James Dean Coats

Yeah I know I'm bored... it's my day off, it's raining, I'm not feeling great, my friends are miles away.... gonna watch East of Eden and Breakfast at Tiffanys.

here's some james dean pictures in various coats. Jimmy Dean is my ultimate number 1 favourite person, and style icon! i like to think that i have my own style, however, i often wonder 'what would jimmy d wear?'

Preparing for Winter: Protection and Survival

I woke up this morning feeling awful. I'm only run down and my sore throat has caught up with me from smoking menthol cigarettes last Thursday. This morning my body felt crushed. Like a citrus fruit after you've juiced it; squashed and no juice left. I also had very bizarre sex dreams. Sex dreams confuse me because after I've woken up from them, I feel guilty and regretful, the kind of feeling I assume you get after being the prized meat at an all top gang-bang. One dream I had, I was fucking someone I actually know in real life, but when I looked down, he had a vagina (that's Reader's Wives for you). It was disgusting but I was constantly tempted by it. Which then lead me to think that I might be straight after all (I'm not). In the other dream I had immediately after, I am fucking a man that I DON'T know, who hasn't got a vagina, but the condom is made out of clear cellophane wrapper, like the wrapping you get when you buy a new DVD. I am baffled by this and my train of thought goes off on tangents about plastic. I wake up feeling very confused.

Anyway, I'm awake now and running a bath to restore my spirit. I'm using some Comforter and will have a mask. I'm typing this now with my feet in the bath. I will truly spend my day off in comfort. However there are a few errands I need to do such as ring that important number about my tax, ring the bank about something, and dye my hair again. I got out of going to see my young cousins because I really don't feel up to it. I won't have another day off now till next Sunday. Which leads me on to my winter plan.... let me explain first:


The next 2-3 weeks are going to be very busy for me as I've been asked to stand in for Jon who is helping out in another shop (Redditch). That, combined with Louise leaving, Daisy leaving, and no Christmas temps employed as yet, means I will probably be in nearly every day. Being in full time more or less for the past 3 weeks has damaged me, which is pathetic I know (I hear you all being sarcastic) but let me remind you that I am a very troubled slow learner who hasn't worked full time since 2008 who is weaning or has weaned himself off the student life of staying in bed till 2 pm and smoking weed all day, and that I have to travel an hour and a half to and fro to get to work so a full day will consist of 12 hours of standing, and basically being out. I'm not saying feel sorry for me, I'm saying it takes a lot of getting used to and I'm lucky to have it this way when you think about it, though there are some people who have life a whole lot easier and still moan about not getting what they want and to you I say: GROW UP.


The Plan


1) Give up SMOKING
As anyone I hate being ill and my main symptom today is one that is a result of an all too familiar smoking binge and then no smoking binge. When you give up smoking, during the first week or so, you get a bit ill and your lungs start to clear out the shit. This is what's happening now. The cheap cigarettes gave me a sore throat and in return I've not smoked, so now I feel like shit and am coughing nice juicy bits of tar for breakfast.

Christmas 2005 enjoying a festive spliff

Smoking rids your body of Vitamin C which you need to boost your immune system to fight off colds and flu during the cold months. Smoking then is probably the most important thing to tackle on the list of preparation so from this day on I am a NON SMOKER. Other advantages of not smoking anymore are cost saving, and smelling nice and not having to go outside when you're out clubbing to freeze your tits off while you lessen your Vitamin C storage. Makes sense.


2) Winter coat over LAYERS
I have now purchased my winter coat which is great, heavy and thick and leaves enough room underneath for layers. David, who lives in Norway advised me on the importance of layers. Insulation. I'm usually the person who wears a coat over my one shirt or t-shirt and when I was much younger and at college people used to laugh because I seemed to wear the same thing all year round. This winter, I want my coat, over jumper, over shirt, over t-shirt, over vest. For work I will get some black woolly cardigans to cozy up (it gets very cold in the shop).

The Fuse coat for this year is called the Bale coat. it's the same coat, different name. Makes me think of Christian Bale which then makes me think of American Psycho, and the bit '...and I'm running down Broadway, then up Broadway, then down again, screaming like a banshee, my coat open, flying out behind me like some kind of cape'.

3) VITAMIN C overload
This is so important. Multi vitamin tablet every day isn't enough. As hard as it is for me, I need to keep eating fresh fruit and veg and drink lots of orange juice. I don't get enough vitamins as it is, let alone in defence for winter.

