The Handbag of Hell: Part 2.

I was rooting through my posts today and saw The Handbag of Hell. That was when I had a weird moment of reflectiveness and decided how different my life was today, and how the things in my handbag have changed. I also noticed how much neater my handbag is, and actually, slightly smaller. The last time I did my handbag post, I was just about still studying at Uni.I'd recently given in my dissertation and was dreading the upcoming results. Now I'm working and, whilst back home, out of my mums house and in with the boyfriend.

So in the spirit of nostalgia for a bygone age, I've decided to do a second post, perhaps with slightly more detail, however much less stuff.
So here it is:
(I know, I said less, but I promise you there is less)

 I think the first thing (which I'm very proud of I might add) that I compared about the pictures, were my bed covers. Now I have pretty cool ones. So, as a list of things there, which I will go through in more detail, I have:

My phone, keys, hair accessories including brush and hairpins, make up bag, tablet stash, glasses, hand stuff, kindle (I rarely put it down), diary, notepad, many, many pens.

So this is my beautiful handbag, which my mum found whilst clearing her room. Apparently it was supposed to be a birthday or Christmas present for either me or my sister and she didn't even realise it was there. It's probably been there for years knowing her.It had a little make-up purse inside it, which I'm using for that purpose. It also came with a bigger overnight bag that I might use for a laptop.

First up, my mobile phone.
- It's a Google Nexus 4. Touchscreen, easy to use, gorgeous design, sparkly back and my very first smartphone. Before it I had an ancient Nokia, but at least it had a colour screen.
- Cath Kidston purse, which my sister got for me for my birthday, isn't it cute with those little strawberries?
- Cancer Research Diary, which I got as a gift for staff.
- Pretty notepad, £1.99 from The Works.

And this is Part 1 of my make-up handbag collection, situated in the make-up bag that came with the handbag. This is just for the lips. Afterwards i shall be doing a cull of it. Includes:

-Little green tin, from Superdrug. With Aloe Vera.
-2 Miss Sporty Dr Balm lipbalms, which are balms that have a little bit of colour made with Royal Jelly. I love them.
-2 Make Up Academy (MUA) lipsticks. At £1 each i don't think you can go wrong, one is a purply colour and the other is pinky-red.
- Miss Sporty Perfect Colour Lipstick in Spiced Rum.
- Avon Lipstick in Sparkling Nude
-Collection 2000 Lip gloss.
- Revlon Just Bitten Lipstain and balm in Beloved/Adoration.

And Part 2 - the rest. (from left to right)
- Mandara pa Honeymilk Dream Nourishing Hand Cream. This smells soo good. It was a present from my boyfriends parents and came as part of a set.
- The Body Shop Hand Cleanse Gel in Strawberry. A must, and it smells good.
- Miss Sporty Morning Baby BB Cream. I was never really into BB creams, but i thought I'd give it a go and I have to say I'm turned. It's like a very light foundation and moisturiser in one, and this bottle is small enough to fit nicely in the bag.
- Blusher Balls from Primark. These leave a subtle rosy glow.
- A very well used Body Shop Eyeshadow in Copper.
- Natural Collection Lashcurl mascara in Brown.

And those are the contents of my handbag. Now for that person who said to me at work "This weighs a tonne, what on earth do you put in this thing?", now you know that it's not actually bricks as you've been led to believe.

Question Time

I could go all deep on you, and ask what the question of the universe is. Or question about life, gods and death. Or perhaps question why people are cruel.

But instead I'm going to not think depressing thoughts and answer some more jovial questions, and maybe some big ones at the end. This is basically, an opinion piece.

These questions were set by Kyra of Beautyetc and Raves, Rants and Random Ramblings, and I'm pretty sure some are put in there just to embarrass me.


