In which the sun has got its hat on, hip hip hip hooray!

To be printed 27/05/10.

Has anybody seen the devil? I'm his advocate. Some think I'm only playing at the role, but between you and me I'm pretty darned serious about this one – particularly in this next presentation, entitled Reasons to Hate Summer. I realise "hate" is a strong word, one that we're only meant to use for Hitler and late delivery men, but I feel if I'm not emphatic enough my point will get lost amid all the barbecue fumes and gay laughter.

I've lived with these controversial views for 22 years now, buoyed on purely by the belief that I can't be the only one who hates summer. Somewhere out there, I know there are more of you. You're all lying in darkened rooms with bags of frozen peas on your extremities, ignoring invites to picnics. And quite right too, but I'd appreciate it if you came out and revealed yourself for the purposes of this article. We could form a support group, where we meet in a refrigerated underground vault, eat shepherd's pie and wear massive jumpers. I'd like that.

1. Sweat.

The most obvious and basic of all summer downsides, I never understand why this doesn't put more people off. When you can't perform normal, day-to-day tasks like making a sandwich or sitting on a bus or blowdrying your hair without turning into a puddle of person, there is something wrong with the world.  

2. Smells.

What is the scent of summer? Freshly-mown grass, coconut sun cream, barbecuing burger suspended on a delicate breeze? Or is it, actually, when you really think about it, BO? And warm bin sack? And dog poo, slowly roasting on the pavement? Next time you're standing in a fat man's armpit on public transport, tell me honestly how much freshly-mown grass is wafting your way. (See also: sweat.)

3. Sunburn.

Your own is a pretty negative experience, yes, but almost more distressing is the parade of other people's. The worst are the leather handbag ladies, whose deep-etched mahogany faces read like a poster saying "Melanoma? Is that a Delia recipe?" The second worst are massive bald shirtless men with pink-striped bellies, giving them the curious appearance of a processed seafood stick. And the third worst are sunburned children, of any description, because they trigger my transformation into Super Suncream Girl (saving the nation's skin one squirt at a time). I'm not sure if you've ever tried to apply Factor 30 to a strange child in public, but parents don't always take it in the helpful spirit it was intended.

4. The Calorie Contradiction.

Those of you who say 'oh, I only want a small salad when it's hot' can shut up; summer is really about over-consumption. That's why we have Magnums, and Aztec Gold Magnums, and White Chocolate Magnums, and barbecues and drinking beer at 11am in the garden. However, summer is also about looking like a wee slip of a thing in a bikini. It is about having the longest, leanest limbs in the whole park, and using strategic moments to do a cartwheel where your top falls down. I ask here that you spot the paradox, and take a moment to ponder the unfairness.

Here endeth the lecture. If you'd like to take a leaflet on your way out, I'll look forward to seeing you all in the vault for some knitwear action. Alternatively, buy my book – Lauren Bravo's Summer Loving*. 

*Title ironic.

In which I fight prejudice, one sweaty sock at a time.

To be printed 20/05/10.


There are many prejudices in this life. While we, most of us, do our best to dodge the main ones - race, gender, sexuality, haircut - we are still living lives influenced daily by numerous other, more socially acceptable, prejudices. In the interests of self-improvement (and because my other option for this week's column was the words "Why did you all vote Tory, you south coast idiots?" in massive letters), I am addressing one of mine. I have, my whole life, been prejudiced against sporty people.

I could try to deny it - after all, some of my closest friends are sporty - but it's about time I confronted the issue. Every time I look at someone in workout gear, with their ergonomic trainers and their iPod strapped to their arm like an IV, a little voice in my head goes "coughPILLOCKcough."

There is, naturally, a lot of horror tied up with sport in my mind as a result of having to wear uniform knickershorts in public for four years (take note, Davison - you might have ruined a potentially great olympic career). But I think the main reason I tell myself I don't like sporty folk, same as with vegans and people who don't watch TV, is the smugness. It's the idea that their flagrant energy and desire to take care of themselves is all done to make me feel like a substandard person. In my head, the fact that they will live longer, and die thinner, and spend the time until that day feeling a lot less out of breath than me, all come second to their desire to scream, "Look at me, all healthy! Look how good at being human I am!"

But imagined smugness is not an excuse for persecution. "I torched her house because I thought she briefly pictured me in a bikini" would not stand up in court. Besides, there are plenty of things I'm probably smug about myself, without meaning to be. I don't smoke, I don't take recreational drugs (apart from Berocca, and I can quit that any time I want to) and I know all the words to Subterranean Homesick Blues. I probably ooze smugness. So in an effort to put aside my prejudice and become a more tolerant person, I am undertaking some aversion therapy and joining the ranks of the sporty. I have started jogging.

