I which I wake up and smell the coffee.

To be printed 25/02/10.

Sometimes living in London is a bit like living inside a Monet painting. Not that it’s a beautiful work of art, or anything (instead of waterlillies we have damp copies of the Metro trodden into the pavement). But it is like a Monet painting in that up close it is blurry, and only people standing at a distance have any real idea what’s going on.

A few weeks ago, my mother phoned me. “Have you had a flat white?” she demanded. “Pardon? A what?” “A flat white. Apparently they’re all the rage.”

I mentally scan through a few speculative options. Have I had a flat white? It sounds like a shark. Is it a shark? Are we all meant to be eating shark burgers in gastropubs now? Have Wild Boar sausages finally had their day? Or maybe it’s an activity, flat whiting. Like free running or pilates or something, that involves lying still on the floor under a silk sheet as a cure for cellulite? Maybe it’s a flat, white person? Surely she can’t mean a flat white PERSON?

“It’s a coffee,” she says, when it becomes clear that I am not the Suzy Society I profess to be. “Everyone in London’s supposed to be drinking them. It said so on Radio 2.”

“Oh. Really?”

“In London, where you live.”

“Yes Mum.”

“Well? Have you had one?”

“Ummmmm. No. Not to my knowledge. I thought we were still excited over the Macchiato.”

So this got me slightly worried. Am I losing my grasp on the fleeting world of popular culture in the capital? When did I miss this sudden development? Was it those two days I spent watching Crystal Maze on Challenge? While I was with Richard O’Brien in the sunken ship, was everybody else out in coffee houses, comparing foaming techniques and laughing gaily as they tipped lattes in the Thames? WHY WASN’T IT ON THE NEWS?

After a little further research, however, it transpires that nobody I ask has heard of a flat white. I conclude that it must be one of those provincial myths about London-dwellers, like “we get mugged on average once a week” or “Boris Johnson makes us lol”, or  “you’re never more than three feet away from a heroin addict”. The thing is, though, I would quite like a new coffee order. After several years of being the idiot who asks for a grande decaf soy hazlenut latte, it would be nice to go minimalist. I like the idea of rolling into Starbucks and just growling “flat white, ma’am”, like a cowboy in a western, then the barista can whiz it down the counter to me and I’ll stroll off into the sunset, no biscotti complications. The legend of the flat white has me possessed. Some might say it is my (flat) white whale.

Then, finally, I find it. Or rather, it finds me. I am walking past Costa one day and BAM, there it is on a board outside. It claims to be ‘velvety smooth’ for ‘coffee lovers’. It even has a heart whooshed into the foam, as though it loves me before we’ve even met. It looks promising. Mum will be so proud.

Reader, I drank him. And I am here to tell you today, as your London-living correspondent, that it just tastes like normal white coffee. But then, you have a Costa in Worthing so I guess you’re capable of finding that out for yourself.

In which I see red.

ShinyStyle Column - Why Ginger is the New Black

In which, by George, I think I've got it...

To be printed 18/02/10.


Isn’t it odd how the card companies choose some holidays to milk dry of sentiment through the ruthless exploitation of every commercial opportunity, and not others? I am writing this in Starbucks, on February 14. It’s part of my Single Person’s Outdoors Reclamation Exercise (or SPORE), in which singletons across the nation throw off the shackles of our coupling-obsessed culture, and their duvets, to proudly march the streets alone among the hoards of romancing twosomes. 

It is admittedly a change of tack from this morning, when I was participating in the Single Person’s Agoraphobia-Faking Federation (or SPAFF), in which we avoid all potential human contact by sitting in our wardrobes with and coat over our heads, playing the game of “if I died now, how long would it take for anyone to wonder where I was?”

But enough of that! For by the time you read this, it will be February 18, your dozen red roses will all have died and a WHOLE OTHER HOLIDAY will have come and gone. And not just any other holiday, but one of the best there is. Why is it, I wonder, that Hallmark et al haven’t tried to capitalise on pancake day a little more?
 
It is clearly a superior festival to Valentine’s Day, being as it discriminates nobody (other than the gluten-and-dairy-intolerant, but then they’re used to being awkward). There is a nice, meaningful message for those who want it, in the preparation for remembering Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and the counting down of the days until Easter celebration. And for those who don’t, there is the excuse to eat oneself into a golden syrup coma. Not to mention endless opportunities for punning on the word ‘toss’. It has everything.

So in the spirit of bigging up the smaller events on our calendar, I’d like to nominate a few more for recognition and potential commercial gain. How about the Queen’s official birthday? As our figurehead, I can’t help but feel we should be allowed to share in her special day – like when your sibling has a birthday but you get a free dinner out of it. We could all have the day off work and wear little plastic crowns, and there could be a special raffle of all her rubbish unwanted birthday presents. Ruby encrusted sandwich toaster from the Earl of Bratislava? Me please! For the republicans among us, there would be the alternative option of celebrating Freddie Mercury, or Queen Latifah. It would have something for everyone.

Or how about All Saints’ Day? Largely ignored in the aftermath of Halloween, as you pick silly string out of your hair and try to work out if the blood on the floor is fake, the day is a missed opportunity for fun. It should clearly be used to celebrate the back catalogue of the eponymous 90s girl band, themselves so often ignored in the aftermath of the Spice Girls. We could all wear camouflage combats and see who still knows the words to the spoken bit in Never Ever. 

And finally, St George’s Day – instead of beery racists painting flags on their faces while the rest of us look away, it should be expanded to include not just the dragon-slayer, but all Georges of any merit. George Formby. George Wendt. George from Rainbow. George of ‘Gilbert and…’. Not George Bush, though. That would be the only rule of Georgeday. 

So, there are a few things for Hallmark to think about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lick some lemon and sugar off the ceiling.
 

In which I'm with the band.

Shiny Style column, on one of fashion's favourite myths:

What Maketh the Rock Chick?

 

In which would like to thank everyone who has ever believed in me. And gin.

To be printed 04/02/10.

Hurrah huroo, awards season is upon us! Celebland has spun into its usual red carpeted frenzy, with listers A to Z dusting off their black tie and practicing their gracious loser faces. Of course, what this means for the other 99.3 per cent of the population is either a) nothing, or b) entire mornings spent at work loading up galleries on gossip websites and wondering if Taylor Swift is really human.

As my own attendance at the ceremonies is going to be sadly lacking (I have some serious foot filing to do those nights), I’ve decided to host my own instead. So hello, and welcome to the 2010 Bravos, coming live to you from my North London kitchen*. Tonight, we’re celebrating the good, the bad and the creepy of the past year in entertainment. Under your seats you will find a goodie bag from our sponsors, including a half eaten Special K bar, an N-power gas bill and a sock. Without further ado, let the awarding begin!

Best Male: David Tennant. For making sci-fi sexy and Catherine Tate likeable. And for being on two ‘live’ programmes at once this Christmas, proving he really is a timelord. LA had better appreciate this export.

Best Female: Sarah Brown. One part superwoman, one part headteacher and one part my Mum, she has overtaken Fern Britton and Marge Simpson as the thinking woman’s role model of choice. A feminist and philanthropist with a nice line in tailored dresses, Mrs Brown doesn’t even mind being photographed next to Naomi Campbell. Nice try, Sam Cam, but 1,120,760 Twitter followers can’t be wrong…

Best New Word: “Gleek”. Runners-up include “jeggings” and “tweeple”.

