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So today, in The Irish Times, it is reported that the Progressive Democrats are to decide the future of their party (party? what party? doesn’t seem like much of a party to me…) at a meeting next month. But (oops) they were pipped at the proverbial post by the national radio, which broke the story this morning that the decision has been made to disband the merry men of the PDs and to trot along back to their nomadic, political lifestyles.
But the question surely arises: what will Mary do next? The much put-apon Harney, whose crimes stretch far beyond the political to include crimes against fashion and, indeed, against healthy weight ranges (why do these things matter? She’s a politician, not Kate Moss – nor has she ever professed to desire such a thing), is still Minister for Health and, as far as I know, she will remain such unless she resigns.
She may turn to Fianna Fáil to shelter her in her hour of partylessness; she may even turn to Fine Gael. Or, imagine, to the cuddly Gerry Adams, whose grizzly-bear visage seems to attract all the ladies. I think not, baby puppy.
Or, rather, I hope not. If Harney is to succeed, not as Minister for Health (as it may, through no specific and particular fault of her own, be too late for that), but as a politician, she must weather the proverbial storm. She needs to stick to her guns, to her policies and to her beliefs – because, regardless of whether or not I agree with her, I respect her, and I’ve had it up to here with politicians who change their policies, who bed-hop within the Dáil like nobody’s business, and who give up when the going gets tough.
If Mary really is as good as her supporters say she is, she needs to finish out her term as Health Minister. She needs to try as hard as she can to put right what has (again, through no specific and particular fault of her own) gone undeniably wrong – and to restore the faith of the Irish people in a Government that has, again and again, let us down.
Insha’Allah.
Back in July – the Sunday Times’ Style magazine ran with a photograph of a beautiful pair of leather leggings. “Leather leggings?” I hear you cry. “Who would wear such a thing”? It’s a good question, and one that’s soon to be answered – the Olsen twins, for one, have been spotted out and about donning the offending leggings; Victoria Beckham, not that she’s my cup of style tea, but still; Corina, under patterned tea dresses and vintage fabrics.
I came on the train late, it would appear, but I thought I was being prompt – I went to Topshop, I scoured the rails for the offending leggings. No joy. I concluded that the objects of my affections hadn’t come in yet, that I could come back, money in tow, and have what I so needed. But I was wrong.
The leather leggings are the Holy Grail of Autumn/Winter 2008. Please note: “leather” is used very loosely – Sass & Bide’s Black Rats leggings are not leather, but appear to be some form of wet-look lycra or a tough silk. They are ruched all the way down the front, back and sides, for that “look-how-short-I-am-my-trousers-are-all-bunched-up-look”. Most convincing on, of course, those dastardly Olsen twins.
The beauty of the leather legging is its versatility: hard, a la Givenchy, and worn dripping with tough, gold chains; soft but edgy, a la Kate Moss, under a 1920s swallow-patterned dress; funky, a la Sass & Bide’s own catwalk show; eclectic, a la the Topshop Unique catwalk at London Fashion Week.
But, now that I have hopped on the fashion bandwagon, it would seem that I have missed the boat – the leggings are out, and I with them, like yesterday’s rubbish. The outfits that I had imagined revitalising; the chains that I had imagined pairing with the dresses I never wear – all of my plans are gone, out the window, and facing me instead is the reality that I may have to resort to buying them, for €335, on ebay. I am tempted.
Because these leggings are going to change my life, in the way that the Venti Latte from Starbucks never could – I thought, mistakenly, that emulating Mary-Kate would turn me into her; that the latte, at the end of my unfortunately tubby arm, would turn me into the skinny Russian prostitute of my dreams. Instead it got cold, and I got full, and then I got gassy. Coffee is not my friend.
These leggings, though – no gas will be allowed when my body is shoehorned into this corset-in-a-pant. Oh no – and beyond that, my body will transform into the sylph-like body of my tabloid magazine dreams. My legs will be endless; I will suddenly be able to run marathons in my six-inch platform brogues.
My old clothes will be transformed; my new ones will be unrecognisable, so fashionably will they be compiled with these objects of beauty. Kate Moss dresses will cease to be Kate Moss’ – they will be mine, “the dress Rosemary wore”, “Rosemary Mac Cabe out and about in her favourite Sass & Bide leggings” – “Rosemary Mac Cabe shows us how it’s done in Kova & T”. “Rosemary Mac Cabe, ahead of the crowd in her Unique leggings, paired with oversized men’s sweater and Rayban wayfarers”… “Rosemary Mac Cabe….” and so on. Sigh.
So this is an appeal: if anyone has a pair of leather leggings that are going a-begging, I’m here a-waiting. I’ll swap them for a Venti Latte, non-fat, no whip. One woman’s trash…
So it’s Season Four; Lauren (because who really calls her LC any more?) and Audrina’s friendship is on the rocks; Whitney is still disarmingly dull (“really?… no way”); Brody is on the scene, and then not on the scene and then, oooh, there he is!; Justin Bobby is … oh who cares; Lo is, gloriously, on the scene; Stephanie is “not to be trusted”; Spencer is most definitely morphing into a caricature of himself, or even perhaps of someone else; Heidi loves her sister, and her lips, and her boobs and her hair, but hates everything else – pout; and Teen Vogue has been replaced by People’s Revolution (and, it’s rumoured, DVF’s PR department). You’ve gotta miss Lisa Love, dontcha?
