Advent song for December 19: Happy Christmas, Niall!

On December 19, 2011December 18, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music, Reasons to be cheerful

I gave quite a lot of thought to who went where on my advent songs countdown. I wanted to make sure it didn’t look as though the most important people were going last, because they aren’t – it’s sort of half random and half based on how much I like the songs, with a vague effort not to have people who know each other well on consecutive days, in case it gets boring or repetitive.

But it was easy to figure out where to put Niall, because today we have been married for exactly one month. What is the month anniversary? If there isn’t an official one-month-married present, I hereby declare one month the champagne and sausages anniversary.

There’s lots I could say about Niall, but it would be cheesy and naff, so I will just say that he is in every possible way the exact person I want to be married to, even though he picked this song, “if only”, as he put it, “for this magnificently drunken rendering”.

Happy Christmas, Niall! I’ll get the sausages if you get the champagne.

Advent song for December 18: Happy Christmas, Verena!

On December 18, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music, Reasons to be cheerful1 Comment

Do you have a former flatmate who was your best friend, who liked the same stuff as you, introduced you to new stuff that you loved, picked up the pieces when your life fell apart and was always available for a cigarette or a rant if you needed either, even in the middle of the night? I, fortunate woman that I am, have lived with two perfect flatmates. They are both called Martin and I would live with both of them again in a heartbeat, were I living in a commune, which at present I am not.

But that’s OK because both of them let me visit from time to time. Before Sweeney – which is what we call the second Martin for reasons none of us seems to know – met Verena, we used to meet in pubs. But now they live in a beautiful flat and they lay on lavish parties and give people vast amounts of food and booze, because Verena is an exceptionally accomplished hostess, as well as being charming, funny and very elegant. So three cheers for Verena, both the Martins and everyone else who somehow became a grown-up without me noticing.

Happy Christmas, Verena!

Advent song for December 17: Happy Christmas, Ed!

On December 17, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

We sang this at our family carol-singing bash last weekend, but we sang it in English, and without quite as many twiddles. It is a very beautiful piece of music either way, and Ed nominated it because his choir sings it, so I expect he knows the proper version.

Ed is a person who knows the proper versions of things generally. He and his partner Jo are an inspiration to me, because they are so good at being grown-ups. They’ve got a house, and a shed, and even a cat. We went to theirs for Christmas dinner one year, serene in the knowledge that we would get a proper version of Christmas dinner, which we duly did. Coincidentally, we are also going over there tonight for what I have no doubt will be the best-organised party of the season.

And if that all sounds a bit sensible, it isn’t supposed to, because they are also two of the wittiest, sparkiest and most switched-on people I know. Children should have parents like Jo and Ed.

Happy Christmas, Ed! I hope there will be singing later.

Gadgets

On December 16, 2011December 16, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Arts4 Comments

I’ve just been reading a piece on The Next Web called The 7 Most Beautiful Gadgets ever made. It’s a necessarily subjective judgement, of course, but I can’t help feeling it was written by someone with an eye for function over form. The Sony PS3 is an impressive beast, if that’s your bag, but beautiful? Never.

Maybe the problem is that when it comes to technology, we’re not very good at aesthetics. It took the arrival of tablets on the mass market for us to realise that everything we’ve ever done on the web is ugly, and that it’s possible to present digital content in a beautiful way. Why we have managed to do this with apps but not with websites is a mystery I haven’t solved (update: see the first comment for a good answer to this), but I’d like to think that we’ll catch up with ourselves eventually and start making everything beautiful.

But in the meantime, we can try to stop confusing how stuff looks with what stuff does. For Le Corbusier and the modernists, beauty was in usefulness, and the most beautiful thing was the thing that worked most perfectly. But then where would you classify an umbrella, which is beautiful and conceptually brilliant and only works if it rains directly downwards and there’s no wind? I think you have to allow for different versions of beauty, because form and function don’t always work in perfect harmony. So I have made two lists: the seven most beautiful gadgets ever made, and the seven best-designed gadgets ever made. There is no crossover, although I suspect my definition of “gadgets” gets a bit expansive towards the end.

The seven most beautiful gadgets ever made

7. The glass kettle

I had one of these in the first flat I lived in after I left university, so for me it is the very symbol and essence of grown-up-ness. Of course, if you live in London it gets scaly and ugly after five minutes, but in its pristine condition it is a lovely thing, and watching water boil through glass is about as mesmerising as watching fire burn.

6. The spout bottle opener

Most bottle openers are functional. This bottle opener is functional, but it’s also beautiful. I would like to live in a world where everything was as sleek and shiny as this.

5. The gramophone

I wish we still listened to music on these. I would have one in every room.

4. The iPod classic

Yes, I know they have gotten smaller and better since the original, but this is genuinely a design classic. The TNW piece includes the iPhone, which is arguably the most influential piece of design of the last decade, but that doesn’t make it the prettiest. iPhones are clunky and ugly. The first iPod was stunning, and just because it got smaller doesn’t mean it got better, aesthetically speaking. The Mona Lisa wouldn’t be better if it were smaller.

3. The Fender Stratocaster

Another perfect piece of design. I could have done a whole list of musical instruments – have you ever seen anything as beautiful as a violin, or a saxophone, or a grand piano? – but the Fender Strat won out. Look at those lines. And yes, I know a guitar isn’t really a gadget, but I figure if TNW can have a car, I can have a guitar.

2. The Motorola RAZR

You can’t fully appreciate the beauty of a RAZR from photos. I had two RAZRs in a row – I can’t remember what happened to the first one – and I loved them like you love a pet, even though they didn’t really work. It didn’t matter that they didn’t really work, because they looked and felt so perfect. It’s the only phone I’ve ever owned that would make people squeal when they first saw it, and although it might be obsolete in terms of technology, it’s still far and away the best-looking phone I’ve ever seen.

