Trad Gone Bad: 6 Unconventional Chintz Plates

(Mum: look away now, please)

Let’s admit it: swearing’s great, isn’t it? Even better is unexpected swearing. And that’s why I love these very naughty plates by Trixie Delicious. They’re the porcelain equivalent of a lavender-scented schoolteacher stubbing her toe and letting out a spontaneous ‘Bollocks!’ in class. 

This one might be my favourite. Fuckwit is an underrated word. I like the idea of using this to serve up a beautiful slice of cake to my un(fuck)witting tea party guests. This gloriously abusive plate can be yours for about £16 ($25) - plus just over £6 postage from New Zealand - from the Trixie Delicious Etsy store. Possibly not one for when Nana comes round for tea, unless you want to spend the next few Christmases receiving nothing but disappointed sighs and oversized frilly nylon revenge knickers from Grandma Dear.

Here's one for the Domestic Sluts! It's £14-worth of sluttish smiles, guaranteed.

Trixie Delicious’s designs are the perfect mix of pretty and potty-mouthed, and I’ve long coveted them. But my search for corrupted chintz hasn’t stopped there. Oh no. 

If you’d rather not be insulted by your crockery [Oh, by the way, your cereal bowl called. He says you’re a wazzock. He's feisty, that one], how about being scared half to death by Beat Up Creations’ Lucy the Zombie Girl plate while you gobble your sarnie? I’m sure she wouldn’t be off-putting in the slightest. Just imagine that blood is relish. She’s around £25 ($39) and postage is £6. 

Milder-mannered but no less mega-fantastic is this Kitty Scout plate - combining cats, cherries, and enforced badge-collection (all things that feature in my Top Ten of Everything, incidentally) in one dishy dish. At £41 ($65), he's straying (Geddit? Like a stray cat. Oh, keep up over there) into quite-pricey-for-a-plate territory. I think he's worth every penny, though. 

At the mass-produced end of the spectrum, these Hybrid plates by Seletti take the mismatched china trend to the max. They’re schintzophrenic (I made up that word myself! Quick – someone call the Oxford English Dictionary!). I want the entire collection, but I'll settle for this Eusapia dinner plate, £29.10... 

... And maybe the Ipazia dinner plate, too...

OH, JUST GIVE ME THE WHOLE BLOODY LOT. 

While we're in the mood, let's see how many swearwords we can remember in five minutes. I scored a measly 14. In my defence, it wouldn't accept 'wanker' as a bona fide insult. It's clearly not British.   

Design Porn: Tatty Devine Willow Earrings

Holy crap. They're the most ridiculous earrings ever and I must have them. Yep, I want blue and white plates dangling from my ears. They're part of the Tatty Devine Willow collection where the ceramic prints are digitally printed onto Perspex and they're quite brilliant.

These are going straight into my jewellery collection, but I'm not sure about the willow print necklace.

Is it overkill? I think I like that the earrings would poke out of my hair sometimes, being all subtly ridiculous and over the top. I like the surprise silliness about them and this necklace doesn't really have that same thing going on. It's also MEGA EXPENSIVE at £90. I love her lippy shade, though. How about this one?

The plate pendant (£18) is working for me more than the other necklace (and those willow studs are cute - they're £30), but it's the dangly earrings that are doing it for me.

Sluttishly Savoury: Cheese Fondue

Hot, gooey, boozy cheese fondue may well just be the ultimate comfort food in this crappy, drizzly weather and guess what, it's British Cheese Week so you have the perfect excuse to immerse yourself in all its calorie laden glory!

Traditionally fondue is made using Swiss cheeses such as Emmental and Gruyere but we have over 700 different British cheeses to choose from (and eat our way through) and most of them scream to be melted together with booze and slathered all over crusty bread. In fact if I listen carefully I can hear them all shouting: "Melt me! Booze me! Dunk loads of carbs in me and I will reward you with much gooey cheesy happiness". And you know, who am I to deny The Cheese?

I decided to go for a combination of 3 cheeses in the end, a creamy Cornish brie, a lovely sheep's milk Wensleydale and a medium strength cheddar. I'm always tempted to go for really strong cheddars but they tend to intensify in a fondue, go for something slightly milder than you would like on your cheeseboard. If you have gone for something that blows your head off once it's in fondue form, then you can add some double cream to mellow it out and of course make it that little bit more naughty.

In keeping with using just British cheeses I also decided to swap my usual sherry and wine combo and try something a bit different. I used a pumpkin ale and it was gorgeous (made by Wychwood and bought in Morrisons), you could also use a good cider and add a bit of cider brandy. I like to finish my fondues with a drizzle of fruit vinegar that just cuts through the richness, my favourite for this one is Womersley's Blackcurrant and Rosemary which you can buy online or a drizzle of British truffle oil will just send this into the stratosphere of awesome.

You'll need:

• 500g cheese - I used 100g Cornish brie, 100g Wensleydale and 300g medium cheddar
• 1 tablespoon corn flour
• 250ml pumpkin ale/cider/white wine
• squeeze of lemon juice
• pinch dried thyme
• pinch dried onion granules
• pinch dried garlic granules
• freshly grated nutmeg
• ground pepper
• pinch chilli flakes (optional)

Make it!

