Sunday 7 December 2014

Lovely London Things #7 Shops on Holloway Road

 
 
Despite its grittiness, Holloway Road has some of the loveliest shop names.....
 
The Hope Rooms
 
Moonlight Supermarket
 
Ooh-La-La
 
 
Paradise Discount Store
 
 
Snow White Dry Cleaners
 
Salon Des Artistes
 
and the lovely......
 
Blood Brothers Ltd Tattoo Studio
 
 



 
 
 
 
 















A Book to Read When You're Back in The Game

Posted By Daisy
 
 
I WENT on a date the other night. Drinks at the National Portrait Gallery, nibbles in Wahaca, cocktails in a secret bar in Chinatown, and a tipsy smooch on Cecil Court cobbles, in front of a first edition Harry Potter and a signed copy of ‘Howl’, before running for the last tube.

It was nice to meet someone intelligent (he used ‘disabuse’ in the right context), gentlemanly (he took the uncomfortable corner seat at the bar) and non-conformist-but-reliable (he works in Westminster but has long hair, wears a green parka and is a guardian in an apartment block).

He’s not perfect, but then neither am I. We may or may not have a second date. But after a gap year from dating (once bitten, twice shy), it was a lovely way to begin again.
 
Leftovers by Stella Newman
 
At 36, Susie fills out one of those multiple-choice magazine quizzes and ends up being labelled a ‘Leftover’. She is newly-single, her jobs sucks and she often spends weekends trying in vain to catch up with her coupled-up friends.

Full of food descriptions (Susie’s always re-heating some homemade pasta sauce or Bolognese on weekday nights after work, and there are lovely recipes at the end of the book), Leftovers is well-written and funny, and ends in the opposite way to every chick-lit book I’ve ever read i.e. her happiness doesn’t equal the dream man, but something else entirely…

Just don’t be put off by the not-so-zingy front cover tag line:  ‘A novel about friendship, love and the power of pasta’.