The Jedward Award, for Hair Experimentation: Dannii Minogue. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a detailed small-scale replica of the battle of Agincourt? Trouncing Cheryl’s wardrobe hands-down, Danii’s hair became the most compelling reason for watching X-factor, as her stylist slaved tirelessly each week to bring us something bigger, better and more hurricane resilient than everything that had gone before. We can only hope baby Minogue is born with a full-size frohawk.

Least Shocking Celebrity Conversion of the Year: Peaches Geldof. She is now, like, totally a scientologist. Congratulations, L. Ron. She’s all yours.

Most Disturbing Advert: Evian. Is there anything creepier than those rollerskating babies? Also a notable failure as an advert, as the sight of the hip-hop-dancing infants does not prompt one to reach for a mineral water, but for the nearest dry gin.

Scariest Celebrity Transformation: Hannah Waterman. Who has not only shed half her body weight and an entire husband, but also basted herself in gravy browning and brought back cycling shorts. Heat magazine should feel very bad about this one.

Worst Thought-Out Brand Name Decision: The iPad. Whether Apple’s focus group was entirely made up of bachelors, monks and seven year old boys, we are yet to confirm. But the conclusion can safely be made that no woman was consulted in the naming process, because no woman would have heard the name without immediately picturing a sanitary towel with a plug. Experts are advising that we wait a year, until the updated iPad Maxi Flow Fresh goes on the market.

*The Bravo Awards would like to state that it has no affiliation with the television network of the same name. Or the cartoon character. Or indeed the bestselling Andy McNab novel Bravo Two Zero. Thank you.

In which 8 out of 10 women prefer whiskers.

Shiny Style column on fashionable facial hair

In which I've never milked a cow or shot a mugger,

To be printed 28/01/10.

This morning, I had one of those moments of amazing coincidence. I came downstairs singing a song, a song I’d woken up with in my head, then mid-way through my rendition I turned on the radio to find it in the middle of the exact same song. At the exact part I was singing. It was like Radio 2 had finally cut out the middle man and started broadcasting live from my own brain.

But while you’re lying on the floor, aghast at colossal intricacy of the universe, I ought to admit that it would have been a more amazing moment, really, if the song in question hadn’t been Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing. Which of course is not only in my head, but perpetually on a loop in the communal head of the nation. As anyone with ears will know, is now officially the Greatest Song Ever to Have Existed. 

One of the nicest things about the new shape of the music industry, where the internet is like a big ol’ Pick’n’Mix of potentially delicious discoveries, is moments like this, where one song will suddenly rise from the mists of the past and into everybody’s iTunes libraries. Sometimes it happens for no discernable reason, like when Total Eclipse of the Heart suddenly became THE song to sing in pub loos in 2007, but this time round there are several clear factors contributing to the track’s greatness.

Firstly: Glee. Ahhhh, Glee. The award-scooping musical high school sensation has high-kicked its way into our hearts and charts simultaneously, with the show’s cast recording of Don’t Stop Believing sitting smugly at number three this week. Secondly: Joe McElderry, who was refused permission to release the song. This therefore makes it a sort of anti-X-factor statement for polite people. Like Rage Against the Machine, but without the rage. With jazz hands.

And thirdly, the song starts with the words, “Just a small town girl…” Those are magic words. The sheer power of that phrase sets the tone from the off – this is a song about a journey (it’s also BY Journey, which makes it much easier to remember. Their follow-up releases ‘Leaves on the Line’ and ‘I Left my Heart at the Little Chef on the A24’ were less successful).

It’s a sentiment everyone can instantly recognise, particularly at the moment, because small town girls and boys are everywhere. They’re having a vogue. You can’t turn on the telly without encountering some reality TV whippersnapper, bleating, “I’m just a kid from a small town… I can’t believe it... This time last week I was up to my armpits in cow placenta, now I’m living the dream!” Even better if the inhabitants of the ‘small town’, Doris and Cletus and Toothless Bob, can get together to wave some banners and talk about how their Local Boy Done Good is the best thing to happen to Smalltownville since Daisy the prize Llama killed that skunk.

But what I want to know is this: do I count as a small town girl? With a 100,000-strong population, Worthing is not small. It is a large town. But “Just a large town girl…” as a punchy song opening really doesn’t have the same ring to it. The large town girl doesn’t need ‘Don’t Stop Believing’. She needs a decent parking space and access to a Tesco Express.

In fact I’m beginning to realise that as large-town inhabitants, we’re pretty much excluded from cultural referencing. Think of all the songs that have been written about cities. Then think of all the ones written about the countryside. Then try, if you will, to think of one written about a large town. Go on. Anything? “When you’re alone and life is making you lonely you can always go… to Durrington.”

I also frequently find myself in those conversations where people dual their urban and rural upbringings, and I have nothing to contribute. “Um. I’ve never shot a pheasant. Or been to a squat party with a transvestite. But y’know, we have a decent sized New Look… and a pier.”

So while we can all feel inspired by Don’t Stop Believing, I’m really holding out for a song about a girl from a large town, who knows an average amount about life, taking a medium-length journey, to fulfill a reasonably attainable dream. It can be called Findon Calling. Catch it live, on Lauren’s Brain FM.

In which I get my badrags on.

ShinyStyle column on the curse of occasion dressing:

Why Occasional Dressing Doesn't Suit Everyone

In which I want to be one of the contactable people.

Printed 21/01/10.

The thing about desire is, you never know when it’s going to sneak up on you. For months you can feel completely ambivalent, and then one day, BAM. Out of nowhere, you’re suddenly consumed by longing. It’s all you can think about, and it’s reflected in everything you see and do. And it’s surprisingly, really, because you never even realised you wanted an iPhone.

I’ve always been quite content as the happy owner of rubbish phones. My aversion to flashy handsets stems back to about 2001, when a Nokia 3310 took over from scented gel pens as the most coveted classroom accessory. Traditional lunchtime activities – spot-squeezing, eyebrow-plucking, mooning over Charlie from Busted – gave way to epic phone festivals, in which we sat and listened to each other’s ringtones until we couldn’t differentiate the Mexican Hat Dance from the blinding tinnitus in our own heads.

Convinced that phones were going to be the downfall of my generation*, I resisted for ages. For about a year I sat in my own smug bubble, amid all the snake-playing and technological jollity, saying things like “You’re 13. Your only social activity is Guides. Is anybody really trying to get hold of you, ever?” Then eventually I changed tack and got myself a replica of the mobile used to call for help on the Titanic. It was the telephonic equivalent of a mangle. It had an actual aerial. With it, I spent a year texting in capital letters as a form of protest (for ‘protest’, read ‘didn’t know how to change the setting’).

Since then, I have had a succession of increasingly cheap and plasticky phones. Partly because I can always find something more edible or wearable to spend my money on, and partly because I have a strong awareness of my own ability to sit on things and break them. My current one cost me £20, and I bought it because it looked a bit like a tictac. And, until very recently, I thought it was all I needed: It called, it texted, nobody wanted to steal it, and it could be momentarily dropped into a bowl of soup without combusting.

But no longer. In the last few weeks, ever since starting a new job pretending to be a fashion TV researcher, I’ve discovered phone shame. Sitting in meetings while everyone taps away on their Blackberrys, I’m exposed as the Meed-yar fraud I am. Of course I’ve tried to be resourceful with what I have (“Hey guys, look! I can’t check my emails or tweet, but it is the perfect size for slipping under the leg to sort out this wobbly table! Eh? Eh?”) but the fact is, I need a fancy phone.

