Style – Anne-Marie Ormsby

One Weekend in London

Published on October 12, 2012October 12, 2012 by Anne-Marie Ormsby2 Comments

There is never any shortage of things to do in London, hundreds of art galleries and museums all over town showing their collections 7 days a week all year round.

There are also events that visit London for a short time, a brief fling with the city that exists for only a few months. Last weekend I managed to fit in three such events.

Late morning on Saturday saw me and Mr O take the northern line up to Kings Cross where I was happy to see the old world of seedy grimness gone and replaced with new shops and trendy bars and restaurants. Only 3 years ago I passed through there every day and knew the area like the back of my hand, but like the rest of the city, it is forever changing and improving, leading me to realise if you take a long enough break from any part of London, by the time you go back it will feel like a different place. I also managed to get a picture of Harry Potter’s Platform 9 ¾ and have a look at the new St Pancras Hotel which looks amazing albeit well out of my price range.

Anyway I hadn’t gone up there to see the train station, I was up there to visit the British Library, and see something that has never been in London before. I am a huge fan of American writer Jack Kerouac; a school friend bought me ‘On The Road’ for my 15^th birthday and that was the beginning of a love affair with a form of literature I had been unaware of up to that point. I had read the classics, fallen in love with Heathcliff a dozen times over reading Wuthering Heights, read random books of Russian literature after discovering Vladimir Nabokov, delved into the darkness of Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka and had touched the edges of Americana by reading ‘The Catcher in The Rye’ too many times. Kerouac was a whole new world for me, open roads, open lives and the style of his writing was so free and clear that I got sucked into it, reading as many of his books as I could lay my hands on, depending entirely on my local library and second hand bookshops. Ahh…memories of days before Amazon when it was all about actually leaving the house to hunt down books.

‘On The Road’ is not my favourite novel by Kerouac, but it was my first so when I saw that the British Library was going to be home to the original scroll of the novel I knew I would have to go and see it. As you may already know, Kerouac wrote the book in 3 weeks typed on one 120 foot scroll of paper made of rolls of tracing paper that he had sellotaped together so he wouldn’t have to interrupt his creative flow by stopping and putting in new sheets of paper. The book that was published is an edited version of this original scroll, but the entire text is now available in book form.

I can’t explain, nor will I try to justify why this was a magical experience for me. It was my equivalent of going to a concert or festival; this was as close as I will ever get to my literary idol, as though he was there in the distance on a stage, an indistinct form but him all the same, his presence in the room as real as it could be. I said to Mr O afterwards that I was grateful that he had come along, as he doesn’t have the same passion for Kerouac as I do, I had basically dragged him from one end of London to the other to look at an old yellow roll of paper.

After this we made our way south again to central London and the National Portrait Gallery where a free exhibition of photo’s and magazines of Marilyn Monroe are on show. ‘Marilyn Monroe; A British Love Affair’ is a nod towards the time she spent in the UK filming ‘The Prince and The Showgirl’ with Laurence Olivier. This era of her life having renewed interest following the movie ‘My Week With Marilyn’ which covers the same period of her life. A small but beautiful collection of photo’s by some of Britain’s greatest photographers of the time including some of my favourites by Cecil Beaton. They also have a lovely collection of rare British magazines with Miss Monroe on the cover.

Sunday night covered another of my favourite things; burlesque. And in particular what I have always considered the best burlesque, the Crazy Horse. The famous Parisian revue has had shows all over the world, I first saw them when I was in Las Vegas in 2006, but was very glad to discover they were coming to London with the new Forever Crazy, a collection of the most popular acts from the last 60 years. What sets them apart from other revues is that the individual acts themselves are very simple – it is the lighting effects that make them so spectacular. If you want to see what it’s all about before forking out for the live show, check out the documentary movie ‘Crazy Horse’ made last year to show what goes on backstage and onstage at the famous original Paris venue just off the Champs Elysees.

I’d recommend the real thing though, as the London purpose built venue is quite amazing; a voluptuous velvet lined theatre with a bar area I wish was permanent – glittering chandeliers, kitsch fluorescent lights and a dressing room mirror themed bar. They also have a fabulous act (inbetween naked lady acts) called Up and Over it who literally and wordlessly tap, drum and slap their way through a re-enactment of a lovers quarrel. Entertainment all round and a damn good giggle, go get some.

Forever Crazy is at the Southbank Centre until December 2012

On The Road; Jack Kerouac’s Manuscript Scroll is at the British Library until 27^th December 2012

Marilyn Monroe; A British Love Affair is on at the national Portrait Gallery until 24^th March 2013

About London

Published on August 29, 2012August 29, 2012 by Anne-Marie Ormsby2 Comments

There’s this idea that people should know the very moment when they fall in love, that for some reason there would be a moment, ‘stars would explode in the sky’ as Nick Cave put it. But they don’t, there is no epic firework display, the earth continues to turn and nobody else on earth knows it has happened. That’s why you forget the precise moment.

