Vocabulary

An Irish friend this weekend mentioned that when she was younger she met several members of the IRA, who were immediately recognisable, she noted for their 'coldness and arrogance'. These two characteristics I suspect, are what you need to make a terrorist. For while millions have grievances, often legitimate grievances, it takes a specific type to turn that grievance into a plan to execute in cold blood civilians on a large scale. The numbers, in fact, are very small, though their impact immense.

On the news the terms 'militant' and 'terrorist' have been used interchangeably. As George Szirtes points out,

People who deliberately focus on civilians are simply murderers. If they do so for a political purpose they are terrorists and murderers. Not militants. Not an army. They are murderers with a vastly inflated opinion of their own honour and righteousness. which also makes them hypocrites.

Mumbai Update 3

The Guardian has published the following account of Harry's son and girlfriend's ordeal in Mumbai. It is incredibly harrowing reading and even worse than I thought.

For Will Pike and his girlfriend, Kelly Doyle, a night in the Taj Mahal hotel was meant to be a treat to round off a two-week holiday in India.

Instead it ended with Will, 28, lying in a Mumbai hospital intensive care bed, his back broken in an attempt to escape the bullets and choking smoke by climbing down an improvised rope made from bedsheets, curtains and hotel towels.

They had checked in at 6pm after arriving from Goa, ventured out to the Leopold café - later to become the first place in the city to be attacked - then returned to their room intending to go down to the bar. As they got ready, the sound of explosions echoed up from the lobby: the terrorists were bursting into the hotel, throwing grenades and firing automatic weapons.

For five hours, the couple, from Camden in north London, cowered in their room, listening to the sound of approaching gunshots while the terrorists roamed the corridors, apparently firing at their fellow hostages.

read on

Mumbai update

Thanks to all readers who sent Harry their good wishes and thoughts, which he has read. The situation is as follows: his son and his son's girlfriend were on the final night of a two-week holiday in India. After a couple of weeks on the beach they decided to blow the budget on one night in a luxury hotel in Mumbai before flying out the following day. Unfortunately they chose the Taj Mahal.

After hearing gunshots in the hallway outside, they barricaded themselves in their room for seven hours until a fire on the floors above them and grenade in the next room compelled them to try to leave through a third floor window, using knotted bed linen. Unfortunately Harry's son fell and has multiple fractures. An operation on Thursday was successful but it will be a long road to recovery. Harry has now managed to get to Mumbai, arriving this morning.

On a personal level I am stunned at the minimal help offered by the Foreign Office, British Airways and his phone company (who had blocked calls to India and then said it would take 24 hours to unblock them). The practical support he has received has come through a network of friends who have been able to provide essential contacts in India, including doctors and Mumbai families.

The Thoughtful Dresser: The Book

Publication is late February. You can pre-order now


I hope to have further information about a US edition soon

Mumbai: alert

Thoughtful Dresser contributor Harry Fenton's son and girlfriend were staying in the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai during the ongoing terrorist attacks. His son has been seriously injured. Harry is going to Mumbai later today. Any helpful information will be gratefully received

UPDATE I had always been under the impression that if you were in this situation you rang the Foreign Office number the BBC gave out and everything kicked in, including BA sorting out your flights. As I have now discovered, you ring the number, and someone gives you another number which no-one answers. You're on your own.

UPDATE Thanks to all readers who have sent their messages to Harry which he's read and which are greatly appreciated. Things have been ironed out now and he'll be on his way to Mumbai in a few hours. We should have more to report in a day or two.

BYU-UTAH GAME

As you can imagine, the game wasn't so fun to watch. But Amber and Kevin came over to watch it with us and that was so fun. Amber taught us this "game" to play with pictures, so I thought I'd post them too. There are none of me, cause I really couldn't do it.

Salmon for the girls, brauts for the guys.

Kev's not bad, but just wait...

Now Amber, she just looks cute trying :)

This is what most of Amber's attempts turn out. It was hard not to laugh!

Pete was definitely the best. Big mouth, what can I say?

Can't help but laugh!

The big men's creche on Regent Street

Egged on at the weekend by my sister and nephew who were laughing at my Iron Age iPod Nano, I went and bought an iPod Touch (at John Lewis, of course, home of middle-class, middle-aged electronics).

I am absolutely thrilled to bits with this piece of kit, but could not set up my main email account on it so I took in to the Apple store on Regent Store. It only took two tech support guys an hour and twenty minutes to set up my email during which I had plenty of time to observe that I was standing in a vast men's creche. All along Regent Street and Oxford Street women were shopping, having dropped their men off at a place where there were lots of toys to play with and play-leaders who would teach them how to use them.

Were these men shopping No! Shopping is a girl's activity, they were . . . well, what were they doing? I believe Harry has been known to frequent the Apple store, so perhaps he can tell us.

JUst FoR HiM....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU MY DEAR HUBBY,EN. SHAMSUL!!!!

ni adalah present yg aku beli kt kedai... kecik je tp byk makna!!!!!

today aku n nina are making cupcakes...just utk makan sndiri and present for my hubby!!! quite fun and interesting bila together making decoration for da cake.. mcm2 rupa and corak!!! nk tergelak pun ada gak bila tgk decoration yg tersilap sbbnye bila dh salah buat ape lg kitorang pun ngappppp masuk mulut. hehehe..

ni lah dia hasil keje yg dpt diselamatkn setelah beberapa cupcakes yg telah di design selamat masuk ke dlm mulut nina n yang plus mikail!!!!

this year birthday hubby aku,just bg cake je,nothing special sbb yg 'special' skali dh dpt before his birthday!!!hahaha...x yah tanye arrr ape dia,sendiri mau ingat lahhh... 

rasa seronok plak bila dpt uat sumthing special utk org yg kita sayang!!!  rasa diri ni lebih dihargai selalu.. THANKS SAYANG FOR EVERYTHING!!!

until here....outtttt.....

