Kiss Under Mistletoe

After weeks of intense research to find the perfect evening to spend on New Years, I think I've found the best place to be. You have to understand where I come from. I have an history of the worse New Years ever. From being lost in the Los Angeles tube at midnight to go to bed at 10 pm without being able to sleep after having a quiet dinner with a few girlfriends, I needed change. 

So I created a group on Facebook and invited everyone I knew to spend the best New Years ever. Especially since I believe that if you are truly happy for New Years, then you are happy the rest of the year. Christmas is spending time with the people you love, New Years is about happiness. So here we go.

Of course by being a twenty year old single young lady in the big city of London, I still believe in Prince Charming. And hope he is going to magically pop out of his white horse and kiss me under the mistletoe at midnight while everyone else is applauding. Like in that scene with Bryan and Marisa in the OC. Oh boy.

Well, most of my friends here do not LIVE here, so they are all coming back to their original country. Social pressure says I should do the same. But see, going back to Lyon for New Years means going that to that terrible routine of mine that has been in the last five years. Meaning eating foie gras with my very best girlfriends while watching MTV and other couples making out. Which is great, but well... not really.

So here I am, trying to convince everyone to show up in London for New Years... with very little success. Exams, money, boyfriends, everyone seem to have an excellent excuse not to come. Am I friendless? Not to mention boyfriendless? Well that was without counting on my friends Ben, Cyrielle and hum Korane.

Four friends deciding to dress up their best and crash the ultimate party in one of the most exciting European capital. We decided to hit NOBU, one of Mayfair's hypiest restaurant. But where to go after? With the multitude of club and individual parties, we didn't know what to choose from. 

So I asked around, and my friend Antoin, upcoming actor and London socialight advised me to go a Masquerade Ball which is taking place in a venue near The Thames. Now that sounds cool. Let's just hope it'll be like in Marie Antoinette. With a mask. 

Video courtesy to Youtube.

Image courtesy to Ball.

Top Ten For Dummies

Meet the winning team. Six individuals who created Top Ten For Dummies, the addictive, controversial, innovative and terribly entertaining group blog of our online module. 

Reassembled around Stephan's idea of creating a 'top ten' of everything, the team won the most marketable commercial blog in our presentation this morning. A range of people with different ideas and backgrounds putting the best of themselves to bring their blog to the top.

The idea of 'Top Ten For Dummies' is a commercial website easy to navigate, creative and dynamic without any expectations to change the world, but simply to entertain. Six Top lists are updated on a daily basis, and each day has a different topic around which posts develop and are then categories into areas.

The ultimate aim for this blog was to sparkle debate, get people to be involved and increase traffic. the target audience is primarily a young male and female ABC1 audience, mainly 'bored office workers', but the blog is easy to relate to, so everyone can get appealed to it. It is a light entertainment in the middle of a stressful day.

We have expanded the website to a Facebook group, our poll gadget with which everyone can pick the topics we debate on, and the comments feature.

We take on board objections and we dismiss them. Some people might regard 'Top Ten for Dummies' as a frivolous topic, but guess what? That's where the strength of this blog lies. In fact, this is your daily entertainment where you get involved in between coffee breaks. This would be the ideal place to invest for advertisers. I mean, who would want to buy something while reading about tragedies?

We found out that writing six posts per day can reveal itself overwhelming, therefore we are evaluating the option of writing 2 or 3 posts per day and perhaps have more of multimedia content around them. 

After all, this blog has a tremendous potential. People just love to argue and get involved. It has a good layout, and extreme usability written in a fresh, fun and attractive style which anyone can enjoy.

Picture courtesy to Facebook and the lovely Flamy. 

Blog Mania

In my search to improve my blogging abilities, I started to look around at other blogs, not only in this class, but around the web, and the blogs advised by our wise course lecturer. Well, turns out, there's the good , the bad and the ugly.

