues Explosion) playing with other band, Heavy Trash whose Myspace page declares they sound like:

Despite disabling bouts of jet lag induced open-eye dreaming I could tell the gig was rocking and Jon seemed like a pretty straight up guy when we talked to him later. Jon was even so kind as to offer us his sweaty signature on the CD we bought. Particularly kind as we’d bought it at the Radiohead gig.

Ami x

 
"I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot."

I want to tell you about the strangest of occurrences- I was in a gym. On a Saturday. Before noon.

There were rows of joggers lined up on treadmills, trainers to the rubber, intimidating me. The smell of chlorine and flapping noticeboards intoxicating. Thank god I was there for Tango lessons and not some plug-in sweat session.

So Tango, tango tango. A lucky trip to Argentina sowed the seed. The ever thoughtful friend who introduced me to my fiancée Jordan also introduced us to Tango. The Buenos Aires tango shows sold with dinner and a bottle of wine are crazy wired routines for tourists but, in a dark and fabulous club call La Catedral, tango showed us its true colours. Couples locked together and stepping in the dark of the smoky hall, a big bleeding heart hanging from one wall and a battered red halo of lights above the dance floor. Tango is improvised. And the man leads.

Back in LA Fitness in Clerkenwell. Liz and her incongruously large breasts begin teaching us to Tango. With chests locked and faces close, it’s easier than you might imagine to be led by your man. Movement is facilitated by keeping weight on only one foot at a time, mirroring your partner, swaying in sync. The moving is natural, like walking. The man improvises the patterns you create on the floor to the melody of the music. Other couples are with us in the class, all of us having arrived here via a tango club in Argentina. I notice that we’re the only couple who seem to be making a song as well as a dance out of it. Me giggling at Jordan like a smitten 14 year old, and him yodeling along to the swells in the music. We step together with our thighs touching, toes not leaving the floor, feet coming back together in the middle of every step like a flirtation.

And then we have to swap partners! Oh how the body and the souls of lovers find each other across the cosmos as if sought and bound through the ages, fitting together like snugly packed picnic hampers. Suddenly I’m touching the lackluster biceps of David. The biscuit smell of his breath the only thing in the space between us. This is quite a different dance. I cannot perceive the intention of his body, knowing not even which side of his body is carrying his weight and therefore not which foot will be leading. Partner after partner follows freakishly, the differing feel of the bodies, so not my betrothed, is unnerving. I strain to decipher the signals of their bodies, the way of their will until I am once more in the arms of my one true tangiero.

Not to say that when we tango we don't look like dancing lobsters. Ha ha, and delightfully Google images has a photo of that….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e_Rbts5Q9Q&feature=related

Ami x

Have an artist in your house and there will be flowers on your table, laughter in your eye and sausage in your belly. Currently we are being visited by our great friend Tim, an Irish Geordie equally adept at handling a spatula as a paintbrush.

The thick feral sleep of my fiancé and I has been blissfully awakened this week by Tim’s guitar playing from the hammock outside on the roof. The hammock from which I now write. What will I do when he’s gone? Resume the daily unknowing snooze to the chorus of three frantic alarm clocks.

Ami x

That today is Independence Day has fallen rather into insignificance for today is also Zena's Wedding. Today, in a church in sunny Miami, Zena will become Mrs Gibbs!!! My own engagement period bliss was last night enhanced by a blubbering trip to the cinema to finally see Sex And The City. In the words of Charlotte's husband, 'I'm just a bundle of love today' and I'm so excited for Zena who is probably still catching up on a little beauty sleep at the time this goes online. Good luck Zena and send us some photos.

Oh my gosh- I'm quoting SATC!

Ami x

Something took hold of my bowels this week and, with ominous authority, banished me to the small universe of bed and toilet basin. Needless to say this came as quite an unwelcome surprise. Since I was 'struck down', I have been dividing my time equally between the low-energy pastimes of sleeping, groaning, and Googling for a cure. I have it on good authority from some traveler's blog that there's an acupuncturist in India who swears by the healing effect of filling your belly button with salt, covering it in a few strips of fresh ginger and then setting it on fire. I'm becoming so bored with my own bottom that this belly bonfire might actually happen- I wonder if powdered ginger will do the trick?

