Lily Allen - cracking the glass ceiling

Guys! where have you been? Oh wait it's me that hasn't updated this for a while. 

Well i'm back, for now at least! Since we last spoke I have been on holiday to Barcelona and it was amazing. I'm not here to talk about that today though. 

Best Accidental Selfie Award goes to... Me!

Last week I stumbled across the new Lily Allen song whilst I was in a Youtube loop at a random hour after midnight when I should have been sleeping. Anyway, the only indication i had that she was making music again was the newly released John Lewis advert. 

The Bear and the Hare 

I know Dawson, I know. 

Source: smartambala.com

I'll be honest and say I didn't even realise it was Lily Allen singing until my Mum pointed it out. So I was perusing the internet and came across her new song, I hadn't really heard anything about it at this point and I always loved Lily's music so I thought i'd check it out... Should I start the slow clap now or?

Source: forums.thebump.com

Here's where I get on my soap box a little bit and say Thank GOD someone has finally stood  out in the public arena and done something to show up how utterly ridiculous, repulsive and offensive the song Blurred Lines (among others) actually is. Put anything to a catchy beat and people will buy it... apparently. 
Two prime examples of why I hate the song Blurred Lines. 

"Talk about getting blasted

I hate these blurred lines

I know you want it"

'Yeah, I had a bitch, but she ain't bad as you
So hit me up when you pass through
I'll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two
Swag on, even when you dress casual
I mean it's almost unbearable'

Source: kulfoto.com

Like, Ew. That is just gross! Do we really think it is alright to promote songs that are so blatantly giving out a message that 'blurred lines' even exist? 

i'm not someone who goes around climbing on my feminist soap box very often, I am undoubtedly a feminist though, and it is worrying to me that messages like this are so accessible to the younger generation. One of the most worrying things to me is that it seems the majority of people  think, it's no big deal, its just a catchy song. Do you really think that these messages don't filter down? (I wrote that line with an early years Carrie Bradshaw voice in my head, just saying) Surely the fact this kind of message is being masked in popular chart songs is actually quite terrifying?

So back to Lily! She has brought out what I can only describe as the antithesis of Blurred Lines. 

Check it out here: 

Source: Funnyjunk.com

I love this song, the lyrics are intelligent and funny. It makes the point perfectly. There is currently a bit of controversy around the song and the use of black dancers. I can't possibly see how anyone could find the video racist, Its satirical. Surely it would have been more racist had she selected a group of white dancers merely to avoid the worry of people playing the race card? I'm almost there was no possible way for her to win with the video and to deny its controversy entirely would be an omission of what she has attempted to do. But I'm not going to rant on about that, Not now anyway. 

I will end this ranty section with this picture to lighten the mood. 

Source: doiamuseyou.com

Other than that I have mainly just been working! Went to see Lucy Spraggan last week which was awesome. I have my birthday coming up next month and me and my bestie are heading up to Newcastle on the day of my actual birthday to see one of my favorite ever bands Shed Seven which should be amazing. 

I would also just like to mention how fast the past two months have been compared to the rest of the year. I'm fairly sure July and August combined were around 8 months of the year and October and November equate to about 4 days. 

Things are good, life is good. I hope you are all fine and dandy. Now i'm off to have a glass of wine and watch Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. 

Love you! 

Love, me. 

Tweet me: @nataliefurlong 

Instagram: natfurlong

Tumblr : natfurlong.tumblr.com

Source: Sodahead.com

Summer so far: Cyprus and V Festival

Hello, I would like to welcome you back to my blog. 

It's been a while and I have missed your face. This is really just a quick catch up post. I have been gallivanting this summer and loving it, which is why I have been a little bit absent. I tried to put this off again by playing Tomb Raider, however I got stuck so decided to mosey on over here and update this blog. 

Waffle, waffle, waffle. Missed me? Thought so. 

Moving on. 
This summer I went to Manchester (see previous blog), Cyprus (woooo), V Festival (alan!) and next week i'm jetting off to Barcelona. Who the hell do I think I am?! 

