Helen Highwater

We're on itunes

2011-11-10T09:49:00.002Z

Ok, everyone! The Ritas are now on iTunes!

That's all I have to say today, really. Fascinating. I'm really excited about it, of course!

A Year With The Ritas

2011-11-02T10:44:00.012Z

Our first gig was on Sunday 30th October. We'd been preparing for a long time - although The Ritas started about a year ago, we plotted until December when we first played together, and it was only by the end of March that we'd actually recorded anything. This was our cover of "Jeane" which my boyfriend worked on with us. Having never recorded stuff before (well, I used to sing in a band with my boyfriend but he dealt with all that) there was quite a steep learning curve, but from doing that Olivia (The Ritas' singer) and I were able to go ahead and record stuff ourselves. My boyfriend gets co-producer credit on the EP though because he advised me on a lot of things ("WHY IS THIS NOT RECORDING??" "Because it's not plugged in, maybe?"). José Maldonado, the "Mexican Morrissey", played our version of "Jeane" on his radio show and it was an amazing moment for us.

I should point out that we had realistic expectations for The Ritas. Ok, as much as I might daydream about headlining Glastonbury (not that I'm much of a fan of chemical toilets or hippies), we wanted to play a gig in Birmingham and a gig in London, get some songs on iTunes and put out a CD ourselves. But things have changed slightly....

It was in May that my boyfriend decided to focus on his own projects. Whereas with "Jeane" he'd arranged it, played bass and programmed the drums, with recordings of our own tracks it was now down to me to play bass, do the drums, arrangements etc. I'd never played bass before, so basically I've only been playing it since May! Olivia and I worked hard over the next few months finishing off our tracks and we sent them to Lawrence, my boyfriend's pal in Glasgow, who mixed them for us. This gave us a lot of flexibility - I like collaborating but me and my boyfriend were having huge rows about basslines and drum loops and lead guitar lines and key changes, whereas couples are supposed to argue about buying shelves in Homebase and whose turn it is to put out the bins.

By June, Olivia and I had finished three songs - "Too Much Talking To Machines", which was an experimental number, and "Glitter & Doom" and "How Wrong I Was". That's not bad going, really, three songs in a month when I'd never used a drum machine or played bass before in my life, and was suddenly recording songs with them! To be honest, though, if you can play lead guitar, you can play bass, so it wasn't hard.

In July, I was approached by Gary from Dufflecoat Records who said he wanted to put out an EP. He said he could do a split one with another band, but as we were churning out songs at great speed, we decided to go for a Ritas-only EP. We mentioned that we wanted to put the EP out as a digital download, and Gary asked that we wait for the EP to have been out for a month so it could sell a decent number of copies first. Fair enough!

August came around - we'd arranged our October gig in Birmingham, our November gig in London, and announced that Dufflecoat were releasing our EP. We were working frantically to finish the EP and rehearse for the gigs. In fact, that's all we did over September - rehearse, rehearse, rehearse!

And then October. I was busy with my shop as well, working on the Swagger Joint clothes label, promoting it etc, as well as preparing for the gig, but I still managed to give up smoking (which I'd taken up again over the summer - not surprising really with all that was going on!). So much rehearsing, liaising with Lawrence who was mixing our backing tracks (there being only two Ritas, the drums and bass are on the backing tracks), and also making some more backing tracks for new songs that weren't on the EP and so hadn't yet been recorded. Somehow we managed to get all this done - Olivia knew all the words, I knew all my chord changes and widdly-wah bits, we had a set-list, I had a pedal board and a cool amp, and that was it, really.

The gig was fun. I enjoyed it. And the audience did too, apparently. We had The Choir Invisible over from Dublin as our support (which sounds rather grand for a first gig, but the guitarist is Olivia's friend!) and Bethan from Atta Girl (the women's music night which was one of the inspirations behind The Ritas) DJing. Arthur Tapp gets a thank you here because we'd had problems arranging the gig at another venue, and he sorted us out with the Actress & Bishop in a matter of minutes. Free hire AND a sound engineer!

We soundchecked but didn't have very long to do it because some bloke was downstairs playing Monkees' cover versions on a mandolin (I'm not joking...). The Choir Invisible were really good and Ruraidh was an amazing guitarist - really interesting watching him play.

So then the turn of The Ritas. We came onstage to "Too Much Talking To Machines" and launched into "Glitter & Doom". It was going well, apart from some feedback. Then into "Silent Protest", followed by "She's With The Band" - a song I wrote about obesity surgery! (there's not many of those around, are there!). This is when technical problems developed which dogged me for the whole set. My guitar turned itself off. It appears to have been some issue with my pedals - in changing settings between songs I'd managed to turn the gain down on the overdrive pedal. As gain is also volume (pretty much), everything went disturbingly quiet, the sound engineer trying to bring the volume back up where he could. This went on with the next song. Thence a guitar-change - I was so relieved to change it because I thought maybe everything would be ok (one of the Choir Invisible had leapt in and fixed the silent guitar problem). But no, the other guitar was out of tune! I did realise it, but I didn't change back to the first guitar because I was worried that'd still be conducting its own silent protest.

I've since watched a video of the show - the out of tune guitar isn't too obvious in "Lost At Sea" but with "Jeane" it was abysmal, and I feel really gutted about that because it was our famous song - it was on the radio in America, it was the song that got people interested in us because The Smiths fans loved our cover and even people who didn't like The Smiths said they liked our version. Strangely though, the out of tune guitar has the effect of making the backing track sound of tune!

The last song! Oh was I ever relieved to get to the last song. It's odd but even during rehearsals, our songs had ceased to feel like our own creations, it was like doing cover versions. At rehearsals, we'd focus on what we were doing, thinking all the time. But on stage, all that goes - you're on stage and you get into a zone and you just do it without thinking at all. This has happened to me before with my acting in plays and film (yes, I've been in two films, folks. Bet you never knew that!). Our set felt like it lasted 10 minutes at most but in fact went on for half an our!

I LOVE playing "How Wrong I Was". It's a really good song to end on too, really angry and energetic and something to jump about to. It was all going so well. I'd changed back to the first guitar which was actually in tune, the volumes were all fine, there was no feedback. What could possibly go wrong?

Ah... the guitar strap fell off. I didn't miss a strum, I just got down on my knees and played on the floor. And then Olivia knelt down beside me and carried on. My boyfriend then got on stage and reattached the strap so I could get back to my feet. And then once the song finished, I switched on all my pedals and made as much unholy noise as I possibly could. And then we left the stage.

For a first gig, it's not surprising I had those kinds of problems. I didn't realise my semi-acoustic would go out of tune so fast (it was tuned when I was setting up earlier, but 3 hours of it being bombarded by loud music had knocked it out of tune). The feedback could have been abated if we'd had a longer soundcheck, maybe. The moment my guitar went silent, I should've tried to work out what it was - I hadn't thought it could be the pedal as I check my amp and my guitar to make sure they were still on. And on Saturday I'm getting some Dunlop strap locks to prevent a guitar-playing-on-knees scenario (although it did make me look like I was doing a Jimi Hendrix impression). The soundman shook my hand after the gig - he said I dealt with my technical issues professionally! I hope though in future I won't have so many technical issues to start with!

The other thing too of course is that when you've lived with songs for ages, written them, recorded them, listening to them over and over again to make sure the recorded versions are ok, heard umpteen different mixes, rehearsed them hundreds of times - you know what the song should sound like. However, the audience doesn't. So I doubt many of them realised just how much I fucked it up. But Olivia was great. She's a fantastic singer and a talented performer with heaps of stage presence who carried on like a total trooper while I struggled with the fruits of my ineptitude. But people loved the gig, and someone threw a bra onstage! ;)

The EP was released the very next day, Monday 31st October. We were recovering from the gig the day before, and plotting on going to a Manics signing at HMV and giving them our EP (we gave them the EP and Nicky Wire said he'd heard of us. Probably because we gave him a Ritas badge in Llandudno...). I didn't get round to Facebooking and Tweeting the EP release until the evening. By Tuesday, Gary said that the EP had nearly sold out. That's 100 copies gone in two days. No one could believe how fast it sold - I still can't! Just... wow, thanks so much to everyone who bought it! It really means a lot, just being able to connect and communicate with so many people through our art. It's fab.

We're now working out what to do about digital downloads - I'll let you all know soon because it's quite a cool thing. ;)

Big thank you to everyone who's helped us - my boyfriend (aka Eightball) and Lawrence especially, though Olivia would no doubt like to thank Ruraidh for encouragement, and we'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who's bought the EP, come to the gig, or even just commented somewhere that they like what we're doing. I'm going to stop now though cos I'm gushing.

But there you go - A year with The Ritas. A year of hard work, surprises, excitement and gold spray paint.

(Photos variously by Eightball Photography, Andy, Nick Hynan.)

PS: we're playing live again on Tuesday 15th November at the Vauxhall Tavern in London. It's free to get in & I'll make sure my guitar is in tune, doesn't turn itself off and won't fall on the floor!

How Wrong I Was

2011-09-27T09:29:00.000+01:00

Hurrah! As you may know, my band, The Ritas, have an EP out at the end of October on Dufflecoat Records. We've got a gig in Birmingham (Actress & Bishop) on Sunday 30th October and a gig in London at the Vauxhall Tavern on Tuesday 15th November. We'll do more gigs and if there's a place near you which you think The Ritas should play at, let me know!

In the meanwhile, here's the video for "How Wrong I Was", one of the tracks off our "Silent Protest" EP.

I'm so sorry, but...

