Stella For Star

Poker Run Motorbike Rally June 5th

2010-06-08T18:25:00.004+01:00

Me and my bike out for a zoom around East Sussex with some other nice bikers:

That's me in the middle...

Rally site with bonfire ready to go:

And other nice bikes.

Channel 4's Alternative Election Night

2010-05-07T13:31:00.004+01:00

To while away the boredom while the election got under way, at my house we flicked between the BBC's coverage and Channel 4's Alternative Election Night. Channel 4's effort was a somewhat entertaining combination of comedy and politics featuring studio chats with guests and election-themed programmes such as a special edition of Charlie Brooker's You Have Been Watching and an episode of Come Dine With Me featuring "political" oddballs such as Edwina Currie and Rod Liddle.

But hang on, what's Lauren Laverne doing here? On tuning in, Laverne appeared as joint-host, in a rather fantastic multi-coloured dress. In the lead-up to the night you might never have guessed it, as all the press pictures focused on the heavy-weight male comedy hosts, good old David Mitchell, sardonic Charlie Brooker and gag-master Jimmy Carr. There was a special booklet in the Guardian last week which featured a picture of the trio on the front and the same images dominated the Channel 4 website. Laverne was mentioned inside the Guardian booklet, but really the enduring images for the programme suggested that this would be three-man show.

This is weird, because Lauren Laverne appeared right at the beginning of the show and appeared to have a real role in anchoring the segments, whereas Charlie Brooker's appearance was much less frequent and central, and particularly not til later when his pre-filmed You Have Been Watching was screened. So why did Lauren Laverne seem to be edited out of the promotion for this programme? Was Channel 4 scared that putting a woman in the picture might put people off, whereas the three males are popular figures of clever satirical comedy? The promotional images showed the three men standing together in overstyled comedic poses, promising witty banter and caustic wit. Why could Lauren Laverne not be part of this 'club'? It has already been discussed how women are frequently sidelined in satirical TV comedy, and I wonder if this was part of the same problem. I happen to love Charlie Brooker and am not exactly a massive fan of Lauren Laverne's but it just seems a bit unfair that given her equal role on the show, Channel 4 found it necessary to edit her out of much of the imagery used to try and draw people in on the night.

The problem with vintage clothes....

2010-04-26T11:29:00.006+01:00

What we've come to describe as 'vintage' clothes have been in fashion in a big way since the 1970s (and longer probably, eg. see how the teddy boys adopted Edwardian garb in the 1950s...). And in that time a distinction has grown, so that items are deemed not just 'second-hand' or charity shop cast offs, but 'Vintage'.

Vintage doesn't just mean old. Like a fine wine or an aged cheddar, vintage is rare, classy and special. Vintage clothes are also frequently mid-20th century, usually dating from the 40s to the 60s. As a lover of old things in general, a raider of charity shops and hoarder of curios, I admit I have been sucked in a bit by the allure of vintage. Vintage clothes provide colourful, unique and quintessential examples of an era's particular style. They also have the aura of history about them: evocative as relic of a social past, the everyday items worn by living breathing people so long ago when we imagine people looked so different.

I went to the Frock Me vintage clothing fair this weekend in Brighton. This event is a prime example of the frustrating nature of the vintage clothes market. Firstly, vintage clothes are now so irritatingly chic (note the website boasts Alexa Chung's new TV show inspired by the fair) that it almost makes me want to go around dressed in some kind of anti-fashion secondhand clothes... a shell suit paired with an old ladies housecoat perhaps? But there's probably a niche market for those as well.

At Frock Me most of the stalls are run by the same people who often run antique shops: vaguely arty-looking middle-aged, middle-class looking women, who in their youth probably themselves ransacked charity shops and car boot sales for their own clothes. Now what these middle-class women now do is make a fast buck by selling over-priced second-hand clothing to young people!

There has always been a market for vintage clothes, and people have always made money cherry picking 'fashionable' items and them on at profit - look at the late Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's 'Sex' boutique established in London's Kings Road in the 1970s. However at Frock Me dresses typically cost anything from £35 to an eye-watering £100+. There's no rhyme or reason often to the pricing, a wispy cotton sun dress can sometimes cost the same as a heavy evening gown if it seems to be tapping into the right style zeigeist. And what gets me that these aren't always crisp museum pieces - on closer inspection there are often visible marks and tears, zips might be coming away, or fabric faded. The essential part of any second-hand shoppers garment check is the 'armpit inspection' (and sometimes sniff) and many of these expensive items had unsightly staining in this area too. Eeewwwww. On ebay this is often referred to as 'vintage condition' - another way of saying it will probably disintegrate within 5 minutes of wear, or walk out of your wardrobe in it's own with all the bacteria teeming around its seams.

Vintage clothes shops need to get real about this, that people shouldn't be asked to pay through the nose for clothing which is often just old in the worst sense, just because it dates back to some era which we now think is 'cool'. What also erks me is that the rise of ebay and Vintage clothes shops have thinned out the pickings at charity shops, which offers the 'thrill' of the discovery of a good piece, as well as money to charity. I'm also concerned that donations to charity shops have reduced as people choose to sell their better quality cast-offs instead.

Interestingly though, at Frock Me it wasn't that busy, many of the stallholders looked quite tired and bored, and I overheard mutterings that business hadn't been great. Well this is recession darlings! Fashionistas are vulnerable to the credit crunch too! Most people probably chose to treat Frock Me as I did, as a kind of museum visit. I enjoyed the eye candy of all those lovely fabrics, beautiful brooches and elegant hats, but I came away without regret that I hadn't splashed out £60 on a cotton sundress, even if it did have the added 'authenticity' of fag burns and 40-year-old tea stains.

(Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/dustinq/558884757/)

Honda Hero and Kitties

2010-04-15T19:46:00.003+01:00

Image from my recent trip to India.

Two of my favourite things -- cats and motorbikes. Frequent sights in India too, motorbikes being a highly favoured mode of transport and stray cats also being rather common, although this time I was lucky and caught them both at the same time.

Go Spada! Go!

2010-03-04T10:29:00.004Z

I thought it was time to post a tribute to the wonderful Honda Spada, owned by my dad.

I learned how to ride a motorcycle on the Spada, going round and round car parks practising my clutch control, steering and braking. It's a perfect bike for a learner, with a nice low position (great for my short legs) and fairly light build.

I also did my first 100mph on the Spada (under strict test conditions of course...), when my dad proposed we test its speed capabilities. And for sure the Spada really comes to life when you've torn up your learner plates, make the engine roar happily and zoom off up the road with its nippy acceleration. My dad is also very chuffed as it was a complete and utter bargain at around £300; he bought the bike not really knowing much about the model which made the discovery of what a gem it is so much the sweeter.

Everyone that sets eyes on this cute bike or hears its wonderful low purr falls in love with it instantly. I think it's partly to do with its unusual appearance, and also the fact that it packs quite a lot of power for its 250cc size. A Japanese import, this website set up as a tribute to the Spada calls it a 'kick-butt little legend' while this pretty little yellow Spada sold in Australia for almost £2000.

Hooray for the Spada!

WANTED BY WICKED WITCH!

2010-01-13T14:26:00.001Z

New year, new book

2010-01-07T13:37:00.004Z

I had to buy this. After all, it takes pride of place in the kitchen of Betty Draper (Don's wife in Mad Men) who despite the serious discontentment and extra marital affairs has the veneer of the domestic goddess. I particularly had to have it as the set designers have been a little sloppy in their historical research... while the book stands out like a beacon on Betty's 1963 kitchen counter, the first edition of the book wasn't actually published until 1967.

Looking forward to trying out the 'wealth of ideas for today's entertaining'....

Let it snow

2009-12-21T23:07:00.002Z

Almost a white Christmas in Brighton...

Pie and Mash (no eels today)

2009-10-25T16:43:00.006Z

Charity shop joy 2:

2009-09-20T10:42:00.002+01:00

Charity shop joy:

2009-09-09T17:38:00.008+01:00

Who needs ebay?

Winter coat sorted, £5

Winter food sorted (mmm, Egg and Cabbage Cream) in the Everywomans Cookbook, £1.49

Plus a freebie tucked inside the book, EAT BRITISH with the Archers:

A home for my records for £19.99 (extravagant perhaps, but it's for charity after all)

Moomin plate, 99p

Interesting DCE brooch, £2

Abstract Sarah Coventry brooch, 99p

And finally, the best Simpsons compilation EVER, 50p (plus Breakfast At Tiffany's for free)

Bank holiday, bikers and beer

2009-09-01T16:33:00.005+01:00

London Calling...squirrels, bbq and wine

2009-08-27T22:51:00.014+01:00

The 'big smoke' and wine tasting at the Rose & Crown:

One sunny day...

2009-08-25T18:49:00.004+01:00

And everyone heads to the beach...not everyone eats curry on the beach though, maybe we were trying to pretend we were in more tropical climes.

Summer in Milan

2009-08-19T10:58:00.009+01:00

On Lake Garda, interesting aviation memorial in Desenzano del Garda:

Nice people on the boat from Desenzano to Sermione, other side of Lake Garda:

Sermione:

Gelato and castle in Sermione:

Spot the odd one out:

Views around Sermione:

Ruins of the home of the poet Catullus, Sermione:

Relaxing by the swimming pool, Vimercate:

Sights of Milan:

Food!

Glastonbury 2009

2009-06-30T09:57:00.019+01:00

My tent, all tidy and dry on the first day, and survived intact the occasional downpour and mud splattering:

Collecting water, very organised:

Glamourous ladies of Glastonbury (soon to be muddy) on the first day:

Karen, happy and sunny:

Next moment, Jane sad and rainy:

The changeable weather made pretty skies though:

Found a diner:

And had a dance:

The slippery mud made it easier to do the moonwalk:

The Eavis sand sculptures:

Spot the pun:

Jane's having a good time:

I'm having a better time:

Surely you wouldn't come all the way to Glastonbury just to look at other peoples arses? At least their legs probably didn't ache as much as ours:

Lonely dancer:

I resisted the temptation to by a 'I was at Glasto when Jacko died' t-shirt:

Can't escape technology, even in the middle of a Somerset field. Here we are charging up phones:

A tribute to the dearly departed King of Pop:

I wish I'd had my own loo:

The Specials were amazing:

Jane joins in on her harmonica necklace:

As if harmonica playing wasn't enough, Jane's got even more talents!

Jesse is clearly impressed:

The Park:

Around Green fields:

Karen and Ivy with their new pets:

Putting our names on pots glazed with Glastonbury mud:

Back at the Pyramid stage...Interesting tattoo:

Emergency peanuts:

He looks suitably chilled:

Peace and love:

Karen makes amigos:

Florence and the Machine:

Waiting for Broooooooooooooooooce!

The Boss was smokin':

Chilling out amongst the debris on Sunday at the Pyramid stage where we saw Amadou et Mariam, Tom Jones, Madness, Blur...:

Susan Boyle threw her knickers at Tom Jones:

Let's give her a big hand:

Madness:

'Welcome to the House of Fun':

Blur:

Stella makes a new friend:

Yes we did enjoy it thank you very much:

Hiking my way across the site at 6am through the rain, on my way to catch the train home...it looks like the end of civilisation, I'm glad I don't have to clean up:

(Thanks to Jesse for additional pics!)

I made this...

2009-06-30T09:41:00.004+01:00

My first dress I have made...Chloe's graduation ball dress:

Trying on and fitting:

On the day!

Mothers and work - what about the fathers?

2008-08-10T17:41:00.003+01:00

In the Observer last Sunday, there were two related articles about mothers. One announced a round-table discussion of mothers with 'Mothers and Work: The Great Debate' and another was a comment piece entitled 'Mothers are to be blamed for this child-obsessed society of ours'. Both touched on the issue of the 'supermum' - the theme revisited countless numbers of times in various articles asking the hackneyed questions of 'Should Mothers Go Out To Work?' and ultimately the ridiculously non-specific question: 'Can Women Have It All?'

I have a problem with the usual definition of 'having it all' - which generally in these types of articles means women combining family life and an independent career. This question is never really asked of men, who seem to be free to choose whichever without having it made a label, or a problem. Further, 'having it all' is really a subjective thing, and to do with very personal elements which might make up a happy life for an individual. It is irritating that society automatically presumes that a woman having 'all' that is fulfilling in life will necessarily include having children and the fact that at some point she will inevitably have some 'choice' to make between two simple binaries. What about those who actually don't feel that 'having it all' involves having children at all, but might instead include travel, friends, a house full of cats (to call up the old spinster stereotype)?

The Observer article on mothers and work featured a round table discussion of women, motivated by the findings of a Cambridge study which reported that most British people think family life suffers if women work. The issue I have with these types of discussions is that they ALWAYS focus on women. While female biology might dictate that we are the ones that actually give birth to the children, we do not make ourselves pregnant, a fact that many vicious rants against single mothers often like to ignore. There is a joint responsibility in conceiving a child, and therefore surely an equal responsibility on dads to have a role in bringing up a child. Therefore, shouldn't a discussion about the effects of working parents on children include the dad's role in this? Why is it not the father's fault if the child 'suffers' because one of the parents is working?

On Radio 2 a couple of weeks ago, they featured a mother and daughter discussing the mother's dilemma about going out to work and the daughter's feeling that she had missed having her mum around. Apart from the fact that class-wise the pair were totally out of touch with probably most family situationa (the mother said she worked to keep the daughter educated in private school and to provide her with riding lessons), I thought it was unfortunate that there was only a cursory nod to what the father was doing all this time. His role was alluded to, but with so little unpacking that I can't even remember what they said about it.

While there weren't any men present on the round table of the Observer article, it was good that the issue of men did come up. One of the women rightly pointed out: "Society has to address the fact that there are some superdads out there who are brilliant and not working...is the debate not necessarily 'can supermums exist?' but 'are children affected by both parents working as opposed to one parent working?' I think that's the great thing that needs to be discussed."

Indeed, personally I think the potential 'problems' caused to families by working mothers will only be sorted out if we turn the focus so much off of the mums and have a look at what dads are doing. Parenting is a joint responsibility, and with it there comes a joint responsibility for the impact that BOTH parents working lives will have on their children. But the focus of discussions on this issue rarely seem to include discussions of what the fathers role is or could be, instead often focusing on the mother's 'guilt'. I'm sure this omission helps perpetuates the notion for men that juggling work and children is not their concern at all. Why should women be juggling the burden of work + kids? Why should we always focus on the mother's 'guilt' or 'selfishness' for wanting/having to go out to work? We should also be listening to those men who are already taking on the role of childcare while mum goes out to work. We should also be encouraging and educating men and boys that childcare is equally their responsibility as much as the woman's. While it is true that women have traditionally been the main carers of children, I don't see why we are still hanging onto this stereotype. Thanks to increased contraception choices (at least in the UK), women are now able to have an element of control over their fertility, so why is it that we are still defined by our 'biology' as childbearers to be the main one responsible for the welfare of the child?

Talking about the weather

2008-08-06T23:28:00.004+01:00

I am frequently checking the weather on the BBC website - the detail is impressive, especially their animated rain drops, which living in the UK we of course see often. However, recently I'm getting a bit fed up that I keep seeing this:

The BBC don't help my addiction to weather checking, seeing as they seem to change their weather forecast every 10 minutes I feel I need to keep up with it second by second. I'd like to say that the 'sunny/rainy/cloudy' symbol is just a cop out on the BBC's part, a catch-all weather statement which means that they can never be seen to have got the forecast totally wrong. But alas, our weather simply has been that crazy recently - one minute its reminiscent of Provence in the Spring, another second sweltering like the Amazon, the next day you've got the depressing cement grey sky more reminiscent of November than of August. I don't really know why I expect it to be better at this time of year - it's not like our summers are particularly reliable - but it's difficult to know where you are with this kind of weather and sometimes I yearn for the security of knowing that a summer means sun, and that tomorrow you can confidently expect you can put on shorts and sandals without fearing that later you'll be caught in a monsoon and end up sliding your way home in muddy flip flops.

It's said that stereotypes often stem from some truth, and in the case of the British being obsessed with talking about the weather I think this one is true...

Overpriced beer in plastic cups

2008-08-03T17:12:00.007+01:00

When we are children, we are given plastic drinks containers until we have learned to coordinate our clumsy growing limbs. But as fully fledged adults who have surely mastered the art of using our mouths and hands in perfect harmony to dispense liquid down our throats, why can't we be trusted with drinks in glass containers?

Drinking from a plastic cup just isn't the same sensory or taste experience as drinking from a glass or a bottle. Once I was served red wine in a plastic half pint cup in a pub - that's pretty crappy isn't it? I presumed it was because they had tables outside and they must have thought I look like the kind of person that might start a fight and stab someone with a broken wine glass. When I asked for a 'glass of wine' I wanted what I asked for (and again, had paid a lot for, don't get me started on the price of wine in pubs). I wasn't asking for a 'plastic cup of wine'. And I was sitting inside anyway!

Also more recently, last week I went to a gig in the nightclub on the seafront and ordered two (expensive) Corona beers. I handed over the cash and watched as the barman upended the two bottles into plastic pint glasses, dropped a miserable wedge of lime in each one, and plonked them in front of me. This just isn't the way Corona is meant to be served! Corona is normally served with a lime wedge artfully pushed into the opening of the bottle, you push the lime through into the beer and take an refreshing swig. This custom and the fact that the design of the bottle is rather attractive, makes me think that this is certainly a beer that's meant to be drunk without being decanted at all. I am also sure that the beer keeps colder - and Corona should be drunk cold - in the thicker protection of a glass bottle.

While watching the band and sipping my rapidly warming beer, I also noted the disagreeable flimsyness of the cup - there was little integrity to the cup's shape and the sides could be squeezed in really easily. I know from previous experience this makes carrying a number of fully filled plastic-cupped pints a rather hazardous experience, as the liquid swills around precariously and is normally forced into spilling out by the collapsing sides. The quality of these cups also doesn't suggest that they're robust enough to wash and reuse, and I expect they're used to save labour anyway so are just thrown away. I shudder to think about the waste that is the amount of plastic cups which must be clogging up landfill sites.

