I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil in the middle of a sleepless night earlier this week when my gaze rested on the juicer I bought five years ago. and I realised that other than the occasional wipe down I haven’t touched the damned thing for about four and a half of those five years. I certainly haven’t juiced anything with it. For lack of any other bright ideas at 3 in the morning I bunged it in the under-sink cupboard.

When I first got it you couldn’t move in my kitchen for apples and carrots and ginger. Friends visited to sample the amazing fresh beverages and almost all of them left my house on a mission to buy their own juicer. For a while we swapped recipes, tried to impress each other with new things to juice. Then it all stopped and we silently went back to eating our fruit and veg.

I’m beginning to think that Facebook is like that juicer. Perhaps it just hasn’t successfully made the transition from its beginnings as student networking tool to being used by such as me, but I’m not convinced that it’s tried that hard anyway. Like an affordably-priced kitchen gizmo, long-term allegiance doesn’t seem to be an important brand factor.

For the first time ever, the four paintings that make up Walter Sickert’s ‘Camden Town murder series’ have been brought together with many other of his nude studies. The paintings, many from private collections, are being shown at the Courtauld Gallery in the lovely Somerset House until 20 january 2008.

Sickert is said to have begun the series after becoming fascinated by the murder of a local prostitute, Emily Dimmock, found in bed with her throat cut. There is nothing so grisly in his paintings, but a more anonymous threat both in terms of the smudged, dark shadows and obscured features of the women and their customers and also in the conditions in which they live and work. There is of course a great tradition of artists using prostitutes as models. The great beauty in Sickert’s paintings is his interest in the social truth of their lives, he doesn’t dress his nudes up as something they are not.

Recently poor old Walter (or ’sick heart’ as someone in my art history class used to call him) was in danger of becoming less well known for his work and more famous for the accusation made by Patricia Cornwell that he was Jack the Ripper. This article in The Guardian goes into more detail about that. Sickert’s attraction to the underbelly of London life always shone a dark light on his reputation but whether or not you believe in the theories, what cannot be denied is his importance as both artist and social commentator.

being famous for entertaining the public just isn’t enough. models, actors, singers, chefs and sports people alike have realised that there’s big bucks to be made from products bearing their name. taking a sip of suntory whisky for millions of yen is only the beginning of the opportunities available to a superstar, especially if they’re good looking (i know i’d enjoy a drink with bill murray, but when it comes to clothing it’s scarlett johansson that gets the deal).

perhaps it was only a matter of time. maybe i should have seen it coming… but on the train to work this morning a small ad in the back of the free paper made me laugh out loud.

0.12 seconds of googling later and the details emerged. set up in 2005, kylie is planning to sell sofas to the world from the factory base in china. the mantra in the studio this week is “be nice” so i’m saying nothing else except that i have no doubt a lot of british bottoms are going to be sat on a kylie minogue sofa in the very near future. i’ll hold out for that drink with bill.

my eye was caught this morning by a new range of beauty products illustrated by stina persson. the brand is face boutique, and the products have been specially formulated for teenage and 20something skin, containing no sulphates, parabens or petrochemicals. the packaging is biodegradable too so you can feel all-over good about your beauty routine.

while beauty products aimed at the youth market are pretty commonplace these days, face boutique have gone for a grown-up, feminine and luxe approach. and it’s only sold online and in serious beauty establishments not chemists and supermarkets. so now you can control your spotty skin without the embarrassment of using the same product as a 13 year old boy. fabulous darling.

prices range from £8-£12 for individual products in ranges of skincare, bath and hair and £22 for the body kit. available in the uk from space nk

the make lounge is a fairly recent and very welcome addition to the london after-work circuit. “meet people make stuff” is their call to action and they run a selection of workshops through the year using eco-friendly techniques and materials.

top of the list for new year is this japanese binding workshop where, for £45 including materials, you can make your own 2008 diary, scrapbook or notepad. ideal for making a note of all the other things you want to make and do next year.

check out sister site make london for a lively blog on lots of other crafty things and people in london.

the award for “damn i wish i’d thought of that” this month goes to whoever brokered the hook-up between lomo and the white stripes. it might not make either party a mind-blowing heap of money but it’s exactly that kind of honesty about the deal that makes it so much fun.

perfect partners, lomo and the white stripes both excel in being the guardians of lo-fi retro hip and vivid colour (albeit only three colours for the stripes).

both medium format cameras come in white stripe colours and have special edition extras. choose from the meg diana+ or the jack holga. guaranteed to add some giddy pizazz to the winter months ahead. lookee-here for more info