It took a while to put the plan into action, because first I had to find some proper trainers and an outfit that didn't immediately prompt other joggers to assume I must be lost and extrodite me to the nearest Starbucks. I settled on my PE trainers from year 10, because they might trick my brain into thinking I have the cardiovascular system of a 15-year-old, and a t-shirt from Hairspray the musical, just to make it subtly clear that I'm not really One Of Them.

So now, I am a jogger. I am a person who jogs. I am, by the way, still working with the word 'jog' rather than 'run' - baby steps and all that. Which, incidentally, is also how I'm doing the actual jogging. But still, it is exciting new territory. I can use words like "metabolism" and go shopping for sports bras. I think I may only be weeks away from a rucksack with some rocks in it. Prejudice successfully obliterated.

In which I am behind the times, by several minutes...

To be printed 13/05/10 (by which time this will be woefully out of date).

Oh dear. The whole country is in a shambles, and we have a mouse in our kitchen. Whether these two facts are related is as yet unconfirmed, but sources report that a little-read footnote in the Conservative manifesto included a scheme re-homing vermin in the houses of empoverished graduates. Just underneath the cuts in arts funding.

The annoying thing isn’t the mouse as such, but the fact that my mother was right. About a fortnight ago we had a conversation that went like this: Me – “We’re so lucky we don’t have mice. I’ve lived in that house two and a half years, and we’ve never even seen one.” Mother Superior – “Don’t be silly, you must have mice. All London houses have mice.” Me – “But we just don’t. Maybe it’s because we’re two floors up. Maybe it’s like nits, and they prefer clean houses. Maybe we have more than our fair quota of mould, and this is to address the balance. Whatever the reason, we are a mouse-free house.” Mother Superior – “Nah, you have mice. You just don’t know it yet.”

But ho, we know it now. So far we’re resolutely talking about mousey in the singular, because acknowledging that there might be mousey friends in the picture is more than my nerves can handle. Normally a fearless, gung-ho, intrepid female explorer type, I’ve suddenly become the unseen dame from Tom and Jerry, scurrying around in my furry slippers and shrieking at sudden noises. On being told about the mousey sighting by my flatmates (the way parents break the news about divorce – this isn’t your fault, there’s no need to be scared, we love you etc), I very nearly had to sleep the night standing on a chair in the kitchen.

My mum has been proved righter still by everyone else I’ve mentioned it to having gone, “Mice? Yeah, we’ve got loads. They’re called Dave, Dee, Dozy, Mick and Madonna and we feed them on sugar puffs” as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. And perhaps it is a rite of passage in London living, like rocketing council tax and pollution turning your snot black. But that hasn’t stopped me entering rooms like a police negotiator, announcing, “I am HERE, in my KITCHEN, just reaching for a CUP-A-SOUP, no need to make any sudden movements…”.

Meanwhile, we’re all twitchy and tiptoeing as we wait to find out what’s going to happen to the government (I’m writing this on Sunday, so forgive me if by publication it’s all been resolved into a nice job share, with Dave, Nick and Gord taking two days each and Lorraine Kelly filling in on Sundays). Scary though the prospects at the end of it might be, the political limbo bit is actually a tiny bit exciting. Go on, admit it. It’s like the bit between Christmas and New Year where nobody really knows what they’re meant to be doing. Do all the laws still stand? Are we allowed to do anything we couldn’t before, like drive on the other side of the road or keep ostriches on our allotments? Has anybody looked into it?

Sooner or later though, for better or worse or Tory, I guess we’ll have to settle on one of them to rule the country. Because once the turkey’s all used up, Christmas stops being fun; driving on the other side of the road would cause more death than the novelty is probably worth; and ostriches just taste like cows anyway. Besides, we need somebody to name the mouse after.

In which Pamela Haynes-Wallis has something to say

To be printed 06/05/10.

Happy election day everybody! I’m not sure what the mood will be by the time you read this – perhaps Gillian Duffy will have crept in as an outside contender, heading up the Monster Raving Loony party with Eddie from Love Thy Neighbour as second in command – but from where I’m standing on Monday morning everything is looking decidedly uncertain. If this were X-Factor, Peter Dickson would be booming “ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN” while Brown, Cameron and Clegg tried to pout in front of a wind machine.

From a purely entertaining point of view, it’s been an exciting few months. It’s also been an educational one, and as we all stock up on Red Bull and Haribo for the final stretch tonight, I’d like to look at all the Things I Have Learned in This Election:

1. The British Public Can’t Vote Properly. 

There is a veritable wealth of examples from talent show television that I could draw on here, but I would like to focus on the one that is still raw – Stephanie being voted off Over the Rainbow on Sunday. When the nation can’t even recognise a fantastic rendition of Mr Bojangles (not to mention other potential evictee Steph’s flawless performance), it worries me that they can be allowed to pick who runs the country. Though as a side thought, if they could somehow arrange for the losing candidates to ride an enormous crescent moon back to their stately homes, weeping, I think it would add a little extra razz to the proceedings.

