What Poppy did.

I’ve gone…

Tumblr was good between the sheets but it was never meant to be. Posterous proposed, I said yes, we live in a beach house in California with a daughter and a sausage dog and all is just fine and dandy.

Tumblr is mega jealous, so is upstaging Posterous on the SEO front and lots of y’all still come to this site when you Google me….but I’m not here. I’ve gone.

Where I can now be found….

You can now find me posting daily outfits on WIWT - http://wiwt.co.uk

Or sometimes writing shiz here - http://poppyd.posterous.com

And obvs I’m on Twitter being boring snoring here - http://twitter.com/PoppyD

How to get your photos removed from a porn site.

My debut into the world of porn was an unexpected one. Like many (self-obsessed) people I have a Google Alert set up for my name, at some point before Christmas I was ‘alerted’ to the fact that eight or so pictures of me were being hosted on a rather crudely named ‘bustyskinny.com’. In case you haven’t heard of it, bustyskinny.com “brings you the most popular as well as the hard-to-find best natural busty skinny girls on the net. Some girls are models. Some girls are amateurs. But they are all naturally beautiful, busty, great boobs, skinny and thin.”

I’ll be perfectly honest here, my first thought was not “OH MY GOD THOSE BASTARDS!”, it was actually more along the lines of “Wooooo, someone thinks I’m naturally beautiful, busty, skinny and thin!”. As my hideous shopping trip for new jeans confirmed yesterday, skinny and thin I am not. 

After a few moments of laughing about the ridiculousness of it all with my then boyfriend, I went to Google myself to see how well the porn site performed when my name was the search term. When the site came up at the top of page 2, well ahead of many of the blog posts I’d written, site profiles I had and so on, I began to worry. Having an unusual name like mine has pros and cons when it comes to social media, it’s very easy for people to piece together a lot about me with very little effort. I didn’t want potential business contacts, friends, family (or anyone really) to Google me and then think that I’d posted my pictures on to a porn site.

The pictures that were posted were not pornographic. I would have been mortified if naked pictures had turned up online without my permission, but these pictures were not in the least bit sexy. I’ve always thought I’d make a good porn star, with enough strategic sucking in I can take quite a good sex shot, but the lead photo in my smutty debut was one of me sulking, stroppy, sunburnt and starving waiting for my breakfast to arrive in a Tel Aviv beach cafe - GLAM! There were some bikini shots but, again, these were not ‘sexy photos’. They were certainly not photos from some private collection, these photos were on both my Facebook and Flickr accounts as part of much wider holiday sets. The other photos of girls on bustyskinny.com were pornographic though, some were pretty hardcore.

Anyway, I contacted the site and told them to remove the pictures and all reference to my name and then forgot all about it.

In May I got a DM from Paul Lomax, he’d Googled me and the fourth result was my page on BustySkinny. He kindly got in touch to let me know in case I wasn’t aware of it, I’m very glad he did (thanks Paul!) as I wasn’t aware that the page was quickly climbing the Google rankings. I realised it probably wasn’t something to be ignored and put a shout out on Twitter for any advice on how to get the pictures removed as emaling the site admin hadn’t worked, lots of people (notably Barry Vitou, Ben Metcalfe and Barnaby Gray) stepped up with advice. Within a few weeks, the pictures were removed (and I felt invincible and had a peculiar urge to sue lots of people).

There’s a US copyright law called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, or DMCA for short, which protects you and I from having our copyrights infringed. If you ever find any of your photos being used without your permission, kinky or otherwise, then following these simple steps should help you get them removed…

Firstly, find out who hosts the website that is using your images. You can do this using a clever site like WhoIsHostingThis.com.

