Claire is...: london

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Saturday, 3 August 2019

FILM 2020: DETECTIVE PIKACHU

TRIVIA: Tim mentions a gangster film on TV is an "old detective movie." The clip being shown is actually "Angels With Filthy Souls", a movie-within-a-movie which was featured in the original Home Alone (1990).

The realistic style of the Pokémon were based on the artwork by RJ Palmer. The movie's production designer discovered him while he was looking for realistic Pokémon designs on the internet, and he was so impressed by Palmer's artwork that he gave him a job as the concept artist for the movie.

The day before the film's theatrical release, the entire movie was "leaked" onto YouTube. In reality, clicking this video will play a minute of the film, before cutting to a loop of Pikachu dancing for an hour and forty five minutes.

Despite having six distinctive cries (according to both sound bites and Build a Bear) the voice for Psyduck is unlisted and unnamed.

The first movie based on a video game to have a fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, at 64%.

A petition was made to have Danny DeVito voice Pikachu.

At one point Pikachu looks to ensure that Psyduck stays calm by repeating the term "Serenity Now" a number of times. "Serenity Now" is a famous catchphrase from Seinfeld Season 9 Episode 3

It was The Pokémon Company's idea to have Ryme City ban battling and using Pokéballs, wishing to show a different and "more elevated" relationship between Pokémon and people. They were also very protective of Ash Ketchum and forbade any reference to him from being made. Going as far as even forbidding Tim from wearing a cap.

Ryme City is very obviously London, complete with distinctive Routemaster buses and cars driving on the left-hand side of the road (and Pret-A-Mangers). Other landmarks that prominently appear include the Gherkin and King's Cross Station as Tahnti Station.

In a world full of Pokémon with different kinds of powers, of course people are going to put that to use. For example, in the night market, one man uses a Charmander's flame tail to flambe the food in the wok, and the laboratory people are using Greninjas as hitmen to take Detective Pikachu and Tim down. Demonstrated more in earlier scenes, a Machamp is directing traffic, a squad of Squirtles help put out a fire, the police force has a lot of dog-type Pokémon, and a Braviary is flying around the city to deliver a construction worker on a crane his lunch. It also makes sense for certain Pokémon types to have their own occupations, like Octillery cutting up sushi and Loudreds being used as loud speakers in the round house.

Monday, 22 July 2019

Already bought the frames? You can request any of my prints in any sizes – just send me a message and we can make a custom order just for you…

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ClaireHefferDesign

Saturday, 1 June 2019

SPOTLIGHT ON: QUILL LONDON

I had been thinking about trying calligraphy for a while and when I heard about Quill, I thought this would be the perfect place to learn and I was right!

The beginners’ course was just over two hours long and we were treated to cups of tea and wine and cookies. Matilda our teacher was very welcoming and dazzled us with her skills. The class was made of a mix of people, many on their own like me and with different reasons for wanting to learn. Some were envious of the beautiful handwriting of others and wanted to improve their own, some had dabbled in helping relatives write wedding invitations and wanted to learn calligraphy properly, some found it a very mindful activity to learn. Some people treated themselves to the course, as I did, some were gifted the course by thoughtful relatives and a group of five came together from work.

The lesson started at the absolute basics of how to use the pen and how to draw a simple line, a line down with some pressure for a thick line and up with very little pressure for a thin line; and that’s really the only thing you have to know for modern calligraphy, that and the angle that the nib should be, a helpful guide to what the letters look like and a lot of practice.

Looking through our practice books at the end you could see everyone had improved just in the short lesson time so you can imagine how good you could get with a little practice.

The tables were set out neatly with everything we’d need as beginners and we got to take the whole lot home. Everything in the shop is so beautifully curated and we even got a discount while we were there, I treated myself to some coral/pink ink.

See below for some of the beautiful things that they sell in store and if you’re not close by then you can buy online.