I understand the problem posed by the minority of nutters who like to turn bottles into weapons, and the hazard that broken glass can pose in a busy public place. But the pleasure of having a drink is just made to feel irritatingly sanitised when you're served a drink in a plastic cup in a pub or club. Plastic cups are fine for picnics or barbecues, but when I go to a pub or a club I want to feel I have a proper drink in a proper receptacle. And to be honest I think I can be trusted with one.

Kiss Me Quick: Brighton and the Dirty Weekend

2008-04-19T15:37:00.004+01:00

Here's the other documentary I made last year with 3 other lovely Sussex Uni students...it was shown at the Raindance Film Festival and the SEE: Brighton Documentary Festival in 2007.

Click the link to watch:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x547vb_kiss-me-quick-brighton-and-the-dirt_shortfilms

Today in the kitchen...

2008-04-05T20:33:00.006+01:00

I made (a very delicious) chilli, using a combination of my mum's tips and loosely using guidance from a recipe called 'Sirloin and Black Bean Chilli' from a gem of a cookbook I found in a charity shop, an American import called The Fog City Diner Cookbook. As most people who know me will probably know, I LOVE American diners (and English caffs), and I was mainly seduced to buy this book from seeing the cover through the window of the shop:

I mean, how could you resist a cover like that?? And inside it has lots of kitschy little illustrations, etc etc... it's rather fine. (I also just noticed that its currently only available on Amazon UK Marketplace for £33 (!), about £30.50 more than what I paid in the charity shop...)

Anyway, I did a bit of research on the 'Fog City Diner' which obviously gave birth to this book, and it's in San Francisco. I have been to San Francisco and I can't believe I didn't go there!! It looks amazing!

Not only is it a thing of shiny stainless-steel and neon beauty, but their menu is charming, including a no-nonsense imprinted order to 'please curb your cellphone!' My only gripe is that they don't seem to offer a Chocolate Malt on the menu, which from my own diner experience is an essential treat. But this is a minor quibble for what seems to be a wonderful place and next time I'm in San Francisco I'll be there!

http://www.fogcitydiner.com/

Love is wonderful... but people are idiots

2008-02-11T14:16:00.001Z

I have just purchased a jar of 'special edition' Valentine's Day Marmite (with champagne!?) as a romantic present for my own 'Marmite lover'. Awww.

It might seem unromantic to discuss the price of presents for loved ones, but it cost me £2.99 from my local Sainsbury's. Arriving home I checked out the hype online -- people on Ebay are paying around £6 a jar!! I was myself entertained by the idea of Valentine's Marmite, but it was easy enough to procure myself one without getting all carried away by the words 'limited edition' and the fact that apparently 'only 600,000' have been made. For some reason the 'pot number', whatever that is, is often mentioned in these Ebay listings, with some sellers trying to make out that certain pot numbers are more 'collectible'.

Are human beings insane or what? I have seen Ebay bidding madness before - even Primark clothing items are often overpriced on there just because they're not in store anymore, and I remember the day the Kate Moss range came out at Top Shop almost immediately items were appearing on Ebay at vastly inflated prices (and people were bidding like loons) than instore. So can I just say for all you crazy Marmite addicts/collectors out there, please don't be fools and line the pockets of a bunch of chancers who are trying to make this look like some exclusive purchasing chance. Just nip to your local supermarket - not only will you save on the extortionate postage charges people are adding on to these jars (sometimes up to £4.50) but the exercise will do you good, and make you all the fitter for your Valentine's Day activities whether they involve Marmite or not............

It's official

2008-02-04T21:45:00.001Z

Nerves

2008-01-23T11:37:00.000Z

I am going horse riding today and for the first time I actually feel a bit NERVOUS. Which is pretty ridiculous seeing as I used to ride regularly for about 9 years, fell off many times, didn't mind, got back on, etc etc. Maybe it's because I have joined the riding society at university and it all seems rather 'organised' - I'm actually having a riding lesson today whereas all I used to do was meander around the woods at my own style and pace.

My nan was scared of horses - when I started riding she used to comment on this and their 'big heads'. I think she was knocked over by one before, as it flicked it's nose forward and up, as is a horse's wont. But I always was totally comfortable around horses, never really thinking about the unpredictability of them as animals, trusting them totally - I used to illustrate this by ducking under my horse's belly in order to move over to its other side! That's why it seems a bit ridiculous that today I find myself feeling a tiny bit tense. I suppose that's why it's a good idea to get back in the saddle and throw myself back into it, I'm sure it will be fine. I'm really surprised at myself for feeling a bit like this - I hope it's not a sign of getting old and over cautious!

Why I'm leaving Facebook

2008-01-20T15:58:00.000Z

I've decided I've had enough of 'social networking utilities' - especially when they then underhandedly pass on your info to government agencies:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

While Tom Hodgkinson's article ends on a rather sanctimonious note ('why anyone would want to mess around on the internet when there are far more important things to like read Keats and plant seeds') I don't really blame him for being driven to empassioned extremes by all that he reveals that is invidious about the internet giant Facebook. Two main things disturb me about Facebook, firstly their very vague terms and conditions, which are hardly totally explicit or precise in the language they use about how they'll use your information or pass it onto other agencies: to sell you stuff, to find out what you're doing, etc etc. While Facebook lulls people into a false sense of security with their 'controllable' privacy settings, this only stops other Facebook users from seeing certain bits of information - what isn't openly stated is that there's nothing to stop those at Facebook HQ using your information in whatever way they wish. They own the 'virtual you'. The article above also quotes their terms and conditions that:

'By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States ... We may be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.'

I'm not sure that I trust Facebook's vague use of the terms 'we may be required' or 'good faith belief'.

The second issue I have with Facebook is that I worry how it changes the way people communicate (or don't) with each other in the 'real world'. I must say I agree with Hodgkinson's pronouncements: 'Why on God's earth would I need a computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?'. Internet forums are fine if they lead to real life connections, meetings and action, but I'm not sure that all these 'virtual' events, friends and protest groups (note all the petitions/apparent activist groups on Facebook - what do they actually do?) always add up to much on Facebook. Easily accessible and 'joinable' by the simple click of a mouse, potentially the laziest of us will still end up staying at home, sitting in front of the computer merely building up extensive lists of virtual friends, 'causes' and forums without actually translating that to real action or companionship. At the risk of being called old fashioned or closed minded, I am not anti-internet or internet forums (or indeed, blogging, of course!) but I do think that some of the 'old ways' of communicating are really the best ways to communicate or combat loneliness - like talking and meeting! Even some of the 'older' technologies like a telephone call and even the plain old email, just somehow seems more meaningful than sending someone a 'poke' or a 'gift' on Facebook, maybe because the recipient of such communication actually feels like you've set aside a little time to communicate with them rather than just simply clicking a mouse. And a 'virtual' hug will never match up to a real hug.

So, what have I done with this indignation? I am deleting my Facebook profile shortly. I can't do it immediately, as various things I am involved with are using Facebook forums to communicate, so I will wait til they're over and then gracefully bow out.

But even if you want to delete your account, Facebook might just keep your information anyway. Again from the article above, they mystify with vague words which don't fill me with confidence that my profile and information will actually be permanently deleted from their records. According to their terms and conditions: 'When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.' 'Update', presumably means if you delete or alter your profile in any way, so if I delete my profile, exactly how long is a 'reasonable period' for them to hold my information? It should also be noted that the only option on the Facebook site is currently 'deactivate profile' rather than delete - so presumably this means that even once you've deleted it, all the information is hanging around somewhere in their systems, for them to access at will. I'll have to email them about this, and see if they bother to respond.

Anyway, so far I've already sent messages to everyone I know on Facebook (even tenuous contacts who looked me up from school days), to let them know why I'm doing it and to get them to email me their contact details. I don't want anyone to think that I don't want to keep in touch with anyone - it's precisely because I want to have meaningful relationships with people that I'd rather step out of Facebook land. It will be interesting to see who actually bothers to send me their contact details - I suppose that will show who your real friends are! Of course I realise that through our reliance on various technologies - email, passports, credit cards - so many organisations hold information on us these days why should we worry about Facebook? I suppose I just don't really want to add to those sources of information or help my every move be traceable in one easy place. And there's something very dodgy about a site which sets itself up as a fun, 'social networking' site which actually then shares your info with government agencies. So it's just a personal preference and I just want to let everyone know because I think it's important, and while I don't want to use Facebook anymore, I do want to keep in touch - and actually SEE and TALK - with people very much.

Note!!

Deleting your Facebook profile, why 'deactivating' your profile isn't enough: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7196803.stm

Apparently for Facebook to completely delete your profile, you have to manually delete ALL your personal info and content: incoming and outgoing messages, wall posts, mini-feed stories, friends, contact information, etc etc: http://stevenmansour.com/writings/2007/jul/23/2342/2504_steps_to_closing_your_facebook_account

For more on evil Facebook, see this little movie too: http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

Get Me The Producer

2008-01-18T14:06:00.000Z

This morning I happened to tune into the final of the reality TV competition series, Get Me The Producer on Channel 4. The premise is the same old interchangeable formula as most competitive reality TV formats: a group of desperate wannabes try to impress a big boss by undertaking a series of tasks to try and come out on top. The big boss bosses them around a bit and insults their efforts, goes through the usual routine of eliminating those not good enough, before the 'big reveal' complete with excrutiating dramatic pauses: 'This has been a really difficult decision ......... but I have made a decision ......... and the winner is ..........'

Considering the nature of the prize on offer of this particular show (a year's contract as a producer at Graham Norton's TV company) and my own knowledge of the elusiveness/impossibility of ever breaking into the television/film industry, the plights of the candidates on this programme seemed to be especially desperate, and a bit depressing really. In this episode (the final) the group was split into two teams to successfully devise a new television show and produce an episode. Both went with reality TV-type formats - Team A goes for a programme where hairdressers battle it out in the studio for the opportunity to win and style a celebrity's hair (yawn) and Team B creates a show based around an ecological expert who evaluates members of the public for how environmentally sound their lifestyles are. Both teams pitched their ideas to Greg Dyke, who then comments on the final production, picks a winning team and then one extra-special winner from that team to win the sole producer job.

Exhibited amongst the competitors were a few aspiring towards the familiar 'media-types' who just want to boss people around, hog the limelight and be charge of the whole operation. I was quite disappointed that one of the women on the losing Team A, who seems to me to have shown herself as far too bossy and openly ignoring the concerns of her team that they were being sidelined, was actually commended by Dyke as having a lot of promise! He told her that she should work her way up and would do very well in the industry. I appreciate that a certain determination is necessary to succeed in a demanding career like a TV producer, but there is a difference between enthusiasm and dedication and just being rude and inconsiderate. There are too many egos and hierarchies in the media business - I don't think we should be telling people that it's OK to dominate and bulldoze through the ideas of others, in order to scramble their way up the greasy pole of success. I hasten to add that this show is part of '4 Learning' - I'm not really sure it's all good what we're meant to learn from this programme about making it in the television industry.

I have made a couple of short films (granted, I don't make living from them at all!) and I think the only way to work successfully and pleasurably on such a production is as a team. It is, after all, very difficult to make a film or television programme completely as an individual. You can have a leader, of course, but assertiveness shouldn't give way to aggression or disrespect for the feelings or efforts of the collective team. This glut of reality-TV career-competition shows - such as Hell's Kitchen (win a chef's career), The Apprentice (win a business career) or Picture This (win a photography career) - seem to me rather unhealthy, as competitiveness of the individual is glorified above all else and the failure (and often abuse) of members of other people is exhibited for our entertainment. What is depressing about Get Me The Producer, is that it seemed to glorify the fact that the television industry is such a closed business, with relatively few who 'make it' compared to the huge numbers of those whose ambitions in the industry are disappointed. Maybe in the future the only way to get a job on TV will be to get on TV (a la Big Brother etc). How very postmodern. But if in all these shows there can be 'only one winner', what happens to all the 'losers'?

Blatant Stella egotism pt.2

2008-01-13T00:33:00.000Z

'The Stella Awards' are not really as flattering as my aforementioned namesakes.

From the website http://www.stellaawards.com/ : "The Stella Awards were inspired by Stella Liebeck. In 1992, Stella, then 79, spilled a cup of McDonald's coffee onto her lap, burning herself. A New Mexico jury awarded her $2.9 million in damages, but that's not the whole story. Ever since, the name "Stella Award" has been applied to any wild, outrageous, or ridiculous lawsuits..."

What a silly Stella! Hmmm...

These however, are rather beautiful and another Stella with whom I am proud to share my name:

Pretty!

I promise I will stop now and get on with something more important...

An American 1950s nostalgia feeding frenzy...

2008-01-09T17:19:00.000Z

It's a diner! It's a storage tin! With my name on!

How cool is that? So then I got to thinking about how many lovely 'real' diners there might be with my name on...and found:

Stella's diner, Syracuse, New York:

Stella's diner, Chicago, Illinois:

Stella's Blue Sky Diner, Des Moines, Iowa:

Who thinks we need a Stella's Diner, Brighton, East Sussex? Me!

A Damn Nice Caff

2008-01-05T00:42:00.000Z

Me and my friend Kevin have made a documentary called 'A Damn Nice Caff', about the closing of the lovely New Piccadilly cafe, which closed its doors in September 2007 for the last time. Situated just around the corner from bustling Piccadilly Circus, it was run by the same family for over fifty years. In the film one of their many customers mourns the cafe's loss and illustrates its importance as a collective social space where food was eaten, stories were told and memories were made.

To view the film go to the Channel 4 Four Docs website link here:
http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/film/film-detail.jsp?id=58505

Mamma Mia!

2008-01-03T18:55:00.001Z

I forgot one:

7. Learn Italian

(I think my expectations for achievement this year are rather high)

Confessions of an ebay junkie

2007-11-01T21:03:00.000Z

Things I have recently won:

Stills from our documentary

2007-08-22T22:36:00.001+01:00

Power to the people?!

2007-08-20T10:09:00.000+01:00

Are we a nation of apathy? No! The Wispa bar is back and it was 'people power' that led to the comeback in the form of internet pressure. Go us! According to the Saturday Guardian there are 93 (!) Bring Back Wispa groups on Facebook with almost 14,000 members and other forums are popping up on MySpace. The Cadbury's spokesman said, 'We had noticed the web interest for some time. It reveals a consumer passion which swayed our opinion about relauncing Wispa.' I was feeling all nostalgic when I read about the return of the Cadburys Wispa, a bubbly chocolate bar kind of like an Aero but more chunky, I think it disappeared sometime in the 1990s.

On the one hand, this is a humourous example of how people, and the internet, can influence what the big companies do. Still, I can't help but feel a little depressed about this in a way - it's quite weird that people are so strident about bringing back a chocolate bar, when there are so many other things we could get passionate about? Plus, the sad thing is perhaps, that companies only listen to the public when it might make them even more money. Cadbury's are no doubt rubbing their hands together, as they predict the popular call for the return of the Wispa as a guarantee of a lucrative return on their bringing it back.

The Guardian article cites other examples of other successful consumer campaigns - for example, when 'New Coke' was released (a sweeter version of the original) more than 400,000 calls and letters forced executives to return to the old formula!? Or the return of Ringos crisps, which were relaunced by Golden Wonder after a petition was collected of more than 12,000 online signatures. It's of course easier to just put your name on a petition on an electronic forum and type a quick message of support than to weigh up your beliefs and write a whole strongly-worded letter to a big corporation; and even more effort to say, go on a demonstration or start a revolution! I wish people would get as passionate and vocal about other issues other than consumer goods! For instance, if we're worried about 'losing' parts of our heritage such as the Wispa bar, what about getting out their to protest about the proliferation of Costa Coffee or McDonalds and the supermarkets who are turning British towns onto sterile identical toy towns?

Maybe I just don't realise how critical and momentous an issue chocolate is to some people. Oh well. I think I'll go and cheer myself up with a Wispa bar...

Anyone for plums?

2007-08-15T15:35:00.000+01:00

Introducing our spindly old plum tree:

The tree is no taller than me and gave us about 5 plums last year I think, but for some reason this year it's gone mad and we've got loads of fruit!

I'm not sure what kind of plums they are but they're absolutely delicious! Organic, fairtrade and best of all - free! I just need to make sure we eat them all before the birds get them...

The dark heart of fashion...

2007-08-14T10:28:00.000+01:00

On the front page of the Sunday Times this weekend, I read this sickening story:
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article2241665.ece

Topshop has been accused of using slave labour to produce its clothes - workers are recruited from their home countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to go and work at their factories in Mauritius. Potential workers pay recruitment agents a fee of £725 for this 'priviledge', with the promise that they will earn more than 5 times what they currently receive, only to find out that what they actually earn is 40% below the local average wage. Topshop is owned by the Arcadia Group, owned by Sir Philip Green, a fat cat of epic proportions who paid himself a record £1.2 billion pay cheque in 2005 (four times the profit of Arcadia). He conveniently avoids the British tax system by paying his whopping profits and earnings to his wife in Monaco (indeed, perhaps we should start to focus our cries about people 'defrauding the system' on rich exploiters like Green, rather than always scape-goating 'benefit cheats', single mothers, etc.).

The Times calls Green a 'colour-ful character'. I call him an pampered, unscrupulous and cheating scoundrel. Green lives a life of luxury that borders on the obscene - in 2004 he spent £4 million on a three-day extravaganza for his son's bar mitzvah party, which included shipping over Beyonce as entertainment, and earlier this year spent £5 million flying over 100 friends for his birthday party in the Maldives. Now, I'm sure £5 million is pocket-money to a billionnaire tycoon like Green - but when your workers are being paid 40p an hour to make Kate Moss T-shirts that will later be sold for £12 wouldn't you feel some guilt about such brazen spending? And while Mr Green last week said he was having 'a marvellous time on his yacht off the coast of Turkey', what about those workers in Mauritius who report working 60-70 hours per week and sleep away their few hours of free time in over-crowded dormitories? No wonder one woman (one of the few that was not too scared to talk to reporters) said, 'When I go to bed at the end of the day, I lay down and weep'.

There is a morbid irony to the fact that the Topshop website boasts 'We sell on average 30 pairs of knickers a minute, 500 leggings per hour, 35,000 pairs of shoes a week' whilst the worker above reports similarly ferocious time-related production values in the factory: 'If we do not reach the target of 50 pieces [segments of T-shirts] per hour, then we are sent back to our dormitories and suspended'. I suppose someone has to make sure that Philip Green's pockets are lined with dirty money at a fairly relentless speed, otherwise the poor thing might have to go without another expensive party.

