#BUNCHOFFLATS

Over the Summer, I developed a fondness for flats. So, here are a couple I've been rocking recently.


Dorothy Perkins, £5.95. Strengths: cute bow and ballet-pump shape. Weaknesses: white shoes are a bit  ~Essex. 7/10.



Dorothy Perkins, £5.95. Strengths: comfortable, goes a treat with pink outfits. Weaknesses: weird pointy end. 4/10.


Debenham's, £15. Strengths: sturdier and more durable than the two Dorothy Perkins flats, lovely Leopard print. Weaknesses: initially caused discomfort when I started wearing. 8/10.


Schuh, £15. Strengths: cute floral pint. Weaknesses: clashes with a great deal of outfits, killed my feet when I started wearing them. 5/10.

Charing Cross Theatre Players Bar and Kitchen (WC2N)

Adjoined to the theatre is a place where you can treat yourself to a few pre-match snacks and drinks. The bar is very dimly lit, too much so, perhaps, but in doing so, the place does have some ambience, I’ll give it that. And, despite the modest size and set-up of the bar, the food served was surprisingly high quality. For starters, I had fish dumplings. They came in dainty settings and whilst not being the most filling appetisers I had, were excellently cooked (I presume on the grill), with just the right amount of sauce accompanying it.

I also fish on my main meal, which was salmon and noodles. Lots of restaurants get noodles wrong, either by serving too much of it, serving too little, or undercooking, but I’m happy to say Charing Cross Theatre Players Bar and Kitchen was not one that was guilty of this. The mozzarella balls and tomatoes accompanying the meal also worked a treat, to contribute to a fabulous mesh of foods to tantalize my tastebuds.

The company I was with were just as pleased with their dishes (don't be fooled by the fact that I had fish for starter and main - the menu had a fair bit of variety), and thanks to the meal deal on offer, it came to £8 each for all of us, which truly was a bargain. Drinks were quite expensive but that’s to be expected from a bar at such a prime location. Overall, a personable place to eat, with some excellent dishes. Go if you can.

Grade: A-

If you would like me to review your restaurant, get in contact via email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com.

Meals I've had in the past week.

Carbonara, as cooked by housemate.


Pizza, Sainsbury's.

 
Chocolate cake, Sainsbury's.


Pizza, Domino's.


McDonald's.



Maltesers.

Pizza, Sainsbury's.

Product Review: Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours Quickydry nail varnish

I’ve developed a bit of a re-birth in my love for bright red nail polish. This is due to two things – my adoration for Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita, which is not only my favourite novel but I consider it a useful lifestyle guide in how to wrap men round one’s finger (#trollface), as well as having recently watched On the Road, a film I wasn’t totally enamoured with, but I noticed Kristen Stewart’s character wearing bright red nail varnish, and even though it was heavily chipped, just the fact that Kristen Stewart was wearing it automatically made it a fabulous colour. So, taking on some fashion tips from two of the sultriest ladies around, one fictional and one real, I chased some red of my own.

The brand I acquired was Miss Sporty, and it was a very affordable £1.99 (even better, in fact, I brought a £2.99 lipgloss from Miss Sporty and it all came to £3 in a nice Superdrug offer). The fact that it’s so cheap is partially represented in the smaller quantity – usually you get about 10ml of nail varnish for your money, and this little bottle contains only 7ml. However, this suits me perfectly, because in all honesty, I have never finished a full 10ml bottle of nail polish, and by the time you get to the bottom half of it, all of the varnish has congealed and it’s nowhere near as effective as when you first got it. So with things like nail polish, I really don’t think it hurts to buy in small quantities.

The colour is gorgeous – a very vivid shade of red that would look a bit too bright were I to wear it as a lipstick, but on the nails, it looks wonderful. Application was easy and true to the name of the product, it did indeed dry very quickly without leaving too much of a varnishy smell. Overall, I have no complaints with the product, other than one which is quite general with nail varnishes – that it could stand to have stayed on a little longer.

Grade: A-

Restaurant Review: GBK (Covent Garden)

A colleague at work raved to be about Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and as I love a good burger (I’ve eaten three McDonald’s this week), I couldn’t wait to try the place out. However, the experience turned out to be a massive disappointment, although the quality of the burgers are the least of GBK’s problems.

The manager in charge, Felipe, was one of the most sullen men I’ve ever encountered in my entire life. Now, we all went at around half sixish, so I guess some could allow if he was at the end of a long shift, but I don’t buy that. He chose to work in a restaurant, which is by nature a very people-ccentric job, so he should be smiling and nothing less than totally obliging until the end of his shift. And if he didn’t pick that job? Well, tough. It’s the recession and he should be grateful to have any job. And being grateful doesn’t incorporate glaring at us as we came up to make our orders, rolling his eyes as  we conferred over what it was we wanted exactly, and then, most annoyingly of all, knowing we had a card that would allow us to have a discount, but pretending not to know and purposely misleading us so that we ended up paying more. What a dick!!

