All posts in category: Fasion Health & Beauty

I'm an individual... so let's paint it black

February 12, 2017
Fasion Health & Beauty Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Is the color black thought of as chic when it is the default choice for people with no imagination? You can stand out as much as you like you like when you travel. The diva in a silk shirt, sunglasses and scarves, a wannabe rap star with Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana labels or simply Mr.& Mrs. Retired from Boston, she in a fetching twin set and pearls and he in a tweed suit. But nearly everyone has a black suitcase. Why? The one time you do want something to stick out, is on the conveyor belt of endless luggage spat out at baggage claim. Maybe airlines could change the colors of the check-in baggage labels to match blocks of seat rows? I know some people put a ribbon on the handle or a big sticky Smiley Face on the side, but a guy parading through customs with that is screaming to the officials: "I am a drug dealer. Stop me and feel free to search every bodily cavity..." Jet lagged and grabbing a black bag I am amazed I have never returned to my hotel to open a suitcase full of lingerie or kids school clothing (OK once but that was my suitcase....weird girlfriend) or much worse a nun returned to her convent with my suitcase. Try and explain that content to Mother Superior! However the fault really is with the suitcase manufacturers. It's either boring black, ‘bloodshot-eye’ red, ‘arrest-me’ fuchsia, ‘suffocate’ blue or a yellow so loud you can hear it scream as it's unloaded from the plane. Samsonite designers must think subtle is what you become with yoga. Checks might be nice or patterns, even different colored top and bottom. Instead they offer a color palette from a child's paint by numbers book. And while I am talking suitcases, consistency on zip start and finish as well as direction would be nice. Have you ever been able to open every layer or pocket on a suitcase with one fluid movement per zip? Never. How about different colored zips for different pockets on the case.....and all either zip clockwise or counterclockwise?

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Never be a fitness freak in your twenties...

Why...

Workout when out of your head? I spent much of my twenties and thirties in a haze of cigarette smoke, hangovers and occasional substance abuse. 'Fit' was only an adjective used to describe a girl! Since then I am happy to say I got my act together and by my forties I even started going to the gym. Most of the sweating bodies of my age that had been fit in their twenties were miserable. They could only witness a decline in their sporting prowess from their adolescent peak. Every day in the gym was a hopeless effort to recapture their sporting glories. Not me, I reckon a seventy year old could have outperformed me at 20. At 40 I certainly could have. So having been a wreck in my youth, every day in the gym saw me reach a level I had never achieved before. I was bloody euphoric. The tide for me was coming in and for all those goody goodies of youth it was just going out. The moral here is unless you are a professional athlete, give yourself the gift of fitness later in life and be a rake in your youth! Middle age will thank you for it.

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Slow...slow...quick quick...slow...you don't know how to walk

Why...

Has the basic action of putting one foot in front of the other become obsessively scrutinised? In the not too distant past we had Neolithic man....let's call him Uggg. After he has dragged his wife by the hair around the cave as foreplay before some prehistoric love-making, he ventures outside with his trusty club to find dinner. "Just popping out for a bite, dear." It was a toss-up in fact who would be dinner, Uggg the caveman or Tiddles from next door, the local sabre tooth tiger. This is not quite on a par with you or me popping down to Tesco's for a microwave chicken korma and a six pack of Aussie beer. (Neither of which you actually eat, just rent.) Apart from his club, loincloth, toothless grin and a few fleas, Uggg took nothing else with him. The intrepid Tesco visitor if he came on foot would have a Day-Glo jacket, mobile phone and in case he died from thirst or hunger on the long trek from Acacia Avenue to the supermarket, a bottle of water and an energy bar. That seems a little excessive even for the suburbs (unless it's Texas where you would rather walk naked than without your two friends Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson).

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Light bulbs. The devil's own testicles!

Why...