1. Grate your cheese into a bowl. If using brie then cut the exterior rind off as it won't melt, just scoff it. Sprinkle your corn flour over the cheese and mix well.
2. Put your booze and lemon juice into a saucepan with the thyme and bring to the boil. Reduce heat slightly and add a handful of cheese (if using brie add this first) and using a whisk mix it well until melted before adding the next handful.
3. Once it's all melted and smooth, reduce the heat and add your nutmeg, chilli, pepper, onion and garlic granules and stir for a minute so that all the flavours fuse then pour into a bowl and dive in with crusty bread, crisps, boiled new potatoes, your bare hands (actually don't do that as it's really hot).

Self-Adhesive Wallpaper You Can't Mess Up

Now, I like the idea of wallpaper. I have my own place now, so I could happily slap it on every wall without a landlord withholding my deposit at the end of my tenancy. But oh god, it looks like such a faff. This guide to hanging wallpaper has 10 steps before you even hang the first length. I can already see the air bubbles, the glue on the floor and the mismatched patterns. Forget it, frankly.

Step forward Purldeco, who make self-adhesive wallpaper produced to your measurements. No cutting, no glue, no crying at the shonky mess you've made. It comes in all sorts of awesome finishes too. I can't decide if my favourite is the postcard one or the library one. I think the postcards win because I know I'd spend hours reading the old messages. The butterflies are incredibly striking, but unfortunately bring back memories of Damian Hirst's exhibition involving live butterflies that got TANGLED IN MY HAIR. Brrr.

You'll need to put in your measurements to work out the price, but they're all £54.40 per square metre. Not cheap for a whole room, but perfect for a feature wall or a cosy nook.

Still sound too much like trouble? Then have a look at Purldeco's self-adhesive wall clocks. You screw the battery operated hands to your wall (even I can manage that tiny amount of DIY), then stick the vinyl clock around it. Prices range from £25 for a basic clock to £80 for a 7 foot street clock.

Capital adventures with Curiocity

Why aren't there kangaroos in London's parks? Which jazz venture has an extra shallow staircase because it was built specifically for Victorian stage elephants? These are questions I could never have predicted asking but now, thanks to Curiocity, I smugly know the answers.

Curiocity is a great idea. In its physical form, it's mini-magazine in the form of an A3 fold out map. Each map takes a different rough theme, and is covered with little fascinating tit bits about London. If you want to know even more, you can read more on the website where they give the snippets of information more space to expand and entertain. The latest issue, the second, is about animals. So I've learnt about a 1862 bit of street art featuring two mice, some of the mythical animals hiding away on London buildings and, as well as Pelican and Zebra crossings, I'm fully informed about what constitutes Panda, Toucan, Puffin and Pelican crossings too.

The map a great thing if you're a London dweller and you need something to kick you out of your been-there, done-that smuggery. If you're a visitor, picking up one of these would be a much more interesting way to explore the city than a conventional map. In my dream world, every city would have its own Curiocity map: it's perfect for fun wonderings and wanderings.

If you want to know the answer to all these questions - and more! - I advise ordering a copy immediately. It's just £2.75 including postage.

Boozy Chocolate Orange Milkshake

As we are transitioning into the colder months (hello blanket weather) I am looking for any excuse to warm my cockles. One such excuse is adding booze to everything! Alcohol certainly warms up my belly as well as cheering me up on a rain-sodden day. As we have already to told you about boozy hot chocolate I thought I might try a more transition appropriate alternative - the boozy milkshake (still trying to squeeze out the last of the Indian Summer). 

You can try any flavour combination you want but I went my favourite standard milkshake flavour, chocolate, and added some Cointreau to give it a boozy orange kick. It was really rather comforting to drink with a wonderful alcoholic hit. I chose to use a rich vanilla ice cream to fluff up the milkshake and I love the flavour of vanilla. But I do recommended chocolate ice cream if you want ultra chocolate-y decadence. 

The boozy milkshake works best with flavoursome alcohol such as Cointreau. Rum, Amaretto, Creme De Menthe, Peppermint Schnapps and Creme de Cacao would all work very well.

Of course, jam jar and retro stripy straw are optional. 

Boozy Milkshake (serves 1)
You will need:

• 150ml Milk
• 2 scoops Vanilla Ice Cream
• 1 tbsp Chocolate Powder such as Nesquik, Cocoa or Hot Chocolate
• 10-25ml Cointreau

Make it!

1. Pop all of your ingredients into a blender and whizz for 10-20 seconds. It's best to pulse to make sure you don't over whizz - you don't want to blitz the frothiness out of the ice cream.
2. Pour into a chilled glass and sieve a small sprinkle of chocolate powder on top. (real chocolate shavings would be even better).
3. Enjoy!

Design Porn: Memorypapers

Earlier today, while looking out of my window at the rain, I discovered this rainy London photo on Memorypapers. London isn't exactly short of a rainy day or seven, but this image makes the rain look rather dreamy.

They've called themselves 'the home of new photography' and I really like what they're doing. Not only are the images in their Bouf shop pretty special, but they're all limited edition. I sometimes wonder if limited edition is a bit of a swizz. Only 1000 of something?! Wow that's erm... well not that special at all, really.

But Memorypapers on print 30 of each image. That's when limited edition seems a little more special, rather than a nifty sales tactic.

I can't stop staring at this image. Everything about it is arresting. Especially the freckles. There's so much texture.

This Southbank print is my favourite, the blue hues are totally divine. Prices for the photographs start at £70 and I can't wait to see what new images they've got coming up. It's a fantastic way to discover new photographers and invest in some art that no one else will have.