Supermarket ewoks don’t mean to jam your life into one freeze-framed consumer ordeal after another, but they do, for the supermarket is their natural habitat and you just happen to be in it. Every crucial space of supermarket will undoubtedly have an ewok stationed within, and should you ask them to kindly move a little so you can squeeze by with your measly basket, the supermarket ewok will look extra hard at that label on the item they’re clutching and turn away. 

But the supermarket ewok really comes into its own when you have to do the last dash at the check out. You know the deal – an egg’s broken and there’s a queue round the milk aisle all tutting and rolling their eyes as you try and remember where the hell you managed to find eggs in the first place, let alone the replacement box. You take the risk, you go for it – up to aisle 100 and back in 10 seconds – you can do it – until, that is, you crash into the supermarket ewok. A roadblock like no other, there’s no space to navigate it , you’ll just have to detour. Back up, down the other aisle, but there it is ANOTHER supermarket ewok, blocking you in like a pro. Short of leapfrogging it, there’s no option but to retreat and face the defeat. YOu have been ewoked.

the way it should be

Scrap the previous post. I’m a PM convert. I’ve read The Insider and I’ve decided that I bloody like the guy. Plus he led an anti-war campaign throughout his editorship of The Mirror - and whilst this fact went over my head at the time because I never bought it – I applaud his conviction. Also, the book is a hoot.

When the famous-for-not-being-famous Celebrity Big Brother 4 winner, Chantelle Houghton, was in the hot seat on The Darker Side Of Fame, in a righteous world, the girl would have turned the tables on Piers Morgan and asked him exactly what he’d done that was so goddam special himself. There’s nothing special about a bunch of bores that have been hoisted into power by virtue of connections rather than talent, after all. The British media, to give this bunch a name, is nothing if not a long-standing Chantelle-inspired social experiment: will the interloper ever be outed or is the self-perpetuating racket of nepotism and public schooling destined to keep the likes of an Essex girl in Essex rather than Fleet Street, or Hello! Street, or whatever.

There she was, this warped producers’ experiment in post-modern celebrity, telling Morgan that actually- stop the press!- if being a celebrity means not having to get the same bloody train every day and work in the same pissing office for thirteen grand a year, then yes thanks she’ll have a bit of that, and take her chances on the repercussions, as would the rest of the population, given the chance. Nothing revelatory there, so I wonder if it wouldn’t be more pertinent to turn the spotlight on that bloated ego in a suit himself for some Piers-on-Piers action, where, instead of reducing a girl to tears at the recollection of her sham marriage to Preston, (who’d told her a week after their wedding that he’d never wanted to marry her in the first place), he’d enlighten the plebeian fame-seeker on the Insider’s guide to (the darker side of) fame. That with a bit of insider dealing and insider deception you can secure quite an insider’s career these days, and not a few book deals to boot. Don’t bother with Big Brother, kids – Piers’ll tell you a thing or two about spinning a career out of nothing, after all he’s a judge on Britiain’s Got Talent, and he tells kids they can’t sing all the time. Oh, sorry, don’t you know? Piers used to be a best-selling recording artist. He won X Factor in a previous lifetime as the one that couldn’t sing a note. He was the Chantelle of his generation, doncha know? Isn’t that something…

Take it from me…don’t get famous, get even.

Before you splurge on those Alexander McQueen union jack boots or the patriotic Chanel that is Agyness Deyn’s handbag du jour, cast your mind back to 1997, when a certain flame-haired Spice Girl performed in a union jack dress at the Brit Awards. A year later it sold at auction for £41,000 to the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas. I’m glad it was them and not a sad individual with more cash than sense wanting to buy an ‘iconic piece of pop history’, as no doubt was the auctioneer’s description. The thing is, this was never a dress, it was a top, and I know this because Geri’s undergarment was as visible as her solipsism. Geri never made it as a solo artist, but the ‘dress’ lives on, probably framed behind glass in a low-lit hotel corridor. A dress with no provenance, no designer, no nothing other than the moment for which it represents becomes a symbol of Brit pop. Roland Barthes would be proud, but Geri should be prouder. 

