Monthly Archives: January 2018

Lola Makeup by Perse – Review by Talia Lee-Skudder

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LOLA Makeup by Perse is the luxurious yet affordable cosmetics brand and the official make up partner for top TV show ‘Britain’s Next Top Model’ presented by Abbey Clancy. Each week the wannabe models would have their faces painted using LOLA products, showing the versatile looks that can be created with a combination of the different cosmetics available.

 

I was sent a number of their products to try out including the piel perfecta primer, the concealer pen, a matte long lasting lipstick and the ultra high shine gloss. The products are all packaged in slick matte black boxes with white writing, creating a high-end illusion that the products are much more expensive than they really are. With prices as low as £5.95 we can all own a little bit of luxury without breaking the bank.

 

The piel perfecta illuminating primer is a mineral infused base using diamond luminescence. I loved this primer, it was super light and a little product really goes a long away. It creates a glowy and brighter complexion and is fab for when your skin needs a little pick me up but you don’t want to layer on the foundation. It is also perfect worn under foundation, giving your skin that luminescent look whilst also providing the ideal canvas on which to apply foundation. Following the tips on the back of the tube, I also used the primer as a highlighter and was pleasantly surprised. It gave my skin a natural glow that is sometimes difficult to achieve with heavier liquid based products and powder highlighters. I loved this product, as the weather gets warmer it will be my go-to primer for creating that summery-glowy look with a product that does not make my face feel like it is caked in make up.

The concealer pen, similar to the consistency of the primer, was incredibly light and blendable. Again the serum is illuminating and instantly adds a touch of youthful radiance. This is the perfect product for light everyday colour coverage. If you have dark circles under your eyes and you prefer a heavier coverage, then you can use this product as a liquid highlighter on the tops of your cheekbones and on your brow bones. Alternatively, if you’re a fan of contouring then this product is great for highlighting the bridge of your nose and the middle of your forehead.

Next is the matte lipstick in colour Merry Berry. This too comes in slick, black matte packaging. Initially the colour in the tube appears to be a deep red, however on application it becomes clear that it is a berry colour with more of a pink tone as opposed to red. The colour is long-lasting but if you are looking for a dramatic lip then I would advise applying two layers of the colour. I wore the lipstick all night and with only a few top-ups the colour remained as vibrant as when I first applied it.

Finally, my favourite, the ultra high shine gloss in clear. I am not a huge lip gloss fan and usually prefer a matte lip but I think this product may have just converted me. I love that this gloss can be worn over any lip colour to vamp up your make up look. The gloss truly makes your lips appear more volumised and seductive due to the conditioning active vitamin complex. Worn on top of your lipstick the gloss really emphasises the cupids bow and creates the illusion of a plumped up pout and does not require frequent reapplication to maintain its glossiness. The ultra high shine lip-gloss is now a staple in my cosmetics bag.

 

From foundation primer to false eyelashes and nail polish, LOLA caters to every make up related desire. Head over to their website at www.lolamakeup.com to check out the huge range of products they have on offer. You will not be disappointed!

 

Ken at The Bunker Theatre, Southwark: reviewed by Paul Vates

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‘He was a maverick, a clown, a genius’

 

This play is about Ken – Ken Campbell – the force of nature who passed away some ten years ago.

Written by the incredibly successful, versatile and witty Terry Johnson – it’s more of a lecture and eulogy to Ken, whom Terry first met in 1978. It’s how Ken took a rag-tag collection of talented people to perform a 24-hour-long play in Edinburgh and other extraordinary adventures. It’s about Ken’s magnificently bizarre and inspiring character. It’s about hope.

 

Ken – Jeremy Stockwell (image courtesy of Robert Day)

Ken is played by the tour de force that is Jeremy Stockwell with an impression that is quite unnervingly accurate. How do I know? Did I meet Ken Campbell? No. But I studied him because I had the pleasure of performing in his play Old King Cole in Glenrothes many years ago. I played Baron Wadd – the weediest man in the entire world – and that character description alone gives you some idea of his approach to all things. Subtlety very rarely gets a look-in.

 

Terry’s view is eye-opening. It’s honest, loving and funny. As he informed us: some of the story is true – mainly the more incredible parts.

 

Terry Johnson

(image courtesy of Robert Day)

 

The audience enter to find the auditorium decked out with chairs and sofas and cushions. We’re encouraged to recline and have our own flashback to the hazy 70s. This stunning, carpeted design is by Tim Shortall.