2011-09-16T12:29:00.002+01:00

You may have heard about the Topman T-shirts that were withdrawn from sale after it was pointed out that they were offensive and vilely misogynist. They're so awful, in fact, that it's bizarre anyone thought they were fit to sell. Here's the T-shirts in question, in case you've been lucky enough not to see them:

The first T-shirt dehumanises women to the point of being animals. And the second seems to advocate violence - the excuses are textbook domestic abuser.

I saw these being tweeted and tweeted myself to say they are horrifying and should be withdrawn. Topman eventually did, and released a statement on their Facebook. I "liked" the page long enough to say:

Thank you for seeing the light. The T-shirts were highly objectionable and quite frankly, a relic from a past I thought we'd escaped from. The red one which basically sounds like reasons for spousal abuse is horrendously offensive to anyone (male, female, adult or child) who has been a victim of abuse, or just basically anyone (which should basically be every living human) who thinks people shouldn't live in fear of abuse. There's nothing "funny" or "light-hearted" about casual misogyny or domestic abuse.

As of today, this comment has 14 likes.

But the last part, "[t]here's nothing "funny" or "light-hearted" about casual misogyny or domestic abuse", has been quoted in The Metro and the online version of an article about the T-shirts in The Guardian. More of my comment ended up on Yahoo News' report. It just seems rather sad that all I did was state the obvious, and yet stating something as obvious as that is deemed highly quotable.

I said what I did, aimed at the other commenters on the Facebook, who really couldn't see why anyone could possibly have a problem with these T-shirts, and came out with the tired bullshit that certain men (and indeed, certain women) come out with when faced with "feminists" - get a sense of humour. Sorry, but I must've missed the joke.

The comments left online at Yahoo and now on a revolting piece of patronsing, misogynist crap at The Daily Telegraph (which even misses the point about Slut Walk, just for extra points...) demonstrate a couple of things:

1. why Topman thought that they could sell these T-shirts
2. why it was so important we stood up (men protested about these T-shirts as well as women) and said these items were wholly objectionable.

Over and over again, the commenters think these T-shirts are funny, when they're not. But these are the very people who would buy them, hence Topman thinking it was worthwhile selling them - there's a market for T-shirts which extol violence and misogyny. I won't go through the comments and paste them here because I will end up frothing at the mouth with rage, but the amount of fail they contain is... well... entirely predictable. This is, after all, the internet, where morons can type whatever they like. The comments are, in general though, quite disturbing.

It's as if Bernard Manning hadn't died at all and has created umpteen internet aliases, where he can say things like "Why are women complaining about these T-shirts when they should be cooking my dinner?" Feminists are called "boot-faced", "anti-feminine", "the hairy nipple brigade." One delightful prick on The Telegaph's piece said "I would love to find out who the women are who have complained. Then I could go and beat them." This comment has been online now for 33 minutes and no moderator has removed it. This man is in effect threatening violence on all of us who thought these T-shirts were objectionable, and guess what? No one seems to mind. Ho ho ho, how funny, violence towards women, HILARIOUS. Pass me a needle and thread, I fear my sides have split....

And this is why it's important we stood up. Men and women, standing up and saying, through the power of the interwebs, that we don't find these T-shirts funny - in fact, we find them highly objectionable and they should not be on sale. We need to say this because we live in a society where some people don't see anything wrong with dehumanising women. Letting T-shirts like this go on sale and not saying anything would mean we were merely giving in, giving up, saying "well, that's how things are." We need to initiate a culture shift, and this is how. Ellie O'Hagan at The Guardian summed it up well, "misogyny is now so commonplace, it's mundane."

If we step aside from the feminist angle for a moment, there's something else about the red T-shirt up there which is rather disturbing. Because of the options it gives, the one with the tick is "I was drunk." When we walk to work through puddles of booze-induced vomit in the morning, the ho-ho-ho, I'm not responsible for my actions, I was drunk angle really isn't that funny at all.

Another thing to mention though, is that the red T-shirt doesn't just affect women. Women aren't the only victims of domestic abuse (as I said up there). There is a very real problem with men who are victims of it, and they have great difficulty in coming forward about it. Making jokes about domestic abuse on a man's T-shirt will only make it more difficult for these men to find help.

The commenters and commentators who've failed to see why some T-shirts have got people so riled up need to appreciate that it's not just the T-shirts in and of themselves that we object to - they're symptomatic of the culture they have come out of, a culture which dehumanises and which needs to change.

In defence of repro

2011-08-22T09:22:00.001+01:00

I'm moved to write this blog having joined a facebook group to sell the Stop Staring and Bettie Page dresses I'm too small for now, where someone said "Why do people want to buy repop stuff...u might as well shop at torrid!" Let's ignore for now the spelling mistake and the inability to type the very complicated word "you". Let's ignore the snobby attitude some people have to anything that's not an original piece, like you're just some annoying no-nothing turd who can't be bothered to look for nice stuff.

Now, I've been dressing vintage-style on and off for 16 years. And you know what? I have no problem AT ALL with repro. I love it. I mean, I must do if I run a shop selling the stuff, right? So why do I love it?

Price
Back when I started wearing 'vintage' (which is so long ago, it wasn't called vintage...), I used to pick things up from a second hand shop (we called them second hand shops, not "vintage clothing emporiums" or the like) for insanely cheap prices. I had loads of fabulous 1960s dresses which I'd get for, usually, under a tenner. £8 for dress, I think I paid £20 for an amazing mohair skirt suit. When I see dresses now going for £200, it makes my skin crawl! That said, a good reproduction piece isn't cheap either but they're generally well under £200, plus the more expensive repros tend to be made-to-measure.

Condition
When I was in Paris last year, I was rather shocked at the poor quality and huge cost of a lot of items there. They really looked very tired - which isn't surprising, these are old dresses! A lot of vintage is quite fragile and it's horrible when you sit down in a vintage dress and hear the lining rip. Repro is brand new! I respect vintage pieces as historical objects, so if something is very fragile I would far rather it lived in my wardrobe so I could coo over it occasionally rather than wear it out and ruin it forever.

Finding vintage
I suppose one thing about vintage is how great it feels when you find something particularly amazing. You feel like Indiana Jones. LOOK AT THIS AMAZING DISCOVERY I HAVE JUST MADE! But... it's not always that easy. There's vintage shops and vintage fairs popping up everywhere, but the ones near me are a sea of 1980s and early 90s. It's just not my style. I look online and the prices are sometimes crazy, or the colour isn't quite what I want, or there's the fragility issue or just - let's face it - the fact that it's not in my size.

Now, I know there are people into vintage because they just like 2nd hand stuff and want to save the world. I'm afraid I'm not so altruistic. I love vintage style. I love the shapes of the dresses, I love the colours, I love the length of the skirts (below the knee!), I love the little details of collars or buttons, pockets and belts. And if you find a good reproduction piece, it will have all these things, plus it will be available in various sizes and quite possibly made from fabric that will stretch a bit.

Quite frankly, the person who made the comment about Torrid is a gigantic ignoramous. Do Torrid make reproduction vintage? Do they have skirts the right lengths, details and cut and shape and all the rest of it spot on? NO THEY DO NOT.

So basically, if someone says "y u bother with repro? it's well sucky & it's not vintage" then it's the words of a total idiot.

A summer wedding

2011-08-21T21:35:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, we went to a wedding in Edgbaston (right near where I work - I even went to the venue once for a Christmas party. I took a short cut in the dark and ended up trapped inside a hedge!). My boyfriend and I know the bride and groom, Katie and Dom. There were loads of people from his work there as well as loads of babies. I held his line managers baby and she cried. And then an 8 week old baby slept beside me during the afternoon tea, quite happy in her vibrating chair (wow, seriously, where can I get an adult-sized vibrating chair?).

I got a Fleur dress from Hey Day! because it would serve the dual purpose of something nice to wear to the wedding, and something I could wear on holiday (I've got a Fan skirt and Cheers dress from my shop to wear too!). I had to do some emergency work on it with adhesive velcro to stop it flapping open at the back. Oh - and that black cardigan I'm wearing is from M&S. Guess what size it is. Go on. I bet Retro Chick will be amused by this - IT'S A SIZE 12!!! There's NO WAY I can POSSIBLY BE A SIZE 12!!!! (ok, I've lost more weight recently since a further band tightening and I seem to be 13 and a half stone, and having lost more weight off my face). I wore a vintage hat - it's from Paris and I would think is 30s or 40s. It's basically my favourite hat (although I retain a fondness for my Red Army cap and my British navy hat!). And those are Rocket Originals shoes.

And another pic, where I don't look so dismayed... the earrings are glass, which I got in Paris last year, and the necklace is just some random necklace I got years ago in a charity shop!

My boyfriend wore his kilt, which he got in Glasgow this summer. Rather nifty. This is him stood with the bride, pulling a daft face (did I really need to point out that's the bride?). It's nice to see the little girl stood next to him pulling the same face! GURN FOR THE CAMERA EVERYONE!

We had afternoon tea, which was very nice, although I hope I didn't upset the other diners with the way I ate the sandwiches (I struggle eating bread and it feels as though it swells up inside the top bit of my stomach - it's extremely uncomfortable) so I nibbled out the filling. As the bride can't eat gluten, there were gluten-free options, so I decided to have a gluten-free cupcake. It was delicious and didn't make me feel like I was swelling like Violet Beauregard - hurrah! This is the spread - isn't it lovely? There was a barbecue in the evening too but we didn't stay for that.

