BREAKING NEWS There will be no cocktail roundup post today, owing to the fact that a large chunk of the usual crowd will be drinking for real at Uborka’s first ever real time cocktail hour, also known as Clair & Neil’s Wedding. Photos may be posted. But please do feel free to leave your toasts and messages for @merialc here and/or on twitter using the hashtag #clamflange.
Uborka is pleased to announce a glorious festival of style over the next week. Guests Lori, Mike and K will be here all week to answer your questions on a range of lifestyle subjects, from fashion to garden design. I’ll let them introduce themselves in their own posts below. Please leave your questions here or in the individual posts, anonymously if you prefer, and watch out for replies between Monday and Thursday next week. If ever you needed help, be happy, for now it is here.
Okay, what the fuck do you want?
This is K: I’m a non-blogger. I never really got it, apart from vicariously reliving our antics through Troubled Diva. However, I became an enthusiastic late adopter to Twitter as @ktd (oh, and I’ve been lazy with my alter ego, @feasance_miss).
I was introduced to this social media thing by my partner and co-counsellor @miketd. He now tells me off for spending too much time chatting to strangers. (“Where’s my dinner!”) I really don’t know where this came from, since I am an antisocial grump who prefers to swear and hide from the public. But then, the keyboard provides the perfect foil for the outside world – I really don’t like telling people to fuck off in person.
I’m a cell biologist with a dilettante research history. Basically, I am into finding new ways of diagnosing disease, principally that bastard cancer.
I do science because it’s what I’m best at, and it’s not too bad to make a contribution to health. That said, I’ve always been interested in all things creative, particularly the visual arts. Pictures are better for me since I struggle with worms.
I’m a bit of a cook, and I like my wine (both quality and quantity, as evidenced by late night Twitter obscenities). I love our garden. I like good clothes and design. I wouldn’t survive without Mr Porter, because that would involve interacting with the real world. Despite hating the real world, I’ve seen most of it. I used to love travelling, but now it’s just a pain in the arse.
I have an unhealthy obsession with contemporary studio ceramics – I come from Stoke on Trent. This causes @miketd anxiety, because he thinks we are running out of available surfaces.
So please come to me for embarrassing body issues (I’m a biologist), food, wine and restaurants (I’m a drunken glutton), gardening advice (I’m middle aged) and men’s sartorial questions (I’m gay). Also travel (boutique hotels only – did I say I’m gay?), interior design and great pots.
Footnote: I’m very cheap, but I don’t do budget.
Now fuck off and leave me alone.
Greetings, People of Uborka. I’m @miketd, currently on indefinite hiatus from Troubled Diva, and imminently on permanent hiatus from my career in IT. Happily, this gives me ample time to answer any “lifestyle” questions that you may care to chuck in my direction.
My sideline career as a music writer has brought me into contact with many a celebrity, via the medium of the telephone, for periods that have rarely exceeded twenty minutes. To put my place in the pecking order into its proper context: during the 1970s, legendary rock writer Nick Kent got regularly and extravagantly wasted on L.A.’s Sunset Strip with Iggy Pop… whereas I once got to hang out at The Good Mixer at Camden Town, with the lead singer of Scouting For Girls, after an Owl City gig. Evidently, ours is a diminished profession.
My chosen specialist subjects are: arts, culture, media old and new, relationship advice and general matters of the heart. Please refrain from asking me about cookery, motoring, career advice and sports. I look forward to fielding your queries to the best of my ability.
So, it’s Lifestyle Week on Uborka and I’ve been asked to don my very best Agony Aunt hat in order to help you, dear reader, with your problems. Why have I been asked to do this, you may well ask. Allow me to introduce myself…
My name is Lori Smith (aka @lipsticklori) and I have been blogging since 2002. I am an online writer who specialises in fashion – specifically vintage/ethical and lingerie – feminism, sex and relationships. I have appeared on Channel 4’s More Sex Tips For Girls, was interviewed about open relationships for The Guardian and Glamour Magazine, and was quoted in The Metro talking about sex blogging. As well as my own site – Rarely Wears Lipstick – I have written for contemporary feminism site The F-Word, online women’s magazine BitchBuzz, and have had articles published in Geeked and SLiNK magazines.
I have also spoken at a number of events: I was on the fashion panel at SHINE 2011, the UK’s leading unconventional conference for socially-minded entrepreneurs; I was a speaker at sex blogger and erotica writer’s conference Eroticon in 2012 and 2013; I hosted a session on creative costumes at BurlyCamp 2012; and I co-hosted a session about sex blogging at Cybher12. On top of all that, I was a finalist in the Writer category of the Erotic Awards in 2012 and I am currently studying MA History and Culture of Fashion (part-time) at London College of Fashion. No, I don’t know where I find the time for all this either!
So, if you want to ask me any questions about sex, relationships, body image, feminism or fashion, I am at your service. I do hope I can help.
Today’s plan to go to the beach is scuppered by wind and rain; the normal grey Armpit is back. One of the alternatives on offer is to drive into the nearest town to visit Prezzo; I say it will be my treat. Stepdad mutters gloomily that it is unlikely that Bernard will find something he likes on the menu there. Mum anxiously offers to go halves because it’s such an expensive restaurant. They are both serious. I worry that Prezzo means something different up north.
Prezzo is exactly the same up north, which makes today mostly a win.
It’s a fortnight since we launched Uborka Running Club. We appear to have had eight people sign up, but of course the invitation is open, there’s no fee, and everyone is welcome. Honestly, you don’t even have to run. I was going to list the members and ask individuals for their reports, but that seems a bit strict, and we’re really not strict. Just dive in if you want to.
Your questions are:
Today’s activity consists of spending more time driving to and from Scarborough, than we actually spend in the Sea Life Centre itself. This is because the SLC is fairly similar to all the other aquariums, but with extra otters. The otters don’t do anything much. The SLC is extremely crowded, as one would expect during half term week. There are a lot of dark tunnels full of big people, little people, and pushchairs. Happily my enochlophobia doesn’t really manifest itself until we are about to leave anyway. This is no more than about an hour after we arrived (give or take 20 minutes of queuing to get in despite advance ticket purchase). I don’t really get aquariums. There are rude pulsing jellyfish, scruffy-looking penguins, and mean-faced sharks. They don’t race or crash or talk. We look at it all, and then we leave.
Mum and stepdad, having been sent a different route round the centre with the wheelchair, are already sitting in the car looking cross, which means there is no chance we can go back inside for a round of mini-golf, as requested by Bernard. They bicker all the way home about how and why every other driver on the road is getting it wrong.
Here’s a picture of Bernard eating a gravy-filled yorkshire pudding as big as his face: