A little bit Greek

Cheesy, eggplanty, delicious moussaka. I made this entirely yummy moussaka the other night sighting only from memory a recipe I vaguely remembered reading online. It turned out rather well and was quite delicious!

The night is young. The night is always young: The Locals' Guide to Edinburgh

It's hard to find a quirky, non-touristy guide book that serves up recommendations of places you want to visit off the tourist trail, but when you do stumble across a good one it's a real treat. Word of Mouth Travels' 100% Made in Scotland city guide is like a friend in a foreign city letting you in on all their little local secrets.

On top of chapters delightfully titled "where to stay", "all you can eat", "Scots for weather", "beautiful walks", "drink and be merry" and my favourite; "you should be dancing, yeah" the book features a number of interviews with local legends including a fashion designer, a deli owner, a theatre producer, a musician and a parent and publican. You really do get a feel for a town that has so much character to offer.

The Locals' Guide is a pocket sized go-to guide for everything cool on the cobbled streets of Edinburgh, definitely worth picking up a copy.

(Now my personal tip, I picked up my copy from The Red Door Gallery in Edinburgh but when looking online was surprised to find The Locals' Guide to Edinburgh cheapest at Amazon.com)

No more cheap shots

Last weekend's Sunday Times UK offered up a side of Lomography goodness with your coffee and morning paper covering an article by Bryan Appleyard discussing the hot new world of lomography that has so many people sharing the analogue love.

Having spoken to die hard lomographers and converted digital photographers alike Bryan Appleyard wraps up in a neat two page spread why we are loving these brightly coloured plastic cameras with names that throw around words like multi-pinehole, spinner, splitzer, fish eye, Octomat and Diana, Holga and Lubitel.

If you have subscribed to The Sunday Times online you can read the full article online at thesundaytimes.co.uk/culture.

Childhood favourites

I was reminded today of just how amazing The Twits by Roald Dahl is, especially the part where the entire lounge room ends up-side-down on the ceiling. This got me rather excited about all my other Roald Dahl favourites, tomorrow I am going to dig through my most-loved second hand bookshops in the hopes I get to spend some time with old friends.

Hearts racing: Inception

Christopher Nolan's latest film Inception ended, the lights grew from dim to bright, myself and the 13 other people that accompanied me to the cinema were gasping, mouths dropped, hands on the sides of our heads, hearts racing, oh lord how we wanted more!

Inception is what blockbuster dreams are made of. The plot, who some have claimed involved a little too much thinking was all engrossing and got the mind ticking but was not hard to follow. Christopher Nolan exposes in front of your eyes the story of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a master-mind of high stakes espionage who with new technologies possesses the talent to enter people's dream and extract information. It's when approached by millionaire Saito (Ken Watanabe) with a job offer that pays far more than any dollar value that Cobb begins to explore the concept of incepting an idea into someone's mind as appose to extracting it. Nolan has captured ever essence of a dream on film. It's not just that almost believable but so far from reality feeling that says dream, it's the way you are left sitting in the cinema short of breath and groggy as if you have just awoken from an intense night's sleep with the characters.

Every member of the stelar cast are on top of their game in this one. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a stand out as mastermind Arthur alongside the darling Ellen Page, although potentially half a decade or so too young for her role of recruited architect-in-training Ariadne makes it really work. Tom Hardy brings humour and charm to his role of cheeky Eames while Marion Cotillard is truly stunning in her spine chilling supporting role. Leonardo DiCaprio, as in some of his most notable performances - Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me If You Can jumps to mind - steps up to the mark as Cobb demanding notation for employing the conviction that proves why an audience loves a bad guy.

Think The Matrix with one amazing zero gravity fight scene, a little bit of that bad guy doing it for good lead character from Swordfish and a whole lot of cinematic awesome. See this film.

Miu Miu (Miu?)

How's this for a fashion editor whoops!

I was scaling the pages of The Guardian this morning to discover the media frenzy that has flocked around the 'travesty' that is the August UK Elle, US W and British Vogue covers in what I suspect has resulted in a lot of finger-pointing and diplomatic emailing as the big-wigs strive to find out who is responsible for an applique Miu Miu dress worth upwards of £1500 turning up of the three major glossies' covers'.

While the publications' PR gurus have gone into damage control with Vogue refusing to comment when approached by The Guardian, I would imagine there are a lot of big cheeky grins over at Miu Miu headquarters. You can't buy the publicity generated by a golden mistake like this.




Images from Miu Miu. Check out the full Fall/Winter collection on the Miu Miu website.

Is there candy in your camera?

I finally got around to developing my lomography snaps from Europe. A lot didn't work out which was disappointing and a few rolls caught too much sunlight. Nethertheless, here is my lomo show and tell.

Photos were taken on my Diana F+ with 120mm 100ISO and 400ISO colour negative film.