So, I'm racking my brains to think of what kind of pictures I can use to spice up the rather dry subject matter. Google images had this to offer for belly bonfire:

Apparently locals were quite moved by what can clearly only be described as a bona fide sighting of the Virgin Mary in Mississippi last year- excluding the three people in the picture who are just wondering where the beer is.

Further googles on ‘belly button’ came up with this blog

Annoyingly he calls his blog a web-log as if he didn't get the message some how. As I suppose should be obvious mynavel.co.uk is about as interesting as a guy contemplating his navel can be.

His most recent entry is quite amusing, however, and details the some of the google searches that directed people to his page such as 'my son loves my belly button' amongst others. On the blog- sorry- Log, you will find a photo diary of each day's belly button fluff with a discussion on the effects of his attire and the tucking in of his top. Now I'm quite familiar with this belly fluff phenomenon after living with my fluff producing beloved husband to be for over 6 years now- and I’ve always found it rather charming- one of the great wonders of the world blah, blah, blah, swoon, swoon…

Mr mynavel.co.uk has unfortunately put a whole different (hairier) slant on the whole thing.

Oh my god- is that what love does to you?!- you get competitive over belly button fluff!!!!!

Ami x

I had the most unexpectedly posh festival experience of my life last weekend at the Isle of Wight Festival. This was due to two factors, one being that I was doing a, fairly minimal, amount of camera work for two of the performing bands and was subsequently granted an Access All Areas pass, but also because I had the great pleasure of being accommodated in a camper van.

The ‘Freedom Van’ was borrowed from my lovely soon-to-be mother-in-law and driven with a great deal of pride down to portsmouth and over the water to the island. The van chugged jollily along like a bus with the soul of a gracefully ageing hippy, and very good-naturedly permitted various admiring young folk to take pictures of her as she passed.

The merciful, and mostly undeserved, AAA pass saved me from the dark green cubic cavities of the dreaded festival toilets and I am still shocked to observe that every one of my toilet experiences involved a real flush, actual tissue paper, four permanent walls and a ceiling. At one point I actually had access to a shower, but felt that that would be missing the point somewhat.

Do not worry, my hair was determinedly rocking the festival hag look by the Sunday with several people claiming a Slash sighting what with my matted hair, permanent sunglasses and crumpled cardboard top hat.

Needless to say that at the end of the weekend, both myself, and the inside of the van, were looking rather jaded, but somehow we all managed to tootle back to London with some dignity intact, and a big smile on our faces.

Ami x

Who knew those Kiwis were so funny? It's not just the Mighty Boosh boys who can deal out an hilarious song and dance, The Flight of The Conchords are a comedy duo/ folk band from New Zealand who’s HBO show of the same name is characterised by sketches parodying the songs we all love and hate.

Ami x

A little click-hopping through YouTube really does leave the mind wondering where this 21st century past time of self-broadcasting will lead us all. Only in the Noughties can you film yourself in your own bedroom looking silly and talking silly and have a thousand strong viewership, several of whom will take the time to write inflammatory, bigoted comments cocooned in their online anonymity while others, keen to share the worldwide stage, will even post video responses.

A recent London Paper article written by a 15 year old pointed to the fact that the young folk are too busy updating their facebook status to partake in the usual teenage pursuits of illicit drinking and clumsy underwear fumbles. I know my fiancée’s younger sisters, all living in Los Angeles, share Chris Crocker quotes at the table and, although they haven't gotten into kissing boys yet, have seen Two Girls One Cup. (if you haven't seen that I'd save yourself the nightmares- just imagine what bodily fluids and solids you and a friend could get in a cup and then try to swallow)

Chris Crocker's mission statement style, big-shout-out-for-
the-only-gay-in-the-village video repartee is worryingly captivating. He appears in various states of distress and makeup and as '2prty2bstr8t' comments on one video does 'really look pretty with eyeshadow.' One emotive video posted of himself crying about the media's lack of respect for Britney Spears is ominously un self-aware except in the sense that the tears and the pout are clearly exaggerated for the camera. The video made it onto the Jimmy Kimmel show in the states where millions nationwide had the rare opportunity of laughing at a Youtube clip simultaneously.