1. The arc light

Yeah, I’m not sure it’s a gadget either. But, well, it has electricity. Also, I just wanted an excuse to publish a big picture of an arc light. Impractical for all but the largest room, ridiculously proportioned and impossible to combine with any normal furnishings, it is the very epitome of form over function, and it’s one of the most perfect things I’ve ever seen.

The seven most perfectly functional gadgets ever made

7. The tea strainer

6. Velcro

5. The ring pull

4. The pencil

3. The zip

2. Scissors

1. The wooden spoon

(Actually, you can get beautiful versions of all of those things, too.)

I would love to know what your nominations for either list would be.

Advent song for December 16: Happy Christmas, Kate!

On December 16, 2011December 15, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

There was never much doubt as to whom Kate would pick for the advent calendar (not that she knew that that was what she was doing, at the time). Kate is a woman of reliably excellent tastes, as is clearly demonstrated by the number of events we’ve attended together which nobody else would have dreamed of going to. If you have – as I like to think of it – especially refined and rarefied tastes, it always helps to have a friend who shares them, so that you don’t have to go to things like Kristina från Duvemåla alone. The only tragic aspect of all of this is that I didn’t meet Kate until I was thirty, so I missed out on all those years of potential arty companionship. Still, we have made up for it since then and I look forward to many more evenings of unlikely pleasure and the quiet joy, as intense at thirty-five as it was at fifteen, of having a friend who loves the stuff you love.

Happy Christmas, Kate!

Advent song for December 15: Happy Christmas, @WantonItalics!

On December 15, 2011December 15, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This is the first advent song I’ve done for someone I’ve never met. @WantonItalics, whose real name is (probably) Caitlin, is someone I only know from Twitter, but she is one of my favourite people on Twitter because she is very funny and interesting, but also incredibly kind and interested, which not everyone on Twitter is. She has given me wedding advice and congratulations, and answered questions that have otherwise gone ignored by the twittersphere, and just seems like the all-round nicest person in the world ever. She is also very pretty and a scientist, both of which win her extra points. Her husband, @TalonSword, also seems very nice, and although they look like teenagers, they have just celebrated five years of marriage, so hurray for them.

Happy Christmas, WantonItalics! I have picked one song for you even though you picked a whole album, but it is a SUPER album so anyone who hasn’t heard the whole thing should go and do so here.

Advent song for December 14: Happy Christmas, Nancy!

On December 14, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This is another song I’d never heard before, but I like it a lot, and I especially like the juxtaposition of the song and the video here, which is why I chose this version on YouTube. It’s also a perfect combination for Nancy, who is both a spunky punky rebel and a tremendously sweet and charming person. Also, her baby has the best hair of any baby ever. True story!

Happy Christmas, Nancy!

Advent song for December 13: Happy Christmas, Jim!

On December 13, 2011December 13, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

The first time I heard Tom Waits, I thought it was a joke. I’m still not sure that it isn’t, but I have come round to him in a way I never quite managed with e.g. Bob Dylan, Lou Reed or any number of other American men with unusual singing styles. I think it’s partly because it’s so much fun doing an impression of him. Also, the songs are good, and this is no exception. It’s not terrifically Christmassy, but he has made up for it in this live version by stitching a couple of verses of Silent Night onto it, so it definitely counts.

I expect you know your own mind and never need to look to other people to figure out what you think about a thing. That’s because you are very grown up and supremely well-balanced. I, on the other hand, am not very good at deciding what I think, but that’s OK because I am good at finding people whose moral and aesthetic compasses are so well-aligned with mine that I just have to find out what they think and I will usually agree. My husband is one of those people, and Jim is another. I don’t know Jim very well, but whenever I am not sure what to think about a thing, I look to Jim’s opinion to get a pointer towards my own.

Jim has a son and a daughter, which is excellent, because if you were to design the ideal dad, you might end up with Jim. Really, he should have a whole lot more children and populate all of South West England with a bunch of mini-Jims. Perhaps I will suggest this to him.

Happy Christmas, Jim!

Advent song for December 12: Happy Christmas, Wez!

On December 12, 2011December 12, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Wez was my boyfriend through most of my twenties. We lived together in a ridiculously gorgeous flat in Crystal Palace and pretended to be grownups, with limited but occasional success. The Halloween party which ended with actual blood all over the floor, the New Year’s Eve dinner party where we all had to stop for a nap halfway through and the lost weekend when we invited everyone over and spent three days watching eighties movies and drinking tequila will always stand out as cherished memories for me.

But the really odd thing about my relationship with Wez is that not only do we still get on, but we never had a falling-out period at all. We just both figured out that we made better friends than girlfriend and boyfriend, and seamlessly made the transition. I don’t know if that’s because I’m really nice or he’s really nice. I suspect it’s both.

So happy Christmas, Wez, and enjoy your song, which I had never heard of before today, but which is now going on my Christmas playlist.

Advent song for December 11 – Happy Christmas, Uncle Paul!

On December 11, 2011December 11, 2011 By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Uncle Paul was not specific in his nomination. He wanted a Muppets Christmas song, but he didn’t say which one. So I’ve gone for this one because it makes me laugh out loud and because I think Paul will like it.

Everyone should have an uncle Paul. All small children need a grown-up who tickles them and teases them and tells them jokes and picks them up and throws them in the air so that they feel MOSTLY safe, but not COMPLETELY safe. When you are small you think that adults are invulnerable, and I still secretly think that about Paul even though life has dealt him a difficult hand over the last couple of years. Anyone who, when they’re having a hard time, can still tell jokes and share laughs and be warm and open and giving towards all of their friends and family, gets applause and admiration from me.

Thank you and happy Christmas, Uncle Paul, to you and yours xxx