What if, for example, someone sends me an email on which my entire career depends, and I am somehow indisposed? Like, locked in a public toilet or stuck in a lift? And because I can’t access my email from the confines of my lift or loo, the life-changing opportunity gets offered to someone else (Fearne Cotton, say)? And because I missed that email, I have no prospects, lose my job and end up banished to a life on the sofa eating cheese toasties and wondering what could have been?

There, you see. I need an iPhone. I have paid my dues in amateurish technology, and now I want to join the club. I need the false sense of professional confidence, and the illusion that I might, at some point during the working day, know what I’m doing. Let’s just hope there’s an app for that.

In which... it snowed, did you notice?

To be printed 14/01/10.

This last year has brought about some sad milestones in my ageing process. It was the first Christmas we didn’t leave a mince pie and sherry out for Santa (though considering my youngest sibling has started shaving, we’ve had a pretty good run), it was the first year I didn’t use a sparkler to do the S-Club ‘S’ in the air, and, most poignant of all, it’s been the first year I haven’t been excited to see snow.

It’s distressing, it really is, the first time you look our of the window to see the white flakes falling and your instinctive reaction isn’t whoops of gay abandon followed by visions of tobogganing larks, snowball fights and being allowed to drink hot chocolate once an hour as a sensible health precaution, but instead, “Ruddy marvellous, that’s my trip to Tesco scuppered”. It feels like defecting to the Other Side, joining the ranks of the enemy who tut about grit and rail delays and bah, those schools could have opened, the kids don’t know they’re born.

Perhaps I’d still have found it in my withered, miserly heart to be excited if I’d actually got a snow day like you folks did. I would have LOVED a snow day. There’s such a perverse pleasure in that feeling, of having numerous things you ought to be doing but physically not being able to do any of them – time is suddenly suspended, and you are freed of all obligation except to eat biscuits and look out of the window once an hour. It’s brilliant. But sadly, one of the downsides of living in the metropolis is that we’re always the first place that gets up and running again. Because it’s where all the celebrities live, I presume. So the tireless semi-competence of Transport for London has meant I’ve been going into the office every day, while you’ve all been building giant snowmen without me. I know you have, admit it.

From where I’m sitting, the rest of the country has suddenly taken on the allure of the exotic. Using the little nuggets of snowformation I keep overhearing on buses and stuff (“Up to their necks in Gloucestershire!”; “My Yorkshire uncle hasn’t seen his dog in four days”) I’ve sewn together a sort of mental tapestry of how Everywhere Else looks. In it, people are racing huskies through town centre precincts and skating on frozen lakes like scenes from Victorian biscuits tins.

And in my imagination, while they’re doing it, they’re wearing wellies. And snow boots, and tennis rackets strapped to their feet, like the sensible, snow-hardy folk they are. Meanwhile, tramping over my very non-imaginary pavements of compacted ice and slush, I’m wearing heels, because they’re the “grippiest shoes I have.”

Honestly. After a swift appraisal of my 56-strong shoe collection last week, I was forced to conclude this: I do not shop for nature. I have plenty of flats, but they’re all slippy-soled, foot-bearing affairs. I have boots, but they’re more hole than shoe. I have plimsolls, which are grippy but also made of canvas, serving as much use in the snow as shorts made of sponge cake. And I have heels. Heels in which I’ve spent all week stumbling to and from bus stops, with people looking at me like I’m Mad Auntie Millie, who lives in an attic and thinks she’s Duchess of Fife. 

Which is proof if ever there was that I don’t deserve your hardcore provincial snow. I couldn’t hack it. I would have got buried in a ditch somewhere last Thursday, and never be seen again. I will content myself with my unexciting, semi-inconveniencing snow and leave the dramatic stuff to you folk. But I do plan to write my name in the slush with a twig. I haven’t lost all sense of fun, after all.

In which I don't say cameltoe.

Why leggings are slowly becoming the bane of society...

In which we all hail the January sale.

My post-Christmas assail on the sales:

ShinyStyle - How to be a Sensible Sale Shopper

In which I pour myself a cup of ambition.

To be printed 07/01/10.

I’m starting a new job tomorrow.

If that sounded a little muffled, it’s because I currently have a duvet on my head. The new job is a Scary Thing, and of all the traditional mechanisms of scary-thing denial – comfort shopping, playing solitaire for five consecutive hours, eating an entire trifle – I’ve decided that hiding under my duvet is the best way to cope with this one.

I realise it’s pathetic, at the grand age of 21-and-11-months, not to be able to start a new job without having to hide in a fort made of bedding. After all, I have started plenty of new jobs in my time. I am a practised job-starter. I know the drill – relentless enthusiasm, alternate the words ‘sure’, ‘great’ and ‘yup’ when having things explained to you, and if in doubt about food protocol, eat your lunch in the loos.

And it’s true that of all the jobs I’ve started, none resulted in me breaking anything, hurting anyone, or being ejected from the premises by a massive boot on a spring. But I didn’t have to worry so much, eat as may trifles or build as many duvet dens about those jobs, because they were just that – jobs. There was never much resting on them. I had the beautiful buffer of full-time education to save me if everything went wrong, and at no time was there thought of the c-word (that’s ‘career’. Behave yourself).

But now things are different, because I need this job. I need it to, like, live, and eat and things. There’s also the slight chance that if it goes well (ie. I manage to look like I know what I’m doing for seven hours a day, and don’t accidentally kill the boss’s dog), it might form a stepping stone on the path towards my dream job. Or towards Waitrose to get a week’s shop in, whichever is a more attainable goal.

So yes, it’s pretty important that tomorrow goes well. As my starting point for new job success, I will refer to my Granny’s advice to my mother on her first day at school – “Just make sure you know where the toilets are, and how to get out.” Next I will prime myself for potential office politics, such as the eternal Hot Drinks Conundrum. Which is: when getting up to make a coffee, do you offer everyone else one? Is it the done thing? And if so, how many do you offer to – just the people either side of you or everyone within earshot? Will you end up trapped in a perpetual drink-making cycle, never get any work done, and end up having an unsightly breakdown one day when someone asks for a latte? The other option is never offering anyone anything, which gets you out of the whole milk-and-two-sugars rigmarole, but also might make everyone hate you.

Then there’s the can-I-can’t-I-go-on-Facebook dilemma, the have-I-been-here-long-enough-to-join- them-at-the-pub quandary, and the does-that-guy-hate-me-or-is-it-a-facial-twitch predicament. Which is all without considering how rubbish I might be at the actual work. In fact the more I think about it, the more I realise I should have opted for a career that didn’t involve interacting with people. I should have been a professional online poker player. Or a trappist nun.

On which note, I’m finished. I thought that discussing the whole thing with you, dear reader, might make be a little bit calmer. Sadly it hasn’t. (If anyone comes looking for me, don’t tell them I’m under the duvet).

In which I didn't mean you, Colin.

A belated link to my festive ShinyStyle column, posted 17/12/09:

http://www.shinystyle.tv/2009/12/top_five_festive_fashion_faux-.html

In which I'm the last writer on the bandwagon (who has to sit at the front with teacher)

To be printed 31/12/09.

