A Year Late- Fantastical Fashion Article

Write a savvy, dynamic feature for The Decade Edition, 27th December 2009. This edition will celebrate a decade in the millennium, combining thought provoking journalism with futuristic fashion features and 2010 hype. Your feature title is ‘Noughties Fashion: The Renaissance of the Individual or Copycat Culture?’ You will be required to write a maximum of 800 words for our fashion-forward readers, exploring the last ten years of fashion and what has influenced it. Ultimately, you must explore why the Noughties has struggled to develop its own distinct fashion culture, questioning the quality of life in the first 10 years of the 21st century.

DEMOGRAPHICS The Sunday Times Style Magazine:

§ The first supplement in the UK - launched for pure fashion and style.

§ Readership of 2.2 million.

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§ Reaches more ABC1 women than Vogue, Elle, Vanity Fair, Bazaar and Tatler combined.

§ Read by over 3 times as many ABC1 women as Grazia.

§ 27% more ABC1 women than You magazine. #

Noughties Fashion: The Renaissance of the Individual or Copycat Culture?

The kids of the i-Pod generation are rebelling. They are rebelling and they are wearing our 70s cast-offs for comfort. Why? Chavs, Crocs and Ugg boots. That’s why.

As we head towards the prolific date of 2010, I ask myself, what has this decade done for fashion? In this supposedly modern era, where a post-modern-neo-nu-rave-punk can saunter through the crowds in Dr. Martins and a trip down a British high-street bombards the casual shopper with copies of designer fashion, where does the distinction lie? The scenester’s are turning to vintage clothes and charity shops in a bid to escape the mundane of the high-street. They are bleaching their hair bright blue, piercing their septum’s and streaking tattoos up their arms. It’s a kind of desperation. Why, in a country that embraces individualism and a plethora of cultures, do we seem to be buying into the same trends? And why do those who actively seek eccentricity somehow manage to blend in?

You only have to Wikipedia ‘2000-2009’ to appreciate the last ten troubled years of economic collapse, political misery and natural disaster. So where has fashion fitted in? It has been unarguably confused. Fashion journalists have searched for a distinctive trend, a centre point or a definition as often associated with decades gone by. The Noughties, far from restricting fashion-followers, has offered creative freedom and choice to the open-minded, yet high-street honeys continue to clone themselves.

Let’s lay the blame on the Copycat’s, who claw over the latest Chanel spring/summer collection like a pack of wolves to a lump of flesh. The transition of fashion from couture to designer to high-street has seen a rapid development in the last ten years as production becomes more efficient and the demand from the high-street becomes intense. And here, ladies and gents, comes our national obsession with the Celebrity. ‘If Pixie Lott is wearing it, I want to be, but I want it affordable and I want it now.’ Never before has a decade been so obsessed with the fashion of the rich and famous or demanded cheap transfers of their lifestyle. As soon as Chloé displays their latest trend, hot off the catwalk, you can bet your bottom dollar that Topshop will produce an uncannily-yet-not-sue-worthingly similar design at a quarter of the price, and then who gets their grubby hands on a surprising look-a-like? Primark. The hoards pounce and devour with an animalistic greed.

And so sees the out-wearing of jeggings, of Ugg boots, of skinny jeans- they’ve been overdone, they are no longer fashion forward- if Katie Price is wearing them, no one else can. Primark’s ingenious invention of ‘throw-away-fashion,’ sees even the most timeless of styles being destroyed- the femme fatal delights of the trench coat, for example. Associated with wrapping up our feminine secrets like a scene out of Double Indemnity, we find that double-crossing Primark drains it of our fantasy and makes it commonplace and casual. And all because of sickeningly cheap rip-offs that we ashamedly adore. Spending £20 on a poorly made trench coat that’ll last you one season seems far more appealing than cashing out £95 on a Topshop copy that’ll last you three. And with money at a scarce minimum, who can blame theses savvy shoppers? After all, it’s supply and demand.

So where do the ‘look-at-me-I’m-different’ desperados go? The high-street may be the Holy Grail for Pixie Lott fans, but underground prog-rock-anti-folk lovers want much, much more. In walks the Renaissance of the Individual, where the fashion-lover-Topshop-hater seeks liberty from the cage of Copycat, but how? They are Magpieing.

Magpieing is the careful selection of fashion trends from the twentieth century in a bid to create a new, mish-mashed style of modern glory. Of course, the high-street is always toying with styles from days-gone-by but no one achieves it better than the scenester. They truly work for it. Searching the back of antique shops for a one-of-a-kind broach, turning over charity shops under the watchful eye of a disapproving volunteer, cashing out £40 on a vintage (more likely hand-me-down) knitted jumper with faux fur trimming… it’s madness, surely? Because, the sickening fact is that the transition from underground to mainstream has never been so swift. A cultural movement is taking place where styles that would be deemed eccentric and untouchable by many are cropping up all over fashion magazines with an unstoppable velocity. We are all revolutionaries. Shoulder-pads, thigh high boots, studs, Agyness Deyn hair cuts… the mainstream is sneaking these trends under their wing and acting like they made them, pioneered by Queen of quirk, Lady Gaga.