Google Orange

4) Vests
I look good in a vest now, in a kind of old fashioned half dressed still got my braces on with beard way, not in a gay scene all my clothes don't have sleeves way. I've never thought a vest looks good on anyone in a fashion context. It looks good when you're at home and you're lazing about. I'm going to invest in some vests (inVESTment) and wear one under my clothes EVERY DAY.

Brad Renfro

5) Potatoes and other CARBS
To combat SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and general depression, potatoes in their fullest form, and pasta, with rice and noodles, will be a staple to nearly every meal. There is a good book I think Nigella Lawson once recommended called Potatoes Not Prozac. I think it's appropriate.

Another useful book

6) Comfort soups and smoothies
I've never made soups  before but would like to give it a try for comfort food options and smoothies for a better way to increase my intake of fruit. You can get detox smoothies, vit c boost smoothies, etc etc etc...

Comfort Soup!

7) TURBO Gloves
I had a pair last year and left them on the train. That was my greatest unhappiness.

Robot Hands

8) Winter Boots
No way am I walking through snow again in normal shoes. Never.

These boots are the ones I will buy in time for the snow season.

9) Scrubbing BRUSH with Glogg
To stimulate my body and get the body warmed up for those cold dark mornings. Glogg shower gel and some stimulating Northern Lights soap to get me going in the morning... facemasks every day to keep my skin nice and clear.... and some spf lotion to keep my skin protected from the elements.

Warm it up

10) Slankets, Baby-grows, quilts

To stay warm and to not waste so much money on central heating?

The Bundler.... 

Anyway - today feels like the 'last day of summer'. its nice outside but there's a hopelessness in the air. The excitement of the festive seasonal months has been on my mind maybe a bit too much. I've sorted out the tax problem. I need to ring payroll on Monday. I think I'm owed about £700 without even realising it. Why do I go through months obliviously without the money I've worked for?

As for the bank who keeps claiming to be getting in touch with me (my phone hasn't rung), I eventually and reluctantly called them back. Thinking this was going to be bad news (i.e we are now charging you £30 an hour to use the over draft blah blah etc etc) it turns out they were trying to sell me a loan. Talk about trying to fuck me over! I said no.

Anyway, I leave this life update with the only decent photo I took of last weekend when we had the family round for my aunt's birthday. it was a really nice gathering.

never forget

Cause when love is gone, there's always justice / And when justice is gone, there's always force / And when force is gone, there's always Mom

10 years ago today.

I was 17 years old and had skipped the first day of college because I had stayed out all night before. I got home in the day from my night out and had a shower. After, I sat on the floor of my room still in my towel with my head on the bed, hair still wet, exhausted. As I was about to fall asleep still in my towel I was told to come watch the news where we got to see live the second plane hit the south tower. Dad came home from work early that day.I thought about my pen friend from Long Island who I had met in London a few weeks before, and the photo she sent me in a letter of herself with a friend on top of the world trade centre.

9/11 created a horrid fear inside me, and since that day I have never forgotten.

Believe in the Lord our God and thou shall be saved

Amish men are sexy, Amish beards are sexy....

Braces are sexy.

I quite like the hats too.

The wildlife and countryside is beautiful.

Barn Raising is sexy

So are hay bales

what he said

Katie gave me her James Dean stash- a whole bunch of vintage postcards and pictures of James Dean.

Anyway...

Daisy has a job at Cos now in town. She generously said she'd let me use her discount in return for my Lush discount. Sounds like a fair deal to me. 

first time he shot me, shot me in the side, hard to watch me suffer, but with the second shot I died

Nothing great has happened at all this week except that I have been working all week again though that isn't that great. Both home and work are stressful through pure frustration, and the only time I get to myself is on the train and even then I'm surrounded by complete arseholes.

I have, however, got the desired hair colour already for winter, by mixing 3 blocks noir with 1 1/2 blocks brun henna dye. It looks natural and has thickened my hair, and has made it incredibly glossy. I want to go darker over the weeks.

I finished reading the Help and felt enlightened by it. I felt like it has spurred on something in me to find out more about that part of history. At the end of the book was an acknowledgments page then a section titled 'Too Little Too Late' which was a couple of pages of the authors background in connection with the story. Here she recommended Telling Memories Among Southern Women by Susan Tucker. That, and To Kill and Mockingbird, and The Color Purple, are books I want to read next. I want to make good use of the text book I bought, and want this just to be one of hundreds of subject matters I want to self teach myself in and become an expert in. I didn't do too well at school but that doesn't mean I am stupid. Besides, apart from English, History was my other good subject. 

