All you need is love

For some reason, Ciara has been lately gchatting me with various X loves Y combinations – love blogs, it seems, are some kind of new Web 2.0-induced phenomenon. The basic premise is this: X fell in love with Y and now feels the need to blog about it at least daily: what they did, where they did it and, usually, what they wore (is there some correlation between being interested in fashion and being a hopeless romantic?).

Anyway, today’s offering is Jen Loves Kev (it has its own website, not just a WordPress or Tumblr site which is, uh, interesting – perhaps it’s more romantic if you have your own url for your love?). I didn’t examine the site too much because the last one she sent me made me feel so nauseous, but I did stumble upon Jen’s post about their home, post-decoration. All I can say is: amazing.

You’ll know – if you read my blog like, ahem, you should – that I’ve been feeling a little like nesting lately. Not with like, babies or anything, but with furniture, soft cushions, nice rugs and bright wall paint and were I to paint my dream interior, it would be shockingly similar to Jen and Kev’s.

I especially love the lime green:

Not to mention the photograph display above the piano:

Obviously these photographs belong to, uh, Jen and Kev, I presume – and can be seen on their Flickr here. Photographs reproduced without consent but, I hope, with understanding of my efforts only to compliment and admire.

So my WordPress has gone crazy

And everything is displayed in tiny boxes, from the fonts to the tags to the sidebar. But. . . I kind of like it. I feel like I’m in the 1950s and possibly an episode of Star Trek, and Scottie is just about to beam me up somewhere amazing where I’ll get to taser everyone in sight and – unlike the time I actually played Quazar – I will emerge unscathed and go back to the bridge where I’ll push buttons and fly us at warp speed somewhere “no man has gone before”. Except obviously I want to be Beverley Crusher so I should probably be in the medical bay.

Also, it’s sunny outside and Bat for Lashes is on the radio. Sometimes life is good.

Go here to see the bone fide video. Hate embedding disablement.

Crimes against fashion: Volume One

Yesterday evening, heading into Galway city, I saw some of the most eye-numbing crimes against fashion and neon that I have ever seen in my life. But even those lashings of neon, painted-on dresses and fake tan disasters are nothing compared to this.

Vibram Five Fingers (via Michael K). Shudder.

The elephant in the blog

I guess a blog post on Michael Jackson is due; it would seem rash to ignore him, but I am loathe to write anything gushing because I didn’t know him. None of us did. Brian Boyd in today’s Irish Times wrote a particularly, I thought, affecting and respectful piece about him – rather than read my rants, read that. I especially loved the quote at the end by F Scott Fitzgerald: “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” It seems apt.

Instead of my own personal views of Jackson, the following videos succinctly convey, I think, the international reach he had; the effect he had on the myriad fans he had all over the globe. The boys in the ‘Joy could do well to learn from these guys.

And finally, this painstaking piece of work must have taken days:

The battle of the breasts

This month’s Cosmopolitan was bought in a rash rush to provide myself with reading for the train to Galway this weekend; I will readily admit to being a monthly purchaser of Elle, Vogue and Glamour, but Cosmopolitan is one that I usually omit from my must-buy list for various reasons: I already know “how to have great sex”; I know that “sexy is fabulous”; I know all about the “sex toy in your handbag”, and so on.

I know that Cosmo was once the great woman’s liberator (more because I’ve read about it – therefore it must be so – rather than because I actually experience it to be so), but today I find it to be a little bit crass. It must be my mother’s influence, but I’m kind of sick of reading about, looking at and hearing about sex. While I’m all for sex education for teens, openness about sexuality, the drive for women to ask for what they want (and so on and so forth), I find a lot of it to be a little too in-your-face.

Is there even a wagon any more?

I thought I was back on it, but following on from this week’s shopping spree (including one very lucrative trip to Asos, one purchase of a new iPhone 3GS from O2 and a short trip to Easons) I think I may have to redefine the word “wagon”. I’ve made myself a whole new wagon.

Anyway today I went into Warehouse – forgetting entirely that Warehouse, although full of beautiful things, is very expensive – and loaded myself up with merchandise. It’s odd that I’m getting quite used to sales assistants looking incredulously at my laden-down arms. “Do you want me to put any of those back? Oh – you’re getting them all? Oh. Oooooh.” I suspect they may think I’ve just gone through a bad break-up, or come into some money (the temptation to tell said sales assistant that I’d won the National Lottery was not small).