Then, email the hosting provider with a copyright infringement notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Your email needs to include the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature. [Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(i)]
2. Actual identification of the material you claim violates your copyright.  [Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(ii)]
3. Sufficient information to enable the hosting provider to locate the actual material you claim infringes your copyright. [Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(iii)]
4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit the hosting provider to contact you.  [Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(iv)]
5. The following statement:
   “I have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent of the law.”[Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(v)]
6. The following statement:
   “Under the penalty of perjury I state that the information contained in my complaint is accurate and I am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright I claim is infringed.”[Statutory requirement 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)(A)(vi)]

Now I’m no lawyer, obvs, but that worked for me. And if you ever find someone’s stolen your pictures without permission, then hopefully it will work for you too.

p.s

If the person who posted my pictures there is reading this, lemmeknow. I want to hurt you, kthxbai.

(Not quite Key) Lime Pie

So I haven’t posted here since February, and none of you have even bothered to question whether or not I had died. I can forgive you though, as I’m pretty certain that the only people who read this blog are my Twitter followers (who know by my incessant tweeting that I am very much alive and well) and my Mum. My Mum calls me around five times a day, she’ll know I’ve died before I do.

Why all this talk of death anyway? I don’t know. I’m here to talk about desserts, so I shall stop drawing attention to the fact I am a lazy blogger and get to the point - my ‘(Not quite Key) Lime Pie’.

Those close to me will know that I bloody love limes. They can transform about a zillion different recipes, make your fingers smell pretty after a good zesting session and can be used for one of my favourite (albeit dangerous) confessional games - ‘Clue or Lime?’.

I think desserts are possibly the reason that I was put on this planet, both to make them and to consume them. I will happily eat salad all week long if it means that I can gorge on profiteroles, tiramisu and treacle tart on the weekend and not feel even remotely guilty. There are few things more satisfying than cracking the perfectly scorched caramel of a creme brulee and revealing the wickedly creamy loveliness of what lies beneath.

I am not at home this weekend and so I wanted to make my hosts something to thank them for having me stay. I needed a recipe that was simple and fuss-free as I didn’t want to take over their kitchen, I also couldn’t be bothered to go to the shops so I wanted to use ingredients that they already had. Raiding their fridge and finding a bag of limes I quickly realised that my ‘(Not quite Key) Lime Pie’ was going to be the winning recipe. I call it ‘(Not quite Key) Lime Pie’ because the limes are not actually from the Keys, apparently they were from the Co-Op, and because it’s not really a traditional pie, it’s more of a cheesecake. That being said, it would be just as inaccurate to call it a ‘Co-Op Lime Cheesecake’ because there’s no cheese in the recipe either.

I digress.

To make this scrumptious dessert you will need…

For the base:

200g digestives (graham crackers for my Yank friends)

50g softened, unsalted butter

1 teaspoon of cocoa powder (optional)

½ teaspoon of ground ginger (optional)

For the filling:

Zest and juice of 4 lovely limes

300ml of double cream

397g tin of condensed milk

What you need to do…

The good news is that this recipe is so simple that even a monkey could make it. Start by chucking the softened butter, biscuits and cocoa powder and ginger (if using) into the food processor and whizz away until they’re all crumby and sticky looking. Once they look like the right consistency, press them into a 23cm springform tin. Personally, I line the tin because I don’t trust it not to be a bloody nightmare to remove at the end, so I’d suggest you line it too. Once you’ve made your base, stick it in the fridge.

Now on to the yummy part, the filling. Using an electric whisk, blend together all the remaining ingredients until they’re thick, creamy and you can’t resist putting your finger in every five seconds to taste it. Pour the mixture over the base, spread it about a bit with a spatula to make sure it’s nice and level and then stick it back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (or until it’s set).

I don’t know how many people to say this serves as I am exceptionally greedy and very generous with my portion sizes, but it’s probably between 8 and 12. I serve it with single cream.

And that’s it I suppose, a fantastically easy and naughty dessert. 

Do excuse the crap picture quality, blame the iPhone and the fact that by this point I was more concerned in eating it than photographing it.

Enjoy!

Living alone vs living with others….

I left home when I was 18 and, aside from popping back for the odd slice of banana bread or Sunday Lunch, I’ve lived independently ever since. I’ve had some rather nice addresses I must say, from living in super lovely WC1 to overlooking the sea on Third Avenue, Hove.

I’ve lived at my current London address for 18 months now, but this weekend marks the end of the first ever week that I have lived completely on my own.