Image from google

1. What's your favourite TV show? I have many. It's probably going to be Doctor Who. But then there's Misfits, and Heroes, and Andrew Lloyd Webbers talent shows, once Upon a Time, Criminal Minds, Being Human and so on.
2. Do you have any really annoying habits? Um.. being messy? I don't take much notice of my annoying habits to be honest.
3. How many colours have you dyed your hair? Ohhh, a lot. if we went for shades. As it is there's been brown, blue-black, red, ginger, I tried blonde once (it didn't work), purpley-red. So that's...6?
4. Do/ did your parents/friends have any embarrassing nicknames for you? Oh yes. Many. I think the worst was Pidgeon. It sounds cute. It wasn't. I get called Ace by my dad, which i like. And get called many names by my boyfriend.
5. If you could keep one object (that is currently in your room) for the rest of your life, what would it be? I'm not sure, because there are so many things I would love to keep - gifts from friends, family and my boyfriend, paintings, holiday trinkets, some gorgeous clothes, my camera. But It might have to be a gift from someone. Not sure if I can decide which one though.
6. Do you have any collections, if so, what are they? I have a lot of Disney films. And buttons. But I don't really collect any more. Unless you count my nail polishes. Thats a pretty big collection. I used to collect both coins and pots.
7. Which meal would you say you are a pro at cooking? Pasta bake. I'm pretty good at it.
8. Whats the coolest thing you've been for Halloween? I haven't really been very cool at Halloween. I guess the best thing was last year being the Queen of Broken hearts with an outfit my sister's boyfriend's mum made for me. (The Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland).
9. If you worked for yourself and money was no object, what would you be doing? If talent were no object I'd be singing. Unfortunately, I'm not blessed in that department.
10. Who is your favourite author and why? I have a few favourite authors. My favourite books are the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke. So I guess it should be her. The reason being because when I read one of those books the world just jumps right into my head.
11. What specialist subject would you choose on Mastermind? It might have to be Disney Animated Classics. Quite Seriously.

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Now for some kind of serious ones.

What is the meaning of life? I don't know. If I had to guess.. to learn to be the best we can possibly be. Personally, I have reason to believe the some of us aren't doing our best. But only because were bogged down with things like money and jobs.

Do you believe in God, Spirits or Voodoo? No, but I'd like to. Yes. And no.

Are we alone in the universe? The chances are.. no. Probably not. We are probably like bacteria to the other beings out there. Either that or we're like gods. I know which one I prefer.

The 10 Day you Challenge : 1 Picture of Yourself

For the last day of the challenge, it's a picture of yourself.

Well, instead of posting an actual picture (not a good idea for me) I decided the best way to show how I view myself is to write and draw things that I love, and to do a small self-portrait in the middle.

I don't think picture's really show who you are, they're more how you were in that moment, or the face you put on. But drawings and paintings.. and a collage maybe. that really shows what you love.
So I gave myself a little project and this is what I came up with:

I just went ahead and drew it in biro quickly, but I hope it sums me up well. (Reminds me of a childs drawing, but I can't draw people at all.)

To sum it up a little, I'm holding a phone, theres a cupcake, a pencil and paintbrush, lots of nature, a laptop, a book, a handbag, a DVD, some musical notes and a host of random words. oh, and a badly drawn nail polish in the corner. There should be a camera, a holiday and loved ones on here, but I couldn't fit it on the piece of paper (and can't draw them). This shows the things I enjoy, without being too nosy. :)

Thank you for taking your time to read my post, and possibly even the whole challenge (if you did that I'm impressed).

The 10 Day You Challenge : 4 Books

Choosing 4 books is difficult, so Instead I've given myself 4 books, or book series's. Books are a major part of my life, so this is going to be hard. So what I've done is chosen a few favourites and two that I think are very thought-provoking.



Image from Wikipedia

1. Inkworld Trilogy by Cornelia Funke. Because these books are about a love of books. And they're about adventure. Two of my favourite things.

2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Because when I read them I'm always thinking 'God, that's so right, and weirdly true', even though it's supposed to be a nonsensical book, it just makes complete and utter sense to me. Carroll writes in a very rare way. (possibly to do with the drugs he was on at the time, but the writing speaks for itself). And who wouldn't want to go to wonderland?

3. The Book Thief by Markus Zusack. Also a book about loving books, told from Death's perspective. It makes you think, laugh and cry.

4. The 5 people You meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom. This is a thinking book, and I love it more with every read. It's about exactly what it says on the tin, but the thoughts that go into it are wonderful. Read the Review Here.