The grounds of Hornton Grange were lovely to wander about in - there's a little pond with a rockery and a patch of wildflowers in the middle of the lawn. That was my favourite bit of the garden (and also the fact that I could see, over the fence, the runner beans growing in the back garden of some university bigwig's house!). The hedge I got trapped in is my least favourite part, and I'm kind of amazed that I didn't fall into the pond when I was thrashing about in the grounds in the dark!!

There's more to life than plastic bags, you know, but not much more...

2011-08-09T12:20:00.002+01:00

So while local communities battle the riots by organising mass clean-up operations, a fight breaks out on a Facebook page over plastic bags.

It seemed like a good idea, getting involved with where I live. I've lived in the area for over 10 years and never had much to do with the people around me other than by going into the local shops and sometimes helping out at the church. But it seemed nice - people getting together, organising, improving, that's all good stuff. Someone arranged an annual picnic at one of the parks (we've got two here), which is nice. I mean, the bands are usually shitty and it's full of self-important parents of irritating young children, but hey. Then local people arranged to have the other park removed from Birmingham City Council's powers so the local council could develop it (because BCC basically neglected it).

I decided to join the Facebook page that someone had set up, and it was off to a good start. My band was offered a gig playing in the bandstand in the park, I asked for information on a local restaurant and people were quick to help, all good.

Last week I raised the issue about the dangerous junction crossing, and people got behind it and very quickly our local councillor responded saying that work was about to be carried out. I told him I was glad I voted for him. He said thank you. Brilliant!

But then someone decided to start a "let's make our community plastic bag-free!" thing. Now, I'm not an idiot. I know that plastic bags damage the environment and kill wild animals etc, but that's when they're used irresponsibly. It's quite possible to use plastic bags sparingly, only when you need one cos you've forgotten your shopping bag or you've bought more than you expected to. And then, use them carefully, reusing them, using them for different purposes (bin bags, etc), recycling them (taking them to the recycle bin in the Co-Op, giving them to charity shops to use for their customers). It just requires people being given these options, told about them, educated about them.

This view didn't go down well. Apparently these are not good arguments for plastic bags. Apparently I'm advocating the death of turtles. Apparently, according to the local councillor (the same guy who I said I was glad I voted for), because I said I actually didn't care about this argument at the moment, having been trapped in the middle of a riot in Brixton (with the implication that - THERE'S MORE GOING ON AT THE MOMENT THAN BLOODY PLASTIC BAGS!), I'm in fact at fault here. I'm basically to blame for the riots, because my thoughts that plastic bags can be used responsibily is tantamount to throwing a dustbin through the window of Foot Locker. I have as little love for my local community as looters and rioters.

Do you know what? Wow. Just wow. And in fact... you know what... they can shove their bloody plastic bag banning middle class twaddle up their tragically narrow-minded bourgeois backsides. I'm really glad that my band couldn't play the bandstand gig because from what I've seen of it, it was basically a family fun day with face painting and pushchairs. The Ritas have lyrics with words like "fuck" and "tits" in them. Can't imagine that going down well in family-friendly, plastic bag free Smugville, which is clearly where I now live.

(and if you now think I'm a total arsehole for writing this, I don't really care).

A Night in Brixton

2011-08-08T17:52:00.002+01:00

Sunday night, my friend Olivia and I went to London to see Morrissey. We've been seeing him live for years, and as I'd missed him lately, we decided to go to Brixton Academy. It's a fantastic venue - large and decorative but still feels more intimate than gigs in places like the NIA.

On the way to the gig, we saw lots of people going to the Brixton Splash street party. The mood seemed relaxed - there was a little boy trying on a community support officer's helmet and people seemed quite laid back. There wasn't any obvious tension in the air, and families milled about the streets quite happily.

The gig was fantastic (apart from the usual loutish, selfish behaviour you get at Morrissey gigs, where people use brute force to shove you out of the way. I mean, I'm not averse to a bit of jostling and jumping about at a gig, but at Morrissey gigs, it's absolutely ridiculous). Morrissey was in fine voice. "I Know It's Over" was extraordinarily moving, and he did some new songs which sounded amazing live - "Action is My Middle Name" and "Art-Hounds" were fab. And Boz had a lovely Gretsch.

After the gig, we were interviewed by the WinkBall website, talking about the gig.

We decided to go to the after show party at Plan B on Brixton Road, just round the corner from the venue. It was a Quarry night, which is the Morrissey/Smiths disco thingy, so we went into the bar, drank vodka and listened to some good tunes. Had a dance, all that sort of thing.

I went out to the smoking area and while an Austrian Morrissey fan discussed Scandinavian death metal (as you do), I heard helicopters overhead. Living in Birmingham, I'm quite used to helicopters, so thought nothing of it. Could be police following a boy racer, who knows? But then I thought - that sounds like a *lot* of helicopters....

Eventually I went back inside and not long after that (I think some more drinking and dancing went on), about midnight, someone said they'd closed the shutters at the front because "they're rioting." And they had - security had pulled down the shutters. Outside, you could just about see cars going up and down, but not much else. We could smell burning, and from seeing the news this morning, we weren't far from the Foot Locker shop which was looted and then torched. I immediately checked twitter to see if there was any news (all we were told was, "It's safer if you stay inside"). It was heartening that the people who were still awake and on twitter expressed their concern for us stuck there and Dickon Edwards and @vida_boheme sent me info about what was going on outside. I'm very grateful to them for helping us.

Me and Olivia with our 'scared' faces (exaggerated for comic effect)

Clearly demonstrating humour in the face of adversity, the DJ's played "Panic" and "Sweet & Tender Hooligan"....

In fact, the #brixton hash tag was very useful because I kept checking it and eventually found a tweet saying that heavy rain had started to fall and had cleared the streets. The security let us out, with directions to a taxi rank.

Well of course there wasn't a taxi rank - what taxi was going to hang about there? And we didn't want to linger, gazing about very clearly not knowing where the heck we were supposed to go! We bumped into a Morrissey impersonator and his girlfriend, and as safety in numbers seemed like a wise idea, we asked them if they'd seen any cabs. As they were going the same direction as us, we decided we'd share a cab (as we wouldn't have got home otherwise!). The mood had changed - there was a group of girls waiting in a bus shelter, looking on edge, and loads of people on bicycles. In fact, very polite people on bicycles, who apologised when they nearly ran into us when we crossed the road. It didn't feel particularly threatening, but I certainly didn't want to loiter (but then again, I didn't want to loiter on Las Ramblas at 5am - just anywhere you don't know very well isn't the best location for a loiter). A cab eventually came towards us with its light off, but without passengers. I waved him down and he let us in, thankfully.

I don't really know what to think of the rioting and looting. It's sad that it's happened in deprived areas, and I suppose there is some feeling that various choices made by the government are at fault, but so too of course is the fact that we live in a consumerist society where trainers and TVs cost vast sums of money and are upheld as desirable objects. Did the police do their jobs? I dunno, I wasn't outside, although those helicopters must've turned up very soon after it started. Had it kept to chain shops, I spose that's one thing, but this morning I heard that the windows of London's only dedicated gay bookshop had had its windows smashed in, when no other shop in the street had. That's homophobia, pure and simple. And I also heard that someone leaving the Quarry night at midnight (which is, I think, when the riot/looting in Brixton got underway) was injured. I don't know if it was in a crush of people and he fell or if he was pushed to the floor on purpose, but he's in hospital and my thoughts are with him, especially as he'd travelled from abroad just for the gig.

And will I go back to Brixton, if there's a gig on I want to see? Having 'done' Manics, Suede and Morrissey this year at Brixton, you know what - YES I WILL.

(photos by Olivia)

Helen on the radio!

2011-06-28T14:15:00.001+01:00

If you listen to Marc Riley's 6 Music show of an evening, you may have heard his "Who's On My T-Shirt?" competition. It's a fairly silly competition where Marc gets a musician who's done a session for his show to draw a music bod on a T-shirt. Then he comes up with cryptic clues and you have to guess who it is to win the T-shirt.

Last night, I got my first ever "Who's On My T-Shirt?" right - it was Johnny Marr. I dashed off an email to them and straight away a reply came saying only "PHONE NUMBER???!!!" A couple of minutes later, the phone rang. The producer asked me a couple of background questions, and then they rang back.

I was SO EXCITED. I've listened to Marc on the radio for years, and used to watch him do The White Room on tv. I've even got two Shirehorses albums. I couldn't believe I was actually going to speak to him, but he's very sweet and the conversation I had with him is right here - I got the audio and stuck some slightly relevant photos all over it and put it on Youtube. I even managed to mention The Ritas, so hey.....

Birmingham Slutwalk 18th June 2011

2011-06-19T17:44:00.003+01:00

(Photographs by Olivia. Click thumbnails for larger versions).

You may have read in the press about the Slutwalks. I think a lot of coverage has got hung up on the word "slut" but it was a Canadian police officer's use of this word, saying that women shouldn't be surprised to be they're raped if they dress like a slut, that has inspired the worldwide protests.

Boiled down to its essence, Slutwalk is protesting against victims of sexual abuse being blamed for the attacks they have survived. It's saying too that no one asks to be raped, no matter how they're dressed, and is also raising awareness about rape and sexual assault - that quite often it's not how you're dressed which leads to attacks, as women are abused by partners. Even women in burqas, who couldn't possibly be accused of dressing sluttily, are attacked.

I was initially dubious about supporting Slutwalk as I too was focussing too much on the word 'slut', but I decided to attend because I wanted to add my voice, to speak out against victim-blaming, something which is causally tossed about (see Ken Clarke's recent outburst and the reaction to it).

