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I’ve never seen that film, but I think it’s a really beautiful title. Somehow I can’t help but think, especially given today’s news story in Tallaght (that link is fairly rubbish but there was a full report on the RTÉ news), that anything you lost in the fire, as long as you’re out alive, and your family, and your pets (of course!), isn’t really worth that much.
ANYWAY. I don’t know why I thought of that title, it just came to me as I was thinking of a post I was going to write about things that are exciting me right now. So, without further ado:
- The podcast that myself and Roseanne just started working on, coming to a blog, Twitter and domain (Rosie’s and mine, also exciting! Look out for rosemarymaccabe.com) near you soon.
- Terminator Salvation tomorrow night with the Da. I know, I know – terrible reviews and the Sunday Times says that only Arnie can save it now, which surely is as damning a report as any, but I’m still looking forward to it because I heart Christian and robots and shooting and bombing can never truly be terrible (except if it involves Will Smith, duh).
- Topshop’s press day, coming soon and to be reported on right here – hopefully with glimpses of the Christopher Kane collaboration that may just force me to abandon my non-consumption right then and there.
- I know it’s a little twee and that I’ll be in work – but oh joy of joys I work right next to the sports desk so they’ll have Wimbledon on all day and all night! Hurrah!
- Watching the development of the 12-day-old baby panda in Thailand on the wire service. I have never seen a cuter animal in my life, honestly. Made me cry today it’s so cute. I really want one, which I know is unhinged and insane, because pandas get really big and possibly violent, but it’s adorable. If I fed it enough Diet Coke would it stunt its growth?!
- Maybe doing a make-up course. It occurred to me yesterday when discussing possible recession-proof careers with K and E. Make-up is recession-proof: just look at the ladies on Beaut.ie!
- Getting better at running (see yesterday’s post). Once my rear end heals I’ll be back on the streets, not in the “lady of the night” sense, obviously. Back pounding the streets, I meant. (Laughs out loud at own stupidity, not for the first time today.)
So I lead a simple life, with simple wants and needs: movies, baby animals, fashion and sports on the telly. And a nice cold beer would be fairly beautiful right now. Ain’t life grand?
Here’s one for Beaut.ie: I think I’m becoming a tanorexic. My cousin’s wedding is coming up and, despite the fact that I am wearing second-hand vintage, flying in on the morning of the wedding at 8am and possibly going to assign myself the role of unofficial photographer, I am obsessed with the idea that I should be tanned while doing all of the above.
I’ve been using Biotherm Summer Source for about a fortnight now (although not, might I add, every day – I’m not quite that bad. Yet) and I have to say, it’s my favourite of any of the gradual tanners.
It goes on easy, has a lovely citrus smell and doesn’t streak.
However – and here’s the big but – after about an hour the tan developer seems to kick in and envelope your body in the fake tan stench to beat all fake tan stenches. No amount of perfume will cover this up. Still, it’s worth it in the name of fake brown skin – right?!
Anyway, speaking of big butts:
Does this really look like Kate Beckinsale?
It’s not very often that I write about beauty, or the beauty industry itself; there are others who do it better and more thoroughly than I ever could, and my own beauty routine is, I’m sure, more interesting to me than it would be to anyone else. That said, I stumbled across Gloss Hair & Beauty Salon mentioned on Beaut, and took a stroll on over to their site to check out their offers.
Not only do they have a prime location on Richmond Street (the same street as the Bernard Shaw, around the corner from the delectable Bretzel Bakery and just a hop, skip and a jump away from my favourite store, Daintree, and its sister café, the Cake Café), they’re offering 50% off all treatments on a Monday and a Wednesday throughout the month of May. If that’s not a good offer, I dunno what is (I do: freebies! But they’re few and far between).
Anyway, am I to chance upon a free Monday or Wednesday, I’ll be taking myself over for a manicure or facial – both of which I love, but cannot bring myself to fork over full price for.
“How you dress can make you have more authority and command more respect. Women struggle with what to wear for business and formal wear, and image consultants can make women aware of how clothes can add to their credibility, and how they can diminish it.”
So spake Pippa Rees, director of Naked Ambition Personal Branding Consultants, and a member of the Federation of Image Consultants, in response to the fact that the Bank of England sent a memo to all female staff, advising them on how to dress professionally in the office.
The memo, which is discussed at New York Magazine here, in the UK Independent here, tells the fortunate BoE employees [female only] how high their heels should be (maximum two inches), to always wear some sort of makeup – and, oh, lest we forget, ditto the perfume, ladies!
The lovely ladies at Beaut picked up on this and did a post on it, detailing their outrage. The great thing about Beaut is that it is as much a forum as it is a blog; their daily “blather” picks up anywhere between 200 and 300 comments per day (on average) and has been known to spark many a lively debate – but on this topic, not only were the women (shockingly, and frighteningly) divided, the comments number just 38. On a site that has loyal followers who will happily comment 50 times about the pros and cons of a certain mascara, how did we get to a point where women’s rights matter so little?
Go to the original post to read the comments; suffice it to say that a lot of you are just plain missing the point. The question isn’t about what is or isn’t appropriate to wear to work – which common sense will tell you, and comments about body odour are completely irrelevant – it is that we have managed to get ourselves to a point where the success of a woman or, rather, her ability to be successful, is still contingent on how she presents herself.
But even that phrase, “presents herself”, is misleading – it implies a deeper impression than the first, a deeper presentation than the aesthetic. The reality is, and here the BoE may be on to something, it does matter what you wear; we still live in a world where wearing two-inch heels will get you further, 99% of the time, than wearing flats will; women who wear make-up are respected more than those who don’t, in 99% of jobs; if a successful woman doesn’t wear heels, skirts or make-up, she’s either a bitch or a dyke – if she does, she got where she is on her back (duh).
When will it end? And comments like “I wear make-up, you have to look professional” aren’t going to get us anywhere. It’s all about choice, but the BoE has come this close to saying that the success of their female staff is closely related to how they are turned out. The success of their male staff – well, they’re probably really intelligent, aren’t they? They’re probably very hardworking; they’re clean-shaven and well, come on, they’re not going to go on maternity leave any time soon and leave us in the lurch. Champagne for everybody!
Today over on Beaut.ie, the girls are having a fantasy Friday discussion about which they would prefer – to be rich (as in, stinking, want-for-nothing, rich) or to be sexy (as in, scorching hot can’t-touch-this sexy). If you have one, you can’t have the other. Good old-fashioned fun, but disturbing in parts.
Because the general consensus seems to be: sure you’d be rich, but you’d be miserable because you’re so ugly (that was another condition of the abundance of riches – and all the plastic surgery in the world wouldn’t help you). And if you were sexy, well, you’d be “happier on the inside”. But… surely if you were rich, you could still be funny, intelligent, interesting? Provided, that is, you are in the first place.
And, ambition-wise, is the attaining of riches not a more worthy ambition than the attaining of sexiness – which, let’s face it, is not easily attained if you didn’t have it in the first place and is, like all good things, fleeting?
The crux of the matter is that we live in a society in which it is more socially acceptable and, not only that, but is more worthwhile to be sexy than it is to be rich. What can you do with being sexy? What can it get you?
Everything, if the beaut.ies are to be believed. All the men in the world, friends, more men, men to buy you things, men to give you presents, men to take you on trips and wine and dine you (and look! You’re still sexy, even after ten croissants!). So really, all we want is to be good-looking enough to attract men. There were no stipulations, really – any man will do.
Which brings me back to the photoraph. “I’d be tender, I’d be gentle… and awful sentimental, if I only had a man.” Please God, send me a man?