Not everyone is Perez Hilton, nor have the controversy, the sponsors and audience the blog is attracting. Here are some of the blogs I preferred:

Gawker: A huge amount of information, catchy sentences, mostly celebrity oriented, the blog is the 'in your face' type. Very organized in its display, it also attracts many comments and is participatory, which I think is extremely important. The information is light entertainment stories which would attract a professional audience looking for distractions in their break time as well as keeping in touch with celebrity gossip.

ValleyWag: Now this one is a first. A blog for geeks, certainly, since we're talking about the Silicon Valley here, but a gossip one. Who knew geeks liked gossip? So a very niche market, but a very successful one since most of these people made their money with internet, therefore will be looking for information and entertainment online. Good videos, good images, good content. Good stuff.

Slashfood: Actually made me hungry. It's lunch time people! Quite different in its display, it's got looottsss of sponsors and a very structured website, with links to 'tips of the day', 'celebrity chefs', 'past recipes', 'gift of the day'... etc. Very creative, it obviously displays a lot of yummy images and fewer videos. Targeted at a wide audience from young professionals to grandparents, the blog invites to easy cooking. Yum. 

Cinematical: Well, I'm a movie geek, probably caught that from living in Hollywood, so I guess it doesn't count. But still, galleries, trailers (I'm a trailer addict), interviews, features, reviews, headlines, cinema news. Everything you could possibly ask for in the film industry. I thought they could have gave an insight of industry news, but their 'the tops, the bests, and the mosts' kept me wanting more. Overall, very attractive, and I will certainly go back to check out the updates.

Overall, I found out that blogging is veryyyyy time consuming. It can be quite addictive too, just like Facebook and other social sites. And dangerous in the way that one can live in a virtual world rather than go out there and live their own real life. It is successful in the way that the web has an infinite possibility of audience and information. It is also a free way to express opinions to a global public. I believe it is certainly the future for journalism, hopefully including more participatory features and an interaction in between the journalist and audience rather than formal news. 

Perez Hilton is confronted by Vistoria Beckham. 

Video courtesy to Youtube. Image courtesy to Jezebel.  

Sarko Romance

For the Carla Bruni dectractors, life must be hard. Because she is doing GREAT! Not only, she has been accepted by the French people as the first lady and an ambassador of charm of France abroad, but she has conquered the media and the rest of the planet.

Appearing on multiple covers of high profile magazines such as Vanity Fair and TV Shows such as the David's Letterman's Late Show, she is now niknamed the new Jackie Kennedy. Her style, beauty, grace and humility has conquered the heart of the people and the media.

Forgotten her naked pictures, her rich and famous past lovers, her Italian origines. She is now one of the most regarded woman in the world, and an extremely powerful political tool, too. How much of Bruni's image isn't orquestred by the Sarkozy clan? She is a celebrity, and her album, which was heavily critized before she became the first lady of France, is now best selling.

I EVEN have a song of Sarkozy in my itunes, called L'amour. Hum, a song of Bruni, sorry.

Video Courtesy to Youtube.

Gossip What?

I am SO disapointed. My favourite TV show GOSSIP GIRL, which I watch online every tuesday (the show appears on American television Monday night) is getting worse and worse.

After an extremely successful debut, which has pretty much launched the careers of the likes of Blake Lively, landing A-list events and magazines such as Vanity Fair, it seems that the show is getting flushed away. What the hell happened? I mean, who cares about parent romance? Why can't anyone be happy, even for an episode?

The show used to be THE reference in terms of fashion, hot spots, inside jokes, painting a young and scandalous New York. It even made ME, the L.A girl, want to go NY. Apart from the irresistible Chuck (English actor, of course), who remains a slight source of entertainment in between essays with a big plate of cereals or nutella, everyone else is SO PLAIN.

The show used to pride itself to be THE teenage show that is every parents nightware, with drugs, alchohol, sex, social prejusdices... well I don't see any of these anymore. It has become so politically correct I fall asleep everytime I watch it! Where is the scandal? We want more. I thought Gossip Girl was going to be the natural succession of the OC, which lasted at LEAST four seasons, and succeeded to 90210.

Well, is it just me? CW and the creative machines behind this addiction, pleeeease. Get Gossip Girl back. The one and only, the show that actually creates gossip. xoxo.