The world of the blog is a world without editor- a world where having something to say is all you need- because in the noughties we have Ultimate Immediate Free Speech. A quick read through the comments posted to Chris Crocker's videos is enough to show you the linguistic implications of this freedom (and by that I mean the swearing, racism and general climate for voicing aggressive intolerance, rather than the comparatively innocuous spelling errors)
Something I am rather fond of however is a video response parody by someone posing as Chris Crocker's dad which appears in the Jimmy Kimmel clip.

So in this environment of virtual flashing from reality’s trenchcoat, I've found the rather fabulous 'Faceyourpockets'. Empty your pockets onto your scanner, place your face against the glass and press Scan. Voila! you’ve bared your soul to the uncaring world.

Ami x

I know it's dull to keep jabbering about your own wedding (I know because every time I hang out with my girlfriends it's the only thing they want to talk about) -- BUT a wedding is inherently self-indulgent and I need to vent a little anxiety over the distinct lack of a dress!

There’s about 4 months to the wedding which to me seems far too long to wait- but in wedding world is as scandalous as having a nuns and vicars theme at your wedding and asking all your wedding guests to bring their own food and drink. The one conclusion I've come to though is that I do not want a dress which was designed to be a wedding dress. The theory behind that being that I'd rather not look like some 9 year old girl threw up her duvet on me. Case in point:

Despite this crucial revelation I don't seem closer to finding the ‘dream’ dress - apparently I am supposed to have seen the whole wedding play out beautifully in my dreams and have the entire thing sorted out by now.
For those of us 21st century ladies who haven’t been spending our formative years fantasizing the specifics of our wedding, the overabundance of generic wedding literature sadly offers little further assistance.

Never fear- recent inspiration was found in the form of live accessories for the modern bride such as:

Yes, that’s a goat she’s got. I'm sure it helps make the ‘tossing of the bouquet’ an extra memorable moment, with photographic record taking pride of place in the wedding album.

For the moment my wedding muse is the dangerously addictive style.com which will have you clicking through catwalk shows like a coked up fashionista well into the wee small hours. Check out a small lookbook I just made here
bearing in mind few of these dresses are either white or affordable. It appears I rather like ruffles though and I think it’s very important to avoid taking yourself too seriously on your wedding day, which brings me to wondering if I could pull this off:

Ami x

To celebrate almost 2 full weeks of ridiculously good weather, the man and I had a little BBQ at the weekend. Although we're not grown up enough to have a garden yet, we do have what we like to call a 'roof terrace'. Being lucky enough to live above a bookies, we have exclusive access to the roof of its one-storey toilet block.

To complement our roof terrace/toilet cotch we have installed a hammock purchased in haste from Hammock Heaven who delivered it the next day (as should always be the case).

Needless to say the BBQ was hot but happening with our weird ethnic music blending seamlessly with the R n B from the pub across the road where a chap called Abraham was celebrating his 80th.

Although Sunday morning saw the roof looking like I'd turned my house inside out with every chair, plate and knife outside- we quickly tidied away all the discarded meat before heading down to Brick Lane. Boy is it busy there at the weekends but it's all about the people watching anyway. With a spot of luck we bumped into a friend who was selling bacon butties and mojitios- an unexpectedly winning combination.

Our little trip out was cut short by a need to hurry home and set up the hammock cinema. This involved simple ingredients of aforementioned hammock and roof, together with one white bed sheet from Asda and a projector. before we knew it (after a lot of effort) Michelle Gondry's film, Science of Sleep, was 4 feet wide on the roof in front of us. To complete the idyll we added a blanket or two and BBQ'd some salmon. Ooh la la.

Ami x

Oh my gosh, my house in under siege by the annual influx of mosquitoes- IT MUST BE SUMMER! Or is it just a heat wave? And why ARE there always so many mosquitoes in my part of Hackney?

Did you know that only female mosquitoes have that little sucker tube and they don't suck at you for food. The vegetarian 'mosquitas' use the protein in your blood to harvest their babies. So those little bites are even worse than you thought- you've just facilitated the expansion of the swarm........

If you think the mosquitoes should start working for you, have a little look at this ridiculous site offering free mosquito ringtones

Brilliantly they're supposed to be adult and teacher proof tones because the frequency of the 'mosquito call' is too high for old people to hear. Definitely worth testing this out on a grandparent or just using to annoy people.