The Hills is a reality show. Surely that’s a paradox; how can it be a reality show if the girls know they’re being filmed? How come Lauren was wearing red nail varnish one minute, and black the next? How come Audrina looks like she’s permanently reading from a cue card without having built herself up to telling the producers her real spelling age? Why does Whitney never really look surprised? And how has Heidi not killed Spencer yet? Or, come to think of it, why has no one else killed him? Surely there are enough people in the US with access to a firearm… I take that back, because a tiny part of me suspects that Spencer might not be all bad, and that the entire Speidi scenario might be a sick joke of sorts.
The thing about The Hills, right, is that we all love it. All of us, of a certain age, with a television, or access to the interweb, love watching Lauren go shopping, toting a Mulberry Bayswater in a stark representation of what we aspire to be (were we, sob, two years younger and about $10 million richer). And there’s a lot of division among fans; team Lauren or team Heidi? That’s an obvious one. How about, team Lo or team Audrina? Until this week’s episode, it was uncertain – because Lo’s obviously a bitch, huh, and Audrina smiles so much and is just so healthy and tan and easygoing!
But, I beg to differ. Lo continually maintains her line, close to reality, while the others veer wildly on and off course. Take the Doug break-up; as the Fug Girls said in New York Magazine, it was adorable that he was eating alone, with the table set, and not eating on his lap in front of the Tivo – but wasn’t he a little suspicious when the camera crews showed up? Didn’t it occur to him to think “uh-oh, those guys only show up when there’s drama afoot”. And couldn’t he, therefore, have thought about his reaction for 10 minutes? That said, he, in that moment, was tv gold – and who else can’t wait for his date with “crazy” Stephanie? [Who had a drug problem - who knew that? When was that mentioned before now?]
And then there’s how-about-you-and-me-go-get-naked-Brody. Is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-Kardashian-Brody. Brody, the big-brother type who’s just “looking out for his good friend Lauren”, who’s concerned about her, and worries about her, and smiles when she calls, in a charmingly handsome fashion. Team Brody all the way.
And then, she thought…. what about Team Lo-and-Brody? Once Audrina’s off the radar, Lauren will need someone else to fall out with – and Lo is the perfect candidate. Honest, upfront, astonishingly good looking when you actually look at her, she and Brody would make the perfect big-screen couple… leading right up to The Hills: The Movie. The tagline: You’ve watched them grow up together. You’ve seen love and hate – you’ve witnessed emotion-laden conversations, the evolution of a legacy… and now, for the first time ever, Lauren is going to get a REAL JOB! It works better if you say it in movie-tagline voice.
If they were, that would explain the disparity between black Luas drivers and black Luas ticket collectors; something that a large percentage of Dubliners witness every day and more than likely pay no heed to. I know I didn’t.
But this morning, something clicked in my brain when I heard that familiar refrain: “Tickets please”, said in a velvety African lilt. (Not to get too poetic about it.) My book wasn’t tickling my fancy (there’s only so much feminism that one can read in the space of a week, and I am very close to my maximum, I’m ashamed to say), and I was glancing around, until the Luas driver caught my eye – a close-shaven, white male, in his mid-forties (officer).
The reality that black people are overlooked when it comes to employment is an oft-overlooked one; we (Irish people) disregard it because they are the “other”. They are not included in the “we”‘; “our” woes regarding the recession do not apply to “them” because this is “our” country. This is nothing but an assumption, a long-held one about patriotism and citizenship.
[As an aside, Bryan has begun a discussion about citizenship on his blog, but, largely, I think, due to the difficulty of unearthing an answer, progress is slow. We shall not be reinventing the wheel this week, I would wager.]
But there are countless accounts of this phenomenon; you “need Irish experience”, you “need fluent Irish”… things that many Irish people, taking their first tentative steps into the workplace, do not have, nor have they felt any requirement to have them. Except, might I add, in the restaurant business, where experience is necessary and, more importantly, hard to come by.
Róisín Ingle began her now-history (I hear) Being There column with this article, detailing a life in the day in a hair salon for African women. The most poignant moment was the telling of a story by one woman, of applying for jobs; having heard nothing back, she tried a little experiment… suffice it to say, racism is rife in Irish society. Read the article yourself, I’d hate to ruin it.
She could have taken her case to the gardaí, to the small claims court – she could have pursued it, and named and shamed the business involved. But where would that have got her to? Would she be employed, as a result? Most definietly not – nobody likes a whistleblower.