This modern Renaissance, where every fashionista seeks individualism, is consuming fashion fast. The underground is struggling to maintain its integrity more than ever before. And do not forget, readers, that with the World Wide Web, nothing is sacred. This decade has seen the creation of Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Blogging. The ease of access to information leads to unavoidable exposure, so how is the scenester supposed to keep style for themselves? Eventually, the mainstream wave will engulf all; leaving the original Renaissance radicals inevitable victims of Copycat Culture.

We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues

Is….is….…..is it you? Come closer. No! Don’t turn on the light! Stay away! You scorn me, you taunt me with artificial hope! Who are you?... I remember those days not. I only remember snow. Snow. All there is now is the white sheet of slipshod snow.

The long hold of winter did more to me than I could have imagined. It sucked my spirit out of my eyeballs and tossed it to the rain clouds. It chewed desire out of my feet and fed it to the frost. Will this ever be over? Has the ice age taken hold of our land? Is this Armageddon? Has the holy one who I have always denied finally remembered his role and reaped vengeance across the country for our fornication, and our binge drinking, and our breaking of dear old Britain? Retreating to the log cabin, bolting the door, surrounded by tins of pineapple, I pull the winter furs around my chapped neck skin, forehead to my knees, to the safety of the foetal, forever. Hibernation is dedication. It involves the removal of motivation. I forget the need to shave. My legs become a terrain of hostile helplessness. My armpits the place of demons. My upper-lip, Jolen starved, form the dense paintbrush shadow. All is lost. All is over.
Winter has won.
Winter has won.
Winter has won.

And then, as if from the fair throat of Liberty herself, comes the lowly cry of the defiant starling. 'No,' he calls, 'No! We cannot give in. We cannot allow this damned season to win! We'll wait for Spring! We'll wait for Spring!'

I, lost in untold folds of grease and despair, stir. The noise of birdsong rustles in my lank tresses like fresh sea water.

The Venetian blind cancels out the day. I have circum to a defeatist state of mind. There will be no spring, there is no such thing, there never was, only winter, perpetual, consuming winter, with his toothy snarl and his drippy, snotty nose.

‘No!’ Cries the starling, ‘Awaken, girl, awaken, gaze beyond your window… go, go, gaze beyond the winter girl, the window!’

And so I write this, in blessed happiness that all is right in the world, that we have not been forgotten, that spring has sprung across the lost broadlands of our hearts like a big, happy orgasm of peace.


The long hold

Awake! Fragranced space pours pithy through the pours,
See the spirit that winter weathered, frost dishevelled pelt adores.
She’ll awake; she’ll awake, to the whistle clear of day,
Childish roots shoot under mantles of a distinct, dormant delay.
See how the crocus is buoyant beneath the hanker of the framework fall,
So awake and alight and engage with the seamless beat of the call.

My grey eyes felt the feeling of the steady
Seedless peeling of the second skin I owned.
Yet to wake from dreamt indolence, a delusion
Dampened scene, I’ll follow him with the infant faith
of springtime’s summer dream.

Stepping out of the sepia, winters hold undone,
My grey eyes laugh patina at the exultant heat of sun.

Soft with fatigue.

Ergh. I've dragged myself from my filthy pit to write to you. I've had a problem with Valentine's Day since I was four years old and I'll have a problem with it for the rest of my life.

Charlwood was a private school, god knows why I went to private school at four years old but I suppose superior education seemed ideal at the time. I have a twin brother, Daniel, therefore we have been through school together, side by side, since the beginning of time. I've only just realized this and it's pretty cool, having an allie as close as a twin brother through all of the horror's of school life.

My family will always remember a teacher from that school, Miss Potter, we'll never forget her name, who endlessly and relentlessly picked on my brother like he was an annoying tumour attached to her eyelid. She was a very bad teacher. Oddly, I remember how we used to have to say a prayer before lunch or we wouldn't be allowed to eat, and how uncomfortable I felt even then. I remember Dan whispering venomously to all the kids at our table that we didn't believe in god, like we were admitting to having a heroine addiction, and all the children gasped and one hissed, 'I'm telling!' There was a milk scheme where one pupil was appointed daily(or was it weekly?) to control milk distribution. It was a high accolade. When it was some one's birthday they were allowed to stand up in front of assembly and be sung to. It was a very, very small school. Once, when my little sister was born, my brother and I announced her birth to everyone like we were royalty. I felt very important that day. But that school was not very good at making its students feel important. In hindsight, having left in Year 1 and gone to a comprehensive (due to the dreaded Miss Potter, no less,) and as I get older, I keep finding endless flaws in the way it was organised. I have a shamefully appalling memory and yet I remember so much from Charlwood, and I was only four years old.