What is most hypocritical is that in 2006 the flagship Topshop store in Oxford Street started selling Fairtrade clothing brands. It just goes to show that the impact of the Fairtrade label is worryingly negligible, becoming fetishised into just another 'taste' or 'brand' choice rather than something that will revolutionise widely the rights of workers across the world. Of course this recent report of sweat-shop labour is no surprise in a corporate world where, let's face it, everything is skewed so that we in the West are able to have cheap clothes, fast food, the latest gadgets and other commodities because we exploit cheap labour in other parts of the world. Jane Shepherdson, who resigned as Topshop's brand director earlier this year, stated that we as consumers should start questioning why we have things so good: 'We should always question if something is very, very cheap and think that if you, the consumer, aren't paying for it, then someone, somewhere down the line, is paying.'
(http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2609315.ece)

By hiding away factories in other countries and not 'shitting in our own back yard' so to speak, I suppose companies think they can get away with it and maybe they have, as the throngs of people continue to pour into clothes shops such as Topshop and Primark - both of whom, as of 2006, were the only major clothing retailers not to be a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative, which is trying to improve labour standards in the industry.
(The accusations about Arcadia's labour practices were also highlighted last year: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ethicalbusiness/story/0,,1723559,00.html)

While the way that newspapers report these stories does seem to be damning and an indictment of Green in their juxtaposition of his luxury lifestyle with the inhuman practices at the factories, the articles don't provide any overt suggestions for what we can or should do about it. I suppose that's because newspapers are meant to try and be impartial (yeah, right!) but I think this approach can end up with people feeling atomised and helpless, as they are bombarded with rather convincing evidence but no notion that they can change it, or take action. I think we have a responsibility to try and do something because we're all implicated in this, everytime we buy something at Top Shop or another business owned by the Arcadia group such as Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Burton, Wallis and Evans.

What am I going to do? I have tried boycotting products in the past, because as consumers perhaps the only power we have is to vote for or against a product/corporation with our feet and our cash. This might prove tricky with Arcadia, as they own so many shops on the high street (and indeed, most of the others probably aren't any better). Still, I'm not that huge a fan of Topshop anyway. Also, I am going to write to Top Shop/Arcadia and tell Philip Green how much all this stinks. I would encourage everyone to do the same:

Contact Arcadia here: http://www.arcadiagroup.co.uk/about/contact.html
(They actually have an 'Ethical Policy' on their website - obviously pretty ineffectual)
Contact Top Shop here:
https://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContactUs?krypto=%2BKcH3VLu38zYhZ8zUehEDx0aSup7AvOPbq1g8JGZGB3vRNS1puEJYiNMcQjrCH1VRiJR%2FMStaIg%3D

For other ideas see:
http://www.cleanclothes.org/
http://www.nosweat.org.uk/

Should I care about this??

2007-08-03T10:44:00.000+01:00

Apparently people taking 'unofficial holidays' Fridays costs British businesses £50 million per year, according to this report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6928901.stm
From pulling sickies to slyly extended lunch breaks, British workers are (shock horror!) cheekily extending their weekends through devious means and little white lies. I suppose we're all meant to be concerned about this, but I have to say that reading that story actually brought a cheer to my heart.

Most people give so much of their time to work - while the average is I guess about 40 hours per week, many people do much more than this. Also employers are often pretty lax and inconsiderate in the way they treat their employees and often take advantage of hard work and enthusiasm. I have friends (particularly those who work in the media) who have been over-worked and underpaid, still on short-term, no-security contracts with employers they've been with for years. I think that in the face of this kind of treatment employees should be free to take the odd liberty, and 'pulling a sickie' is probably a great British tradition and certainly one of the most delicious pleasures (the 'riskiness' of it makes it even more fun).

'Big Brother' is trying to stamp this out, with personnel software company 'Employersafe' (quite an ironic name conjuring up the image of employees as the possessions or prisoners of the company to be kept 'safe' and under control) developing software that allows employers to manage and track absences, holidays, sickness and lateness. This type of minutiae will probably just lead to more 'jobsworth' managers getting all hot and bothered about workers 'not being at their desks and ready to work at 9' etc. Of course, these managers often don't use the same logic when an employee stays late in terms of paying them the extra time.

If you're in a job you love, then fine, work yourself to death. But there are plenty of people who just work every day for the money and the prison of the nine-to-five job with perhaps only a month off a year is often a miserable place. I say power to the workers who manage to craftily squeeze a bit of leisure, and life, back.

A rant about landlords

2007-08-01T13:58:00.000+01:00

Why is it that just when I have to be in my room writing up my dissertation and would appreciate some peace, the owner of the house next door starts noisily ripping off the roof of his house's (rather crappy-looking) extension which just happens to be located just outside my window?

There's a bit of a trend for renovation going on in my street, but my neighbour's revamping of his house has really got on my nerves and not just because of the noise. The house next door has been rented out to tenants since I've been living here, and probably before that. After the (I think quite long-standing) previous tenants moved out about 2 years ago, the landlord tidied up the exterior of the house, painting it a cheerful blue and generally making it look better. It annoyed me then that he waited for his tenants to move out before he bothered, as I'm sure the house was probably pretty shoddy (judging as well by the necessity of this most recent renovation). He probably supposed he could just let it go before because people often put up with crappy rented accomodation in Brighton because it's such a popular and transient place. Our house for instance, cheap though it is and quite cosy, has the odd damp patch, broken cupboard and boiler problems which unfortunately we as tenants don't have the power or money to get sorted.

Anyway, I think the landlord next door only did the previous tidy-up between tenants to try and get more money for rent. Since that first paint job, two lots of tenants have passed through, and when the last one left the house has been empty for months. And now a MAJOR overhaul is taking place, with wallpapering, drilling, digging up the garden, etc etc. My guess is that the landlord is going to sell the place and cash in on his extremely valuable asset. And he's probably just doing a load of bodged home improvements to try and squeeze out an extra few thousand quid...which he probably will get, being that this is Brighton and people seem to even spend a small fortune on a cramped, damp, shoddy studio flat.

I can't help but just view it all really cynically. Of course, I don't know how many houses this guy next door has, maybe he's not a property magnate and actually inherited the house from his granny or something, but I doubt it. I may sound bitter, but I don't think I'll ever be able (should I want to) to afford to buy house in Brighton, or perhaps anywhere, so I do have quite a lot of distain for people who can and do buy up property in order to extort over-priced rents from people like me who don't have the capital to actually buy a house. I reckon the amount of property someone can buy up should be capped - otherwise this vicious circle continues where poorer people continually have to rent, continually spend all their income and can never save/build up money to buy their own place. And meanwhile they line the pockets of the rich, the rich get richer and on the cycle goes...

...and on the banging and drilling goes next door. Argh!!

Feeling pretty good!

2007-07-24T15:37:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I spent the day filming in London. I had the idea for a film a couple of months ago and discussed it with an enthusiastic friend and suddenly it started to materialise! It's strange how ideas start as a kind of vague 'yeah, I'll do that at some point in the not-too-distant future' and then suddenly you're there with a camera actually doing it. It shows that things are possible if you just make the effort (and are lucky enough to get free equipment from a university!) and it feels really satisfying when you've actually planned something and done the leg work to get it done without anyone standing over you to make you do it.

Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to apply that kind of logic to my dissertation, the progress of which is very slow and full of procrastinations. Still, if I fail there's always my film career to fall back on...I wish!

A disturbing story...

2007-07-18T15:56:00.000+01:00

I had to write about this today, just to try and make people aware of this. I heard about the story on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2, but worryingly couldn't find any more info about it on the BBC news website. I finally found it as a local story here:
http://www.thisisbournemouth.co.uk/display.var.1552356.0.iranian_womans_appeal_rejected.php
The story is about a woman called Samar, an Iranian woman who has been in education in the UK, and, having recently lost an appeal, is now being deported back to Iran by immigration authorities. Because she converted to Christianity from Islam while she was here, a warrant in Iran has been issued for her death, so that if she returns she will have to go to court and face death by stoning. I am not a supporter of any religion but I don't think that anyone should be violently persecuted or punished for their beliefs, in any country. I'm almost speechless at how, in such a blatant matter of life and death as this, the British courts could possibly reject her appeal and essentially participate in a horrific abuse of human rights. Surely the threat of death in your home country would qualify a person for asylum?

Samar was interviewed by Vine this afternoon and it made extremely disturbing listening. Audibly distressed, she shakily explained her case and related how she had literally just found out that her flight tonight had actually been cancelled, and it looks like this is due to an 11th hour intervention by Gordon Brown. Still, she also said that this has happened to her before - that she already meant to be flown out before, only to have the flight cancelled at the last minute. So she has perhaps escaped death twice but how must she feel still having such an uncertain fate ahead of her, thanks to what seems to be an extremely disorganised, messy and merciless handling of her case by British authorities?

I'm actually shocked that this situation hasn't got more publicity (such as not being on the BBC news headlines), despite the campaigning of her friends and local MP. It's frightening to think that if it wasn't for the intervention of the government today she would have been quietly flown back to be killed. I'm going to try and keep up with what happens in this case, but if Samar doesn't now get some kind of reprieve to stay on, I think British government will have colluded in a massive human rights violation and, as one of Samar's campaigners has said, will have blood on its hands.

Spam Spam Spam Spam

2007-07-16T15:27:00.000+01:00

Up until a couple of months ago I didn't receive any spam at all, and then suddenly I seem to get loads. Luckily my email is fairly intelligent and filters it all away into the 'spam' folder so I don't really notice it but I find the whole thing rather curious.

Like, for example, why is it that the majority of ALL the tens and hundreds of spam emails I receive mainly seem to be about just TWO rather contrasting subjects: 1. 'Penis Enlargement' and, 2. 'Adobe Creative Suite'. Bizarrely, just now in my spam box I had an offer for 'Creative Suite 3 Premium' at $269.90 rather than the retail price of $1799.00...and, I suppose as an extra free gift, there was what seemed to be a poem at the bottom. Weird. Then I had the usual laughable email about penis size, which stated 'Unlike pumps, weights and surgery, MegaDik delivers results that are safe and permanent! When you reach the growth size that you want to achieve, you no longer need to take MegaDik.' While I could indeed be a Graphic Designer obsessed with the size of his manhood, it's a rather bizarrely narrow selection of products/services that I'm being bombarded with...and could anyone really purchase a product called 'Megadik' with a straight face?

It's just rather odd. Who are the spammers and why are they sending me this stuff? Where does spam come from and what on earth are spammers trying to achieve when all these emails just pop straight into my spam folder to be flushed away when I get the chance? Any answers appreciated...

Women! STAY OFF the beach! (until you've been to Boots and spent lots of money)

2007-07-14T18:49:00.001+01:00

I'm pretty used to companies playing upon the insecurities of women to sell them beauty products they don't need (and that often don't work), but the recent Boots' 'Get Beach Gorgeous' advert has really really made me angry. Have a look (here displayed at someone else's blog who is also pretty irritated by it): http://graceneedshelp.wordpress.com/2007/07/01/what-is-right-about-this-honestly/

I was reminded to blog about this by Julia Raeside's amusing critique of this advert for the "Hard Sell" column in the Guardian Guide. If you don't have time to watch the advert at the link above, Raeside provides a succinct account of it: "The ad begins with a beauty shedding her clothes on a crowded beach. Her fellow baskers turn en masse to judge her. She nervously reveals smooth, caramel limbs, thus enabling the meerkats to return to their sunbathing, safe in the knowledge that they won't have to look at her bingo wings and stubble for the rest of the day. When did TV aimed at women become so abusive?"
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,2124649,00.html)

Indeed. One minute Dove's got their 'Campaign For Real Beauty' using apparently 'real'-shaped women in their adverts, and the next minute you have companies everywhere encouraging us to count and watch every calorie, wrinkle and grey hair, and wanting us all to look the same. As Raeside puts it, "These bastards would have you believe that simply keeping clean is somehow letting the side down." What a confusing world it must be to all those young women trying to heed the advice of parents or teen-magazine agony aunts who try to reassure them about their bodies with 'don't worry, you're beautiful just the way you are', 'you don't have to look like everybody else' or 'no-one's going to be judging you'. In fact, as this advert seems to overtly suggest, when you strip off on the beach EVERYONE is looking at you and you'll be sorry if you haven't made sure you're fully waxed, exfoliated, tanned etc etc.

As I said, I'm used to companies marketing products to women on the basis of inventing new and unusual areas of our bodies that we should be paranoid about (for example, check out http://www.bettybeauty.com/ I mean, do we really need that??) but Boots, a long-standing British business 'institution', started as a pharmacy as far as I'm aware and normally seems to market itself on health and well-being. This advert is just such a blatant cash-in on female low self-esteem and joins the plethora of mixed messages in our media about body image. I remember being a teenager and feeling really self-conscious of that moment when you strip down to your swimsuit on the beach - and adverts like this just keep the cycle going of women mentally torturing themselves about what they look like when really they should be running around in the sand, bouncing a beach ball, eating a big melty ice cream...doing the carefree things everyone else does on the beach.

Who needs Ebay?

2007-07-13T15:33:00.000+01:00

As part of my regression to the pre-digital era (see previous post), I've been looking for one of these for ages:

'What do you want with a box?' I hear you say. But this isn't just any box. It's a record storage box!!

I started my search on Ebay and for one of these unassuming little items and you can expect to pay anything up to about £15 quid including extortionate postage. Once upon a time, I should think these useful containers were ten a penny in your local Woolworths, but not any more. In came CDs and suddenly everyone was chucking their records and boxes out, before a moment later record-collecting became a bit of a trendy thing to do and then everyone started paying silly money for 'vintage' vinyl and, hence, these vinyl storage boxes. I just wanted something practical to put my records in, without paying over the odds for either a fancy (and normally rather ugly) stainless-steel-bullet-proof-DJ-style record box, or for some dusty old 'retro' item.

And a little patience paid off. Went into my local British Heart Foundation books and music charity shop today, and just enquired if they ever sold them. 'I'll just check out the back and see if we've got any.' said the very helpful young man. Back he came with this box in his hand, and when I asked how much the VERY helpful young man said 'Oh don't worry, it'll only get thrown out anyway.' Of course, I could have advised him that if he'd stuck it on Ebay he could maybe have made even more money for the British Heart Foundation, but having just donated them a bag of my old junk I didn't feel too guilty. So, filling their collection box with some small change, I walked out glowing with happiness at this amazing find.

And look how useful it is! My records are protected from the elements, and I can flip through them with ease and quickly turn up anything I want in my (eclectic) record collection, such as...

Soft Cell:

The Andrews Sisters (nice hairstyles ladies):

And, er, Fergal Sharkey:

Hurrah!!

My latest purchase

2007-07-11T12:20:00.000+01:00

Hmmm, what's in here...

Pretty!!!

Look at the workmanship:

And cheaper than a PC:

That's it, the laptop's in the bin.

Would the real Hairspray please stand up?

2007-06-29T17:23:00.000+01:00

I've just discovered there is a remake of John Waters' Hairspray (1988) about to be released. It seems to be being billed as an "re-imagining" of the recent Broadway-musical adaptation of 1988 original. I suppose then the difference will be that every five minutes the characters break into song. Yuk. (I'm not a huge fan of musicals anyway, but I think that modern ones (classics like Singing In The Rain are fine) often especially don't work when adapted from stage to the screen...I'm thinking of something like Chicago. It just seems silly when you don't have that "theatrical" atmosphere)
http://www.dreamlogic.net/archives/travolta-and-latifa-to-star-in-hairspray-remake

Confused yet?
OK, so this is Hairspray (1988):

This is Hairspray (the musical):

And this is Hairspray...the, erm, film-of-the-musical:

While it's quite depressing to hear a beloved film of my youth being described in such commercial terms by New Line film executives as, “From cult classic film to hit Broadway musical to major motion picture, Hairspray is a true New Line franchise”, I'm not being a cultural snob. I actually think that the original Hairspray was less a cult films and more a fairly mainstream teen favourite in the 1980s (at least compared to other Waters' films like Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble) and probably still is continually being discovered on DVD/video by many new viewers.

I suppose John Waters is enjoying the irony of the mainstream wholeheartedly embracing his trashy style, but I just think it's a shame that this new version might be a Hairspray-lite for a new generation. I mean, I'm sure everyone thought John Travolta would be amusing in a fat suit and drag, but he actually looks like some kind of scary rubber-faced monster - and he's hardly Divine now is he? The superiority of different versions of a film are obviously down to individual judgments and tastes; while I thought Vanilla Sky was quite a good (and more understandable!) version of the earlier Open Your Eyes, there are also pointless crappy revisions like Psycho, The Italian Job and Freaky Friday, the originals of which I'm sure could have been enjoyed and appreciated by the audiences. Still, we have the luxury of being able to access a whole history of film from the archives of video and DVD, and the fact of their being from bygone decades does not make them either irrelevant or enjoyable for future audiences.

I know I'm bound to be protective and sentimental about films from my youth, I just can't help but think that this recent rehashing of Hairspray is just pointless, and might besmirch the memory of the original which was already so much fun...

Brighton Graffiti

2007-06-19T00:03:00.000+01:00

The only word for this is... wow.

Supermarket sell-outs

2007-06-11T20:52:00.000+01:00

I am SO fed up with seeing celebrities appearing in adverts for the supermarkets. While I can just about countenance people like Stephen Fry doing adverts for Twinings Tea (kind of fits his cosy, English image I guess), why is it that celebrities feel the need to line their pockets with the filthy lucre of big brands such as Tesco and Asda (now Asda-Wal Mart), who make enough money from consumers as it is and get enough free advertising from their collosal blot-on-the-landscape outlets. These are companies which are known for their ruthless practices in terms of wiping out competition, putting pressure on local producers and shops, and generally helping to make our high streets and shopping areas into wastelands of verisimilitude.

For instance, Tesco frequently use celebrities in their adverts, either in voice-overs or in person, to promote their wares. And well-established celebs too who you'd think might have enough money by now to not have to sell themselves to unworthy causes like supermarkets. I guess they just got too greedy. People like Kathy Burke, Jane Horrocks, Joanna Lumley, Ronnie Corbett, Alan Tichmarsh... and loads more. See more about Tesco and celebrities here: http://www.supermarket-sweep-up.com/?p=470 And don't even get me started on Jamie Oliver, one minute he's promoting the virtues of cooked locally produced food in Jamie's Italy and the next minute he's frantically sawing up a beef joint, or tossing a stir-fry on a string of adverts for supermarket monolith Sainsburys. Bit hypocritical?