The Slutwalk in Birmingham was supposed to be a march, but the council wouldn't grant permission. Some have seen this as a sexist, unsupportive move from the council (which wouldn't be a surprise given that a city the size of Birmingham has no rape crisis centre), but I would think it's more likely it was because the usual Birmingham march route, down New Street, was blocked by the International Food Fare!

So instead we had a Slutcamp at Centenary Square, outside the Symphony Hall/Rep Theatre/ICC complex, where we met with our placards and banners and listened to speakers. This was a good location as it's on a main road, so plenty of the public saw the demonstration. There were lots of photographers present, and also a filmcrew from the local BBC news (last weekend's Slutwalk apparently didn't appear on British tv, but Al Jazeera reported it, providing an appearance for my friend Olivia!). It's good because that'll get the message across. It's been written about in local press, advising people that it was to take place - it will be interesting to see what will appear in the local papers tomorrow.

Someone had managed to get Barbara Nice to speak - a comedian who's appeared in Phoenix Nights! - which was great as it shows that protest doesn't need to be poe-faced.

Salma Yaqoob, fiercely intelligent and articulate, spoke too. She's a Respect councillor who spoke about how women shouldn't be told by anyone what to wear, and that women receive mixed messages - wear too little and you're a slut, wear a burqa and you're wearing too much. She spoke too about rape being an international issue - it has nothing to do with what women wear but attitudes towards women worldwide.

Others spoke about the mixed messages we receive in the media. One of the speakers was a transsexual woman sex worker, who has been raped. Her story was very moving (as you can see from the faces of the people listening).

Frequently, I think, sex workers are forgotten in discussions about rape, as the archetypal rape victim is frequently a woman in a miniskirt in a night club. Little seems to be done about sex workers' reports about rape (but they can say no, just as everyone else can - you don't lose your right to bodily automony because of your job). Her story also highlighted the prejudices that transsexuals face as she turned to sex work to fund her transition, having been sacked from her previous job for her gender.

One of the organisers.

So that's my overview. I'm glad I went. I think most people would agree that victim-blaming needs to end, that women aren't "asking for it" based on how they dress and that women aren't raped based on what they wear. News reports have already started turning up, and predictably, they're twisted. The Sunday Mercury's piece is lazy rubbish - apparently young women participated, "Dressed provacatively and carrying signs proclaiming their right to show off their bodies." You can see from the banners in the photos here that this isn't the whole truth! I for one was wearing trousers (with some very provocative compression tights on underneath). Then again, I was wearing a What Katie Did T-shirt featuring a woman in her undies on it, so....

There are a couple of issues though that I wanted to mention, but thought I'd leave to the end. Inevitably with anything like this, there's going to be competing agendas, especially so with feminism. Socialist Worker turned up.... Ah yes, they do so love to roll up for any ol' protest, don't they? I was quite annoyed to see them there, to be honest. Showing their support is one thing, but when you were walking up to the Slutcamp, there is was, SOCIALIST WORKER in giant letters on their stall. They had banners made - I think they said "NO MEANS NO" - but with SOCIALIST WORKER printed across the tops of them. At the London Slutwalk, some women had the Socialist Worker banners, but tore the name off the top! Before the event began, the Socialist Worker spokesperson started bellowing in a megaphone (a popular Socialist Worker past-time, it would seem. They're very fond of deafening passersby outside HMV every Saturday in the city centre). At first I agreed with her, but after mentioning Ken Clarke, she then said something like "Don't we all hate Tories!" or "Who here likes Tories?" Now, I'm a Labour-voting, union member leftie, but FFS, they were turning Slutcamp to their own agenda. They were even passing round a petition - something about Tory bigotry - and I just thought, really? (and also - what do they do with all these petitions?!). They were muddying the waters, I felt. So I shouted, "MY MUM'S A TORY!!!" Cue awkward silence and tumbleweed (I've just been on the phone to my Tory-member mother, talking about Slutwalk, and she thinks it's a great idea. Sadly, if Socialist Worker keep bandwagoning all over it, people like my mum won't want to turn up. Slutwalk is for EVERYONE, regardless of political persuasion. Salma didn't bang on about the Respect Party!). Then she went on to say our voices must be heard - a cheer from everyone for that - "including the lapdancing clubs on Broad Street!" - silence and tumbleweed from some quarters, including from me.

I mean, I don't like lapdance clubs, and I've argued before how I don't think they're comparable to burlesque, but I felt very uncomfortable at a rally which was supposed to be partly against slut-shaming with someone bleating about the evils of lapdance clubs. I was so annoyed by this that I wrote on the back of my banner: DON'T RAPE TORIES! and DON'T SLUT-SHAME STRIPPERS! In fact, Olivia and I, having both done pin-up, were thinking, yeah, shall we tell them about Pin-Up Parade? If women choose to work in lapdance clubs, as long as they're not being eexploited, it's ok. I just object to the way they advertise the places in such an in-your-face manner, which perpetuates the highly sexualised images we constantly receive of women, and what the "ideal" body should look like. But I don't think feminists will ever agree on certain things, and this is one of them. I don't however think that in a "free" society we will ever be free of lapdance clubs.

The other thing is, people will no doubt wonder why it was all about women as targets for rapists when men face sexual abuse too. A couple of things - 1. female rape is more common than male rape. 2. if we can create a situation where victim-blaming is done away with, it'll make it easier for women to come forward when they've been attacked - and similarly to make it easier for men to come forward. Allied to this - women can be rapists too. This is unusual, but it does happen, but as with the previous comment, if we're more open about rape and don't blame the people who are attacked, this can and will be highlighted.

But that's a side issue from what was a very important rally. We've shown that people in Birmingham, from all different backgrounds, are NOT OK WITH VICTIM-BLAMING. And neither, I hope, are you.

Jeane!

2011-06-14T12:55:00.002+01:00

Remember ages ago I was waffling on about my band, The Ritas?

A couple of months ago, we recorded a cover version of "Jeane" by The Smiths - a kitchen sink anthem. We've now done a video to accompany it, so... here it is!

Dramatis personae:
Olivia Sparrow: lead vocals
Helen Highwater: backing vocals, rhythm & lead guitar, musical concept
Gordon Eightball: bass, drum programming, production
Lawrence: mixing

We're currently working on our own songs, and I'm now responsible for bass and drum programming, and will be co-producing the tracks with Gordon. For a sneak preview of two of our new songs, here's a video of us recording the vocals on Sunday.

(please note: I'm not wearing any make-up in this video. Don't judge).

Hair Removal & Me

2011-06-06T10:12:00.003+01:00

As we're now in summer (or as close as we can get), this seems topical. Female hair removal. Of the legs.

Wax strips

My very first attempt at hair removal was when I was about 12 or 13. It was a blistering hot day and me and a friend were in my room and thought it would be the perfect time to try waxing our legs. We went to a school where we could only wear skirts - no trousers - and in summer wore short socks, so in order to avoid feeling like bears, we wanted smooth legs.

No one explained how to use the strips. I'm not even sure how I got them - I think I just chucked them in the trolley when I went round Tescos with my dad. We labouriously smoothed them onto our legs and then peeled them off. Of course it hurt, so we decided to do it slowly. Which meant that it hurt far more than it would do normally and didn't exactly work.

Epilator

Considered "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, appearing in torture chambers alongside the rack and the iron maiden, this instrument of pain was gifted to me by one of my dad's girlfriends (I say one of - it's not like he had 10 girlfriends at once or something). She said "One day you'll have a boyfriend, and boys like being able to run their hands up your legs and feel it's all smooth." A piece of advice that gave me a guilty tingle.

Maybe the pain inflicted on me by this horrible machine was down to it being a cast-off. La Girlfriend had got herself a new epilator. Maybe this one didn't turn as fast. Basically, imagine someone very sloo-oo-ooo-oo-oooly using tweezers to pull your leg hairs out one by one. OH GOD. OH GOD!!! I only used this a few times before giving up on it. Every so often, I'd pick it up again, thinking (I suppose as some women approach the agonies of repeated births), "Maybe I just imagined the pain last time. Maybe it doesn't hurt that much. Maybe I just remembered wrong."

But everytime that thing would start gripping at my leg hairs and everytime I'd clear an inch of skin and throw it across the room, wincing as I did so.

(I should point out - this was an old-style epilator. I can't find a photo of it, but it basically had a piece of rubber with slits in it, bowed over, so as it turned the slots tightened over the hairs and yanked them out. OUCH OWWW OUCHIE.)

Depilatory Creme
Magical stuff, it seemed. It didn't hurt! It didn't hurt AT ALL! Well, ok, it metaphorically hurt my sense of smell, but... it was amazing! And I could smear it all over furniture while I waited 15 minutes (yes, it says 10 MAXIMUM on the packet, but I always give it an extra 5 just to make sure). Thing is, it was horribly expensive. And messy. I used one which had a roller thing at the top and it was much better than putting it by hand, but it was about £5 a pop, and this is back in the mid-90s. My pocket money was £1 a week. And of course, all that waiting... just to find out that you've missed a giant patch of hair on the back of your leg.

Silky Mitts

Salvation came in the form of Silky Mitts. My mum suggested these, and thank god she did. They're stupidly cheap - less than £2 for a pack of 3, and they're just soft sandpaper folded round in a mitt styley. My legs were so smooth after using this because not only does it take off your hair, but - seeing as this is sandpaper, the likes of which you could remove a layer of varnish with - you're sheering off a load of dead skin too. And some poor people end up sheering off a layer of live skin - one of my school friends still hasn't forgiven me for the firey stinging sensation she received after using these. My apologies. Trouble is though, if you want to keep the tan on your legs (and with thread veins like mine, it's advisable), constantly ripping off your summer glow with sandpaper isn't the best idea.