1. BEGINNERS MODERN CALLIGRAPHY WORKSHOPS - VARIOUS DATES

https://quilllondon.com/collections/modern-calligraphy-workshops/products/beginners-modern-calligraphy-workshops

2. FINETEC PEARL METALLICS INK PALETTE

https://quilllondon.com/collections/all-modern-calligraphy-supplies/products/finetec-pearl-palette

3. TOM'S STUDIO PEN REST

https://quilllondon.com/collections/all-modern-calligraphy-supplies/products/toms-studio-pen-rest

4. BABY PINK INK

https://quilllondon.com/collections/all-modern-calligraphy-supplies/products/baby-pink-ink

5. ROSE WAX STAMP

https://quilllondon.com/collections/all-modern-calligraphy-supplies/products/rose-wax-stamp

(This is not an affiliate link – I paid for the course myself and am just raving about this independent London business)

Saturday, 4 May 2019

Top Five: London

1. ROYAL DOULTONCHARLENE MULLEN LONDON CITY SCAPE MUGS

http://www.selfridges.com/GB/en/cat/royal-doulton-charlene-mullen-london-city-scape-mugs_547-10010-40001538/

2. SUPER SALE*** LINE AND CIRCLE ILLUSTRATION BIG BEN PRINT - INK- DRAWING - ART

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/109890357/super-sale-line-and-circle-illustration?ga_search_query=big+ben&ref=shop_items_search_1

3. LONDON PRINT - NAOMI WILKINSON

https://www.lagomdesign.co.uk/products/london-print

4. LONDON ALPHABET

https://greatlittleprints.com/products/london-alphabet

5. LONDON SKYLINE PRINTABLE DOWNLOAD

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/288862973/london-skyline-printable-download

Wednesday, 10 April 2019

This is a beautiful looking London home…

Saturday, 23 February 2019

FILM 1950: TWINSTERS

TRIVIA: As of December 2016, Twinsters registered a 100% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Samantha futerman and Ryan miyamoto, co-director, later became lovers.

Monday, 17 December 2018

I love these buildings in London, I find it fascinating to see how people decorate the same space differently…

Sunday, 2 December 2018

FILM 1886: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

TRIVIA: Tom Cruise trained for an entire year to perform the HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) stunt in this film.

The H.A.L.O skydiving sequence (distance of 7 km / 25000 feet, traveling speed of 265 - 320 km/h) was the last sequence filmed during production, but it was the first stunt designed and required a full year of planning out. The crew had only a limited time window of three minutes a day during sunset to film a jump. Because of strict air aviation regulations in France, it could only be shot in the Emirates. It took Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, the skydiving camera operator Craig O'Brien (who was instructed to keep a distance of three feet from Cruise while filming) and others involved a total of 106 jumps to get three possible takes. However, to rehearse the sequence, the crew built a custom oxygen helmet with RAF assistance that can be lit up to see a face, and then also built one of the world's largest wind tunnels for practice. The practice doesn't end there - Cruise and the other persons involved did five skydives a day with one in the morning, three in the afternoon, and one at dusk. Some of the other cast members turned up to visit, with Simon Pegg saying that he and his co-stars thought multiple times that Cruise was seriously about to die: "It is a daily stress going to work with him, because you don't know if you are going to see him tomorrow."

White Widow (Vanessa Kirby) is introduced as she delivers a tribute speech to her late mother, is referred to only as "Max." and as a lover of paradoxes. While never clarified onscreen, this is likely reference to the first film in the series, which features a female British arms dealer also known only as Max (Vanessa Redgrave).

In August 2017, Tom Cruise suffered an injury while filming a stunt jumping from one building to another. He was able to grab onto the other building thanks to a harness strapped onto him and his history of performing his own stunts for action films, but his ankle fractured upon the impact of the jump. Cruise then got up and attempted to run it off, which was what the scene called for, before he and the crew decided to stop filming. Shooting was delayed for eight weeks following the injury, but the footage of the stunt used in the film and its trailers just so happened to be the actual injury.

Solomon Lane is the first villain in the franchise to appear in two films.

Simon Pegg got in such good shape while training in the gym for his action scenes that he got eight-pack abs for the first time in 25 years even though it wasn't required for his role at all. The actor is not an action star or known for his body and was teased on set by co-stars Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill, who actually are action stars and regularly show their eight-pack abs in films. They nick-named Pegg 'Eight-Pack Peggles' due to his new found abs. Cruise said, "Six-Pack Peggles I call him! He had an amazing eight-pack going on. He's almost like Eight-Pack Peggles." Pegg responded to the good-natured teasing saying, "To be fair it was a six-pack, it wasn't quite an eight-pack. I think one morning, after training, my abs made an appearance for the first time since I was 23. You have to be in shape to do these movies and I put my mind to it. It's nice to know that I can still show out if I need to. My wife appreciates it!"