2. Elections Can Be Fun. 

My mother can usually be trusted to find an interesting diversion in any bleak situation (stemming from years of playing the numberplate game on vomitous car journeys), and she’s come up trumps for the election with ‘Find your Tory name’. Take your Grandmother’s/Grandfather’s first name, then double barrel the name of the street you grew up in with the name of your old headteacher. My variations are the deliciously alliterative Blanche Beaufort-Bugden and the altogether snootier Pamela Haynes-Wallis. Put me down for the moat cleaning.

3. Frankly, I’d Like a Prime Minister Who Knows a Bigot When He Sees One. 

Whether Gordon got a little too exuberant with his bigot-spotting is, I suppose, a matter of opinion. But the whole affair has made me think I’d prefer it if the entire election was staged like a game of bigot whack-a-rat, with members of the public in a line up spouting opinions and the candidates with a big foam mallet, running up and down spotting the bigots and bopping them on the head. But maybe that’s just me.

4.  Everybody has a Slightly Different Idea of What a Hung Parliament Actually Means, and Nobody has Bothered to Google it. 

“The Queen picks the Prime Minister,” says my flatmate. “Or no, maybe it means the Queen makes the decisions when they can’t decide. Anyway, it’s something to do with the Queen.” Which is exciting, isn’t it? The Queen! We’d all forgotten about her.

In which channelling conceptual boyfriend chic is totally BIJ.

ShinyStyle - Fashion Translator: your guide to that industry lingo

In which we encounter a problem The Drifters never had...

To be printed 29/04/10.

As a strident feminist*, there is little I take more pleasure in than stomping over a few stereotyping myths. I stomp over them, in my non-gender-specific shoes, then I kick back with a… what’s a non-gender-specific drink? Cider maybe? Cider, in a glass, with a bit of ice but not loads. I kick back with one of those, listen to some non-gender-aligned music and enjoy a small moment of pride, for having Proved the Misogynists Wrong.

I was a little overdue a myth-stomping feat this weekend, my last one having been several weeks ago when I correctly named Michael Owen as the youngest British premiership footballer of the 20^th century at a pub quiz in the face of opposition from my male flatmates, and I have since been set back by a few spider-catching incidents and some re-runs of Cougar Town. So, to top up the quota, Female Flatmate and I decided to have a barbecue.

It was a small affair – shattering the first myth of the bunch: that barbecues have to be a Massive Deal, involving loads of prepping and muscle-flexing and borrowing of garden furniture from Mrs Down the Road. We blew that myth out of the water, simply by having nobody else we could be bothered to invite round. So it was a nice, intimate, rooftop barbecue for two.

Then we did the shopping. Another opportunity for female reclamation of the sport, by proving that barbecues don’t have to be heaving, carnivorous affairs full of massive hunks of blackened, unidentifiable flesh (besides, barbecued sausage eating was ruled out several years ago by that “When Will I See You Again?” food poisoning advert – thanks, Food Standards Agency). No, we would make a modest feast of vegetable kebabs and some homemade burgers. Veg, protein, carb. Lovely.

There’s something brilliantly decadent about whipping out a barbecue for an everyday dinner. Like making your morning toast with a blowtorch, or spit roasting a Findus crispy pancake. It feels like it shouldn’t be allowed. But now I’ve started, I’m inclined to start barbecuing everything – it could be an era of groundbreaking experimentation, like when the Bravo family first got a toaster and my brothers and I ate every single meal on toast for about three weeks. I ate grapes on toast. Biscuits on toast. Salmon en croute on toast. Now I will barbecue my breakfast, chargrill my cheese sandwiches, warm my Horlicks through on some hot smoky coals. This could have started years ago, but I never knew just how easy barbecuing was before.

Easy, that is, until you melt your roof. After we’d eaten the food, cracked open some beers, and were basking in the contented sense of primal achievement you get having successfully heated some meat and not died in the process, we noticed something. Black, sticky gumph, oozing out from the bottom of our disposable barbecue. It was tarmac. We’d melted the roof.

Excellent timing, then, for Male Flatmate no.1 to come home and successfully override our myth-stomping glow with smug rants about “putting it on bricks” and “watertight ceilings” and “Duuuuuhhhh.” But let it be said, the food was delicious, the roof solidified again, and Male Flatmate no.1 was forced to watch Over the Rainbow to balance out the gender gap. Someone alert Germaine, and pass me that cider.

*Is anyone ever a strident anything else? It seems to be an adjective reserved for that one, very specific, occasion of noun-accompaniment. As such, when I am feeling my most feministy, I stride everywhere. And use Trident toothpaste.

In which fashion lets them eat cake

LINK: ShinyStyle - How fashion and food became friends again

In which we should all shop to the Maxx

LINK: Shiny Style - Unsung heroes of the high street

In which that's why Doctors go to Iceland

To be printed 22/04/10.