This week, this no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year where nobody quite knows what day it is, is all about the inevitable. The inevitable slide into the state of slovenly house slug, leaving the sofa only to snaffle out the last of the cheesey footballs and claim the remote for 100 Greatest Musicals 2 (the 100 that didn’t make it into the first 100).

It is inevitable that you will plan to go for a bracing walk along the seafront, but never make it further than the M&S returns queue. It is inevitable that at some point, you will briefly think you’re having a mild heart attack. This year there are two new inevitabilities: it is inevitable that at whatever point of day you turn on your telly, David Tennant will be on it. And it is inevitable that every columnist in Christendom will be writing a round-up of the noughties. Who am I to buck the trend?

So here we stand today, on the precipice of one decade, about to topple off and land in the next one (or in the arms of a drunk tourist called Julio, if our Trafalgar Square new year plans come to fruition). This time 10 years ago, my mother was stocking the garage with tuna cans and giant bottles of water in case Y2k sent the whole world into millennial meltdown.

It’s ironic, of course, that far from collectively exploding on the stroke of midnight like an updated Cinderella prop, computers went on to change almost every facet of our lives during the subsequent decade. But you don’t need me to tell you that – you’re reading this online, on an iPhone, after I retweeted the link I posted this morning on my blog with my Blackberry. You probably have a robot to hand, making herbal tea and recharging your hover boots.

It is also near-on impossible to write about the noughties without some sort of passing reference to the recession. I have no claims to economic expertise – all I know is that despite enough talk of green shoots to start a branch of Country Fayre, I still can’t afford brand-name mayonnaise. And in keeping with all the cutbacks, I have lost 150 words of this column. So instead of prose, what follows is a list of words that I will forever associate with the last decade, in a vague approximation of chronological order. Enjoy:

Big Brother. Robbie Williams. Opening of New Look, Montague Street. Reebok Classics. Encyclopaedia Encarta (on CD-rom). Will vs Gareth. More Big Brother. Because I’m worth it. Bridget Jones. September 11^th . GHD hair straighteners. Nokia 3310. Louise Rennison books. Iraq. Jade Goody. Digital cameras. Latte in massive mugs. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. SATS. The Office. Bacardi Breezers. The Strokes. Girls Aloud. More Big Brother. Yorkie – Not For Girls. Prefect badges. Tsunami. Trinny and Susannah. iPods. Carrie Bradshaw. Yeahbutnobutyeahbut... 

Skinny jeans. Atkins. 7/7 bombings. Bush. Pretzel. Myspace. Jamie, Nigella and Gordon. More Big Brother. Pete Doherty. Fake tan. Pret a Manger. Saddam executed.‘It’ bags. Live 8. Sienna Miller. Supersize Me. Doctor Who. WAGs. More Big Brother. Madeleine McCann. Balsamic vinegar. Primark. Simon Cowell. Ugg Boots. Gordon Brown. Musical theatre. Boris Johnson. Organic carrots. Credit Crunch. Peaches Geldof. Facebook. Hurricane Katrina. Leggings, jeggings and treggings. Barack Obama. Crocs. G20. Sachsgate. Strictly. Swine Flu. Michelle Obama’s upper arms. Cheryl’s hair. Gaga’s pants. Michael Jackson. Twitter. Nick Griffin. No more Big Brother.

See you on the other side, folks.

In which Christmas is no time for raging against anything.

To be printed 24/12/09.

Victory! Rargh! We’ve raged against the Cowell machine and won! Power to the people! The revolution will not be televised! Etc, etc.

Actually, I don’t care.

I’ve tried to care. I know we’re all meant to – as supporters of general good taste, authenticity and not funding Simon’s collection of solid gold tongue scrapers any further than is necessary, we’re supposed to have spent the last two weeks in a frenzy of politicised rock anger, defending the sacred Christmas number one spot the way our parents defended Nelson Mandela and our grandparents defended, well, the country. That’s what we’re supposed to have been doing.

What I’ve actually been doing is picking the green triangles out of the Quality Street, drawing moustaches on the Radio Times and going, “meh.” But because not caring seems like an act of betrayal to my generation and the good name of music, I have compiled the following list of reasons to explain myself. Ahem. I didn’t care about Rage Against winning the top spot because:

1)      Joe McElderry is like a little puppy.

Cowell may be the evil, braying Barbour-jacketed pedigree trainer standing over him with the diamond incrusted whip, but Joe is just an innocent puppy. And by taking away his number one, we are effectively KICKING THE PUPPY. In the FACE.

2)      It’s just a big rock cliché.

Pulling the rug out from under Cowell’s feet is one thing, but do we really all have to turn into angry adolescent boys while we do it? I might have been more impassioned to buy the RATM single were it not called ‘Killing in the Name’, which just seems such a petty attempt at yuletide anarchy it may as well be wearing a t-shirt from Camden Market and sucking a cannabis lollipop.

“Ooh, ooh, let’s make a big rock statement and stick it to the man!”

“But wait, has it got a violent reference in the title?”

“Better than that, it’s got death!”

“Excellent. Man, we’re so, like, ANGRY and stuff. Bah, faceless corporate machine! Take THAT!*”

3)      Christmas number one is meant to be crap.

Think back over some past Christmas number ones. Go on. Too Much by the Spice Girls. Stay Another Day by East 17. I Have a Dream by Westlife. If anything, Cowell is just perpetuating a long tradition of mawkish, misty-eyed pop taking the top spot every year. To put a stop to it is like taking away cracker hats or Terry’s Chocolate Orange - it’s just too deeply ingrained in the festive season. Once the music stops being commercialised gumph, who knows what that would mean for the Christmas TV? And the food? Before you know it, we’ll all have to watch Panorama and knaw on an organic courgette. Is that what we really want? Is it?

4)      I don’t like Rage Against the Machine.

They’re the level I really can’t do on Guitar Hero.

So there we are. Much as I’m glad they've raised all that money for Shelter, and that Cowell’s reign of terror might be drawing to a close, I just can’t manage to care very much about the 'principle'. I shall be apathetic against the machine. Mildly vexed against the machine at best. And while there are green triangles in the house that still need eating, that will just have to do.

*Not the actual Take That. Obviously. They’re as anarchic as a Boxing Day sale at Edinburgh Woollen Mill.

In which a recycled column is the gift that keeps on giving.

An oldie! Printed December 2007.

“This Christmas”, said Darth Vadar, “Luke Skywalker will receive an Xbox 360, a High School Musical lunchbox and a Mr Frosty frozen treats maker. How do I know? I have felt his presents.”

Consider, if you will, this column is a bad present. It’s the result of a last-minute dash around the three-for-two supermarket gifts section of my mind. I’m not too fussed about its reception because I won’t be there when you unwrap it, so I’ve ignored any presumptions you might have to taste and given you exactly what I’d like myself. I was too stingy to buy nice glossy wrapping paper with little sparkly snowflakes on it, so instead I’ve done it up in newspaper in a vague attempt to be arty and minimalist. But it’s all ok because I started it with a joke. Here it is then, and I expect you to get it out whenever I come round and smile big fake smiles of fake appreciation: Bravo’s Big Book of Gift Giving Law.*

Law One: Secret Santa, that most beloved staple of institutionalised festive merriment, second only to the obligatory union of body part and photocopier or stationary cupboard and the accountant with mature acne who believes he has a future as the first white gangsta rapper of Nuneaton, will never end satisfactorily. You will overspend the £10 limit to buy Denise in Marketing a lovely bit of something from Accessorize, and in return you’ll unwrap a bag of novelty pasta shaped like genitalia.
So the next year you’ll buy Boris in HR a £2.99 Little Book of Fart Jokes and then be hugely embarrassed to receive yourself a pair of cashmere gloves or maybe a crystal sherry decanter, about which you will mutter arbitrary things about ‘taking the fun out of it’ while dodging Boris’ requests to know who thought his IBS was a comic matter.