A clause stipulated in Henry Cavill's contract forbade him from shaving his beard required for the role. During production, the producers received a phone call from Justice League producer Charles Roven requesting Cavill back for some reshoots for his role as Superman. Co-producer Jake Myers suggested letting Cavill shave his beard, shutting down production while he does his reshoots and then getting Warner Bros to pay $3 million for additional visual effects (digital moustache) on shots of Cavill after completing his Superman reshoots. Paramount got wind of the idea and shot it down immediately through the clause.

During the Empire Podcast, director Christopher McQuarrie revealed that he provides the authoritative voice in the initial mission briefing.

Rescuing another person in free fall while sky diving is very difficult. Hewitt says that "it takes Accelerated Free Fall instructors over 1,000 jumps to get it right and something like 70% of the people who try to qualify at the instructor level fail. Tom had just 100 jumps to perfect this."

The Paris chase scenes involved stuntmen in 70 cars driving to avoid Cruise who was riding his motorcycle against traffic without a helmet at extremely high speeds.

The musical composer on "Fallout" is Lorne Balfe, but the iconic "Mission: Impossible" theme was written by Lalo Schifrin. He wrote it in just 3 minutes. When asked why he wrote it in the unusual time signature of 5/4, he joked at a press conference in Vienna, "Everybody knows that there have been beams from outer space coming because of interplanetary flights. The people in outer space have five legs and couldn't dance to our music, so I wrote this for them."

Monday, 27 August 2018

LADY DATE SUMMER 2018

We started our day with ominous clouds at Notting Hill. We had a walk around with the tourists while looking at the colourful houses and along the market at Portobello Road. It started raining around this time and we made the walk back and into Kensington.

It stopped raining as we made our way past all the elegantly large embassies and into Kensington Gardens. We walked past Kensington Palace and around the large pond. Then up towards the gold statue of Albert by The Royal Albert Hall.

The rain started again with massive raindrops as we made our way towards Chelsea. It was a typical English Summer day and within only a few minutes we were again putting away umbrellas to make way for sunglasses. We stopped to eat once we made it to Kings Road.

I didn’t want anything too big and quite fancied some fries so we thought the American place The Big Easywas our best bet. Unfortunately it was disappointing. DesPite there being empty tables and the hostess offering us where we wanted to sit, she did not seem to want us to be there. To the point where I felt so guilty about just ordering fries even thought that was all I wanted, so ordered chicken as well. I’m glad I did because despite this place being American, there were no fries on the menu. There were only big chips, which I am not such a fan of. The chicken was nice though. We just didn’t feel very welcome. We didn’t stay very long. Rebecca had a mac and cheese, she said it was OK but that it was very difficult to really mess up a mac and cheese. The BBQ sauce tasted like pure alcohol, which was a shame.

So we left to go to our booking at The Bletchley. We descended a staircase into a basement with 1940s music and very little light. We were sat at the bar and given army jackets to wear and a radio and enigma machine to use. They give you an option of three different scenarios. Some have better stories, some have more interesting flavours for cocktails and others are harder. We went for the one with the most interesting flavours. The tasks were not too hard, a lot of punching into the enigma machine and trying to work out what the coded messages could mean. The welcome cocktail was a lovely fruit punch affair, probably my favourite out of the three. The second was determined by the first task, which was based on a menu. The food you ordered on the menu for an imagined dinner party determined what flavours were in your cocktail. Mine had a bit of fizz and a little kick but I have no idea what was in it. The next task to determine flavours involved smelling things in bottles and spraying tastes on your tongue. You had to choose where you were going on an imagined mission. I chose Italy and received an Amarettococktail. We were finished a little early but as we’d finished our cocktails quite quickly decided to leave to get a drink somewhere else. I think this experience runs a lot smoother with only two people. I think it would be a little tedious with a big group, especially when there are so many things to decide for each person. I did hear some bad reviews before I booked about people being left for too long or forgotten about but we didn’t have this problem at all. We did have a little problem with our enigma machine giving us the wrong letters for a while but a member of staff told us we had a problem and we started again rather than spending ages trying to decode a wrong message.

We were going to head to Bartsnext but quickly realized this would be an impossible place to get into without a booking so we headed to Mr Foggs. This is a little out of the way place behind the main street in Mayfair. We hadn’t booked but managed to get a space at the bar. They hand you a kind of spinning menu of cocktails as you head in but don’t be fooled, because these are only some of the cocktails on offer. There is actually a whole book of cocktails, almost like reading a novel, which is always one of the things I love most about a good cocktail bar. I, as usual, went for a vodka-based cocktail, something fruity but a little different. The barman was a true artist. He amazingly knew the recipes for both drinks we ordered off the top of his head. He mixed with flair and decorated with the skill and care of an artisan. The cocktails were lovely. My main flavor was of raspberry puree until I reached the bottom which unfortunately was all ginger beer, so it started off better than it ended. If I wasn’t left with pure ginger at the end it probably would have been my favourite cocktail.