Cyprus

Guys, It's so hot in Cyprus. I'm not kidding when I say I spent most of the week seeking out shade as my milky white skin just cannot take the sun. I am either bright white, or burnt. There is no middle ground. So between putting on two layers of 'once a day' and every hour or so topping up with factor 30, I had an excellent time. 

My Dad on his 50th, 

I wore the glasses so I didn't completely fade into the wall.

Random pool shot

Aside putting on a lot of sun cream, I drank a fair bit, swam a lot, went to a waterpark and read a lot. On that subject, have any of you read this....?

Source: Thebooksmugglers.com

Best book I have read all year. I didn't have a clue what it was about before I started it, it was just a random download onto my Nook. OH MY GOD READ IT READ IT. I need to discuss it with someone!... seriously. 

Also 

Source: google books 

Source: thegloss.com

Source: Tumblr.com

Enough said. 

Then I went to work for a few weeks, with a few awesome trips to Newcastle and York in between. 

V Festival

I then headed to Stafford for a weekend of fun and frolics with my lovely friend Caz. Everyone say Hi... 

She claims an accident with the drinking water tap... 

Anyone who has ever been to a festival knows that the worst hour of the year is the time between getting off the coach and finding somewhere to pitch your tent. I watched Caz walking towards me having just got off the coach. Around ten steps later she stopped and put down her bag. At this point I knew we might be in trouble... Around three minutes in I knew we were in trouble. We hadn't even made it to the wristband exchange. 

THANK GOD FOR THESE

downloadfestival.com

We rented one of these bad boys, and after trekking for what seemed like about three hours found somewhere to camp. I think on this occasion will leave out the part where Caz lost the trolley rental ticket and her coach ticket home... 

Here's some pictures. 

 Paloma was one of the highlights of the weekend

As was Lucy Spraggan!

Everyone loves 5ive!

Some portaloo love.

Pint? of wine.

Just found this one... Oh well lets have all three.

Waiting for queen Bey.

I'm only going to say this once. Beyonce was amazing. 

I almost died on the last night by freezing to death. 

I decided to document this with a selfie

Ok so that was a lot of photos. Anyway safe to say V was awesome, Beyonce, Paloma Faith, Travis, McFly and Lucy Spraggan were among my favourites. We even managed to avoid the inflated bar prices by smuggling vodka into the arena in sandwich bags, easy peasy on the first day, however a lot more challenging on the second when they had decided to body search everyone. However with a shake in my hand and a spring in my step we breezed past security even on the second day. We did buy bar tokens as well, i'm not a total cheapskate.

Unrelated summer picture to break up the text
Source: http://www.mattheweckert.com

All in all this summer so far has been pretty darn awesome, Still a little cheeky trip to Barcelona with my girls left to go and then winter will almost be here.... Winter. Scarves, hats, hoodies, layers. Ok, i might be a little too excited by this. 

Anyway, thanks for coming back for a visit, I hope to see you again soon, I have missed all of your little faces this summer. 

Much love, 

Nat xx

Twitter: @nataliefurlong

Tumblr: natfurlong.tumblr.com

Instagram: Natfurlong

Oh, oh...

My awesome friend Rosie started a blog which is a lot more serious than mine. Go see for yourself! http://tryingtobealibrarian.blogspot.co.uk/

Manchester, McFly and My Dad.

The time has come my little friends, to talk of many things, of shoes, of ships, of sealing wax, of cabbages and kings... Actually i'm just going to tell you about my weekend in Manchester last weekend but I wanted to open on a bit of a dramatic note. 

So Last weekend I went to Manchester with my friend Hannah to see McFly; no judging. 

I'm not even sorry, they were MINT. 

So it turned out that Manchester is the friendliest city I have ever visited, just about everywhere we went people either gave us free or discounted stuff. We decided before the gig on the friday night that we would go into Revolution as it was really close by and we didn't really have a clue where anything else was. As soon as we walked in we were given a voucher for a free drink at the bar and 25% off any food. BARGAIN. Then we decided to be fancy and have a cocktail, which turned out to be buy one get one free. Score. 