Law Two: Gift vouchers are not a nicer way of giving money, they are a way of saying ‘I’m not going to buy you something you’d like, but I’m sure as heck not letting you do that either’. It is the official unspoken law of the universe that the shop for which you have a gift voucher will be the only shop in the world with absolutely nothing you want in it. Sure, last week H&M was full of lovely frocks  - but go back tomorrow clutching a gift voucher in your sweaty palm, and I guarantee you they’ll be selling nothing but garden trowels. Other shoppers will be flitting about buying the lovely frocks, but for you, oh piteous possessor of the voucher, there will exist nothing but garden trowels.

Law Three: When someone has bought you the two products you need to buy in Boots to get the free £30 gift bag, you are legally obliged to request the gift bag when they try to keep it for themselves. Cheeky sod.

Law Four: We may all have been faking present enthusiasm since we were able to support our own heads -  ‘Another rusk, mother? However did you know?’ – but there comes a time to reign it in. For all we feel the pressing need to weep joyful tears over our M&S loofah set, there is always the danger you’ll be really convincing. Thus, you and loofahs will be inextricably intertwined in the giver’s head for all eternity, and every year you will unwrap loofahs of increasingly startling volume and have to adjust the magnitude of the performance accordingly. On the plus side, you’ll be well exfoliated.

Law Five: Elderly relatives of equal weighting, such as grannies or aunties on parallel branches of the family tree, must always be given completely equal presents. They will compare. You may believe they have no contact with each other, one living in Nepal and the other in Bognor, but I promise you they’re secretly emailing to see how their distressed wire soap dish compares with the other one’s Tiffany tiara.

Law Six: Thank you letters. “Dear blank, thanks so much for the loofah set. Could I request the gift bag that I know you got free? Many thanks. Hope you loved the voucher – I gave Auntie Marjory exactly the same one and she was thrilled, she needed a new trowel. To fill up the rest of the page, here is a large picture of me with a bag of novelty pasta, just before the firemen arrived to cut me out of the photocopier. Lots of love”.

*Here the false promise and disappointment begins already, it being clear that the following is not going to be a Big Book but actually a rather short list adhering to a scrooge-like word limit. And I’m afraid I haven’t kept the receipt.

In which it really does look like a swell party.

To be printed 17/12/09.

Now, I have been thinking very long and hard about this, and I genuinely believe that the Iceland Christmas ad might be the best one this year. No, seriously. Hear me out.

On first viewing, Coleen and Jason’s musical finger food spectacular was a queasy affair – while they sing about prawns and chocolate coated strawberries, we still have to fight with associated images of the absent Katona, serving up a platter of cold kebab. But after a few runs it had me sold. Partly because Donovan brings such razzy star quality to the proceedings, partly because it’s the only one that bears any resemblance, albeit on a massive, overstyled scale, to anyone’s actual Christmas, and partly, most crucially, because all the other ads this year are cack.

Waitrose’s is a dour effort, all Celtic warbling and scenes of trawlermen trudging through snow. In fact it’s so melancholy that each time I see it, it takes until halfway through to remember it’s about Christmas food at all, and not an advert for a homeless charity (shame too, because I’m always on the brink of giving money to the charity but will never be able to justify shelling out for their venison mince pies). Then Boots have gone all Loose Women on us, will the ill-judged promise that their products will turn you into the screechy office girls in the restaurant people spend all night wanting to slap.

The Sainsbury’s one is boring, just Jamie in a van with some pastry, while Morrisons have stretched both their peppy Take That soundtrack and Richard Hammond’s commercial appeal to snapping point. I can’t even remember the Tesco’s one. Oh yes, Faye Ripley pretending to be married to Mark Addy. Dubious.

Even M&S have got it wrong, largely through the belief that the true essence of yuletide for all of us is watching Noemie Lenoir dance about in her pants. Here’s a tip, M&S: when I’m about to embark on a fortnight of near-superhuman eating, I don’t want to have to look at a semi-naked supermodel. I want to see Dawn French with a sign saying “have another bit of stilton, your hips look fine”.

Meanwhile, After Eights are trying to sell themselves with the slogan ‘Nobody leaves’, surely the most misguided advertising concept since ‘You’re Never Alone With a Strand’. It’s just stupid. Everyone wants their guests to leave. It’s the best bit of the party. However much you love your friends and family, however abundant your social spirit and burning desire to be the hostess with the mostess, there’s still nothing better than waving them off at the door and retreating into an empty house to undo your waistband and attack the leftovers.

So, After Eight, you want to crush that dream? You’re saying that if I buy your chocolates, my party will escalate into some sort of mad reverse-hostage situation, with guests taking up residence in my airing cupboard, eating all my cheese and never contributing to the water bill? Are you effectively reminding us of the rarely-evoked Mint Chocolate Clause in the Squatters’ Rights Act? Are you?

To conclude, then, Christmas has gone a bit deluded this year. Amidst all the snowy roadtrips, pushing trollies through fields and dancing through cardboard forests in your scanties, Iceland has managed to come out as the only option that looks like something approaching fun. If Coleen thinks that the best cure for the winter blues is a mini duck’s nest, who am I to argue otherwise?

**************

A left-field choice for X-factor, then, in picking a winner’s song all about reaching for your dream, overcoming obstacles and never giving up. Personally my money was on a cover of the Ramones’ Teenage Lobotomy, but I guess I underestimated Simon’s creative vision. Anyway, well done Gareth! I mean, Leon. I mean, Joe...

In which I use more than 140 characters.

To be printed 10/12/09.

I have just had lunch with Chris Moyles.

When I say that, of course I don’t mean ‘with’ as in ‘at the same table’. Or ‘his being aware of my existence’. I mean ‘with’ in the same sense as Tonight With Trevor McDonald was ever ‘with’ Trevor McDonald, and Peter Andre was in love ‘with’ Jordan. Chris Moyles was in the pub, I was in the pub, we partook of the same air. That’s enough.

But that isn’t the exciting bit. The exciting bit, and I hope you realise I use ‘exciting’ in the very loosest sense of the word, was getting home to discover he had tweeted a photo of the very roast dinner we had just watched him eat. The same gravy, the same potatoes, the same clearly-Aunt-Bessie’s Yorkshire pudding.

Moreover, because of Twitter, we knew the entire course of Chris Moyles’ day. He had been woken up by the same apocalyptic downpour as us, then gone for lunch in the same pub as us, then gone home and watched X-Factor like us. He probably had the same indigestion as us, and sang the same rousing rendition of Uptown Girl in the lounge at 10.06 pm. Probably.

That is what celebrity means nowadays. Once a distant, untouchable entity, we now hold celebrity in the palms of our sweaty little hands. Technology has bridged the gap between Them (rich, mostly attractive, largely doing interesting things) and Us (poor, mostly unattractive, largely scraping the dried cheese bits off the sandwich toaster and eating them). I never even realised I wanted to live the same Sunday as Chris Moyles, but there’s a genuinely disturbing pleasure in knowing that I have.