Harry Buys an Iron

Well, of course I already had one. But whilst recently struggling to get a sharp crease on a shirt sleeve it occurred to me that maybe the iron I was using was really not very good. Like the majority of our household appliances I fondly imagined that it was bought , my memory unreliably suggested, in a vague period called ‘a couple of years ago’. Which of course was wildly inaccurate. So maybe the iron was underperforming because of old age ( though why that should be the case I can’t imagine)

This domestic reverie prompted a recollection of a conversation I once had in Milan. I was in the company of a stylish ( well, obviously) creative director ( advertising not fashion).
Older than me, and with a degree of gravitas and that ‘not quite beard’ look that is quite difficult to carry off. A charming and quite taciturn chap.
I had worked with him for a while, so we knew each other.
Which is the kind of qualification I need to make before I say that I, a man, dared to ask him, a man, about clothes. ( This is an unusual conversational area for older males to venture into).
How, I asked , do Italian men always manage to look so stylish and well turned out? I went on: Italian men seem to gravitate toward what I see as being classic, almost anglo clothes. Tweed jackets ( which indeed Paolo was wearing) and nothing faddish . Understated and stylish, but managing to make the average Brit wearing similar clothes appear scruffy by comparison.
We were in a very recherché enoteca. As a solo visitor I would not even have noticed this tiny establishment. A small dark wood panelled room filled with wine bottles. A few stools. And rammed with Italian bourgeoisie quaffing a glass of wine at the end of the working day. Stylish to a man ( and woman).
His answer was very simple. We buy, he said , good quality clothes. Not many. Each season a new jacket , a coat, or trousers. That are well made, and fit. And then , he said, (rather pointedly I felt), we look after them. He admitted that he didn’t have an enormous wardrobe , but everything in it was immaculate.

So that was the difference! My thoughts immediately turned to my wardrobe. With many less than immaculate items that had seen better days. But which I was still inclined to pull out and wear because of some undisciplined notion that they still passed muster.
Well, the wardrobe remains full of sentimentally preserved schmatte. But I do make more of an effort to have the right creases in my shirts nowadays .

High school musical

the night before the rihanna concert in singapore, i stood in front of my full-length mirror at home, held a picture of rihanna in my mind, and decided that my concert attire of wide-legged pants and tiny tee was just too 1999. after all, glamor si rihanna diba?

still i could not get over the niggling thought that i just might need to be ready to run from a riot/be crushed by the masses/get sticky and sweaty/jump over barricades/elbow crowds... in short, i could not completely dispel my years of watching concerts in manila. naman! sinabayan ko lahat ng jologs na tumalon from the general admission section to the php700 section in the bon jovi concert of 199...3? 4? and i had to trudge out in the mud, in the pouring rain, after the concert was stopped after two or three songs.

still, the next day, i dressed up my utilitarian basics of jeans, tank top and chocolate brown flats with a vintage rose necklace and lace bolero. at buti na lang! dahil pagdating ko sa singapore indoor stadium, para akong pumasok sa embassy na prom na ewan! girls were dressed to club, in little glittery miniskirts, backless tops and stilettos, and guys in this oddly justin timberlake fedora-vest-and-tie uniform. when i entered the stadium i saw why.


ang ayos diba? why can i see clearly defined rows and spaces between the seats? where's the pandemonium? the frenzied excitement? the jologs?

by some stroke of luck (probably because we came early, and they didn't sell out the venue), our seats were upgraded. an usher simply took our tickets, scratched out the seat numbers and scribbled down new ones. so we ended up here. much, much closer to the stage than we had paid to sit. my sister wasn't as lucky.


when i sat down, i found myself sitting with a pair of white giggly tween girls... and their mother. i looked around to find parents everywhere. i swear i saw more parents than i have ever seen at any kind of parent gathering at my high school. pashminas, pleated pants and floral silk blouses are the last things i would have expected to see at a rihanna concert. hello, it's singapore, moms and dads! this is the last place where you need to be chaperoning your kids to a concert!

and yes the tween level was off the scale. this is why i used the word "prom", above. if you've never heard seven thousand tween girls singing "umbrella", i can send you my recording. as i scanned the audience, i murmured to marlon, "why do i have a feeling that when the audience starts screaming, it will be extremely high pitched?"

and kids. my god. like five-to-seven year olds. i couldn't explain it, except maybe if all the moms had actually bought the tickets for their kids, thinking rihanna's last name was montana.

"eeew, so many parents," i whispered to marlon. "shush," he cautioned. "to these kids we probably look like parents too."


so the lights dimmed and the lambs tweens began screaming kasi umapir na ang lola n'yo.


winner sana ang hydraulic-assisted entrance from the ceiling. sana nga lang gumagana yung mike niya. sound crew = epic fail.


as soon as she got down from her post, she went to the side of the stage and made very big angry gestures to some invisible cowering p.a.'s. her anger couldn't have been more obvious than if she'd spelled out "what the f*ck?!" with her butt.

anyway, she got a new mike, apologized, and went on with the rest of the show -- which was, from what i hear, the same set she did in manila except without chris brown. the outfit was the same as the manila outfit too, except she kept her pants on in singapore. oh, and she wore flat boots, which i thought was nice.

i liked her makeup too -- the silver eyeliner on the lower lids. and for a black girl, she had surprisingly white kilikili.


as for the music -- it was good. perfect for the people who like their live concerts to sound exactly like the cd, or else they feel ripped off. i like a bit more variation in a live performance, like alicia keys when she came over for singfest. even if she did do this weird mariachi-ish arrangement for one of her slow songs, talagang nag-effort si bakla. you just knew she was going home completely hoarse.

si rihanna parang hindi masyadong nagpagod. pero sige lang. she did change into a skimpier, rocker burlesque kind of outfit for her last few songs. so that's something.


the concert ended after 45 minutes. which was a bit of a letdown for me -- not to mention for my sister, who drove three hours from KL.

so we went out after and had black pepper crab at jumbo, which was fun, as all the kiddies went home with their mommies and daddies.