I have to say I'm pleased to note that I can definitely hear the tones that the site says are inaudible to those over 24. Last week I told my hairdresser I was 25 and he said,'that's ok- you're old but you're still hot.' Is that a compliment?

Ami x

Last weekend had me putting to the test all those posing chops learnt from America’s Next Top Model- those sedentary sofa hours not wasted after all! My friend Barry Macdonald, who usually shoots bands, was looking to expand his portfolio and I was the red-stockinged guinea pig in his fabulous fashion shoot.

Might I also just mention that I am slightly intimidated by the news that Zena AND her bridesmaids have dresses for her wedding already. My lot not looking half so impressive as yet with no dresses in sight, er…. but I do have a florist!

For Zena or anyone who’s interested/engaged/dreaming/bored- here is a little blog run by a lady who makes wedding ‘mood boards’. You can tell her your colour scheme or the vibe of your wedding day and she’ll mood-board it- or you can just scroll through the many already up- like this tasty citric
wonder:

Ami x

It is not without a collective jump for joy that the Bite girls welcome in Series 2 of BITE. While the series will no doubt be pushing us to the limits of decency and bringing some finer weather, we are indeed bewailing the sad loss of Amy and Antonya (The A Team) due to ‘geographical differences.’ I have my assumptions that their sassy little publicist is having me on and they’ll be popping out of a Ford Ka in no time at all.

It’s been about a month since our last series and a lot has happened (including me finally having my haircut and frustratedly trying on at least 50 wedding dresses, none of which will be invited to the wedding).

At the end of the last series, the Bite girls were lucky partakers in a ‘denim party’ courtesy of Ilovejeans.com and their Denim To Your Door programme.

If you missed the episode- suffice to say that this new take on the Ann Summers/ Tupperware party format provides a long needed antidote to the horror of jeans shopping on the high street. A Denim to Your Door party is the perfect environment for jeans-buying - surrounded by your friends in the comfort of your own home you can try on pair after pair, with both drinks and honest advice on tap.

An unfortunate lack of cash at the denim party, however, led to my desperate denim dash to Selfridges earlier this week. Despite the near paralysing prospect of a denim purchase with no time, no friends, and no drink in sight, I quite quickly snapped up a pair with my name written all over them!

Turns out posh denim company, Earnest Sewn, (as seen on an Olsen or two) has brought out a new (and slightly cheaper) line called Earnest Am I. It just so happens the various tags which adorn the jeans look like they’re saying Ami.

‘find an unwavering appreciation for denim and the fading mystique of American ingenuity and craftsmanship’. So it would appear they are a little, um, earnest.

None the less- Did you Know?.......
It turns out you can recycle your old jeans into building insulation and Earnest Sewn sponsored an initiative to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Have a look at how you could help here.

This sponsorship makes even more sense when you look into how to get YOUR name on a pair of their jeans. If you pay upwards of $700.00 you can have your Earnests custom made to your measurements, and they’ll print your signature on the label.

Ami x

If you're up for the freshest fish in Tokyo and are a little jet-lagged, you wouldn’t go wrong heading down the Tsukiji Fish Market. It’s the largest fish market in the world and it got me out of bed before 5am.

Over 2000 tons of edible ocean life is bought and sold in the fish market every day. Apparently that’s £14m worth.

Tuna seems the main deal and is auctioned off first thing in the morning. Some of the tuna is frozen, sliced and packaged. Some is loaded into trucks to be rushed to the sushi houses of Tokyo and beyond. Some remains on site to be sold through the rows and rows of stalls. And much is bought by the local sushi establishments serving the freshest sashimi breakfast you’ll ever have. It was cold, it was early and it sure was fishy, but it was one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever visited. But while lots of fun can be had wandering the cobbles and dodging the scooters, one does wonder at how the ocean is suffering the loss…..

Ami x

Here's my own masterpiece recorded on my phone for 'Overheated Symphony' for the Birds Eye View Festival as featured in this weeks show.

Enjoy

Ami

Banksy's art ratified, despite what the papers say......

There seems to be an awful lot of media misrepresentation surrounding Banksy's big rat up in Liverpool. The Capital of Culture has pledged to preserve the 30-foot rodent which adorns the White Hart pub, and has erected some hoardings around it while it does a little renovation.

