Serhan Gurkan has restored my faith in life, design & blogging! I haven’t been blogging much over the last few months. I’ve been feeling a bit disillusioned with the whole thing. Nothing much has turned me on, and the stuff I do like has usually gets posted by a zillion other bloggers in an endless circle-jerk of incestuous linking.

But something has fired me back up again, and it’s name is Serhan Gurkan. I don’t know anything about the designer or the products, and I don’t need to know, because the Fetish Gazelle & Fetish Madame Bovary products are so beautiful they make me dizzy. The fleeting glimpses offered by the website only add to capture my interest (other still photos available by behance are just as surreal and beautiful) and give me that feeling that I’m seeing something fresh in the world.

So thank you Serhan Gurkan! No doubt a million other bloggers will post much more informative posts on you than I, but this post, due to your products, has made me realise that there is still design out there that touches me & makes me want to tell the world about it; and that is what inspired me to start blogging in the first place.)

Graffiti: A Whodunnit Story. Last summer, whilst wandering around Italy, I took this photo. Some people take holiday snaps of the tourist attractions; I take photos of the cities’ graffiti.

I often wonder about the anonymous artists behind the work I photograph, so it was quite amusing to see the photo accompanying an article on Wooster Collective about the jerm IX tattoo project, which led me to this Flickr photo, which in turn led me to the artist, Microbo.

There’s no real point to this post. I was just amused by how the internet can help you make connections that you might never make without it. Ain’t the internet grand?

You bought a 50 year old blanket?!?!! I wanted a blanket. Not just any blanket. I wasn’t looking for an expensive & delicate cashmere throw; no, what I wanted was a vintage Swiss Army Blanket. A man’s blanket! But, you would be forgiven for thinking I was asking for the presidency of the moon, as it proved extremely difficult to get my hands on one in the UK. Then, I finally found the answer at Pedlars. They must have sent the teaboy to Switzerland to collect it, as it took that long to be delivered, but it got here in the end. Just in time for snow here in the UK.

So, if you’re cold, and you don’t mind buying a 50 year old blanket (they don’t make ‘em like they like they used to, you know!), you should get a vintage swiss army blanket.

Chill out in London. In these stressful financial times it’s good to hear that Buddha Bar, the famous chill-out Paris nightspot, has now opened a London branch. Located under Waterloo Bridge in a Grade 2 listed space, the place has been created by Raymond Visan, the creator behind the original Parisian Buddha Bar. So expect the oriental vibes, design, and food of the original, plus the signature hip chill-out music soundtrack (there are currently 14 best-selling Buddha Bar music compilations – if you like laid back chill-out tunes with an oriental flavouring, do yourself a favour and check them out.)

Find out more about Buddha Bar.

Water, water everywhere. Whilst wandering around Rome this summer I came across Aquastore, a shop entirely dedicated to nothing but water. Located in the Galleria Centrale of Rome’s Termini train station, the Aqua Store is a kind of high-end boutique offering a massive array of different types of water.

The water available is treated much like wine, in that there are many different types of water, and each has it’s time and place within certain situations. An in-store touch-screen computer acts as an electronic sommelier to help guide you in your water selection of choice, ensuring you make an informed choice. Unfortunately, a shallow design-whore like myself is just drawn to the pretty bottles, so the service would be wasted on me.

It seems the store have spread across Italy, and even branched out as far as Japan. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we’ll all be visiting the local water merchant to pick up a cheeky little vintage bottle for that hot date on the weekend. Until then, keep your eyes on Aqua Concept as they appear to be opening an online store soon!

…ding dong! the bells are gonna chime. This week is a bit special for Miss. Random Fashion Coolness and I – we’re getting married (to each other, just in case you hadn’t already guessed!) So…err…congratulations to us, or something.

Anyway, once the big day is over, the two of us are hitting the road for the rest of the summer. We’ll be prowling around Milan, Rome, Paris, Madrid, and Marrakech amongst other places – so if you’ve got any recommendations for cool and interesting places we need to check out in those cities, let us know!