Not Update Yet!!!!

still mengumpul citer latest... so just wait until i update my blog!!!! busy...busy...busy...

How to behave in a recession: haggling

I am the world's most unsuccessful haggler. I just want to hand over my money and get out of there. I have never asked for a better price (or an airline upgrade, for that matter) and got one. With the exception of the rug bazaar in Isfahan, Iran, where if you offered to pay the asking price they would make you a higher offer out of habit.

And so I am delighted to see this piece in which the author suffers a series of failures:

Nearby, John Lewis is full of customers in anoraks staring at rails of anoraks, but still I scent blood. It was reported last week that the store's sales are down 9.7% on last year. In the rug department, a man detaches himself from a silent group of salesmen. I express interest in a beautiful, pale pink rug with a big flower on it. It is £500. Will he take an offer? I heard sales were down; in fact, the sales in this particular store were down 9.1% last week. "We are not a concession store," the man replies. "We do not accept offers. The price is the price." I feel as if they will talk about me in rugs when I am gone. And, for the first time ever, I feel sad in John Lewis.

Selfridges is stuffed full of shoppers too. They are everywhere, like materialistic bacteria, grabbing handbags, stroking shoes. I ask for 25% off bags in Dior and Gucci. "No. Never. No," the women say. The lovely bags are whisked away, as if the grubby discount seeker will soil their perfection. So I corner Peppe in the Vivienne Westwood concession. "If I see anything I like," I say politely, gesturing at all the Westwoods, "would you be able to knock anything off? Maybe 20%?" "No," he says. 10%? "No." 5%? "No." It isn't acceptable to bargain in the UK," he says. "Try Italy."

"Haggling is just another form of negotiating," says clinical psychologist Cecelia d'Felice. "If you go in with the feeling that this is a difficult negotiation that will cause you embarrassment and loss of face if you fail, you will feel rejected if you do fail." And so? "Don't take a firm position, such as 'I want 20% off'," she says, "because they will immediately assume a firm position to combat it and you will be in conflict." And conflict, she says, breeds shame.

"Follow your interests instead," she suggests. "See it as a chat. 'Isn't this a nice dress? Has it been in long? I can't afford it. What a shame.'" She pauses. "Establish a narrative and build a relationship with them. Then you will have common ground you can cover." The British are, apparently, lousy negotiators. "We are so trained not to lose face and our society is so geared up to everything being right or wrong that we don't understand that it is fun to play games. And women in our society are supposed to give everything away in our role as nurturers. We are looked down on if we ask for more."

"

The man who saved Parisian couture

Lelong evening dresses from 1946. Which unknown designer in his employ might have designed them?

This is my piece from the Telegraph about Lucien Lelong, who stood up to the occupying German forces and saved Paris from being moved to Berlin:

Paris struggled on, but when war was declared on 3 September 1939 the couture houses closed down, some for ever. Mainbocher and Schiaparelli left for America. Vionnet never reopened. Lelong was now president of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and, after the invasion, it was his job to negotiate with the occupying German regime. The Nazis wanted to move Paris lock, stock and barrel to Berlin by any means, including violence. On 20 July 1940 five Nazi officers arrived at the headquarters of the Chambre Syndicale on an 'inspection'; five days later they broke into the building and requisitioned the archive.

Under the Nazi plan the Paris ateliers would be moved to Germany or Austria, where they would train a new generation of German dressmakers. The designers would also be moved. Within a generation, the Nazis expected, couture would be German, not French. It was a breathtakingly arrogant ambition to believe that they could appropriate a whole industry.

Lelong pointed out that the plan was unworkable. French fashion was dependent on thousands of skilled artisans in tiny ateliers, each specialising in one small detail of finish, such as embroidery. The skills, he explained, were unteachable. You could not transfer them, and it took decades to reach the necessary levels of craftsmanship. The intransigence of the Germans was nothing compared with that of French couture. Lelong asserted the right of each country to produce its own fashion and argued that it was their home environment that allowed the workers to do what they did. The Nazis backed down and returned the archive, and Lelong negotiated to keep a supply of fabric that would maintain production. The only fall-back the occupiers had was to conscript into the army its labour force. They started by demanding 80 per cent; Lelong got it down to five per cent.

Initially, after the liberation, there were murmurs that Lelong had been a collaborator, though it was Chanel who had spent the war living with a German officer. His case came to trial, but he was acquitted. The judge ruled that Lelong had co-operated only minimally with the Nazis to save France's cultural heritage and the jobs of its workers.

In which it turns out I have something in common with Hitler

THE DUAL!!!

The big game is almost here. Never before have the ties of marriage been tested like they will be this year :) Our first rivelry game married, I was able to go to the game with my dad to see the Utes slaughtered, while Adam watched it with his family. This year I'm not so lucky. With the game up at Rice Eccles, that leaves me and Pete, both at home, watching the game TOGETHER!!! Yikes, this will be interesting. I hope Pete can take the embarrassment of losing when the Cougars come out with the victory! By the way, everyone is invited to our house to watch it high-def on our new plasma. Especially BYU fans since I will be the only one of the group cheering on the Cougs tommorrow! We'll see who comes out on top. But Utes, beware. You might be doing really well, but watch out for the last quarter when the Cougar fans get on their knees and get ANOTHER miracle :)

So Rise and shout the COUGARS are out along the trail to fame and glory!

Rise and Shout our cheers will ring out as we unfold our victory story!

On we go to vanquish the foe for Alma Mater's sons and daughters!