But what's really highlighted my annoyance is the recent spat of celebrities taking Asda's dirty money. Supermarkets often aren't exactly benchmarks of working practice, and Asda is no exception, particularly since it was taken over by the controversial Wal Mart. Last year Asda employees voted for strike action over a pay dispute, and highlighted the issue of the company's refusal to allow the GMB union to negotiate nationally for its staff at all Asda depots. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5102936.stm) Hardly surprising since Asda's take-over by the controversial Wal Mart, which has also been widely criticised for its employee relations and hostility to unions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wal-Mart).

Of course, it's foolish to think that celebrities should set some kind of "example", or even have, dare I say it, "principles", but it's really depressing to see them using their notoriety in such a cynical way to help brainwash consumers that shopping at Asda is a good thing for anybody. Obviously I realise that certain fame-hungry wannabes will plug anything for a buck or two, but only last year it was Sharon Osbourne's simpering on screen for Asda -- isn't being the 554th richest person in Britain enough, Sharon?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Times_Rich_List_2006)

And more recently, seemingly "respected" and long-established famous people are jumping on the Asda payroll. My wall-of-shame so far:

Ahh the lovely Victoria Wood, darling of British comedy and Mass-Observation Archive, has recently been seen on our screens trying to convince us that working as an Asda bakery flunky is actually loads of jolly good fun. Ooooh you even get to make those little lines in the top of the bread - skill!

Paul Whitehouse of The Fast Show fame. Another fairly well-respected comedian, he used to be Harry Enfield's sidekick... but is currently representing Asda on their adverts by wandering around picturesque cow pastures (nicely side-stepping the issue of intensive farming), joking with farm-workers and force-feeding shoppers with suspicious looking shot glasses of milky "goodness".

While it would be slightly cheering to think that Asda's need to promote everyday items like bread and milk from their supermarkets stem from falling profits, I fear that this is probably not the case. It seems more like a bit of a backlash rhetoric against the current climate where some of us are becoming more and more interested in returning to a more local, organic way of life (for instance, vegetable box schemes, markets, etc).

I hope I don't have to add more faces to my list above, but it won't surprise me if I do...

My new obsession

2007-05-23T12:39:00.001+01:00

Isn't it lovely? Haven't been there yet, but I will be going soon that's for sure. Can you believe this little piece of history has been pretty much permanently under threat recently due to 'redevelopment' of the area? Grrr.

Read all about the place here: http://www.urban75.org/london/piccadilly.html
and here http://www.classiccafes.co.uk/newpiccpanel.htm
and here http://russelldavies.typepad.com/eggbaconchipsandbeans/2003/12/new_piccadilly_.html

Now go there, eat lots of egg and chips and, as one of the sites above suggests, leave them a generous tip!

Brighton Pics, Winter 06

2007-02-01T18:17:00.000Z

Snow in Brighton!

2007-01-28T22:49:00.000Z

Maya shared her photos of the snow (http://www.jugnitales.blogspot.com), so I thought I would share mine...

Brrrr!!

Argh.

2007-01-26T20:44:00.000Z

Today we slaved over a really nice pizza, with gorgonzola, tomato, olives, anchovies and lovely gooey mozzarella on it. And then I took it out of the oven. And dropped it. While I managed to save half of it (which was a sloppy mess but still tasted ok) I had the cleanup to look forward to. Of course, I had dropped the pizza in the most awkward position at the bottom of the stairs so all the tomato, gooey mozzarella and olives slithered into the corner where the carpet meets the bottom of the wall. Not the easiest area to cleanse of cheese stuck onto carpet like glue... especially as the carpet has seen better days and could do with a vacuum anyway so I couldn't really tell what was little bits of cheese and what was bits of dust and hair. Not a happy event for a Friday night.

Grrrr MySpace

2006-12-03T15:39:00.000Z

http://www.myspaceisgay.com/

While this is just plain amusing, it's not actually the poseurs and showoffs of MySpace that are getting on my nerves today - it's bloody crap non-functionality of MySpace itself. I've been emailing Bettie Page fans through it as research for my term paper and today neither can I get into the f'ing mailbox, read any of my messages, or even do a search for more people on there. Time after time I get the infuriating message, "Sorry! an unexpected error has occurred. This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group." I've seen this "error" a number of times while navigating the clunky mechanics of MySpace and am beginning to wonder if the "MySpace technical group" actually exists. It just goes to show that as soon as you begin to rely on technology it often lets you down, and "my space" (and possibly, my term paper) is at the mercy of the cyberworld keeping it together.

Add to the fact that because of our shitty broadband supplier we are currently without internet access (due to swapping to a new one) so having dragged my heavier than average laptop up to the pub to use their Wifi access specifically to do this MySpace stuff, I'm even more irritated that the "MySpace technical group" haven't yet made the damn site work.

As you may have gathered, I'm pretty down on technology at the moment...

Calling all Bettie Page fans!

2006-11-27T16:40:00.000Z

I thought I'd put this plea on here in case anyone stumbles across it - I'm writing a term paper on Bettie Page and need some fans responses on how much (and indeed, why) they love her! So, if you'd like to respond here are the questions: (respond in comments or email me, s.c.sims@sussex.ac.uk) Thanks!!

1. Why are you a fan of Bettie Page?
2. What kind of woman/femininity do you think is being represented in Bettie Page's images?
3. Do you think Bettie fits into the genre of pornography (for instance, other "glamour" shots like "Page 3" girls in the UK or other pornography)? How does Bettie fit into the genre of pornography? And if you think she doesn't, why not?
4. Finally -- while Bettie herself never declared herself one, Gretchen Mol (who of course played her in the biopic The Notorious Bettie Page, has called Bettie a feminist because she was "highly evolved in her sexuality" and "didn't see the shame or harm in doing the things she was doing." (http://www.timessquare.com/movies/mol/). Feminism means different things to different people - how would you define feminism? Would you call yourself a feminist? How does Bettie fit in with your understanding of feminism - do you think her work/images can be called feminist?

Media Studies - you gotta love it...

2006-11-23T20:05:00.000Z

Sorry for the absence - I've been grappling with my new life as a student, which was exciting and disorientating at the start, and is now getting quite depressing as I realise the solitary life of sitting in on dark winter evenings with one's nose in a book. Just kidding, it's not really that bad at all, of course, it's actually pretty great most of the time - meeting like minded souls, discovering new ideas and, fundamentally, not getting up to go to work at 9am. But my "hobbies" that I embraced while doing boring office work are suffering - from writing on this blog to completing a painting I started about 9 months ago (still hanging on the wall though, albeit unfinished, a constant reminder of my laziness!).

But anyway - the beauties of studying Media Studies are many. Of course, the theory is all well and good, and we've looked at some pretty mind-bending stuff. But in what other subject could I currently be planning an essay on Bettie Page while simultaneously preparing a presentation on Doris Day to illustrate the importance of considering the media spectator? The way it's looking I could basically swing the whole course to end up being a study of my favourite bits of 1950s nostalgia!

Anyway, I will try and write more... promises promises...

The cost of being a woman

2006-08-29T19:53:00.000+01:00

On Monday I went shopping with Ben and came back with the distinct feeling that there’s a conspiracy going on. We both went into Top Shop, a fashionable brand but generally more everyday wear than haute couture. I bought a pair of jeans for £40, but was dismayed to find that downstairs in “Top Man”, the men’s jeans started at £25.

This seemed to me really unfair, and when you start to compare the price of men’s clothes compared to women’s there is a distinct difference. You can pick up a fairly good quality, and fashionable, man’s shirt for £25 (Ben did yesterday in Top Man). A woman’s top will cost roughly the same, but there seems to be no logic behind this. In fact, we're effectively getting 'less' for our money – take for instance the skimpier feminine garments like tube tops or vests, which can also cost up to that much if they are somewhere above the basic or quite individual in design. Perhaps you could argue that female garments take more careful tailoring due to our more shapely bodies, but equally you could argue that women are generally shorter than men so less material is used to make our clothes! In any case, the jeans that I bought were “boy fit” and a simple straight cut… so why not the “boy’s price” eh?

Consider the fact that women probably buy more clothes anyway, shouldn’t the industry be cutting the female consumer some slack?! I think women are generally swindled into spending unnecessary cash anyway. Look at the expensive cosmetics, hair products (the average cost of a woman's haircut? £20-40. The cost of a man's? £6-10). And have you ever really thought about how much extra you (or your girlfriend.. your mum.. your sister) has to spend on underwear? Remember, women have an 'extra' piece we wear, the bra, an item that can cost anything from £15-£30 (and more) each for a decent one. No wonder a symbol of feminism was the “burning of the bra” – not only does it symbolise sexual stereotypes but you could argue it also keeps us economically disadvantaged!

And don't even get me started on feminine hygiene products (tampons etc). Up until just a few years ago, these items were subject to full VAT, a tax normally applied to "luxury" and non-essential items (eg. food and children's clothes are VAT free, TV's and eating out are not). While I am sure there are many items that individual people would consider "essential" like their iPod or cigarettes, I think we'd all agree that tampons and sanitary towels are pretty damn necessary. According to a very interesting article on the subject at http://www.bized.ac.uk/current/mind/2005_6/120905.htm, "Prior to the 2000 Budget, the full rate of 17.5% VAT was levied on sanitary products but other products such as razor blades, for example, were zero rated." While the 2000 budget cut the tax on these products to 5% on these products, why didn't they go the whole hog and cut it to zero?! I mean, if these are "luxuries" what do they expect women to use instead, rags? In this way, the article above points out that women are effectively being taxed more through these "indirect taxes" on products that they don't have a choice but to use.

It feels like every industry (and maybe even the government) is creaming off the profits from women who are brainwashed to think that they have to spend money and maintain a high level of consumption. It’s easy to see why the most powerful and richest people in the world are 'stupid white men' – they don't have to purchase leg wax, hair straightners, hair clips, lipsticks, panty liners, wrinkle refiners…the list goes on. I think women need to get a bit more savvy and think about these issues (and maybe, dare I say it, even protest) rather than just reaching mindlessly for their wallet.

Here comes the sun (flowers)....

2006-08-28T22:33:00.000+01:00

There is a distinct chill in the air... perhaps Autumn is coming... But still, in the garden summer clings on! So I thought I'd share it.
This is one of my "special" Earthwalker sunflowers that I planted back in the Spring. Strangely, they've taken longer to grow and the plants seemed less tough than the traditional yellow ones I planted. However, now that some have flowered they seem to have stood the wind and rain much better than the big yellow goliaths who disappointingly withered rather quickly in our recent August showers....

Debbie Does… The News?

2006-08-23T19:37:00.000+01:00

This is hilarious: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5273706.stm?ls

A Swedish broadcaster has apologised for accidentally screening scenes from a porn film in the background of a news bulletin on the weekend. Apparently, the crew had turned to the French channel, Canal Plus, to watch a sports event and had forgotten to turn it back. When the news bulletin came on, it was during the night hours when I guess Canal Plus turns a bit less family friendly, and screens programmes for more “adult” interests. It is perhaps a confirmation of the Swedish 'liberated' stereotype that the channel received no complains regarding this mishap, while it has attracted a lot of media interest. No doubt if this happened in England the phone lines would be jammed by mortified viewers.

We watch polished news programmes, dramas, documentaries, and maybe we sometimes forget that these things are orchestrated by human beings, who are as fallible as you or I. I love blunders like this, not only because most people like a good laugh at other people’s expense, but also because it’s nice to see the normally impenetrable and perfect mask of the media slip once in a while, and watch the execs and directors sweat, if only for a moment…

Back to school!

2006-08-17T20:10:00.000+01:00

Well, what do you know. I got the funding for my masters! Come October I'll be a student of the University Of Sussex, where I did my undergraduate degree, and according to my car sticker "the best university in the world" (it's not really).

Since applying, I've been waiting to hear about the funding for months.... and I can hardly believe I've got it. I was gobsmacked when I heard, it feels a bit like winning the lottery along with a warm woolly feeling that someone actually thinks I'm good! Since graduating, I've spent most of my time working in underpaid, brainless jobs and I'd started to wonder why I'd bothered spending my formative years studying so hard. I've never really had a job that's paid me to do something that I'm really interested or passionate in. But getting paid to research, write and study? Perfect! Getting this funding has made my long years of education seem really worthwhile.

So, in September I will be leaving the world of the 9 to 5, reawakening the braincells and dusting off my pencil case (or maybe even treating myself to a new one).

Studying is Sexy... just ask Marilyn...

20 Questions

2006-08-01T22:47:00.000+01:00

Surely this kind of thing belongs only on MySpace... but RM said such sweet things about me on his blog and asked me to do this, so I shall.

1. How often do you blog? Anything from 3 times a week to once a month... I must be more consistent!
2. Online Alias? Stellastar
3. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew? Don't think so, but if I got the opportunity I'd like to think I'd rise to it.
4. What do you do most often when you are bored? Cleaning (how sad), gardening, surfing the internet.
5. When bathing, which do you wash first? My hair.
6. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight? No, I need my beauty sleep.
7. What color looks best on you? Blue or red
8. What’s your favorite alcoholic drink? Red wine or kahlua (not in the same glass though)
9. Do you believe in heaven and hell as a real place that each of us will go to after death? Not a jot.
10. Do you find that you have more online friends than offline friends? Not yet.. but if I carry on being the geek that I am this will probably change.
11. What was your favorite subject in school? English, Drama and RE (weird, considering my answer to no.9)
12. Are you a perfectionist? Yes, but a lazy one.
13. Do you spend more than you can afford? No! I'm thrifty and absolutely love charity shops.
14. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have love before? Actually, a hard one... I suppose so, but heartbreak is horrible!
15. Do you consider yourself creative? It sounds a bit wanky to say yes doesn't it? I suppose try... (to be creative, not wanky)
16. Do you give yourself the credit you deserve? Some of the time.
17. Do you donate time or money to charities? I donate a little regularly to Greenpeace. Should do more really, but hey, I recycle and buy fair-trade bananas...
18. Have you recently done something that you’ve criticized others for doing? Well, I'm not sure about recently, but generally of course I have.... probably things like gossiping and being a bit bitchy.
19. What’s on your mind? My tickley cough and when it's going to go away.
20. Say one nice thing about the person who tagged you. I was tagged by the lovely RM.. where do I start! I suppose the thing that really comes across through his writing is that he's a really sensitive, thoughtful person.... Plus he's always got nice things to say about my writing too, and keeps popping back here even though recently my blog has been gathering cobwebs... so thanks! x

And for my next trick....

2006-07-25T22:40:00.000+01:00

I've got a sewing machine!! I can sew!!

And this is my first completed project.

Proof, if any were needed, that I am indeed a domestic goddess.

ps. it's a peg bag. Note strategically placed pegs.

Writers block...

2006-07-03T22:59:00.000+01:00

I've been trying to put up a photo post for ages now of my trip to Barcelona but it's stalled halfway. Blogger has been acting up (and still is) so for some reason I can't post more than three photos, and seeing as my post was mainly based around photos that's fairly annoying. What's also annoying is that because I'm kind of halfway with this other post I'm sort of "in the zone" and can't really move onto thinking about writing anything else until I've got this one done... and so my blog sits gathering dust with nothing new to talk about.

Argh. Well I guess I'll have to ignore my slightly obsessive/perfectionist side and leave the Barcelona post unfinished and move on until Blogger sorts out the problem. So in the meantime I'll be trying to reignite my inspiration...

The Great Escape

2006-05-23T11:06:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I went to The Great Escape music festival here in Brighton. Organised by Barfly, who are gradually taking over most of the music venues in England (and make them conform to their own corporate interests eg. serving only Carling lager), the event is mainly tailored to industry people - showcasing over 150 bands and arranging music-industry talks and events during the day. But amongst all the guest list passes and schmoozing, they also open up tickets to the general public for the reasonable sum of £35 - which isn't bad for a 3 day pass which gives you access to all the venues hosting many up-and-coming acts like Buck 65, The Kooks and The Futureheads to name but a few.

So, 150 bands to choose from over a sunny weekend in Brighton - sipping cold beer in the sunshine, eating chips on the beach, and leisurely nipping in every now and then for some good music. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Well, it sort of was. The Great Escape is really something that sounds fantastic in concept but doesn't really work well in practice. Brighton isn't really known for its gig venues, and most are pretty small which doesn't really lend itself to a bit of a free-for-all. In reality, for a lot of people, I think it could have been merely a weekend of standing for hours in queues (in the wind and rain I might add - Brighton's weather was not kind this weekend) just to catch the closing bars of the last tune of the night.

I managed to see about 6 bands, but reckon I've probably also managed to obtain a cold and high blood pressure from waiting around in the rain and rushing around stressed trying to decide what bands will be less crowded, then squeezing into venues. I honestly think you could have ended up seeing zero bands if you were unfortunate enough to pick the wrong venues (eg. the ones where the "hot new bands" were playing). One venue I went to at 8pm (to see the 9pm band Tapes N Tapes) and people were already queuing around the block, even though the venue was full to capacity and the bouncers were only allowing one-in-one-out. While I'm sure many a hipster jumped the queues and sauntered into venues on guest lists, the lowly public were left queuing for ages...with merciless bouncers shoving and yelling (or worse) at anyone who stepped out of line. Fairly badly organised, the festival felt a bit like industry moguls are cashing in by opening up tickets to the public and then not really organising it well enough.

So... what about the music. Well, my fave acts were probably Howling Bells (of whom I managed to catch a total of 1.5 songs), Metric, Immaculate Machine and Brakes. But to be honest, I'd rather have discovered these bands at home in the comfort of iTunes rather than lining the pockets of Barfly and standing in the cold for hours.