The Book Thief image from Google

There are so many that are wonderful, I couldn't leave these out:

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashore

Also a special Mention to Neil Gaiman's books, Gregory Maguire's Books and Terry Pratchett's books.

The 10 Day You Challenge : 9 Loves

There are so many things to love in the world. To pick just a selct few is hard. So, there are probably far more than this, but heres my (probably) top 9:

1. Family, Friends and my Boyfriend. It has to be top of the list. The rest are in no particular order.

2. Stories and Reading. Anything. I just soak it up, take it all in and think about my view on the subject.

3. The Smell of the Night. you know when it's about 12/1 in the morning and you go to shut your window, but instead you lean out of it an just breathe in the night air. i love that. it's my absolute favourite smell.
I have a thing with smells. I often come out with "It smells like a good night". And it really does. I know what I mean.

4. Interesting Jewellery.  I have a penchant for weird jewellery. One of my favourites is one I bought from a stall at a craft market. It's a vintage-look necklace with an old American stamp inside it (picture of it, left). I'm holding out for some battenburg earrings still.

5.  Marzipan. Everything marzipan. I will get a whole block and sit there eating it as a treat. So fattening, but sooo good. Unfortunately you don't see many marzipan fruits around England these days, but I WILL have some soon.

6. Tea. Glorious tea. I'm drinking some now in fact. No wonder us British love it.

7. Films. Films are a passion. If I've seen one I'll usually know who's in it, and what else they've been in. It's a talent that has very little use.

8. Shopping. Don't most girls? Pretty dresses, gorgeous nail polishes, delicious food treats, killer shoes : heaven.

9. Nature. Because what's more beautiful than nature? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My particular favourite item in natture are forests. Big, English, woody, mushroomy, bluebell-filled dappled sunshine forests. With cute baby rabbits and deer.

Yay!

Ode to Imagination.

This blog post is devoted to the imagination. To people. To our world, and most of all, to paper.

Because we can make many many things out of paper.
Books, Notes, Flyers, Posters, Paper Aeroplanes, Newspapers, Papier Mache, Drawings, Paintings, Poems, Brainstorms, Labels, Packaging, Cards.
Anything you can think of really.
Well I wrote a random poem a few days ago, and I'd like to think it's not too bad. And I'd like to share it with you.

A piece of paper can conquer the world,
It has the power to shape and to mould.
Printed in books it sends out a message,
Or used as a visa, allowing safe passage.
Signs and posters to make people think,
Messages to loved ones gone in a blink.
The words themselves can speak so loud,
They speak of things that make us proud.
Religion, fantasy, ideas and notes,
We use it to put our people to vote.
To write stories and make pictures are uses too,
And when each piece is worn out we can start one anew.

As you probably know by now, books and stories are pretty much my thing. I love them. And so for me this was a pretty good poem.

So the suggestion today is to use your imagination and think about how everything has a use. And how important it is for you.

I know, this was a weird post. But don't worry, next time It'll be back with the odd and wonderful!

'Bofiloksms' - Why Books and Films don't mix.

Adapting books into films. You'd think that the film makers would have learned their lesson by now. Where has this seemingly endless fascination with adaptations come from?

Sure they'd realise by now that most of them are pretty much doomed to failure.

Especially if the book is a good one.

We'll take, for example Children's books.

Always irreversibly ruined by the film industry.

I give you here as examples Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson Series, Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak Series and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle (Including Eragon) series. Of course, these adaptations are now virtually unheard of. A. Because they're a bit pants in comparison to the books and B. because they haven't even made a second film adaptation for any of these series.

Inkheart Book Cover.

Some are in fact horrifically massacred. A favourite of mine is the Inkworld Series by Cornelia Funke. It's set in a beautifully crafted world which absorbs the reader right into it, quite literally. The characters are lovable and interesting, with their bad sides on show for everyone to see. But the film version just takes the book and does a number 2 on it.

Brendan Fraser and Helen Mirren are fine in their own way, but they are definitely not at their best. The story completely lacks the ethereal beauty and description of the books and turns a novel into generic children's film. As I'm sure you can tell, I was not best pleased.