Image courtesy to Google. Video Courtesy to YouTube.

Bite me, Robert

The Twilight mania. If you are between the age of a 13 and 25 and live in the Western civilised world, I bet you haven't been able to avoid it. If you're a girl, it's only about to get worse. I'm talking about Twilight, the teenage vampire romance and its charimatic and gorgeous main character Robert Pattinson.

Now it is ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE. It has taken the American Box Office by storm with more than $70 million the opening week and arrive in England on the 18th of December. Not to mention it is already online and has created an incredible buzz.

The actors are just going from show to show, Ellen, Oprah, The Soup, Tyra, there are on every cover of magazines, every cinema reviews, every corner of the tube. The main description of the vampire male character was 'the perfect man'.

Now Robert is getting close. A talented musician, he also played Cedric in Harry Potter (He's English, of course) and is simply IRRESISTIBLE for every teenage girl and over. He has created an absolute phenomenon in the States.

The film was produced by Summit Entertainment, quite a small independant company getting recognition with Twilight, inspired on a best seller series of books.

For those of haven't watched the film online with some dodgy camera nor downloaded the music, get ready for the 18th, because it is absolutely fantastic.

Video courtesy to youtube. Image courtesy to MoviePics.

Hope For Journalists

They say journalism is dead, but when Neil McIntosh entered our newsroom, things looked quite different. A professional and successful online journalist, Neil painted a different picture. Yes, things are going to be hard for next two years, yes there are going to be jobs lost, but journalism is still and will remain a major part of our society.

Responding to critics saying that print journalism will be over within the next decade, McIntosh claims that the future lays in online. Which made me glad I took this online course. But when you think about it, we all started blogging longer than we even enrolled in journalism. Myspace, Facebook, emails, even letters, these are all the diaries that prepared us for this course. 

The good thing about internet is the infinite audience and freedom involving everyone to participate. Presenting yourself in the best light possible, sharing ideas, creating debate, criticize and getting criticized, taking actions, supporting causes, being part of a virtual community. All these actions that create a virtual and global public sphere and reach a maximum of people.

In this context, no wonder the future of journalists relies on the internet. Internet is to television what television was to print. Expanding an audience, reaching people that don't have access to a traditional form of critical media, these are the goals of online journalism. After meeting and interviewing Neil McIntosh for about an hour, the guy who participated in the creation of one of the most successful newspaper online, The Guardian, I feel relief. 

Everyone was wrong , and we were right. Not only journalism isn't a dead nor a difficult profession, if one gives him or herself the tools to succeed, but it is an indispensable, reliable and powerful part of our lives, which I'll be happy to contribute too.

Image courtesy to Photobucket and the Online Project blog.

 

I <3 Marylebone

Discover Marylebone. The place where I live, shop, sleep, eat, breathe. A lovely village feel with its charm and local events within one of the most expensive capitals in the world. A magical place to be before Christmas.

With a marvellous Christmas opening on the 19^th of November, including a local school recital with true talent, barbecues and sales in Marylebone High Street boutiques, Marylebone is one the best places to live in London at the moment.

Our local boutiques compete for the best and creative window displays. The cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants offer the best Christmas menus at affordable prices. Almost everyday, there are Christmas animations. Saturday there was a dance show with a local dance club for charity, promoting the area and St James Street.

Everything is within walkable distance. Forget the tube, taxis and buses. Walk to Oxford Street, Mayfair, Regent Park, Green Park and even Piccadilly. Walk home at two the morning and the only people you’ll cross are taxis and police. Get the Christmas feel with decorations, Santa’s, Christmas food, events, and families.

That’s all for now. Come and check it out for yourself, we’ll have a hot chocolate and mince pies by the Christmas tree.

Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Tuesday afternoon, I’m feeling adventurous again. Let’s go to the East side. Getting out of Waterloo, walking against the freezing wind that makes my five layers feel like I’m not wearing anything at all. Gloves, checked, ridiculous hat, checked, furry scarf, definitely checked, useless sunglasses that make me look like some kind of hiding celebrity, mmm checked.

