Cup Cakes and Tea at Lipsy Launch

Posted: May 11, 2010 - There's nothing a Brit likes more than an afternoon cup of char and a bit of cake - hits that mid afternoon metabolism slump right in the kisser. But when you add cute pastel dresses and sweeties (candy for those of us long since acclimated to these shores) from Blighty - what's not to like? The UK fashion label Lipsy is launching in the USA primarily at Bloomingdales and also online, giving those of us State side a chance to scoop up a little of their London vibe that transfers rather well downtown or whilst cruising around the West Coast. With a devil may care vibe and in ice cream colors - flirty separates, cute cocktail dresses and multi colored maxi's are a fab pick for any Vacay packing. Once this Summer's hot steamy New York nights are upon us, with price points as appealing as the clothing, I'm guessing these pieces will start flying off the shelves. p.s. the candy was a load of Refreshers and Love Hearts that fellow Big Apple Brit blogger Emma Smith managed to purloin into her press pack with the stealth of a practiced Journo on a press junket... If you liked this post, take a peek at more Notes from a Stylist here

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The Golden Arches of 6th Avenue

Posted: March 13, 2010 My local Mcdonalds is the scariest place on the block. There's always lots of men in front of it wearing baggy jeans and walking around in circles. They swing one arm down in front of them, really low, a bit like a monkey. I don't know what they're all doing-hanging out there, but it looks dodgy. I don't pay $RIDCULOUS a month to deal with that nonsense in my hood, so usually I just scurry faster when walking past. However, motherhood will make you take risks you never thought possible. So when The Teenager wants a Mcdonalds hot fudge ice cream sundae to distract her from the abject misery of missing The Boy-I have to brave it. Rather me than her. Outside the golden arches is scary…inside it's Baghdad. I run in and order six sundaes on the basis that the rest can go in the freezer and I won't have to come back again. I wrestle with the fact this means the fudge sauce won't be hot anymore, but I feel this is a minor detail considering. Next to me at the counter is a skinny homeless guy with no teeth questioning the Mcdonald's girl "How much a Quarterpounder?" "How much a Quarterpounder with tax?" "How much... fries?" "How much fries with tax?" "How much a…hamburger?" "How much a hamburger…with tax?" "Hmm…" he says ponderously, in response to her robotic answers and eye rolling. He scrambles in his pocket for change and starts counting through it. I can see a palm full of brown coins. I think I notice him because he is neither scary or aggressive, he seems quite...happy. He smiles at the Mcdonalds lady and then mooches over to some girls next to me. They dive straight in: "Maaaaan, don't you come near me, don't you be asking me for no money. Back up Mr. Back up!" "Hey, I don't want your money" he says calmy "I'm just trying to buy some food." Oh God. Here I am watching my six ice cream sundaes get made, looking like a greedy cow and this man just wants some dinner. OK-I'm going to buy him a meal, I'll even supersize it. I go into my purse and there is no more cash in there and I've left my cards at home. Shit. Shit. Ok, I could just give him an ice cream sundae? It's not the most nutritious of dinners, but it's better that eating out of a bin? And he has no teeth, so ice cream might be a good choice? But by this point the manager, who looks about 15, has begun the process of throwing him out. I'm not quite sure on what basis and clearly neither does he as he laughs protesting: ''I'm a daaaamn customer!" To be fair, he was only getting the prices. The exact prices. New York sales tax is a bastard. Oh crap. Do I still offer him the sundae now? Is that even more humiliating than being thrown out of a Mcdonalds? What I really want to do is offer him the ice cream and flee, cos I don't want to converse with him. I turn around and he is half way out of the door and the woman serving me is only just bagging up my sundaes. I grab them and run out onto the street to find him. He's talking to himself and staggering down the block lighting a cigarette. "Money for fags but no money for food! " I can hear my Mother say. I ignore her and follow him down the block holding a single hot fudge sundae aloft. "Come back!" I shout, but I realise I am still having an internal dialogue, so the words don't come out. He is moving pretty fast for a man who unlikely has anywhere to be. I break into a run. And then I stop myself. I am running after a homeless man with a hot fudge sundae. I come to a stop on the street and people whizz by me on the pavement. Standing still is the worse thing you can do in Manhattan. You get pushed and shoved and tutted at loudly. The Empire state blinks green like a gremlin in the distance-which strikes me as a funny colour. The man disappears into the crowd and my moment is gone. I can't solve his problems with a hot fudge sundae, but I was going to try. More blogs http://welshalien.blogspot.com/ Even more rambloings http://twitter.com/WelshAlienNYC