So one week into solitary living, these are my thoughts on the pros and cons of living alone…

• When you return home from work everything is exactly where you left it, no more hunting for the mobile phone charger which has miraculously disappeared since you used it that morning. But, if you left the place messy in the morning, there is zero chance it has been tidied by the time you return.

• You get an entire bed to yourself, which means the joys of sleeping diagonally can be fully experienced and appreciated. The duvet is yours and only yours. But, the chances of a bit of hanky-panky are (understandably) greatly reduced when you’re sleeping alone.

• You never go to wash your hair/brush your teeth/clean the dishes and find that the shampoo/toothpaste/fairy liquid has been finished by somebody else and not replaced. But, you take full financial responsibility for all of these annoying items that aren’t fun to shop for but are life’s little necessities.
  

• It’s your night to choose what’s for dinner, every night of the week. No more arguing over whether spag bol deserves a weekly appearance on the menu (or was that just in my relationship?!). But, it’s always your turn to wash up.

• When you want to work, sleep or relax you can actually do so in complete silence. But, sometimes it’s just a bit quieter than you’d really like it to be.

• The wardrobe is yours. The wardrobe is yours. The wardrobe is yours. I dare you to find a downside to this point.

I was terrified I’d be lonely living on my own, but I find the pros definitely outweigh the cons (so far). I’m a bit confused as to how I will do ‘the big shop’ at Sainsburys on my own sans car, how do single vehicle-less people get their bags home?! I may as well warn you now that you may find yourself being drafted in to help me with that one.

I am praying to G-d, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Versace and anyone that will listen that I can negotiate my rent down so that I can afford to live here on my own for the foreseeable future. Otherwise, on the 15th of April I’ll be moving into new digs, most likely a flatshare with a bunch of strangers…an idea I find truly terrifying.

What’s nu?

You know when you’re a kid and the Top 10 is about the most exciting event of the entire week? For me, it was even better than going for fish & chips after swimming club. The Top 40 itself was worth getting giddy for but when you got to the Top 10 you knew you were on to something special. After all, in them days you actually needed to sell quite a few copies of a single to make it in the charts. I remember the first two singles I bought with my own money, I bought them on the same day in an HMV in Chester and they were cassettes. It was 1998.

The singles?

‘Horny’ by Mousse T and ‘It’s Like That’ by Run DMC (Jason Nevins remix).

I still count ‘It’s Like That’ as one of my all time favourite choons and I don’t know what it says about me that I was singing ‘I’m horny’ at the top of my lungs when I was, ahem, 11.

Anyway, I digress.

Here’s the top ten new things with me…

1. I have an iPhone. It was a Valentine’s present to myself, because if you can’t love you then you can’t expect anyone else to. I’m a big fan of Tweetie, Locly and my new pet Koi carp.

2. I attended London Twestival. And wasn’t it lovely? A real treat to meet lots of online peeps in the ‘real world’ and to catch up with all those I’m fortunate enough to already spend a lot of time with…and all in the name of charity:water. Get drunk and save lives? Yes please.

3. I watched Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. I highly recommend you do the same if you like to laugh and wish we all lived in the dizzyingly glamourous world of Film Noir. Films like this one make me wish I smoked, it always looks so god darn sexy in black and white.

4. I nearly had a pigeon in my bank account. My new marital status means I’m looking for new digs, Spareroom has been a source of strength for me as I’m probably going to share with a bunch of strangers (as scary as I find the idea). I fell in love with a one bed apartment in Holborn which turned out to be a scam, if you see any ads where the contact email is atameliat@googlemail.com…run for the hills.

5. Globrix had a love-in with Twitter. We’ve integrated a ‘tweet this property’ button into all of our property listings on Globrix, so now you can pimp your favourite properties to your Twitter friends with one easy click.

6. @PropertyPorn was born. Love sexy houses? Like to pretend you have a few zillion pounds in a Swiss bank account somewhere? Follow @PropertyPorn for your daily fix of hardcore homes.