The excuse being I need to find a decent restaurant giving on the Thames to take my friends on New Years Eve, that is, before crashing the masquerade ball situated around the corner from Waterloo. Turns out, the wonderful fireworks everyone has been talking about won’t happen before midnight, time where I’m hoping to be somewhere warm exchanging a kiss under the mistletoe.

So after selecting the only fish restaurant that still had a spot available to look at the beautiful London scenery outside, I decided to look for some hints of Christmas. Well there were plenty of them. Cafes, restaurant, The London Shakespeare Theatre, museums, all of these had incorporated Christmas some how in their surroundings.

Looking for a less traditional aspect of Christmas? Go to the Tate and check out their recyclable Christmas tree. Stop at the local pub, make a Christmas roasting reservation and look at the sand drawings made in the embankment of The Thames. Now, we’re talking Christmas London style.

That’s all for now, find out where I am on my last day tomorrow!

Winter Wonderland

Monday morning, everyone goes grimly to their 9 to 6 jobs and I get to go to… the park! My neighbours give me the dirty looks, and I look right back at them with a delightful smile on my face.

Now that was without counting the miserable British weather. While my lovely flatmates get to drink a hot chocolate and check out their emails in a warm and a safe environment, I get to stand in the cold outside trying to find the right spots to satisfy my Christmas wishes.

Turns out, the London parks really are one of the best traditional spots for Christmas. Not only because of Winter Wonderland, various carriages and Father Christmases, but also because it does remain the most natural environment that reminds us all of our childhood in the country.

There is something truly authentic and magical about the freezing morning bruise in a London park. Squirrels walk all around me waiting for a Christmas miracle, and so do the homeless people. But despite the rough realities of living in one of the most expensive capitals in the world, I still get the impression that Santa’s carriage is going to fly off in front of me, leaving a few presents behind.

The magic of Christmas, I guess. Well, let’s get back to Starbucks, drink a hot chocolate and check out emails. Oh, and I took these pictures with my lovely Sony Camera.

That’s all for now, don’t forget to see where I’m out tomorrow.

Let It Show, Let It Show, Let It Show

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Following my journey in the Christmassy streets of London on this wonderful sunny Sunday, I feel like I have to write about Bond Street. No commercial pressure, I do not get a percentage for this (I wish I did), but simply a pure adoration for fashion and creativity.

Now, for those who say Christmas is only a world class money making machine, I say yes, but so what? Bond Street is the perfect example: inaccessible boutiques, an explosion of creativity and fierce competition. The winner? Us, the inspirational pass bys who get to enjoy an extreme variety of Christmas Trees, diamond shoes, stags, goblins, Christmassy outfits... This is pretty much as entertaining as Winter Wonderland. No need to walk in, everything is said one the outside. What best publicity than window displays?

Ralph Lauren plays the whole American Christmas tradition, enjoying a fire place in the Hamptons after playing hockey. Vivienne Westwood suffers from the depression, turning down the prices of her dresses from £1000 to £400. Dolce and Gabbana tries to play it cool, contemporary but classy, while Stella McCartney certainly plays it more is more with a tremendous amount of lights in and outside her shop.

If you want to enjoy Christmas in London, I suggest you take a look at Bond Street. Just for the sake of it. It will remind you that after all, in depression, Christmas certainly brings out the best out of people: their creativity.

That is all for now, find out what I'm doing next week tomorrow. Enjoy x

You Are My Mews

Saturday afternoon, central London. If you're not a tourist and simply want to get to a quiet piece of your favourite capital, life is hell. Walking into Oxford Street is like trying to crash the tube at rush hour: sweaty and crowded, it wakes up a terrible instinct for survival you just didn't you had.

Now that is without counting with the marvellous invention of the mews. Hidden, terribly expensive and only available for those who know where they are, or the lucky ones who get lost, mews are the perfect place to breathe.