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Slobbing in is the new going out

Posted: February 10, 2010 New York is an all-you-can-eat buffet. Problem is, when faced with a smorgasboard of choice, if you try and eat everything it just makes you really sick-best to have a little nibble now and again. So last week I didn't leave my apartment for three days. Not as tragic as it sounds, although I was wearing sweatpants for most of the time. This was a real treat for The American, who no doubt wanted to jump my bones every time he caught site of the grey marl fabric caressing my unexercised backside. There are many thing I should be doing in New York. I should be going to musuems and exploring Harlem and jogging around Central Park. I should be finding the perfect cupcake and getting to know Brooklyn. I should be, but very often I am not. Asides from the sub zero temperatures I have another justified reason for my hermitation and that is "Getting serious about my freelancing" because now I am now "Freelancing full time". This is a phrase I will repeat over and over until It becomes actual reality. I do this in accordance with the advice in 'Six Figure Freelancing'-a book written by a former lawyer who approaches her writing with the organisational skills of a Whitehouse press secretary. The thing with New York is that as well as facilitating a great social life that means you need never need be home, it also facilitates you never leaving home. I mostly blame delivery.com where you can order everything from Thai curry to a pack of toilet rolls. Why walk to the corner shop in minus 2 degrees when you can get a man to deliver you a pint of milk and a loaf of bread right to your door? Or as delivery.com puts it 'Why cook when you can click?'. Even though I love to cook, it's a sentiment I find hard to disagree with. On delivery.com you can even get bars of Dairy Milk delivered. They should use that as their advertising slogan. In any case my corner shop's not much cop. It's a Yoga health food supermarket that sells Acai berry smoothies and tortillas made of sprouts. The receipts say "Om Shanti" at the bottom in place of "Thanks for your custom". It may as well not be there for all the good it serves on weeks like this when I'm hormonal and would step over human flesh to get at chocolate. They don't even have anything with sugar in there. The closest is Agave Nectar, which is something to do with a cactus. But it's not as if staying in means I have to become an unhealthy slob. This is what I tell myself on day one of not leaving the apartment as I order a new diet book from Barnes and Noble online while inhaling a Hersheys Cookies and Cream bar. The only flavour that doesn't taste of vomit. I then go on Fresh Direct to order food required by the new diet book and begrudgingly some other stuff for The Teenager and American to eat. I work full time now, they should shop for their own dinner. Next I open the box to the Davina workout DVD that Paul sent me for Christmas. And they I shut it again. And open. And shut... On Wednesday while procrastinating some pitching emails I buy myself a vintage coat from Etsy. It's for Fashion week, so technically purchasing it is 'work'. It will serve the function of keeping me warm on days when sweatpants won't be part of my ensemble. Days I look forward to with mixed emotion. That night I realise that I don't even need to go to the video store as I can order films from the tele or from the 'Roku', which is one of 657 unfathomable technical gadgets that The American has bought into the apartment-the result of which is a kind of electrical version of Day of the Triffids. On Thursday The Teenager sends me an I.M. from her bedroom next door and when I get up from the sofa I realise my arse has gone numb In the summer I will take myself to parks. In the spring probably even coffee shops? On Friday I am forced to leave the house to go to Connecticut to work with my NYFW partner. That's short for New York Fashion Week. Did you like that acronym? It's amazing how quickly you can become a wanker when fashion is involved. Anyway, I get out of the house super early (well, before 8a.m.) and I am like a newborn blinking into the daylight. I skip around to 8th avenue and hail a cab to Grand Central station in 3 seconds flat. When I get there I come in through one of the second floor entrances I am greeted with the sunshine streaming celestially through the floor to ceiling window ahead. I stop. It makes my breath shorter. New York buzzes it's business around me. It's how I imagine heaven would look, well a busy heaven anyway. I breathe it in and it tastes all the sweeter after my enforced starvation. Now eat me New York. If you liked this blog you can sign up to follow it at http://www.welshalien.blogspot.com Or for more frequent nonsense there's Twitter http://twitter.com/WelshAlienNYC