7. I realised that I need to sort my health out. I don’t know if it’s the Jade Goody tragedy on the front of every red top paper, or just the fact that for a 21 year old I seem to be sick pretty much all of the time, but I’m going to sort my life the hell out. The boys at work say BMF is the answer. I’m sure fruit and veg is involved too. It starts next week…but this time I mean it, kinda.

8. I admitted that Eastenders is a bit rubbish at the moment. I know, a bit late to the game aren’t I?

9. I watched a lot of Flight of the Conchords. And I wondered, why is Bret not my boyfriend? We were clearly meant to be.

10. I continued with the never ending mission in my head to marry Dustin Hoffman. I could make him so happy if given half a chance.

And that’s about it. A lot less exciting than a real Top 10 chart, but I didn’t make any guarantees at the beginning of this post, did I? Hmmmm.

Breakfast with Jeff Pulver and friends.

What the hell is wrong with me, do I have no discipline? Evidently not. Hence, this blog post is a week later than I would have liked to have posted it. But there my negativity will end, because meeting Jeff Pulver last week was a real treat. Positivity from this point forward :)

So, last week Mr Pulver hosted his first ever breakfast in London taaaahn. Around 50 people descended on the ICA to meet the man himself and, of course, to network with each other. I’ve been an avid follower of Jeff on Twitter (@JeffPulver), we’ve chatted on Facebook and we nearly met a couple of times in Israel, but the timing was always a little skew-whiff. But although we’ve conversed a lot on t’internet, I had never met Jeff ‘IRL’ until last week.

As with all of Jeff’s breakfasts, the guests were greeted with pens and stickers and encouraged to write their own personal tagline on their name badge and to keep another sticker blank for the other guests to ‘tag’ them. Now we’re all used to tagging our content online, but to tag each other…in real time? That’s nifty.

I’ve kept my tag cloud and stuck it in the back of my diary as it’s a nice little reminder of the event. Some of the people tagging me where complete strangers, others people I’ve spent a lot of time with.

Don’t worry, I know I’m crap at taking pictures (maybe I should upgrade from the camera on my mobile?!) so I have done the honourable thing and typed out my tags…

• Social Medium
• Girl
• Lush (from @PhilCampbell, who is rather luscious himself)
• Trusty Person
• I am content
  
• Twit Chick
• Star on 12Seconds.TV
• Followed by many
• Muse (awwww, thanks Jeff!)
• Touch texts
• Listen (i.e don’t just look, from the lovely @loudmouthman)
• Look up (i.e away from my booby area, again the always cheeky @loudmouthman)
  
• I like your glasses
• Likes chocolate
• Tuc Tuc
• Shower Periods (that one was the charming @PaulWalsh, see previous post for context!)

I liked tagging others and I liked being tagged, it was a great way to network. If you ever get a chance to go to one of Jeff’s breakfast, then go dammit!

I was also lucky enough to have dinner one on one with Jeff that evening, many wise words were shared…but now I’m just showing off.

Me in the shower…

It’s not so sexy is it?

Every three weeks or so I recreate the Psycho bathroom scene, all in the name of vanity.

Whenever I’m in hotels I worry they think I have some sort of vampire fetish when the maids have to collect my towels the next day.

Red hair comes at a price, don’t let anybody tell you differently.

I went to New York…

…and it was lovely, thanks for asking.

I had only been once before, same time of year but in 2006. This trip was very different, I went on my own, didn’t indulge in cheesecake, and I learnt a lot. I knew I was supposed to learn stuff, I was going to a conference after all, but I didn’t expect to come back having learnt what I had.

All in all, a very nice trip. I’m writing a proper real estatey article about it for The Negotiator, assuming it’s put online as well as in the magazine I’ll link to it here when it’s published. On this blog, well, I’m not so into chatting real estate ya know?

It was very nice to be spoilt for a week, I won’t miss that feeling in a hurry.