Waxing in a Salon
Every so often, when I start to look like a werewolf and I'm up for a bit of pain, I get my eyebrows threaded. It hurts, but it's quicker than tweezering it myself. The pain is swift. It's only £3 and because I go to an Asian beauty parlour, I come out looking like a Bollywood starlet. What's not to love about that? Well, apart from the stinging.

Anyway, one day I had my eyebrows done and clearly because I'm a pain whore, I decided to get my legs waxed. I hadn't been near leg waxing since my disasterous attempt as a 12 year old, and thought - what could go wrong? Really?

OH MY GOD OOOOUUUUCCCCHHH!!!!! Now this really did sting. Yes, it was faster than doing it at home, on yourself. But you get added sound effects; the velcro-style RRRRIPPP! as your hair suit comes shredding away from your skin. It's also somewhat undignified. Now, I know some of you probably get more than just your legs waxed and you're happy with that, but I really did find that going on all fours in my knickers while someone came up behind me with hot wax was something I only want to experience again if it's medically necessary.

More dipilatory creme!

As Silky Mitts aren't always available in even the biggest branches of Boots, I decided to experiment again with dipilatory creme, especially as it was now available in a very handy spray can. Hurrah! No more smearing, no more roller thingy that costs lots of money! I stood in the bath and sprayed. And looked like I had comedy foam shin pads on. And then slipped over in the bath where the spray had landed on the enamel.

And it wasn't exactly cheap, so I got a bargain Immac (sorry, Veet) pump-action bottle, complete with scraper. Trouble with this is, the mess it makes as you pump it into your hand and smear it on. My hand feels a bit perculiar afterwards, but maybe I'm just paranoid, like the time I got ibuprofen gel on my hand and thought it'd go numb. It's cheap but messy and let's face it - smelly and time-consuming.

Shaving
You're no doubt wondering why the hell I haven't mentioned leg shaving yet. This is, I would imagine, by far the most common method of hair removal. Heck, I've got a Gillette Venus for my armpits! And the other day, I wanted to quickly de-fuzz and didn't have time for Immacing (sorry, Veeting), so reached for the Venus and shaved my legs for the first time in my life. I didn't do it in the shower - I didn't use creme - so yes, my legs stung afterwards. But damn, it was quick. And mess free.

It was a revelation, in fact. I'd avoided it all these years, believing that it makes the hair come back worst. But heck, it's hair removal - it's always going to come back anyway. So yes, from now on, I'm going to be a shaven raver (well, at least as far as my legs are concerned). For the meantime, at least, until some other whim takes me....

Campaign for Clearer Clothes Sizing

2011-05-29T12:24:00.008+01:00

Gemma Seager, she of the Retro Chick blog, has started a Campaign for Clearer Clothes Sizing:

"I think clothes stores should be made to put the measurements they use to cut their patterns on the labels of their clothes. They should be made to publish their size charts online in a clearly marked location (not hidden in the customer service section) and have a link to it from every garment they sell. Unhappy, frustrated customers don’t buy clothes. Customers that never go in your store because they don’t know that actually you cut clothes that would fit their non average bodies are a customer lost. So it’s in shops interest to be clearer about their procedures."

An entirely sensible campaign, and one I support, both as a consumer, as someone concerned about body image/body size and as a clothes seller (and therefore my disclaimer: this blog is based on my personal experiences. As blogs tend to be...).

As a Consumer
The argument against clearer clothes sizing is that it doesn't matter. Why? Cos you can just try the clothes on in the changing room, silly! If only it were so easy. I'm not disabled, I don't have little kids, and yet I *still* hate fitting rooms. It may have started back in 1994. I was 15, trying to buy a new school skirt, and went into the fitting rooms - and it was one of those horrible communal changing rooms in River Island or somewhere similar. Whoever thought these up needs a slap. It must've been a cost-cutting measure, and something they probably never foisted on men. But I nearly left the fitting room in despair as there were two teenage girls in there, openly laughing at other customers in their undies. Clearly it was because they were nervous themselves, but you don't think of that when you're 15.

Lighting in fitting rooms is never flattering. My cellulite looks abomnible in fitting rooms, but never *that* bad in my well-lit bathroom. In the winter, fitting rooms are a pain in the chuff when you've got to remove and then put back on layer upon layer of clothing. The most annoying thing of all though are the queues.

(pic nabbed off google images)

As I work all week, like a lot of people, the only time I can go to M&S (where I shop on the High St most of the time) is a Saturday. My boyfriend doesn't want to come with me, so he's lurking in the street outside or somewhere stood about awkwardly amongst the women's clothing. And there's a HUGE queue. I just cannot be arsed with standing about in a massive queue. It's my day off, time is precious, and there it is - the world's biggest queue.

So no, I can't "just go to the fitting room."

This ties in too with M&S's handy service where you can order something off their website and then try it on in the shop, without being charged p&p. This sounds like a great idea - but hey, I once waited 15 minutes in a queue to collect the capri pants, and nearly got in a fight when someone pushed in. Then another 10 minutes to wait for a fitting room. Luckily, they fitted....

Body Image & Vanity Sizing
What's clear from Gemma's blog post and also the comments left on it is that not advertising garment measurements means people become very confused and in fact leads to body image issues. "I'm soooo fat!" someone might think, when in fact their body shape is fine, it's just the lack of clear clothes sizing that's to blame.

The other side of the coin is vanity sizing, which of course also feeds into the Clearer Clothes Sizing Campaign.

I was going to write a blog about No Diet Day, but didn't get round to it; however, as it is linked to body image and clothes size, I may as well do it now. In principle, No Diet Day is a good idea - it's encouraging people to accept themselves and not attempt unrealistic bodies by starving themselves and feeling guilty about food. However, it can have a negative effect on people who *should* diet for their health, and yet are in denial and use No Diet Day as a prop to their delusion. Now, you might think, "Hold on there, Helen, you're being a bit mean", but I'm writing this entirely as a person who was in denial about their weight and the effect it had on my health.

I'm not making aesthetic judgements about body size and shape, but I reached a point where I was ill because of my body size. I embraced Fat Acceptance and just ate like it was going out of fashion. I would eat 5 chocolate bars a day and massive portions of food and never exercise. I would look in the mirror and not recognise, for a moment, who was looking back at me, because the person in my head was a slim size 12. And so whenever I saw a cake, I'd think "That's ok, I'm slim, I can eat it, no probs!"

Vanity sizing contributed to my body dysmorphia (if we can call it that?). Stretchy fabrics contributed to it. Reacting to a fashion industry obsessed with boyish female figures contributed to it. Clothes still fitted me because they were stretching to accomodate the extra person I was adding to my body. But this is Adipose Acceptance! It's fine, yes, really, until you get a stomach ulcer, it's fine until your knees and your feet hurt so much walking becomes torture. Even sitting hurt my knees unless I held them at a precise angle. Being larger is one thing, but being so big that you're actually ill IS NOT EMPOWERING. There. I've said it. Based on my own experience.

Had I known what the measurements were of the clothes I was buying, it may have stopped me a bit earlier and made me accept that I was getting very big. It may at least have helped. A little.

As an example - I now wear a size 14 M&S cardigan. It's actually a bit big really. Could've got away with a 12. This despite me being 14 stone and having a 41" bust, which puts me between a 16 & 18, as far as I'm aware (having lost 4 stone with a gastric band, as I've written about a lot on this blog). I could say, "Hey, I don't need to lose any more weight! I'm a 12!" but that's a delusion I don't want to have anymore.

(and no, I didn't drink all that booze myself!)

A Clothing Retailer
Having run into problems buying online when clothing labels provide just one size chart to cover all their clothing (I ordered a dress from a company in America. The dress ran small so was a size too small for me. I measured it - I had a 44" bust at the time, and the dress measured 42". I sent it back and they didn't refund me or anything, despite them advertising a szie cahrt with a 44" bust for that size). This annoyed me SO MUCH that I started measuring the dresses I sold, and being clear when they ran small or large, and eventually I decided to provide a size chart for each garment. This isn't fool proof unfortunately, but it does help a lot and I know from customer feedback that the individual size charts are appreciated. Have a look at my size chart page. It demonstrates too how one clothing line can vary a lot in its sizing.

It looks like a lot of effort, but really doesn't take much time to do, and this is speaking as someone who runs a shop in my spare time. Whilst somewhere like M&S, for example, sells thousands of different garments, they also have thousands of staff. How hard would it be for them to provide something similar? I don't believe it would be hard at all.

How Would It Work In Practice?
Displaying size charts by clothes racks would be a good start (I think I've seen this somewhere before - possibly in children's clothes shops?). I'm not sure of the feasibility of having measurements on labels inside garments, just because sometimes the sizing will shift a little on the finished garment compared to what was intended. But I think in some cases it would be fairly easy to do.

It would mean happy customers. It would mean people picking up a skirt and being confident it would fit them, rather than experience the black cloud that descends in the fitting room when they can't do the zip up. If they knew in advance that the cut of that particular skirt means that it's not suitable for their measurements, then they wouldn't waste time or mental energy on something that doesn't fit.

I think too that people shopping online more will want High St shops to provide size charts. If you become used to it when making purchasing descisions online, then you'll feel a bit lost in a shop. This happens to me already!

I think Gemma's campaign is to be applauded. We've already seen, alas, the patronising and arrogant reaction of some people in the fashion industry. "Just take it into the fitting room" or "Women don't want to be upset by their measurements." We are consumers, we keep the fashion industry going: we should not be ignored.

An update

2011-05-05T17:41:00.004+01:00

Gosh, I haven't updated this since February. Whoops!

