My good friends at The Life Craft are moving premises, and so they invited me along to a special Friday night of painting pottery in order to say a proper goodbye to their Great Western Road home. I had never painted any pottery before, but I actually had a really good time. I learned the hard way that it is difficult to paint straight lines on a curved surface but this little tea cup ended up just .. fine.

I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, actually - the lines are wonky and the design feels very token but I'm trying not to be too critical, m'kay? It is amazing how self-critical crafters can be.

The colours are exactly how I hoped they would turn out, at any rate. And funnily enough they are almost the exact colours of the dress I'm hoping to make this weekend.

A few links for you to peruse:

• Peter Oborne of the Daily Telegraph insists that the recent English riots should be seen in light of British society as a whole - and asserts that the moral decay of British society is as bad at the top as the bottom. Quite a brave column.
• Russell Brand(!) weighs in on the rioting with a punchy (and beautifully written) column. Well worth reading and not just for lines like "Then dopey ol' Boris came cycling back into the London clutter with his spun gold hair and his spun shit logic as it became apparent that the holiday was over." I do admire a well-turn sentence.
• Is the Glasgow accent being cockney-fied? I enjoyed watching the little film clip and remembered how I arrived here not understanding a word of the local dialect - and now I do.
• Sad Etsy Dogs. Exactly what it says on the tin. My favourite is this one which isn't all that sad. My second favourite is definitely sad, though.
• It's not all about humiliated small dogs. Knitting and crochet do good things too.. like making toys for the Battersea Dog & Cat Rescue centres. Aww.. though I do feel cheated by the photos that do not feature a single dog.