It’s not until a volcanic ash cloud swamps half the country that you realise your friends all lead far more exciting, jetsetty lives than you do. I currently know people waiting for flights to America, out of Kuala Lumpur, to Copenhagen, out of France and back from Bangkok. My Facebook wall reads like a who’s-who of glamorous globetrotters, all saying things like, “Looks like another three days in the Maldives for me! Bev, will you please feed the cat?” And while I really do feel pain for all those people whose plans are being scuppered by the thoughtless trantrum-throwing of Mother Nature (my money’s on PMS), it’s just making me more aware than usual that I never go anywhere. I consider a trip to the East Finchley Tesco an excursion of some merit.

The ash cloud has also raised awareness in another area; namely, my complete idiocy in sciencey matters. My first question on hearing about the cloud was “can’t the planes just fly underneath it?” My second was “can’t they put a bit of mesh over the engines, like a tea strainer?” And my third, by far the most sincere of all my efforts to help with the continent-wide crisis, was “What would the Doctor do?”

Because you’ve got to admit it, it sounds like a perfect Doctor Who storyline. It’s the stuff Steven Moffat’s dreams are made of. In the episode, they would climb down into the middle of the volcano and discover it was being operated by Davros. What the people thought was ash would actually turn out to be tiny particles of alien membrane, showered down to imbibe itself into the human race to build its own lava-army, with which they would form a giant set of living toy soldiers, and use them to play massive intergalactic games of Risk against the Sycorax.

The Doctor, on realising this, would be forced to do a bit of soul-searching, staring into the depths of the volcano, while the feisty assistant discovered a big clicky button somewhere that said, “Remove ash”. Then would follow an intense dialogue over whether the Doctor had the right to interfere with the course of Earth’s destiny and Ryan Air’s net profit by getting rid of the ash, during which the Daleks would arrive and surround them. After some witty banter where the Doctor pretended to be trying to get to a stag do in Marbella, they would fly the Tardis into the atmosphere and spin around vigorously enough to disperse the ash across the galaxy. Then would follow a montage where everybody got to go home or get on their planes and greet loved ones, a bit like the end of Love Actually.

Whether the transport secretary has thought of this approach I’m not sure, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to mention.

In which I'm a fan of Gregorian chanting.

To be printed 156/04/10.

In life, there will always be conversations that cause excruciating embarrassment to all forced to listen to them. One is a couple debating who loves each other more. One is a couple arguing (actually, this one is excruiciating to all but me – I LOVE an arguing couple. They are my sport, I listen with popcorn). And the third is anyone, anyone at all, discussing ‘what music they’re into’.

I’ve always had a strong sensibility of ick where this topic is concerned – anybody asking me the fateful question on first acquaintance instantly earns a black mark next to their name, removable only by careful application of ginger wine or revelation that their uncle is the Sultan of Brunei – but it was only yesterday that I realised quite the extent of the ick.

I was sitting on a replacement bus service from Three Bridges to Brighton*. Behind me, pretty much within a minute of boarding, a middle-aged man in a tweed blazer struck up a conversation with a vaguely trendy young fellamelad, about music. I listened to their conversation the whole way, because it was impossible not to, and because it was such a delicious example of why these conversations are hideous. Tweed Man got stuck in with the obvious question:

“So, what sort of music are you into?” Yeuch, bleuch, blargh.

“Oh,” Young Fellamelad pondered. “I like a bit of everything, really…”

OF COURSE YOU DO. WE ALL DO. IT’S CHARACTERISTIC OF THE HUMAN RACE, YOU FOOL, EXCEPT MAYBE FOR THOSE FREAKS WHO LIVE ENTIRELY ON MARMITE.

“Mainly indie rock,” he continued. “Some reggae… a bit of hip-hop… electro… folk… blues…” Then he delivered the killer line. “I like anything with a bit of originality, really. That’s what I mainly look for.”

Is it? IS IT? Odd, because last I looked the rest of the music-buying public were crying out for songs that sounded exactly the same as the last one they listened to. “More of the same!” they plead from the aisles in HMV. “For pity’s sake nothing ORIGINAL, heaven forbid…”

Of course, I’m being cruel. Young Fellamelad probably couldn’t help giving those insipid, textbook answers, because they are programmed into all of us. We are all meant to say we “like a bit of everything”, just as we are all meant to say that we “enjoy travelling” and loved Slumdog Millionaire and think Connery was the best James Bond.

It just goes to show that the music conversation is a redundant format. It should be replaced with something much more effective, like just swapping iPods, or playing Boff, Marry, Kill: Paul Simon, Prince, Pete Doherty. Or just shutting the heck up and looking at each other’s shoes. You can tell 80 per cent of a person’s music taste just by looking at their shoes, after all.