All We Hear Is Radio Ga Ga

2006-05-16T11:15:00.000+01:00

Walking to work this morning I realised that I was doing something I never thought I’d do when I was a teenager. I was listening to Radio 4. There’s a kind of stereotype about each different BBC radio station – if you’re young and funky (or having a midlife crisis) you listen to banging house on Radio 1, if you’re a thirty-something with a penchant for oldies you listen to Radio 2, and if you’re a middle-class professional then you listen to the “intelligent” news, dramas and factual programmes of Radio 4.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve never been a fan of “trendy” Radio 1. I didn’t really used to listen to the radio that much, except during that obligatory phase during early teens where you listen out for your favourites in order to record them off the radio for mix-tapes. Still, even in my younger years I found Radio 1’s repetitive, pop-heavy output and vacuous DJs generally made my ears bleed. And don’t even get me started on the awfulness of local radio in this country – a number of years ago I working in a factory that played a local pop radio station 24 hours a day. As if packing contact lenses (the job in question) wasn’t dull enough, doing it to a looping soundtrack of The Lighthouse Family, Bryan Adams and Chumbawumba was enough to drive anybody crazy.

But for years my parents have been telling me to listen to Radio 4. With cinema programmes like Front Row and current affairs shows like Any Questions, it seemed like there was a lot that might interest me. Nevertheless, I just couldn’t be bothered and my ear candy of choice was always music and CDs rather than radio. My parents always seemed to have (and still do) every radio in the house switched on so that you can never escape the gentle musings of Gardeners’ Question Time or the petty and predictable traumas of the Grundy family (and the rest) on The Archers. I used to see Radio 4 as a bit boring, and definitely “mature”. Despite my new hobby, I haven’t quite gone so far as listening to Gardeners’ Question Time but I do find myself quite naturally tuning into The Today Programme as I perform my morning ablutions, to wake up my mind and find out what’s going on in the world on a new day. Jeez, maybe I’m all grown up?

Still, I don’t think I’d catagorise myself as any of the stereotyped groups I mentioned above because I tend to flirt with all the BBC stations, not really placing my allegiance with a particular one. It depends on the time of day really. Radio 4 is a must for waking up on a workday, or for the comedic value of ridiculous overacting in one of their afternoon plays. Radio 1 is actually bearable when it’s not peak time, after 7pm when they drop the play lists and sometimes have more interesting genre-based shows. I think actually Radio 2 is my current favourite. I adore Jonathan Ross on a Saturday morning, enjoy Chris Evans’ drive-time show despite myself and Mark Lamarr’s after hours Friday night show is an inspired idea. Hmmm. I’m four years away from being thirty (yikes!) so actually I’m not far off their demographic…perhaps I am stereotype after all!

My New Hobby

2006-05-09T20:59:00.000+01:00

Apologies for ignoring my duties to the World Wide Web. Not only have I been shaping up my intellectual self (planning and applying for a masters) but I've also been getting physical by going outside, taking in the fresh air and getting my hands dirty. Yep, I've been doing gardening. Believe me, this is something I've never been interested in before, but lately I've got the bug. I suppose it's the thought of summer and wanting to have a nice space to hang out in on a balmy evening (I can but hope) as the beer and wine flows freely and the smell of barbecue smoke fills the air.

Thankfully, there's no grass in my garden so no boring mowing to be done. Just a patio area to weed and plant pots and borders to be filled with gorgeous blooms. Well, that's the plan anyway. So far I've planted various herbs, cornflowers, lupins, petunias, and numerous others. Of course, I'm clueless about soil types, how deep to put the seed, etc, so hopefully I haven't doomed my flowers to death even before they've popped their little green heads above soil (called "germination" - one of the many new words I've learned!) by digging them in too deep or putting them in the wrong bit of ground. Also, I'm actually very impatient, so I keep finding myself outside every day, standing over pots and scrutinising the brown soil merely 24 hours after sowing the seeds, frustrated that there is no sign of life and convincing myself that the slugs have already devoured my little seedlings.

Some people have raised their eyebrows at this sudden interest in getting all green-fingered. I guess it's still not completely "cool" to be interested in gardening and most people associate it with old ladies in floral-print gardening gloves, getting all huffy and fretful over the greenfly on their prize roses. Either that or Alan Titchmarsh, who is arguably one of the most un-hip people on TV (no offence Alan, I think you're great at what you do and seem like a very cuddly, lovely sort of chap). Still, all these cynics will be laughing on the other side of their face when my miniature Eden comes into bloom and I invite them over to sip Mojitos among the potted palms, fragrant lilies and cheery sunflowers. For me, it's about being interested in your surroundings and doing something new and a bit creative. I think I'll also feel a sense of achievement if I actually manage to see something grow!

Actually, since I discovered this new interest and talked to people about it, you find that other people of my age are closet gardeners too. One friend of mine has been doing her own allotment for a while now and she's younger than me! I found myself chatting to one of my best friends about my garden the other day, and discovered she's been doing the garden for a while now too and I didn't even know. Currently she's growing coriander, honeysuckle and tomatoes and I'm sure it will add a new dimension to our friendship that we can now discuss the problem of battling aphids, wrestling with trellises and where to get the best deal on slug pellets. Nice!

Here's some pics of my efforts so far:

Mmmm lovely bluebells (I can't take the credit for these, they just popped up).

These look nice don't they? (Again, no credit to me, they're all from my mum.)

Mmmm lovely lillies (which will hopefully flower soon!!)

Petunias (yet to flower) and Nasturtiums (yet to grow). (Why won't they hurry up!!)

These suckers are playing so hard to get I brought them inside.

Every garden needs these. A pair of very expensive (£20) plastic pink flamingoes. At the moment I can't bear to put them outside cos they look so cute in this house plant. Maybe they'll migrate outside for special occasions, once I've christened them with names.

Excuses, excuses

2006-04-13T14:27:00.000+01:00

Well, over a week without writing a word. Scandalous! But I have good reason. Perhaps in reaction to the sad events that got me all pensive last week, I've actually been making some more important decisions/plans for the future.

Last week I realised the deadline was looming for getting funding to do a masters. I've been toying with the idea for ages and ages and had put it off, refused to make a decision and generally been a bit stupid about it. Anyway, I suddenly realised this was my last chance to potentially do something useful in September and not even trying to apply would definitely mean another year wondering what to do with myself. Of course, I could do the masters without funding, but finding £3000 for the tuition fees alone plus extra cash for expenses like rent etc would be a challenge to say the least, especially while trying to make a good job of studying at an advanced level.

So, in a mad panic I've made an application for the very competitive AHRC studentship which involved filling out an incredibly convoluted form and passing it around various people to get 2 academic referees and a 3rd recommendation from your proposed department of study. I had to come up with a personal statement detailing my interest in the course, my proposal for my dissertation and even a speculation of what my future PhD would be in! Anyhow, I fit in what most people would probably spend weeks on into a very stressful week of bending the ears of academic friends, doing research, reading, decoding of complicated forms and procedures, visiting my old professors flat to get his reference, and conjuring up a proposal for doctorial study while soaking in the bath on Saturday morning.

But now, what relief that it's done! Still, at least I've tried and made the deadline and whether I get the damn studentship or not I'm very proud of what I've accomplished and feel that I did my best with what time and resources I had. Now I just have to wait until August when you find out whether you've got it or not and with something like only 29% of applications being accepted I'm not highly confident. I hope I haven't tempted fate by talking about it too much. Well, my fingers and toes are crossed...

Monday musings on mortality...

2006-04-03T10:28:00.001+01:00

In contrast to the joie de vivre of my post celebrating the vitality and exhuberance of Spring, a bit of a sombre mood today. This morning at work I came in to find out that one of our colleague’s husbands has died of cancer. I’ve never met this woman because she’s been away taking care of him since he became seriously ill a long while ago. He not only leaves behind her, but also a baby and teenage son. I can’t imagine what this poor woman is going through. Another colleague is away today because she is mourning the death of a very close friend on Friday.

We all have dark times, and I think that one of the worst things about such moments is the overwhelming feeling of loneliness when you’re in the pit of despair. You feel like there’s a shadow over everything, yet other people are laughing and loving and joking, despite the angst or agony you have inside. But it is at times like today when you take comfort in exactly that – people are celebrating or crying all over the world, having unique experiences but ultimately sharing many of the same emotions. It makes you realise that you’re not alone in either suffering or joy.

The news of these deaths was not the nicest start for us in the office on a Monday morning, but how insignificant is that compared to what these people are feeling who are now on the brink of what most of us fear most – the permanent loss of a loved one? I’m sat at work today, feeling fairly bored and dissatisfied as usual; selfishly worrying about what I’m going to do next to make my life better and more fulfilling. But I should count myself lucky. It sounds like a cliché, at least I am here and breathing, having the luxury of choices and time to plan something better for my future, however long it takes.

"Hot town, summer in the city" (well, almost)

2006-03-29T22:00:00.000+01:00

I can sense a turning of the tide... the winds of change are upon us... it's Spring!

Yesterday the good people of Brighton & Hove council were on strike, which by default for me meant DAY OFF! Screw worker solidarity, you wouldn't catch me stuck on a picket line yesterday (although it might have been a good method of catching tan) - I was a lady of leisure. And what a gorgeous day to be free to play! As if it putting the clocks forward at the weekend wasn't enough excitement, bringing with it the anticipation of balmy summer nights and going for an evening out when it's still light outside. Yesterday the sky was blue, the air had the clear otherwordly aroma of a different season long since forgotten and everything seemed tinged with warmth and cheerfulness. I even left my jacket and scarf at home with no ill effects.

The first flowers are breaking through in the garden - crocuses with delicate petals and the green shoots of daffodils. Yesterday was so quintessentially Spring-like that you could really feel every plant, animal and human being shaking itself off and coming back to life. Last night I remember waking up in the night and hearing that distinctly summery sound of birds twittering in the trees outside in the middle of the night. Not the usual cacophony of seagulls who like to keep me awake with their monstrous yelling but the kinds of sounds you hear on a warm August morning before sunrise as the sparrows and robins stretch their wings and raise a call of hallelujah for the break of day. Last night these birds must have sensed the same euphoria that I did from a simple bit of sunshine and the hint of summer.

Well, I know I'm getting carried away, this is England and consistent weather just isn't our thing. Indeed, what would we talk about if it was? But tonight as the inevitable rain patters against my window, in my heart I know that summer is coming!

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

2006-03-23T22:35:00.000Z

I got wolf-whistled this morning. Of course the offender was some bozo of a manual labourer - let's presume he was a builder, the usual culprits - as he was hanging around his white Ford Transit van. I wonder if he realised he was a walking cliche? Anyway, such mindless behaviour has been a classic bugbear for feminists (like myself) for years, who generally view it as the automatic objectification of women as sexual objects to be defined by their allure and attractiveness only.

I'm not sure what makes a man feel so sure of himself that he can make a verbal sign of admiration (whether it's a whistle, or some other hackneyed come-on) to a woman that he doesn't even know. Indeed, a woman like me who was not long out of bed, on her way to work, headphones in ears... not exactly making an effort to be alluring. But even if I was, what really gives him the right to impose his judgement on me?? Maybe he thought I'd see it as such a unique and romantic statement that I'd just jump straight into bed with him. Dream on.

I mean, while this incident didn't exactly ruin my day, I didn't exactly take it as a compliment either. A whistle might not seem like that big a deal, but I felt slightly insulted, and embarrassed, at being singled out in this way. I also could have kicked myself because stupidly, before I could stop myself, I automatically turned around to meet his gaze when I would normally dignify such behaviour with zero reaction.

What it made me think about was something I read in one of the weekend newspaper supplements, about a woman named Norah Vincent who spent a year masquerading as a man christened "Ned," complete with fake stubble and prosthetic penis nicknamed "Sloppy Joe." One interesting point she made was how it felt when she walked the streets in the neighbourhood in New York where she'd lived for years, this time in her new identity. Previously, as a woman, "you couldn't walk down those streets invisibly. You were an object of desire or at least semi-prurient interest to the men who waited there." As a man, she really felt the difference, in terms of how men looked at her, or rather, didn't: "It was astounding, the difference, the respect they showed me by not looking at me, by purposely not staring...To look away is to accept the status quo, to leave each man to his tiny sphere of influence, the small buffer of pride and poise that surrounds and keeps him."

So what about a woman's pride? A woman's space? It's really interesting to think how differently you are percieved as a woman as opposed to a man, as people so readily judge you on your appearance. While in the UK, I'm not always aware of being scrutinised as I go about my daily business, as a woman, if you go somewhere like Italy or Greece you get eyed up and commented on everywhere you go. And while now and again it's nice to be admired, but even at its least invasive feeling constantly under the weight of a critical gaze can get a bit annoying and at worst can be quite distressing if it goes as far as harassment.

Men need to realise if they really want to get a woman, they need to grow up, take some lessons in real flirting and perhaps even try engaging us in intelligent conversation. Sadly, those men who gutlessly catch a woman unawares with a seedy comment or jeer probably don't have the guts or the brainpower to tie their shoes let alone hold a woman's attention for more than a passing second as she gives them the finger and continues on her way.

PS. if you want more of the artist above, with some highly humourous commentary then check out http://www.lileks.com/institute/frahm/index.html (and check out the rest of James Lileks' stuff, it's fab).

Body Shop = B.S

2006-03-19T21:31:00.000Z

What? L'Oreal have bought The Body Shop? Hasn't that got to be the biggest sellout since Bob Dylan agreed to appear in an advert for American lingerie giant Victoria's Secret? I thought The Body Shop was all about taking a stridently ethical stance on everything - from the fairtrade sourcing of ingredients to striving for a strict animal testing policy that helped accelerate a discussion of the cruel and deep-rooted culture of animal experiments for pure vanity's sake.

Now they have been swallowed up by yet another huge corporation, with it's own highly questionable ethics and practises. While The Body Shop's website is all proclamations of it's values from "Support Community Trade" to "Activate Self Esteem," the L'Oreal brand has a shallow airbrushed image where women prove "I'm worth it" through beauty regimes like dying their hair and using products invented at The School of Nonsense Science with ingredients like "Biotherm" and "Nutrileum". L'Oreal also owns 26% of Nestle - last year proclaimed the "least responsible company" in a global internet vote and who have been targeted by campaign-groups and boycotts for years because of their aggressive marketing of baby foods in the third world. (see http://www.babymilkaction.org/ for more info on this)

And crucially, when you consider The Body Shop's stringent policy on no animal testing on their products AND ingredients, it is well known that L'Oreal and the other brand names they oversee - Maybelline, Garnier, Ralph Lauren and more - have very weak policies on animal testing if any at all.

When I was in my early teens, my friends and I would regularly go to The Body Shop and pick up cool smellies for only a few pounds - the shop used to be a feast for the senses with a huge range of products, vivid colours, delicious smells and rebellious slogans. You could buy cool stuff like banana hair conditioner and bright pink elephant shaped soaps - products that you could directly relate to their principles and ethics. They had a strong image as a being committed to a message of activism and action - I thought they were trying to change the world.

But undoubtedly, they've lost their way. I lost interest in them long ago when they became all minimalistic packaging, boring product lines and high prices that made it just another "luxury" designer product - another example of our fetishising of "green" consumer goods. (see my post Starbucks Vs Bills). They've priced out all the teenagers who used to go there and spend our pocket money while being inspired with the message that you don't have to kill the planet to have nice things.

In the old days The Body Shop appealed to all ages, but particularly young people who were actually proud to buy cosmetics and beauty products that were made ethically, and by a company with a message. I can't help but think that The Body Shop's change of focus can perhaps be linked to a kind of waning interest in young people - overt activism and campaigning these days seems kind of embarrassing to teens these days who think it's oh so dull to be concerned with their impact on the planet, preferring instead to concentrate on more important things like filling up their iPod, schmoozing on MySpace or aspiring to become mini-Paris Hiltons.

Anyway, I digress. Apparently Anita Roddick thinks L'Oreal are eager to learn from The Body Shop's method of running an ethical business - and of course, it's debatable whether you're going to change anything if you completely disengage from those you disagree with. Still, look at the facts. It's not The Body Shop buying out L'Oreal here, it's yet another huge megacorp adding just another company to it's collection, controlling it and making it tow the wider company line while benefiting from its profits. I don't think it's going to be hard to see who's going to wear the trousers in this relationship.

Still, I find it so hard to believe that a company which started with principles of ethics and activism is now so willingly sleeping with the enemy. With Roddick standing to gain around 180 million dollars from the sale, it's pretty tempting to think that she got greedy - she is a capitalist after all and The Body Shop has not remained the completely grassroots, independently minded business it once was and has grown into a huge corporate venture in itself.

So now I have yet another company to add to my "naughty" list - companies for whom I as a consumer vote with my feet (or my wallet) in choosing NOT to give them my custom. Who'd have forseen that the latest addition to this motley crew would be The Body Shop. I'd better start making my own shampoo and soaps, it's the only way.

Seven Songs Rocking My World..

2006-03-15T12:09:00.000Z

As requested by RM, I'm posting the seven songs that have formed the soundtrack to my recent days... and "tagging" the few other bloggers I know, as I only know a handful!

These are mine:

1. Sound And Vision - David Bowie
2. Mr Blue Sky - ELO
3. Jackson - Johnny Cash and June Carter (or Joaquin and Reece)
4. Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
5. Pretty Baby - Blondie
6. Capitalism Stole My Virginity - International Noise Conspiracy
7. Senorita - Justin Timberlake

And I'm tagging...

1. Donna
2. Chloe
3. Kaja-Marie
4. Nick
5. Ixxle
6. Hjortron

RM - what happens now??! I guess this is meant to be some kind of fun little game of "reveal what horrible/pretentious music taste you have and find out what terrible music your friends are listening to"...? Still, at least it got me writing on here, which I know I've been a bit slack on of late so thanks! I'm back on track now I think!

You spin me right round baby right round...like a record baby...

2006-03-13T20:23:00.000Z

I went record shopping yesterday and came home with a scratched up version of ELO Greatest Hits for 99p. I could have downloaded it some snazzy file sharing program of course, but I wanted the earthy, authentic sound of stylus on vinyl and the pleasure of almost watching the music happen. I’m happy – it was cheap and plays well enough, with the odd hiss and pop, so that I can happily bounce around the room to the Mr Blue Sky.