So I'll do an update in chunks!

1. Weightloss/gastric band etc
Not quite sure what's happened here. My last weigh-in was on the 5th February when I was 14st 2lb. I was weighed recently at the doctor's and I was 14st. Erm... but I was fully clothed, wearing Dr Marten boots. So... yeah. I'm going to be weighed at the clinic on the same scales as before at the beginning of June, so that should give me a better idea.

However, suffice to say that I had to get myself some new bras as my 42DD and 40DD Triumph Doreens were getting roomy. I'm now a 38DD! And I'm also now a size 18. Last time I measured myself I had a 42" bust and 43" hips. Can't quite believe it myself! I assume I've lost more weight recently - I saw some pics from early April the other day and can see even since then I've lost weight off my face.

2. Slight problems
As mentioned, I've been struggling a bit. It resulted, in March, with me going back on anti-depressants. It wasn't something I was wild about doing, but I felt so bloody awful that there wasn't much choice. Before, I was on Seroxat for 7 years, then Efexor for 1 year. Now I'm on Citalopram. The desire to take snuggly naps and the bizarre, lucid dreams etc have returned. I'm watching out in case it affects my weightloss, as one reason I ended up putting on loads of weight to begin with was because I was on anti-depressants anyway. But I'd been boozing away, and the calories in that can't have been helping much. So we'll see. I'm glad I'm on them anyway. I was feeling really shitty before.

3. Creative projects
I'm still working on my own line of clothing. I had a slight hiccup with the first manufacturer I decided to work with (luckily I only decided to do one dress with them - I'd originally thought about doing 3... what a nightmare that would've been). I'm not pole-axed with grief over this as I know full well it's not something you can just leap into with perfect results on your first go. I've had to change tack, but it'll be worth it.

Meanwhile, I'm working on my indie band, The Ritas, with my friend Olivia Sparrow (she's the one in the leopard print, looking like Liz Taylor).

We recorded a cover of "Jeane" by The Smiths (whhooops, typed "by The Ritas" there - sorry Morrissey!) and it's got radio play in America. The other weekend we filmed a video for it, which will be available to see this weekend, possibly. While we filmed the video, we did a quick shoot in the band stand near where I live. I think you'll agree that this looks awesome!

We're working on loads of our own stuff, writing loads of songs, and now that I've got my very own drum machine (the newest member of The Ritas - she's called Doreen Drums) we can start recording them and playing live. In fact, we might be playing live in October, so watch out for that!

AND the other week, Olivia and I DJ'd at a birthday party. It was much fun and shall be done again.

4. My current style
My look at the moment is called "amphetamine landgirl". I'm wearing Freddie's of Pinewood jeans with Rocket Originals jumpers, a crop-waisted khaki Army jacket (it's identical to the one I've seen my grandad wear in photos) and Dr Marten boots. Now, I know the Dr Marten's aren't that vintage but I like them. Plus they do have their origins in the 1940s and were originally made in 1960 - released on 1st April 1960, they became known as 1460's. As I usually walk 6 miles a day (3 miles to work and 3 miles home again), they're the best thing I can wear. I tried orthopaedic shoes from Hotter, as recommended by a chiropodist, but they didn't fit well (too big and floppy) whereas with boots I can tighten the laces as required and the soles are orthopaedic, as well as the ankle on the boot providing support. So it's not necessarily vintage, but it looks like it when I wear it, so nerrrr.

5. Family stuff
Not sure if anyone wants to know about this. But my silent brother still isn't talking - he's now been mute for a year. Really have no idea what to do. My other brother's regiment was being sent to Afghanistan at the end of April. I don't know when, or if, he's going, as he's on battle replacement (so he'll be sent out if someone's injured or what have you). It's hard cos I walk past the hospital where they look after the injured soldiers on my way to work - there's always people in uniform about (for which reason I wear a different jacket to work - not the khaki one!) and it's a constant reminder of the danger my brother is willingly flinging himself into.

Anyway, you don't need to know all that, so here's a photo of me playing Bernard, my guitar. Those of you who were teenagers in the 90s might spot the clue in the bottom right hand corner and work out how my guitar got his name....

Songs of Woe

2011-02-15T14:40:00.000Z

The debut Ritas podcast!

Me and Olivia are doing a series of themed podcasts. We've kicked off with "Songs of Woe". There are 11 songs on it, spanning the 1930s to the 2000s, covering artists such as Marlene Dietrich, Screaming Jay Hawkins, The Smiths and the Manics. Revel in woe with The Ritas!

Libraries gave us power....

2011-02-07T12:08:00.010Z

(contains swearing, and nothing at all about vintage style. For which I make no apology whatsoever, because what I'm about to say needs to be said.)

In 1996, the powers wot be at my comprehensive school decided to shut the school library for a couple of months (in my final A-level year, no less) to turn it into a "learning resources centre". Because people are scared of the word "library", apparently, and so our haven of peace and books was turned into a room filled half with books and half with computers. Noisy computer lessons took place while we were trying to work in silence. It didn't work. We protested quite vocally when the plans were first announced and then once the library had been shut for the refurb and all the books piled up in boxes that we couldn't get to, me and a friend sneeked round the school putting posters on every available surface that read: "LIBRARIES GAVE US POWER! THEN THE HEAD SHUT THEM DOWN AND RUINED OUR A-LEVEL RESULTS!"

We then peeked through the windows of the common room, delighted to see the deputy head run round school ripping our posters down in a rage. We had made our point (albeit by quoting the Manics, but there's no shame in that).

It's unfortunate that the debate over "what are libraries for?" has come at the same time as the ConDems' drive to make cuts. Do we need libraries anymore, some might ask? We've got the internet! And Kindles!

Work is apace in Birmingham to replace the Brutalist monstrosity/masterpiece (depending on how you view it) which is Birmingham Central Library.

It's quite a nice library, but the escalators are annoying (any time you visit at least one of them won't work. There seems to be just one lift and as far as I can tell, no optional stairs) and the noises coming from the McDonald's and various eateries in the courtyard downstairs can be intrusive. The collection of books is quite good - when I was writing my dissertation (on tv adaptations of novels and heritage culture), I found myself using a lot of their stuff that we didn't have at uni, and they even had The Rudi Gernreich Book - they have quite a strong collection on photography (even if the library assistant made me sit right in front of her as I went through it, saying "I don't know if you'll rip out the photos or not" - well done for making the library an inviting space by accusing people of Joe Orton-like vandalism!) (and yeah, there's some topless photos in that book so it was a bit embarrassing). That said, a brief scan of the shelves can be a bit depressing as the books are quite shabby in some cases.

Ahem.

So Birmingham City Council is spending CRAPLOADS of dosh on a new library. Central is a bit tired, it must be said, and as the vogue for Brutalism has long since passed (sadly - it all gets pulled down and one day, in the not too distant future, people will only see these buildings in photographs), it has a price on its head. The building will be destroyed, probably cos they can't turn it into yet more bland yuppie flats.

People have been excited about the designs for the new library, and it is impressive that they're willing to spend so much money on it, but one wonders how much money they spent on the consultancy firm that decided "The Library of Birmingham" was the best fucking name they could come up with. Seriously. That name is so shit I do this cry/laugh thing everytime I see it mentioned. *cry/laugh* <--- See, there it is now. I seem to remember some library/council big cheeses went off some some highly expensive tour of libraries in Australia or somewhere too. Yes, indeed. And just remember, when you think of that, what I said about the shabby books.

A video has come out now giving us the official "The Library of Birmingham" (*cry/laugh*) "fly-through" (which makes it sound like something on Second Life, but without furries on segways).

I watched this in horror. First of all, we've all seen the photos of the exterior design of "The Library of Birmingham (*cry/laugh*), and it looks like it's been modelled on bedsprings. Secondly... the grand piano. It really grates on me that any time anyone thinks of culture, y'know, like this thing called a book, it has to be accompanied by a fricking grand piano or some tit with a violin wanking on about classical music. Go into Waterstones. Listen to the background music. They ain't playing The Clash, are they? Perhaps they could get some kids from Handsworth to do some breakdancing? Make it nice and inclusive? Nah, let's have some white person playing some plinky-plonky crapola on a fucking grand piano. Some might say it's aspirational - I say it's building barriers. They may as well get Frasier and Niles to turn up. That grand piano better be on a fucking revolving platform. BRING ON THE ENTERTAINMENT!

When you enter the library, you're surrounded by those annoying bookshelf chairs that they give away for free on that culture show thing on Sky Arts that Mariella Frostrup presents.

Don't get me wrong, this looks like my dream chair. It'd be nifty as hell in my front room. Yes. In my front room. NOT IN A FRICKING LIBRARY. Can we get some perspective on this, please? One of the most important things about libraries is that they exist for people to share information. You go into a library and get a book off a shelf and either sit down and read it there or take it home. What grates about the book chairs is that it's so territorial, so possessive. Imagine you want a book and it's on a book chair and someone's sat on their fat arse drinking a frappacappuccino. The book you want is right behind their feet! Ewww! I mean, not that I'm against interacting with my fellow human beings on occasion, but come on... The other thing - and this is purely practical from the point of view of someone who's worked in libraries for 11 years - please, please, dear lord, how the hell do you shelve books in a sensible, intuitive, logical sequence in a load of book chairs????

In fact I feel the same rage/terror *cry/laugh* when I see the rest of the shelving in the library. The, what is it?, "book rotunda"?, looks like a logistical nightmare. The books aren't books, not to be read. No, they're just wallpaper, lining the atrium where the escalators take you up to - what? A fucking café, probably.

