Hello Everyone!

So what is my lastest news...

Bist du verheiratet?
Nein, ich bin getrennt lebend. Hast du eine Partnerin?
Ich bin verwittwer...

Well my German classes are going pretty fine. [For the people who can speak German can you imagine the thrilling things we are talking about!!] I have started making the effort to have personal study sessions outside of class time - I go and have dinner at the pub on the end of my street and while I wait for my food, I sit and conjugate verbs like writing lines on the blackboard. I'm quite proud of myself. I haven't watched CSI in ages though. Who has the latest gossip on CSI Nick Stokes?! I only ever see him in that gross anti dandruff commercial these days and I don't fancy him so much there.

I was meant to be going to Paris this weekend - but I've had to postpone it cause of my "mystery cold" that keeps coming back. But if I don't make it to France this weekend it is okay cause get this:

My buddy Teki from Paris is playing at Chalk with his band TTC.

Then as luck would have it, the musicians who record I've been spinning to death Kap Bambino also from France, are also gonna play!! I didn't see them live before. I hope they are good.


BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!!!

My friends DAT Politics are in town to do at show at Bardens Boudoir on Sunday!! Claude and Co are from Lille! So I can talk French all weekend to my hearts content, but be able to nurse my cold and enjoy the comforts of my own bed too.

Last news is Paul is off to America to visit his family and while there, IT IS VERY LIKELY he will do some recording in NELLY'S PERSONAL STUDIO!! I know Thida at Eley Kishimoto will want some kind of souvenir!!

I'm so cold now I am going to have a bath! Take care!

xx Emma

Death Metal, ice-cream and the boot and flogger......

My weekend at the seaside was pretty great, managed to fit in a birthday party, a blow down on the seafront and an Eagles of Death Metal gig with my sister who was so jetlagged but threw herself into the sweaty fray but announced the next morning that she "had nothing left..." as she lay in the foetal position! Duke and Joe breathed fresh sea air for a change and you can see from the picture how much they appreciated it....

This is the paddling pool that I used to noodle the summer months away in when I was a kid and now I take the boys to when we visit but it was looking a bit algae-ridden and lonely....I love the seaside out of season.

The Boot and Flogger is one of my favourite drinking dens in London, Mark Eley is one of my favourite people so his birthday celebration there was a perfect combination......

Tida "commissioned" a birthday cake and took charge of portion control......

......and Wak made sure the tankards were freshened.....

They all went on to more fun but I was only down the road from home so I left them tumbling into a fleet of taxis I think headed for the George and Dragon, glad I had an early night because the next day we got deliveries in the cake shop from APC, Eley Kishimoto AND Sonia Rykiel bijoux which i had to book in price etc, all the boring stuff but not fun with a hangover.......I'll post some pics next week, I'm suffering from getting in from Jonathan's birthday bash in the early hours of this morning and I'm not good for much.............yawn!
madame xxxxxxxxxxxx

Part 2: Obey history, Obey future....

So now to what else I've been up to this week....I went out to vist with Simon and Gordon at the Obey HQ which is a log cabin by the side of a lake (!) in a secret location! Seriously it was pretty amazing, Simon even warned me against high heels, and if you know me that's quite an extreme request! "A bit boggy" he said so I decided against suede stilettos and plumped for the eley kishimoto converse which've seen many a boggy patch....
Now, if you've been paying attention to the blog I've told you about Shepard Fairey before....he of the Obey and Andre the Giant phenomenon, which began in the late 80's on a whim to make a sticker and is now HUGE! In fact, you've probably seen his artwork even if you didn't know who the artist was, here's just a few of the pictures i've taken over the years of Obey sightings in New York....



We've been selling the women's Obey here in the cake shop, and i went to look at AW 07, imagine if this was the view out of your office window btw.....

There's a little white aeroplane in the middle of the picture taking off but you can't hear a thing, it's so ridiculously idyllic there! And a farm next door!!! Whatever next!

I was loving the collection OMG there's tattoed ladies, Obey wallpaper prints, leopard lined hoodies and the most cooolest jewelry you've ever seen, not to mention jeans to rival Cheap Monday....I've already got mine on order, yipeeee!!
This is Simon who's in charge....
....who gave up trying to dodge my camera!
And Gordon, who didn't mind at all, look how busy he is!

In the summer they go wakeboarding at lunchtime for goodness sake and hang out at the clubhouse....this is surely living! When I got back to my soho basement with no discernable fresh air and pored over the amazing book of Shepard's work "Supply and Demand"- which i'll let you have a look at if you come down to the cake shop - i thought I need to get out more, but at least i'm going to the seaside for my mum's birthday this weekend, AND my sister's back from the Philippines, AND I'm going to see Eagles of Death Metal in Southsea!!!!! Wooooo Hooooo!!! Anyway this is me enjoying the book back in Soho, I think this is going to be a big year for Fairey and you heard it here first........madame xxxx

Part 1:Babitz go east and Paris in Springtime!