The thing is, I’m not suggesting that we should all be embracing one another with open, unprejudiced arms. Yes, in an ideal world, we would all realise that everybody’s pink on the inside (urrgh), but this world is far from ideal – and the influx of multinationals onto our green pastures is a new thing. We need time to deal with it, time to conquer and vanquish past prejudices, time to rid ourselves of the image of the black man starving, begging for alms (thanks, Concern, but I truly believe advertisements of that ilk do little to further the cause. They may raise money, but they destroy any possibility of wanting or encouraging development).
But while we’re getting used to all of this, what State body is chasing up rumours, is encouraging racial equality in employment? Are there any figures that state how many foreign nationals applied for Luas driver jobs, and got them? Can companies be compelled to disclose all CVs they receive, and the bases upon which they refuse some people and accept others? Could an African name be enough to disqualify someone from potential employment?
Come off it. We may not all want mass immigration; we may not all want a mixed pot of cultures living in “our” Ireland – but it’s what we’ve got, and we need to learn to behave ourselves, and to stand up for those who are unable to stand up for themselves because they’re the “them”.
When it comes to power, we remain the brokers, but there’s definitely enough to go around.
So, Perez Hilton loves to hate Rumer Willis. And, while we’re on the subject of Perez’s hates (should I even be giving him more screen space?) Kirsten Dunst; Lily Allen; and Alexa Joel. I could wax lyrical about how gay ol’ Perez hates strong women – but, gay men love strong women, no? And he loves Katy Perry, so that just can’t be right, now can it? Because Katy Perry believes in equal rights – like, if men can kiss women then, like, women can totally kiss other women too! But, then, equally, she don’t wanna be one of the boys…
I digress, and I ramble. What I have to say is both too long and too complicated to explain fully in a blog post. Only to echo the age-old cries of the bravest of my sex: who cares what you look like? Who ever turned around and said “Bruce [Willis, father of the above-papped Rumer] has a huge chin”. Nobody. He’s an action hero, so we all fancy him. Who ever turned around and said “gosh, George should get some work done, he’s looking awful old”. Nobody. Who ever took a look at Bill Gates and said: “He may be really successful, but he’s a bit chubby, isn’t he?”
Naomi Wolf has a much better way of explaining it in her book, The Beauty Myth, which is worth a look. It’s made me think twice, but it’s also made me sad because, so far, it has explained and broken down a lot of how I feel about my own image, about how distorted my sense of self worth is, but it hasn’t offered me any alternatives. I’m only on chapter three, so I’m hoping that she’ll offer me a way out before the end.
But her thesis is this: the beauty myth has enveloped and encompassed all women, impressing upon us the need to be thin and beautiful; the need to consume, to use the latest face creams, anti-wrinkle creams and anti-cellulite creams; the need to be feminine, girlish, without ever being too intelligent, or opinionated. Who last accused a man of being too intelligent or opinionated?
And then there is that old chestnut: the ugly feminist. Well, I must be, mustn’t I, if I’m encouraging women to abandon the beauty myth in favour of the truth – which is this: one can spend one’s life striving for perfection, but this “perfection” is liquid, you can’t touch it, it changes at the tip of a fingertip and at the whim of Karl Lagerfeld. That should not be a depressing though, because you’re worth so much more than the value of your face.
No news is good news; and no publicity is bad publicity. A-ha, the glorious cliché. But my mind is awash with cases, torts and qualified privilege – so my thoughts today will have to be limited to what’s happening in the rest of our planet (as, in my sphere, very little is happening at all).
Namely, poor Ms Palin junior. Perez seems to want to burn her at the proverbial stake – but where does this all fit in with privacy? Are we not entitled to respect for our private and family lives? Because her mother is a public figure, is she? EU law would say no; American law has more respect for freedom of expression which, confronted with these kinds of “reporting”, may not be all that great a thing.
Vogue India has come under fire for publishing images, in a fashion spread, of ordinary Indians wearing extraordinary clothing – clothing that costs upwards of 1000% of their daily incomes. Vogue claims that it is not attempting to make any kind of statement; that the clothing speaks for itself, and that fashion now transcends class divides. But the Vogue family (see Steven Meisel of Vogue Italia fame) are not necessarily new to controversy, nor to attempts to split popular opinion at the seams. It will be interesting to see where this leads; here they have used not only ordinary people, instead of models – they have left them in their ordinary habitats, we see their ordinary lives, their ordinary faces. And really, there’s nothing ordinary about them at all, even when juxtaposed with Hermes’ latest creation.
And that’s pretty much it. My lazy linking begins here – in that, I shan’t be linking. But this Sunday’s Sunday Times had a hilarious article by Mr Gill on the Democratic convention, and Ariel Leve had a (as usual) thought-provoking piece about women on death row. Una’s had a makeover in the “new-look” Tribune magazine (style, little substance….) and Duffy’s in there, again, being “cute”. Does she ever do anything else?
In other news, watch this space for Star Little Thing’s latest release (come on, buy Irish!), and for me to get back on the blogging track and hopefully offend a few more people. Fingers crossed, loike.