Saying this, some adaptations have been hugely successful. This includes J.K Rowling's Harry Potter, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, J.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and C.S Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia Franchises. Though some of these books are deemed of bad quality and little inspiration, the film have nevertheless been adored by millions of people around the world. Harry Potter and Twilight are always seen to be competing for both bad press and the headlines, fans seemingly both overjoyed and outraged at the differences between the books and the films of each.

Whereas the Chronicles of Narnia are a light read and watch, and in my opinion have the warmth, simplicity and charm you expect from an older styled book, reminiscent of Enid Blyton and Beatrix Potter.

Lord of the Rings, however was made into an adventure epic that seemed to overshadow the book, but missed out some of the more intricate and perhaps necessary plot points.

Some film adaptations have had me screaming at them. OK, quite a few. The Time Machine, for example, had me raging at it's incapability to be even remotely based on the interesting H.G Wells novella. Once you've plodded your way through the obscure wording and far-reaching concepts you really want the film to be slightly like it. The film, instead, was a study on a man trying to bring back his loved one, but ending up going into the future and trying to help a future race.
Yes, this is vaguely the storyline of the book, except the future race are very, very different and there is no loved one. He travels simply for the knowledge and excitement.

Also an interesting, rather than good adaptation of the same kind is The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I was put off of the film automatically because it seemed to me to be trying to make the story too action-y. And the ending was a far cry from the events of the book, but still a good one. Ben Barnes would not have been my choice for Dorian either, his character lacks the subtlety that I would have liked. Not a film I would see again.

The three Alice's. 1.Book
2. Original Disney Cartoon
3. Tim Burton Disney film

Perhaps one of the best adaptations I have seen would be Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. It captures the devilish and oddball side of the story that the older Disney version lacks. Although not sticking to the original stories, it doesn't need to. It's a new story about Alice, and a good one at that. (Also see Lewis Carrols Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

One area I haven't covered yet, mainly because it's so trashily awful, is the comic book genre. Spiderman, Superman, Watchmen, Catwoman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Batman, Iron Man.. you name it, it's been ruined.
The film versions of comics are always going to be a little crap with a general mixing of story lines. Mainly because the story lines of comics changes so much. But when they get something really wrong, it makes comic geeks out there furious. And the hugely successful Spiderman franchise is an example of this. It doesn't follow story lines and the characters are out of place and sometimes just plain wrong.
Most of these comic based films completely miss out on their fan base because they don't use the better story lines, the characters are one-sided and are more child-oriented than their comic counterparts.

And perhaps some other good ones are more of the older style books. Such as Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula, depending on which versions you choose. But generally these book make good films because of their originality. The way that they can be adapted in a variety of ways that still makes sense.

If you watch these adapted films alone, they're OK, sure. But when you read the book your estimation of them just crashes down around your feet. It's very rare to find a film that matches up to the book, let alone is better than it, although for me Narnia comes close.

Although most films seem to bare no resemblance to their book counterparts, here the Guardian lists some films that apparently do:  Guardian's Top 50 good adaptations - This includes Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sin City, Dangerous Liaisons and The Remains of the Day.

On the other hand here is A list of 20 Good Books made into awful Movies. This includes Bicentennial Man, Stardust (a favourite book, and a horrifically child-oriented film), The Shining, Breakfast at Tiffany's (Although there is some debate about that one, some say it's brilliant, and some say it's awful), The Black Cauldron and a Mention of other classics such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mary Poppins.

 So there you have it. Books and films just don't mix. You know it. I know it.
So a notice to film studios everywhere: Just don't do it. And if you do, make sure it's a rubbish book that you can make better.

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This blog was written with inspiration from http://empire500.blogspot.com/ - A blog reviewing films from Empire Magazines 500 5 Star Rated films of all time. Thank you :).

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And for those who read this only to see if there was a picture of twilight.. I'll give in to your needs. Only this picture will be a nice, natural picture. Shirts on:

There you go. I hope you're happy.

 OK, I lied completely, but he does have a very chiseled body.

 (All images from a google search)