'Who you gonna call when your belly hurts, y'all? Egg Busters!'

This is a real quote from a real sign outside Waffle House somewhere in Tennessee.
The last few days have been quite unreal. We're now officially in the South. People's accents have thickened and they call each other 'y'all' like we're in a very big TV show.

While eating bananas around milepost 250 of the Blue Ridge Parkway, we had a quick chat with a middle-aged man. He heard our accents and said 'Doesn't it look like the hills of Scotland?'. We replied 'Yes. But bigger' and he replied with what has become the motto of our trip: 'Ain't nothing bigger than America!'

Reflecting on his comment, we pulled out at a café.

Bluff's café is not especially nice-looking but the waitresses are worth the trip. I won't describe them. All I will say is that they started working there between the café's opening in 1949 and 1952.

We got off the parkway after spending the night in what could possibly be called 'The best friggin' hotel in the world'. All the cabins had balconies with the most amazing view onto the widest sunset I have ever seen. The fact that we made the manager let us have the room for half the price helped too. We got up at sunrise and drank coffee on the balcony, waiting for the sun to come out to play.

Stumbling upon a Palin lookalike competition on TV, we realised it was Halloween and thought that visiting Ghost Town in the Sky would be an excellent thing to do. It wasn't. Well I guess it made us glad that we could now say we had been to the worst theme park in the whole wide world. If you drive past Maggie Valley, North Carolina, do not go to Ghost Town in the Sky. It sounds like the best place on Planet Earth (a theme park atop a mountain) but it is crappy and a little depressing. The only good good thing about it is that you have to get onto a chairlift to get there.

I have to stop typing. I feel ill from eating too much really really good fried catfish from Swamp John's in Muscle Schoal, Alabama.

Roadside attractions.

We've left New York. We went to pick up the car at Newark Airport. It's a red Dodge Avenger. It has a drink cooler above the glove box, several cup holders and hidden compartments.

We got out of the car hire and had a look in an excellent book for ideas on where to go. We decided to head to Roadside America. Here's what the website says:

ROADSIDE AMERICA is an unforgettable panorama of life in rural United States. The exhibit spans more than two hundred years in time and lets you see, in exquisite miniature, how people lived and worked in pioneer days … through the years since then … right up to the present.

In newspapers and magazines, ROADSIDE AMERICA has been acclaimed as the
greatest known miniature village—the most unique and detailed masterpiece of its kind in the world. Actually, it is not one village, but many—really the American countryside as it might be seen by a giant so huge that he could see from coast to coast.

It's one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. You pay for your ticket in a roadside gift shop, an old lady shows you to a tiny door, you push the door and enter a gym-sized room entirely filled with models of American villages throughout the ages. There are buttons to push (we chuckled at the inuendos) and a show every half hour. For the show, a man in a box dims the lights. A slide show about America and Jesus Christ plays and "God Bless America" comes out of the speakers. It is magical and Roadtrip USA weren't wrong when they said we'd find it hard not to shed a tear (well, I did).








This morning, we visited Dinosaur Land. Another roadside wonder. It's again, hidden behind a door in a souvenir shop. The whole backyard if filled with very old and tatty paper-maché dinosaurs. The epic battle was the best bit.

My amazing steak.

On our last night in New York, the girls invited us for some steak. We suggested Strip House on E12th. I had walked past Strip House almost everyday on my way to Jason's and it look real good. First, you can't see the inside from the outside. There are heavy curtains blocking the view and I'm a sucker for secret places. Secondly, it's called Strip House.

We ordered the porterhouse for two. The first bite was unbelievable. The best meat.

Strip House
13 E 12th St
New York, NY 10003
(212) 328-0000

Here is a quick list of some of the places we enjoyed eating and drinking the most in New York:

Dirty Bird – Posh fried chicken.
204 W 14th St
New York, NY 10011
(212) 620-4836

Westville East – Niman Ranch hotdogs rule.
173 Avenue A
New York, NY 10009
(212) 677-2033

Lombardi's – Pizza pizza pizza. Hardly needs toppings, the tomato sauce is something else so nice.
32 Spring St
New York, NY 10012
(212) 941-7994

Blue 9 – late night filthy burgers. The heart-burning Firecracker burger is really tasty.
92 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 979-0053

99 miles to Philly – disgusting Philly Cheese steak, but Ollie liked it. Eat one and hate yourself.
94 3rd Ave
(Between 12th and 13th st)

Liquiteria – Terribly overpriced disgustingly addictive juices
170 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 358-0300

Lil' Frankie's – Bring your ragu to my house now!
21 1st Ave.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 420-4900

My amazing leaving week

A couple of people who still work at Albion and myself have decided that I officially had the best leaving week in the history of Albion. Some people even mentioned the fact that I could probably compete for Best Leaving Week in the History of Work.

Each day came with its own treat. There was a budget put aside for my leaving festival and tasks were distributed.

On Monday, I had a tea party with expensive chocolates.
On Tuesday, I was treated to the ultimate complimentary plate of spaghetti arrabiata from Franco's in Rivington street (the best in town) by Teddy and Jonny.
On Wednesday, I was taken for another complimentary lunch; this time at the much more exclusive Rivington Bar and Grill.
On Thursday, I had a mani. And a children's party. With cheap pop, sweets and a piñata!

Have a look at the very nice post on the Albion blog.

