J'adore ...

Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola - the sets and costumes were scrumptious, gorgeous pastels, and the soundtrack - perfection, featuring Sofia's favourite songs by Adam Ant and The Cure etc

On things French, Chanel has put out some new fragrances Exclusifs - one is called Coromandel which for some reason made me smile. This article provides brief descriptions of four scents:

Bel Respiro - "a 'green' scent, evokes the smell of new leather and cut grass after it rains"... it "smells of mown grass and crushed leaves, although there is also an undertone of hay beneath the green scents".

31 Rue Cambon - "a mixture of bergamot, patchouli, oak moss, and cistus labdanum"..."Brimming with bergamot, this is perhaps the most nostalgic of all the new fragrances, the kind of scent worn by old ladies when they were very young and unabashedly sensual".

Coromandel - "an oriental fragrance using a tree resin called benzoin, which has vanilla-like properties"...Like Chanel's apartment that inspired it, it is not "innocent", it is "weighted by frankincense" and "contains a hint of the heavier spices of the East".

28 La Pausa - "a powdery scent based on the oil from iris pallida (known as sweet iris), one of the most expensive products available to perfumers...

There is something yummy about writing about smells.

And on that subject, the fabulous "Perfume" by Patrick Susskind has been made into a movie.


"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken,
you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay,
life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other,
because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You
call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified
somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that
cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip,
Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no
matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself." - "Breakfast at Tiffanys"

Am going to start adding my library to LibraryThing.
It uses ISBNs to import titles, and I have an Excel file but only titles and authors, so will have to do from scratch. Have put a few in to start it up.

And another great tool is Pandora, recommended by C Parr - anyone who loves music will love this site. It arose from the Music Genome Project, connecting you with other music you might like based on artists you select. I like how it pulls out the elements of the music - I picked Pitbull first, cos I love that Miami hip hop sound - Pandora tells me it has catchy hook lines, slow moving bass line, and thin orchestration and dry recording sound. I am sure I don't know what all those things mean, but they pick some others with a similar sound.

Remember the kitties larging it up to the White Stripes? Now that was Rather Good.

Neil Gaiman on Lost Girls by Alan Moore sounds wondrous, as I love Victorian naughtiness like The Pearl.