Warehouse’s current collection is something close to inspired – at least as far as the high street offerings go. It has significant smatterings of designer inspiration, innovative designs and young, fresh and well-wearing fabrics (although there are a few too many “dry-clean only” items for my liking). They have silks enough to impress the most seasoned eastern traveller; graffiti prints that channel Basso & Brooke and childhood paintings; exposed zips on fitted, almost corseted dresses in the style of Roland Mouret; and bodycon t-shirt dresses in the most forgiving of soft cottons that would be equally beautiful on Drew Barrymore as they would on Megan Fox (and don’t we all wish Drew would attempt to get back to her stylish roots for a while, rather than parading around town in sarongs and wedge heels?).

For now, check out the website for examples of their clothing; it offers free returns, I see, which is a welcome addition to the online retailing scene. I will attach images to this post in due course – for now I’m posting from Galway, so the resources to hand are somewhat limited.

I stumbled upon this. . .

And, while I am tiring somewhat of blogs in general – what can I say, Google Reader has ruined my joy – something here struck a chord. I guess what Jess is trying to do has something in common with my ethos when I started my non-consumption buzz. I really like the idea of addition by subtraction; that by simplifying our lives, we can enrich them somehow. While I’m not exactly into the buzz of getting rid of something every Friday, mostly because I feel like I have a lot of vulture-like friends who would be over like a shot to trawl through the spoils and then I would see it on them / on their desk and feel jealous and want it back, it is a nice idea and it’s executed well on her blog (via What I Wore).

While I’m on the topic, I may as well write about my failure to stick to not buying for a year, why I gave up, how I feel about it and how, on a dark night while I lie in bed and think about my various failings in life, I justify it to whatever deity I pretend to believe in.

This will really only be interesting for whatever few of you have been following my progress thus far – and, judging by my stats, I think there are very few of you indeed – but feel free to skip over it and read more about Lauren, Brody et al (once again, my stats tell an embarrassing tale of Hills-obsessed teens) if that’s your poison.

All my dreams have come true

And Joan Armatrading and Kate Bush have procreated, or at least musically – Marina and the Diamonds has been getting a lot of press of late, which I’ve largely ignored. There’s nothing I hate more than a bandwagon, and music journalists have definitely been jumping on this whole “host of female artists” thing like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. The comparisons have been coming thick and fast, and fashion magazines have been full of “VV Brown is a tough woman, but she combines this with a love for neon” and “Pixie Lott is our new girl-crush” or “La Roux’s flaming red mane. . .” blah blah, BORED. So I’ve missed out on this one. Well now I’m sorry; I’ve been looking for something new that I could love upon first listen for a while now, and here she is. For your delectation:

Why I love Hadley Freeman

Despite the fact that she’s an American vegetarian.

No women should have what the mags call “issues” with their thighs because the only things you should have issues with, really, are magazines that encourage you to think of your anatomy in language more suitable to international disasters and/or American touchy-feely talkshows.

Ah let me count the ways. . . Find the original article here (Ask Hadley).

How to be a good woman: Volume One

Cameron Diaz is, above all, a great broad. She can beat you at pool, down tequila shots, burp, swear worse than Jonathan Ross, laugh uproariously at your bad jokes and, for good measure, openly acknowledge that “Sex is the best!”.

- Christopher Goodwin, ‘Blue Steel‘, in today’s Sunday Times‘ Culture magazine

Well thank God, because for a second there I thought Diaz was just a particularly good actress who loves surfing, will openly devote herself to a worthy cause and has a really infectious laugh.

I’m getting so ridiculously tired of how women are described and defined in print journalism. It’s rare that a publication will feature an interview with a male actor and spend the first three paragraphs describing how gorgeous he is, followed swiftly by a description of why he’s not the “typical” man. The insinuation here is that because Diaz can do “manly” things like burp, swear and down tequila shots, she’s not one of those horrific girly girls. She can keep up with the guys! She’s just, in fact – and thank God, thinks Goodwin – like a man! She can burp like a man! She can swear like Jonathan Ross (and what a hideous comparison)! She can down tequila shots like a man!

Oh and of course it helps to have a woman who’ll laugh at your jokes, regardless of whether or not they’re funny. I’m sure that Diaz is a whole lot more than the sum of these parts, but as long as these parameters exist, women will be defined first and foremost by their looks, swiftly followed by their ability to not act like a woman. Hurrah for sexual equality.

Oh and in a fantastic double whammy by the Sunday Times, Giles Hattersley apparently believes that being gay is a “meaningful life choice”. Were I in London, fellas, I’d take you both for tequila shots. But I can’t promise I’d laugh at your jokes.

I’d also love to know what percentage of you would be thrilled to be described as a “great broad”. Answers below.