As we join in song in praise of you, our faith is strong!

We'll raise our colors high in the blue and cheer our Cougars of BYU!!!

A movie must

Earlier this week I had a piece in the Guardian about Israeli cinema. There is absolutely nothing, not even the US elections, more guaranteed to induce flame wars on the internet than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Nonetheless I am going to stick my neck out and commend to British readers a film which opens here nationwide, today, Waltz with Bashir.

The film which has had outstanding reviews across the board, is a documentary in the form of an animated graphic novel about the events which occurred in 1982 during the Lebanon war when Christian Phalangists aided by the Israeli army who turned a blind eye, entered the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camp and murdered 2500 Palestinians to avenge the assassination of their own leader.

Ari Folman's film is seen through the eyes of himself and his friends, men now in their forties, married with children and careers, attempting to look back at their nineteen year old selves, 25 years ago.

The film is primarily about memory, the recovery of suppressed trauma and personal responsibility. It's an anti-war film, and it understands that all wars are fought by young men, and all wars are really rock and roll wars.

The distributors, Artificial Eye, have taken a huge gamble on this film, hoping to attract across the board critical acclaim (it has) and a large audience for a subtitled film.

I urge you to go and see it if you can. You won't be disappointed

Tagged.....Again....and Again!

Whoever made up these things has A LOT of time on their hands! Thanks Amber!

I've Been Tagged****8 things

Rules: 1) Post rules on your blog
2)Answer the six "8" items
3)Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving them a comment

8 Favorite TV shows
1-House
2-The Office
3-Rachel Ray
4-Shark Wars
6-Trading Spaces
7- Flip that house
8-What Not to Wear

8 Things I did yesterday
1-Went to Work
2-Bought groceries at Harmons
3-Made dinner
4-Bought thread for a baby blanket
5-Watched "The Wedding Date"
6-Finished my book
7-Went to bed early
8-Took a long, hot shower

8 Things I look forward to
1-The weekend!
2-Thanksgiving
3- Buying a house
4- Making caramel apples
5- Sleep
6- Seeing the Twilight movie
7- Christmas season
8- My brother coming into town with his new girlfriend

8 Favorite Restaurants
1-Mimi's Cafe
2- Paradise Bakery
3- Cafe Rio
4-Noodles & Co.
5-Fuddruckers
6- Olive Garden
7- China Isle
8-Bonsai Teppenyaki

8 Things on my wish list
1-I wish I had a house
2-I wish I had a great pair of jeans
3-I wish I could go to Europe
4-I wish I could go on a shopping spree!
5-I wish I don't get sick this winter
6-I wish everyone was happy
7-I wish I counld find the perfect couch for cheap!
8-I wish I was a better photographer

8 people to TAG
1-Chantel
2-Britt
3-Cristl
4-Nicole
5-Heather
6-Tina
7-Caitlyn
8-? What can I say? Don't know that many people with blogs!

How to be British 101

Here in Britain there is a reality tv programme (note not tv show or program) called Strictly Come Dancing. In it, celebs pair up with real ballroom dancers to learn how to dance and to compete to beat all the other celebs and their partners.

Each week, viewers call in to say who they want evicted from the show. The bottom two are then voted out by a panel of judges.

In this series we have BBC chief political correspondent, John Sergeant, described by Jeremy Paxman (click for clip of Sergeant doing the tango) as having 'a face like a wet weekend.' John cannot dance. John just entered for a bit of fun. But John's utter ineptitude on the dancefloor has endeared him to to the nation, who each week vote to keep him in and themselves entertained. Last week a vexed actress called Cherie Lunghi was voted off, despite working her socks off while John lounged around, according to one of the judges reading the Guardian.

Cherie was upset, the judges were livid. True talent and hard work were going unrewarded because of the British public's love of a loser.

John decide that he was in danger of winning and he better resign from the programme (try saying, 'Oh jeez, I think I might win this sucker, I'd better step down' in an American accent.)

At once there was an outcry. 2000 viewes complained to the BBC. Jeremy Paxman on newsnight complained that democracy itself was in peril, as have many bloggers

Democracy is the right of the public to reward failure.

And that, my dear transatlantic cousins, is how to be British.

ps It has been whispered that John pulled out because he was booked to go on a cruise and had not expected his stint on the programme would go on so long.




he has a bit of a reputation for being accident prone

Some words on how to behave in the current economy

Over at the Bag Snobs, Kelly wonders if she should buy a Banana Republic Bag which looks to be a knockoff of a Balenciaga.

OK, the Banana one does not have the cool stingray medallion but is that really worth $835? I mean, to be perfectly honest, the Banana clutch is nice and cleanly made. But am I so much a snob that I can't "lower myself" to using a Banana Republic bag? I mean, I wear the clothes

, I have this orange silk dress that gets more compliments than I ever did for any of my Balenciaga dresses. In the end, I could not get myself to compromise, not even to the extent of getting the actual Balenciaga knowing that the other one is out there. The difference is slight yet it is separated by a vast pretension that I cannot bridge.

Several readers point out that it is more likely to be a knock off of the Anya Hindmarch Lautner (I have one of those) but some who signs herself RC responds:

who do you think you are esp at times like this when people can't afford basic needs anymore? "lower yourself" because you were considering a BR product?? you should be thankful that we even click on your site so that you can get your monthly income to be wasted on your stupid HIGH END bags or do you use your husbands money. i cant tell.

To this, mq cb, whose moniker I recognise from comments over here, adds what I regard as a definitive rejoinder:

OK, this is a bit much. You may not agree with Kelly but she was honest and as it's her site and it's a free country, she's at liberty to give her opinion on a purchase that she was considering making. This decision affects no one other than her and her family. So why be abusive? If you don't like what she says, then click away. No one forces you to come here.