Source: http://www.ipoll.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/I_LOVE_FREE_STUFF.jpg

A quick word on the gig, any band that will don hats and get the entire crowd to do the YMCA is a winner in my book, also the bar was empty as we were among the 10 other people over the age of 18 which made getting drinks very easy. 

So then I won't lie, we didn't go out partying once the gig was over we went back to the apartment and had a few beers and watched Pitch Perfect. Remember what I said about judging. Still stands. 

So the next day we decided to go explore a bit of Manchester, we headed up to the Northern Quarter and came across a little bar that was open for breakfast called TV21.

Source: manchersterbars.com

Massive recommendation for this place! The food was yummy and really reasonable, free tea or coffee too. I got what was essentially a posh bacon sandwich with eggs but the bacon tasted barbecued which to me is AMAZING because there is normally only one place I get a barbecued bacon sandwich and that's here... 

At a music festival! 

We then saw something that actually blew my mind. 

 I just, like. What. I do not understand what i was looking at to be honest, he wasn't sitting on anything, at one point he put one leg over the other and he moved the umbrella. 

Source: http://weedposts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/mind-blown-sharp-535x240.png?41ed4f

Here are some other things we saw. 

Tennis Ball Chewing Gums

Some Gin with a worm in 

I took this for the I heart MCR that is barely visible. 

After traipsing around Manchester exploring all day we decided to head back, decide where to go for dinner and eat some cake. 

OM NOM NOM

Then eventually after about two and a half hours of sheer indecision we finally decided on a place to go for dinner. 

Source: http://www.highachieversnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/indecision.jpg

Another recommendation  - Solita, Really yummy food I got the classic burger and upgraded my fries to sweet potato fries and it was SO GOOD. Get yourself there if you are reading this and live in Manchester. Seriously. (i'm nearly done with this blog I promise, i do realise i'm banging on a bit now but hey whatyagondo). 

So from that point we headed in a round about way to a pop up bar called Kahlua. I've never actually tried it before but it looked like a cool little place so we decided to head in for a cocktail. Got to the bar, "Two black Russians please", "ok no problem, they are buy one get one free tonight"... Ref second blog pic. FREE STUFFFFF. 

We got chatting to the barmaid who explained that there was a permanent cocktail bar upstairs that did awesome things. They weren't buy one get one free though so we stayed downstairs. Let me at this point say Kahlua is tasty, which I did not really see coming. Anyway about twenty minutes passed and a man came up to the table holding a tray of really fancy drinks. 

He placed them down on the table and explained that they were closing the bar upstairs and the barmaid had mentioned to him we wanted to try some cocktails, so he had brought us some, for free. Free. FREE. The one that looks like a cup of tea, had peppermint something and kahlua in and the small pail of milk was actually milk infused with vanilla and a shot of vodka. The tall one next to it was Kahlua, vodka and tequila (i think) with coke and chocolate ice cream. Whilst I realise that sounds gross (to some people) it was so gooood! It was like the fanciest Coke Float you have ever had. Biiig shout out to the people at Kahlua for looking after us so well. Super friendly and generous. Thanks!! 

Whilst we're on the shout outs. Big thanks to my two lovely friends: 

Sal

 

And Angie

I asked them for recommendations of places to see, drink and eat at and they truly out did themselves my providing me with enough things to do for my next three visits. Much love to you! 

Fantastic weekend filled with dancing, drinking, eating, giggling and exploring. Can't wait for the next one... :D

...................................................................................................................................

Just on another very quick note, my uncle Steve had a really bad accident last week and ended up in hospital. He seems to be on the mend now though so just to let you guys know from us lot in the UK, we're thinking of you and feel better soon. 

Also 

On the 9th of May was the anniversary of my Dad's death. Always in our hearts reminding me of the fragility of life. Everyone has so much love for him, even now which I think gives a true reflection of the kind of man he was.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand done. 