NEVER TEAR US APART

guilty of loving you

It has been a year exactly since my favourite photographer Corinne Day died.

Corinne Day

Heather Bratton photographed by Corinne Day for British Vogue.

Bratton was a very successful American model who tragically died in a car accident in 2006, aged 19.

Heaven is Real

A new book documenting my favourite photographer Corinne Day's early work with now extinct fashion magazine The Face is released this week. You can buy it HERE. I think I will as according to supplier Morel, they are limited edition to 1000.

The book is called 'Heaven is Real', of which is the same name of one of the fashion stories run by The Face in the early 90s, featuring Moss (and ex-model now famous TV cake chef Lorraine Pascale, seen above). Other editorials include 'Borneo' and 'The Third Summer of Love' of which I own the original.

babe when I saw you turning at the end of the street i knew the time was goin and it took like agesssss

I feel like I've more or less conquered the detox. I'm going to follow the book methodically and focus on the different subjects it addresses on a weekly basis with my mother, but otherwise I've got the food aspect in order. It's simple really - just balance everything, make sure you don't buy food with additives and artificial preservatives and flavourings (read the label!), try and cook things from scratch, wholemeal not white, and to drink absolutely loads of water and you can eat as much fresh veg and fruit as you like. Luckily my dad has an allotment so we get organic beans and potatoes as well as other things. I've got my mom to cut down on the caffeine and have put her on those pro biotic yoghurt drinks to help replace good bacteria.

I'm going to keep doing yoga too, and go swimming, to encourage my mom to exercise more. She thinks that this is all like a diet to lose weight, and I think she could do with losing some. However, I just want her to be healthier and want her mentality to improve. Your mood and you mentality is greatly improved with good foods, less caffeine and sugar, and exercise, which she never does. Through what she is already starting now, she will lose weight. So she not only will be boosting serotonin levels through exercise, and good diet, and better sleep I'm assuming, but she will be feeling more positive because to her being thin seems to be really important. She isn't overweight, but acts like someone who is. Which saddens me, because there are some fatties out there who actually think they don't have a problem.

At the supermarket today I felt weird. I suddenly see everything completely differently now since I've over-exposed myself to 'Super-Size Me' and the detox book as well as other things I've read. It was an affair of mixed feelings; disgust and worry with temptation and stress all rolled into one. I noticed things I've never noticed before that I think are terrible now- simple concepts such as having sweets dotted around hanging off plastic loops in random aisles of the supermarket. The 'clever' way sweets and chocs are always at the till. The smell of sweet doughnuts wafting out in the clothes department.

I was shocked that it actually felt like 85% of everything I saw I considered food we just weren't allowed to eat anymore. And whole entire sections dedicated to food that actually make people ill. Not to mention the huge proportion of fat people dragging themselves around, letting their equally fat children run wild and free, eating sweets before they've even paid for them, pushing trolleys full of cakes and bottles of coke... I can choose to feel smug about it, but at the same time I feel really bad about it all. I can see how damaging it is now.

The book has basically made me realise that detoxes aren't hard to follow and the importance of balancing a diet for future health. You don't suddenly just eat leaves and drink water for 5 days. It's a way of cleaning your system gradually and safely and hopefully you take the tips you learn and work them into your daily diet.

I'm hoping this happens for my mom. It's hard, because it's almost like training her. But when I'm gone I want her to automatically drink water, to always have a glass of iced water on the go or a bottle if she's out and about and to be concious of her diet and the importance of the balance and exercise. I myself need to keep at  it as I am particularly weak when it comes to bad foods and being lazy, but I want to gain weight, and muscle, as ideally one day I want to be a regular at a gym and to be a keen swimmer.

Note: the pictures here are of plus size model Crystal Renn taken by Terry Richardson for French Vogue last year.


Going with more than one controversy here and French Vogue never being shy of creating controversial subjects for their editorials, Crystal Renn is a very famous American plus size model who very openly documented her struggle with anorexia and rejection in the fashion industry, even going as far as publishing a book about the whole experience.


Ironically, after being told that she will never make it big in the fashion industry, as soon as she gave up and the weight went back on, she found great success, and is not only known as the only other successful plus size model since Sophie Dahl, but for also starting the trend for using normal sized girls in fashion shows and editorials.

New Flat (not mine)

Vintage Riot