If you’re going to NYC any time soon, here are some do’s and don’ts to help you on your travels…

• Don’t eat before travelling by cab, you will vomit.
• Don’t speak loudly with a British accent, people will gather around you in awe.
• Don’t drink rum. Don’t drink rum. Don’t drink rum.
• Don’t think about the environment when standing in Times Square. The flashing lights are pretty, the polar bears will have to get over it.
• Don’t bother exchanging your pounds for dollars. There are enough drunk people in every bar to ensure you don’t have to spend a penny.
• Do go to Pravda in SoHo for amazing cocktails.
• Do wear tights under trousers if going in Winter. It may not be sexy, but it’s practical. Actually, who says it isn’t sexy? I secretly enjoy wearing tights under trousers.
• Do what you feel like doing, there’s nothing fun about being a slave to a travel guide.
• Do eat streetfood. Whether it falafel of Kosher franks…it’s yummy.
• Do look up, it’s dizzying in a cute way.

See it says ‘Pop’…they knew I was coming baby!

More pics here.

An old life revisited.

Someone on Twitter was talking about how they’d reached their 4 year blogging anniversary and it got me wondering as to when I wrote my first blog post. I knew my email address (my hotmail one) turned 10 last summer, but when did I first don my blogging cap?

After some digging around trying to remember the URL to the darn thing, it turns out my first blog post was on April 26th, 2005. The blog, lovingly known as Pop*n*Fresh, can be found here (WARNING: there’s muchos swearing and debauchery, if easily offended).

I was in my final year of Sixth Form College studying Economics, History, Psychology, European Studies and Film Studies. I had been rejected by Cambridge, worked in kitchens, still drove a car and I regularly spent weekends chinwagging with the likes of Max Clifford and Frank Lampard. I spent a lot of my time drunk…

I kept up with that blog pretty regularly until its eventual demise in January 2006. It’s been pretty emotional to read all the posts as it was a pretty life-changing time. Caroline and Daniel, two of my most gorgeous, beautiful and naughty friends, died. I left college, left home, moved to London, started university and met the man that I’ve lived with ever since.

I’m pleased I found that blog. It’s nice to look back at a slightly wilder time :-)

Braving Oxford Street.

Oxford Street epitomises everything I dislike about London, it’s crowded, dirty, there’s too much traffic and it’s full of tourists who decide to consult their A-Zs in the middle of the pavement (when they’re not rubbing you up the wrong way with their wallets full of super-strength Euros).

That being said, I discovered a Cinnabon on New Oxford Street today, I’ve never seen one in London before so that was rather exciting. I somehow or other came to the conclusion that a ‘caramel pecanabon’ was healthier than what I was planning to have for lunch (burger, chips and lashings of garlic mayo at Eagle Bar Diner) and promptly shelled out £4 (yes, four bloody pounds) for something that after three mouthfuls made me feel very sick indeed…

After the consumption of a month’s worth of calories I hit the shops.

I did very well I have to say. I kept my breathing under control, kept myself plugged into the iPod as to drown out the sound of teenagers bickering about the last pair of discounted skinny jeans, and rid myself of Gregory at the sign of the first shop allowing me to concentrate on the mammoth task at hand. I bought a couple of pairs of luverly trousers, a dress, a strappy top, some funky long cardigans and these more gorgeous-than-thou shoesies…

Every girl needs shoes covered in diamonds. Okay, they’re not *real* diamonds but they are very sparkly in a way that the camera on my phone simply can’t convey.

I was wearing my canary yellow Burberry mac so I couldn’t buy anything in Selfridges (I didn’t want to clash with the bags) but that wasn’t really an issue in the end as everything on sale ranged from icky to hanus. There was a massive queue at Louis Vuitton which made my blood boil, I only needed to get a 2009 diary refill so I didn’t see why I had to join the queue but ho-hum.

After bumping into Jason from Take That on Bond Street I decided it was time to call it a day. My feet were blistered, my bags were heavy, and I had vowed to move away from London and never return.

Once I got back to my flat I tried on my purchases (a savvy shopper never attempts the queues for the changing rooms during Sale Season) and I quickly realised I’d been a bit optimistic when I thought I hadn’t gained a clothes size.

Oh well, the cardigans are long…nobody need know that I can’t do up the buttons on my new trousers!