Hope you have had an excellent weekend! I have. 

Lots of love, 

Nat x

Instagram: @natfurlong 

Twitter: @nataliefurlong 

Tumblr Natfurlong.tumblr.com

I love Liverpool = Loverpool

I've been meaning to tell you guys about my trip to Liverpool for a couple of weeks! I rather stupidly decided to make my journey on Good Friday, got to the train station to find the platform full of people with big suitcases and groups of drunk men. I got the train at 11am. 

Now I don't know if we have talked about a little thing I like to call 

Train Panic 

but here is what happened next: 
I got on the train along with half the population of Stockton and whilst looking around in panic to find a seat that wasn't reserved I spotted one at a table that was reserved from York to Leeds, facing the right way (I detest going backwards on a train) and it wasn't too close to the loos. Perfect. I threw my bag and coat above the chair and settled down for the first hour of my journey. 

Source: tgnp.me

So the plan in my head was that when the train pulled into York I would get up along with all the people getting off and sit in one of the seats across the aisle and a few rows behind. That way the people getting on at York wouldn't have nabbed these unreserved seats. 

..............

You can probably realise this didn't quite go as planned. I got up and threw my bag and coat into the free seat, Turned back to get my bag from the overhead shelf and a queue had formed behind me. At this point my brain went into meltdown. I would like to point out the logical thing to do at this point would have been to sit down, let the people get off the train and then calmly get up and get my bag. But no, no no. 

Source: Allthetragefaces.com

The bag was only slightly out of my reach so I stepped forward and said to the man blocking my way, 'sorry I just need to get my bag' but then he didn't move, I moved. I tripped on my own foot and fell forwards because there was nowhere for me to put my feet. I then half crushed the man... My face touched his face guys.

I can't even find a picture fitting to this situation so i'm just going to sat it again in a bigger font size. 

My face touched his face. 

At this point you would think i'd just give it up and sit down. But no I still reached over him and about three other people to drag my bag off the shelf almost giving said three people concussion whilst doing so. I honestly think I got drunk off all the alcohol fumes on the train and just lost all real ability to think. 

No one else got on the train at York and I had the entire table to myself all the way to Manchester. 

Source: en.wikipedia.org

So lets move past that, I had such an awesome time in Liverpool. Stayed with one of my bezzie mates Caz... 

Girl makes a mean omelette

Drank copious amounts of wine with the lovely Linda on Friday night and got all caught up in a couple of a years worth of gossip, and ate some lovely deep fried food. We also were drawn into conversation with some VERY drunk Glaswegian men who did not understand a word we were saying.

Stolen from facebook... :P

I let Linda go home eventually and met Caz, who then pulled out the old card tricks, which I must say I found very impressive! AND she gave me her bed which I was very grateful for!!

On the Saturday I met up with Becky a friend of mine (that I love loads) from when we worked together at Waterstones many moons ago. She has the two most beautiful boys I have ever seen in my whole life and we went for Brunch at Brink. I chased her child around for about an hour, cutest ever.

Pre mum Becky

With Permssion, gorgeous children!

Ok I had to put an old photo of you here dude because you're such an awesome mum that ALL your recent photos have children in and I didn't want to put one of those on without permission. It just felt a bit creepy. 

I then dashed from Brink to Leaf to meet my other beauuuuitful friend Angelica for a quick coffee as she was in serious prep mode for going to Prague the following day. We ate cake. It was wonderful (and I don't just mean the cake). 

Angie and Cow. 

Then came Caz and her birthday celebrations! 

Drunk eyes Caz!

Keyring shaped evidence that at the end of the
night we did not look as drunk as we were! 

So there it is. My weekend in Liverpool was amazing. I love the city, I love my friends and Liverpool will always be one of the places I grew up. I love that visiting there is just as much like going home as where I live now. 

The train journey home almost killed me due to the severe need for junk food and no way to get any. Just wanted to end on a realistic note. 

Love, me. 

Have an awesome weekend guys! 

@nataliefurlong

natfurlong.tumblr.com