 

The buzz before the play even starts is positive and upbeat, even though many there weren’t even born in the 1970s. The play itself continues that atmosphere and, although it lasts ninety minutes without an interval, it certainly doesn’t feel it. Director Lisa Spirling keeps the action flowing at a cracking pace and it only occasionally droops. There are references to things which the younger audience may need to ask about, but overall this is superb escapism from the dull real world, back into the fantastic brain and theatrical approach of Ken. He was a maverick, a clown, a genius. Terry Johnson is, in the simplest of ways, proving it.

 

(image courtesy of Robert Day)

 

Could the play be more touching and sentimental? Probably. Would Ken himself approve if it did? Maybe not. But I felt I wanted to touch a little more on the shadows of his darker side, not just the light. As he is quoted as saying: ‘funeral’ is an anagram of ‘real fun’.

 

Ken is the first in a series of four plays in The Bunker’s Spring Season. This one was first performed at the Hampstead Theatre and they are co-producers. The next three are: Electra by Sophocles, a new version produced by Dumbwise; Devil With The Blue Dress by Kevin Armento, produced by The Bunker; Grotty by Izzy Tennyson, produced by Damsel Productions. Check their website for further details. If Ken is anything to go by, the next three should all be brilliant.

 

 

s

 

 

Photography:           Robert Day

Performances:         until 24th February 2018

Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm – Saturday & Sunday at 3pm

Venue:                     The Bunker, 53a Southwark Street, London SE1 1RU

Nearest station:       London Bridge

Tickets:                    www.bunkertheatre.com and 020 7234 0486

£19.50 (concessions £15) and U30s £10

Age:                         18+

Twitter:                     @BunkerTheatreUK, #Ken

Facebook:                /bunkertheatreuk

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: TAKE FOUR WRITERS – INTRODUCING ANGELA PETCH

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Hi! … can’t believe I’m on here. I’m excited, apprehensive and honoured to share in this venture.

I love reading. I don’t think you can be a writer without being a bookworm. I panic if I’m coming to the end of a good book and feel bereft until I’m lost in another story. Although I loved English at school, my degree is in Italian. I lived in Rome as a child, worked in Sicily, met my half-Italian husband there and now, in our retirement, we spend six months of each year in Tuscany, where we run a small holiday business. Although I’ve always written, only now that our three children are independent have I been able to settle seriously to the craft. I self-published two novels set in Tuscany and they’ve been taken on by Endeavour Press. Last year I had seven stories accepted by women’s magazines and I enjoy the discipline of this genre too, so hopefully I will sell more in 2018.

However, this year I am becoming a hybrid author and returning down the indie route to self-publish “something completely different”.

In 2006 my best friend discovered she was suffering from ovarian cancer. We did lots together, including hunting for bargains in charity shops and at auctions, nicknaming each other Mavis and Dot. She was extremely brave, but she had her darker moments too and I tried to cheer her up by writing silly stories about Mavis and Dot. They made her laugh and she drew cartoon sketches of the characters, which I still have hanging on the back of our loo door. Sadly, she didn’t recover from this silent killer and I filed away my anecdotes. A couple of years ago I pulled one out to read at a writing group and raised a laugh. So, I decided to develop the stories and put together a novella. There will be illustrations and I’m busy searching for the right artist as I type.

I feel rather wobbly about Mavis and Dot, but I dearly want them to succeed as I intend to donate any profits to Cancer Research. Humour is notoriously hard to pull off and my usual style is literary, so I have to banish the goblin from my shoulder telling me I am writing drivel that nobody will find amusing. My launch date is mid-November, but I know time whizzes by faster than a bargain snatched off a charity shop shelf. So, I need to get down to business. And that is the main cause of my wobbles. Going indie again means getting my act together with social media and marketing. When I see telecom engineers at the side of the road working on control panels, plugging wires into holes, it makes me think of me procrastinating over algorithms, metadata, BISAC codes, author platforms and networking. Which hole should I connect with, – when and how? However, I have also made virtual friends on-line with a whole bunch of supportive authors and bloggers in the past months and, although there’s a mountain to climb, I want to scale this peak.

Time is the thing, isn’t it? And discipline. We are blessed with three children and four very young grandchildren (with another on the way), and when we are in England during our six winter months they keep us busy.   I will stop bleating about that because I know there are many authors who burn the midnight oil and squeeze their writing into fewer hours than I have. Wish me luck, nevertheless. “Live where you fear to live”, said the 13th century poet, Rumi.