When Geri was desperate to buy this back for the reunion, she was prepared to pay any price, but did no one tell her that souvenir shops in the West End sell these for under a fiver? She should save her pennies and fly the flag for mums, who would never let their daughters out of the house in a dress that short, symbol of Brit pop or not. Shorter the better, I say…

Image Credit: dailymirror.co.uk

Further Reading:

Kill Your Friends by John Niven. The inside track on Brit Pop. Scathing and very, very funny.

There is no doubt you can alter your shape and your health by changing your food habits, but be warned, some eight years later my friends still ask if I can eat bread when they’re making sandwiches or if I’m allowed cake at their daughter’s birthday party. And they really have no sympathy that the misogynist diet god took my boobies away either. 

I have no problems with detoxes as a whole. Or the odd fast, or juicing, steaming, eliminating chocolate or eating more protein or vegetables or whatever. My issue is when food faddism becomes a permanent way of life, and before you know it, the roast potato is anathema. The faddist inhabits a parallel gastronomic universe, one where pub lunches, sunday roasts, puddings, pizza, hamburgers, pasta are seen as strychnine to general health. And also to the social life, because you can guarantee that the food faddist will drop to the bottom of every guest list – I mean even the full-blown food allergy sufferers, the ones who carry adrenalin on their person rather than a dozen pernickity concoctions in tupperware  - get a rough deal at the table. “Oh damnit darling, I completely forgot about your peanut thingy, you wouldn’t mind picking them out of the curry would you?”

The simple fact is that food is more than nourishment, it is one of the great pleasures in life, and it’s up to the individual to temper it somewhere between gout and asceticism. Which brings me to the inspiration for this post, Bryan Adams, of Everything I do I do it For You fame, or more appropriately these days Everything I Eat Is Not Made From Animals Or Fish So Unless You Like Raw Artichoke I Won’t Do It For You. 

Bryan was featured in the Inside Out section of the ES Magazine last Friday, which details the food habits of the weekly interviewee followed by some food related questions. When I say ‘food’, food isn’t really Bryan’s thing – health is his thing – and as such he’s ‘…very slim due to (his) diet.’ A bag of crisps is as indulgent as the Canadian gets, says the blurb. 

Come again?

A bag of crisps. An indulgence?

Not a supplementary snack, an accompaniment to a pint of lager, a precursor to the main event. But an indulgence…

I ask you world, is this faddism gone mad? I really hope that Bryan is playing checks and balances with an humungous crack cocaine habit because otherwise this man is a disgrace to rock n’ roll. I urge you Bryan, go seek out Ronnie Wood. Teach each other. Go and eat pizza in Naples, pasta in Bologna, sushi in Tokyo. Ronnie needs your help too, he’s looking awfully gaunt. And you Brian need to re-think that rider of yours. Tell me what it is again Bryan?

“My rider is fruit, veggies, some nuts and dried fruits.”

Ronnie’ll sort that out in no time, Bry – he’s got Russian teens, vodka and tons of crisps. 

“Has anyone got any leftover pizza I’m starving!” Bryan is waking up the neighbours.

Further Reading:

Anthony Bourdain – Les Halles Cookbook

The article goes on to reveal -

“‘It’s not about saying: ‘I love you.’ It’s about saying specific things. When Guy first saw Madonna come out of the car, he said the word “beautiful” to her. She replied with the word “macho”. During the evening, they whispered random words, from “clever” and “powerful” (her to him), to “mysterious” and “smart” (him to her), said the source.’” (Grazia 15-09 p.14) 

Whispering, huh. This may be Kabbalah-speak, or the latest psychobabble on Oprah, but surely we could all learn a thing or two about our oral technique. I don’t know about you but I’ve been labouring under quite the illusion. (Settle down at the back now, and Relate & Marriage Guidance do keep up)

Good head is all in the whisper.