I normally restrict my record shopping to charity shops, as I’m constantly annoyed and shocked by the price some pretentious “vintage” retailers charge for second-hand or so-called "rare" vinyl. If, like me, you’re unwilling to pay £20 for a scruffy version of Sgt Peppers, then you choose to wade through the sea of old crap that’s out there in second-hand shops, which can be quite an odd adventure of discovery. You find a number of useless artefacts whether it’s obscure heavy metal from the 80s, a 12’’ single by a short-lived but entertainingly coiffeured New Romantic band, or a copy of Never Mind The Bollocks in such unrecognisably bad condition that it looks like someone’s carved up and served a pizza on it before using it as a frisbee.

What I do keep finding is that the same albums turning up in the bargain bins as well. Particularly common ones that people don’t mind parting with is anything by Abba and Into The Gap by the Thompson Twins. I admit to having a guilty soft spot for both of these bands, but feel no pressure to add them to my collection because I know, if I don’t buy that copy in Oxfam on Monday I can feel confident I’ll pick one up in Help The Aged on Tuesday.

What you don’t find in charity shops: records people know are a bit good, or think might be more valuable. This includes the aforementioned Beatles, cool picture discs by bands that are actually credible, and anything post-1995 (except one-hit wonders and Simply Red). What I also haven’t found so far is really anything I’m SEARCHING for.

But so far I’m satisfied, enjoying my new hobby and the thrill of the search. I’ve picked up a mixed bag of records so far from Blondie’s Parallel Lines to poptastic Fore! by Huey Lewis And The News. I’ve also acquired through friends everything from the sublime (Bowie’s Changes Two) to the rather awful (Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D’Arby– sorry Ben, but you made up for it with the Jimmy Somerville single you bought me!).

PS. What I AM looking for isn’t a huge list, but if anyone has a mint-condition copy of The Specials Singles on vinyl they’d like to let me have for 99p I’d be very much obliged.

What's wrong with this picture?

2006-03-05T03:16:00.000Z

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now. I took these photos while visiting my friend in Falmouth, Cornwall.

So what's wrong with this picture? If you're the person in charge of signage in Falmouth town centre then nothing at all. However, if you've got more than 2 brain cells to rub together, and two fairly acceptable eyes to see with, then there's quite a lot wrong with it. As I shall show with the following points...

1. These brown signs are normally used in the British Isles to promote or point out areas of tourist interest - heritage sites, campsites, cosy old B&Bs run by crusty old ladies, etc. But McDonalds? Do we really need to be spending (presumably public) money on putting up signs to advertise an abhorrent multinational corporation that has nothing to do with our authentic national identity or history? Let's face it, the Golden Arches scar our landscape like an azure rash, normally dwarfing any other roadside signs and the making the McDonalds assault upon our landscape impossible to miss without the need for extra visual signifiers.

2. Were the people who erected this sign really such imbeciles to think that the ideal and most useful place for this sign was DIRECTLY OPPOSITE the restaurant itself? Which is, might I reiterate, IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS anyway? This McDonalds wasn't mysteriously situated down a side alley, or hidden by some space-age cloaking device - it was right there, on the open road with it's own shimmering, ubiquitous sign.

To illustrate the ridiculousness, here I am looking at the sign WHILE STANDING in McDonalds carpark.

Gee! Thanks Falmouth! I might have never found this restaurant and clogged my arteries with cholesterol and filth if it wasn't for your very useful sign. Maybe next time you could follow Venice's lead and provide me with a tourist map showing all the McDonalds restaurants in my immediate radius. (ps. I did not make that up - when I went to Venice, there was such a map.)

3. How many idiots does it take to put up a sign? I don't know how many people read these signs before they go to print, but you'd think SOMEONE must proof-read these things before they are committed to metal and cement. Apparently not:
See how long it takes you to spot the error. I kind of like this because it implies a negative, and the whole thing is just a kind of uber-ironic scenario. It's like "Is it a restaurant?" or "Is it a restaurARN'T"... Well, a restaurant it ain't, it's a stupid sign for a stupid business where stupid people go to fill their faces at the expense of the rest of the world with processed crap.

Anyway, my friend informs me that friends she has visiting her in Falmouth often ask to stop and photograph this sign so I suppose all is not lost. If some of us still have enough sense to notice stupidity from bad spellings to the malevolent growth of a fast food chain then maybe there's still some hope...

Show me the money!

2006-02-24T14:44:00.000Z

In January I came out of a period of unemployment and I’m not ashamed to say that I claimed benefits during that time. When you live in a popular place like Brighton, it can be almost impossible to find a job, and getting money through Jobseekers allowance and housing benefit was really helpful. For some people who can’t work due to illness or disability, it’s not just merely useful but the only way they can survive. While I’m grateful that this support even exists, I feel the need to mention my experience of how awfully managed the whole system is.

Housing benefit seems to be the worst. They’re the ones that cover your rent if you’re looking for work, or off sick, etc. But be warned if you're in some kind of monetary emergency - it’s fairly common for the housing benefits department to have a huge backlog on processing claims. It’s not enough that they pretty much make you tell them your life story, jump through various hoops and provide a ridiculous array of paraphernalia from proofs of income to your flatmate’s National Insurance number, but they also matter-of-factly informed me that there was an eight-week backlog! The advisor didn’t even bother to try and reassure me; even platitudes like “we’re working as hard as we can to sort it out” or “I’m terribly sorry for this delay” might have been nice. I suppose it’s just so common that a backlog is now all part of the service. I’d actually found a job by the time they got round to giving me any money – I could have really done with it in the months before when I was finding myself desperately delving around down the back of the sofa for the odd 2p piece.

And once I had a job, of course I have to inform them of my "new circumstances". Otherwise I will be labelled a "benefit cheat," and be forced to pay back any overpayment for the period when I officially should not have been receiving benefits. But they don’t make this easy for you either. Their phone line has a queuing system in place where it’s not uncommon to be waiting for at least half an hour plus to speak to someone. To make matters worse, when I finally tried to phone them and let them know there was a problem with their phone system so that you only got so far until you were unceremoniously cut off. This problem lasted for about a week. So I sent them a letter instead but thought I should phone them to check they had received it because fairly often this incompetent agency will lose or misplace letters, and then try and blame you for it later. And what a surprise, when I called up today to see if they’d got my letter I got the following automated message: “I’m sorry but our computer system is down at the moment. Our advisors may be able to help with general information or advice, but will be unable to access specific claims.” Well, that’s very useful isn’t it.

It’s lucky I’m not desperate, starving or homeless. I really don’t know how other people cope with this - it must be especially hard for people who aren’t particularly organised, have learning difficulties or just simply aren’t wise to the system. I know there are some fraudsters out there, but for a lot of people in unusual or difficult situations, like unemployment or illness, benefits are a lifeline and the only income they have. I've got a friend who is on benefits because a persistent injury to her knee prevents her from working at the moment. She was in tears the other day because her benefits payment had been delayed by a couple of weeks and was wondering how she was going to pay her rent. You don’t get much money on benefits, but it can mean the difference between having a secure roof over your head and living on the streets. When you’re dealing with these upsetting possibilities, surely you want an agency that takes your problems seriously and hence isn’t blighted with the kind of incompetencies and technology failures that seem to define our benefits system.

Night of a thousand stars.....

2006-02-20T17:39:00.000Z

Screw the Baftas. The real stars were at my fancy dress party on Saturday night:

Sonny and Cher

Kelly Osbourne and Cyndi Lauper

Joey Ramone

Courtney Love

Andy Warhol

Jimi Hendrix

Che Guevara

Audrey Hepburn

King Kong

Dr Who

"The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism."

2006-02-17T19:54:00.000Z

So said Wole Soyinka, a Nigerian poet and playright. OK, so here I go, as usual, exercising a little freedom to criticise!

Seeing as RM asked in a previous comment about ID cards, I thought it would be a worthwhile topic to explore. To me, ID Cards, Biometric Passports or whatever new fangled way the authorities have planned to catalogue and dominate us, are just another worrying symptom of the paranoia and fear that our government seem dedicated to perpetuating.

Take the following as another example of our culture of paranoia - I've just watched a programme where Walter Wolfgang explored New Labour's control and surpression of free speech. In a well-publicised incident, Wolfgang was thrown out of this summer's Labour Conference in Brighton for heckling Jack Straw during a speech. Well I say heckle, all he actually said was "nonsense" and for that the 82-year old was physically ejected from the conference hall by at two heavy-mob security guards. While they stopped short of arresting him, the police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry. In the programme I watched tonight, Wolfgang talks to other peaceful protestors who have also received warnings (and had report slips to prove it) under the Terrorism Act for targeting Tony Blair's government. These people were committing "offences" as small as wearing a T-shirt wearing an anti-Blair/Bush slogan or taking a photograph of police officers.

We live in a democracy, so people are allowed to protest. We have free speech, so people are allowed to voice their dissent. While none of us wants to let terrorists get away with committing atrocities, should we really allow the police to stamp out any disagreement even of the gentlest kind? I can't really see how wasting police time with these petty concerns is really doing anything to stop terrorism - shouldn't they be out doing the serious work looking for seriously dangerous people? I mean, that the people I mentioned above can even be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "terrorist" seems to me both ridiculous and comes worryingly close to totalitarianism.

So back to the opening question of ID Cards - I think what's happening is that the government have got agreement to introduce something of that sort, but that it won't be compulsory yet. I'm not sure when it's coming in but I am suspicious of the idea. And all this new information they want to hold on us like retina scans and biological details... it's bad enough when someone steals your bank account numbers, but imagine if someone worked out how to get hold of your biometric data? Maybe they could make a clone of me and then programme it to steal my life, my job, my lover... creepy. OK so this is an exaggeration, but I don't think that people should be forced to carry an identifying tag like some kind of pet dog. It all sounds a bit too much like "big brother is watching you" kind of territory.

The cartoon is mightier than the sword....?

2006-02-06T20:14:00.000Z

Who'd ever thought that a few cartoons could cause such a furore? Now we have this huge, impassioned and messy row going on across the world world about the recent cartoons representing the Muslim prophet Mohammed that were published in the Danish press. As I've said before, I'm all for freedom of speech, but I think one has to tread carefully in dealing with another person's religious beliefs, especially when they play such a huge part in people's lives and culture as religion does.

Personally, I don't have any sympathy with religion and generally feel that, as a wise man once said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." Still, I feel that the Danish press should have perhaps known better than offending one of the basic tenets of Islam, which forbids any representations of their prophet. I caught a glimpse of these cartoons on the internet and they looked fairly vulgar, full of stereotypical and provocative imagery. I can't help but think that while freedom of speech is one thing, what real and important argument or point was the newspaper trying to put across through these rather silly and incendiary cartoons?

One thing that occured to me is how, in times of general disagreement or conflict, people lose their identity. What I don't agree with is that some Muslim protesters have lumped all Europeans into one evil group, one enemy to be fought against. I've seen the TV news and heard about the rhetoric of stuff like "Death to Denmark" and "Europe: Your 9/11 will come". Presuming that all European people, and indeed, all Danish people, agree with one Danish newspaper's decision to print these cartoons is shortsighted indeed. That's as bad and unconstructive as thinking that all Muslims were to blame for September 11th.

But it seems somehow a ridiculous element of human nature to make the general public suffer for the sins of one person or group. Look at any war - is it the actual decision-takers or politicians who ever have to fight the war on the ground and get themselves killed? Of course not. Similarly in the September 11th attacks, which is still fresh in people's minds when discussing conflicts between the Middle-East and the West, was it the policy-makers, George Bush and his corrupt cronies, who bore the brunt of this hostility? No, it was a few thousand normal people of divergent beliefs, creeds and cultures who all ended up dying or suffering.

Just an observation. I hope that freedom of speech can still exist in a world where we respect what other people believe and if we want to debate what someone else thinks we can do it in a constructive and peaceful way.

Spelling iz phunky and gr8...!

2006-02-02T20:54:00.000Z

Look at this product! Hand Held Ease! No Spills! No Leaks! Awarded "Best New Product" In Dog Fancy Magazine, Handi-Drink is a revolution in engineering, combining a custom dog water bottle and unique wrap-around water pan into a single, lightweight unit so compact it will fit in your pocket! Or it can hook cleverly to your belt, or alternatively your shell-suit trousers from 1988:

How HANDI!!

Er, handi?? That's not in the dictionary is it folks?

My point in drawing this product to your attention today is not to promote the latest innovation in pet care but to discuss our culture's bizarre obsession with making weird and krazy spelling alterations, in an effort to evoke some kind of dramatic or powerful effect from the reader. For instance, Handi-Drink. Is there something so offensive about Handy-Drink? Does some marketing genius somewhere think that simply messing around with the spelling of a fairly mundane word will somehow make their product appear more appealing, humourous, fun, exciting? Perhaps handi has some definition that I'm not aware of. Maybe it's an even more extreme version of handy meaning "indispensibly-super-useful-intelligently-handy".... or something.

I actually walked past a shop selling one of these products and I must admit it was their playful mis-spelling of handy that caught my attention, even if it was more of a smile at the ridiculous earnestness with which they're trying to sell this product. And I am certainly not likely to buy a Handi-Drink, I don't even own a dog. Plus, I find this playing around with language pretty irritating. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy using my own turns of phrase, using nouns as verbs ("Let's Party!") and generally destroying the Queen's English. There is something to be said for interesting mutations in language, but when a word has been misspelled in an effort to be trendy it soon becomes mainstream in popular culture, loses the impact and just becomes very naff. For example cool becomes kool, phone becomes fone, snacks becomes snax and before you know it we have products like the Pocket-Pak, the Blo-Gun and Cheez-Whiz (I mean what the hell is that??!!). Oh and did anyone as a kid have a pair of Start-rite shoes? They could have started us kids off better by setting an example of how to spell properly!

Why do this!? It's not big, it's not clever - it's a lazy way to try and make something sound different and interesting, and fairly often advertisers do it to make money out of us for old rope. They'd probably try and sell us our own Grandmother by slapping an "As Seen On TV" sticker on her and giving her a new hip name like "Gran-muvva". Am I a spelling and grammar Nazi? Probably. But I just find this particular kind of wordplay annoying because it doesn't really have any particular effect or impact - it's quite often just a silly cliché. Still, I suppose it's not as bad as the language of the "text-speak" generation...

L8er!!

See this film!

2006-01-29T13:03:00.000Z

If you like Johnny Cash, see Walk The Line. If you've never heard of Johnny Cash, see this film, because I guarantee you'll want to know more about him afterwards. And your ears will be glad that you did.

In an age of pretty boys, Joaquin Phoenix is really a revelation. A passionate and charismatic actor, he makes a totally believeable Cash, endlessly watchable and conveying the multi-faceted nature of his character. Oh and he also looks REALLY hot in those sharp suits. I know Hollywood loves a romance, and of course the film's narrative is structured mainly around Johnny Cash's relationship to June Carter, here depicted as an important character in her own right by Reece Witherspoon. I've always really liked Witherspoon as an actress, and those who think she's just another attractive but irritating and typecast actress from the Cameron Diaz stable are totally misled. She always makes diverse film choices, from fluffy flicks like Legally Blonde to more dark, black comedies like Election. The connection and chemistry between Phoenix and Witherspoon takes their story above the usual schmaltz into a more real and convincing relationship, encompassing trauma, friendship and deep emotion.

And of course, the music is fabulous. Astonishingly, both Phoenix and Witherspoon performed all the vocals in the film and they both prove themselves not only good impersonators of Carter and Cash - they somehow make these songs their own as well.

Highly recommended. Now you'll have to excuse me, I've got to go and stick a record on.

Censor this!!

2006-01-25T13:57:00.000Z

I bet a lot of people are blogging about this today, but maybe not many will be allowed to in China.

It’s hard to believe that the Chinese government control and block certain information over the internet, including apparently the BBC news and websites about “sensitive” topics like Taiwan independence. After frustrations that their sites have been government censored, Google have agreed to provide a self-censored version of their services.

Certainly, there is some content that I would happily delete from view on the internet, like extreme fascist groups or even some junk celebrity gossip sites. But I believe in freedom of information and speech, which has to be universal, whether you agree with or are interested in the topic or opinions or not. Otherwise you come close to some kind of Orwellian dictatorship, where you can’t even sneeze without someone shopping you to the cops for not using a handkerchief. I don’t want anyone messing with my right to express myself, have access to information or critique a topic or issue. How can anything ever change if people can’t find out about it or speak up? I am disappointed in Google for this because obviously the Chinese government’s control over information is a very sinister attempt to keep the status quo and keep their secrets and scandals hidden. It amazes me that the world still allows such blatant government censorship to go on, and that Google appears to be collaborating.

I suppose I appreciate Google’s argument that they would rather engage with China in a compromised way than completely remove themselves from any involvement.. Perhaps they think they can change things from “the inside” as it were. Still, I would have hoped that a company I viewed as fairly likeable and forward-thinking (providing a benchmark for access to information and free programs like Google Earth, Google Mail and of course, Blogger) might have chosen to do things differently. Apparently Google has been losing market share to Beijing rival Baidu.com and the cynic in me hopes that they’re not just seeing dollar signs and colluding with the “thought police” just to claw their way to complete internet domination.

I’m not sure if Blogger sites are currently blocked in China but if anyone there is reading this just know that there’s some of us thinking of you today and trying to keep freedom of speech alive!

When leisure is hard work

2006-01-23T17:29:00.000Z

Brighton is such a sociable place. Too sociable. So sociable in fact, that if you want to get a seat in a pub on Saturday night you are probably recommended to book in advance, sign a contract and submit a 1000 word personal statement on "Why I above all others deserve a table at [name of pub] on [date]."

It is getting a bit absurd. Last Saturday one pub we went to was closed for a private party, while two in the vicinity were standing room only and even they they could only offer a small, sweaty, postage stamp sized amount of standing room where there was barely space enough to swing a small rodent, let alone a cat. Who wants to go into a pub, wrestle your way to the bar and then stand about sipping uncomfortably on a pint that's probably overpriced anyway? What's relaxing about that?

Much as I'd like to be in the pub all day, sometimes it's not possible to get there early to bag a spare seat. But you can be sure that if you leave it as late as, say, 6pm to head out for a social evening you will no doubt find every spare corner in every decent public house occupied by a smug Brightonian. Then, when all you wanted was to quietly drink yourself into oblivion, you're doomed to night of trudging from pub to pub, like some kind of booze-hungry Joseph or Mary looking for a room at the inn.

I think I shall become an alcoholic and hit the pubs as soon as the doors open in the morning. It's the only solution.