And on the subject of what a client of mine recently called with masterful understatement the "current challenging economic climate", it's up to each of us to decide how we respond. I see no reason why your rationale for making a particular purchase should not be decided by the same criteria that should always have applied: whether you can afford the item and whether you want it at that price. What does anyone else have to do with it?

You may consider that people are having trouble with meeting "basic needs", but there is a vast difference between what constitutes a "basic need" in the US and affluent West and that which might apply elsewhere in the world. Some people have never been able to meet their basic needs. Maybe I am thoroughly selfish, but I have never once considered not buying something because in India, there are children whose parents can't afford to allow them to attend school, or elsewhere people are starving. Why should it make any more of a difference that someone who never considered themselves poor before may now have difficulty buying petrol and instead may have to take the bus or suddenly can't afford a cellphone?

You could look at it the other way and say, buy the bag and take a cab home and at least you make sure that it is more likely that the sales assistant and the cabbie keep their jobs a while longer. Or not, as you please. Once you've paid your taxes, and made whatever donations to charities you consider appropriate (including perhaps those ones that supply food and/or schooling to those who can not afford it), whatever else you do is up to you. To me, a more relevant consideration is whether you get into debt because of how you spend such that you become a burden to others, than whether your spending offends someone who has less disposable income than you do since I don't really see why it's any of their business in the first place.

In the end, however and whatever you spend, a little more generosity of spirit and tolerance for each other's differences can not go amiss, don't you think?

To which I have nothing much to add, except that the last time I looked (and contrary from what you might be led to believe by Fox News), I live in a capitalist society which is based on consumer spending, and if everyone suddenly stops spending, then large numbers are thrown out of work.

The Clothes On Their Backs - US edition released

You can now buy the US edition of The Clothes On Their Backs in trade paperback


or hardback


Just click on the links and it will take you straight there

Teenagers save the economy

For several days there's been a story, first anecdotal, then gathering evidence, that in the current economic mess women my age have stopped shopping but the under 25s continue to do so with the same reckless abandon.

Sarah Mower in the Telegraph has a piece on thios, separating the non-spending women from the girls. Basically, if you want to buy wet look leggings, you're still roaming the high street. If you're looking for classics, you're at home:

The latest retail figures show how the generational guillotine falls. Asos, the second-biggest UK online fashion retailer, which sells branded fashion to under-25s, has just reported its sales up 68 per cent in the last seven weeks. Next, the bellwether of safe, middle-aged taste, and owner of Britain’s largest online business, by contrast, is down 4.4 per cent, and planning redundancies.

Sir Philip Green of Arcadia Group, in his last results, noted the same divide opening up between the young and middle-aged brands he owns: while Bhs, Dorothy Perkins and Burton have slowed down, Topshop and Topman, arguably the country’s best-tuned fashion vehicle for girls and boys, was streaking ahead.

Should there be any lingering doubt about which side of the gap you stand on, I suggest a simple test: take a look at wet-look leggings and react. Every fibre of an adult female’s being (not to mention thighs) will scream “No!” at the very thought, but if you’re 15 to 20-ish, “absolutely!”

Asos (alone) sold 2,000 pairs of them last week and can barely keep the things in stock. And if you’re in that bracket, why not go for skin-tight leather trousers, rock Ts and super-micro-mini prom dresses into the bargain? And the multicoloured false eyelashes, hair pieces, over-the-knee socks, trilby’s and giant plastic glasses frames for going out. And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget the boyfriends: without the skinny Topman suits and winkle-pickers, they’re dead.

The spectacle of youth spending on such fashion insanities is guaranteed to drive adults to fits of disapproval and covert envy. But it could be argued that these young people are unwittingly behaving like the exemplary New Keynesians. As they pour their pocket money, baby-sitting earnings and student loans into the tills of Topshop, H&M, American Apparel and Urban Outfitters, perhaps we should see them not as spendthrift twits but as public-spirited youngsters doing their bit to keep the economy moving. Long shot, I agree, but in these upside-down days, worth a passing thought.

Gentlemen! How to dress like Obama

A step by step guide, here to dressing like a President

Rachel-lite

While I know, of course, that Rachel Green is a spoilt Long Island Jewish fictional character in a television series called Friends, and Jennifer Aniston is a Greek-American actress living in Los Angeles, in my heart of hearts I do not really believe that Jen is not playing herself. Because that would mean that Rachel does not exist. Which makes Jen's current situation so disheartening.

As Rachel Johnson (who I like) says:

OMG, you have to check out the catfight between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie. It all started when Ange told The New York Times that she had fallen in love with Brad Pitt on the set of Mr & Mrs Smith in 2004, when he was supposed to be totally married to Jen. So now Aniston’s gone for Jolie’s jugular and the latest is: Brad’s so annoyed that he called his ex and chewed her out.

Yes, I know that it all sounds very Jerry Springer but it may be useful at this point to recall the actual words that Aniston used to cause this headline-grabbing three-way stropathon.

What Aniston said was: “There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening. I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss. That stuff about how she couldn’t wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool.”

Well, here’s the outrage, in my humble opinion. A woman six years younger with huge pouty lips takes your man, because she can, leaving you to face 40 alone and childless . . . and “a little inappropriate” and “uncool” is the best you can come up with, Jen? Oh dear.

I would have said that the situation called for some full-fat, industrial strength, venti-sized bitching. What you gave it was small, skinny and decaff, and that got me really worried that maybe - my voice drops to a concerned whisper - you’re not really that okay after all.

New Project?

