What We Did On Our Holidays

Any fans of Katie and Stella With Bells On will know that we often discuss our ongoing struggle with Time/Thyme.

As you know, it makes us feel like this:

Michelangelo's Tomb in Santa Croce, Florence - 1570

Fear not friends, this will be a joyful travel blog entry. We've just returned from a week in Florence, where Time/Thyme was irrelevant. Our motive was to research art and culture, and make a few vineyard property viewings.

With Bells On - Location! Location! Location! - 2013 

What's your motive for travelling abroad?

Whatever your reasons for travelling, we will show you how to behave, and deal with life in foreign lands.

Organisation

• Use a weight measure to make sure you reach the target weight set by your aeroplane company. 

We had a last minute panic the night before when we found we only had 16kg in our suitcase. Here we are selecting brass objects to bring us up to the set weight.

Suitcase with Punch and Judy - 2013

To help with the logistics of completing every task on your trip, it is a good idea to make a detailed itinerary.

Think ahead. Keep all months in your diary.

Unfortunately, before planning our holiday we had ripped out 'February' from the cat diary, as we had deemed it a dull month. 

If this does happen to you, use the next available month. 

We may encounter problems with Time/Thyme in March:

The Itinerary: February - 2013

• Don't forget the adapter for your electrical appliances.

Exposed Wire - 2013

Meeting people on holiday – How to deal with it

Make sure you go along with anything your tour guide suggests.

Our tour guide Giuseppe suggested 'let's do some touching'

Here we are going along with it!

Katie, Giuseppe, Stella, Christiano - 2013

When you make a new friend in another country, it's a good idea to tell them a lie.

Take this for example: in a conversation about slang words for being drunk, we implied that 'fisted' can mean 'extremely pissed'.

It worked surprisingly well:

 Come Uno Zombie - 2013

Be careful when you make friends abroad. With another new friend, asking a simple question brought shocking results:

Italian Tenacity - 2013

We've also been asked some unusual questions in this foreign sojourn:

• You say you're here to study art, but why are you always drunk?
• Is everyone getting fisted tonight?
• What the fuck are you doing with my husband?

Italian Culture - How to appreciate it

I Mafiosi

• Receive compliments graciously, he probably has Mafia connections. Here's one we encountered: 'You smell like a bullet from a freshly shot gun...it reminds me of my childhood'.

• When drinks are sent to your table, accept them graciously too.

Cin Cin Puttanesca - 2013

Looking at Art

We studied Art History. We will show you a system we've developed for critiquing art.

Would you rather shag, marry, or shoot?

Zephyr from the Primavera - Botticelli - 1482

Jesus from The Last Supper - Leonardo da Vinci - 1498

David - Michelangelo - 1504

 Did you choose correctly?

The answers are:

Shag: Zephyr because he's weird, elusive and can probably do some crazy shit.
Marry: Jesus because he's got nice hair, great body and seems like a good man.
Shoot: David because he is too big.

Food

Make sure you sample the produce the country has to offer. 

Ciao Simon - 2013

The Rat What Turned Into Peter Pettigrew - 2013

Freaky Fries and Kinder Bueno; Fueling Up Before Round 2 with the Naked Dutch Lady - 2013

Going Home – how to do it.

We acquired some new items on our holiday.

Unfortunately this meant that to keep our weight limit at exactly 20kg, we had to discard some non-essentials.

What We Lost - 2013

What We Gained - 2013

 1 medieval tapestry, 1 Madonna calendar, 1 fox, 2 Hail Mary necklaces, and 1.25kg of penis pasta. 

Cazzo! - 2013

Arrivederci!

Send us a postcard. We will be happy to solve any of your holiday problems. Or Art Historical shag/marry/shoot dilemmas.

Ciao Ciao Miao Miao
xxx

With Bells On - Getting Fisted on the Blob Dancefloor - 2013

Here's to you, Mrs Robinson!

Some people are clever.

                                        Raphael- The School of Athens- 1511

This section of Raphael's fresco shows:

• Aristotle telling Plato about the benefits of Ceramide R in shampoo.

• Pythagoras drawing a graph of some relationships he's had this year (that's where we got the idea to do ours).

• Heracilitus thinking about the properties of time and thyme.

We're clever too. Look, we graduated from university!

 

With Bells On - The Degree - 2011

With Bells On - Cin Cin! Glückwunsch! Iechyd da! - 2011

 With Bells On - The Times They Are A-Changin' - 2011

How did we do it? Read our study tips.