I don’t recall the moment I knew I was in love with London; I think it had built slowly over the years. But I feel it more clearly now, every morning when my bus turns out onto London bridge and suddenly the sides fall away, I am over the river and I can see the city laid out before me, Tower Bridge to my right, St Pauls to my left, and everything in-between and I catch a breath, my heart swells and I feel it. Love.

I grew up out on the coast in south east Essex, an idyllic childhood of parks and playgrounds and trips to the beach after school. I used to walk home from school sometimes along the seafront, even in winter just to feel the biting air and feel alive again after a day of dusty brained learning and stuffy classrooms. I knew I was lucky to grow up there, 45 minutes train ride from London and blessed with fresh air and man-made beaches.

When I was younger, my parents used to take me to London once a year during the October half term holidays. It was so busy and lively and the shops sold things I didn’t see back home, bookshops there were palaces of literature laid out on several floors where I would lose whole afternoons in the poetry section.

I always longed to visit Whitechapel due to my interest in creepy tales of Jack the Ripper but it remained a mysterious tube station that we never got off at. As far as I was concerned it was all still dark alleys and Victorian street urchins up there. As an older teenager I visited Camden with friends and felt at home in all the alternative shops and market stalls, although always slightly nervous of the enormity of it, days out would end with a tired scuttle back to Fenchurch Street and what felt like the longest train journey ever.

In my 20’s I visited a few more times, going to gigs mainly, staying over in hotels occasionally, but I still felt so removed from it all, like it was all behind glass and I was just there as visitor in a giant museum.

When I was 29 I went to Brick Lane for the first time and I loved it, shortly after some of my friends moved to Whitechapel so I started going up more regularly, finally getting off the tube at that mysterious station. The first time I went up on my own felt weird, I was going to places I had never been before and instead of that feeling of distance, I was starting to feel at home.

The day after my 30^th birthday I went on a date with the man I eventually married. We met up at Fenchurch Street and spent the whole day walking around, along the Southbank and back into the city where we wandered down alleyways and found hidden churches, gargoyles and streets empty of life. He showed me a part of London I had never seen before. The City of London is a different place on a Sunday compared to the weekdays when people pour in and out of the skyscrapers and fill in all the gaps between the buildings. At the weekend all that remains is quiet corners, old buildings and new building living side by side quite peacefully, endless amounts of closed branches of Starbucks and Eat that have no purpose without the city workers that fill them during the week days.

I think maybe I fell in love twice that day. With the man I had just met and with the city I had just been shown.

I left my life by the coast and got a job in North London, soon after I moved to South London. I had never lived anywhere other than where I grew up but it felt right, like it was time for me to move on.

I have lived in London for 4 years now, and I never ever get tired of it; my journey to work takes me from the foot of the Shard, past Southwark Cathedral, past Monument, up Bishopsgate, past the Gherkin and the Heron, through Shoreditch and to Hackney. Every morning I look out from the bus as though it’s all still new to me, it’s all still so beautiful to me.

At weekends we take long walks, to Brick Lane and Spitalfields, along the Southbank to Westminster or over to the back streets of Covent Garden and Soho. The difference for me now is that I don’t feel distant anymore, that I belong and I am part of it. Even though my awe still allows that feeling of visiting a giant museum, I feel now that instead of being behind glass I can touch the exhibits and even wander around back rooms not open to the public.

I take photographs incessantly like a day-tripper, I go to an endless supply of art and photography exhibitions, I wander back streets looking for street art and I say a prayer every time I have to brave Oxford Street. I know I won’t live here forever, for one reason or another I will end up by the coast again one day, so while I am here and its all on my doorstep I want to see as much as I can.

This summer in London has been wonderful, the energy and excitement around the Olympics was inspiring; for all our pre-Olympic moaning about stupid mascots, transport and other problems we all got swept away by the ridiculously happy vibe that was created once we started winning gold medals. The transport system ran fine, people talked to each other, we hugged ugly Wenlock and Mandeville statues around town.

London fell in love with itself.

I have so much to say about London, but the rest can wait.

(All Photo’s Copyright of the author)

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Being a Teenager in the 90’s

Published on June 6, 2011April 19, 2014 by Anne-Marie Ormsby2 Comments

I’m pretty sure that every decade has its own guidelines to growing up. Being a teenager in the 80’s must have been very different to being a teenager in the 90’s. But what about it was different, was it just the clothes and music? Or is every teen the same no matter what the decade.

