Twilight in the Sky Garden (Snapshots)

I bloomin love being up high buildings - feels so much more poignant and sophisticated having a gin and tonic 30 floors up instead of 1.

One of my best friends just came back from 6 months in Tokyo, and I was hearing from her and my other friend (her boyfriend) about this swish bar 41 floors up where from 5-9pm (twilight) you can enjoy unlimited drinks and canapes for £20. And this £20 doesn't just cover mimosas and bellinis, oh no, you can drink anything - from champagne to expensive whiskeys to cocktails. It is definitely on my bucket list now! (Is it a bad sign if you put an all you can drink bar on your bucket list? Never mind)

Anyhoo, for Will's birthday we watched the sunset at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street (more commonly known as the Walkie Talkie) in the Sky Garden, the UK's highest public gardens. You can book a ticket up the Sky Garden for free, but just a warning, unless you have far more self control than me - which to be fair you may well do - you are going to spend quite a bit more than £20 on drinks and canapes, and they will not be unlimited.

I did see some much more sensible people sitting in the garden reading a book, but to be honest when you're up there with the breathtaking views, and the gorgeous sunsets and the err fully stacked bars, it is very tricky not to order a drink or 2. In the cheapest bar on the concourse, it will cost you £11.50 (+service) for a cocktail, £7 (+service for a glass of house wine or prosecco) and like £16 (+ service) for say a branded double spirit on the rocks.

But pff the prices, check out the pictures (from light to dark):

Birthday boy was actually looking out that pensive, he isn't even posing intentionally here!

Don't even mind paying £11.50 for my cocktail if it comes with a flower!

So there you go! Overwhelmed you and me with photos now, sorry. FYI if you need more evidence of how nice it is up the Sky Garden all these photos were taken by me (with very poor photo taking abilities) with either my Samsung Galaxy 3 or my boyfriend's iPhone 6. Twilight at the Sky Garden just looks this damn good! Book a free visit to the Sky Garden here

Like stuff up high buildings? Check out my post "A silent disco with a view and 39 thoughts you'll have up there"

Walking and Wandering and Wondering on My Own at the V&A Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty exhibition

Aaaarg gosh and golly, this is like my third attempt at this blog post because I keep on waffeling more the f-on than per usual, and like quoting Shakespeare and it is all getting out of hand, so I am going to attempt this in more of a list form, but bear with me, because it is tricky to do a list like review of a gallery exhibition. That is probs why the Guardian doesn't do that...

So, like some sort of lady who lunches which I am not, I had a cheeky day off on Friday, just to hang out with myself. And this day unlike last time I had a casual Friday off I actually wasn't dying of a hangover thanks to a Thursday night at Hip Hop Karaoke (as flipping amazing as it sounds, but you do actually have to be good at rapping - they don't have the words up and they don't have Drunk in Love). No this day I got up to see the partial solar eclipse and everything (but didn't too many clouds in London).

If you've read the short epic novels which are my about page or my first post, then you know this blog is about doing nice things in London and in life with your lover, with your friends but also on your own. I wanted to be better at "me time", and not just end up watching Teen Mom 2 for 5 hours whilst eating Heinz Tomato soup if I had a day to myself. I've got away from that a little bit on Loner. Lover. Friend, my last "loner" posts have been about ways to get yourself out of a slump day, a musing about what Valentine's day is, different ways to wear Christmas jumpers...I am not going to stop doing those posts, because I like writing them, but I wanted to get back to what my initial thoughts for this blog were.

The V&A seemed a good place to start, on my first V&A membership card, and in the pack it has a copy of Rob Ryan's lasered design:

Hours that I spent walking and wandering and wondering on my own to look and think and think and look feeling apart yet feeling a part of all that I saw as the past and the present slowly became one

I actually have been a member of the V&A for almost 3 years now. I know get me and my cultural self. As I've mentioned before on Loner. Lover. Friend, I think one of the most fabulous things about London is pretty much all of our wonderful museums and galleries are free, but there are some perks of V&A membership: 10% off in the gift shop, a cute little membership card to put in your wallet, feeling like a high and mighty cool as cultural so and so, oh and of course all the free, no booking needed entry to all of their wonderful exhibitions, and the ability to go to members events, like lovely evening talks with wine receptions and really interesting people from the world of fashion and art sharing what they know.

When I signed up to the V&A it was amazingly good value for money as I got their under 26 membership on direct debit. I paid £29 for myself for a year's worth of exhibitions (and bear in mind Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty is £17.50 per person) and then paid an extra £15 to bring a guest in with me. Now I am old and 26, and no longer qualify for that membership (waaa), it is a bit pricier, but still worth it, if you are going to go to at least 3 ticketed exhibitions a year and bring someone along.

