Agatha Christie

(Picture source: http://teawithmarykate.wordpress.com/)

I couldn’t very well ignore Agatha Christie, could I? The 1940’s was part of her Golden Age; she wrote 12 novels during that time, though her whole career span over 50 years after debut in 1920. If you are familiar with her works through the very excellent TV adaptations of Poirot, with David Suchet and the visually beautiful but not quite as good adaptations of the Miss Marple mysteries, then it may surprise you to that not all the Poirot- books takes place in the 1930’s and not every Miss Marple is set in the 1950’s. And not all of her stories feature her two most famous sleuths, of the 40’s books, six are Poirot novels and two are Miss Marple.

I started to read Christie’s crime novels when I was around 12 and I still re-read them. It’s true that she often uses stereotypes instead of fully rounded characters and if you read enough of her novels you learn to recognize them, like the handsome never-do well man with just a little to close between the eyes, the vamp, and the straight-backed military man and so on- but you can never count on who is the murderer. Of course, having read them all, I know who the murdered is, but I enjoy reading them anyway. Christie had a knack for describing atmospheres and they don’t have to be spectacular to appeal. Try reading 4.50 From Paddington when you feel sick to death on household chores. I promise, when you have followed Lucy scrubbing the kitchen table, you can feel her enthusiasm. It helps that she does so looking stylish too.

The Pirate 1948

In June I wrote a post about using historical movies as inspiration and the movie that triggered that post was the musical The Pirate from 1947 starring Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Manuela (Garland) dreams about a dashing pirate, Mack “the Black” Macoco, but agrees to marry a rich, boring and much older Don Pedro. A circus performer, Serafin (Kelly) falls in love with her and pretends to be Macoco in order to woe her. After some twists and turns- it turns out that Don Pedro is the aging Macoco, everything ends happily for Manuela and Serafin. And as it is a movie with Garland and Kelly, there is a fair amount singing and dancing. The movie is set in the Caribbean in the 1840’s, but the costume designer, Tom Keogh, plays rather fast and loose with historical accuracy and nods quite equally to the contemporary fashions of the 1940’s. A hundred years earlier the fashion dictated sloping shoulders, puffed sleeves, a rather high, but narrow waist and a full skirt with many petticoats. There were also some rather oddly shaped hairstyles, like this fashion plate indicates.

I wish I was a rich girl #2

December is almost upon us, so why not wish that you would buy all these gorgeous Christmas ornaments? My favourite kind of tree ornaments is glass baubles. I buy a new one every year and though they occasionally break, my tree is quite full by now. I’m not big on decorating, but I want my tree overloaded with tinsel and glittery glass ornaments. I also have the three lights my grandmother Greta bought for the very first Christmas as a married woman in 1943. I’m so happy that they are still in working order and in their original box too! My maternal grandparents only had plain round glass baubles but my paternal grandparents had ornaments in all kind of shapes and I have found their counterparts on Etsy. I especially love the ones which are dimpled, as a child I found them absolutely fascinating!

Fräulein Frauke and my new hair

Fräulein Frauke Presents Duty Calls took place on Saturday, and a mighty good time was had, I must say. Nalen is an absolutely fantastic location and though it was pretty crowded the ceiling is so high that it never got too hot or felt too crowded. However, I met a friend in the wardrobe and then manage to not locate her for the rest of the evening, so it was definitely a lot of people there. We were early so we were among the first 250 who got a free glass of champagne when we come. I didn't see all of the cabaret, but the artist I did see were very good. Fräulein Frauke was, as usual, adorable:



I also enjoyed the ringmaster, Dusty Limits, very much as well as Vicky Butterfly

Two giveaways

Perhaps it is the season, but there are giveaways everywhere right now. Me, I’m thinking of having one when this blog reach 200 followers, a sum that seems to be within reach, to my great surprise.

First Kristina at Dahling It's Vintagy!, who is giving away this lovely lipstick, rouge and mirror combo:



Read the rules here.

Next, Brittany from Va-voom Vintage is giving away a gift certificate from ShoeclipBiz , who sell just shoe clips. Read more in this post.

Duty Calls

Tonight I will have the perfect opportunity to don my blue evening gown as I’m going to Fräulein Frauke- Duty Calls. Fräulein Frauke is an excellent burlesque club here in Stockholm and tonight the theme is World War II, so of course I have to go! I have been to FF before and enjoyed myself, but that was in their old place which was truly terrible when it comes to drink, ladies rooms and wardrobe, but the atmosphere and show made up for a lot of that. This year, however, it moved to Nalen, which truly must be the perfect place for a 1940’s club. Nalen was THE dance palace in Stockholm from the 1930’s to the end of the 1960’s and I’m pretty sure that both my grandparents and parents have danced there. It opened again in the 1990’s and have several scenes and dance floors. I can’t dance swing, but I expect I will be able to enjoy other dance tonight!

A birthday cake

If my grandmother Greta had been alive, she would have turned 99 last Monday and, quite naturally, I have been thinking a lot about her for the last couple of days. She was, as I have mentioned before, a woman with many talents and one of them was to bake. She baked bread and she baked cakes. Though she didn't quite followed the tradition of a Swedish "kafferep" (a social meeting where you drank coffee and had cakes) and always had "seven kinds of cakes" at home, she had, at any given time, always buns, sponge breads and several kind of cookies. My Mum said only the other day that when she was a kid there was a special "cookie cupboard" in the kitchen. One of her fortes was to bake three sponge cakes in the oven at the same time which made the middle one sunk, as it didn't get as much heat. For some reason that middle one always tasted like it was filled with almond paste.

Thinking of my grandmother and cakes made me remember that I have one of her cookbooks, the one the picture, called Läckra Rumfordfinesser ("Delicious Rumford Delicacies") from 1946. It’s really more a pamphlet to advertise the glory of Rumford baking powder, but it's a quite lavish one. There are several coloured pictures of rather tasty looking cakes and cookies, but most fun is the two pictures on the inside of the covers. The first one depicts two women engaged in just a "kafferep":