So TM and YFM carried on with their conversation in the traditional manner. TM raved about Arcade Fire. YFM rambled on about being big on 60s guitar, “like Hendrix. And Clapton. And… well, y’know, Hendrix.” There was a particularly brilliant segment where TM tried to explain to YFM who Harry Nilson was, without singing I Can‘t Live (if Living is Without You). Then after five minutes he did sing it, and spent another five minutes trying to remember who covered it in the 90s, while YFM interjected “Whitney Houston. Yar, I’m pretty sure it was Whitney Houston. Cos it was in The Bodyguard, wasn’t it?”

Whether the whole bus was yearning to turn round and shriek “It was Mariah Carey you bonehead, and The Bodyguard was I Will Always Love You, and just SHUT UP and let me off this hellwagon!” before throwing a shoe through the back window, or if it was just me, I’m not sure. The conversation then pootled on through punk, Britpop, early Bowie vs late Bowie, Glastonbury experiences, how exactly one should categorise Talking Heads, and then, just outside Lewes, ended up on John Peel.

“I loved John Peel,” said TM.

“So did I,” said YFM.

“SO DID EVERYBODY” the bus silently screamed back. “Plus, he’s dead now, so we all obviously think we loved him even more than we really did.”

We pulled into Brighton. Tweed Man and Young Fellamelad moved on to a pub to discuss music some more. What have we learned here, kids? That rail replacement buses make my nerves a little fraught. And that Talking Heads can’t be categorised, and that is no bad thing.
   
*Replacement bus services are another topic altogether. Why is there always a screaming baby and somebody who’s drunk? At 10am? Always?

In which everybody needs good neighbours.

Printed 08/04/10.

The other morning as I walked up my road on the way to the bus stop, a woman pulled up in her car and stopped me. “Excuse me,” she said. “Do you live here?”

Nervous that she had outed me as a North London fraud, and was about to declare that I wouldn’t know a superfood smoothie if it bit me on my non-yoga-ed arse then send me packing back to the suburban homestead from whence I came, I said, “Yes. Yes I do.”

“Which road do you live on?” she demanded.

“This one. In that house there. The red one with the Carlsberg can in the plant pot.” I realised shortly after the words left my mouth that I’d just disobeyed the first childhood key rule of successfully being alive; namely Don’t Tell Strangers Where You Live. I don’t remember the picture books ever including an extended section on Not Pointing Out Your Exact House To Strangers When It Is Apparent You Have Just Left It, but then kids aren’t that stupid. Had she offered me sweets I probably would have taken them too.

“And do you find the area safe?” she asked. Aha! Brilliant. This wasn’t, then, the world’s least surreptitious burglary, but in fact an invite to my favourite activity: raving about how great my neighbourhood is. I am a Highgate evangelist. I an wax lyrical for hours about its leafiness, comparative quiet and abundance of good pubs, friendly dogwalkers and families who look like refugees from a Boden catalogue. I even have a special speech prepared for people who think London is hostile and impersonal, all about how the corner-shop staff know our names and sometimes I wave at people in the street, just for the heck of it.

“Yes!” I told her. “Yes, it is safe! It’s safe and peaceful and full of lovely, lovely people. I’ve lived here for three years and never witnessed any crime, ever! I walk back home at 4am and don’t even flinch if a fox jumps out! I mean, sure I hold my keys through my knuckles, but that’s just he accessory of the modern woman isn’t it? The only hostility you get round here is maybe if you recycle the wrong sort of Tetrapack. AND my neighbours who I’ve never even met sent me a birthday card! Move here! Move here! Move here!”

The lady thanked me and retreated before I could whip out my pom poms and my Rah Rah Highgate sandwich board. But that very afternoon the universe laughed in the face of my enthusiasm, and I BECAME A VICTIM OF CRIME. Suddenly my lovely neighbourhood went from Balamory to the Bronx. What’s more, it was one of the bitterest crimes of all: I was scammed by children. In Starbucks.

Being the generous-spirited person I am (and having just spent a shameful amount on a hazlenut soy ponceaccino), when big-eyed children came to my table asking to be sponsored on a 5k run, I gave them a whole fiver, fresh from my overdraft. For three minutes I felt the warm, fuzzy glow of philanthropy. Then a wiser woman than I noticed it was an odd time for charity collecting, being 3pm on a Thursday afternoon, and suddenly it all got very dramatic as the thieving ragamuffins were confronted by a doubtful herd of yummy mummies, Cath Kidston bags a-swinging. They shrieked, the kids ran, I sobbed quietly into a biscotti.

But now, worse than the loss of the fiver, I am haunted by the knowledge that I told a woman to buy a house here. I practically turned her into the hands of Fagin's gang. Let's just hope she's not duped as easily as I am – or that she really was a burglar in the first place.

In which love is...

To be printed 02/04/10.

