Lisbon fits, 2022.

Part of my return to blogging will be some retrospective outfits of the day. As I tend to dress more adventurously when on holiday, I've raided my iPhone vaults containing photos from various holidays in recent years to showcase my more interesting 'fits!

Thus, I bring to thee: every outfit that I wore on a girls' holiday to Lisbon in October 2022 (with some bonus pictures of the delicious food we had)!

Day 1

Sponsored post: RINSTA fashion, glamorous Y2K fits

I was kindly sent two cardigans from RINSTA, a hot new website that specialises in Y2K-style aesthetic. Here are some snaps of me in said cardigans!

Review: LookFantastic Scent Edit Autumn 2021 box

Getting perfume samplers in the post were one of the little treats that served as a fantastic pick me up during the seemingly never-ending period that was lockdown. As I have now exhausted all the perfume samples that are available on the FeelUnique website, I had to look elsewhere, and was alerted to this very tempting offer from LookFantastic.

It's a box with five fragrances in, luxury-sized (so larger than the usual 1.2ml sample-sizes I reviewed from FeelUnique), with two other non-fragrance samples thrown in. The box costs £55, which may seem pricey… until you consider that the box comes with a voucher code, that gives you £55 off the price of a full-sized bottle of any of the five perfumes it trials (and I made use of this voucher!)

Here are my thoughts on the seven items in the box:

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibit at the V&A

My friend Joy invited me to the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibit at the Victoria & Albert museum, and it was an afternoon very well spent! The gowns were absolutely to die for, and it would be amiss of me not to share some of the sumptuous photos I took!

The gown wore by Ziyi Zhang at the Live for Life premiere... stunning!

Restaurant review: THE PICKLED HEN (Marble Arch)

Such is my fondness for exploring London restaurants using deals I’ve pre-bought on the internet, that I bought a Sunday brunch for two deal from BuyAGift at The Pickled Hen of London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch. The deal entitled us to unlimited Presecco for two hours and a Sunday brunch for £39.

You definitely get bang for your buck with this deal. Apart from the main, where you order a la carte, everything else from the brunch was buffet-style. Normally, when I think of buffets, I'm reminded of copious amounts of food on display, all of questionable quality. That wasn’t the case here at all: there was choice, but it was all refined and prepared, like cute little quiches, a generous cheeseboard and cold cuts including small slices of salami.

Two photos of just some of the awesome foods you could have:

Restaurant review: KOUZU (Belgravia)

I bought a voucher to dine at Kouzu on BuyAGift. The restaurant fancies itself an upmarket Japanese restaurant, and the deal retails at £49 ordinarily, so I will be assessing it as if I paid this amount for the deal (in fact, I got a fair bit off the price due to a discount code, but I’m aware discount codes don’t occur all the time).

The starters were perfunctory. With regards to the salmon, if they were going for the 'high quality and low quantity' vibe that's typical of many high-class restaurants, they really needed to work on the presentation, because what is photographed below doesn't scream 'high-class' to me:

Inbetween a 15 and an 18

This blog is rated 15 for strong sex references.

Every year, I like to analyse the BBFC short insight for a film, before I’ve even seen it. Last year, I nerded out to the BBFCinsight for Dunkirk, as it was an unprecedented case of four different adjectives for each of its classification issues.

The year before, I was excited because Suicide Squad got a 15, which is really unusual for a big studio superhero movie. Funnily enough, Suicide Squad’s short insight is actually subsumed in Dunkirk’s, ‘sustained threat, intense sequences, moderate violence, strong language’, yet Dunkirk is a rating lower.

Tangential, but Dunkirk has Harry Styles (a singer-turned-actor) and Suicide Squad has Cara Delevingne (a model-turned-cocaine addict). They used to ‘date’ each other. I daresay one was substantially more successful at acting than the other.

2018’s bout of ‘Emma critiquing the BBFCinsight of a film having not even seen the movie’ comes for the upcoming The Festival. For this film, Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, the creators of The Inbetweeners, collaborate again, as director and producers, respectively.

A million dreams for the world we're gonna make.

On Sunday, me and my friend went on a bus tour around London’s film locations, courtesy of Cineworld. It was super-fun! Despite having grown up in London, up until Saturday, I hadn’t actually been on a tour bus around the city, so it allowed me to indulge the inner tourist in me for a few hours, as well as top up my film knowledge. Win-win!

The bus we rode in on. Ohai, Taron Egerton and Gal Gadot films!

Holiday in New York, 2017.

Earlier this month, I spent five days in New York City with my best friend Anna (the gorgeous lady who this blog is named after).

Here be a picspam of our time there (including a day in New Jersey) and some random non-sequiturs as and when I can be bothered to type!

Weekend in New Forest.

I spent the weekend in the New Forest, Hampshire, this weekend, and it was so rejuvenating to get out of the city and soak in the verdant environment!

Some photos:

I have black nail polish on, in honour of Jessica Chastain's bitching performance in Miss Sloane.