Is the simple light bulb really the work of Beelzebub? Whenever a lightbulb goes 'ping' in my house, my whole day gets dimmer. Bayonet, screw in, full width, half width, 40 watt, 60 watt, clear, pearl.... pointless and endless variations.....yet on top of all that nonsense I now have to deal with eco friendly bulbs. These are a giant stride backwards. Firstly they are all fugly (f*cking ugly). The shape looks like Mr Whippy has poohed a glass. I guarantee Thomas Edison's prototype got brighter quicker. These new things need an eon to warm up before on full beam. It's like going back to old cathode ray tube tv's. I used to turn those on, go make a cup of tea, have a cigarette, a wee and when I came back my TV was just flickering into life. Eco bulbs.That's progress like saying a cannibal uses a knife and fork! However the palaver of changing normal bulbs pales compared to swapping out a halogen ceiling light. There are more variations how these little bastards screw into the ceiling than excuses Justin Bieber gives for speeding. Firstly as I try and get the inner socket out, ceiling plaster always gives my head a nice quasi-dandruff coating. Next, whichever catch spring or twisting technique Torquemada the builder fitted, the burnt out bulb clings to the socket like a slinky twenty year old Russian to a fat billionaire. So then I make the mistake of grabbing the bulb which is hotter than Satan's underpants and I a) burn my fingers, b) drop the bulb to the ground where it smashes. I try and reverse the whole procedure fitting a replacement. Another dusting of plaster this time in my eyes so I'm half blind as I try and screw the new one in. After wrestling with the fixture until I get neck camps I eventually get the bulb in...only to turn the thing on and discover it's not the bulb but the transformer that's bust. Frankly I'd rather use the man who invented these things as a human candle than have to change another.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Step right this way for your daily insult...

October 13, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do I allow myself to fall repeatedly into life's traps and snares in the modern day insult pit? First public smack in the face started in record shops. Nowadays people just nick music off the Internet so a whole generation has missed out on the condescension and scorn that was directed at customers at local music stores. Whatever record I asked for was met with a "tsk-tsk" and a look of abject pity at my choice of music. So withering were the looks that I can honestly admit more than once saying with a shrug: "Yeah, I know. Crap, but what can you do? It's a birthday present for my little sister!" as I slide a Billy Joel LP into the plastic bag like it was porn that I wanted no one to know I was carrying. It only occurred to me years later that if these guys were such discerning musical genii, how come they were working at the local Kidderminster Virgin record store at minimum wage rather than rubbing shoulders with Prince or Springsteen in the recording studio? The record store guilt trip has now morphed into the facial tick I get visiting a phone store to buy a new mobile or tablet. Please tell me there are people who actually understand what the salesman is saying.... however I assume it's no one over the age of 15! Invariably I say something dumb that shows I have completely misunderstood what has been painstakingly explained to me and then bang.....that look of sympathy, like an adult indulging a child asking why the sky is blue or grass is green, flashes across the salesman's face. "I think perhaps the basic version is all you require....." Ouch.

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You have a vocation...? My arse!

Why...

Am I most jealous of people who know from the get-go what they are going to do in life? The kid who instinctively knows he or she wants to be a vet, concert pianist, architect or pilot and seemingly glides into his or her chosen life path. The rest of us stumble across jobs both weird and wonderful but as far from youthful aspirations as you can get. Do kids fantasise about being an arbitrageur, systems analyst, account manager, VAT inspector or Border Control/Customs Official as opposed to firemen, nurses and astronauts? Proctologists really worry me. I cannot believe that among the fresh faced interns at Med school there's a clutch of them burning with desire to spend their working day with their digit stuck up a strangers butt. Indeed if there were such people, counselling is what they need rather than medical training. Nope I suspect many proctologists flunked their first choice. "Sorry, grades not good enough for brain, cosmetic or heart surgery but there is an opening (in more than one sense) in the proctology department". Shock, horror, forlorn look on student. "It's not so bad...though no one wants to shake your hand. The pay is stratospheric and you don't take your work home with you." Job sold!

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Hitler, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot and Charles Manson all had one thing in common...

Why...

When we are designed as omnivores do some people become fanatical at becoming a vegetarian. Many indeed argue that on top of health benefits, not eating meat can do wonders for your temperament. The above lot in the the title were all famous vegetarians but it certainly didn't do much to improve relationships with their fellow man! Don't misunderstand me, if you choose to eat mung beans, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower cheese that's entirely your choice, (though I'd prefer not to sit next to you on a transatlantic flight). What does puzzle me is if you are vegetarian, why on earth would you then eat food that resembled meat?! Nut cutlets, Quorn sausages, tofu based spaghetti Bolognese, or nut roast at Thanksgiving! That's like giving up smoking then spending all day sucking on candy cigarettes (yup, believe it or not, when I was a kid you could buy sweets that looked like cigarettes).