So now for the list. Sorry none of the items on this list have that much connection to each other, they are just thoughts I had when seeing Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty, things I learnt, things I've thought and learnt since, things I already knew which I thought might be worth sharing with y'all.

1. It looks amazing. As you might expect from a V&A ticketed exhibition but still, give that curator a medal. As you move through the rooms it echoes McQueen's collections you are moving through - like the room for his A/W 1997 collection "It's a jungle out there" all tribal influence and coats made from hair and amazing things the exhibition room is like this wonderful (fake) skull lined cage. For his romantic dreamy collections, the V&A framed them against huge gilt mirrors, and to display his S/S 2001 collection VOSS they recreated the glass box, Alexander McQueen showed it in.

2. So from point 1, with me dropping in the names of the collection and wotnot maybe you think I am an Alexander McQueen and general fashion know it all. Not true, I was just doing that to impress ya. I had heard of Alexander McQueen but I mainly associated him with this amazing nautical collection I saw in my Elle magazine when I was 15, and Kate Middleton's wedding dress, as of course his predecessor Sarah Burton designed that. What I didn't realise is that actually Alexander McQueen was super duper weird, like weirder than a normal designer (who lets face it, all seem to bring out designs a bit more bizarre than H&M). Like on display in the exhibition included: a whole top made of mussel shells, a red sequinned dress which would be normal but for the face hood, a dress with massive wooden wings.

3. Although there are a few bits of Alexander McQueen which have made it mainstream. Turns out I probably have him to thank for that lace corset and smart trouser look which I wore to every 17th birthday party in 2004. And all those puffball hems we had a few years back, were courtesy not of Jane Norman but of him. And seeing them all again sort of makes me wish I could still fit into my old puffball dress and that my mum had never thrown that lace corset away. Also, no offence Topshop but his Atlantis collection made it look like he did those lovely mirroring symmetrical print dresses like 8 years before you did...

4. That maybe fashion can be art. As I mooched around in my leggings, trainers and oversized sweatshirt at a fashion exhibit, onlookers might not have thought it, but I am not one of those people who think fashion is silly. I think fashion gives you confidence, shows your creativity and helps you express yourself but I've never seen it as art in the way say, I see Shakespeare as art. Art for me is something that pinpoints the human condition, how men and women feel and identify themselves, and has the same emotional resonance with its audience regardless of their context - their century, their gender, their wealth, their race. I couldn't see how fashion could do that, but McQueen's work wasn't just about trends, it was about showing mortality, showing beauty, showing our relationship with nature. I loved what he said about his not-so-pretty Voss collection: "It was about trying to trap something not conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within".

5. That Alexander McQueen was a pretty special person. Not scared to be different and outrageous, and that showed in his collections and everything he did. He was the son of a cabbie who grew up as Lee in Stratford, and left school with just one O level. In his first job - an apprenticeship at a tailor's in Mayfair - he wrote "you f***ing c**t" in an suit jacket intended for Prince Charles. (Pretty ironic that his label then went on to dress Prince Charles' daughter in law on her wedding day).

Sorry no photos are allowed inside, so I am having to describe things a little, they are obvs better seen in person!

6. A highlight number one: there is this miraculous hologram of Kate Moss dancing in this wispy gown and then becoming like smoke. Not maybe the best showcasing of McQueen's work but amazeballs nonetheless.

7. Highlight or maybe lowpoint (?) number two: a man reaching out and touching a slashed pink ponyskin dress when security weren't looking!! Couldn't believe it! Think he might have been dragged by a girlfriend, and didn't get it...

8. And nothing to do with Alexander McQueen per say, but just a day to myself. A day to sit and drink jasmine tea (and eat macaroni cheese of course) in the most lovely cafe in London (well the loveliest cafe where you can get lunch for less than a tenner). A day to sit and read my book in beautiful surroundings on the first proper day of spring. A day to just not worry about anyone but me and anything I was missing! I think sometimes "me time" can be hard to prioritise because you get massive FOMO about what you could be missing out on whilst you are walking and wandering and wondering on your own - whether thats because your friends are all going down the pub, or because you could just be lounging on the sofa with your boyfriend watching TV and that is pretty lovely as a thing to do too. But getting out by yourself did make me feel a bit more in touch with me again, and I guess if you are worried about the FOMO then taking a day off is a good move, cos what are you missing? Work! Pfff.

Ok none of the exhibition but I went to town on the cafe! Who could resist a cuppa in here?