I want to experiment on something new. Adam is always doing side jobs to make extra money and I want to! So, I want to start a blog with posts on everything from homemade facials to cute new crafts. We're going to start building projects and selling them on KSL, from cute frames to shelves, and Pete wants to eventually make a bed to sell! Any ideas? If you have ever wanted something custom made (baby bows, wall frames, bath soaps, whatever!) let me know! At this point, I just need ideas of what to do. So many women are doing the same things (baby bows and tutus) and as cute as they are, I want to do something different. So leave me any ideas you might have, ANY! Thanks guys :)

How to wear a long scarf

Like this

Understructure

When I was being dressed by Avsh Alom Gur for the Booker he told me to bring along my 'understructure.' Now we may think that what our mothers used to call corsets are really uncool, but according to Av, there is not a woman who treads the Oscar carpet without major 'understructure.' Beneath the Chloe and the Chanel, there lies the mundane control garment. A selection of ratings of which can be found here. Spanx comes out on top. I'm not providing a picture, they're not supposed to be seen. This is what Av sent me to John Lewis to get, and it does work, very well and not especially uncomfortable.

Are you cold? Are you poor?

Then, my dear huddled masses, you should Get 10% off the brand new Pure Collection range!

Liars and poets

Would I tell you a lie?

I went last night to the launch of George Szirtes' collected poems, a reading at the Savile Club on Brook Street followed by dinner in the very grand chandelier-hung dining room.

At the reading George asserted that novelists were liars and poets told the truth.

He then read a marvellous poem called and about esprit d'escalier, the French phrase for the brilliant rejoinder you only think about when you are going down the stairs leaving the conversation. In his poem he is on the top deck of a bus when he speaks aloud that I-wish-I'd-thought-of-that-at-the-time remark, and realises that the man sitting behind him is doing the same thing, and looking out of the window of the bus the whole street is full of people saying aloud what they wish they had said.

During the Q&A after the reading, I resigned myself to asking a question about the influence on his work of living in East Anglia for many years , and waited until dinner to refer to the remarkable event in which everyone on the street and on the bus was suddenly saying aloud their esprit d'escalier which he could not have invented not being a lying novelist. George had the good grace to burst out laughing. At this point we were joined, in a case of dinner musical chairs, by the poet Ruth Fainlight, who is married to the novelist Alan Sillitoe (happy 80th, Alan).

I have nothing at all against anyone saying that the novelist is a liar, since this is demonstrably true, but I could not quite understand how in the case of the poet, his imagination produces truth and in the case of the novelist, lies.

George maintained that the poet is solipsistic, always writing about himself and his attempt to understand why a cup is a cup and not, say, a saucer. When a novelist tells lies, he is asking the reader to willingly suspend his disbelief, to believe that the lies are true; he invents cups that aren't there. When the poet lies, the lie is obviously a metaphor, and is not to be taken for reality, it's a vehicle to say something else. The novelist, however, is trying to hoodwink you into believing that there is a cup, saucer, entire dinner service, real and actual.

But by this time we had eaten some very good duck with mashed potatoes and drunk a lot of wine and I went home. I hope George himself will be along in a minute to sort things out further.

UPDATE
and there he is in the comments, below and at greater and very interesting length, at his place

Rihanna, puppet porn and shopping

my weekend began early. there was rihanna on thursday night. more kwento later, with pictures.

then on friday i had practically nothing to do at work because lilian was away and james was too busy fixing up the office for the promax after-party that we're hosting on monday. the evening was spent suffering for past sins, a.k.a muay thai.

today, marlon and i caught the matinee of avenue q (with, thankfully, the pinoy cast) at the esplanade. brilliant performances, and funny as hell! new urban male came out with a series of avenue q-inspired, limited edition statement t-shirts that they sold after the show: it sucks to be me, i'm not wearing underwear, and the internet is for porn. (guess which one i got for marlon!)

then we trotted down to haji lane for the street party that james told me about. haji lane is this high school hipster hangout that seems to be the shisha capital of singapore. i like it for the little interesting boutiques and relaxed vibe; i should probably go there with a camera one of these days so you can see what i mean. 

anyway this evening some credit card company held an event and the stores decided to go on sale at the same time. i discovered a cool little store called rusty button, which has a great selection of vintage and indie-designed dresses. i got a surprisingly flattering black and taupe stretchy dress with a silk-screened, kind of crazy bamboo leaf pattern for only $49! dinner was at cafe la caire, the egyptian-moroccan cafe that we've been wanting to try. yummy and cheap, but slow.

Moi? Eccentric?

'Please don't write that I'm eccentric," says Vivienne Westwood, who is dressed in a holey black dress with what looks like bits of flesh-coloured tights woven in and out of it, a pair of scruffy old trainers and a knitted hat pulled over her hair, which is the colour of clementines. She has drawn her eyebrows on in red pencil. "It's always, 'aah, this eccentric woman'. I've heard that story so many times." She pauses and looks out of the window of her office. "I suppose I don't mind, I have to take it as a compliment in an age of conformity

and there's much, much more

What to wear

By Lisa Armstrong, whose judgement I trust:

Checklist: Autumn/Winter 2008

1. High-waisted, 7/8th-length trousers. Try: Whistles.

2. Cropped jacket or blazer. Before buying, try it on with a pair of the above. You'll find that what complemented hipsters may not work with the new geometry. Try: Jigsaw.

3. Military or wrap coat or one with slit short sleeves for layering. Try: French Connection.

4. Concealed platform shoes or ankle boots - we're over bondage - and a pair of flats. Try: Office and Kurt Geiger.

5. Polonecks and other fine knits for layering and tucking into high waists. Try: Pure Cashmere and Hoss Intropia.

6. A leather jacket - biker style. Wear it with classic, simple pieces for extra edge. Try:Topshop.

7. A rococo-style necklace. Try: Mikey.

8. A narrow belt to thread through the loops of those high-waisted trousers. Try: Gap.

9. Longer-length skirts - either pencil-shaped or slightly gathered at the waist are the newest. If you can't bear calf or ankle-length, don't worry, knee-length refuses to die and there are even some minis. Try: Zara.