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My Underpants intimidate me…

September 8, 2016
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life
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Why...

Do I allow marketing and fashion to seep into the crease of my subconscious? I can’t buy a pair of boxers without David Beckham’s tattoed physique reminding me what I should look like (or years ago a grinning Marky Mark before he turned into Mark Wahlberg)? So obsessed are we with visions of perfection in advertising that there are casting calls for pets and ‘make up artists’ when you shoot a plain old Hamburger

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Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

July 7, 2016
Fasion Health & Beauty Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Is hair growth so inconsistent? Falling out. What exactly is Nature's point in letting some men go bald? Obvious answer, I suppose, is because she's a woman and it screws with men's egos! I mean baldness is not exactly Darwinian Evolution of the Species material. As someone who is lucky enough to still have a thick mop on my head, I do sympathise with my mates who now have a shiny dome where once stood a mighty forest. Can someone explain to me why? Not the medical reason but what is the evolutionary point of baldness?

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For you Sir, no charge... For Madam though that's $10...

Why...

Are some things free for one sex and not for the other? If I order a whisky and soda in a bar, the soda is free. If my wife orders a lime juice and soda and asks the barman to top up the soda she is charged for it! That is logical bollocks. Tea at Starb*cks. Why do I get charged progressively more for a small, medium or large tea when each cup only contains one solitary teabag? So is it the hot water I pay for? Yet if a woman were ask for a cup of hot water to warm a baby bottle… No charge.

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WHAT SIZES DOES STUPIDITY COME IN?

Why...

Are the numerics on sizing so bizarre? In my hand I am holding something that extra small is still 7 inches and extra extra large is 11 ½ inches. Nope, it’s not my gentleman’s sausage, (you all have brains like sewers) it’s a glove and refers to sizes. Do you actually know yours, let alone what it refers to? You’d think at least it might be to do with length from the longest fingertip to wrist? Nope. The number is the circumference of your fist…. which is why as I have long fingers, gloves always hang on my finger-tips and end halfway past my second knuckle joint like long johns ending at my knees. It leaves my wrists perfectly exposed to get frostbite. As far as I am concerned any idiot who says what I have on ‘fits like a glove’ means it sticks out in five places.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Nice Tattoos. Perfect for Shakespeare

November 19, 2015
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Work
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Why...

Would an actor cover his or herself in tattoos (least of all those with spelling mistakes….Tradgedy??) The whole body is a blank canvas, on which the actor creates a character. Yet serious actors now want to cover themselves with designs and phrases totally at odds with their profession. If you are playing Hamlet, I would have thought names of previous girlfriends and a design that looks like the cover from a Meatloaf album might be out of context? It was one thing when Sean Connery had two small tattoos on his right arm, Scotland Forever (surely a mistake as he hasn’t lived there for more than half a century?) and Mum and Dad, as both were easily covered up by make-up in the Bond movies. (You can still see them though if you look carefully). In any case MI5 and MI6 ban any kind of body markings that can identity an agent. Actor Tom Hardy is a veritable Etch-a-Sketch of body tattoos. When his half naked torso was shown playing the baddie Bane in The Dark Knight I assume at times CGI (computer Generated Effects) were employed to cover them all up, however good old pancake make-up seems to have done the trick most of the time. You can see in some outtakes or set photographer shots the smudging of the thick layer of body cover-up revealing a tattoo underneath. In a more recent film, Mad Max, Fury Road he looked a bit ridiculous as he was so buttoned up with only his head and hands showing! Maybe being in the Namibian desert with all that sand sticking to thick pancake body make-up would have driven him nuts!? But now he wants to be Bond?? The point is, talented as he and many other like him with body tattoos are, it seems to run against everything an actor’s body should be. If I was a producer shooting a Roman epic and saw Kiss me qwick tattooed on a centurion’s ass and had to pay to cover it up, I’d be offering to sandpaper it off!

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If it’s cheap…it will last a lifetime

Why...

Do I have drawers full of cheap reading glasses yet empty Persol, Gucci and Porsche glasses cases?

It seems to be a rule of life when you buy an expensive version along with a few cheap ones on the side, the cheap one sticks to your life like chewing gum to fur, but in an instant the expensive version is lost.