 

 

Plus One is The Loneliest Number: On The Loneliness of Motherhood

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lonely, loneliness of motherhood, loneliness of parenthood. the loneliness of being a parent, parenting, There are many hard things about parenthood. Some are obvious: sleepless nights, exhaustion, lack of me time, endless nappies. But there is one that is not talked about as much and that should be, and that is the crippling loneliness of motherhood (or fatherhood if the man is the stay-at-home parent). Now some people may wonder how you can be lonely when you are looking after a baby but here is the thing: they cannot talk. Even when they do start to talk you still crave adult company. You yearn for a decent conversation. A moment to relate to another human being can feel like a life-saving moment.

Since I had my son almost two years ago I have had moments of loneliness that were so extreme I felt like they might suffocate me. I have worked from home for years but I also went to a lot of events and reviewed restaurants. I talked to people, I interviewed people. I was important. Now I am just someone’s mother and the only person I have proper conversations with for weeks on end is my husband. I have always been a social person and there were times when I thought the isolation might break me. My family live in Scotland which I have found hard since having a child. My friends mostly work normal working hours.

It is not that I have not tried to make friends with other parents. We moved when my son was a baby and by the time I found groups to take him to people had already formed cliques. I tried to join in and be friends but the mean girl vibe does not wane when (some) women grow up and become mothers. Other times I would connect with someone and think we were going to become friends, only to never see them again. It wasn’t that I did not try. I really put myself out there and the constant rejection only made it worse.

I believe we have to talk more about how lonely being a parent can be. There are thousands of parents struggling to just get through the day. They are isolated and can go for weeks without any other human contact. There are now apps for mothers to meet up like Mush which is a tinder style app for mothers to meet up with each other. It is growing in popularity and I hope every mother who needs someone to talk to joins up.

Now that my son is nearly two I feel I have come out the other side. I take him to numerous events. He has a better social life than I do. Recently I have found that I have become friends with the other mothers from one of the groups I take him to. The mean girls have fallen away, leaving only a hard core group who go at least once a week. Last week we all talked for hours as our children played. I could tell that it made these mothers happy to have someone to talk to. Some were shocked when I started talking to them properly but we quickly got into the swing of it. We even shared tips for making more mum friends. It was a wonderful moment and a long time coming. I hope it is only the start.

 

This article was originally published on Feb 21, 2017. We republished it because it was popular.

Bettys has the answer for the upcoming celebrations

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Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter are all looming, all heralding spring. But how to ring the changes in the gift line?

Aah, well, just sometimes we are able to sample something extraordinary, mark you, we knew it would be because our contributing editor, Margaret Graham, has a special fondness for Yorkshire, in particular North Yorkshire, and when there she homes in every time on Bettys Tearooms and shops, of which there are six. They are her absolute haven of deliciousness, and she raves about them. Well, you can see that she does.

They are proper tearooms: lovely tea, lovely buns, lovely staff. Big fat rascal scones are her downfall, so sampling some of Bettys new season gifts was NOT a chore. Have a look at the three we all pitched into.

The sponge cake 13CM DIAMETER | 500G | £12.95 Hand-decorated with a pretty spring flowers design in Royal icing, this light almond sponge cake is sandwiched with raspberry preserve and buttercream. And surely that was white chocolate on the bottom? Or so Margaret and her daughter thought. The mix of flavours, even in the icing, was fascinating, and worked extraordinarily well.

Bang went the diet.

That is presented as an Easter or Mother’s Day cake. But we fear it’s addictive, and can be on any table, at any time for any occasion, so enjoy.

We tried the NEW  Saddleback Chocolate Pig 12 X 7 X 7.5CM | 130G | £9.95 which was such a lovely image, and we had to pace ourselves as the tasting was leading to a disgusting exhibition of greed.

And the hand made small chocolate eggs made in Bettys craft bakery…

And myriad other gift boxes of chocs.

But let’s have a look at  Valentine’s day.

It would take the hardest heart to remain unmoved if any of these were the gift of the day:

With Love Chocolate Selection BOX OF 15 | 16 X 9.5CM | 140G | £19.95 An exquisite collection of Swiss Grand Cru milk and dark chocolates, with ganache, fondant cream and caramel centres.

Or try the Valentine’s Gift Box BOX: 25 X 19.5 X 9CM | £30.00 Contents:

 

  • Chocolate Heart Assortment • Grand Cru Ganache Chocolate Cake • With Love Butter Biscuits and Strawberry • Strawberry, Cherry & Rose Tisane 2. Vanilla Caramel Hearts BOX OF 15 | 16 X 9.5CM | 150G | £17.95 Grand Cru Swiss dark chocolate filled with creamy vanilla caramel and finished with a dusting of gold lustre.
  1. Champagne Truffles BOX OF 15 | 16 X 9.5CM | 165G | £17.95 Grand Cru Swiss milk chocolate filled with Moët & Chandon Champagne and Marc de Champagne ganache and finished with a melt-inthe-mouth raspberry powder.
  2. Chocolate Heart Assortment BOX OF 7 | 22.5 X 3.5 X 2.5CM | 70G | £8.75 Includes: Blackcurrant Ganache, Champagne Truffle, Cru Sauvage Truffle, Raspberry Ganache, Rose Fondant, Violet Fondant and Vanilla Caramel.