You might remember that a while ago I wrote about Twitter, in a fairly derogatory fashion. I didn’t understand the point, I thought it would be boring, and that my friends and I would just post really banal things. I now understand the error of my ways. Twitter is not about the dull friends you already have. It’s about the celebrity friends you would like to have. “Who wants to know when Stephen Fry eats a sandwich and Holly Willoughby has a poo?” the sceptics sneer. I do! I really do! And you do too, deep down.

It can be disheartening though. Twitter is often like watching a party you haven’t been invited to, with your nose pressed up against the window. I mainly follow journalists, TV presenters and people from The Thick of It, who always provide decent diversion and witty comments to try and pass off in conversation as my own. But they are also, incredibly, ALL friends. Like a big lovely club of semi-celebrity fun, they banter back and forth on my screen all day, arranging dates and parties and super-witty events I’m not invited to.

It's become a form a slightly masochistic torture, watching Caitlin Moran and Grace Dent and Alexis Petridis exchange comedy insults at a rate nobody can when they have a proper office to sit in and a boss to read over their shoulder. They're the cool kids at school, while I eat my metaphorical lunch in the toilet cubicle and have to be partners with the teacher in PE. Which in Twitter terms means having your Dad, your hairdresser and a mystery man called Carluccio following you ("nice pics baby, u twit me sometime yes?").

Indeed, so desperate am I for fellow blue birdies to say my own inane things at, I am announcing a special offer: for every person who starts following me after this, and quotes the special code "Tunnock's Teacake", I will personally tweet a dedicated musical theatre lyric to brighten their day. Maybe I'll hit 50 followers and will be able to stop pining over Claudia Winkleman and Rebecca Front going to pilates together.

In the meantime, I’ve half a mind to take the details of one of these gatherings, turn up and slip discreetly into the conversation as though I’d been there all along. I will take a roast dinner and hope for the best.

* * * * * * * * * * 

I would like to end this week with an apology to Elsie, who was so generous as to furnish us with her views on the letters pages last week. Elsie, I am sorry. I am sorry that you have had to “endure” so many years of my tedious, youth-focused waffle. I am sorry that nobody thought to look over your shoulder, as you rocked back and forth in an apoplectic frenzy, and say “er, just don’t read them then.” I am sorry that after all this time, you have still never had a letter read out on Points of View (I’m just guessing). 

And I am sorry that you thought I was ageist. Elsie, if you can get out of your chair without groaning, then good for you. But frankly, some days, even I have trouble.

In which I do NOT go back to basics.

http://www.shinystyle.tv/2009/12/why_classic_clothes_should_rem.html

In which SuperJane hits the bottle.

To be printed 03.12.09.

I was informed recently that my Mum has been caught making up hot water bottles for the guinea pigs. This is symptomatic of two things: firstly, her slightly alarming love for the guinea pigs, leading us to believe they are no so much replacement children (the result of burgeoning empty-hutch syndrome) but actually the children she wishes she’d had all along. Guinea pigs never call you crying because they can’t pay their council tax, or eat all the ingredients for dinner as a 4 o’clock snack, or broadcast your more eccentric habits in a series of south coast newspapers.

Secondly: her enduring belief that a hot water bottle is the answer to all ills. My mother is the goddess of the hot water bottle. I’d like to think she might have missed a calling in politics, scurrying around the cabinet room making sure everyone is cosy. Like a superhero update of the Aquarius water carrier, she could wage war on chilly toes, draughty bedrooms and period pain the world over.

Indeed, I think it is Mum’s steadfast belief in the hot water bottle that has got me all the way to December without our turning the central heating on. That’s right, DECEMBER. Or “Decembrrrrrr”, as it shall now be known. In previous years we cracked under all the layers of knitwear, surrendered to our frostbite and turned it on about halfway through October, but this year we’ve upped the ante. With each passing week the sense of achievement grows (though so too, I’m vaguely worried, might an extra layer of insulating fat, like everyone’s miniskirted legs in the 60s).

Now the dream is making it all the way to Christmas, doing workout sessions to Slade and wrapping ourselves in a metaphorical blanket of festive cheer instead. If it gets tough, a combined diet of Ready Brek and Bristol Cream sherry will be implemented for maximum internal warming. We can start hosting lavish parties, under the guise of being sociable, and just fill the house with other people’s bodily warmth. Or we can go to the other extreme and just spend as little time in the house as humanly possible, soaking up all the free heat in libraries and tube stations and other people’s living rooms.

Either way, the hot water bottle will see me through. I will strap them under my clothes, line the sofa with them, and generally slosh my way through winter. And if it all gets too much, I will follow another of my mother’s indubitable pieces of advice -  “just sit in the kitchen with all the hobs on.”

* * * * * * * * * *

On Saturday, in the name of extreme physical endurance and because it might have made the house seem warmer when we got back in it, I did something I’d never done before. I went to a football match. I know, I know, you’re shocked. I strike you as the type who’s on the terraces every week, pukka pie in one hand and obscene gesture in the other. But no, amazingly, this was new territory for me. I took a book with me, just in case.

And I learned the following three things from the experience: 1) Football is pretty simple. Despite all the offside-rule-fouls-red-card-throw-in-yadayada, it turns out all you really need to know is ‘kick-kick-kick-hopefully-in-goal’. This was quite a relief. 2) There exists a thing called a “Yorkshire wrap”, which is essentially a flat Yorkshire pudding rolled up with beef and gravy in the middle. Like a hand-held roast dinner. QPR stadium might just be the secret centre of science. And 3) I can chant with the best of them. I thought I’d sound fraudulent, like Aled Jones duetting with N-Dubz, but inside me, it turns out, lurks the spirit of Vinnie Jones.

I did struggle briefly trying to fit the words “sky blue army” into two beats, with it coming out “skarbmeurrrh”. “Why don’t they just make up chants with more syllables?” I ask male friend no.1. “Lauren,” I am told, “that’s not the point.

In which fashion comes over all bibbity-bobbity-boo.

http://www.shinystyle.tv/2009/11/disney_brings_us_fantasy_fashi.html

In which I support charity, in my own way.

To be printed 26/11/09.

You’ll all be pleased to know we have the internet back now. There, hasn’t that made your day a little bit brighter? Of course, like anything you wait five weeks for (except Starbucks red cups), the broadband hook-up has been something of an anticlimax. While it’s lovely to be connected to the virtual world again, all it’s really done is remind me that a) nobody facebooks me anymore anyway, b) eBay has everything in the world I have ever wanted or needed, but I can’t afford to buy any of them, and c) my laptop trying to load up three tabs at once sounds like an 87-year-old trying to get out of an armchair.

It hasn’t all been a letdown, however. With our net package, we have also acquired Virgin TV. Which is AWESOME. Having spent three years with only terrestrial, it feels like Dorothy stepping out of the house into Oz and seeing colour for the first time.

No longer is every bit of viewing prefixed by the 10 minute Dance of the Aerial, where we take it in turns to stand with one arm out of the window while everyone shouts “yes… no… left a bit… you’ve nearly got it… ooh, I can see Dermot’s face…no wait, that’s a manatee...” until the idea is abandoned in favour of acting it out ourselves. No more will I be forced to invent ailments as excuses for not going out on a Saturday – I can have a social life, and watch Strictly on iPlayer, and still retain my reputation as a Supercool Person. I think that’s what the retro feminists really meant by ‘having it all’.