And contrary to current laws about public acts of indecency, whispering won’t cause any offense. Unless, of course, your whisper exchange is along the lines of –  ’darling your bum in that dress is “stunning”‘, ‘your chewy overcooked chicken is “perfect”‘, ‘your tummy in those jeans is “rock hard”.

Then whispering absolute bollocks really is the way forward.

But whatever you do, strike a line through blatant bad-temperedness…

“‘It’s not about saying: ‘your face doesn’t move much these days and your legs are like bananas on steroids.’ It’s about saying specific things. When Guy first saw Madonna come out of the car, he said the word “transvestite” to her. She replied with the word “fucktard”. During the evening, they whispered random words, from “wanker” and “loser” (her to him), to “hag” and “butch scarecrow” (him to her), said the source.’”

I have worked in many, many offices and the work is never as fascinating as the power struggles that play out every single day in the corporate cesspit. I am singularly adept at spotting the ones who’ve worked for years to gain a globule of power and cannot wait to let you know in some desperate way that they are the linchpin of the entire business and what they say goes. In no other environment is your job description a substitute for your entire being, where the sum total of you is of absolutely no consequence to anyone. The only thing that matters is that you become a little bit bigger and a little less smaller with each passing day.

In hierarchical contexts, ‘little’ people have to defer to ‘big’ people, because big people wield more power, more authority and a bigger pay packet. These are what big people perceive to be the big credentials in life.  Yet once upon a time most big people were beleaguered little people suffering from the indignity of smallness. Their life’s mission was to fight their way out of smallness and become as big as possible – not necessarily with weapons like intellect or courage but through good defending with their shield of fear.  Fear of the world perceiving them to be losers rather than winners; fear of seeming always small and never big. Out in the big wide world, what was once fairly large appears relatively tiny, like the goldfish not in a bowl but in the sea, which is why the office is such an interesting microcosm, and one which brings out the essence of what we really are.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. Jean-Paul Satre 

Further reading:

The Dilbert Principle by Scott Adams

Martin Lukes: Who Moved My BlackBerry by Lucy Kellaway

At around the age of thirteen I went a bit nuts. This was because my young life had spun out of my control and the only way I could feign any kind of mastery over it was to be a really pissed off teenager. I’d gone from a cushty prep school in London to some parallel universe called boarding school. I hadn’t particularly wanted to be at home because home life was as cheering as root canal; my parents were divorcing, my family hated each other, and under the circumstances Transylvania-on-Sea seemed quite appealing. I had a head full of Enid Blyton books and I imagined a life of midnight swims, feasts and shenanigans.

As it turned out the school wasn’t for me. It was for child-hating sociopathic lesbians. There was a constant sinking feeling of dread at some looming punishment because of course I was a ‘trouble-maker’ and I had an ‘attitude problem’.  Of course I did. I was cooped up, screwed up, under-stimulated, lost, bored, lonely and terrified. I was the battery chicken before the politics of ‘free-range’ and ‘organic’ meant grass and sky were a creature’s rights.

Thankfully I was able to retain some notion of my former self by questioning, challenging and testing the waters I found myself in. Still, considering I ate mostly fizzy cola bottles, space raiders and stinger bars I’m surprised I didn’t burn out before I got thrown out. Well, at least my dissent was 100% wholegrain. 

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.” Albert Camus 

Further reading:

George Orwell 1984

George Orwell Animal Farm

John Stuart Mill  On Liberty

Transylvania-on-sea

The news today that teenagers could condense their GCSEs into modules to be assessed on completion, and then take a gap year before A Levels, and then take a gap year after A Levels, is absolutely my kind of thinking. When I’d finished my A Levels I could have gone into study hibernation for good. GCSEs and the dullards that ‘teach’ them make you more knowledge bulimic than academic. Ingesting and spewing fact after chart after quote after equation after explanation, all of which we forget about the minute we’ve got a grade to show for it. This is not learning.