 

Easter

 

 

These are the MOST BEAUTIFUL EGGS YOU CAN GIVE THIS EASTER. Forget Faberge, these are works of art. We weren’t sure we would be able to tuck into them. Oh come on, of course we could.

Bettys founder Frederick Belmont was a chocolatier and a Swiss master chocolatier. Nearly 100 years on, the Chocolate Room at Bettys remains a haven of true craftsmanship where our hand decorated Easter eggs are still made to Frederick’s exacting standard employing great attention to detail and using the very highest quality Swiss chocolate.

Take as an example the Spring Bloom Egg 19CM HIGH | 315G | £30.00 This is a strikingly colourful egg. Made with eau de nil coloured white chocolate, and finished with a silver lustre, it is decorated with bluebells, primroses, bumble bees and a sugar paste butterfly.

These we have mentioned are just a little bit of a taster, there are many others to choose from. Where?

Online www.bettys.co.uk Telephone 0800 456 1919 or 01423 814008

Shops Visit one of the six shops in Harrogate, Ilkley, Northallerton and York. Have tea while you’re there.

 

Corporate Gifts Service Please contact: pr@bettysandtaylors.co.uk or telephone 01423 814186.

There are many more fabulous gifts to be found on their website. We don’t always endorse so enthusiastically, but this time yes. We do just wish that we were sitting in one of Bettys Tea Rooms rather than in the office.

Try the mail order gifts, AND try Bettys Tea Rooms and shop whenever you see one.

Deliveries & Charges Bettys delivers to homes and businesses across the UK, as well as to Europe, North America, Australasia and the Far East.

Delivery charges start from £3.95 for the UK and from £12.95 internationally. Last order dates for Easter UK, Highlands & Islands – Friday 23 March UK, Mainland – Tuesday 27 March EU & Rest of world – Tuesday 20 March

 

Hugh Grant Saved a Fortune By Being His Own Acting Agent

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acting, acting advice, acting tips, own acting agent, hugh grant, acting agentsHugh Grant has had a career most actors would envy, and he didn’t get there by being stupid. He revealed that for four years he created a fake acting agent called James Howe Ealy, who was actually Hugh himself. He just used a fake email address. The actor said that he “saved myself an absolute fortune.” He also said: “He didn’t exist. It was me on a different email account,” He has an acting agent now and said that he had to stop because people asked to meet James in person and that he would accidentally sign off “Hugh” when he was drunk. Acting agents tend to take between 10-20% in commission so it would have added up to a pretty good sum.

The actor also said during an interview with Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show that he believes having affairs is the key to a good marriage. The father-of-four has two children with current girlfriend Anna Eberstein and two with ex-girlfriend Tinglan Hong. Hugh said that the did not think humans were built for  “40-year-long monogamous, faithful” relationships.

“I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages, They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that’s what keeps marriages together.” Hugh said.

What do you think?

 

If you are an actor then check out my book How To Be a Successful Actor: Becoming an Actorpreneur. It is available in print and in all eBook formats on both Smashwords and Amazon.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking For The Perfect Food? Did I find it at the Osteria dell’Angolo Restaurant? By Paul Vates

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My wife and I attended a Gala Dinner entitled Looking for the Perfect Food at the Osteria dell’Angolo Restaurant. Since childhood, I have had a personal mission to seek out the perfect jam roly poly. I had it once and it was superb, but ever since nothing has matched up to it. I know it’ll be my tastes that have changed just as much as the roly polys.

Often these days we are rushing about and eat only as a way of refuelling, so it was interesting to spend an evening with people who see food as an important part of family and culture.

 

Having a three-course dinner, created by the Head Chef Demian Mazzocchi at this friendly Italian restaurant in the shadow of Westminster Palace, is a great way to seek perfection. The exclusive evening was to celebrate one of the oldest and healthiest of foods in the world: extra virgin olive oil.

The mission: to create a menu showcasing a different extra virgin olive oil for each course. The oils, naturally, all emanating from Italy. Even though European production occurs in Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Albania, San Marino, Cyprus, Slovenia and Malta as well.

My mission: to sit down, drink wine, chat to complete strangers and enjoy myself. Think I could manage that….