Posted via email from Big Apple Brits - British Expats, Anglophiles and Brit Culture Lovers New York City

How to get a free drink in New York

Posted: January 27, 2010 - Last night I watched four strangers get naked...at Bingo. You don't get that at Gala back home in Wales. I'm sure the most torrid thing that happens there is some Tena lady leakage. Although Mum says there are occasional fights over blobber pens. The Teenager and I and some Brit friends sit agog at the back of a Lower East Side bar as these audience members proceed to do a fan dance with some paper plates. It is 8.30 p.m. on a Monday night. The quartet in question had earlier introduced themselves as an opera singer, a political consultant, an erotic party organiser and a go-go dancer. So you might not be hugely surprised at the last two, who no doubt spend their nights watching arse humping away. However I can't imagine there's that much cock on show at Madam Butterfly and I would guess the Republicans like to keep the tits to a minimum. *Insert your own George Bush joke here* What is most surprising about this impromptu flesh show though is that all of them are doing it for just two drinks each. I have previously blogged about the fact that two drinks is enough to get you hammered in New York, especially vodka Martinis, which seem to be pure Absolut, with an olive for the hell of it. But isn't the point that you would have to be smashed before you got naked? I wouldn't take my clothes off for all the booze behind the bar. In fact, I would probably only just about consider it for the deeds to the bar. You might ask what do you expect at Drag queen bingo? Well I expected some good clean family fun like I had at Lips in my West Village hood. There I enjoyed a fake orgasm competition in the company of my mother and daughter. But real life nakedness? I remind myself I'm on the East side now. There are no trees, Armani gays or overpriced cupcake bakeries but there are young 20something hipsters, lots of entertaining crackheads and really good drug dealers (allegedly). It's edgy. Yeah. I can do edgy. I watch the odd indie film and have fake ray bans. Later that night I am in queue for the toilet wading through a piss leak on the floor and reading the obscene graffiti on the walls. Next to me is a loud girl in American Apparel lurex telling her friend about a film that's "...really, really really old". Turns out it's from 1989. Taxi back to the West Village. If you liked this blog you can sign up to follow it at http://www.welshalien.blogspot.com Or for more frequent nonsense there's Twitter http://twitter.com/WelshAlienNYC

Posted via email from Big Apple Brits - British Expats, Anglophiles and Brit Culture Lovers New York City

"Cut and shovel" by Dating Blogger

Growing up my dad instilled in me the importance of good table manners. Hold your fork in the left hand, knife in the right, index fingers placed on top. Cut your food holding it steady with the fork and bring the food to your mouth, not vice versa.

I always took it for granted that others were being taught similarly. Not so in the US of A it would seem.

The first dinner date I had in NYC was at a restaurant I had been eyeing for weeks, too expensive to justify going to with friends, I was delighted when my date suggested it.

We sat down and I eagerly scanned the splendid menu, we made our choices and engaged in witty small talk while we waited for the food to arrive, all going well so far.

When the starters arrived I noticed he spooned his soup towards himself in the bowl, but I could get over that, it’s awkward to eat soup correctly and he was nervous.

Then the mains were presented. Initially he did quite well, holding his fork and knife correctly and cutting his steak with grace. Then before I knew it something happened to my seemingly well brought up, attentive and attractive date; he was replaced with a hog.

His knife lay abandoned at the side of his plate, his face lowered toward the plate and he proceeded to shovel his $50 meal into his face. I was in shock. It was so disgusting to watch that I actually had to look away. My appetite disappeared and I became one of those girls that doesn’t eat on dates, not because I was trying to make a ‘good’ impression you understand, I just couldn’t physically swallow anything, I was so concerned I would vomit as a result of what I was witnessing.

Once the mains were cleared I declined the dessert menu and literally held my breath until he declared that he too was too full for pudding. Phew!

Upon leaving him, with little more than a hand shake (I wasn't getting anywhere near his steak-stained face!), I had an epiphany. No wonder there are so many sushi places in New York. It’s so ex-pats can date Americans!