How to get a degree

• Make good notes in class then word process them. Write your sentences in clever, descriptive ways. Use ours as a reference:

 

• Don't be disheartened when you realise that Maths can make revision tricky. Here's one problem we encountered:

 Don't make this mistake! Keep a ruler, clock, calendar or calculator to hand when you study. We now use these tools to check the order of numbers.

•  Focused library sessions. Computers can be distracting. You may find yourself trawling through photos of fluffy kittens or videos of people falling over - we're only human.  To help avoid these distractions, we suggest using your screen for positive, encouraging imagery. We like this:

We realise not everyone will respond to this imagery, so we have been accomodating and chosen pictures for your degree.

Law:

Chemistry:

Engineering:

Economics:

 

These images should help to remind you why it is you're here, what you're studying and what job you hope to get at the end of this. 

•  Don't get hungry while you work. Bored of Battenberg? Worry not, we've found another protein rich food that does wonders for the brain. Tasty and handy to take to the library:

• Think about your accessories. We had to stop wearing these ears that react with your brainwaves:
  
   

  
As you can imagine, they gave away our emotions when we saw notable library characters.

We switched to a more appropriate accessory, which we crafted ourselves:

      Were you fooled too?

•  Finally, don't forget to congratulate yourself when it's all over. Why not have a party? You can use our graduation party sign if you like.

With Bells On - Fuck. Graduation Party This Way! - 2011

Send us your essays, sums or stories and we will grade them for you.

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus! 

Ciao Ciao
(Miao Miao)
xxx

Give 'Em Hell, Kid

We're very angry today. Livid, livid.

We were rudely interrupted from listening to Fairport Convention's Who Knows Where the Time Goes? by the arrival of our landlord. Our relationship with him has changed over the year. Initially, we warmed to the man but this was ruined by an unpleasant incident on January 20th which involved him explaining to us the exact procedure for lowering the bathroom ceiling FOUR TIMES. Unfortunately the first three times there was a failure on our part to comprehend the situation, a failure clearly evident to him by our glazed expressions.

You can imagine how angry we've been since, when he has attempted to call us. As we now ignore our phones when we see his name, he is forced to turn up unannounced. Today was one of these days when he cruelly came to open our window for us.

We felt like this:

 El Lissitzky's Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge - 1919.

Obviously he assumed the position of the Red Wedge and us, the white circle.

We had to do what we always do when we are this riled up. We got out our letter-of-complaint template to the BBC. We're going to share this with you in case anything has made you angry recently:

We've thought of some instances when you might need to use this letter template:

• When your clip-art is stretched and you don't notice until you've printed out all the documents.
• To complain about the offensive, orange pudding on the Iceland Christmas advert.

• When you realise Rupert Eyles has ruined every song/poem/name by introducing 'proverbial' into your vocabulary:
  
  The answer my friend, is blowing in the proverbial, the answer is blowing in the proverbial
  
  

          O What can ail thee, knight-at-arms
           Alone and proverbially loitering?

• When a 30-something with Cath Kidston-clad children gets out their Amazon kindle.
• When your Spring centre-piece doesn't come together as planned.
• When your graphics program, Paint, fails to co-operate with you on your latest design.

Some people don't go through the BBC for their complaints. Some people write straight to the person who has offended them! Consider this instance when a lady, Jani da Silva, complained directly to us.

One of us had commented on a couple of BBC newsreader George Alagiah's photos:

 

Jani Da Silva was offended by some of these comments. Look how she took action:

 

Tenacious, isn't she?

Then, THIS:

As you can see, things can get vicious if you don't go through the BBC, like we do. If she had followed our BBC template the situation wouldn't have got so out-of-hand!

Make sure, next time you're angry you follow our advice.

Ciao Ciao (Miao Miao}
xxx

We get it on most every night...

One of us had a birthday recently. 

Katie Burch - With Bells On - 2011

Look, we had a party:

Other people have parties too. Sometimes our cold receptions at these have been unjustified. Other times, we deserved it. Follow our tips and see if you are received similarly. 


Before The Party 

• Having people round? Remove all pictures of past and present characters from the fridge. You don't want to reveal your secrets - It's embarrassing! 
• Invest in some party poppers. This isn't specifically a party tip, but we suggest you carry them with you at all times. We do. Use them to liven up boring situations, for example career talks or bus journeys.
• Make the centre-piece. Here's the Summer creation we made if you need inspiration:

Composition no. 14 'Centrepiece - Summer' - 2011.