I remember the competition to draw a rabbit. I remember the big cement tunnel in the playground that was submerged in a hill, (more likely a small mound,) so that it looked like a cave. I remember the old wooden crates and tires that you could play with at lunch, and the library. I remember the annual competition to choose a Harvest Queen and King... was it harvest? Or May Day? I think it was May Day actually. They were always Year 2's and they were always the prettiest and they always wore flowers in their hair and got to dance around the May pole and wear the stunning bridesmaid's dress of my dreams. I hated them. I was never Mary and I was never May Queen, or Princess. I was a cloud in the Nativity play and my brother was a robin. It was always the same girl who got to be Mary. I remember sitting in a circle and the teacher asking who would like to be Mary and even though I put my hand up I knew I wouldn't be picked and I knew who would. And she was. It's still the same to this day. I suppose I have a bit of a complex about May Queen's.

So, where's this all going, hey? The thing is this; I don't think school's should acknowledge Valentine's Day at all. It doesn't have any significance to the real world and only sets children up to suffer disappointment. But no, Charlwood decided that it would be super kitsch if all the Year 2's made a Valentine's card for someone in reception. [DISCLAIMER: I don't know how much of this memory I have fabricated or imagined, but every year it comes back to me with distinct clarity and horror and I can't help but believe that it is true. Then again, I'm adamant that when I watched my Dad arrest someone in Woolworth's he said 'I'm arresting for you ser-to-sigh-etty.' Which, in retrospect, is not true at all.] They sat each reception child in rows in the hall, facing the assembly door, a firing line. I have a vague memory of being elevated, like I was on a platform, but maybe that just illustrates the extent of my agony and solitude. The Year 2's filed in, embarrassed yet wildly impressed at their card making skills and the thought that were were expressing emotion to another pupil. Pink, red, sparkles, PVA glue, buttons, magazine cut-outs, asymmetrical hearts, fluff, finger prints. The cards fluttered in as if they were floating on an puff of glittery sweetness. The reception children twitched anxiously in their seats. Would the snotty, smelly boy give his card to me? The one who used to try and hold my hand at break time? Or would the very grown up, good looking stud, who had a trendy hair cut and a pretty mum? The one who was always May Day King and Joseph. Slowly, the hand-made masterpieces were distributed and excited chatter ensued. It was loud, and consuming, and somehow managed to throw an invisibility cloak over me in my small silence. In my patience. In my hope. I think I may have made a tiny, desperate prayer then, just a little one, like the time I prayed that Mum and Dad would let me stay up to watch You've Been Framed. The prayer drifted above me in the air like stagnant gas. The possibility was hanging on with all its might. I was hanging on, my heart pounded with pleading, 'Please, please, please.' Then, like a thousand tons of hot, harsh air, the truth hit me full in the face and feelings. No one had made me a card. No one. Not even the snotty, smelly boy. I was alone and lonely and stayed sat on my little school chair, devastated. I remember crying and needing to go to the toilet and needing to go home and needing to pull the head off every happy face in that hall. The crying overcame me. I was heaving heavy sobs out across the hall like the ceiling had just caved in on top of me, devastated.

So how did Charlwood resolve this abominable mistake? Mrs. Lamb, my teacher, haphazardly doodled some kind words on a piece of red card and folded it in half. I became the kid who'd got a Valentine's from the teacher. My brother taunted me with his card for what felt like weeks, but I suppose that was his role, the smug twin brother who got the chocolate milk. I cringe to think back to it. The burnt heart-shaped blotch in my memory, singed and steaming.

These sort of memories, these harrowing experiences as a child, they really do effect your whole perspective. Now, often, I feel like I'm the one missing out. The one who'll always be waiting for her Valentine's, who'll always look to Valentine's day with dread and hope, who, upon hearing the postman push letters through the door will, despite herself, run downstairs in angst and anticipation. Yet the one who'll always, inevitably, receive a little note from her Mum, or a heart felt recognition of the past from her sister, or a hastily scribbled piece of scrap paper from her teacher.

My sensible heart.

This is the creative writing I was telling you about. I wrote it in about 40 minutes in a seminar and have polished it up a little. We were given an image of a black, leather book with the words 'I do not want this back,' tipexed across the cover in large capitals. This is what came to me...