A delicious three course meal at my friend's wedding.

Last month, I attended my friend's beautiful wedding in Bristol (OOTD here). Here are some pictures I took, including part of the awesome three-course meal we had!

Restaurant review: LANTANA (Fitzrovia)

I’ve trialled lots of cuisines in my experience sampling London’s restaurants, but one country’s dishes which I haven’t had enough exposure to is Australian food, and I sought to rectify this by sampling the food of Lantana, which I had heard good things about.

I had the big bubble (Bubble ‘n’ squeak with cumberland sausage, poached egg, black pudding, muhammara and sautéed spinach), pictured below.

I absolutely loved it. The poached egg was one of the finest I’ve had, and the tomatoes had been roasted exquisitely. The tomatoes’ soft texture complemented the rest of the meal, which was quite solid.

I’ve historically found that sausages tend to be the weakest part of breakfast menus, because they tend to cost the most, and profit-driven cafes and restaurants would rather opt for the value brand instead of the Taste the Difference.

Bungsy's Girlcrush List, 2k17.

I haven't done one of these lists for over three years, and I think it's fair to say my taste in women has generally evolved, whilst some of the lady crush staples still remain. 

Some choices from previous years which now make me cringe when I look back include Cara Delevingne (in my defence, this was before she assailed my eyes as an actress and played to her strengths as a model), Kaya Scodelario (still fit tbf, but just kinda annoying) and Emma Stone (still cute, still talented, but I will now forever sideye her for the yellowface in Aloha debacle). 

I imagine when I look back at this list in a few years, I will be equally cringed out.

So, without further ado, Emmabung's Girlcrush List, 2017!

10. Ariana Grande

'Problem' is a piece of song-writing genius, an ace and catchy song has guided me through all manner of turbulent times. I have so much time for Ari's 4-octave vocal range, and I also dig how despite being baby-faced and having Bambi eyes, she has a hyper-sexualised image. The seductive way she peers up from the heart-shaped sunglasses in the 'Bang Bang' music video: swoon.

A fabulous three course meal at the Scarman Conference Centre, University of Warwick.

I attended a conference at the University of Warwick this April, and on one of the evenings, we were all treated to a delicious three course meal. Here are the courses:

Salmon starter. Such a generous (and appetising) portion of seafood! (I love seafood btw; whenever I'm at McDonald's I always get the filet o'fish).

Don't Drunk Snapchat.

When I send Snapchats when I'm drunk, I usually end up saying shady things that I regret the next day.

In last night's case, I just reiterated something that I've been banging on about for a year now.

In an attempt to do something a bit adventurous with my hair, I tried curling it to look as glam as Rosamund Pike's did in the book launch scene in Gone Girl:

I daresay my hair didn't quite stay as it was meant to, aha.

My face without make-up deserves a 12A rating.

Although if Fairy Tale: Dragon Cry is anything to go by, other parts of my anatomy in that picture merit a 15 rating. #banter

The best part about staying in a Premier Inn?

That would be the breakfast buffet!

Monday's breakfast

Wednesday's breakfast

I didn't bother taking a photo on Tuesday, seeing as I tend to get the same items every day (as you may have surmised from the two photos, which basically play like a food version of Spot the Difference).

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Something I sampled this week that I wasn't so keen, on the other hand, was strawberry beer:

I needed a beverage to consume whilst I watched Chelsea vs Middlesbrough, and this drink was so vile that I really took my time with it. So at least there was that; that it lasted me the entire match and saved me having to pay for another pint! #SilvaLinings

OOTD: Honourary American.

What I wore to get tipsy in ULU with my American friends:

Earrings: Monsoon Accessorize

Glasses: Red or Dead

T-shirt: Oasis

Cardigan: Primark

Skirt (not photographed): Oasis

Bonus picture: with a UCL Snapchat filter

Product reviews: BLUEBERRY BODY BUTTER AND PEACH BODY SCRUB (The Body Shop)

Post-Christmas sales, I treatment myself to two Body Shop items to make my daily showering routine a teensy bit more exciting. They were the blueberry butter and the peach body scrub, pictured below, both 200ml in quantity.

One aspect of both products that I can't fault is the design of the containers. I love the colours and the simplistic use of just one fruit on the front. After I've finished the products, I'mma keep the containers to store my jewellery!

OOTD: He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice

What I wore to spend Christmas Eve with my friend Kieran!

Jumper: Marks and Spencer

Trousers: Marks and Spencer

Earrings: a Christmas present (ehehe)

Glasses: Red or Dead

Bonus pictures of us in our Christmas jumpers, so you can see the nuances of the photos that a Samsung S4 and an iPhone 6 take!

Kieran's phone, an iPhone 6. 

My phone, a Samsung S4. I really need a new phone, will probably get myself one for my birthday next year!

We didn't apply the Snapchat filter until after the photo was taken, so didn't know those little elves would come up. But I daresay the app was quite prescient in who they applied to who. 👻