Liverpool City Council has promoted such art as a way of cleaning up what it calls city 'grot spots'. And as you can see from the photo, they've been carefully painting the building around Mr Rat. This has had various publications stirring up trouble by quoting the council as saying the rat himself is a 'grot spot' that's due to be cleaned up and painted over.

Either way it's good to see Banksy causing some controversy once more. Gone are the days when he skulked unseen around Hackney and created graffiti that made people question the nature of art. Nowadays he's widely acclaimed as an incredible artist with his works selling for £250,000 or more to the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

However, Favourite Rat of The Year Award does not go to one of Banksy's many fabulous creations. Paws down the winner is:

Remy from Pixar's Ratatouille.
If you haven't seen the film yet it should really be the very next thing you do! Besides the fact that it is actually a very good film that's been nominated for 5 Oscars, the protagonist is a fluffy little rat living in Paris with a love of fine food. What's not to love? It had me from the opening credits.

Ah, there's something so refreshing about characterisation in animation. Because you're watching talking animals, it's easier to lose your cynicism and be charmed. The same cannot be said for my feelings about the protagonist in Sean Penn's film 'Into the Wild'.

Actor/Director Sean Penn seemed to me so overindulgent with his lead, Emile Hirsh, and clearly assumed a high degree of de facto audience sympathy because the film was based on a true story with a sad ending. Personally I was overjoyed at the film's ending because I couldn't believe I 'd sat through the whole thing and survived.

I wonder if I've just dashed all my chances at the big-game in Hollywood, now I've gone and said that. The almost pedigree positivity of the reviews for Into the Wild would indicate that Penn is Power in LA LA Land. Or that my taste in movies sucks.

Oooh, I do like the sound of AMUTI, the "interactive" art gallery that caused the hilarious in-car quarrel between Amy and Antonya in last week’s episode. Don’t know about you but I quite fancy a ride in Amy’s love ship and I’d probably pay a few bob for some of Antonya’s art too. (Are you selling the self-portrait you did at the speed-hating btw?)

Anyway, the Saatchi Gallery seems to be doing exactly the same thing (not arguing in a car) - inviting you and me to submit art and promising the possibility of its selling straight off their site. And while we’re hastily finishing off that masterpiece, we can peruse the accepted works and buy them off the site without commission.

Haven’t seen anything I want yet- it’s definitely less easy than buying shoes. For the moment then, I shall appreciate free art only. I found this post it note on the tube. Well, no I didn’t- I found it online. Obviously.

The post-it poster is a call to pens for those of us who fill handfuls of post-its all day at work, but never use them for anything worth keeping. On 1st February, fill a post-it with your work of art and then post-it – somewhere. And take a picture of it. Hopefully you won’t be the last to see it.

The Post It Project is the creation of some chick who went to Japan and posted a post-it picture of her own once a day for 100 days.

Whatever your medium, whatever your job, there could be something in constraining yourself to that little square. Which you then frame with some place and abandon.

Can I wait till February 1st?

Oh dear, my camera broke. I shall have to buy one of these.

For those of you who don’t know, before the Carl Zeiss lens, there was the Leica lens (www.leica-camera.co.uk/photography/compact_cameras/c-lux_2/) - an almost mythical figure in photographic history. So yeah, I just want the camera so I can name drop and feel all retro chic- but can I have it anyway?

So who else Likes-a-Leica? Well according to Wikipedia, Spike Jonze, director of Being John Malkovich and and the Queen herself like a Leica, so at least I’ll be in good company.

So, I'm bum-on-the-cold-floor at LAX. Flight back to England indefinitely delayed. I'm reading about weddings and missing my i-pod- (akin to losing a limb.)

I guess now would be a good time to learn the bass seeing as I’m carting this one all the way back to England - if anyone else in this airport asks me for a song I’ll throw my bowler hat at them – oddjob style.

Holiday season kind of crept up on me this year, which it seems to do with ever increasing stealth. I hope you had a good one for at least most of the time. I made bread sauce and grew 7 siblings courtesy of my young man-friend and his fabulous family.

Then I paid too much money to go to an NYE party in downtown LA.

With some delight I can tell you that I was running around the outside of a warehouse complex at the moment where 2007 and faded to black and 2008 switched on. Not the plan, seeing as Peaches was doing the midnight countdown inside and we'd paid extra for an open bar due to close in less than two hours.