10. A fitted or semi-fitted sleeveless dress: this winter's sophisticated antidote to the put-it-away or give-it-away smock dress. Try: M&S Limited and Jigsaw.

The living hell that is a writer's life

My friend Imran Ahmad depicts the terrible things that await the unwitting young person who embarks on a career in literature

Harry on Cover Art

I’m more of a New Yorker reader than a reader of Vanity Fair.
It is something of an indulgence. Well, reading restaurant reviews of places I’m never going to visit is maybe just pointless. But the point about the New Yorker is enjoying the writing. And the cartoons. And sometimes the cover just hits the spot.
They ran a very relevant and witty homage to Steinberg during the election .

And the issue I bought yesterday is notable. Dated November 10 it obviously went to press just before election day.
There isn’t any other magazine that does this sort of thing.
It’s creativity of a very high order.

What to do when you get inside a shop

Hilary Alexander speaks in a Daily Telegraph video about the new collection by Comme des Garcons for H&M which arrives in UK stores tomorrow.

What strikes me about the shots of the young Japanese girls who stood in line for 12 hours in what I assume is the Tokyo store, is how they know how to shop - grab as much of everything you can and sort out what you want later. This is the key to shopping in a sale or sample sale. If you leave it on the rack, it will be gone when you come back.

My firstborn

a public service announcement (PSA) against drunk driving (or drink driving, as they say here) for mtv and diageo. diageo had already been running an events campaign built around the idea of guardian angels who would remind you to not drink and drive. on their second year, they decided to partner up with mtv, mtv decided to call a pitch, and we decided to go for it.

it was my first time for a lot of things: win a project for my company, conceptualize and script an idea that i eventually had to actually take charge of and produce, and later on, the first time i ever had something air in four countries: singapore, malaysia, india and the philippines.this was where i started learning the ropes of production and earning the second half of my writer/producer job title. our production exec happened to be on vacation during pre-production, so it fell to me to take care of all the nitty-gritty production details from scouting for parks and bars to casting babies and caucasians, to booking the makeup artist and snapping photos of the wardrobe selections.

i learned what it really meant to work on a budget, coming from my world of virtual costs at gma. i discovered how a seemingly simple idea on paper could actually turn out to be a dizzyingly complex one when it came to execution. my idea, requiring three flashbacks, a little boy, two accident scenes, a crying baby and celebrity endorsements in 30 seconds, turned out to be the latter. i'm sure in the world of production, this is nothing, but for a first timer it was like two weeks of excruciating labor... and i mean the giving birth kind. as we spent the greater part of an hour on set prodding, poking, jiggling and startling the most cheerful baby on the planet to get it to cry (he just giggled and gurgled cutely), lilian grumbled, "deepa, next time no more babies okay???"

and it was on the guardian angel set that i overcame my fear of directing. james installed me as his assistant director largely because of his english handicap -- i could better explain to the talents what he wanted, and i had a knack for reading james' mind. later on i began making suggestions of my own, which worked, and that was great.

casting the angel was a real bitch. this was where i encountered the word "pan-asian" for the first time -- a highly prized commodity among regional promo efforts, a talent who could look like he was from everywhere and nowhere and thus work well across all markets, usually used interchangeably with "eurasian".

ngayon. sa loob ng dalawang linggo, try mo maghanap ng guwapo at murang pan-asian male na magaling magsalita, dito sa buwakanang lungga ng mga payat, singkit, at baluktot ang dila. then you will understand why rob, a research manager by day and a product of my secret casting pool, was truly heaven sent. he was cheerful, tireless despite flying back from a business trip hours before his call time, memorized his lines, and to james' great delight, registered on cam as "cute and likeable, like a chubby robbie williams". at! higit sa lahat! mura siya!

so here it is, my first born promo. i must add that after a whopping sixteen rounds of revision, the original script took a fair amount of nips and tucks. but it got out into the world, eventually, in some form and fashion. and that can only be a good thing.

Pixel by pixel

I have a subscription to Vanity Fair and when it arrived yesterday I was a bit baffled as to why they had printed some ancient photos of Catherine Deneuve and Sharon Stone.

But it turns out to be Kate Winslet. I might as well just buy my own version of photoshop, take some pix of myself with my mobile, send them out to the media and never leave the house. Yes, I actually do look like Bianca Jagger in her 20s, of course I do.

** The shoes in the picture are the ones Avsh Alom Gur gave me for the Booker which I couldn't walk in.

Mano mano

i was in a briefing this afternoon with some clients who are going to change their on-air look into something more realistic, natural and stripped-down. one of the guys on their team said, "the airwaves are too saturated," referring to the slick, glossy graphics that is a mandatory element of modern broadcasting. 

as someone who's part of the machinery that churns out such eye candy (really amazing eye candy, i might add), i had to agree. personally i'm growing a bit weary of all the whiteness and cleanness and reflections and glassy textures popularized by apple.

then just a few minutes ago, i happened upon this striking short on youtube -- "tyger," yet another work inspired by william blake's "the tyger". i am amazed at how much artistry this one piece of literature has spawned. 

"tyger" has shadows and depth that i find satisfying to look at in the midst of this design-wide obsession with blankness and glass. it has this raw, handmade beauty that i wish i could work into a project soon. mag-conceptualize kaya ako na may puppeteers o hand illustrations o paper cutting? di kaya ako hingan ng "glassy" ng kliyente, or sabihan ng humahawak ng pitaka ng aming kumpanya, "puwede bang i-graphics na lang yan?"

Couple go out for dinner on Saturday night

Style

Freshness

still on the obama train, i became a regular reader of the new yorker online during the course of the election coverage. and right now, i am loving this this illustration over at the new yorker.

the fact that it's a collage (albeit digital) captured my attention immediately -- collage is my favorite form of visual art. it's striking, it's clean, it's graphic, it's young. it conveys all the freshness, hope, victory and history of obama's election in a single montage.

besides, you can't go wrong with that winning smile.