When I did my librarianship postgrad, I elected to do the module on public libraries. It was fascinating how public libraries provide services to so many people, many of whom are disadvantaged (be it socially, by disability, etc), but at the same time promote self-education and the seeking after knowledge and I suppose enlightenment of a kind. Even if it's a toy library, public libraries are in the business of expanding people's minds. Everybody's minds.

There was a meeting of local people, a kind of focus group thing, not long ago. Someone quite high up in libraries said that they felt "libraries aren't about Dostoyevsky anymore". No, they'd rather use them for recipe books and gardening books, and somewhere to get a coffee. Whilst I can see their point - if you're an educated person then you'd just want a library for reference and can buy your own books from Waterstones and Amazon anyway - what if you're not educated? What if you rely on libraries in order to educate yourself? There are two people I am very close to who fall exactly into this bracket, who were failed by schools, but being intelligent and having minds that quested after truth and beauty, were drawn to libraries and it was libraries that saved them. And this is what is aspirational about libraries - knowledge. It's why that bloody piano annoys me so much - it represents aspiration, but... it's just a piano, it's a clichéd symbol of cultural aspiration. Oh, the new library might look nice, but if we turn libraries into pretentious coffee shops with grand pianos and fucking BOOK CHAIRS and have shelving sequences that no one can work out (it has long been my suspicion that librarians weren't involved with the design and the book rotunda merely proves this, as far as I'm concerned), if we fill them with Jamie Oliver cookery books, if we do all this and chuck The Road To Wigan Pier and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and Emily Bronte's poems into the shredder - we betray everything that libraries are for.

(and look, Nicky Wire's written an article about library closures in The Guardian, on the same day I did my blog. Yay!)

Went better than expected

2011-02-05T18:54:00.004Z

Another weigh-in today, and I'm now 14 stone 2lb (198lb or 90kg). I've lost 4 stone 1lb (57lb) since the end of March! And I've lost half a stone (7lb) since the Saturday before Christmas. Possibly one of the only people on Earth to lose weight over Christmas!

In other news... I was in London the other week to go to a gig. The next day, on the way home, we stopped off in Soho Square and a bloke came up to ask us if he could take photos for his photography course. Being shy and retiring, I of course said yes. And I'm glad I did, cos I really love this photo of me. It looks like a still from a kitchen sink film! (favourite comment on Facebook: "It looks like you're about to get a bonk off Michael Caine.")

Other stuff... I'm in a band! What? Yes! We're called The Ritas. I'm on guitar and my friend Olivia sings. We're just working on a cover of "Jeane" by The Smiths. It sounds amazing! We're not in any way a 'vintage band'. We're not swing and we're not rockabilly. Why? Cos I can't play rockabilly guitar. As I may have mentioned before, one of my favourite things is mid-90s bands like Blur, the Manics, Suede etc. 80s bands like The Smiths. And Morrissey's solo stuff. So The Ritas are an indie band, basically. Just wait till you hear Olivia's voice - she's amazing.

I don't think this needs a caption, really

2011-01-06T10:16:00.003Z

In an attempt to cheer myself up...

2010-12-24T15:13:00.003Z

…I tucked into a Christmas selection box. And tweeted it, item by item.
#Eaten a tube of Smarties. Will this cheer me up?

#Milkybar. Just had one. Not perking up yet.

#(yes, I’m tweeting my way through a Christmas selection box).

#Jelly Tots?

#Jelly Tots were ok but reminded me of being 5. Skipping the Tooty Frooties. Bag of Milkybar buttons & another tube of Smarties to go!

(at which point osparrow offered to eat the Tooty Frooties & Milkybar buttons on my behalf).

#which makes my task easier. *moving onto the Smarties*

#Yes, it is lame that I had major surgery & spent £6,500 having a gastric band & I’m sat here guzzling sweets. I DON’T CARE.

#Final sweetie count: 2 tubes of Smarties, 1 packet of Jelly Tots, 1 mini Milkybar. Do I feel better? A little bit. Apart from the food guilt

#Ah fuck it, who cares? I’ve lost 51lbs since March & my hair was falling out. 1 hour of piggging out on sweets won’t kill me.

What would we do without Twitter???

(latest weigh-in news: as of Saturday 18th December I weighed 92.6kg, or 14st 8lb, or 204lb. So I have lost, since March, 3st 9lb, or 51lb, or 23kg. Bear in mind the average weightloss with a band is 1lb a week - I've lost nearly a year's worth of weight in 9 months. I will probably not lose much over the next week, but it's Christmas, and if you want to take the high horse and lecture me and say I can't have one week out of the year where I can eat crap (but *you* can) then you can go fuck yourself with a massive bollard).

It's just like the 80s....

2010-12-07T15:29:00.006Z

(as the header of this blog says, I like complaining. As you may or may not know, I am a fan of the musical outpourings of The Smiths and The Morrissey).

"I tried living in the real world
Instead of a shell
But I was bored before I even began"

Some things don't change. Morrissey clearly still does live in a shell.

You may (or may) not have seen recently that Johnny Marr tweeted:

"David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it."

Ever since The Davester came out as a Smiths fan, I've been frankly rather confused by it, and it made me (as a leftie) rather chuffed that Marr was willing to say that.

Never one to let the spotlight drift away from him for too long, Morrissey had to join the fray. He couldn't just use twitter because ~~he's clearly a gobshite~~ he likes to mould words and ~~waffle on~~ tell it how it is. According to him....

So off he trots to True To You, a fan site which, in lieu of Morrissey having a record label or manager at the moment (or maybe he does - it's hard to tell with the King of Flounce) posts his missives to an uncaring world.

I got an email today from an acquaintance in Canada asking me about the higher education and arts cuts in the UK - but what does Morrissey write about? Is he incensed about benefit cuts? Is he raging about plans to change the dole? Has he freaked the freaked out at the suggestion that the Tories might bring in homophobic legislation?

No, Morrissey gives us 1,224 words (The Telegraph counted them all) telling us how much he hates hunting. This is news to me. I mean, he won't tour Canada because of the seal cull and writes songs about being vegetarian - I had no fucking idea that he didn't like hunting.*

*Please note, I'm being sarcastic.

If Morrissey hadn't written about how much he hates hunting, it would come as a surprise. But he seems to have ridden in on Marr's coat-tails and taken the opportunity to ~~mouth off~~ tell the world something we already knew. I mean - good for him for doing so, but it's almost as though he's claiming the right to expand on Johnny's tweet, and saying "This is why Cameron isn't allowed to like The Smiths." And it's just all about hunting.

Dude, seriously, it's not just about hunting. Johnny's tweet came hard on the heels of all the protests that have been going on around Britain in recent weeks. Perhaps you would like to comment on tax avoidance by high-earners? Oh no, perhaps not, might be a bit of a sore point being a high-earner yourself. Do you live in the UK anymore? Did you vote in the election? Do you not care about all those fans of yours who get derided as "over-paid bleeding-heart liberals", working in public service, who are facing a very uncertain future? Do you not care about your disabled fans who rely on benefits? I don't expect you to care about university fees as you never went yourself, but come on.

I think I could've just read it and gone "oh that's nice, and the slagging of the royals is quite amusing, but I do wish he'd care a bit about people sometimes" (rather than just the fwuffy nannimoos), if he hadn't shoved in this charming bit of misogyny (and from a self-proclaimed feminist too! Bet Linder wanted to strangle him and wear him as a dress. At least, I hope she did)

Politicians only care about the public as electorate, and once the victory vote has been seized there is no place for debate between The Prime Minister and the people who elected him. (I cannot use the him/her term in relation to a Prime Minister because, as we all know, Margaret Thatcher has ensured that a female Prime Minister would never again be risked.)

So there we go. All women in power would be JUST like Margaret Thatcher, apparently. And this is something that "we all know." Women should, presumably, be banned from politics because of Margaret Thatcher! (should we ban men from being prime minister for the shitty things they've done in politics? Or was Stalin female as well?). She only did all those unpopular things because - SHE HAS A VAGINA!

I was so BLOODY ANGRY when I read that, I really wanted to locate the erudite Manc whinger and kick him very hard in the balls. Very hard indeed. So hard, in fact, that his next album would be delivered entirely in falsetto.

And the thing is, I don't want to be angry with Morrissey. I don't want to hate him. But... sometimes you just can't help it. Only - if he didn't come out with vehemently un-vanilla flavoured remarks, if he never expressed an opinion of his own and said only what the record company suits wanted him to in order to please the public, if he toed the line and said, "thanks Davester for being our fan! Here's a backstage pass!" I wouldn't even want to listen to his music. And that would be a sad world indeed.**

**although I think we could do without those rather hypocritical views on immigration he holds, as an Englishman living in a foreign land himself....

PS: for the record, I don't agree with hunting either.

Blitz Twitter

2010-12-07T09:37:00.002Z

Fleur got a random anonymous nutter on her blog, demanding to know how she would have coped with the Blitz, as apparently deleting a blog entry means she has no backbone or stiff upper lip. Or she does have a stiff upper lip and... well... I dunno.

This got me thinking, though. When I was trapped at Euston for an hour and a half because of signalling problems at Bletchley (I kid you not) I was tweeting fiercely and my boyfriend made some comment about how my rage really wasn't the "Blitz spirit". And I thought, how would you tweet the Blitz? Not as some erudite commentator with BBC tones - "OHHHH, the humanity!" - but as an average, everyday person? And so when ol' Anon demanded to know - how would you cope with the Blitz? - here's the answer!

The Blitz twitter!

"Can't sleep. F***ing planes."

"That was a loud one. Wonder if my house just got a direct hit?"