I tell you this with delight because I wonder if it has any significance- the state of motion I was in as the year turned. Like most of us- I never run (except for public transport- that great equalizer.) Lovely night for it though, as it happens.

The Party was called Hard and all the kids looked odd and like they'd taken some time dressing up. Everyone just out in the street dancing and then inside a warehouse or two where some token VIP area would spring up and they'd cordon it off and make you queue up to get inside just to remind you that you were still in LA.

Despite being late for 2008, I made it for the Justice DJ set and jumped around with the other young people singing ‘We are your friends.’ I watched Peaches later on YouTube with her similarly uplifting message ‘F**k the year away!’.

Ami x

I danced with a thousand other Londoners under a strobed disco ball at Brixton Academy.
There were two drum kits and a drum machine, countless keyboards and cowbells, curly neon guitar cables, Hot Chip's Al Doyle killing it on guitar, and the wonderful Nancy Whang on synths and keys, stamping her black patent leather heels to the post-disco-electro-dance-punk beat. James Murphy's mini man-boobs may have been visible in his white T-Shirt, but LCD Soundsystem are not a bunch of geeks with laptops. Hail the day dance music grew guitars!
It seemed like we'd all just crashed a session they were having in their garage, and even when I found someone's gum at the bottom of my beer, I felt stupidly happy.

Ami x

I have long spoken of the joy of fireworks night in Hackney's Victoria Park. Not only because it's my local and walking though the streets with the converging crowds makes me feel all festive, but also because they put on a bloody good show.

Purveyors of pyrotechnic fun, Walk the Plank, not only hoisted into the air a giant, flaming skeleton of Guy Fawkes, but also set a model of Big Ben on fire and shot it into the sky like a rocket. All to the sounds of Bowie's Space Oddity. How brilliantly incendiary.

All this was accompanied by fireworks which surpassed the realm of eye-candy, crossing into the red-light district of non-stop eye-porn. All rather exciting but gratuitously long, leaving me wide eyed and gasping, with a clearer idea of why the council still hasn't gotten round to delivering the food recycling bin I keep asking for. Why build a hospital when you can blow things up in the sky?

Thankfully, a lovely plastic cup of mulled wine helped to soothe my nerves on the walk home.

Ami

Improv Everywhere is a group of merry pranksters for the 21st century which, in its own words causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. The most recent stunt involved 111 half naked men......

Ami

Nothing better than a Chicken-Shop picnic on a grey day. (Shades definitely surplus to requirement)

For the Turkish it seems every coffee cup is half full- half full of sediment you can't drink. A sure sign that it packs some punch I guess.

In my Halloween diary is:

Release the Bats is a mini ATP (All Tomorrow's Parties) event happening this weekend. Lots of lovely noise bands playing if that's your thing, I'm a particular fan of Deerhoof, who let you download a whole album's worth of tunes free from their website.

If you're having a costume dilemma, and you're feeling too vibrant for donning all-black, make your way to this website I came across which generates ideas for Halloween characters.

Here are a few I liked the sound of:

Cloud in a Jumpsuit
Latin Bald Sushi Chef with Hooks for Hands
Undead Lacerated Banana in a Mask
Vandalized Spoon in Gang Colours
Purple Asthmatic Genie with an Udder
Pile of Excrement at a Rave

Not forgetting that the London Film Festival is on until 1st November, I dragged my boyfriend to a Julie Delpy double-bill at my favourite cinema, the Rio in Dalston. I like it because it's small, local and Art Deco.

And with regards to the second film, Two Days in Paris, although in retrospect I think just one day in Paris would have sufficed, it's hard not to be inspired (and slightly intimidated) by Ms Delpy having written, directed, edited, scored, produced and acted in the film. Go girl.

Continuing on the theme of Art Deco cinema, I just found out that the Odeon in Leicester Square has its original organ from the 1930's. This is a picture of it in all its green glory:

It rises out of the floor and apparently they have it playing during silent movie screenings. Anyway, I'm investigating further on how to get tickets...

That's all for now - make sure you catch me in the new episode of bite!

Ami x

It's not all glamour, I'm not always working as fridge-cleaner to the stars as mentioned in my last blog. In fact, a rather serious bout of bad-hair day earlier in the week was just what I needed to keep me inside and bring out my inner Domestic Goddess.