In the kitchen the potato peeler I use was bought from a street urchin in Vietnam years ago but the fancy Alessi one my wife gave me in my stocking for Christmas fell into the waste disposal on Boxing Day.

I cannot begin to count the number of Fox’s umbrellas, Cartier fountain pens, Ray Ban sunglasses, AKG earphones, or fancy schmanzy watches I have lost over the years. However as I sit at my desk there is a biro dated 2006 in front of me, my desk drawer has endless cheap Apple earphones and my car has an umbrella I bought in Hong Kong during a down-pour for HK$1 in 2002. There is even a ten year old Swatch on my wrist.

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Does your hairdresser’s own hairstyle frighten you?

Why...

Do so many of the top hairdressers have hairstyles that are better suited to Halloween Night? And who cuts and styles their hair? I used to wonder if it was students let loose on their teacher, but then would a plastic surgeon use his face as a student’s first experiment? Nope….. so it must be a conscious decision. Yikes!

On top of my blind trust that a stylist can cut hair normally, (despite the evidence on his or her head to the contrary), nearly every time my hair was cut, it was cut too short. Surely even Haircutting for Dummies must suggest hairdressers should undercut not overcut hair so the customer comes back sooner? My current salon however are perfect….. (I know they read the blog)!

For a cutter, I suppose, their job has a satisfying finality to it. It’s not like a customer can look at the reflection and go:

“Nah, I liked it better before, can you collect up all those hairs and re-attach them.” Maybe that’s why they are supremely confident.

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Gangstas in Gucci trainers and Accountants in Aston Martins. Where’s the exclusivity in that??

Why...

Do we not see that the greatest trick that marketing has pulled off is to convince people mass produced goods can still be an exclusive luxury brand?

You only have to go back to when these brands actually started to see they were indeed the preserve of a very select few. Up until the 1980’s Ferrari's total number of cars ever made was still less than one year’s output of Porsche's production; yet now both license everything from pens to sunglasses. Cartier jewellery and Givenchy dresses used to be hand-made and the idea that either had a mass market or off the peg line would have been laughed at. Can you imagine what Coco Chanel would have thought of her elegant logo emblazoned across T-shirts?

And yet with the democratising of these once aloof high-end brands, they still manage to preserve a strong whiff of elitism. No wonder the companies who own them like LMVH are so profitable. I mean $225, 000 for a fuchsia coloured Birkin Hermes handbag?!

The ‘lower end goods’ (which still sell at a premium) are inserted into the mass market. From this pool a client may emerge with material success and still want to be associated with the brand going up their ‘exclusivity ladder’- Armani Exchange via Emporio Armani through Georgio Armani to Armani Privé - all at a huge premium This has been one of the most brilliant pieces of marketing abracadabra I have ever witnessed.

If you look at a number of other once luxury items that have become more widely available some still cling to the aura of ‘olde worlde privilege’ in the packaging; but they don’t actually fool the general public. However most are generic goods or services that never had a branded leader; smoked salmon, cashmere, brandy, leather clothing, even fancy restaurants. Some were simply superseded by technology whose price reduction democratised a once special item (personal phones in cars, cameras and colour TVs). Some just fell out of fashion (cruising by ship to New York, white tie and tails events and wearing tiaras).

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the general growth in people’s wealth that our capitalistic system has provided. Yes it’s flawed, but less flawed than any other methods in improving living standards.

It’s just how the aspirational brands, such as cars (Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Bentley or Maserati), clothing (Gucci, Versace, Chanel and Dior), jewellery (Cartier, Bulgari and Asprey) and accessories ( Mont Blanc, Smythson, Louis Vuitton) have all enjoyed that democratisation and therefore dilution of exclusivity, yet still sell on it!

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It’s a pile of crap…..but beautifully lit

August 6, 2015
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Love
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Why...

Do we make such a fuss about pictures of models being altered to look better? It’s been like that since man could fingerpaint! Henry VIII nearly had the painter executed who presented him a touched up painting of Anne of Cleves. She looked sexy enough to be the equivalent of a Tudor Playboy centre-page spread (but without the staples). The King told the entourage who accompanied the painting that he would offer her his hand in marriage, and retired to his chambers in anticipation of the wedding night, with a royal hard-on that a cat couldn't scratch.