Now all I have to do is find another job.

Camille Bozzini

This post should help google find my website when people type my name, Camille Bozzini. My name's Camille Bozzini and my website is http://www.therealcamille.com

Let me notify the internet once again that Camille Bozzini's website can be found at the address above.

Camille Bozzini

So let me get this right. My GRANDCHILD is a CAT?

Last weekend was twee. We went to Vermont for a wedding.

The nature in Vermont is amazing. We were there just at the right time and had a really nice walk in the woods to get to the Deer Leap overview which is a big rock on top of a mountain. You can sit on it and look at miles and miles of red trees, it's quite something. We even saw a snake on our way up there.

The rest of the State is basically a giant pot-pourri. All the shops are maple-syrup-scented gift shops and the roads have names like 'rustic drive', 'coffeehouse road', 'cream puff lane' and 'chipmunk alley'. The two first ones are real. Talking about chipmunks, we saw some in the City and they are cute! They didn't sing to us or try to help me get dressed which I found disappointing. We stopped at a gift shop to try and find a fridge magnet (don't ask) and all we found was a festival of miniature cushions embroidered with philosophical nuggets such as 'The one who dies with the most shoes wins' and my personal favourite 'So let me get this right. My GRANDCHILD is a CAT?'. I know it's supposed to be about modern couples settling for pets instead of human babies and middle-aged ladies being really sad about not having grand-children but those of you who are familiar with Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job will understand why it took me a while to try and understand what they were about.

I was going to insert the video here but I can't find it so download the whole show, watch it and when you get to the bit when Tim turns into a cat, boom! That's it!

Hey how's it going?

First post in America. We've been here for about 2 1/2 weeks and I've been so busy eating pizza and watching TV ads that I literally haven't had the time to update this. The main reason is that I keep thinking that no one reads this blog. But a couple of comments about how lame it is have made me realise that people actually stare at it for weeks waiting for something to happen.

In the last 2 weeks, we haven't done anything cultural. All we've done is walk around trying to buy as much stuff as possible. We've also been to Little Italy for the feast of San Gennaro to look at big men eat sausage and peppers and an evil clown say to a 4-year old Chinese boy something like 'Ching ching chong'.



We attended Pickle Day and waited in line for big gherkins on a stick and gave up.

We ate a lot of Lombardi's pizzas.

We went for an express visit to the monkey house of the Bronx Zoo.

We went to see the new Coen movie.



We went to a wedding in Vermont and bought a tent for our trip to Vegas.

Tate Modern Oil Tanks Tour

I went to visit this, this weekend.

Did you know that Tate Modern still converts electricity for South London?
They still have massive and really noisy converters all along the turbine hall on the right as you walk in. That's partly how they're going to finance this:

It sounds great. It will have 11 floors of galleries, cafés and educational bits and bobs. The Turbine Hall will be twice the width and twice the fun.

You have to give me cinq points.

Please go to this website and give all my designs 5 points. If you want, you can leave a nice comment. The name's FacileCamille.
It only takes seconds to register and I'll be posting a couple more patterns on there. If they get a good enough score, they'll make the fabric, sell it on their website and send me 5 meters for free.

Go! Go! Go! Get voting!

Save Polaroid.

Polaroid may be closing their factories at the end of this year. That would be very sad. Ilford were thinking of buying them up, then abandoned the idea. I found out from the Facebook group that one of their marketing rep was running a survey, which could mean Ilford are still thinking about it.

If you want to, you can fill in the survey below and send it back to jane.crossen@harmantechnology.com. I reckon it would help a little bit. You'll probably need to buy some films too. I feel a bit bad actually because I joined the Save Polaroid group and haven't actually bought Polaroid films in ages. So let's bring it back from the dead and use it!

Here's the survey:

Please rate your responses to statements 1 to 7a on a scale of 1-10 (1 being high and 10 low) and complete questions 7b and 8. Number 9 is optional but if you decide to answer it, please be as precise as possible

I love Polaroid because...
1. It allows the capture of spontaneous and instant images.

2. I like the feel, smell and tactile nature of Polaroid print.

3. I prefer analogue to digital technology.

4. I use it as a proofing tool.

5. I like the size of the image it creates.

6. It allows me to print real black and white silver halide images from the negatives.

7a. I like the quality and look of a Polaroid image.

7b. Please describe what it is that appeals to you about the look of Polaroid, eg its use as an artistic tool for expression.

8. What would you use to replace your current way of working when the supply of Polaroid film eventually runs out?

9. Any other comments (please be brief and explicit).

The Facebook group
The petition
The other petition
The other other petition

Peeing in the desert.

I remembered today that all the pics I had taken in Mali had disappeared.
I went to Mali with my mum and our oldest friends (they're not that old, they're just, you know, we-were-at-your-birth kind of friends).
We flew to Gao, and drove big 4x4 across the Sahara to Timbuktu and floated back to the airport on the Niger. I remember it as the best trip I have ever been on and almost cried when I realised that all the pics had disappeared when some asshole broke into our flat a couple of years ago and left with my laptop. Luckily, I had sent some of my photos and sketches to one of the old friends who has just sent them back to me.

The two best things about the trip:
1. Not having access to a toilet for 2 weeks and having to pee in the middle of the Sahara.
2. The air being so dry that you're never sweaty and when you laugh, your lips stay stuck over your teeth.

So anyway. Here they are.