The Sneaky Magpie

I feel slightly spoiled, after a week away I took this Friday off as well since my friend was visiting from Amsterdam, on top of it Monday is a bank holiday meaning 4 day weekend and two 4 day work weeks.

The weather was nice and on Friday my friends and I walked to Brixton Market and had a quick bite at Rosie’s and a massive catchup.

Saturday was not bad either and we had a picnic by my friend’s pool (yes, an outdoor pool in London!). I made an apricot cake, same recipe as tea cakes but in one piece and baked for about an hour, apricots and ground almonds on top. I love this recipe, it is so adaptable and the cake is not too sweet.

Sunday came and so did the autumn, tricked by the sunshine outside I put on a summer dress and was off for a day in town. Oh my Lord, I was so cold and felt totally silly with my summer attire, luckily I was not the only one. I didn’t give up though and off we went to Tate Modern to see a couple of exhibitions.

Natalia Goncharova ‘The Cyclist’

The first one was Futurism, this starts with Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto and has a great representation of artists including Boccioni, Carrà, the Cubist movement, Russian avant-garde and the Duchamp brothers to name very very few. The show explains the relationship with Cubism as well as movements directly created from it like Orphism and Vorticism with great examples of all of them. There is Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Duchamp-Villon’s The Large Horse, Robert Delaunay’s The Cardiff Team, Natalia Goncharova’s The Cyclist (one of my favorite painting in the exhibition), Severini’s vibrant The Dance of the Pan-Pan at the “Monico” and Nevinson’s La Mitraillause.

C.R.W. Nevinson ‘La Mitraillause’

The Futurists loved speed, movement, modern machinery, streets, telegraphs, cars, planes, war. Morinetti was massively opposed pretty much the whole past, especially English decorative arts, romanticism, Pre-Raphaelits, revival trends and so on. He was also a misogynist and called for women to become more masculine so both sexes are the same, this strongly emerged in Russia where male and female artists became equal, one of the best being Liubov Popova, something that did not happen in Europe till much later.

Futurism died with the WWI, it was revived after the war but very soon it was overtaken by the … future, and other trends that evolved from it like Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism and Dada.

Robert Delaunay ‘The Cardiff Team’

I came out of the exhibition feeling very well informed, I finally fully understood the movement and wanted to find out more. The exhibition ends on the 20th of September.

We also had a look at Per Kirkeby’s show, I must admit, I am not a fun.

Then we headed to town to grab a bite at Pollo Bar in Old Compton Street where we indulged on pizza and good Chianti.

We finished the day by popping to few shops to check out the winter collections, high on my list is a winter coat and the first contender is this A.P.C. beauty but single breasted.

Now I am sitting wrapped in a woolly cardigan, drinking a cup of tea and planning tomorrow. I also must find the time to go to The Hayward, The Serpentine and The Whitechapel galleries before the exhibitions change.

I finally got my last disc of Mad Men, it was a very painful realisation that it will be a while before season three comes out in UK but the clever people at AMC made the 1st episode available online, fingers crossed they will do it every week!

As planned I went to explore the Brixton Market. It is a very vibrant place full of crazy characters, a lot of tat and some fab food shops. Stopped by a Jamaican grocer, gosh, there is a whole new world of spices out there! And everything is pretty cheap, a large box of dried chanterelle mushrooms cost me less that 3 quid, huge bags of beans, pulses and grains are £2.50 on average. The choice of fruit and veg is endless. I will definitely visit more often. On my way back I also snapped a bunch of white peonies for mere £2 as opposite to the bunch from Berwick Street Market which was four times as much!

The nice lady from Jamaican shop helped me to find Rosie’s Deli Cafe which is such a darling little place (The Guardian wrote about it a couple of weeks ago), with shelves of food stuff for sale, very attractive menu and charming ladies serving, including the lovely owner, Rosie Lovell. My friend and I grabbed a table outside and ordered ciabattas, mine was with pecorino cheese, grilled aubergines and spinach, and my friend’s with pancetta, spinach and cheese. It was delicious. I skipped the cakes but will surely be back to try them. Rosie’s book is out now, it’s called Spooning with Rosie.

Just across from the cafe is a vintage clothing shop called Secondi. The shop has got a great selection of clothing and shoes, lots of designer stuff and very interesting bags like the baby alligator bag, pretty freaky if you ask me! The shop also serves as a cafe (picture above), a perfect place if you want to get away from the market crowd.

Overall Brixton Market is a pretty great place, very easy going and full of locals, well worth a visit.

Had such a nice sushi last night, went to So Sushi (nothing to do with Yo, Hi or similar bad sushi places!). The restaurant is in Soho’s Warwick Street and serves one of the best Japanese food I ever had in London. The fish is incredibly fresh, we had a sashimi selection with fish, prawn and amazing scallops, followed by spicy tuna and salad roll and scallop and avocado roll. All to die for. Friendly staff too. I stuck to green tea however the cocktails looked fab. Love the place.

The Observer listed 50 best places to eat and hang out by Erin Wasson, read it here. They all sound pretty good and very unpretentious. Given how cool she is you can only expect the best. What really caught my eye was at no 9 the Brixton Market, I never go there even though it’s probably only 15 minutes away on my bike. Rosie’s Deli Cafe sounds especially good, there is a piece on her in the Observer and her Brixton Market tips here. She seems so lovely. This Saturday she is launching her cook book, more on her blog. This is a Saturday must do.

Moving on, still reading Vonnegut’s stories, Welcome to the Monkeyhouse and The Foster Portfolio are the best ones so far but I am only half way through and have still few stories and Palm Sunday to read. This is my bedside book. The tube book is Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy by the witty Marina Hyde whose hilarious column you may know from The Guardian. Highly amusing, brutal truth about world’s obsession with celebrity, their charities, religions, adoptions and political activities.

This week’s sartorial issues:

1.  I made it to the almost newly open Marc by Marc Jacobs shop. As I walked in I felt like in a pound shop, beautiful, expensive clothing packed tight on hangers and the whole space flooded by cheap cheap plastic trinkets, bags and t-shirts. The shop sells a fair amount of books and the Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton DVD - all of it is displayed in a really horrible fashion. Wanted to run away from this chaos however I did grab a pair of wellies and a jolly brolly on my way out. The brolly is useful but the wellies are pretty uncomfortable and might end up on ebay. These look like they could cheer people up on a rainy day with their colorful soles. Another major problem I have with the shop is the banister – horrible brown lacquer. Come on Marc, give it some style!

2. Got a really good pair of peg trousers from H&M, something like Chloe or YSL. But in black.

3. None of the above were from my summer shopping list!

4. Mary Portas is back next week, this time sorting out charity shops.

Picture of Rosie by Antonio Olmos