And then, after seeming to walk all day, we headed home.

Here are links to some of the places we visited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notting_Hill

https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/kensington-gardens

http://bigeasy.co.uk/#kings-road

https://www.thebletchley.co.uk

https://www.mr-foggs.com/menus/?location=residence

Monday, 6 August 2018

FILM 1810: PHANTOM THREAD

TRIVIA: Director Paul Thomas Anderson got the initial idea for the film while he was sick in bed one day. His wife, Maya Rudolph, was tending to him and gave him a look that made him realize that she had not looked at him with such tenderness and love in a long time.

In preparation for the film, Daniel Day-Lewis watched archival footage of 1940s and 1950s fashion shows, studied famous designers, consulted with the curator of fashion and textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and apprenticed under Marc Happel, head of the costume department at the New York City Ballet. He also learned how to sew, and he practiced on his wife Rebecca Miller, trying to recreate a Balenciaga sheath dress that was inspired by a school uniform.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson said his favorite line in the film was, "The tea is going out; the interruption is staying right here with me."

Vicky Krieps did not meet Daniel Day-Lewis until her first day on set. As Day-Lewis famously stays in character during production of his films, Krieps was instructed to refer to him as "Reynolds" for the duration of filming. In multiple interviews promoting the film, Krieps still referred to Day-Lewis as "Reynolds."

There are 90 minutes of Jonny Greenwood's score used during the 130 minute running time of "Phantom Thread" . Greenwood says he was influenced by the works of Nelson Riddle and Glenn Gould from the 50's.

Shooting on this film was completed on April 26, 2017, the same day that Paul Thomas Anderson's close friend and mentor Jonathan Demme passed away from cancer. The film is dedicated to Demme.

This was the fourth collaboration between director Paul Thomas Anderson and film composer Jonny Greenwood.

Reynolds Woodcock's Bristol 405 is exactly the same car as driven by David Goldman (Peter Sarsgaard) in An Education (2009): registration WDF 964.

The typeface used for the credits is called Reynolds Stone and it was created by the English wood engraver, typographer, and designer Reynolds Stone, who was a close friend of the parents of Daniel Day-Lewis. When Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis were devising the character of Reynolds Woodcock, they agreed that they wanted the film to have a sort of "Reynolds Stone look," and the character's name, Reynolds Woodcock, was partly inspired by this as well.

Thursday, 28 June 2018

http://www.designsponge.com/2018/03/londons-farm-girl-cafe.html

Thursday, 12 April 2018

PODCAST: UNTOLD: THE DANIEL MORGAN MURDER

SEASON ONE & TWO

The Untold Story

The phone hacking scandal that closed News of the World was big, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. At the bottom of that iceberg of 'dark arts' - hacking, burglary, bugging, and bribing bent cops - is the body of Daniel Morgan.

It’s been described by an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police as “one of the most disgraceful episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service.”

Over the three decades since Daniel was killed, five failed police investigations and an ongoing panel inquiry, his has become the most investigated murder in British history.

The story moves from back streets of London, through the highest echelons of Scotland Yard, to the offices of Rupert Murdoch's best selling newspapers, to the doors of Number Ten Downing Street.

If you haven't heard this story, ask yourself, why?

MY VERDICT: I listened to both seasons straight after one another and I binged the whole thing pretty quickly. That was a problem, as the second season does go back over a lot of the information from the first. However this was my problem and not something that the makers of ‘Untold’ can be blamed for.

The podcast is very well made and the story is fascinating. There is so much more to this story than a straight forward whodunit, probably because all involved are pretty sure they know who was responsible for the murder of Daniel Morgan, instead we delve into a world of underhand tactics by not only private investigators but also the police and the media.

I would thoroughly recommend this podcast and found it refreshing to hear a story based in England, it meant a little more to me to know the places and people involved than the predominately American podcasts I had listened to in the past, and it’s nice to hear an English voice for a change. Even if you’re not from England, I think the storytellers give a good enough description of things that even those unfamiliar with newspapers like The News of the World will still be able to follow. However, be warned, there is a lot of information to digest, a lot characters to remember and after five full investigations a whole lot to process, hopefully with more to come this will all be worth it.

http://www.untoldmurder.com