I don’t know but i was a teenager in the 90’s. In 1990 I turned 12 and developed an obsession with Twin Peaks. It was a weird start to my teen life but it shaped me in ways I couldn’t see at the time. I was able to embrace my love of the weird. David Lynch and his strange camera angles and beautiful 50’s femme fatales were pure poetry to me and still are to this day. However its fair to say that accepting the weirdness of yourself does not signal an easy start to teenage life.

The 90’s was all about good music to me, the early 90’s was the birth of grunge and suddenly there was something in between death metal and bon jovi. I loved Pearl jam, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees and all those other amazing bands that burst out of Seattle. I can recall coming home from school, shutting my bedroom door and playing Smells like Teen Spirit very loud whilst jumping up and down around my bedroom. It was the biggest release of tension I got all day.

Some other great bands came into the limelight in the 90’s also, the Britpop explosion happened and dark but lovely alternative bands like Echobelly, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cranberries, Manic Street Preachers,Grant Lee Buffalo, Belly, 10,000 Maniacs, Pixies and so many more filled the airwaves with lively but sad songs. REM had a resurgence with the release of ‘Out of Time’ and suddenly all the people who hadn’t ever heard of them were out at HMV buying their back catalogue.

The 90’s grunge era that i fell into was kind to my parents pockets aswell because i only ever wanted clothes from charity shops and dressed mostly like a boy. Needless to say i didn’t actually draw much male attention until i was 16. My wardrobe consisted of one knee length tie died tassle skirt, jeans with turn ups, camouflage trousers, a pair of cherry red DM’s, a pair of Purple converse my sister gave me and an array of band t-shirts for pearl jam, the Doors, The Smiths the Velvet underground and Neil Young. I also owned a levi’s lumberjack shirt and several pairs of stripey tights. I wore clothes so baggy that I was able to share most of my wardrobe with my big brother. Seems like these days its more about how tight your jeans can be.

There was a group of girls at school who liked the same stuff as me and we all ended up at the same pubs and bars, totally underage but so excited that we could dance to Primal Scream and The Stone Roses instead of the latest pop chart music that was on offer at the other mainstream clubs. Most of the people who went to the pubs and clubs we went to were much older but we all co-existed somehow. It was funny how by the time I was 20 I was shocked to see 15 year old’s drinking at the same pub i had been drinking at since I was that age. I always had a word with myself to remind me they were no different to me. But I understood how adults must have viewed us gangs of teenage girls in DM boots wearing black cherry lipstick and counting out pennies for our pints of cider clutching fake ID’s.

I recently watched the pilot episode of 1994 TV series ‘My So Called Life’ which at the time was my favourite show, and even now i can see why i liked it so much. The lead character Angela Chase is in pursuit of something, fun, love, freedom, she is envious of the freedom Ann Frank found through her incarceration and she longs for the day she no longer has to conform and go to school. To express herself she ends up alienating her oldest friends and family. The whole angst revolving around how people just don’t understand.

I think alot of us teenage girls were like her, some of us did dye our hair mahogany red while others chose to stifle their real urges and conform to the norm by wearing trainers and belcher chains.

But it doesn’t matter if its belcher chains or blackberry’s, today’s teenagers must face the same horrors we did. The agony of whether to give in and like Justin Beiber, or whether to say no and go buy the new Foo Fighters CD. What a difference it will make to their lives to decide not to choose to just fit in.

There has been an ‘alternative’ since the 60’s, every era had its dark side of music, what was once protest songs by intelligent hippies, is now something else entirely.

I guess the 90’s indie/grunge thing made me feel like I fit somewhere, there we were, all us teenagers full of questions unanswered and wanting to express ourselves but no knowing how. And along came people like Frank Black and Kurt Cobain and reminded us it was ok not to fit.

The 90’s playlist is endless and so may bands being listened to came from other era’s but here is a mixtape of some of what I was listening to.

Alive – Pearl Jam

Heaven Beside You– Alice in Chains

Dark Therapy – Echobelly

Motorcycle Emptiness – Manic Street Preachers

Stupid Girl – Garbage

Feed the Tree – Belly

Campfire Song – 10,000 Maniacs

Fuzzy – Grant Lee Buffalo

Monkey Gone to Heaven-The Pixies

Disarm – Smashing Pumpkins

Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden

Linger – The Cranberries

To The End – Blur

Nearly Lost You – Screaming Trees

Plush – Stone Temple Pilots

Heart Shaped Box – Nirvana

Crown of Thorns – Mother Love Bone

Hunger Strike – Temple of The Dog

Live Forever – Oasis