Without our new quality TV experience, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Thursday’s Children in Need concert as much as I did. Which is: very, very much indeed. This was surprising – firstly because the very act of watching it could be interpreted as encouraging the perpetuation of Fearne Cotton’s career, and secondly because, um, I don’t like Children in Need.

What?? Sacrilege! Burn the witch! Did Bravo just say she wants all sick and underprivileged children to die? Did she? Should we alert the Daily Express?

No. Calm down. I don’t dislike children who are in need, as a concept, or the charity itself – I definitely approve of disadvantaged children getting treatment and houses and food and care. I’m all for it. Of course. Charity = great.

But the programme = bad. It is five hours of watching newsreaders pretend to know about pop culture, Eastenders stars pretend to know about comedy, and the aforementioned Cotton pretend to know about anything. And beware ye, viewer – the moment you start watching, you give up your entire evening. For the curse of Children in Need is that it knows when you are thinking of turning over. As soon as you reach for the remote, what will happen, eh? That’s right, a video about a kid with cystic fibrosis will automatically begin. And if you switch channels during it, you are a terrible person. They’ll know. Wogan is watching you.

But Thursday’s Albert Hall shebang was different. It was, aside from the noble cause, just excellent, excellent television. It had Leona Lewis being epic, in a dress I’m fairly sure was made by a year 10 DT Textiles class. It had Cheryl Cole, Queen of the nation’s hearts, making a song she’s only performed twice sound like an anthem for our times (though I would like to state now that I by no means believe “if it’s worth having it’s worth having it’s worth fighting for” should be applied to international oil-based conflicts). It had be-suited slots from Chris Moyles, Peter Kay and James Corden, leading me to realise that they are, in fact, all just shades of the same person. And it had Paul McCartney singing us out with Hey Jude, the textbook way to make any audience feel instantly uplifted, united, and like everything will be ok forever.

But the top three moments were, by far, the following:

*Dame Shirley Bassey and Dizzee Rascal – a union so blooming perfect it seems like madness that we haven’t seen it before. He’s in a tux! She’s doing some urban arm dancing! Now we can all imagine them doing auntie/nephew-style bonding activities together, like shopping in John Lewis  and going to pilates (until the inevitable happens, and they make it into a Vodafone ad).

*Lily Allen and Take That – for weeks and weeks, Allen’s latest single has been coming on the radio, and Hannah and I have been saying, “She’s nicked that tune from Take That.” Then, in possibly the most satisfying piece of fourth-wall-removing, self-deprecating TV I’ve ever seen, we had her singing her song, when halfway through Take That charged on singing THEIRS. Ha! Hahahahaha! If The Chiffons had done it to George Harrison, everything probably would have been resolved.

*Take That and Robbie Williams – not since the release of the Doner Kebab Pot Noodle has there been such a cultural milestone. We’ve all known it was coming for ages, but that didn’t make it any less moving. As he and Gary Barlow grinned at each other like excited schoolboys during the finale, I actually cried. I cried for friendship, for pop music, for nostalgia.

Then they ran the disadvantaged children clip and I cried for them too. Well done Beeb, you may have converted me.

* * * * * * * * * *

If the BBC were the kings of musical brilliance this week, then ITV were the inevitable court jesters. Does anybody quite now what they’re meant to be thinking about X-Factor anymore? (Don’t answer, “you’re not meant to be thinking anything, you’re meant to watch David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ and stop being shallow.” Just don’t.) I mean, to like Jedward is to be the kind of person who voted for Boris because his hair is lolz. But to hate Jedward is to validate the sincerity of the programme, which of course we’re not meant to do because it’s a fraudulent, capitalist imposter in the noble landscape of proper music. And to have no opinion on Jedward at all is to be inhuman. It’s all so complicated.

In which I whinge about money. For the first time ever.

 To be printed 19/11/09.

It’s no fun not being a student anymore. It feels an awful lot like being Mark while everybody else still gets to be Jeremy.

As life changes go, shifting from student life to that of a genuine, museli-buying adult has to be one of the most colossal. Besides the big mental reshuffle, the re-programming of one’s body clock to sociable hours (or antisocial, when there are midnight cheese toastie rounds and Guitar Hero to sleep through), and the general awareness of one’s once-supple brain turning to Primula and pouring out through one’s ears during an episode of The Family, there is a more physical side of the transition that’s equally taxing. Because it’s, er, tax.

Forgetting for a minute the crippling reality of graduate debt, this week I’m focusing on the less debilitating but still pretty sodding nasty reality of graduate expenses. They’re the chinese burn of the financial portfolio – spiteful, petty, and they always sting more than you remember. No Topshop discount! Ow. Full-price London travel! Ooch. Council tax! Arrrrrrrggggh (put some ice on it and try to not to cry as you reach for that post-grad application form).

Where does the logic lie in taking away all our perks the moment we graduate? It’s almost, and I realise this is a ridiculous premise - maybe involving the whole Cabinet having been actually locked in a cabinet for, ooh, the last five years - but it’s almost as though the government think that when we leave uni we’re actually getting JOBS, or something. When everyone knows the truth is that graduates are WAY poorer than students. We don’t get any of the free money, and we have to pay more for everything.  Essentially, we’re being fined for the crime of having got older. It’s punishment for the inevitable passing of time. It’s Adult Tax.

And the secret expenses just keep coming – when you think you’ve just about budgeted for rent, bills and a bowl of rice and ketchup every second Thursday of the month, another facet of Adult Tax will ping up out of nowhere and gulp down your wallet as though ’twere a jelly baby. Last week, it was prescriptions.

Somewhere, in the dim recesses of my mind, the same place I store Mott the Hoople lyrics and sellotape, I was aware that non-student adults have to pay for prescriptions. I knew. But it’s the kind of fact that can be pretty easily suppressed by half a bottle of Benylin, and so the following scene ensued:

Me: “Hullo! I’d like this prescription please.”

Chemist lady: “Certainly! Please sign the back of the slip”.

Me: “With pleasure!”

Chemist lady: “Thank you. That will be eight pounds.”

Me: “I’m sorry, the mucus must have got to my ears. I thought you just said something about eight pounds.”

Chemist lady: “I did. That will be eight pounds.”

Me: “But I don’t have eight pounds.”

Chemist lady: “It’s ok, we take cards.”

Me: “No, I don’t HAVE eight pounds. In the world. At all.”

Chemist lady: “If you’re on benefits, it’s free.”

Me: “I’m not on benefits. I’m on minimum wage. What do I get for that?”

Chemist lady: “Nothing.”

Me: “I think I’ll just stay ill, then. If it’s all the same to you.”

So my proposal is this: for the sake of humanity, and my not hacking germs all over innocent pharmacy staff, student perks should be phased out gradually. They should last us through a transition phase of three years or so, perhaps decreasing in increments, the way a parent gradually lets go of a child’s bike when they’re learning to ride it . It would give you time to find a proper job, adjust your lifestyle habits, maybe uncover a Faberge egg in a cupboard to tide you through the winter. Then one day, completely unawares, you will be able to pay full price for a cinema ticket without wincing.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ever perceptive to my changing desires, yesterday the BBC dished up news coverage of Camelot’s anniversary party, which featured a hall full of be-partyhatted lottery winners doing a conga.

Nice move, Beeb. Now tomorrow, if you could broadcast five minutes of footage of investment bankers in a hotub, watching Tara Palmer Tompkinson in a bikini made of £50s dancing to Barrat Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want), all my viewing needs will be fulfilled.