Learning is in the hands of the messenger, not the message. By this I mean teachers. Bad teachers are like venereal diseases – there are cures but if you let them linger long enough they can wreak havoc with your fertility. Geography to me is crumpled tweed and corduroy, the glacial slowness of a class, and don’t ask me to explain population density. Why don’t they liven it up a bit, make it relevant?  The newspapers always report on world news: floods in India, mass migration, global warming, globalization, famine.  Fortunately, a revamped syllabus will mean that “Geography pupils will be taught that ‘sustainable development is a key strategy for the survival of the planet and its people’”.

It’s encouraging to know that the history syllabus will include the study of terrorism. Religious studies will incorporate Sikhism and Buddhism. (Let’s hope biology will also include a key module on evolutionary biology and obligatory reading on Darwin and Dawkins.) I never considered taking music GCSE because my music teacher Mr Richards thought I was boisterous and made me play the triangle in every group music session, so I’m delighted that music GCSE now includes rapping, dance music and freestyle DJing. But if you missed out on the GCSE, the school of life offers a lengthy education in these subjects, starting every Friday night at a nightclub near you. A* and hangover guaranteed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4629442.ece?&EMC-Bltn=ILTBH9

Further viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLYhtFEQ07A

I should know. I’ve been looking for over a year. What I’m looking for is a cropped jacket that comes down to my midriff; soft leather that has aged well; a small size that hugs my shoulders and that I can just about do up, with zips and fastenings that have dulled over time. Something I can wear over an LBD without looking like I’m auditioning for Grease or waiting for the Fonz to pick me up.

I can categorically state that London has no such jacket, unless I settle for a giant Harley Davidson motif on the back, or some rodeo fringing on the arms, or worse. The vintage shops have a few Terminator-like biker jackets for men, and when they do get them for women they are those batwing, wide-shouldered 80s monstrosities as modelled by Samantha Fox in her heyday.

These jackets are now incredibly fashionable, but I don’t want the Topshop one that Alexa Chung has, or the Belstaff one she wore to Glasto – too butch. Zara did an okay take on one but it wasn’t the real deal. The Balenciaga may cost about the same as my last car but if I wear it every day for the next year it’s the equivalent of a daily meal at Pret. Unfortunately my husband doesn’t do CPW (cost-per-wear) just GFD (grounds-for-divorce).

What I really want is a broken-in biker jacket with character, is that too much to ask?  eBay is my only hope, I realise. I missed a couple of nice ones at the beginning of the year which went for hundreds at the last minute, which only serves to highlight the scarcity of the matter.

Then last month the search was over. I’d found it. Beautiful she was, just beeeoootiful. Patina perfectly aged. Small, for sure it would be small. I mean, I really should have inferred from the words “Punk Baby” in the title that it was going to be small, but the measurements seemed ok. I didn’t even wait till the end of the auction I Bought It Now I paid I told the US seller to hurry hurry HURRY for Paypal God’s sake get it to me quick..

When it arrived I ripped open the packet and out came this version of my ideal motorcycle jacket but in miniature. It really was punk baby. The cutest thing. And its dimensions were inversely proportional to how much I wanted it to fit me. I split a seam trying to squeeze it on even though, like an old ugly sister, I knew the Cinderella moment had long since passed. Seven, eight years old: no problem. Thirty: no chance. Only reality goes out of fashion….take it from me.

NB. It’s worth noting that at seven years old I would never have worn this jacket. I would have judged it to be what a Bros-ette would wear, and I hated Bros. If you’d have given this to me for Christmas I’d have cried.

No.

Nope.

No, no and NO

Yes.

Yes! It's Balenciaga for £1275

Yes if you're 5-7yrs old