Here is one of them. No, I won't tell you where it is, just a hint: Mayfair, near Bond St. Now you'll have to go and hunt for yourself. The rest is pure enjoyment, a traditional hot chocolate with English cream and marshmallows, a quiet coffee near a fire place, a tiny boutique with unique dresses. These are the true hidden luxuries if London.

And at Christmas time, Mews are even more magical. While the rest of world witnesses an exotic festive dance amongst a thousand other people in Oxford Street, you get to actually sit down with your friends and relax. No waiting queue, no trashed Christmas trees, just an authentic, beautiful and truly British environment. That just made my day.

That's all for now, find out where I'm going next tomorrow.

Oh, and here is another picture, just to keep you hungry :)

The More, The Merrier

Walking down to Oxford Street, I realized that well, the touristy spots weren't so bad either. I guess the most famous street of London is getting to me. Experiencing the very competitive Christmas displays from a giant paper rap at Gap to the most expensive Christmas items at John Lewis, I hadn't come across the magic of Selfridges yet.

On a freezing December afternoon I took my little niece and visiting family to the world's most famous department store: Harrods. And regretted right after. The poor girl didn't know where to turn head with the 'Toy Kingdom', 'Barbie Room' and 'Winter Wonderland'. It was pretty much impossible to get her out of the shop without any major drama, and I needed the most experienced Christmas diplomacy to explain that 'with the credit crunch and all' Father Christmas might not bring the £300 Christmas doll she had seen on display upstairs.

But that wasn't counting Selfridges. After the Disney Store, Hamleys and others, Selfridges was about to wake up the deepest luxurious fantasies and Christmas wishes neglected in me. I've experienced Paris, New York, Lyon and Los Angeles before Christmas, but this was just too much.

My first experience at Selfridges was trying to find the simplest item of all: a bin. After running to Tesco, Primark and my local Habitat, I hadn't quite found what I wanted yet. Well, I was about to find out that bins could be luxurious, too. The cheapest one I found in there was about £60, and that awarded me dirty looks from the staff.

So today, I was a bit scared as I walked pass the place I had shopping banned forever. Well, turns out that luxury has good sides too. I’ve never seen so beautiful window displays in my lifetime. With the slogan ‘The More, the Merrier’, Selfridges seems out of order in difficult financial times.

I’m guessing Christmas magic still sells, too. It certainly worked on me as I immediately started a Christmas shopping frenzy.

That’s all for now, find out where I’m going next tomorrow.

Ps: The picture is one of my favorite Selfridges displays, took with my lovely Sony camera.

Rocking Around The Mall

In the excitement and preparation of the winter holidays, it is pretty much impossible to avoid the Christmas frenzy surrounding us.

Living in central London, Christmas is truly everywhere. Go for a coffee at your local Starbucks, you'll hear 'All I want for Christmas' and start getting involved in a festive commercial machine while eating traditional mince pies.

Walking around my neighbourhood, I've noticed that there are some preserved and unknown Christmas spots that have escaped from the invading crowds of tourists crashing our capital for its yearly Christmas shopping rush.

I have decided to go beyond my lovely Marylebone village and explore the deeper ends of the Christmas capital. I heard that my favourite American shop ‘Hollister’ has recently opened its doors in Brent Cross and White City. Truly excited about what would remain one of my best retail experiences, I decided to adventure myself to zone three north London and walk my way to the Brent Cross Mall.

After a bit of a scary walk, we’ve finally arrived to shopping wonderland. And found Christmas wonderland, too. The shopping centre was absolutely beautiful and enormous, and the Holiday decorations were definitely as good as in Mayfair. Animations and a Santa House were installed for the kids as well as an excellent selection of department stores and boutiques for the rest of us in what looked like a preserved and quiet piece of London.

I found it the perfect place to shop when it rains, or let’s hope, snows. No crowds, no cold and no noise, just a protected light and shiny place to enjoy for a serene Christmas shopping and hot chocolate. Well, you might need a car, too.

I’m good for now, and glad to be back in my W1 apartment. Find out where I’m going next tomorrow.

P.S: I took this picture, so hey, no courtesy needed.