My deep love of food makes me a passionate and energetic cooker. My lack of skills in the kitchen and general domestic idleness, however, mean I would much rather skip the hard work and the mess, and be taken out for dinner. Anyway, I couldn't venture out with the hair, and took my inspiration from a recent trip to the 24-hour bagel shops on Brick Lane (if you haven't been and you live in London- I wonder what you do on those crazy nights out which leave you scavenging for food at 4am?)

Anyway, having found this apparently authentic recipe on the web,

I set to work mixing flour into yeasty, beer-smelling water with bare-handed alacrity. After combining all necessary ingredients and spending thirty minutes slooshing around up to my elbows in the apparently unchanged wateriness, it became clear that something was wrong. A re-read of the recipe formally revealed I was in fact using the wrong kind of flour (beware young chefs, there is more to flour than meets the eye) and, as is often the way with my culinary creations, I had no choice but to deviate from the recipe like a rogue cyclist falling out of line in the Tour de France. Except the French can cook.

Hunger, and a small alcoholic beverage, spurred me on until the contents of my mixing bowl began to thicken, at which point I spent a full half hour laughing myself silly over the sticky stringiness of the dough-mess which clung unrelentingly to my hands/arms/clothes/face/house and gave me the distinct feeling of being a Boris Karloff body double from The Mummy.

Pleasingly, it turns out that if you substitute Bread Flour for an inordinate amount of Plain Flour, you can still end up with a big doughy lump that eventually sticks to itself, and not to you. At 2am, I was rather surprised to find myself the proud progenitor of these little babies:

Which unfortunately were so hard I shall be keeping some in my handbag for self-defense, but none the less I think they still illustrate that beautiful things can come from those unexpected Boris Karloff moments.

Talking of the great Mr K reminds me that Halloween is coming up next week which is one of my favourite annual events (mostly to do with the colour scheme), so my next blog will be full of ideas for some ghoulish goings-on.

After last year's frantic Christmas Eve shopping disaster - I have decided to take a more pragmatic approach to Chrimbles this year. (I know it's not that soon but a rare trip to Harrods on Saturday got me in the mood). In an effort to avoid the perennial desperate-dash and arbitrary last-minute gift selection - I am, once and for all, going to buy early. That said, I will probably still find myself buying people presents I'd rather keep for myself, and then resenting them for it.

This perfect Christmas-Present book is a compilation of postcards sent in to an incredible blog called Post Secret. If you've been keeping your legs crossed on a secret, relieve yourself on a postcard and send it in to this blog- but do it with style. Apparently the site is run by a guy called Frank who was told in a dream to 'find answers in the secrets of strangers' - maybe you could do the same if you're not ready to air your own.

So, what was I doing in Harrods at the weekend? Well, for my sins, I'm more often found buying over-priced drinks in Shoreditch than overpriced drapes in Harrods, so let me just clarify that I was there on business not pleasure. I was documenting Sting's book signing as part of my other job as a videographer on the Police Tour.

Narrowly avoiding the temptation of those over-priced drinks, I spent Saturday evening at Wembley Arena filming the band's last European gig of the year. Some good friends had come to see the show and, post-gig, we did the obligatory awkward 'hanging around' in the overcrowded and under-oxygenated dressing rooms of the rabbit-warren back stage area. After accidentally, and literally, bumping into a rather reserved Eric Clapton, I was given an empty black bag by my friend Jaime, the Dressing Room Ambience Co-ordinator. Jaime gave me strict instructions to 'take care' of all the left-over booze from Stewart Copeland's dressing room and, needless to say, whatever we failed to drink on-site was dutifully emptied into the bag.

Anyway, enough of that. I’ll leave you with some wanderings n' wonderings. I do like a walk around Hackney. Here's just a couple of my camera phone photos from this week.

We can all learn from this building which manages to look heroic even when it's falling apart.

Is this simply an abandoned brolly, or was someone just beamed up?

So I know the internet could be all about giving the mic to the little guy- but I just love this new Sony PlayDoh Ad. Corporate can do creative.

Winter may be coming but the rabbits think it's Spring. Try not to love them.

Don't forget the first-ever hot new bite show is up TODAY and there will be a new one up every Tuesday all over the world.