 

Starter

Risotto con broccolo “Romanesco” e baccala mantecato all’olio ‘Olitalia’

That’s a sublime risotto with Romanesco broccoli infused within it, cooked in a Venetian style. This broccoli is the green spirally cauliflower that uses the Fibonacci number system when it grows (Google it!). The olive oil used was Olitalia.

 

There was a generous serving, but sat here in the heart of an Italian evening, chatting food and lifestyle with our new Italian friends, I watched them enjoying the differing textures of the dish. Even though, as one of them whispered to me, olive oil is not traditional in risotto, they cleared their plates in no time, adoring it. I did likewise. Olitalia is, however, the world’s most widely distributed olive oil brand and no meal should be without it – even if it’s just used for dipping chunks of bread into!

 

Main

Costata di Manzo con timballino di patate, datterino confit, salsa rucola, aceto balsamico olio ‘Terre Alte’

This gorgeous rib-eye steak rested on extra virgin olive oil fried potato and confit cherry tomatoes. The rocket sauce and aged balsamic vinegar added punch, whereas the Terre Alte extra virgin olive oil provided a fruity sweetness followed by a pepper hit.

 

The melting meat vanished far too quickly even though the portion was not small in any degree.

Terre Alte extra virgin olive oil  is from an area of southern Tuscany known as ‘Meremma’ – a location that, along with its traditional harvesting methods, makes the oil’s fruity taste (albeit with a hint of artichoke) and its green to golden yellow colour.

 

This could not get any better. Could it? Oh, yes…

 

Dessert:

Crostino dolce con gelato all’olio ‘Redoro’ e rosmarino glassato

Sweet Crostino bread with Redoro extra virgin olive oil ice cream, garnished with a little rosemary.

That’s basically, ice cream on toast! A slight hesitation from me. Peter Kay’s cheesecake and garlic bread sketch coming to mind: ‘Ice cream. On toast? Ice cream. On toast?!’ But it’s more than that. The Crostino bread was drizzled with more of the Redoro – produced in the hilly areas of the province of Verona and having a golden green colour (if that’s possible!) with a fragrant, fruity bouquet – and I ate it like it was a canapé: holding it and biting into it. It was a bizarre sensation of textures: crusty bread and soft ice cream; warm and cold; savoury and sweet. We all agreed this was something special, something extraordinary. My wife is not a fan of desserts but she said it was one of the best things she has ever eaten. She has repeated this non-stop since. And I can’t help but agreeing with her.

Mind you – she never tasted the original jam roly poly that I did, all those years ago. Ah, memories…

Redoro

Olive Oil is good for you. Fact. Italians have known this for centuries and these three examples of cuisine show how olive oil – quality Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil – can not only be an ingredient but the star of a dish, creating something unexpected and delicious.

 

Terre Alte

By the end, everyone was smiling. I certainly think we found the perfect food…

Osteria dell’Angolo restaurant 47 Marsham St, Westminster, London SW1P 3DR

Reservations: bookatable.co.uk, quandoo.co.uk, opentable.co.uk

 

How Much of Yourself Should You Share Online?

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awesome cat picturesWe live in the era of information overload. People share everything from what they eat, to pictures of their children. But how much should we share online? As a writer I have to share my experiences. Well, to be a good writer anyway. But when you write an article and it goes out into the world it is not always possible to bring it back. Nor is is possible to control who reads it, or what that person does with that information. And there is the problem. I feel we are too trusting when we are throwing information out on to the internet. I believe most people are good, but not all are.

I am not talking about criminals, although we should definitely be watching out for those. Those type of bad people are why I am careful about what I post about my children online. No, I am talking about something marginally more benign: people you know. I remember I wrote an article many years ago on the media and how they report fertility, only for some people to somehow find it and use the article in a mean and bitchy way for years. This made me very sad and is one of the reasons I stopped writing as much. Then I realised the bullies were winning, so I wrote more, but was still cautious. Hard to know whether that is a good or bad thing.

In real life I am a very open person. I will talk to most people about anything. Well, except sex or money. There has to be some limits. But the truth is: there are horrible people out there that will take your words and use them against you. There are also employers who might not like what they see on social media and decide to not hire you.

So what do I do as a writer? Should I continue to share my life, or should I stop and find other things to write about? I have not decided what is best yet. I will continue to share my personal experience, but I will be wary and think about the consequences. Mostly I will write about things I think will help other people or make them laugh. I believe that human beings have a desperate need to connect with each other, to hear each other’s stories, to know they are not alone. That is what is most important to me. Sharing and connecting with my fellow human beings.

Please share your thoughts below.