I was listening to Steve Wright’s Sunday Love Songs this morning (it’s my Sunday morning singleton ritual – I do all the washing up, clean the kitchen and weep), and I noticed something. It was in the middle of Let There be Love by Nat King Cole. You know the one – let there be you, let there be me… let there be rain… a lark and a dove, etc etc. So far, so rom com. But then one lyric jumped out, one I’d never noticed before. “Chilli con carne,” he croons, “Sparkling champagne...”

Hang on. Chilli con carne? Seriously? Colon-defying mince and beans, the food of love? The perfect pairing to birds singing in trees, oysters, night breezes etc? The culinary chapter in the middle of the textbook of romance, chilli con carne? Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo, and did you remember the Doritos? Is that what Darcy and Elizabeth had at the wedding breakfast? Did Heathcliffe roam across the moors in search of a late night pharmacy to get Cathy some Rennie’s? Chilli con carne. Hmm.

Credit where it’s due, congratulations to the humble chilli for beating out all flouncier competitors. Chocolate-dipped strawberries, figs, fondue, all trounced by a steaming pot of cowboy’s delight. And that’s despite some deeply unsexy traits – the tendency to leave an orange ring round one’s mouth, for one, or all the subsequent toilet trips for another. And another. And another. I like to think Nat King Cole would start the meal with a Pepperami and finish off by serving up a jar of Nutella and a spoon.

There’s always the possibility, of course, that the lyric has recently been inserted by Coleman’s or someone in the hope of selling more Mexican packet mix. It probably used to be something more obvious, like moonlight or violins or that melty chocolate pudding from the M&S adverts. If this is the case, though, I’m a bit worried they’ll start doing it with other songs. Mark Morrison’s 1996 hit would become Return of the Big Mac. Dylan might have to start singing Like a Rolling Scone (made even more treacherous as it necessitates the pronouncing of ‘scone’ wrong). Bob Marley’s classic actually will be called Jam In, and the joke will become redundant.

Prince will do Raspberry Soufflé, Pixies would have to sing Here Comes Your Man (from Del Monte) and radio stations would forgo the Beach Boys’ altogether and just play the old Babybel advert. It would be a nightmarish world of perpetual hunger. I’m almost compelled to write a dystopian novel about it, where everyone lives under the oppressive watch of Big Muncher. It would be called Nineteen Ate-y More.

But I digress. If it’s not a brainwashing scheme, and Nat King Cole really does believe chilli con carne is the food of love, well, that may be the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Because I’ve just learned to make a pretty darned tasty chilli con carne, so a proposal can’t be far behind.

In which I question our right to bare legs.

ShinyStyle - Why bare legs are a national style crime

In which I end up green about the gills.

To be printed 25/03/10.

Hands up who knew you couldn’t eat green potatoes? Oh right, all of you. Marvellous. But where were all of you last Friday, when I was standing over a packet of peaky-looking spuds saying, “Meh, I’m sure it’ll be fine”? Had one of you piped up, even just with some mild doubt, even just with a “green potatoes, Lauren? Does that SOUND like a delicious dinner?” then you could have saved me a week of not-so delicious debilitating nausea. I hope you feel suitably guilty.

I’ve always had a laissez-faire attitude towards food safety. Partly under a mistaken belief that it makes me seem endearingly low-maintenance, but mainly because when given the choice of eating food or not eating food, I will always choose eating it. Whenever I hear a fact that widens my scope for risky food consumption, however suspect the source, I take it into my heart and cherish it. The time someone told me “sell-by dates are just a ploy by the government to make us eat more food” was a particular high. The day I learned the 3-second rule* was a life changer.

And green potatoes I honestly thought were an old wives’ tale, like crusts making your hair curl or Alan Titchmarsh being attractive. I was the kid at school who everyone would give their green crisps to eat, like a playground sideshow act, and as far as I can remember it never did me any harm. After all, green is the colour of health. For all I could see, green potatoes might count as one of my five a day, like spinach or something. My logic went: green bananas are nice. Greenness is a good attribute. Think of Green Onions by Booker T and the Mgs – good song. No food poisoning in that track (yes it’s instrumental, but hush).

I also looked to a literary authority for advice – namely, Dr Seuss, whose classic “Green Eggs and Ham” I could only see as endorsement of my off-colour dinner. Eggs are, after all, even less likely to be green than potatoes. They’re not even vegetables. But Sam I Am likes them, and from what I can remember he doesn’t die at the end of the book. So I ate them.

To cut a long article short (and skip over a lot of digestive discomfort), they were not a success. But worse than the food poisoning was the fact that everybody I mentioned it to in the subsequent week has gone “Ohmigod, green potatoes? They’re poisonous!” as though I should have known all along. Did I miss that biology lesson? Is it on a poster in doctor’s surgeries, next to the one on meningitis rash?

Now I’m worried about all the other food safety ‘myths’ that might turn out to be true. Does this mean I can no longer eat bendy parsnips? Or reheated rice? Does burnt toast really give you cancer? Unless the Cat in the Hat has an answer, I may never be able to eat again.

