Slow Start

It's a bit ironic really- I'm sat, sub-face-pack, in a beautiful, fashionable country shaped like a boot, while fixated on books/sites about beautiful things, like boots, worn by people packing some serious fashion face.

Don't give me that- you try being doped up on volcanic meringues and deepest-fill jam tarts from down the road, and then attempting wistful insights. Too much of Mama's 'special' home baking is making me just that. When's your Dumbass Day?
So, before we go skipping across the cobbles, tramlines and sheened store floors of Padova, I've got a few screenshots instead of snapshots. The focaccia made me do it.

Will Cotton

Mr Cotton has one of THOSE jobs. One that makes you take one scornful look at your snowballing university debt and dog-eared lecture notes and think, "Someone had to earn their living making delicious mess, big bucks and an renowned name for themselves from crafting big heaps of cake- why the Bicarbonate of Soda wasn't it me?!". Astounded jealousy aside, this man has his cake and sells it, recently to none other than Miss Katy Perry, who hired him to design the set for 'Calfornia Girls' video, and to paint her 'Teenage Dream' album cover.

Elie Saab (http://www.eliesaab.com/)
If a particularly diva-ish strain of the Ancient Greeks ever chanced upon a time machine, they would sashay aboard, tailors in tow, and head straight for the runway of Elie Saab, as they RSVP-ed to those amphitheatre premiers with a smile. Hopefully said time machine would break down enroute, somewhere in or around my kitchen. Stand aside chiffon, it's thigh time.

Marc Quinn

Down a street here, over a canal there, and in no time the Furby and I found ourselves lost in Venice last weekend, something which we didn't have a problem with at all. 'Lost' doesn't seem quite the right word. 'Lost' would imply a certain emptiness, a bland loneliness, and that there weren't bakeries, spritz bars, trinket shops, mask stands, glass stalls, gondolas, balconies, bridges and abounding quaint crumbling gorgeousness absolutely everywhere you look. In fact, I don't think I've ever found so much whilst claiming to be 'lost'.

During our rewardingly aimless wander, what should we find but a painting I've never seen by a forgotten favourite- Marc Quinn. Known to favour kitcsh, riches and risk (he once made a live-size sculpture of his own head, "Self"- using 4.5 litres of his own blood, created Roman-style statues with people with disabilities in place of gods, and designed a golden sculpture of Kate Moss in a pretzel-like yoga pose), it was just a little bit cool to see this intriguing mind set to canvas. Even as a self-confessed Modern Art Anarchist, the Furby was taken by it too.
(Couldn't find the exact painting...but here are some other nice ones. The one that got away was better though, promise.)

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