Dear Imaginary Teenage Daughter   Apologies if what follows is patronising. As my imaginary teenage daughter, I like to consider you a clever young lady with her head firmly screwed on. Even so, I want to talk to you about Gossip Girl and, more importantly, the nature of love.   We both agree that Gossip Girl is The Greatest TV Show of All Time but something is troubling me. Your adamantly pro-Chuck and Blair stance is kind of freaking me out. I get that they are meant to be caught up in the Greatest Love Story of All Time but I want to tell you that what you are seeing on the TV screen isn’t love.   Remember that ridiculous plot line about Georgina returning with the baby that she convinced everyone was Dan’s? We both scoffed at that. Remember how we guffawed at the sight of Liz Hurley’s alleged “acting”? Or how we sniggered at the absurdity of Chuck Bass during his Nehru collar and peasant waistcoat phase? What I’m getting at is that Gossip Girl is full of implausible and stupid plot ideas, crazy casting choices and unfortunate outfits. Blair and Chuck are no different.   I don’t want to launch into an all-out character assassination here. Bah, whatever, these are TV characters NOT real people so I’ll launch away. Chuck Bass is not a romantic hero – he is a complete and utter tool. Let’s look at the evidence:   1) He tried to rape little Jenny Humphrey 2) He tried to hit Blair   I feel it unnecessary to go any further.   Listen up, imaginary teenage daughter, if you ever consider bringing a guy like this home, you will be grounded FOREVER. Even if he has a dazzling collection of cravats, wears smoking jackets[.....]

  Reading: Tina Fey: Bossypants     Tina Fey is pretty high in the Bookish Brunette list of icons (I’ll publish this list in full one day). She’s clever, funny and cool as hell. She also wears glasses and has brown hair – traits that make us, essentially, the same person.   Bossypants was in my pile of books that I was reluctant to read because everyone else was raving about them (see also: How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran). In these cases, my inner contrarian acts out and I find myself willing to read anything, including the back of shampoo bottles and People’s Friend magazine, instead of what I really want to read.   I caved late one night and purchased Bossypants to read on my iPad. Oh my, this book is good. It is like an inspirational handbook for every nerdy and ambitious woman out there, though I don’t think Tina would agree with that. She’s too cool to try and tell people how to live their lives. The book recounts Tina’s childhood and her early days in improvisational comedy. She is honest and direct when it comes to her success in the male dominated TV industry. Her account of the Sarah Palin phenomenon is hilarious in how it depicts the madness of a TV juggernaut alongside her anxieties over planning her little daughter’s birthday party.   Tina Fey has worked her ass off the get where she is on her own terms. I plan to do the same. Thanks, Tina.   Michel de Montaigne: On Friendship   I blogged about this dude a while back, when I was pondering my own tendency to be “on the fence” about certain things. I picked up a copy of On Friendship from the book market on the South[.....]

  I am becoming increasingly aware of a fundamental misunderstanding on the behalf of lots of loud-mouthed idiots and bullies. A deliberate misunderstanding designed to make other people feel inadequate, deceived and weak.   This misunderstanding is of one simple, four letter word: nice.   The meaning of nice has been taken over, twisted and manipulated into a negative. Nice is now a weakness. I find it hard to associate the word with anything other than a snide mocking tone and an attempted insult.   This isn’t the first time I’ve observed this worrying trend. I wrote about it a couple of years back, when fashion was going through a distinctly fugly and edgy phase. I got sick of seeing the phrase “subverted sweetness” in fashion magazines. I wanted to scream “LET THE SWEETNESS BE!!!!”.   A self-help book* called Nice Girls Just Don’t Get It by Lois Frankel and Carol Frohlinger has prompted this current rage. The advice given in the book isn’t bad. In fact a lot of it is practical and helpful, especially around assertiveness and confidence building. My issue stems from the author’s assumption that nice is bad.   Lacking confidence is bad, being a walkover is bad, making yourself miserable to please others is bad. Last time I checked, these traits have very little to do with being nice.   Nice is charm, nice is politeness, nice is making a room a better place by simply being in it. Nice doesn’t mean avoiding conflict, but it does mean not actively seeking it for kicks. Oh, and nice isn’t just for girls. Women, men and boys can be nice too.   Nice people don’t have to finish last. It is all another line of mythological bullshit from the bullies to hold us back and weaken us. Being[.....]