*I have it on good authority that in some parts of the country the 3-second rule becomes the 30-SECOND RULE. That’s enough time to perform a short ritual dance around the floor food in preparation, or maybe dump some ketchup on the floor to accompany it. If ever there was a reason to move North, I think that may be it.

In which the pies have it.

To be printed 18/03/10.


So, with the election looming and most people no closer to forming an opinion beyond which one they’d most like to slap*, our politicians are resorting to telly. Telly, the medium of the masses! We’ve had Gordon and Piers, David and Trevor, and I have it from a reliable source that Nick Clegg has been doing ads for a local sofa warehouse in Chalfont St Giles.


But they’re clearly getting it wrong. The self indulgence of the TV interview format is grating before it’s even started, with all those close ups of well-meaning puppy dog eyes and little frown lines they’ve cultivated worrying about the economy. Then there’s the wheeling out of the wives to deliver their spiel, on how said husband never picks up his socks and likes to eat Monster Munch in the shower, but none of that matters because he’s a rock and a hero and can make a mean spag bol and should definitely be running the country.


Meh. Mehhh. Much as I love Sarah Brown, and much as I have a passing appreciation for Smythson stationery (as in ‘I pass it in Selfridges on my way to linger round free samples in the food hall’), I think we need to leave the wives out of it. If our politicians want to do telly, let’s REALLY make them do telly. No soft-focus close-ups, no gushing family members, no incidental music. We should put them through their paces in a format that voters feel more comfortable with, something that reflects the true state of the nation’s collective psyche.


Considering the popularity of the two leading parties seems dependent in some quarters on who gets invited to Sam and Dave’s shepherd’s pie soirees or the Browns’ Downing Street tea parties, it seems apt to simply let the whole thing be decided by cooking. Yes, if politicians are ever going to stimulate proper interest among the apathetic youth of Britain, they need to do it through a medium we can relate to. But that isn’t rap, hoodie-wearing or pretending to dig the Arctic Monkeys. It’s Come Dine With Me.


Here’s how it would work: Brown, Cameron, Clegg and an as-yet-undecided fourth would take it in turns to host dinner parties, scoring each other on the basis of food, ambience, entertainment and hosting skills. While Gordon is in the kitchen trying to get his egg whites to go stiff, the cameras will follow the other guests on a ‘hilarious’ nose around number 10, trying on his ties and unearthing his signed picture of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, or something. Cameron’s menu would be all hearty-farty grub, the kind of thing he imagines the working classes eating after long days ploughing crops and painting nails (Findus Crispy pancakes, anyone?), finished off with, naturally, Eton mess.


Whether or not to give Nick Griffin a spot would of course be a tricky debate – endorsed, of course, by the promise of watching him chow down on a soul food starter, an ackee and saltfish pattie and a lamb biryani while making appreciative noises. We can only assume his own menu would be a lukewarm Ginster’s on a plate with some ketchup. Nom nom nom.


For Nick Clegg the endeavour would be worthwhile in simply helping everyone remember what his face looks like. While at the moment most of us see a suit with a hazy pink blob where his head should be, afterwards we would have a foodstuff to anchor the mental image to. We would think: “Nick Clegg – Beef Wellington” and then he’d instantly have some charisma. Or at least a flaky pastry casing.


So come on Channel 4, you’re missing a trick here. I’m not voting for Gordon until I’ve seen his clootie dumplings.


*Cameron because he has big, plump, rosy cheeks like a baby; Brown because his jowls would wobble in slow motion afterwards, like a rubber mask trying to fly off his head.

In which things are getting socksy...

Why Socks and Sandals are Sexy this Season

In which we're coming out of the kitchen, and wearing it instead.

Printed 11/03/10.

If there are any massive, clanging mistakes in this column (or even little, tinkling mistakes, like the mistake equivalent of a souvenir windchime), please excuse me and put a hold on the irate letter-writing. I have been awake for 24 hours. I am not in the sharpest of mind frames.  In fact you’re lucky there are words on this page at all, and not just a doodle of a spaceship with donuts for windows.

I was up all night, and this is exciting because I was up all night for a reason I have never been up all night for before (I’m sorry, it’s the caffeine talking). Until this point in my life, there were only really three possible reasons for my being up all night: one was going out, in some sort of club-based scenario. The second was staying in, in some sort of violently-ill-based scenario. And the third was one of those communal sleepovers where everyone lies awake in the dark talking complete tripe about the state of the universe and trying not to come into contact with each other’s feet.

But yesterday, I stayed up all night because I was working. Working, that is, reporting on the Oscars for a style blog – something I feel guilty describing as work while there are people who go down mineshafts and put their hands up cattle. After 12 hours, two cans of Relentless, a sizeable packet of Oreos and the partial contraction of repetitive strain injury, I have concluded thus of the Academy Awards 2010: it was a good year for women.