Hello hello, I've got so much hot news that I've decided to divide my blog into two!!! First of all I wanted to post this pic of Emma which I've called "Lektrobaby"!!!

I hope you love this pic as much as i do Emma....I'm not deleting it off!!!
Anyhoo, on Sunday I was in Paris to order winter APC, this is Suzanne modelling one of my favourite tops, she's moving to Oxford soon and promises to come and visit me in the cake shop soooon!!

My glamorous assistants for the appointment were Iris and Hugues, who was in the middle of nurturing a "gypsy" moustache which i think you'll agree is very becoming...Iris is featuring one of the AMAZING winter scarves which is like a super-soft giant marle and i HAVE ordered! I always think it's so odd ordering again for the cold before we've even had the unseasonable scorching summer that they keep threatening us for 07...

I always try to engineer my APC buying around lunchtime because you always get a wonderful, perfectly balanced meal in little aesthetically boxed partitions with delicious cous cous, fruit and salad and i had wolfed mine before I thought to take a pic so you'd be jealous and i just had a smidgen of my fresh cream and raspberry macaroon left so here it is....this blog is a little obsessed with cakes but we do live in a cake shop so get over it!!!
Yum!
Then I had a lovely meander through the streets of Paris and ended up at Eley Kishimoto's showroom just in time as they'd just sent out for some fine wines.....we laughed so much!!! Sometimes at my expense I'll admit, Mark had been trying to get someone into Marjan Pejoski's leather catsuit all week and a glass and a half of wine later there i was throwing shapes but ending up looking like a cross between Max Wall and someone skinny and pretty bedraggled, but i'll share anyway....

It's a beautiful thing but I think being six foot tall is probably in order....Marjan was very proud of his sunglasses purchased at the flea market earlier in the day, 60's but with EK insignia, how appropriate!

We got to a silly state of giggling while looking at pictures of Lily on her flickr when she was young and had very short hair and shiny cheeks, she's got lots of her looking gorgeous as well for balance....here's some helpless gigglers, Lily and Fiona:

Then back in London on Tuesday nite and All About Eve Babitz my band were playing at the George and Dragon (2 Hackney Rd, if you're interested, we have a residency type thing on the first tuesday of every month). We provide a whole evening's entertainment, playing records punctuated every half an hour with a song. We had such a good time, lots of friends came by and strangers too, Richard and Lilianna were away so it was left to Kat be in charge...

Look at Daren, our bass/guitar player with Ian and Zack, how swarthy they all look at an angle!

Here's me and Vickram having a gossip while Jonathan and Sefton were playing their fierce set, usually I play records all night so I really enjoyed having a mingle for once.

Princess Julia came down and I was admiring her new tat, always a pleasure to see the lady, we've got the Yoko Ono issue of the fanzine in the cake shop so get 'em while they're hot......

I think people were getting a bit amorous, must've been the Babitz magic....Look at Ima and Liza and Sefton (without drums but with tamborine and vibrating eggs to keep us in time!) and Jonathan all with their tongues hanging out.....


Anyway, well done everybody, it was a super night all round and i've just realised there's no picture of James in this blog and he'll be FURIOUS! He says "It's like I don't even exist!" but look what I found of him this morning, such a cute pic from when we were in Posh and he had never seen a gym!!!!!!!!
aaaaaaah!
Part 2 where i go to Obey HQ to come...................madame xxx

BANANA ECLAIR - woo baby yeah!!

First discovered by Joe Brooks, the banana éclair available from Maison Bertaux Patisserie Francais, has got to be THE MOST AMAZING ÉCLAIR ON EARTH as voted by Pippa and I.

Pippa and I went halvies on Saturday when we were working together in the office. However, come Sunday when I went in to continue working on the VAT quarter, I had the banana éclair call my name. After I let Abbie and Lee into Maison B for some out of hours shopping, I had to call in and get a couple of éclairs for back at the office. All for myself. Johan was serving on Sunday and he asked if I needed a box or a bag and I said "No I will be a pig and eat them immediately." He told me, "Ahhh yes when it comes to cake it is good to be a pig. You must eat cake fresh." Then he handed me the éclairs and said "Are they both for you?" I said "Yes." Johan told me, "You are a good girl," with a big smile on his face. "Help yourself to serviettes by the door on the way out."

Back at the office, the rehearsals for the Soho Lounge or whatever it is called now - it used be the Raymond Review Bar tho - were still going. The woman was singing a 'soulful funky bluesed out jazzy verision' Gold Finger - even mimicing the trumpets "WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH WAHHHHHHHHHHH" - it wasn't cool. I nearly killed myself over her rendition of "Wuthering Heights". But then I realised it was only one section of a medley and not worth my effort. I'm glad I didn't have to sit through the whole version though.

xx Emma