The food itself was fine. We all had the Taxi Driver burger, which was lush – it had onions, tomatos, onion rings, and a healthy dose of cheese and quarter pounder in. The skinny fries were a treat and the extra onion rings we ordered also went down well. The milkshakes were good but horrendously overpriced – four quid for a drink? You can get a whole McDonald’s meal in that.

But the main thing that let the whole GBK experience was Felipe the moody bastard, as well as our waitress, who also misled us, but this time, I believe it was due to her own incompetence rather than wilfully trying to con more money out of us than Felipe died. Nonetheless, as someone who works in a restaurant, she really should know the ins and outs of the place’s menu a bit more, just sayin. It's a massive shame -- the burgers were out of this world, and I would have loved to be able to focus on its fabulous taste. Instead, we were too busy seething over how badly Felipe had mistreated us and the well-cooked burgers became a mere sideshow, never a good thing in a restaurant.

Needless to say, tip, we most certainly didn’t. In fact, it was rather ironic that in a place called GBK I wanted to do a bit of GBH to that fucker Felipe.

Grade: F

Seventh heaven.

Seven delicious dishes I've had of late.

Chelsea Girl.

I went to the Bridge a couple of times over the Summer, and here were my attempts to try to ~glam up a laddish Chelsea top.

This top was from several season's ago, and pretty washed out. The hot pink jeans are from Zara (sale, £13). Scarf was from a market stall. Hair is pretty scruffy but ohwell.gif.

The scarf is a gift from an ex (awkward), he got it from Italy. Hoodie is from Sports direct, it was from like 2008 but I still wear it cos it's a nice colour (and matches Maj's gilet, haha!). Yellow bumblebee top from the  2008-2009 season (when Lampsy scored the winner for us in the FA Cup final, just reminiscin').

Bonus pic: this is my top for this season. I got Hazard on the back :p I'm kind of ecstatic in this photo.

Review of the songs in “The Break Up” (S4E4) episode of Glee.

I’ve not blogged for a while, which is naughty, but I’m going to try my best to get back into it now! Despite telling myself I wouldn’t, I got into series 4 of Glee, and some of the songs have already been stellar, so I thought I’d resurrect that thing I do where I review each song as if I know anything about music. ☺️

Barely Breathing – B-. This was a Blaine/Finn duet. I’ve never been particularly won over by Finn’s voice and he doesn’t do much to convince me here, but Blaine carries him well. The music video is good – and plays an important part to the ensuing drama in the episode.

Give Your Heart a Break – B+/A-. Lea Michele’s voice is incredible in this song and the high notes really get to show off her vocal range as well a bit of warbling towards the end. The guy she’s with (Dean Geyer) complements her voice much better than Finn’s, and they have genuine chemistry, which is, perversely, why I graded it lower than an A, as I love Finchel.

Teenage Dream – A+. Oh my, one of the most powerful performances of a song I’ve seen for some time in Glee. Blaine sits by the piano and sings Katy Perry’s famous song of young love in a minor key. 

This was a song that he first sang to Kurt, so carries emotional weight, and the callback highlights how much things have changed since then.  Blaine’s facial expressions throughout it, though on the precipice of being laughable in how earnest they are, are also genuinely involving. His delivery of “I finally found you, my missing puzzle piece” is uncharacteristically sultry for Blaine, and the off-beat syncopation with the piano chords work a treat too. 

Simple, but very effective, and Darren Criss is such a natural at this song that it's easy to forget that this song was originally meant to be delivered from a girl to a boy (lines like "You think I'm pretty without any make up on" could easily sound ridiculous if it was, say, Mr Schue singing them).

Kurt's reaction to Blaine's performance, as he realises the song is being used to tell him that Blaine cheated, gives the performance extra emotional resonance.

Don’t Speak – D. The vocals were alright, but the music video was pure cringe. I could not take it seriously, especially the way the two couples (Rachel/Finn and Blaine/Kurt) got into bed and faced opposition directions. I know Glee is meant to be cheesy, but this really jumped the shark.

This is a very good song and Gwen Stefani delivered it terrifically, but I bet she’ll grimace when she sees what Glee did to it.

Mine – A+. Whilst I am a big fan of Taylor Swift (as unpopular an opinion that is), I don’t care much for the original version of this song, which sounds too much like her other’s (and not as good). But having Santana’s distinctive covering it means it doesn’t sound as sickly sweet as some of Swift’s more contrived songs. 

The sparse usage of guitar and piano works wonderfully and her vocals, and she hits those high notes with accuracy and emotion. I particularly like Santana’s way of singing “yes, yes, yes”. The facial emotions between Brittany and Santana give the song additional poignancy; we both know where this is going, and, like the two girls, don’t want this conclusion. I was a puddle of tears by the end. The coda, where they discuss the break-up verbally, was a surprisingly nuanced moment for Glee, and beautifully acted by Naya Rivera and Heather Morris.

The Scientist – C. Oh lord, another cringe performance, as all the couples that have broken up (ish) in the episode come together on stage to collectively sing one of Coldplay’s most emotional songs. In terms of Coldplay bastardization, it’s not quite Fix You level (oh GOD), but it’s still somewhat of a car crash.