My Pet Hate - Women's Magazines

2006-01-19T21:21:00.000Z

I picked up the new Observer women’s monthly supplement last Sunday, high in hopes that it might give us females something a bit different to read than the usual dross contained in conventional publications like Elle, Glamour and Cosmopolitan. I’m constantly disappointed by publications for the female market, which are always slightly fluffy and flippant and flogging the dead, maggot-ridden old horses of fashion, relationships, news-lite (in the form of “true-to-life” stories) and celebrities. I’ve always thought women’s magazines were some kind of conspiracy to keep women’s brains asleep and prevent us from having access to more pertinent stories or writing - I’ve often found that much more interesting and diverse angles are taking by journalists writing in the more high-end mens’ magazines like Esquire or Jack.

I thought the Observer roughly fell on the more colourful, liberal and unconventional side of journalism (if only slightly) and the front cover of the women’s magazine featured a close-up of a shapely, but hairy woman’s leg that illustrated a story about the female obsession with depilating (that’s the posh word for hair removal for those of you not up on the terminology). How refreshing, I thought, finally a move away from airbrushed cover shots of Sarah Jessica-Parker or Beyonce Knowles and perhaps an indication of a step towards serious critical writing for women. How wrong I was.

For a start, the cover story more than disappoints as Polly Vernon "waxes lyrical" (ha.) on women and hair removal. And thats all she does - we get a potted history of depilation, a tiny nod towards feminist criticism and Vernon's own opinion on the subject but it fails to offer any satisfyingly in-depth discussion of an issue which is arguably one of the great grooming inequalities between men and women, when you think about it. And I was fairly insulted that Vernon felt she had to mention research which has shown that eating carbohydrates makes one hairier. I mean, already there are women who are doomed to live half-lives because of our era's obsession with the low carb diet. Did Vernon really have to give women another excuse to deny themselves the joy of the doorstep sandwich or roast potato just for the sake of beauty?

Another thing that got my back up was the blatantly confrontational, trying-to-be-controversial articles written by men. Robert McCrum informs us "Why American women are sexier than British girls - by a man who knows" while Phil Hogan says "There's no law against staying slim and beautiful for your husband". Well, thanks a bunch. I didn't take these particularly seriously but Hogan's article (I didn't bother reading McCrum's) is just fairly badly written - it goes nowhere, having hardly any discernible argument or point at all. It might surprise the editors of womens magazines to know that not all women care what men think and if these articles are indicative of what men feel then frankly I don't want to know.

This magazine really is mutton dressed as lamb. From the editor asking "What do women want?" to a 10-page shopping guide, the magazine is full of the same old clichés, albeit somewhat camoflaged. Remember, this is trying to be the "thinking" woman's magazine, so while we're spared the usual pointless photo story of a z-list celebrity showing us around her St Tropez mansion, we have a tasteful picture of newsreader Kirsty Wark's lounge alongside a column where she reflects on her home. Then of course there's the prerequisite "Health and Beauty" section, along with a relationships section which has been disguised as being all clever because it features an ex-couple reflecting on their breakup. Ooh how interesting! How unconventional! HOW ANNOYING that editors haven't wised up yet that women, while not completely humourless, have diverse interests and want to read exciting, profound prose. The drivel contained in women's magazines is not all that women care about.

Un jour à St. Malo..

2006-01-15T11:57:00.000Z

One ferry, one small cabin, 4 adults and 48 hours! A day in St. Malo, France, sandwiched between two 12 hour channel crossing from Portsmouth and back again. But what fun we had....

Here's my mum and dad settling into the cabin. Notice the porthole? Well, it costs more to have a "room with a view" (called an "outside" cabin) and we only paid a bargain price over the internet, so when we discovered our cabin we assumed and celebrated a "free upgrade." In the midst of our joy, we heard voices outside and were suddenly presented with two suspicious characters who tried to suggest that this was their room. Waving their key cards in our faces as proof, we confidently brandished ours... only to discover that we had in fact got our room number wrong. So we had to skulk over with our tails between our legs to the cheap side of the hallway, and a windowless room. The shame. Still, in the relatively short time we were in the other peoples' cabin we managed to use all their towels, pee in their toilet and steal all the complimentary soaps so the joke was really on them.*
*I'd like to point out here that me and mum proceeded to ask at reception for an upgrade to an outside cabin, which we got for a "won't-break-the-bank" sum of £5. Hoorah!

At school, my French teacher mentioned my tendency to resort to "Franglais" during lessons (I was very good at it) and I was pleased to see that the French have also caught onto this much neglected language (see picture on right). I took this photo in the "Centre Commercial" near St. Malo which is, as we predicted, where we ended up spending most of the day filling up on wine, garlic and cheap trainers. The French go crazy for the Centre Commercial - the out-of-town commercial park consisting of superstores such as Intersport, Gemo (cheap clothes and shoes) and the cutely named Mr Bricolage. The hub of the Centre Commercial is usually a mind-blowingly vast supermarket (Carrefour in this case) which is nonetheless so alluring and impressive that even the most strident anti-corporate hippie couldn't resist exploring those colourful aisles.

Anyway, we managed to make up for this blatant (but pleasurable) consumerism with a visit to old St. Malo where we managed to fit in a visit to the war memorial, church and a snack of traditional galettes and crepes with a Brittany cider on the side.

Also fed some extremely sociable and noisy seagulls on the seafront:

This spider deserves a special mention. We discovered him sitting in the car deck as we were just about to disembark at Portsmouth. Not sure if he's French or English, but he must be the most well travelled spider that ever lived.

Ich bin ein Berliner..

2006-01-09T22:17:00.000Z

Wow! I'm going to Berlin! How exciting. The flights are booked and I've never been to Germany so it should be fab. Now I need to do some research because I know hardly anything about the place. If anyone knows any unusual spots to explore and eat or drink at then I'd be glad to hear of them!

One thing I've already learned is that John F Kennedy might not have made such a fool of himself as everyone thought when he uttered the famous phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" in a speech in Berlin. It is thought that to be correct what he should have said was "Ich bin Berliner." While he apparently meant to say something like "I am a citizen of Berlin" what he actually said was, "I am a donut." This is because a "Berliner" is also the name of a speciality German jam-filled-pastry product. Hence, everyone thought JFK had made one hilarious faux pas.

But as it turns out, the President's German was actually right on the mark. Some boffin wrote into About.com (a sites you always stumble onto when searching for something, and very good it is too) telling them that he'd asked a German journalist about the phrase. She told him that JFK's statement was actually very correct but probably had a meaning too subtle for a non-native ear. While a Berliner is indeed a donut, "Ich bin ein Berliner" actually has a more profound meaning to an native person's ear, along the lines of "I am one with the people of Berlin." Indeed, this seems even more appropriate than what everyone THOUGHT he should have said.

JFK's gaffe has been perpetuated over history as a silly blunder and is often used as an example of "those dumb Americans." So how surprising to find out that this famous mistake is actually a misunderstanding (how ironic!). I'm a bit disappointed actually, I quite enjoyed the story myself. Anyway, About.com did a little exploration on the whole episode, and how we've all been fooled for all these years. I thought it was interesting so here it is:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/jfk_berliner.htm

PS. Yum Yum. I can't wait to eat a Berliner. Not a citizen of Berlin you understand, but one of THESE:

Eating chocolates without instructions can be hazardous to your health

2006-01-07T18:09:00.000Z

Over Christmas my Mum emptied some wrapped chocolates into a bowl (they were of the Cadbury's Roses variety) and diligently kept the little pamphlet that came with them to tell you which one is which. Surprisingly, there are actually still some left but I just went to the bowl for some post-Christmas bingeing (no detox for me) I was confronted with the horror of horrors. She's thrown away the pamphlet!! So now I am faced with this bewildering sea of brightly wrapped treats dancing before my eyes, trying to decifer which ones are chocolate heaven and which ones are chocolate hell, with only my wits to guide me.

I mean, Roses are deceptive - they changed the shapes AND the wrappers on them a couple of years ago, so now you don't know where you are with them. Pretty much the only one I can recognise now is the divine Hazelnut in Chocolate (which stands out cos it's perfectly round)but unfortunately seems to be every bastard's favourite cos there aren't any of those left now. Plus, I always seem to be drawn to the attractively coloured ones, which is entirely ludicrous and can be fatal - don't trust them! Before you know it you'll be biting into a sickly Chocolate Truffle or a boring Caramel. To hell with those, give me the tangy Orange Cream or some kind of praline thingy. But which ones are they??!

This is serious stuff. I mean, imagine if I had a nut allergy or something? One false move and I could find myself choking quietly to death as my throat swells up to the size of a beachball. I'm damn put out. I just unwrapped one trecherous bon-bon and found that it involved plain chocolate, which I HATE. That one's getting wrapped up again and is being sent back to whence it came. Chocolate eating is meant to be a pleasure, but all of this is just stressing me out.

A thought for a cat... and a plea

2006-01-05T23:49:00.000Z

As I was making an evening drive tonight, I saw something really horrible. I'm sure most people have had a pet at some point in their lives and isn't the worst thought that they'll go missing? Even if you lose sight of the dog off her lead in the park, or the cat decides to stay away for a night, you get that slight worry that they might get lost somewhere and end up hungry and fearful, wondering where home is. And although it has to be said that cats have a slightly better sense of the Green Cross Code than dogs, the biggest fear with either animal is that they might just disappear because they've fatally strayed onto a road somewhere.

So all you animal lovers, or I suppose anyone with any sense of empathy, can appreciate what I felt then when driving along, my headlights momentarily illuminated something in the curb. It was small, black and white, but too immaculately smooth-coated to be a badger. Driving on, I had a small conversation with myself: It was a cat. Someone's pet. But no, it wasn't a cat. Yes it was. It looked clean. Not long been hit. But what could I do? Maybe it was still alive? Surely not. The lonely body. The owners wondering where she was. But what could I do? Maybe she was still alive...

Anyway, I turned back. I just kept thinking about this lonely little thing who had misjudged the busy road and then laid there in the freezing night. And then I thought I also wanted to satisfy myself that she was actually dead, I didn't want to think that there might have been something I could have done. If she was dead, I suppose I thought I could maybe see a phone number on her collar so her family would know what had happened to her and bury her in the garden in a velvet-lined shoe box.

Of course, she was dead. She was pretty and I couldn't see any particular injury on her either, her coat still quite glossy and clean. She was wearing a collar but I'm ashamed to say I couldn't bring myself to touch her in looking for an address tag. I am thinking about those people tonight whoever they are, wondering where their pet is, and feeling sad that she's still laying in that road. But I'm glad at least that I checked back to make sure that the cat was at peace, and not suffering.

So as well as tell this story of something that happens every day to probably hundreds of missing pets, I wanted to appeal to other car drivers. I know it's sometimes unavoidable (but often caused by just carelessness) and some people think it's insignificant (I hate you people). I was once friends with a band who were driving their van along a very dark road and hit an animal they were fairly sure was a cat. They said they felt bad but made sick jokes about it afterwards, giving the cat a name, talking about it returning to haunt them etc. When they told me the story, I of course told them off, but if I'm honest I did chuckle at their black humour. But really, it's no laughing matter, this is a living thing we're talking about. If you hit an animal take responsibility for it - it might not be dead, and its family will appreciate you owning up just to know what's happened to their pet and friend.

Eat! Eat! Diet! Diet! Spend! Spend!

2006-01-03T12:51:00.000Z

Hey everyone! It’s January!! So obviously ALL OF YOU will be regretting Christmas excesses in the food and drink department. Oh I should clarify – advertisers classify us, “the public” as one giant manipulatable target group. That's YOU and in case you didn't know you don't have an identity, you're part of the stereotypical mass that has been lumped together with the same values, need and desires. OK?

Right, so, of course we’re feeling guilty about indulging too much over the festive season – so what do we get? Wall-to-wall adverts for the latest Z-list celebrity fitness video, gym membership or fad diet. I mean, when else do you see these adverts apart from January? Isn't fitness meant to be a year-round commitment? It’s almost as if those cynical marketers are leaping on us in our vulnerable podginess, acknowledging the fact that most people do stuff like taking out a gym membership out of desperation but few will keep it up, so they’re making a lot of money out of those January blues. Let's say you sign up to blow maybe £40+ on a gym membership every month. Where are those adverts when you need them on a frosty February night when your curled up in front of the telly with a hot chocolate and a cream cake, your trainers gathering dust upstairs, and you need that reminder to hit the treadmill?

Before Christmas, there were adverts positively revelling in indulgence and the luxuriant delights of festive food. The M&S adverts spring to mind, with the sumptuous photography and the voice-over artist who sounds like she’s reclining in a perfumed boudoir, touching herself as she seductively purrs “This is not just a Christmas pudding…” Then there was Tesco who boasted proudly about the number of Turkeys they stocked, Hellman’s Mayonnaise dusted off the “two turkey legs…and a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise” advert they’ve been peddling for years and generally it seemed that everyone was telling us to have a good time. But now that it's January, the advertising world is backtracking . We must banish from our minds melt-in-the-middle belgian chocolate puddings and Kerry Katona munching on vol-au-vents from Iceland (which I won't actually mind forgetting). Now is the time to embrace detox, ambitious new years resolutions, and the latest Z-List celebrity's fitness video.

Doesn’t it feel like we’re being cynically manipulated for a quick buck? Advertisers tell us it’s OK to indulge in December (and they’ll make money out of us as we do it) and then in January they betray us by making us feel bad about it (and they’ll make money out of that too if they can). And what I can’t stand is that crap celebrities eagerly jump on the bandwagon to help con me out of Christmas pocket money. I don’t want Martine McCutcheon telling me to buy her Dance Body DVD, or Jordan trying to excite me with an extremely wooden performance as she promotes Jordan’s Workout. Jordan - I’ve already had to watch you today on This Morning going on about how you lost 2 stone in some ridiculously short time after having your baby by drinking nothing but smoothies, I don't need more of your shameless self-promotion during the commercial break as well – go away!

I don’t know if its just me, but I can’t help but feel that smart-ass TV marketers are shooting themselves in the foot by the oversaturating of what I suppose I will call “seasonal” advertising. I’m sure the effect of TV advertising has been researched - maybe it makes people do things, maybe it doesn’t - but I’m onto them. I can see what’s happening and quite frankly, it’s insulting, and is going to make me even less likely to buy anything. So there.

All The Gear No Idea

2006-01-03T10:55:00.000Z

Does anyone actually watch that benchmark of broadcasting excellence, Men And Motors? During some desperate channel surfing over Christmas, I haplessly stumbled upon it's makeover show, All The Gear No Idea which apparently aims to "turn a biking "bore" into the biking equivalent of Brad Pitt." I've only seen one episode but it seems to be a second rate version of Trinny and Susannah with the addition of motorbikes, cheap jokes and a presenting combo consisting of babelicious blonde Jenn Birmingham and "cool" blokey stylist Guy Blews who likes to think he's pretty smart. The participant and their motorbike are shipped to LA for various procedures of superficial enhancement from new hairdos to dental procedures and occasionally tattoos, botox injections and nose jobs. Well, it is LA.

It seems that the show preys on men as well as women for these "transformations" but the episode that I caught featured a young woman called Lottie - a nice typical English-middle-class sort of girl. Fairly attractive in an outdoorsy, girl-next-door way, she is shipped to California to meet the presenters. Guy Blews, a stylist and Englishman-in-LA complete with tattoos and aviator shades seems to be trying too hard to be Johnny Knoxville. Jenn Birmingham comes across as a kindly big sister to Lottie, giggling with her in the beauty salon, enthusing over her new threads, and trying to counteract the irritating presence of Guy.

Is it my imagination or did feminism never happen? Were we never made aware of gender stereotyping and the idea that for centuries women had only been defined in terms of their beauty and attractiveness to men? Because throughout this show, Guy's role seems to be to insult her or revel misogynistically in the potential for pain from various beauty treatments she might undergo. At the start, when Lottie is scrutinised before her makeover, she is made to strip down to a bikini for Guy to check her out. Now, I'm not defending Trinny and Susannah, who I sometimes think would like all women to look like the same boring replicants straight out of the same Next catalogue. But where Trinny might say, "This top really does nothing for you," Guy doesn't mince his words as he lays into Lottie's manly bushy eyebrows and her "filthy, disgusting, boy-like, rotten man-hands". After she's had her hardly offensive eyebrows waxed he whines, "don't touch your lovely ladylike eyebrows with those man-hands." I mean, Guy seems to be so obsessed with her masculine features that you wonder if he had some kind of unfortunate experience as a youth involving too much gin and a very convincing transvestite.

Incidentally, between the scenes of Lottie's transformation into a "Hottie" are some really boring technical bits where her vehicle is souped up the boys at the customised motorbike shop. Cue some dumbass mechanics who get excited about sawing up bike parts, like to make make crap and/or crude jokes (one sniffs the bike's saddle when he finds out it belongs to a woman. Crazy.) and go on about how hot the bike is going to look.

Anyway, I was quite disappointed with Lottie. I would have liked her to have been a bit more gutsy and tell Guy where to go on more than one occasion. Instead she came across as fairly dull and ineffectual, sailing through the experience with nothing more than a fairly bemused and obedient manner. When the "new" Lottie is unveiled, her teeth chemically whitened, her hair styled by LA's finest and her outfit suitably conformist, I'm surprised to see they haven't transformed her into Pamela Anderson and she looks fairly tasteful. A few obligatory statements are even made about the whole experience making her feel more confident (of course!) and think more about her future (really!?). But the thing that stays with me is the fact that Guy can't resist a jab, saying "I mean, you were a mess" before reassuring her that "You've gone from a tomboy to a hot chick and any man would be lucky!" Well, I'm sure she's very relieved that now she'll have the validation of her existence by superficial twits like Guy.

I suppose you can't expect much from a TV channel that features such groundbreaking programming as Carmen Electra's Women's Wrestling League or Britain Behaving Badly, which apparently features "King of Chavs" Micheal Carroll. I can't wait. Still, All The Gear No Idea just proves that we haven't yet evolved to the point where we stop judging one another on outdated and stereotypical ideas of how people should look or act. Not that I expect anything Men and Motors puts out to be challenging or different, but the fact that TV continues to churn out this lazily made, disposible rubbish really gets on my nerves.

Look what Santa brought me!