Craig-a-thon

i watched quantum of solace with the entire office on thursday. watching the kick-ass opening titles by mk12 with a bunch of graphic designers was fun. everyone would go "WAH!" (our company's main intercultural expression of amazement) all at the same moments throughout the sequence. for some reason, i almost fell asleep during the movie. not the greatest reaction to get for a bond flick, although my eyes could not have been wider during daniel craig's sole shirtless scene.

then i saw it again with marlon on saturday. the second viewing gave me a full understanding of the plot -- again, not the greatest reaction considering bond flicks are not supposed to be rocket science. my dislike for olga whats-her-name intensified (so robotic! what's up with the standing with legs apart, fists closed all the fricking time? and that huddling in the corner drama! tumakbo ka na kaya?), as did my awareness of the utter lack of fancy secret agent gizmos.

on sunday, marlon and i decided to re-watch casino royale at home. whereupon i confirmed my impression that this is by far the better, sexier, funnier, more compelling, more memorable and more classic bond flick of the two.

even the aforementioned shirtless scene in quantum solace, as gratuitous as it was, just induced a wee tickle in comparison to the earth-shaking girlgasm i got re-watching daniel craig's rising-from-the- sea, skimpy-shorts glory in casino royale.

we had also planned to watch the invasion, but were too bangag to sit in front of the tv for a couple more hours. i just realized this also features daniel craig. soooo... if we watch this tonight it will be a full four days of hawtness.

the craig-a-thon shall continue!

Back to London: My new big crush

Vince Noir of the Mighty Boosh

Flight plan

lately it seems that surfing for flights has been a regular activity. first it was for the four-day chinese new year weekend next year. marlon and i had decided to go to boracay during cny instead of during christmas. i've wanted to bring him ever since the philippine star sent me there on a raket last summer.

it took a while to finally narrow down a flight and somewhere to stay (the place sure fills up fast for cny!), but finally we booked ourselves via cebu pacific for four days at the true home hotel in station one. along the way, i discovered my boracay guide, which has a super-helpful, extremely detailed map of nearly all the resorts on the island.

then i found out that in 2009, singapore will have a grand total of 10 three-day weekends -- because by some stroke of luck, all the national holidays fall on either a friday, monday or sunday (which is then moved to the following monday). this drove me a little berserk as a year of seeing sold-out flights and overbooked hotels flashed through my head. see here, since everything is online, people plan their holidays months in advance, leaving tardy travellers like marlon and myself with no flights or accommodations at all. 

i decided: never again! so i sat marlon down at the dining table last weekend to plan all of our long weekend travels for 2009. which was a fun exercise, i must say -- especially when i started surfing for flights in april 2009 and found that they were half the price they would cost if we booked next year. and that was how we plunked down six hundred bucks for round-trip tickets to hanoi half a year in advance.

we had all these other trips to yogyakarta, redang and siem reap planned, too. until i went on facebook and found out that tor had gotten engaged to her boyfriend matt! aieeeee! which is why new york is now on the travel plan -- for august 2009. by then, marlon will have enough krisflyer miles to pay for one ticket. not bad ey?

who knows, maybe we will get to still take that trip to siem reap in november 2009, during hari raya. that is, if marlon doesn't travel somewhere like japan for business -- with me in tow. then of course, at the end of the year there will be christmas in manila. 

2009 is shaping up beautifully. i can't wait.

The mask on the head

I was once walking along the street in London on my way to a party with two friends, one Armenian-American, the other British-Jewish, when they suddenly began a conversation in which I had nothing whatsoever to contribute: hair straightening products. Both my friends had frizzy hair and I, who have, fine, wavy hair had no idea of the various chemical assaults available on the market to force frizzy hair into a different definition. I learned that hair straightening was a life-long quest and lifelong torment. I have on occasion very mildly observed that I liked both of them with their hair au naturel but was met with such withering scorn that I stopped saying it. In the Sixties it was cool not only for black women and men to wear their hair in an Afro but the rest of us (particularly men, as bizarre as that now seems) ran out and got our own hair permed to imitate them - leading to that creepy phenomenon, blond dreadlocks.

But today black men tend to keep their hair very short (see Obama himself) and black women go to colossal expense and time to make their hair look as much like white women's as possible.

Writing in the comments, African-American Sable indicates what challenges Michelle Obama and her daughters are going to confront as they present themselves as First Family:

It may seem a silly prospect that something as benign as hair can carry such weight, but it can have great meaning among black women and how we perceive ourselves and how others perceive us. There is often the overriding notion that you must fit in and not call attention that you are different from other (white) women. I have worn my hair in many styles from relaxed straight to curly afro or braids with extensions. I can honestly say that when I wear my hair relaxed straight I feel (operative word here, feel) that I am more like everyone else and more likely to fit in. However, I also feel less like my authentic self. It's as if I'm wearing a mask and I resent that I have to change who I am to fit in. Not to mention the damage that relaxers cause to the hair and scalp. Several years ago I chose to cut my hair short and wear a curly afro. A very good friend of mine, who happens to be white, asked me what kind of statement I was trying to make. She said that my hair made me look militant, like I was trying to make a statement. I explained that it was much easier and much healthier for me to not change the natural texture of my hair. I was not attempting to make any type of statement only to simplify my life. BTW, it was a very neat and well groomed afro. My guess is that a lot of white women don't realize what a difficult and politically and career altering decision hair can be.

I think that most of us here agree that women in the public eye and political life have a considerably harder time than men, and yes, that does include Sarah Palin. It may seem trivial, on the weekend after such a momentous election, to talk about Michelle Obama's hair, but what happens in the White House over the next four, possibly eight, years will alter the perceptions of African-Americans forever.