Dead Letters

Autumn brought cold sunshine and the need to feel whole again. The hollow chest was echoing, full of sound instead of feeling. I have that lime green scarf on, the one that we found at the train station, and my hair is washed out blue, like a damp cloth, you had said. The thankless grim of daylight burns blotches in my eyes and the weather is misbehaving.

Holding onto you for the last time, my veins squirm under my silver skin, swimming. Those nails you had painted are rolling around my tongue, my fingers bleed from their beds. Helpless and eaten with your disease, The Book sings songs still searching. It makes no sense now. Words written by your hand are broken, pulled flat across the page.

The smell of petrol reminds me of camping. The smell of anything reminds me of camping. It’s consumed my senses.

The Book brought pen to page and gave that night reason.

The Book was dead; it didn’t exist until you made it. It was just a dream to get us through the dusty air and delusion.

The Book remembered us. Now I have to forget.

Gasoline melts through pages. Soaking ink and glue and photograph. I should pray. I should pick flowers. Or weep. We are so beyond those times. The lighter flashes, the flame won’t hold. The fire licks and falls, licks and falls, licks and holds, sudden and hungry, eating the corners, the sides, the leather coat. Burning. Your words smell like burning.

I drop you onto the dirt. I drop you from my wet, bloody fingers and watch as orange ribbons suck your little soul away.

The sun sighs and moves slowly beneath the sycamore trees. Night holds me: linger, wait, stay, the ash must cool; you must watch the dead letters blow away.

Testing the waters with the tip of my finger, I begin to scoop the ashes into a plastic bag. Handfuls. And then I scream. I panic, I’m frantic. The ashes fall away, the sulphur smell disappears and The Book shines whole in my hands. Untouched, untainted, unbroken. The Book shines whole in my hands.

Modern times arrived.

Oh hai there. It's been a while. How you doing?

They say this is the most depressing time of the year. January. Oh January, poor January. It didn't choose to be at the beginning of the year. At the beginning of the time that you tell yourself that you will loose weight, that you will find love, that you will stop taking crack. And when you fail, inevitably, you blame January.

On a topical note, considering the name of my blog and my blirgin post, Marina and her lovely, little Diamonds have released the most radio friendly song of the decade (of the last 24 days, then.) I am emotional. All I said in my review, all I predicted, all I hoped against, has come to light. I suppose I should have prepared myself for this. But I am not prepared. Shall we take a look at her lyrics? Just to rub salt into the wound that is rapidly stretching across my heart...

'Hollywood infected your brain
You wanted kissing in the rain
Oh oh, I’ve been living in a movie scene
Puking American dreams
Oh oh, I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America
I’m obsessed with the mess that’s America.'

Whenever someone sings about how shite America is, they have officially run out of ideas. America is such an easy target, so unimaginative, so done. It's lyrics like that that are for the masses, because the neutral, unpassionate middleman responds with a, 'Yeah! Fuck America, or Iraq, or whatever... where's my Mean Girl's DVD?' When Green Day released 'American Idiot' my soul broke in two. And Enter Shikari's most recent album, don't even get me started on that. A butler, I can only assume, opens with his 'vexing' voice over: 'An aidless and harrowing future is developing for our generation and generations to come.' Then, we are encouraged, in a million languages, that 'WE MUST UNITE!!!!' Come on, drop the bullshit! You don't care that we live in a corrupt society. If you did, you'd start a revolution or sign a petition or start a facebook group or send a text, man. It is so very distasteful when musician's choose to turn their aggressive attention onto a particular country. Or even worse, onto Capitalism. This is the way it is. It wouldn't work better any other way and there's nothing much that we, the people, can do to power change. Of course, united, we could effect something better for ourselves, but there will always be lies, there will always be conspiracies and unknown factors behind the facade of a functioning society, so stop Capitalism Bashing and write something effective. I'm pretty defeatist when it comes to politics and the such. It's a bleak prospect, but human beings have lived centuries and centuries under the wrath of superior rule, and sometimes, get this.... even quite contentedly!

This is getting overwrought. I only came here to show you what I wrote in my Creative Writing seminar but now I think it'll make this blog to long and it won't be read. Dread. I'll post it later. As for now, listen to Marina's song 'Hollywood,' and die a little.

I can assure you it's just a scratch.

So I've been thinking about the perusal of male affection. And I've been thinking, being single for a whole year in March and all, wow, that I'm bored and tired and have had enough of playing with the toys of 'The Love Game.' As the Ga Ga says, 'It's complicated and stupid, got my ass squeezed by sexy cupid.' Excluding the latter, which is drivel, it certainly is stupid. And most certainly a game.