It is pertinent, you can’t help but feel, that the first female recipient of the Best Director Oscar received it on the eve of International Women’s Day. Or maybe I’m the only one who can’t help but feel it, because having gone to an all-girls school, International Women’s Day is embedded in my consciousness as a guilty occasional on which to try to do something sisterly and consider giving up eyeliner. But even those untouched by the feminist resonance of Kathryn Bigelow’s victory can still enjoy the game of “how narked must James Cameron be feeling this morning?” It’s fun for all the family.

There was another female hero to come out of the night though, and one who has pushed the boundaries for women in a different direction. More specifically, she has pushed the boundaries of clothing to incorporate cooking utensils. Let us all applaud Carey Mulligan, the girl who had the courage to look at a conventional evening dress, stand up and say, “No. I think it should have miniature cutlery and scissors hanging off it.”

For what else do women really crave in this day and age, but the right to shun cumbersome handbags and wear everything we might need for a midweek camping trip hanging off the front of our ballgowns? An emblem of independence, Carey knows that it is not enough to rest on the laurels of one’s BAFTA-winning acting performance and expect the little people to take care of you. No, the thinking woman’s movie star is like an exceptionally well-dressed boy scout, prepared for every eventuality by becoming the Prada realisation of a swiss army knife. 

So here’s to the girls who made Oscar history. To Kathryn, for being the first woman to win Best Director and to Carey for being the first woman to wear a Sylvanian dinner set as an accessory. Oh, and both of them looked hot. But we all know that’s irrelevant.

In which I put spring in my step. Or a clunk, rather.

Shoes for the new season: clogs or the midi mum heel?

In which it's the one where they stop being there for us.

To be printed 04/03/10.


In a world as rapidly evolving as ours, you can’t underestimate the importance of the constant factors; those small, unchanging details that provide reliable comfort simply by always being the same. Well aware that I’m sounding like the “it has to be Heinz” advert, I’d like to invite you to consider the comforting constants in your own life. Maybe it’s being given the same 5-pack of grey marl M&S dress socks every single Christmas. Maybe it was a nice packet of Werther’s Originals, before they cocked them up with all this chocolate fandango. 

For me, dear readers, it was Friends. Not real friends, of course – they’re a persistent source of irregularity and chaos, what with their actually living lives and not being fictional and everything – but the TV ones. There’s something infinitely reassuring in knowing that at any time, day or night, you can turn on the TV and find Friends somewhere.

It long ago stopped being a programme to have an opinion on, like or dislike, etc, and instead became a sort of trusty sideboard in the furniture of modern living. They’re like everyone’s friendly, unfeasibly glossy relatives. They’ll be there for us, when the rain starts to fall. Up to now.

Yes, Channel 4 has announced that from autumn next year it will stop broadcasting the show. What? WHAT? After having the New York sixsome on constant rotation since the series ended in 2004, the channel will be handing the rights to Friends over to Comedy Central. Which, I feel I ought to make clear now before any papers are signed, I don’t have. 

Of all the foolish decisions made by TV execs in the past year (“Let’s put Amanda Holden in a circus and see if she’s funny…”), this has to be the most brainless. So I will now pay tribute to 16 years of relentless Central Perking with my list of Reasons Friends Should be on Forever:

It changed the vernacular of a nation. “Nubbin”, “mississippily”, “Gunther”. All words we didn’t know before Friends took over our screens – and isn’t our vocabulary richer for them?

It is the yardstick for all viewing. Friends acts as a filter, dredging out all the substandard televisual content we might otherwise watch, by way of simple comparison. “ ‘My Dog Ate My Tumour: a compelling look at one woman’s battle with illness and canine devotion’… or would I rather just watch Friends?” Likewise all new comedy offerings can be tested by simply asking, “yeah, but does it beat watching Ross getting that spray tan? DOES IT?”

It does brilliant work drumming up trade for coffee shops. Not since the 18th century has coffee-drinking been such an important cultural activity. We might liken the scene in Central Perk to that of the Restoration coffee houses frequented by Samuel Pepys and the like, except that instead of searing political discourse, they had conversations about smelly cats and breasts. And William Hazlitt didn’t drink his lattes out of such big cups. 

It is a wondrous demonstration of human ageing. One of the best ways to enjoy Friends, I find, is to watch a really early episode followed by a really late episode, and use it as a spot-the-difference game. How thin is Monica? How chubby is Chandler? Is Rachel’s hair at peak long-and-straightness or is it in that woeful bob? (NB – Joey will always look exactly the same. Don’t bother with him.)

So, I have 18 months to find myself a new televisual comfort blanket before the Friends dance in that fountain one last time. That, or just save up to get Comedy Central.

In which plus-size fashion has all the more to love...

ShinyStyle - Fashion's Learning Curves

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.