2005-12-27T19:07:00.000Z

Yaaaaaaaaay!!! How many people in today's modern age would choose a record player over an iPod? It might seem strange in the 21st century to put an analogue rather than digital gizmo at the top of my Christmas List but that's just what I did, and for being such a good girl all year Santa gave me what I wished for!

Mark my words - the excitement of opening that great big box, learning the precise technicalities of stylus and turntable before being mesmerised by a shiny black record going round and round beats tapping a couple of buttons on the fashionable, pocket-sized ego trip that are soulless mp3 players. My record player will be hugged and loved. Down with the digital age!!

Twas the night before Christmas

2005-12-24T00:34:00.000Z

So I'm beginning to feel a bit more in the Christmas spirit - I just finished watching the latest cosy nostalgia-fest that is Channel 4's 100 Greatest Family Movies, am working conscientiously towards eating my own body weight in Cadbury's Roses and am trying to tolerate the increasingly relentless bombardment of perfume and Sainsbury's TV adverts aimed at panicking those fools who've left their Christmas shopping til the eleventh hour. Ho Ho Ho.

Yesterday, I even sat through, nay, ENJOYED, a programme dedicated to the story of the Christmas song "Fairytale Of New York". 'Tis the season to be jolly - and what other Christmas song features an empassioned brawl between two bitter lovers and is penned by an alcoholic songwriting genius (Shane McGowan) who these days resembles some kind of deformed Elvis impersonator? Listening to other Christmas hits like "Last Christmas" (depressing and dull) or "All I Want For Christmas (Is You)" (sparky, yet shallow) for the billionth time generally makes me want shove a couple of mince pies in my ears, gouge out my eyes with sausages on sticks and drown myself in a vat of brandy butter. But Fairytale Of New York is unique and brilliant. It's a quality song, a favourite Christmas tune - apart from Nat King Cole doing "The Christmas Song" which still manages to make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Anyway, this year there's no McChristmas for me (see previous post)... only wholesome things like art, Father Christmas, glowing candles, mulled wine and woolly jumpers.

Yep, I did this...

Cosy!

Did I say wholesome?

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!

Stuck for Christmas dinner ideas?

2005-12-16T18:18:00.000Z

I am interested to note that the most recent "bah da da da dah, I'm Lovin' It" advert cheerfully reveals "Most restaurants open on Boxing Day".

So if being denied your daily dose of shallow, disappointing pap over Christmas fills you with horror then fear no more! You just need to survive Christmas Day and look to the next when you can get your injection of lard, sugar and cow's arseholes served up by joyless staff who will no doubt be forced to work Boxing Day for nothing more than a McChicken Sandwich and a slap in the face.

I'm sure we'll all have had enough of cosy Christmas cheer by Boxing Day. I'm sure what we'll really be hankering for is the minimalistic and clinical delights of a McDonalds dining experience - the wipe-clean chairs and tables, the strip lights, the chavs.

The scary thing is, all sarcasm aside, I bet if I take a drive out on Boxing Day I'll be able to spot the usual cars - with motors running no doubt, as if eating at McDonalds alone isn't enough strain on the environment - queuing outside my local "drive-thru" while the cretins inside salivate in anticipation.

Merry McChristmas to one and all!

RIP Stanley "Tookie" Williams

2005-12-13T13:28:00.000Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4523502.stm

I feel sick, saddened, disgusted and angry...

I've not really been familiar with the case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams until it was more recently covered on the news. Williams was a man convicted 24 years ago, yes 24 years, for killing 4 men - a charge that he always denied. What he never denied was his past as the co-founder of the violent "Crips" gang during the 70s, that caused much violence and terror in South Central Los Angeles. Still, 24 years is a long time to be waiting for the State to get around to coldly wiping you out of existence and in this time Williams saw the error of his ways. He made writings that denounced violence and tried to reach out to gangs and others vulnerable to the lure of crime and destructive behaviour. According to the BBC, "his protocol for peace has been credited with helping settle disputes in New Jersey and in other countries," so he has even made some concrete change for the greater good. I don't know that much about the case and I don't know for sure if Williams killed those 4 people or not. I'm sure he was a very unpleasant character back in the day when he was involved with Crips. Still, I don't believe in the death penalty and I think that the older Williams was surely a different man - one who has taken his punishment, seen the error of his ways and has made constructive efforts to prevent others from making the mistakes he made.

Not enough for Arnold Schwarzenegger. As Governor of California he was given the chance to either offer clemency to Williams, or seal his doom. When I heard that The Terminator held Williams' fate in his hands I have to admit I didn't hold out much hope. The whole idea that a State Governor, one sole individual, is given the final opportunity to say whether someone lives or dies just magnifies the whole sick process of the death penality. And to all those bible-bashing nuts in the US who argue "an eye for an eye," I say what about "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"?

Let's look at Arnie -- he's not exactly got the cleanest slate. A well-documented womaniser, he's had a number of sexual harrassment cases raised against him and allegedly commited statutory rape in the 1970s by having an affair with a 16 year old when the age of consent was then 18. He's been accused of racism by two black bodybuilders, who claim he said "If you gave these Blacks a country to run, they would run it down the tubes," (See Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wikipedia.org). He has also admitted indulging in drugs like cocaine and marijuana. This last revelation arguably puts Mr Schwarzenegger only a couple of moral degrees away from the poor young man who was himself executed in Singapore a few weeks ago for smuggling heroin. If Arnie once, or indeed still does, enjoy a line or two, then he is colluding with an illegal industry for which, in some nations, you can be executed for.

I cannot believe that in this 21st century we still allow this state-sanctioned murder to happen. I feel very strange being here in the UK where killing somebody is illegal, plain and simple, but just across the atlantic is a country - supposedly one of our allies - who supports under law the calculated killing of human beings.

Arnold Schwarzenegger could have saved a life but then that's not what The Terminator does - he terminates. But this isn't a movie where the bullets are blanks and the blood is fake. Just look at the TV coverage of today's execution and the clinical efficency of that bed where they strap the condemned. It's real; it's legal; it's chilling. Today, in my view, Schwarzenegger committed murder.

The Naked Rambler

2005-11-29T23:08:00.000Z

I've just finish watching the last half of a really interesting film on BBC1, "The Naked Rambler". It documents the trials and tribulations couple of nudists, Melanie and Steve, as they hike nude across the UK from Lands End to John O'Groats. I was a bit irritated by Steve, who talks love and peace like some kind of cult leader, and embraces it to the point of upsetting girlfriend Melanie by having a 2nd girlfriend, Annie. Still, the tide is soon turned when Mel hooks up with Annie and Steve feels a bit left out... modern love, eh. [Their story actually ends happily and Steve and Mel end up loving each other more as a result of their shared experience].

Anyway, domestic dramas aside, I loved the scene when the nudists descend on a supermarket and calmly peruse the shelves - "Where's the salami?" tee hee - as shoppers do double-takes and old women peer over their spectacles. A lot of the attention they get seems to be shock and curiousity rather than anger. Steve and Mel gain admirers and other nudists join their trek along the way and, of course, they attract police attention too, getting arrested on a number of times. Most of the time they're released if they agree to put clothes on to leave the station, which Mel happily does. Steve keeps on getting arrested because he'll hardly have reached the curb outside the police station before he's stripped again. Isn't it depressing to think that you can be arrested for "Breaching the Peace" for being naked? What do they mean by peace? George Bush and Tony Blair don't get arrested for "Breaching the Peace" in our world and yet humans can be prosecuted for existing in their own skin, surely as nature intended.

I'm not the most confident person about my body, I'm the sort of person that ties myself in knots trying to hold my towel up in the swimming pool changing rooms. Still, this film has got me thinking about the whole nudist concept. I was really struck by a scene where Steve is engaged in discussion with a woman in a pub who thinks he is disgusting. She argues that it is indecent and says she's glad her daughter isn't there because she is an innocent child...I think she actually used the word innocent. On another occasion Mel gets very upset when someone calls her a whore. Just for being naked. I think these reactions are really telling of our jaded view of the human body. Normally controversial, the naked body seems to be so much in the public eye these days, but only in a certain context. Whether it's men salivating over voluptuous breasts busting out from a raunchy lingerie ad or a moral outrage at authentic penetrative sex in the latest arthouse movie, the naked body has been sexualised to the point that people think a naked person is just about sex. We rarely see the body in an objective light without any sexual suggestion or invention.

For example, people forget that breasts are, first and foremost, milk dispensers for babies, right? I recently heard about an incident where a woman was reported to the police by a passer by for breast feeding her child in a park - she was approached by a policeman and given a warning! In my opinion, the woman who was damning Steve as unacceptable was demonstrating her own warped view of the human body. I think it can only be damaging to give children the impression that the human body is something mysterious or hidden, because then they can grow up hating themselves or fetishising others. I suppose if I could forget about my body in its capacity to be judged as an attractive object then I might just be able to let that towel drop in the changing room without having a panic attack.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's good to leave some things to the imagination. If all we lived in the buff I would probably never be able to take any man seriously again if I also had to deal with his little friend dangling in the breeze. And as "The Naked Rambler" demonstrated, when hiking through the countryside butt (literally) naked, climbing over barbed wire fences becomes an even more delicate and hazardous pursuit than normal. Still, I think we need people like Steve and Mel to remind us that it is pretty absurd that this is a crime and to encourage us to think about how we see the human body. Maybe in turning nakedness into a crime, we're transferring our own perverted view of nakedness onto those who try to remind us that, as with all species, we're born naked and innocent so why do we grow up clothed and ashamed?

Frodo's seaside holiday

2005-11-28T22:19:00.000Z

Frodo, my sister's dog, has come down to Brighton to spend a few days with me by the sea. I'm more of a cat person, but Frodo is the exception. The happiest, sweetest and craziest canine I've ever met. I can definitely see the appeal of dogs - they basically live to love you. Frodo does funny things too like quiet little barks in his sleep while I guess he's dreaming about chasing squirrels and birds so I'm having some free entertainment as well.

On the seafront

Frodo allowed Ben to join him on this outing - but why are they so serious?? They look like they're posing for one of those static old Victorian portraits....

Warming his nose at the fire after a fine day out!

Buy Nothing Day!!

2005-11-24T00:08:00.000Z

The Wild Wild West

2005-11-23T13:32:00.000Z

No, it's not the Arizona Desert, it's actually somewhere near St Austell in Cornwall, on the way home from the Eden Project.

Summer to Autumn 2005 Photos

2005-11-21T11:57:00.000Z

Today I got back some pictures that I took on my trusty Pentax P30, which ended up being quite good! They're just mainly random snaps, but a pleasant reminder of summer when you're sat inside looking out at withering trees and frost carpeted grass...

These two are from Gay Pride 2005 in Brighton, with the French! The people are Aude, Alejandra and lovely Fabien in the foreground!

This is the sky over Kemptown. I like dramatic clouds....

These pics are of Jane (long brown hair) and Karen (short hair) during our weekend of London fun when we went to the National Portrait Gallery, a mediterranean buffet and to see The 40 Year Old Virgin (naff title, funny film). Here they are sitting on some steps near St-Martins-In-The-Fields opposite Trafalgar Square. Aren't they gorgeous!

Peckham Multiplex is maybe the coolest cinema I've been to! Outside it seems no frills, but when you look down the pavement leading up to it has every country's national flower set into a glass walkway that lights up at night. Inside there are tonnes of screens, a flat rate of three quid a ticket and an cinema audience so animated that they become part of the entertainment themselves. During The 40 Year Old Virgin, the guy in the row in front of us cackling, slapping his thigh and exstatically flailing his arms around was worth the ticket price alone.

These photos were taken around the August bank holiday in my back garden in Southampton.

This is Izzy, our cat, doing what she does best.

These next photos show the onset of Autumn! This one I took on my way to work. I thought these flowers were really pretty. On this day it was very windy, as the colder breezier Brighton weather started moving in. I don't think these flowers lasted much longer....

Outside my house in Brighton on one of the chillier days. I know I seem to have an obsession with dramatic skies...

As I took the above photo, Ben and Adele (my housemates) were walking down the road, completely unnoticed by me. So they then demanded I take their photo as well.

"Trying is the first step towards failure"*

2005-11-18T00:14:00.000Z

If you look up "Failure" in the Oxford Minidictionary I have sitting beside me, it is defined thus: "failure n. failing, lack of success, person or thing that fails."

If you type "Failure" into Google and press "I'm Feeling Lucky" it takes you to the official presidential website of George W. Bush.

Over the last few days I've been musing on the word failure, normally in relation to myself. And what does "success," the opposite of failure, really mean? During my school days, I was a hard worker, consistently strived for and received good marks. I have a degree, even managed to get a First -- probably one of the proudest successes (or "non-failures") of my life. Educationally, I was right on the money. On paper, I am a success. And yet, I can't help but feel I've somehow failed to reach the stars since my pedagogical days. Outside the watchful eye of kindly teachers and lively lecturers I seem to have drifted. Indeed, when I was a child my parents bought me a piano, guitars, art materials, even a tool kit. But have I become a concert pianist, artist or master decorator? No. Since leaving university I worked in customer service at a cinema for two years, went on the dole and worked as a receptionist, with a few other slightly more interesting (though short lived) jobs dotted around in between.

I do feel that I'm a success at being a conscientious, intelligent human being... I recycle, I actively debate and interact with people, I vote, I think (deeply I hope), I'm passionate, compassionate... I read the Guardian for God's sake. I'm interested in the world, culture, people (occasionally, though I'm a part-time misanthrope). And I don't think I'm lazy. So why am I unsatisfied and thinking I've failed somehow? I suppose I look around me and I see 25 year olds like myself who seem so sorted out -- they are already artists, filmmakers, writers... or at the very least singlemindedly on their way to becoming so. My work experience really just boils down to a few admin jobs, which is the last thing I want from my life -- I want to see the world, make a difference, I want to be something and somebody.

Perhaps success is all in the mind and how you see the world. Some people are happy to be a manager at Sainsburys. Some people feel fulfilled by having babies. Some people's life is complete when they've ironed a perfect crease into the front of their favourite pair of trousers.

I remember my beloved English teacher, Mrs Costa, in our final class with her, made us take a piece of paper and write down a quote by Jonathan Swift. It went like this: "It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of." She had us write, "I hope you find yours" underneath, and then took each of our papers and signed it. Thinking about it, this was one of the best wishes she could have had for us. Looking on the net, there's a fuller version of this quotation that begins "Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps few know their own strength." Mrs Costa wasn't just wishing us success, but hoping that we discovered our true potential, or "calling" if you like, and thereby found our own individual happiness through real fulfillment.

So maybe I just need to find my "vein of gold" and then make a go of it, whatever it is. But being naturally curious about a lot of things and distracted by the fear that I'll choose the wrong path, will mean this is particularly difficult for an indecisive slacker like me.

*There are lots of nice quotes out there about failure. This is one of the best, from that wise poet Homer (Simpson).

Listen to this band!

2005-11-04T14:29:00.000Z

Went to see The New Pornographers last night. For those who haven't heard of them, they're a band from Vancouver, commonly known as a "super-group" not just cos they're generally super but I guess because the line-up represents a genius amalgamation of humblingly talented musicians with their own careers or other bands. Lead singer A.C Newman brought the band together, sharing vocals with Neko Case, a solo artist in her own right with a distinctive powerful country-style vocal. Other band members have their own projects too - Dan Bejar is in his own band Destroyer, keyboardist Blaine Thurier is a filmmaker and recent addition Kathryn Calder has her own band Immaculate Machine. While there are core members, the band's line-up changes and fluctuates, I guess because of the nature of the project and also because it's probably hard to get all these clever people together in one place.

So, last night I saw them live for the first time at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane, London. I would have put up some photos because the venue was mercifully small, I had a good vantage point and I took my digital camera. But damn the camera, the batteries were flat... or rather, damn me, as I guess it's not the camera's job to charge the batteries. Anyway, this disaster was to be remedied by sweet music and to say that The New Pornographers did not disappoint is an understatement.

I'm not going to make any ponsey music comparisons (their influences are diverse) as I'm not really practised or probably very talented at writing gig reviews. Hopefully it will suffice to say that The New Pornographers are so richly creative with loads of crazy lyrics, weirdly unique rhythms and melodies that I've never really heard anything like them. They veer from rock to epic to power pop that makes you want to punch the air. And all these styles suit them effortlessly and they use tonnes of cool instruments: guitar, ebow, synthesizer, harmonica, pump organ, xylophone, melodion, piano... Neko Case was absent last night but the female vocal and keyboard was provided last night by Kathryn Calder, a recent addition to the band who performed on their last album Twin Cinema. Her band Immaculate Machine was the support act, and I thought they were pretty nifty too - they've got a similarly infectious appeal of the New Pornographers and also reflect their ethos of communal music making with Kathryn sharing vocals with both guitarist Brooke Gallupe (vocals/guitar) and drummer Luke Kozlowski.

One of my favourite moments was the brilliant and rather humourous encore. Refreshingly unpretentious, as the audience yelled out song titles Newman admitted that the band could hardly remember how to play most of them (bless!). In the end they went with Jackie Dressed In Cobras and From Blown Speakers, which Newman sung without his guitar because his amp was, ironically, blown or in some other way a bit buggered.

Anyway, a great night was had by all last night at 93 Feet East. Especially by the guy dancing in the crowd in front on me who was shaking his hips and waving his arms maniacally. Like most people, I chose to stand still, be cool and respectfully nod my head or tap my foot as is the custom for People Too Cool (Embarrassed) To Dance At Gigs. Still, this guy really reflected the ecstacy that must have been dancing in the heart of everyone witnessing such a great band. Anyway, unlike the person who introduced me to this fab band, I'm not really a music critic, so I'll just refer you all to www.thenewpornographers.com and let the music do the rest.

The Gallery

2005-10-20T10:58:00.000+01:00

I'm trying to get better at drawing and painting. So here are some things that I've done... Obviously some will be better than others but I'd appreciate people to look at them and give me any feedback, opinions or tips!

Mmmm I'm not sure about this one. I guess I thought that painting a glass in different shades of green would be a cool idea, but I'm not sure I really pulled it off!

It's my very own hand. Well, if you can't think of what to draw then draw what you know, and have close by...

I call this "Black Treacle" (imaginative eh). This one I did at the start of October and it's watercolours...