Shall I text him?
Shall I wait approx. 4 hours to add him on facebook?
Shall I stalk him on said facebook?- Of course.
How shall I present my tone in the text?
Presumptuous?
Casual?
Officious?
Shall I put a kiss on the end?
Shall I not, to appear allusive?
Shall I ask to meet?
Shall I wait for him to ask me?
Shall I take my clothes off, rub baby oil on my lumps, take a picture and bluetooth it to him to make him want me?

Ya-de-ya-de-ya-da. Bull. Back in the day, when all was good and true, there was no text. There was no facebook, tool of the demons, or digitalisation, or Heelies. There was just two faces, two voiceboxes and awkward eye contact. Oh to go back to a time when a man actually courted a woman. I'm romanticizing, I know, but all this unreal interweb microwave cowardly communication and all its stupid rules is fundamentally odd.

Maybe I'm just old fashioned? Well. I know I'm old fashioned, it's stitched onto my palms like ring worm, but I would love to just meet a guy, find ourselves mutually attracted and get the hell on with it. In my mind, each futile text is a building brick, each facebook 'poke' a slather of cement and each MSN 'nudge' a foundation to the Anti Human Communication Wall. Which ultimately leads to dry conversation and mindless shagging. Explains a lot, right?

I've been swirling around in a washing machine mind on repeat. I've been finding the seams in my seamless soul and wondering what is wrong. But, in reality, when I disregard self-esteem and the need to be modest, I know that I'm not unattractive. I have 2 arms. And 2 legs. Bonus. I have two eyes that are almost the same size and a nose that doesn't eat my face like a blood hungry leech. My ears don't stick out. I am not fat and I am not skinny. My hair could do with work but I am paying the price of impatience and I've dealt with it. I'm tall, but hey, whenever was that a sin? I am able bodied and I'm not obsessively into cattle production or The Chronicles of Narnia, meaning, I am not a single minded bore. So what's the issue?

There's this cliché which I shall resentfully repeat, I can't abide cliché, that goes 'When you stop looking, he will find you.' Oh hai! Thanks! So if you naturally want something with all your body and heart you simply have to order your mind to give up! Simples! (Meerkat referencing, the shame.) It's impossible. It's like telling a moth to stop seeking the light, like telling a dog to stop licking its arse hole. I am being totally hyperbolic but hey, it's all such a joke.

Ultimately, in this labyrinth of do or don't, within this rule book of shall I/shan't I, is the irrevocable truth that there is no escaping it. Modern times dictate that I'll meet my match on e-harmony.com, get married, hold the wedding reception in the town hall with a disco DJ, get hideously drunk to hide the fact that I've always been sure I'd make matrimony with Robert Patterson and end up smashing my Nan in the face with the bottom tier of the wedding cake.

Sweet.

Do you trust me, Clive?

Well, what a wonderful way to end a wayward decade. My sister and I truly climbed upon the rock-rap 90's bandwagon of Rage Against the Machine and our unabridged pleasure at the prospers of our protest have left me quite giddy. Like a little girl creeping downstairs on Christmas morning- the glory, the splendour of seeing all the presents splayed out across the floor, the half-eaten carrot, the sherry devoured, the sooty boot marks on the carpet. Bliss.

Ay, music fans, I'm sure you share my joy. It's not that I am a massive RATM fan, I wouldn't go out of my way to see them live but I harbour an inextinguishable hatred for the X-Factor and everything related to it. Trips home to the Southside are bittered by the putrid stench of Cowell. I abhor it. I express my disgust at the monotony of modern day music making to my parents who, ashamed yet content, gaze at the telly-box with addicted helplessness like monkey's forced into cocaine. My Mother pleads 'I hate it, I just watch it for the laughs, promise.' Just like the rest of the nation then? I’m sure.

So imagine my utter delight when I found this group which was revolting against the bullshit, joining together the like-minded music-lovers of the late Noughties like something from our nostalgic sexual fantasies of yesteryear! The revolution had begun and I was taking part! I was standing hand-in-hand with those who just wouldn't take it no more more. No, they wouldn't take it no more. I ain't gonna stand idly by while the bridal reply of a marriage of styles is "Yeah, but what's their demographic?"

I ain't gonna take it no more.
I ain't gonna take it no more.
I ain't gonna stand idly by with a tut and a sigh while inside we all cry out for something new.

I ain't gonna take it no more.
I ain't gonna take it no more.
Soulless music, artless lyrics.
Goalless movements, heartless gimmicks.
Controlled and clueless, careers lasting a minute.
If this is the big life, well I ain't lookin' to live it.
We ain't pushing the boundaries, we're blowing them up.
We ain't trying to expand the scene, we want the scene to erupt.