Classily reading The Goldfinch and photographing it with the sticker still on...I also bought Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking's autobiography that the Theory of Everything is based on) if you were wondering! Oh and the Goldfinch is excellent!

Dat ceiling.

You can book and Alexander McQueen exhibition for £17.50 per person here. You can get V&A membership here, but they don't mention direct debits I think (which is cheaper). Pop in and visit the membership desk for that gig.

Read more about why I want to blog about things to do by yourself here, in my first post: Go to a literary festival

Have you seen 50 shades of Grey?

Ok. Probably yes, as I realise I am a bit late to the party on this one, I haven't even read the books!

On Monday, I headed with 3 of my best girlfriends to Genesis cinema in Whitechapel (£4 for a ticket on a Monday! In central London!) to watch the long anticipated film version of that book, and eat pie and mash (oh yes, it ain't just nachos at Genesis, they offer a whole new level of carbs...)

I, like everyone else in the world, heard quite a lot about the book when it became such a huge mummy porn sensation back in 2011, increasing sales of kindles, as so many people didn't want anyone to know that was what they were reading it on the tube!

Even the weekend the film came out, I heard the London fire brigade on the radio saying they were expecting to see a rise in 999 calls from people handcuffed to beds and wotnot, as they saw an increase when the book was at its peak!

So my thoughts on the movie were mainly, I found Jamie Dornan very attractive (though maybe not as attractive as I thought, was it just me or did other people find he looked almost off-puttingly like a bear cub when he smiled?) and the film in general very funny. There were sections where we were crying with laughter: when Jamie Dornan (ok Christian Grey) kept on putting those ill fitted sex jeans on with such drama whenever he went in the playroom (just think how gross they'd be by now in real life with all the action and bodily fluids they are getting), the bit where he ate a large bit of her toast in a seductive way, the use of fashionable homeware and accessories as foreplay - stroking Anastasia with a peacock feather and then a leather tassle. Pretty sure I have saw both of those in the accessories section of Forever 21 the other day actually.

But the funniest thing of all was the whole idea of the book/movie -

Anastasia: "Are we going to make love now?"
Christian Grey: "Not until I have your written consent"

How every average relationship starts no?

And what that written consent is - a contract- is crazy! (Again, sorry that most of the world has already had this revelation!) See a physician of his choice to prescribe oral contraception, limit your alcohol intake, exercise regularly, only eat a list of approved foods?? The S&M stuff is one thing, but telling a girl she can't have that third glass of wine after a tough Friday at work? Hells no.

So you get the gist, although doing well at the box office, the film has done less well with the critics, but it can be rofls galore if you approach it in the right way.

Having said that, the day after International Women's Day (Sunday 8th), going to a film about a "dream man" who sure is rich and attractive, but ultimately ridonculously controlling did leave me with a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

In loads of ways, you could argue 50 shades has sexually liberated thousands of women, and is credited with getting couples all over the country back into the bedroom after dry spells. But why are women turned on by this? What is the appeal of being the exception to the rule of basically a bad man? Being the one girl this not that nice and respectful man allows to actually sleep beside him after sex, allows to touch him, approves them going on dinner dates?

Ok, there has never been a super hot billionaire in my life trying to control me, but I like most girls have been attracted to the not so nice boy who hardly has an excellent cv when it comes to women and dating, and wished that I will be the one he makes a proper commitment to, the one he properly falls for. And it has never worked out...

E.L James' book, the film, the franchise could never have been made without the women who marched and burnt their bras and demanded for women to be seen as equals with the right to make our own choices. Written by a woman and read mainly by women, a certain amount of sexual liberation had to happen for a book like this to be adopted and a-oked by popular culture.

But even in that freedom to read and write and watch things like 50 shades of Grey, it almost demonstrates we are back where we started. All those women shouting "What do we want - freedom of choice!" And what do we choose... a rich man to provide for us, basically at the cost of our freedom. Yes, with freedom and self sufficiency comes some difficult things - Mr. Grey tells Anastasia how nice it is being a submissive, how comforting it is, how you don't have anything to worry about...maybe a bit like a child or a 1950s housewife? Sort of feels like we are back 60 years ago.

So I think, if you don't mind a film being a bit "so bad its good", then go and see 50 shades of Grey if you haven't yet, especially if you can do for just £4. But that doesn't mean we should forget that our right and ability to choose, is actually probably better than having a rich and hot billionaire as a beau. Even one as hot as Jamie Dornan.

"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat." 
 (Simone de Beauvoir)

Corr blimey that was a little bit like going back to uni and writing an essay on popular culture and feminism. Fancy something a little lighter that you can do with your pals? How about an afternoon tea?