• It's fine to name the sparkly bird. We named ours Charlie after a character we met at a party. Quaint isn't he?

• Make sure your guests know where to go and what they can expect from your party. Make a sign. You can print out our templates if you don't have time:

With Bells On - Champain Reception! - 2010

With Bells On - Fuck. Party This Way - 2011.

At the Party

• If it's your own bash, get the party started with some good 'meeting and greeting music'. We like:

• Know nothing about Drum and Bass? That's fine, it's shit. If you don't like the music DJ "Danny Byrd" is playing, request something you do like. You could request: Toploader - Dancing in the Moonlight. Don't take no for an answer! Be Tenacious - ask him thrice. 
• Feeling shunned from a party of 'ethical' people sitting on the floor? That's boring. Amuse yourself, obnoxiously.  Loud and inane chatter about your blog should sort this problem out!
• We've devised a quick and fun way to determine the personalities of a whole room full of people in an instant. Blare out the 1986 Casualty theme tune from Spotify. Stand back and watch the reactions. You'll soon know who is your 'type'.
• You want to egg his housemate? Tell him! Better still, tell him several times because you may be slurring.
• Don't worry about the fact they spent a long time making that Spotify playlist, they probably just forgot to include Toploader - Dancing in the Moonlight, so pop it on. Imagine yourself as one of Nigella Lawson's friends and enjoy a glimpse into the future, at your 30-something self.

Meeting New People - How To Deal With It

• Know their name from Facebook? Good start! Go and chat to them. Don't be afraid to use their middle name too.
• Help others to meet new people. Push them together with your hands and encourage them to embrace. Remember, be forceful if they are resisting.
• If you meet someone with a nationality that interests you, think of things associated with their country. Give them nickname options. A Greek man could be: Feta, Zeus or Trident. A Welsh man might be: Caerphilly Cheese, Sheepy, Gwasanaethau Cymdeithasol.
• When you add a new friend on Facebook, include a special message. We suggest picking an August Harrington Mallory quote [see 'Image and Word blog]. We like how luscious and tempting, great physiue, good firm and great skin tone, great balanced and strength, and it looks like you have a birthday coming up this year, well I have just the perfect giftcard for you, you look absolutely beautiful,

The Next Day

• Damage Control. You'll need to apologise for poking them on Facebook when you came home last night. We like to do ours in bed together, listening to folk music and laughing about Time and Thyme. We listen to 'Let No Man Steal Your Thyme' by Pentangle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwT0COKXFMM
• When you've seriously offended someone the night before, it is necessary to send them a nice song. If they're feeling as fragile as you they'll appreciate the softer, acoustic version of Toploader's Dancing in the Moonlight. 

Post us pictures of your parties or centre-pieces, and we'll rate them for you. Good luck! 

Ciao Ciao (Miao Miao)

xxx

Sorting Our Life Out

Look at these eggs:

FABergé ain't they?

Unfortunately, we were forced into an unforeseen text conversation yesterday with a character from the past. Here we are composing a particularly difficult reply:

You might be wondering 'how does this relate to eggs?'.  Well, following this text tussle we immediately began to compile a list of people we would like to egg. Here we are, struggling to prioritise the list:

Will you be on there? You'll have to wait and see!

Anyway, back to today's post.

Today was a very important day. As it's been a week since we finished exams, we thought it was about time to stop messing around and start thinking about our future. After archiving a few things we moved onto documenting.

We tackled an application that has been in the proverbial pipeline for months. We can safely say that we are one step closer to meeting Tim Wonnnacott and the gang of...Bargain Hunt! That's right, we finally did what you've all been waiting for, and applied to Bargain Hunt. We spent the morning in the study reviewing our form:

As you can tell, it was pretty stressful! It was an emotional roller-coaster as we struggled with expressing in words how much Tim and BH mean to us (we usually react by creating art). Needless to say we directed the BBC, twice, to our blog to look at a sample of Wonnacatts. If you're reading this, HI BBC!

Eventually we were very pleased with our application. Here is a small snippet:
 

Look! The BBC told us they got it!

 There's no excuse for not making time in your lives for Bargain Hunt, especially while you wait for us to appear on it. It's a shining example of British television. HI BBC!

If you are interested in egging anybody, please send their name and address to us on a postcard.
Ciao Ciao (Miao Miao)
 xxx