Curious Christmas greetings

Forget the Adoration of the Magi, Christmas has become a time for all things kitsch and over the top. Last year we sent you Christmas greetings from Chelsea.

This year ShopCurious brings tidings of glad joy from wonderfully olde worlde Fulham. Yes, there was snow in London very recently, but as far as I’m aware, it’s never looked quite like this…

Other curiously quirky Christmas touches I’ve spotted recently include:









Crazy Christmas lights in the backstreets of Battersea.










A knitted nativity scene.








Timelessly thought provoking children’s art.











A stuffed stag's head decoration (from my guest loo).









A curious Christmas icon from Mexico (looks Christmassy whether it is or not).






My mother’s Christmas cake – purely ornamental and totally excessive as no one ever eats it, but she insists on baking one every year - and probably has several from Christmases past rotting in tins at home. And not forgetting all the peculiarly coloured festive drinks (read more about my experience of these over at The Dabbler).









Anyway, for those who are curious, I can confirm that Father Christmas didn't quite make it back to the North Pole - due to the snow he got stuck in Fulham.

Wishing you a fabulously curious Christmas Day wherever you are.

Are you?

A very curious egg

With Easter almost upon us, I thought it appropriate to mention a very curious egg by way of introduction to our new theme of ‘immortality’. For those who aren’t religious, there’s always the chance of an afterlife, simply by becoming the stuff of legend. Legendary figures such as dragons certainly seem to live forever.

Our latest curiosity is a genuine - okay, original vintage ceramic, dragon’s egg. This characterful little fellow comes courtesy of Chessell Pottery: a small concern, started in 1978, in a converted barn in the Isle of Wight, by John and Sheila Francis. Formerly lecturers in ceramics at the Commonwealth Universities of East and West Africa, the duo's designs are largely based on observations from nature. The hatching dragon was especially introduced for the 2000 Millennium year. (Incidentally, the next Year of the Dragon will be in 2012).




This quirky ornamental piece is guaranteed a very long shelf life. From dragons mentioned in Babylonian and Assyrian texts dating as far back as the 2nd Millennium BC, to the legend of St George and the Dragon – and even modern day computer games, let alone The Dragons’ Den - the legend of the dragon most definitely lives on, and on, and on...

Dragons have been treated in literature and popular culture with a mixture of fear and amusement. Written by Lewis Carroll in the late 19th century, Jabberwocky (below) from 'Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There', describes one of the most curious dragons of all time. As Alice says of the poem, “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas - only I don't exactly know what they are!”

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Take a peek at this curiously camp, though somewhat scary, clip from Alice in Wonderland c.1983. I’d like to know what's lurking inside that carefully gift-wrapped box. I suspect it may be a very unusual little egg from ShopCurious, that's just about to hatch...

Do you?

Spin and save

As it’s a Bank Holiday weekend, I’ve decided to start the new theme for May next week. In order to fill in the gap, I thought I’d spin you a bit of a yarn – excuse the pun, but this blog is all about the lost art of spinning.

Did you know that the spinning wheel was a standard piece of equipment in the 18th century home? Until the Industrial Revolution, ladies would spin whenever they had the time – in fact it would seem to have been the main preoccupation of the dutiful housewife, whether rich or poor.

Spinning actually started long before this - the first tools used to spin thread were rocks, but a stick was later added to wind the fibre. This type of drop spindle was used to spin the threads for Egyptian Mummy wrappings – and we all know how style conscious the Egyptians were.




Amazingly, you can still buy an original antique spinning wheel today – in fact we’ve got a fine example at ShopCurious. There are many different types of spinning wheel, but every single one is individually handmade and unique. Spinning wheels aren’t simply useful, they look homely and are very collectable as ornamental pieces of furniture – they can even look stylish in a modern, minimalist setting. Plus, when the nights draw in, you can always ‘draw the latch’ and ‘sit by the fire and spin’ – now how eco-friendly is that?




I was reading that ‘the story of weaving is interwoven with the history of man’ – but surely this should be ‘woman’, since recorded history shows that weaving has always been almost exclusively a female occupation. Of course, it took a man to revolutionize spinning with, firstly the Spinning Jenny – usually attributed to James Hargreaves, and then the invention by Edmund Cartwright of the power loom in 1787.

However, the very essence of spinning is female – as documented in a wealth of mythology and folk lore. These days nothing is confined to one sex or the other, so if you’re so inclined, do feel free to weave away. It might turn out to be a useful cost-cutting exercise during the recession – and you could even take a leaf from Mahatma Gandhi’s book and try to help stimulate the economy by making your own cloth. I’m sure that budding fashion designers are already instantly inspired to take to the wheel? Just don’t expect anyone reading this to still be around when your first collection’s ready.

Will you?