Quaint Views of Utah

I have never been to Utah, more's the pity, but I found myself strangely attracted to a sheaf of little cards I found in an old print shop in London. I have no information about them at all (too big to fit in a cigarette packet, too small for a message) but they're good examples of the Boring Postcard genre and more importantly of charming early print techniques.

Ugly Bunnies and then No More Fluffy Tails

This is the last of the bunnies on Rose C'est La Vie for a long time. I can't believe I've had such an animal cluster when I would rather not be thought of as 'an animal lover'. Some mistake surely.

My clever niece Julia alias 'Betty Confetti' lives in Buenos Aires. Performance artist and musician, she is witty, subversive and occasionally enigmatic. Her girl band called The Kellies are riotous and knowingly faintly daft and I look forward to their British tour in July.



Julia, the Colgate Toothpaste girl, has developed her Ugly Bunnies over the years and I present them here.



Yin Yang

Definitely a good place for parties


Not Everything is black and white


Love Me


Love is Weird


Desperate phone call




Hard core
Drugged Bunny

Greek Key Pattern: Inspirations

The Greek Key Pattern is becoming a key motif in interior design and rather than present contemporary examples, I thought I would look back to some very early examples and ways in which it has been appropriated in more recent times.


Silk dress with velvet Greek key pattern trim, 1855. This was worn by a girl aged about four years. From The Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London



Mosaic floor illustration from classicaljournal.org





In the lobby of The Longacre Theater, Broadway recently restored at http://wirednewyork.com/forum




Parts of the Phillip ivory shield found in the Vergina Tomb, Central Macedonia, Greece at
ancient-medieval-macedonian-history.blogspot.com



Directoire gown worn with red shawl with Greek key border, from Costume Parisien, 1799 at
http://www.tetradequestrian.com




Cast iron Greek Revival style balcony at http://www.hiddenhousehistory.co.uk


A detail from the former Detroit Savings Bank from pinehurst19475 at Flickr




Mosaic floor from http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com


Top: Archaeological Museum in Milan, (Italy). Fragment of an ancient Roman (1st century BC) mosaic. Picture by Giovanni Dall'Orto

Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

Hmm, I DO. No I DON'T. Yes I DO. I don't know. If anything's going to convince me that all I want is what I've got it's this. Frank Sinatra seduces us all into not caring a fig or a fabergé egg in one of my all-time favourite films HIGH SOCIETY.

All The Presidents' Dogs

The Guardian website is fantastic! I've raided it again for archive pictures of Bo the Portuguese Water puppy's predogcessors..



The Obama family meet Bo at The White House



President Herbert Hoover with the First Lady and their dogs 1932. Photo: AP


President Franklin D Roosevelt and Eleanor with Meggie 1933. Photo: AP



President Lyndon B Johnson holds Her by the ears watched by his other dog Him 1964. This picture famously engendered criticism from dog lovers. They probably objected to the names as well? Photo: Charles P Gorry/AP



President Richard Nixon in 1970 with L to R Irish setter King Timahoe, Yorkshire terrier Pasha and French poodle Vicky. Photo: Pictorial Parade/Getty



President Gerald Ford and his daughter Susan with their golden retriever in 1974.
Photo: John Duricka/AP



President Ronald Reagan and Nancy with Lucky 1985. Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP



Vice-president George Bush with Barbara holding the family dog in 1988.
Photo: J Scott Applewhite/AP



President Bill Clinton giving his dog Buddy a kiss in 1998.
Photo: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty Images



President George W Bush and Laura with their telegenic pets Barney and Miss Beazley 2006.
Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP




Top: The Obama family's long awaited six-month old Portuguese Water Dog, a gift from Senator Edward Kennedy. Photo: Pete Souza/The White House

Sunday Supplement: Sheep May Safely Graze

These images of sheep are taken from my sketchbook. I belong to a group of artists in Hampshire (UK) that I call the Pedigree Chums. Last spring we went to a local farm to draw a range of livestock so here is a selection that I've coloured and edited and which seem appropriate to the time of year.

Happy Easter

Top: In the Pink of an Eye
Below: Bunnycuddles

Both Acrylic on canvas 24 x 30 ins © Rosie West
Enquiries to me at westbuzz@btinternet.com

Easter Bunny

Neil Monroe 'Bunny' Roger was one of the great dandies of the 20th Century, in the tradition of Beau Brummel and Oscar Wilde.

Clive Fisher in an article in The Independent 1997 describes him thus:

Erstwhile couturier, wit, dandy, landowner, and social ornament, Bunny Roger was what obituary in its obliquer days styled a lifelong bachelor and what gossip columnists knew as a flamboyant homosexual. Not that the phraseology of old Fleet Street would have distressed him: he was nothing if not implacably conservative and as the last of a kind he could scarcely expect new labels. Equally, the Queen’s English (like anything else remotely royal) deserved veneration and there was one term he always resisted: “You can’t call queer men ‘gay.’ Apart from anything else, they’re all so miserable. The Greeks were more accurate when they called the Furies the ‘Kindly Ones’.”

He was the second son of self-made Aberdonian magnate Sir Alexander Roger and Lady Roger, an extravagant beauty. Always with plenty of wealth at his disposal he entertained lavishly and dressed exquisitely to a code of his own invention. Broad shoulders, narrow waists, slim trousers, no turn-ups formed his signature silhouette. These were his measurements

Waist: 29"
Chest: 40"
Inseam: 32"
Shoe: 7 (English size)


Sotheby's Catalogue 1998 That evening suit looks like a dark green brocade, how lush.

The Sotheby's Catalogue, when his personal effects were put up for sale in 1998, noted that he would order up to 15 suits a year from Saville Row tailors Watson, Fargerstrom & Hughes , each costing up to £2,000 which was quite something in the 1960s. His high-crown bowlers were from Herbert Johnson.

Sotheby's Catalogue. The Closet


Possibly everyone's favourite anecdotes about Bunny Roger's are best put by Simon Wall in the Guardian:

Fighting for the British Rifle Brigade during the second world war, he went to battle wearing a chiffon scarf and brandishing a copy of Vogue. Once, when his sergeant asked him what should be done about the advancing enemy troops, Roger, who liked to wear rouge even with his khakis, replied, "When in doubt, powder heavily." When he ran into an old friend in the hellish, bombed-out monestary of Monte Cassino in Italy he responded to his pal's incredulous "What on earth are you doing here?" greeting with one word: "Shopping."


Roger, like all proper dandies, rivalled Wilde in the one-liner department. When a gobby cab driver yelled from his window, "Watch out, you've dropped your diamond necklace, love," Roger replied, in a flash, "Diamonds with tweed? Never!"

Bunny Roger 1911- 1997.

"Dandyism is the result of the spontaneous combustion of personality and attire. The desired effect is ignition, not detonation. You want to make an impression on others, not a spectacle of yourself." John Ian Robert Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford at dandyism.net