Wish us luck!

Did you know that on average, two new Starbucks have opened every day since 1987? With Starbucks attacking on all fronts, it’s refreshing to see something as uniquely glorious as London Tea shop Teasmith fighting back against the growing coffee mono-culture.

Owner John Kennedy, a self-confessed ‘tea geek’, runs the contemporary teahouse offering customers the world’s best teas amidst a beautifully designed interior created by Jonathan Clark Architects. Accompanied by Miss Random Fashion Coolness, I visited the teahouse this weekend, and instantly fell in love with the place. As if the beautiful hanging bare bulbs of the interior design weren’t enough to turn me on, the teas, biscuits and chocolates (by master Chocolatie William Curley, no less) certainly finished the job. Although, the absolute jewel in the crown is reserved for the owner, John Kennedy. Never have I experienced such warmth and enthusiasm from the owner of any establishment. Even though we were just another couple of customers off the street for all he knew, he took the time to educate us in the culture of tea and the skills involved in making the perfect cuppa. Christ knows how he gets anything done if he’s as attentive to every customer as he was to us this weekend.

I’ve completely forgotten what teas we tried, as I was so engrossed in Kennedy’s tales of the tea world, but guided recommendation using his wealth of knowledge, resulted in experiencing some of the finest tea I’d ever tasted. However, I can definitely recommend accompanying your tea with the chocolate dipped fruit, and salty Miso flavoured biscuits (I know, right? Salty biscuits? Sounds so wrong, but incredibly it works so right!)

If you live in the capital, or you’re just passing through, make sure you take a pit-stop at Teasmith. Saturday is a great day to go, when the nearby Spitalfields market is closed, and it’s quiet. I can’t recommend it enough. Go and experience the best the world has to offer in tea, guided by one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

Teasmith is located at 6 Lamb Street, London.

eBay – the international flea market. Sometimes, you’ve gotta love eBay. Whilst it’s often full of scams and cut-price junk, if you’re lucky (and by ‘lucky’, I mean ‘obsessive’) you can occasionally find vintage gems. I’ve been an eBay convert ever since I bought an amazing vintage chesterfield sofa for 50p, but now my love for eBay is strengthened by another recent purchase. I managed to nab a vintage 60’s Semi light pendant.

These arc-shaped enamelled metal lights were designed by architects Claus Bonderup and Torsten Thorup in 1967 and produced by the innovative Danish lighting company Fog & Morup. The Semi was produced in a number of sizes, with each one being individually manufactured by hand by a skilled metalworker. The process involved spinning a 1.5mm thick aluminium plate onto a steel form and moulding it into shape with a thick leather-covered baton. I’ve seen several smaller versions of the Semi pop up on ebay, but never one of the huge large versions – so when I found someone in Denmark offering one, I had to have it! So eBay comes through for me again.

Find your unique vintage treasure on eBay (just don’t outbid me on all the cool stuff I want!)

Don’t call it a comeback. Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know it’s been a while since I last updated Things of Random Coolness, but I’ve been getting kind of side-tracked recently. I crippled myself due to a recurring back injury. I’d like to say that it was triggered by something manly like a motorbike accident, or a bar brawl, but it was more likely caused from being drunk and over-enthusiastic on a Nintendo Wii. Also, I then flew over to Spain to see in the New Year (fresh seafood and villas on the beach wins out over anti-climatic british pub celebrations everytime.) Then on my return I bandwagon-jumped on the new Norovirus craze sweeping the nation (suffering from winter vomiting disease is the new going out!)

Ultimately, these are all excuses for being lazy. However, It’s a new year, and although it’s a little stale to be making resolutions this far into it, I’m going to try and post more regularly this year. Starting tomorrow. Hopefully.

Gods get mail too! The wonderfully named design company Greece Is For Lovers, have made the mundane act of opening your daily mail into an event that’ll make you feel like a greek god. With your Zeus lightening bolt letter opener, you’ll be able to “rip through hatemail with the stealth and fury of Zeus! ”

See more work by Greece Is For Lovers.