MTV Did It Again

For those who thought reality television was SO last year, this is going to prove you wrong. After ‘Laguna Beach’ and ‘The Hills’, here comes ‘The City’. Fewer words, more drama, more glamour, MTV has found the perfect combination to hook us all again.

Whitney Port from ‘The Hills’, the Teen Vogue intern and Lauren Conrad’s co-star takes a new job with designer Diane von Furstenberg in the big Apple. ‘The City’ is set to be a spinoff of ‘The Hills’ in New York. Rumours say Port cannot hold her own TV series, but what has been know has ‘the worse kept secret of reality TV’ has already attracted crowds of onlookers and explosive reactions on gossip blogs.

MTV says about ‘The City’:


“Surrounded by all new friends, pursuing a fresh love life and starting to work in the upper echelon of the fashion industry is a lot to navigate for a new girl in the big city… especially one who has everything to lose. In a city full of people with their own agendas, Whitney will have to quickly decide who she can trust and who to stay away from.”

In between ‘Gossip Girl’, ‘Ugly Betty’ and ‘The Devil Wears Prada’, ‘The City’ stands as a reality check on the fake perceptions of the fashion industry. But how real is it? There have been critics that the show has been scripted and Diane von Furstenberg can only get a strong interest in the publicity of a primetime MTV show.

Whitney cuts down the rumors and describes her experience:

“I am thrilled and honored to be in New York City, not only working for one of the most renowned fashion designers, Diane Von Furstenberg, but to be able to mature as a young woman both professionally and personally”.

Speaking as an ex Tatler intern, my experience of a fashion magazine seems extremely different. 'The City' presents a list of glamorous parties, daily dates, beautiful 'friends', amazing wardrobes, and stunning apartments. Truth is, reality is quite different. At Tatler, I started doing the post and jobs no one else would do. Running clothes from press offices to photoshoots, rapping up 'send back' packages or researching the library was most of my daily tasks. However, meeting various people from the fashion industry and getting an insight of a successful publishing house was the best part of what experienced.

Crictics say that some of the scenes in 'The City' and 'The Hills' were reproduced and edited in studios to be more dramatic. The problem is, a number of aspirational younsters see the show as a lifestyle bible. Others see it as another form of doing fiction TV. I believe the show should be viewed as light entertainment rather than reality. But what better way to talk about the subject than experiencing it for myself? Next summer, I am about to intern at Teen Vogue New York. I guess we'll see if the fantasy becomes reality.

‘The City’ premieres on December 29^th at 10 pm on MTV.

Image Courtesy to Celebrity Gossip Online.

Bright Future For Journalists

‘In the next two years, we are going to redefine journalism. I think it is one of the most exciting time to be a journalist.’

Neil McIntosh, head of the Guardian Online for nine years, is optimistic. Launched in 1999, the guardian.co.uk has become the world’s leading online newspaper with more than 25 million unique users last month.

McIntosh participated in the diversification of the paper with the digital revolution. Along with the media’s transformation, the Guardian is moving its offices to a new multimedia building in Kings Cross.

The content of online journalism has changed a lot since its creation. Audio broadcasting has become extremely popular with more than 1.5 million views a month. The Guardian produces its own videos, controlling in this way the information it moderates.

40% of its audience is American. McIntosh says that ‘the Bushy era and elections’ boosted the sales overseas, The Guardian represents an alternative option to the foreign media.

One of the most successful areas in the website is the comment feature which has gone from 1.5 million to 10 million users in two and a half years.

McIntosh says about the death of newspapers: ‘We are all getting ready for a tough year; the next two years will certainly be grim and there will be lost jobs, however the regression will mainly hit regional papers.’

To the allegations that the audience is slowly replacing journalists, McIntosh responds that the public’s trust towards journalists is still there. In the digital era, the borders between audience and the media blur, but the revolution in journalism is going online.

McIntosh, who just landed a job at The Wall Street Journal Europe website, says: ‘‘Murdock is pretty webby, this is an occasion to build up something.’ He also added: ‘We are going bloggers' hunting at the start of year’. Aspiring journalists, watch out.

Picture credit to Sophie Borazanian.