Ay, Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip knew what they were on about. Alas, if only we were revolting against war! Against poverty! Against racism! And not just against some grossly over paid high-waisted git called Simon who we have all chosen to demonise. Even so, we like to pretend that we play an active part in history, don’t we? Like we were there when the first plane hit, when the bus exploded, when the wave consumed, when the carpet was forcibly removed from under the Cowell’s feet. I was there! I've cut out the article to show my kids. Not that they will care or understand the sheer endlessness of my joy or how we won. How we did it. How my sister got whiplash moshing in our living-room to the live Radio1 coverage. Or how I made a video. Or how we told the man in Vue cinema about Christmas number 1 who really didn’t care at all.

Glory is mine, forever, amen. I have defeated this decade and all its horrors just by downloading a song titled, ‘Killing in the Name.’ So it's sort of apt then, really.

The Crying of the Lost Things

So it's crunch time. I'm starting to think about my blog in terms of how I can fit it into my life, which surely means the mouth is beginning to unfasten and I'm taking a nose-dive down the oesophagus.

I'm in a horribly pensive mood. I'm in a horrible regret ridden mood. I have a 2,000 word essay due in on Wednesday and it's slowly eating the lustre out of my eyes.

I want to be a dancer! I want to be on stage! I want to be the one you wish you'd fought for!

Bloody hell. I don't even have anything creative to post to whoever out there reads this humdrum little ditty of mine. I just feel like writing, I feel like creating, like being being being.

I bought this vintage fur coat. I walked to uni today in said vintage fur coat and it felt like everyone who saw me was thinking, 'Douchebag, take that off, you are not a successful-aged-gracefully old starlet, you are not Elizabeth Taylor, just because they are vogue does not give you the god given right to wear one, k?' Yeah, I was thinking about it that much. I love it, it isn't real fur, before the tide of detestation consumes my soul, but it is delicious and it was £20 and I could not say no to the charming, peculiar little lady at the back of the antique shop. I tried it on and she said it's been waiting for me for 40 years. And she had a smelly, almost dead dog who, when I bent down to stroke him, lent against my knee like he’d been fighting off collapse. His eyes said he was grateful for the support of his cumbersome little body. How cruel, keeping a decrepit little thing alive like that. And in an antique shop. Quite fitting, actually.

I look at trip down Elm Hill on my lonesome and found myself in this alleyway, and there was a black cat and we exchanged pleasantries. There was a door that was open and I was thinking 'Is this a shop or someone's house?' It looked a bit like a shop because it was adorned with old fashioned sign posts, like the sort you get in the Toby Cavery when they're trying to be oldsy-woldsy. But these were genuinely oldsy-woldsy, antique type things. So in I trotted. There was a young man sitting in the corner. I was surprised to see such a young man in such a place of antiquery. He had an N-Dubz hat on, though he'd defiantly resent that association, and a vintage jumper like he'd just stepped out of the Milkbar. I said hello. He seemed put out. I must have been the only customer he’d had all day and he was probably watching porn on his little laptop screen or the Antiques Road Shop. I continued regardless. ‘Oh what a place!’ I remarked, ‘It’s like an Aladdin’s cave!’ I exclaimed. He said ‘Yeah.’ There was a skeleton hanging up in the corner holding a moth-eaten umbrella. Maybe it was the skeleton of the previous owner and he'd done a Pyscho type thing and pretended to be her and then he was going to murder me with the 1867 cheery wood pick-axe behind the counter. I turned around sharpish expecting a pick-axe to the face and a fitting Eee Eee Eee!!! BAM! Crash! Blood blood blood ddeeaaattthhh. No. He was still watching his Roadshow. I continued to browse. There were two stuffed animals in a freeze-frame-type-position where an otter was attacking/being attacked by a snake. And a basket of sea shells. And an array of glasses with lenses missing. And a bird cage that I quite fancied. He said it was £25. I could probably have used my feminine charms to haggle it down to a tenner but I hate haggling, it makes me feel like a gypsy, and he might have killed me then for disrespecting his judgement. So I left the boy with his N-Dubz hat, which I shall now associate with him always because he was shamefully rude and looked like he was into prog-rock-anti-folk. Pah.

Essay, Emily, the Restoration, libertinism, sexual immorality, seventeenth century literature….. I’ll post a poem instead, as the story has no real end.

The Crying of the Lost Things

When you took the anxious-bitten
Archers-bow lips, and painted them across
Your body, her voice was rented out
To your wanton, whispering litter and
You threw her fears across
The cellar. Her heart had always been
So sheltered, with thighs reserved for the
Tastes of drowsy thumb, but under your skin
She says, my body feels so very numb and
I don’t know what it’s like to come
Girlish clutters say heavy hellos.
Oh listen, won’t you, to the crying
Of the lost things, the dying of a time bomb,
Decaying since the drums began.
No, I will not regret this man, says she
With the skin displayed, undone
And the crying of the lost things
Drowned, by the rushing gush of sun.