  Have you ever done that thing when you make a cup of tea and leave the tea bag in for too long? The result is a bitter and disappointing beverage that leaves a nasty taste in your mouth.   That is how I’m feeling about film and TV execs. refusal to leave Sex and the City alone. The original show was good, much like tea. The first film was a tad too much – a bit like when you over-enthusiastically squish the tea bag with a spoon. The second film was over steeped and over squished, with a hefty teaspoon of cringe inducing racial stereotyping and the unforgiveable “Lawrence of my labia” line.   News that US TV network, The CW has green lit a pilot of a Sex and the City prequel series, based on Candace Bushnell’s The Carrie Diaries, is making it tricky for me to extend this simile without introducing excrement to this already overwrought cup of tea.   Rumour has it that Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage will produce the show. Now, I love these guys; they gave the world Seth Cohen. The OC is my ultimate DVD box set indulgence. They produced Gossip Girl too, which is essentially The OC relocated to New York. They excel at telling far-fetched stories of beautiful, spoilt and one-dimensional young people. They also excel at recycling ridiculous story lines. With The CW as the network and this powerhouse producing pair at the helm, there is no doubt that The Carrie Diaries will be glossy, groomed and full of supposed teenagers talking like grown-ups. There will be stories of mistaken identity, masquerade balls and a sensitive “outsider” love interest for young Carrie.   I’m just not sure what a Schwartz/Savage back story will add to the Sex and the[.....]

    Grunge happened five years too early for me. My sister did it properly, what with her riot grrl friends who gave her tapes of Veruca Salt songs and had rainbow-streaked hair adorned with daisies*.   I came of musical age post-grunge and post-Brit Pop. To over intellectualise the issue, it was a time of musical flux. Britney was prancing about in her school uniform, Christina was writhing around in the sand and I was still wearing white knee socks and velvet Alice bands with my name piped on them in puffy pen. Pop was reigning supreme and I was not feeling it in the slightest. I‘d seen my sister grow up and thought she was pretty damned cool. So I decided to be an alternative indie rocker, just like she was.   It was a nice little identity to play with as a 14-year-old. The make up was glittery; the hair was dyed with pots of gloopy paste from the hippy shop and the nails where always black and always chipped. The tights and accessories were pretty awesome too.   Faux-fur and tiaras aside, the music really mattered to me. Music is still very much my radar, it is where I find myself when I’m losing sight of who I am and what matters to me.   Some of the albums from my teenage years have not aged well. A case in point: Tura Satana’s** All Is Not Well album (sample lyric: “In the back of their neck, I got a nickel plated flex-g and a right to dress sexy”). As a 15-year-old I considered this to be a masterpiece in rap-metal and feminism. As a 27-year-old, I consider it to be “a bit of a racket”.   I’m on a bit of a musical nostalgia trip this[.....]

I really hate it when people act all coy and secretive on social media. Pseudo-enigmatic tweets and statuses that read “So excited!” or “Heard the most amazing news!” make me gag. Whatever it is, just tell us already, or face losing my interest and/or getting unfollowed.   Back when I was involved in community radio I was told: “never trail the news”. This meant that you could hint and build excitement about upcoming programmes and songs, but never be a tease about the news. It makes sense; the news transcends such cheap chicanery. As it is in community radio, so it should be in real life.   After all that, I’m now going to pull a rather dramatic about turn. Today’s blogpost is a collection of photos. This is because I’m really busy working on exciting stuff that I can’t tell you about. By my very nature, I want to tell you and squeak excitedly in your general direction (sorry). But I can’t, at least not just yet.   There you have it, I have become a cheap and tacky social media tease. I feel dirty.   Here are some pretty pictures from the day I went to Bridgnorth and Instagrammed the place to hell. If there’s one thing that the world needs, it is another blogpost of try-hard “artsy” pictures. Enjoy.   BBxx            

  There has been lot of stuff that has baffled and bemused me this year. I kind of wish that I’d kept a list of all these things, it would have made writing this list easier and have resulted in a far superior piece of work. Well, there’s always next year…   1)    Downton Abbey: Not seen it, don’t want to see it. Bring back The House of Eliott, now that’s what I call a period drama.   2)    How Facebook is ever going to make any money: You don’t want to know how much of my time and energy has been wasted pondering this issue. Best solution? Fine users for the following infractions:   i.     Status updates that hint at political allegiances with the EDL ii.    Status updates whilst in labour iii.   Spelling “with” as “wiv” iv.    Stupid chain messages/statuses suggesting that I can help cure breast cancer by sharing my bra size and colour with all and sundry. It isn’t funny, it is just plain creepy.   There are more but I’ll stop there.     3)    That Fenton video on YouTube: It is an old dude chasing a dog through a park. I can watch my Dad doing something very similar on a daily basis.     4)    Thatcher “nostalgia”: Yes, she’s a powerful woman. This doesn’t mean that I should respect or give a shit about the heinous old cow.     5)    Why everyone suddenly became a current affairs pundit/satirist: I blame Twitter for this one. From Hackgate to Higgs Boson, everyone has suddenly decided that their opinions and gags are so important and hilarious that the WHOLE WORLD needs to read them. I really hope 2012 is a slow news year.     6)    The Kate Middleton look: Hurrah! Sloane for the 21st Century! That’s just what[.....]