Link Love #26

1. How to get that perfect Instagram flat lay {via Refinery29}


2. Seven things successful women always say yes to {via Darling Magazine}


3. How handbags, and what we keep in them, have changed over the years {via Cosmopolitan}


4. This year's best drone photos, taken all over the world {via TIME}


5. An image that applies to every British person right now {via Instagram}


6. The greatest lessons we learnt from Legally Blonde {via Mashable}


7. On now simply changing your password, can completely change your life {via Huffington Post}


8. Pairing the right flowers to the right vase {via Domino}


9. A collection of the cutest succulent containers {via Brit + Co}


10. The new trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has got me so excited {via Warner Bros}

Keep it real, amigos.

~ Eleanor xo

What Not to say in a Job Interview

Today marks a whole year since I missed the phone call from my recruitment agency telling me I'd actually managed to blag myself a job. True story. I genuinely missed the call. Luckily, I was able to call her back pretty quick, whole-heartedly expecting to hear another rendition of "they really liked you but....". So in memorial of this momentous day, I'm finally publishing the below blog post, which I wrote during my job search. I hope it provides a little inspiration, or failing that, a good laugh xo.

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I don't know how to tell you guys this, but I seriously loved the whole 'unemployed graduate' thing. I mean, every day that recruitment agencies ignored my emails, rejected my applications and lost my phone number, it was all just one big confidence boost after another. I was bursting with so much pride and confidence, it could've been weaponised.

Psych! It was hands down the worst time of my life.

I won't lie to you, when I started my job hunting journey, I had next to no interview experience (I wonder if that's obvious by the below...), so I had pretty much had no idea what I was doing or what I should be saying. Now, ten points to Gryffindor if you can work out why the below statements caused me to not get hired...

1. Me: "...I once spent a summer doing nothing but scanning and it basically made me want to kill myself"
   Interviewer: "There will be scanning involved in this role"
   {Of course there will be}


2. Interviewer: "So tell me about yourself. Tell me what you're about"
   Me: *Internally wets self* "Umm well at uni I studied..."
   {Good one Eleanor, he now officially knows you have NO LIFE.}


3. Me: "Haha, so I'd get to pick up the phone and boss people around?"
   Interviewer: "Ha, well we tend to call it 'manage'"


4. Interviewer: "How would you say you work best?"
   Me: "I tend to work quite well under pressure [insert incoherent babble about stuff my brain has quite clearly blocked me from remembering for a good reason]... So what I'm saying is, I tend to get the best results when my life is going really badly." *Mentally punches self in the face*


5. Interviewer: "So does that all sound good?"
   Me: "Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeahhh... I'm just saying yeah a lot now." *Awkward laughter*


6. Me: "Sorry, my brain's just trying to process it all in-case there's a test at the end" *mimes writing a test*
   Interviewer: "There's no test"
   {What a waste of a perfectly good mime.}


7. Interviewer: "So why this industry?"
   Me: *Gives long winded explanation and probably goes off subject* "Well I think I probably just used up all the fifteen minutes with that answer so I'll just leave now"


8. Interviewer: "So what do you read, newspaper wise?"
   Me: "Well I'd say the Daily Mail but my dad would never speak to me again"


9. Interviewer: "So how many twitter followers do you have?"
   Me: "Well, probably not as many as you... But one of them is Britney Spears"
   *pause where I'm not sure what's going on*
   Interviewer: "Wait, Britney Spears follows you on twitter? How! Why isn't this on your CV. That's the kind of thing you need to put on your CV!"
   {It is now on my CV}


10. [A couple of days after the interview]
    Recruitment Agency: "I know you were only late to the interview because of very heavy traffic which couldn't be helped, and you informed us in time, but this company are very big on punctuality so it's not looking good..."
    Me: "I totally get that being late isn't a good quality but there was literally nothing I could do about getting stuck in traffic... I think not offering me a job simply on those grounds is a bit... well... Nazi like"
    {Luckily for me, I didn't actually want that job, but I can't say calling the HR team "Nazi's" would've really helped my case if I did...}

There are probably about a bajillion more examples that I could pull up for you to enjoy but I think we all get the picture here: I am not gifted at interviews. And I am in no hurry to relive this experience. *Hangs head in shame*.

~ Eleanor xo

How to build a Jaguar without really trying

If there's one thing you should know about me (besides the fact that I never say no to champagne) it's that I love giving gifts. Not just any gifts. The kind of gift that shows how well I know that person but is also something they'd never buy for themselves. Enter, the birthday present I gave to my dad in January: a tour around the Jaguar Manufacturing Centre in Castle Bromwich.

In case it wasn't already obvious, my dad loves Jaguar cars. And since I'm not quite in the financial position to buy him one, I figured that seeing how they're made may suffice for the time being. It's all totally legit, we didn't break in during the night to take a look around, Jaguar have simply cottoned on to a monumental money-making scheme. It's genius really, and to be totally honest, worth every single penny.

The factory itself was once homed to one of the largest producers of wartime aeroplanes during the second World War (much of the country's Spitfires were built in the buildings that are still in use on the site), today though, it is the main assembly plant for Jaguar Land Rover, and produces the XF, XJ, XK and F-Type Jaguar ranges.

Wearing a high-vis jacket with 'VIP' written on the back and a headset that makes you look like the world's lamest tourist, you, a group of about nine others, and a dedicated tour guide get to spend three full-on hours following the production line of the F-Type sports car.

Right from the beginning at the Press Shop, where lightweight sheets of aluminium are pressed by ginormous machines and robots into the pieces and panels of Jaguar cars (it's really super loud so disposable earplugs are supplied); To the main production house, or 'Body Shop', where those aluminium panels are expertly crafted, shaped and 'riveted' by both man and (scarily majestic) machine until an actual motor vehicle rolls out the other side. Then it's into intense testing (think monsoon weather, high powered heat, an inspection of every inch of body work, and trying out all the electrics) after which the car roars into life and is parked up outside, ready to be shipped to its owner.

Each Jaguar is completely bespoke, and honestly, no two we saw looked the same. The vast majority of cars built at the factory are exported around the world, with people waiting six or so months to receive their utterly individual sports car.

Sadly you're not allowed to take any pictures inside the actual warehouses, but the day was so interesting and intense that I almost didn't have time to miss it. The tour guides really do know their stuff inside and out; every possible detail you could wish to know about a Jaguar car will be bestowed upon you during those few short hours (including that they take small samples of the paint they cover their cars in out to the dessert and leave it there for two years, to ensure it doesn't fade or lose any of its Jaguary pizzazz. Pretty cool, right?).

If you're ever in need of a gift for a male in your life, or you simply want to try out something different, I cannot recommend this tour enough. It was so much fun and absolutely worth the two-hundred mile round trip. If only I'd been able to drive away in that beautiful XJ I tried out. Seriously, you could live in that thing *sigh*.
~ Eleanor xo

The Jaguar Visitor Centre, Castle Bromwich, Chester Road, Castle Vale, Birmingham, B35 7RA