Sneak, russet filters run bright into
My eyes. The dreams I’d been having
Removed lost things from my mind, but awake
Those lost things I’m very sure to find.
On turning, I saw a lump of flesh
My body, yellow, seemed now unfresh
Sticky memories of sweat combined.
Tasting tears, I am salty and reminded of
How moonlight took me away.

No, I will not regret this man, or hope for better
Or hope for land, land from hot floods, coming.
No, I will not regret this man, says she
With the skin displayed, undone
And the crying of the lost things drowned
By the rushing gush of sun.

Maybe drinking wine would validate my sorrow.

Hello. The Mass of Christ pulls closer on my winter-kissed face and I think I'd like to see my family.
Re: Poetry.I wrote it so much more last year. This year my creative flow has been stilted and starved. However, I did write this merry little ditty, joyful as it is, entailing the laziness of many bone idle bums around me. My ex-boyfriend used to tell me, much to my distaste, that all my writing was morbid and I needed to write about happiness, but happiness does not induce words for me, sorrow does. What sort of writer does that make me then? Confessional, I suppose. But most of the time I use imagery so detached from my own experiences that it can't be seen as a piece of me, more a piece of how I conceive every one else. Anyway, pretentious drivel over, this is a bigbravebold move for me, putting poetry on t'net. Enjoy it, hungry penguins.

cold fat unspeaking.

body is just bone idle
to the new rise of day watch
as it reverts into stone at the
thought of easy gone away introvert
and officious again the calendar
strikes time away sluggishness
corrupts your brain so defeated
unmoving you’ll stay corpse cut
eyes shut shine dissipates
and those joints gain clots of cold fat unspeaking.

your tongue tastes
its fate your forgotten liberty
falls
fast
for the trap
of fatigue consuming your sight
and conceit carving
reason from none of conviction
unwilling to fight
the cold war that's just begun

The Girl

So I only got a bloody first for that assignment. I couldn't be happier, I think I had a little, secret cry. This blogging business hasn't enraptured me yet, but I am going to give the seed some TLC and see if the bud will bloom.
I'm posting an article I wrote about my lovely Mum, again this was for class. I'll get around to writing some real blog-style prose later but as a sleepy student assignments are as much effort as I can fathom. Maybe the Christmas period will harvest my creativity, maybe it will release me and I'll flow like mulled wine. Maybe I'll write a really cynical piece about being single at this ghastly time of year. Maybe.
The brief is completely fantastical. If Marie Claire actually did e-mail me asking me to write for them my smile would make me top heavy.

Write a 600 word feature on your Mother for a collection of intimate articles celebrating the inspirational lives of older women, as told by their children. These articles will aid our Super-Mum campaign, which will coincide with International Women’s Day (8.03.2010) and Mother’s Day (14.03.2010).

Remember, at Marie Claire we pride ourselves on being ‘More Than A Pretty Face.’ We are the fashion magazine with character, substance and depth, for women with a point of view, an opinion and a sense of humour.

----

When I got to the age of thirteen I stopped seeing my Mum as my superhero. It wasn’t a cognitive decision; no major tragic event took place that would tarnish my opinion of her, in fact, we became much closer. It came suddenly, this impulsive realization crashing on top of my hormone-ridden head like a rally-car to the chest, the sudden understanding that she was a human being.

Now, however, my Mum is Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and skill. She battles through every set back with brute force, her power is ethereal, her love is tangible. Although every part mortal like myself, I don’t think she could ever be just a woman. Human being or goddess, how has Sharon Buchanan managed it? With the perusal of two wildly successful careers, raising four children and remaining twenty-five years happily married, I want to know how all these accolades can grace one woman who is yet to turn fifty and, of course, how can I learn from her successes?

When asked to sum up the last twenty years, my Mum automatically traces back time in her filo-fax of a brain: everything is in its place, under-file, organized and completed. Her 16 years in the Health Service peeked in 1990 when she became Head Occupational Therapist. Then, to coincide with a move across the country, took a u-turn and began to pursue a career in education. “It wasn’t planned,” she says, “When I moved [to Kent] in 1999…the plan was to take a complete break, but I’m not very good at being at home so that break lasted about 2 months!” The career change was a happy coincidence and before we had a chance to unpack the boxes she was passing her Certificate of Education and taking a permanent position at a local high school. Laughing, Mum jokes, “I never thought in a million years I’d be more than just a classroom teacher!” But to those that know her, this statement is easily dismissed. Ten years later and she’s the Head of Sixth Form.

A plethora of bold decisions has placed my Mum where she is today, “I’m one of those people who thinks ‘if I’m going to do this, it has to be to the best of my ability.’” If the tapestry of her career is anything to go by, pushing yourself to achieve- regardless of the no-sayers- is the formula for success.