In which the gloves come off, because the boots have not.

Why won't Ugg boots die?

http://www.shinystyle.tv/2009/11/why_wont_ugg_boots_die.html

(no offense intended to anybody still wearing them. Well, not much)

In which iPod, therefore I am.

To be printed 12/11/09.

We have acquired an iPod. Found on the front steps by our downstairs neighbour, it has been sitting coquettishly on a chair in the communal hallway for two weeks now. It is an 8GB, 3rd generation Nano (read = it is small and square and red). Nobody has claimed it. Nobody has even touched it. It looks sad.

It’s a nice testament to modern morals, of course, that nobody has yet looked at it and gone “yoink, MINE”. It also puts to bed the eternal niggling worry of urban living, that someone in your building is probably a psychopath/rapist/dirty great thief. If they won’t nick an iPod, they probably won’t break in through our window, slaughter us brutally in our sleep with a Black and Decker multitool and harvest our organs to sell on the internet. That’s logic.

So it’s nice that everyone is really honest. Of course it is. Unless - and I’m about to be very, very cynical for a moment here, sort of like Charlie Brooker in a blonde wig – their honesty is like mine, a mere cover for the eternal belief that the moment they do anything immoral, someone will be secretly watching them.

I am incurably honest. Not out of genuine goodness as a person, but because ever since I first saw the Truman Show, I haven’t been able to shake off the sneaking fear that my life might be being filmed for an ITV2 special. So when I get given too much change, or they forget to charge me at the cinema, or a vending machine starts spitting out free Twixes, I own up, not because I’m incredibly selfless, but because I’m convinced that if I take advantage, Tess Daly or someone will jump out with a big microphone to tell me I’m a dreadful person.

But whatever the reason, the iPod is still there. It is still there when I leave for work, it is still there when I get home, it is still there when I get up at 3am and run downstairs to check. It is taunting me. Its not that I want it myself; I have an iPod. I just want SOMEBODY to have it. It’s like when a seat becomes free on the tube and nobody sits in it. Take it, please! Keep the universe in balance! Otherwise it’s just a waste of good music.

And this we know, because we have looked. It was just too tempting not to. An iPod is a window to the soul, a weirdly intimate insight into somebody’s life. If a group of strangers were going through mine, they’d discover that I: secretly like Dolly Parton more than the Doors; have a playlist called ‘Grr’ to listen to specifically when I’m wearing a leather jacket; and regularly alternate Dizzee Rascal with the Andrews Sisters.

So we have discovered that this iPod belongs to someone called Sara. And Sara is a person who likes Beyonce. And Boney M. And Bowie. She feels perfectly comfortable listing Gloria Estefan next to Gogol Bordello, and has a whole playlist consisting of Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Raincoat eight times over (Sara potentially doesn’t know how to use her iPod very well).

Sara also has a slightly scary amount of the same stuff I do. How many other people have Edith Piaf, Donovan and Yann Tiersen nestling up with The Style Council? I believe it can only mean one of two things: either 1) I am meant to be find Sara, whoever she may be, and start a beautiful enduring friendship based on a mutual love of French accordion refrains, or 2) I am meant to keep her iPod.

* * * * * * * * * *

Unlikely commercial collaboration of the week: National Geographic and Ambi Pur. What next, we must ask, Glade and the Radio Times? The authentic scent of Terry Wogan’s dressing room (I’m betting: furniture polish and murray mints). Or Airwick and the Daily Mail! Mmm, that alpine freshness just about covers the scent of immigration and paedophilia, doesn’t it?

* * * * * * * * * *

Internet installation day minus 216 hours: I have taken up crosswords. When I don’t know the answer to a clue, I have fun by trying to fill the boxes with my own creative expletives. Six across, four letters. Why not try it at home today?

In which I have a new fashion column, And use it to talk about boobs.

www.shinystyle.tv/2009/11/why_cleavage_is_never_cool.html

In which we all slam dunk da funk.

To be printed 05/11/09. 

 

As I type this, literally right this cotton-picking minute, I am being confronted with a truth. It is a truth that I have been fervently denying for several weeks now, but may finally be forced to accept. I should point out that I am also watching X Factor, on which JLS are performing. They are singing on floating platforms, in a range of carefully-styled ‘urban outfits’. They are walking down steps in unison. They are doing a dance routine with strategic knee-dips on the key changes. They are spelling out, in a sparkling trail of diamond ear studs, the truth that we all knew was coming, but only Louis Walsh wanted to hear. Boybands are back.

Of course we have no right to be surprised at the sudden return of the white-suited warriors. Their shadow has long been lurking in the background of this year’s ’90s revival*. Partially obscured by a big pile of leggings and scrunchies and Ed the Duck memorabilia, perched on stools, the boybands have been waiting.

After all, they had their signal ages ago - when the nation welcomed Take That back into its hearts like a band of overcoated prodigal sons, it sent a subtle top-C soundwave running through the musical stratosphere, and boybands-in-hiding everywhere pricked up their ears. But the problem was, Take That were back not as a boyband, but as a manband. They have facial hair. They look like they might walk over hilltops, not for a ballad promo, but for leisurely fun. And they had a secret weapon, slowly matured for housewives’ delectation - Jason Orange, who knew? 

Barlow et al also had the advantage of having ducked out of the industry just before it all got really ugly. They had the earthy end of the 90s. When played next to the likes of 5ive and 911, Never Forget sounds like the kind of music that you should stand on a bar to dance to, out of respect. It has majesty.

But now (and in no way a damning forecast to you, ma’am), majesty is no longer relevant. There is a place in music once more for pretty boys can do harmonies and lend panache to a silver shellsuit. We have a Blue reunion on the cards, Westlife reminding everyone they still exist, and two brand new boy bands lined up for launch early next year. Unpleasant and unnecessary, yes. But I recommend staying positive - If Another Level decide to come out a retirement, we can pretend Jordan and Peter never even happened!

Yes, hair gel manufacturers better get the gloves back on. The boy-ballad is back.  Stephen Gately would be so proud. 

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*Yes, that is “’90s revival” – not, sadly, the 1890s (however much Mutya Buena and I do for championing the cause with rear-padding, fashion just won’t embrace the return of the bustle), but the 1990s. That decade we did already, like, ten years ago. The one with all the cropped tops and Anthea Turner. The one your hair is probably still doing. That one.

Because fashion, and anyone still holding onto a pair of high-waist bellbottom jeans will know this, likes to change its mind pretty quickly. Which means now we’ve mimicked every era that our parents and grandparents could remember, we have to start on the ones we lived through ourselves. Cue the massive sweatshirts, shimmer lipstick and cycling shorts. Extra points for anyone who can find their Tamagotchi.

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Mr Murphy and Mr Sod have been at work again, and this time they have taken my whole house down with them. It was the work of a fool, I realise now, to spend last week in raptures at the thought of getting the internet back. But oh, reader, I just couldn’t help it!

I guess I knew deep down that the moment I committed those words to print, it would suddenly become a lie. Now, for reasons neither the grunts of the installers or metallic drones of the helplines seem to be able to explain, we have to remain in the void until the 17^th of ruddy blooming gosh-darned-it November. 

I am angry. It would be unprofessional to name and shame our shoddy service provider, but let me tell you this – I’m never riding on his trains or using one of his mobiles again.