When Anne bowled up at court and became wife number four, she had a face that apparently could curdle milk. So history records even the King of England being fooled by the packaging not matching the product.

However the ones that get me are the lush photos of fast food that are as close to reality as a beauty contestants boobs. We see a burger dripping in some delicious hickory sauce, nestling on a puffy bun sandwiched between an explosion of crisp lettuce, as springy as a bouncy castle, as well as fries standing to attention like golden soldiers. But the real thing looks more like a hockey puck that's been sat on by Kim Kardashian and the lettuce as limp as La Cage aux Folles dancers' handshake. As for the fries, they have all the appeal of a bus driver's sock.

Just as there are legions of professional make-up artists at models photo shoots, there is a similar phalanx of stylists helping to create a fast food ad. These ‘artists’ come complete with tweezers, oils and brushes along with more unusual beauty aids such as blowtorches and knives.

I can so easily imagine our L.K. Bennett wearing stylists with their black roots sprouting under their blond bottle perms, clacking with hushed tones during the shoot.

"Do people really think that quarter-pounder wakes up looking that good?"
"My chicken nugget lettuce just came here to curl up and dye."
"If truth is beauty, that tortilla roll is a goddamned liar."

If anyone can send me a promo-photo of fast food that matches the heart-attack-in-a-sack they just bought for a few dollars, I will post it up!

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I feel pretty, oh so pretty ......and I pity anyone who isn't me today. Tra-la-la

Why...

Do people laugh at fashion disasters walking down the street? Surely what's funny is the fact these misguided peacocks looked in the mirror before going out and said "Yes, this works."

I am not referring to people unlucky to have been cursed with legs like a billiard table, or who hit every branch of the ugly tree. I applaud people challenging our blinkered idea of beauty. The ones that worry me is anyone who is 'making a statement'. Let's be clear. That statement is "look at me, I am an utter twat."

The only thing worse than people dressed like an explosion in a clothing store, are fashion show commentators. Some stick insect model with a purse string pout, parades down the catwalk wearing a real beehive on her head, a dress made out of a bin liner and Cornish pasties for shoes. Nevertheless some expert says "Yes strange as this may seem, this is what we will all be wearing next summer." Egg on face …. is all they will be wearing.

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Life is being blighted by blockers & noisy food

February 21, 2015
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Whenever the lights go up at the theatre or cinema, why are the people at the ends of my row the last people to file out? I smoulder waiting whilst they gawk at the programme, endlessly check under their seat or simply stand there trying to find their fellow travellers on the bus from Hove who are in other seats sprinkled around the auditorium? They are the same people who seem surprised to get a bill at the check- out and then search for their purse for five minutes, or the 'change monkeys' at coffee shops who insist not only in paying in cash but counting out loose change to the last penny. The driver who texts his mates when the lights go green, the waddler who parks his supermarket trolley sideways in narrow aisles then wanders away, or the escalator riders who stop dead after stepping off so everyone behind piles into them? They are life’s Blockers. They need to identify themselves so we in turn can avoid them. I have an idea of the sign for identification; it starts with W and ends with…….

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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All posts in category: Fasion Health & Beauty

I'm an individual... so let's paint it black

Why...

Never be a fitness freak in your twenties...

Why...

Slow...slow...quick quick...slow...you don't know how to walk

Why...

Light bulbs. The devil's own testicles!

Why...

Step right this way for your daily insult...

Why...

You have a vocation...? My arse!

Why...

Hitler, Genghis Khan, Pol Pot and Charles Manson all had one thing in common...

Why...

My Underpants intimidate me…

Why...

Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

Why...

For you Sir, no charge... For Madam though that's $10...

Why...

WHAT SIZES DOES STUPIDITY COME IN?

Why...

Nice Tattoos. Perfect for Shakespeare

Why...

If it’s cheap…it will last a lifetime

Why...

Does your hairdresser’s own hairstyle frighten you?

Why...

Gangstas in Gucci trainers and Accountants in Aston Martins. Where’s the exclusivity in that??

Why...

It’s a pile of crap…..but beautifully lit

Why...

I feel pretty, oh so pretty ......and I pity anyone who isn't me today. Tra-la-la

Why...

Life is being blighted by blockers & noisy food

Why...