Having grown older, the extent of her ambition and her relentless pursuit for happiness astounds me. When I was a bouncing “dolly-faced” baby, my parents’ both had full-time careers and three children- all under three year’s old. “I wanted to be surrounded by laughter and build individuals, moulding and creating them…It’s the ultimate gift.” And, of course, we cannot forget the main man in all this, my Dad, whose support and resilience has turned him into a Greek titan, holding up the heavens on his shoulders. “The key to any marriage is based on a solid foundation of love, mutual respect, and passion; without those three key elements, it becomes hard to communicate.

To understand that you’re Mother is a human being, just like you are, is to reach an age of emotional comprehension where you can accept mortality. I remember it distinctly. Before, my Mum was as solid as a house, unquestionably able to soar through her adult world with thunder-bolt precision. Then, like flicking a switch, my Super-Mum was an emotional, warm blooded woman, mortal to more than just kryptonite. Respect doesn’t even cut it. It’s more like awe. Awe that one woman, who does not have super powers, could accomplish so much, could drag herself on hands-and-knees over life’s hurdles without the ability to fly- it defies belief. But then that’s the role of a daughter, isn’t it? To hold your mother in a light where she is the epitome of ‘Woman.’ After all, regardless of the fact she’s just a woman, she’ll always be a goddess to me.

I'm not sitting down til I'm older.

Hello blogging world... wherever you may be...

I am new to this scene. I'm partially joining you out of curiosity and partially for a project at University. We're studying the impact of 'citizen journalism' on the media and as I'm a total blog virgin- bloirgin? Virog? Blirgin? Blirgin.- as I am a total blirgin, I feel the need to set up my own little spot in this bizarre little universe and explore. I planned to do the same with Twitter, but I seem to have missed that boat, it makes no sense to me. Why tweet when you have facebook? I was going to say that it seems pretty self-indulgent, but then so is facebook. And so is this. It's all very self-indulgent, this absurd internet culture. You'll learn very quickly that I loathe and love it, like a little whirlwind of indecisiveness.

So. What to say to the world in my first blog? I'm dipping out a little here and just posting a review I've written for my Journalism class, it is my first ever review and I like it. Please enjoy and please let me know if I am doing this blogging milarky right.

The Crown Jewels, MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

Preppy, pretty, perky little Marina. She tells us that we are her Diamonds, and we do not protest. Her first EP has sauntered onto the music scene like a handful of falling pixie dust, glittering amongst the mainstream like a mermaid in a swamp. Little heard of until recent months, Marina is defiantly our next big crush. A kitsch-filled, glee inducing marinade of pop beats and Kate Bush inspired vocals, the girl herself boasts the fashion sense of a deity (with thanks to Vivienne Westwood, so says Marina) and the lyrical prowess of a hormone-fuelled poet. Overall, an extrovert’s wonderland.

When you listen to The Crown Jewels, it’s like having a very small slice of a very decedent cake. With only 3 tracks and a bonus remix, Marina teases her fresh Diamond’s, dancing around their ears, nymph-like, until they are mesmerised. And so we warn you, music fans, of this undercover siren.

Her first single, I Am Not a Robot, instantly enraptures. Marina’s precious voice, combined with the tinkering piano and sudden beat drop, make for a single that will certainly grace the indie club scene. Her voice has been hailed as charmingly mid-European- the Kate Bush parallel born from the elasticity of her lilt and its powerful, significant range. A perfect all rounder, it seems. However, does our darling Marina have the ability to save herself from the ‘Solo Female Artist’ black hole currently consuming the likes of La Roux, Florence + the Machine and Paloma Faith? What with the sudden influx of such over-branded artists, Marina could be at risk of falling from her individual little pedestal. Alas, it cannot be.

Currently untouched by the big name labels, Marina is still very much herself. This encourages us a great deal, as does her song Simplify, which works to move away from the synth-pop scene and embraces a ‘recorded-in-my-kitchen’ sound which gives us a wholesome, deliciously refreshing kiss on the cheek. There’s hope yet, right?

Wrong. Dishearteningly, Marina’s re-recording of Mowgli's Road will be released by major label Atlantic Records on 16th November. Another one bites the dust? We sincerely hope not. Our thoughts are filled with images of our new favourite girl bearing all on a billboard, promoting Swarovski, air-brushed beyond recognition.

The hype is beginning, the black hole expanding; our only hope is that lovely Marina maintains her wonderful quirk without loosing herself in the process. After all, Marina recently blogged, “I don’t want to be extremist. I want to find some middle ground, some kind of alternative existence as a female artist.” Here’s hoping.