"Best thing about the war? The GIs. Oh yes ladies, knowworramnean?"

"Rockin' out to the latest Glenn Miller video - just watching it on YouPathé! Awesome!"

"Made lipstick out of a crushed beetle. It was rubbish."

"Apparently the bombed out people of Greenock have been stealing food - can't say I blame 'em!"

"All-clear at last - hurrah!"

"Bollocks. That *was* my house."

"Sorry guys, deleted the last tweet. I got really sweary when I realised I was homeless. F*** off, Hitler! Whoops, there goes another one!"

(Before someone decides to lay into me for not taking the Blitz srsly and being disrespectful, I should point I do take it seriously, very much so. I recently found a death certificate for someone in my family, who died in 1942. I looked at the cause of death and it said "War operations: buried under debris." The other two people on the same page (a five year old girl who died with her grandmother) had the same cause of death, and then I realised they died in the same place - they died in the same air-raid shelter, in the Greenock blitz. We lit a candle for them. After all that, quite frankly, a bit of levity is required! So please add your Blitz Twitters below!!!).

Vintage shopping in Cardiff

2010-11-11T20:52:00.004Z

I'm going to do a blog about my brother's wedding in Wales soon because it's an excuse to post melodramatic photos of me stood about in a graveyard in a long, flowing frock. Plus it was in September and I really should just get on with it!

But before I do that, I shall write my little blog about vintage shopping in Cardiff. And why? Well, I suppose you don't think of a city the size of Cardiff having much in the way of vintage - that is if Birmingham's anything to go by. We don't have vintage shops in Brum anymore (oh but we used to! Yo-Yo and all that!) and have to get by on vintage fairs stuffed to bursting with 80s stuff. No thanks!! So I really wasn't expecting Cardiff to have much, and yet - it exceeded expectations SPECTACULARLY!

I'll start with...

Hobos (26 High St Arcade)
Quite studenty. It had a lot of Pop Boutique repro (you may know the shop in Manchester), and it was mainly 70s/80s. Lots of batwing dresses and kitschy handbags, big 80s belts, that kind of thing. It does have a rather good rack of check men's shirts, including some vintage Pendletons at very reasonable prices.

A Vintage Affair (26 Morgan Arcade)

This is a new shop, apparently. It's classic vintage, leaning mainly towards 30s/40s/50s/early 60s, with period furniture, a box of old photos, dress clips, clip on earrings, lots of clothing, stoles etc. It seems to be fairly good quality and it's a nice 'girly' shop. I couldn't see very much for the boys. I got some rather awesome jewellery and some Victorian photos, and there were a couple of good condition 50s hats too. Definitely worth a visit, plus the women who work there are really friendly, and the way they've set out the shop is just delightful.

The arcades in Cardiff are rather charming and full of little shops - last time I went there, I came across a vintage shop (since closed down, I think) which sold What Katie Did bullet bras! Wooo! It's the kind of place you can plunge into and wait to be surprised. For lovers of independent record shops, Spillers (the oldest music shop IN THE WORLD, no less) moved to the Morgan Arcade in July (as patronised by the Manic Street Preachers - sadly I didn't spot Nicky rummaging for dresses and fun-fur at A Vintage Affair).

Anyway.

DRUM-ROLL, PLEASE! Yes, roll-up, roll-up, I'm about to get VERY EXCITED about one of the best vintage shops I've ever, ever, ever been to! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, merched a dynion, it is....

Antoinette's Antiques (The Pumping Station, Penarth Road)
I nearly passed out!!! (seriously - I was struggling to breathe, I was so excited!). This shop is AMAZING! I adore vintage hats and Antoinette's reckons it has the biggest selection in Britain - I think I would have to agree. I was really hard put to choose a hat, and in the end came away with two. I wore one to the wedding the very next day! (I'd read good things and so didn't take a hat with me - I was determined to buy one from Antoinette's or otherwise go bare-headed). There's loads of clothing from 70s to Victorian (there was a late 1800s wedding bonnet... I nearly had a Brontegasm), but I'd say 80% to 90% of the stock is 40s/50s. It's the kind of shop you dream about, and when you wake up and it melts away you feel all sad and think "I wish it really existed." Well, good news chaps, because it does!

It is best explained in the ensuing picspam.

To be quite honest, if you like old stuff, you may as well go to The Pumping Station anyway (arrrgh, I curse Birmingham for not having an antiques market like this - so unfair!). Besides Antoinette's, there's some other vintage clothing and accessories sellers (although not with quite the volume of stock), and then places selling brick-a-brack, mid-20th century homewares, Clarice Cliff, Tiffany lampshades, militaria (uniform wear as well as medals), ornaments, furniture (anyone for old skool old school desks?), oh wow, just so much awesome stuff in a tardis of a building which swallows you up for hours of blissful wandering. It has a café and facilities too, which is handy as it's a bit out on a limb.

Look: a shop full of lights opposite a café selling massive carrot cakes.

They even have vast quantities of gardenware - gazebos and benches, as well as... erm... giant hands...

And... erm... *insert massive cock joke here*

It's probably easiest to go by car but any bus that gets you down the Penarth Road should be ok, as there's a bus stop just outside. We got the train to Grangetown and walked, which probably wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been tipping it down with rain! Had to keep asking men in boilersuits if I was going in the right direction - Penarth Road is lined with car dealerships and tyre garages. I like to walk as much as possible these days, so I got my exercise, albeit rather damply...!

Quick weight update

2010-11-06T18:46:00.001Z

I'm just taking advantage of Ebay's free listing weekend and putting loads of stuff up for sale - corsets and shapewear I can't wear anymore and shoes that were always too small for me, but I was in denial about my massive hooves. Just nipping over here briefly as I went to the clinic today for a measure, chat (or grilling, perhaps, is more accurate) and band fill.

I now weigh 95kg exactly, which is 14st 13.4lb - just under 15 stone (by half a pound - oh well!). This is also known as 209.4lb. My BMI is 32.8 - so I'm still technically obese, but much closer to being just overweight, which begins at a BMI of 30. I started off at 18st 3lb back in April, so I've lost nearly 3st 4lb.

Looking back at my last blog entry on 2nd October, I was 15st 6lb (97.8kg or 215lb). So I've lost over 6lb in 5 weeks. I'm quite pleased by that because, as I mentioned last time, the average weight loss with a band is 1lb a week. My overall loss at 2nd Oct was 1.5lb a week. My weightloss this times shows I'm still losing the above average expected amount. I'm quite relieved about that as I was beginning to eat larger portions! (but clearly... not that larger!). If I keep losing nearly half a stone a month, I'll be really chuffed! Although I do reckon that my weightloss might slow at some point, though perhaps not, as they'll just tighten me up again if that happens! My goal is 10 or 11 stone.

I measured myself on Thursday morning and my vital stats are as follows:

Bust: 43.5"
Waist: 36"
Hips: 44"

Back in April it was:

Bust: 47"
Waist: 44"
Hips: 50"

I think those figures speak for themselves!!!

As I had the band topped up, I'm on liquids for 2 days and soft food for 3. I'm sat here with stomach rumblings to rival the fireworks banging away outside! But... I don't feel hungry. Despite only having had lots of water and tea and a bowl of carrot and coriander soup earlier.

There are other blogs I want to write - I really should get on with the one about my brother's wedding in September, and something about the vintage shops I visited in Cardiff, but as some of you know I've had a load of stress lately with something and I just haven't got round to dwelling on nice things. We can't have that, though, can we? Nice things are important!

More waffle about my stomach

2010-10-02T21:11:00.004+01:00

Well I went to see the nutritionist again today for a weigh-in and, pretty much, the closest a non-Catholic can get to being in a confessional. "Yes, I do eat cupcakes - I know it's wrong!"

So... I'm now 15st 6lb, or 97.8kg, and for those of you watching in pound-o-vision, it's 215lb.

My BMI has dropped to 34.7, from 40. So I'm now "obesity grade 1", having started off at "obesity grade 3." Which, in old money, was "morbidly obese". I'm now just plain ol' obese, and closer to being just "overweight" (which starts at 30 BMI) than I am to "morbidly obese", which is good. "Overweight" is the average BMI for the population of Britain, in case you were wondering. And in case you're wondering, "obesity grade 2" was "severely obese". But that's enough quote marks for one day.

So if you're wondering what I look like these days...
This is me a couple of weekends ago at my brother's wedding:

And this is me two days ago on my way to work:

I put all my size 22 trousers in the charity clothes bag, and now my M&S size 20 trousers are too big for me as well so I'm going about wearing a belt. I bought some jeans in Freddie of Pinewood's sale. Can't quite fit into the 36" waist ones but the 38" ones are fine and eventually I'll fit into the 36" ones! And I can fit into M&S size 18 coats, which is great because the flab's reducing on my arms - I need a new coat for winter too cos my size 22 one will just look daft.

I haven't lost a great deal this time - 4lb in 6 weeks - but the nutritionist said that because I've been doing more exercise, it's increased muscle mass (and by more exercise, I mean: I walked 10 miles last week, and 15 miles the week before that, and I can't remember how many before that).

I've reduced the amount I drink as well - I'd go through 2 bottles of wine a week and have reduced it to one, at the weekend, so that's 500 calories I've avoided.

And the cupcakes... I was going to blog about this but haven't yet. I'm not sure if it's just a phase I'm going through, probably caused by me having a decent oven that I can bake in for the first time in 10 years, but I can't stop cooking the damn things. I have one every evening when I come in from work. But, before anyone wants to judge me, bear in mind I don't eat any crap during the day at all. It's my one lapse, and the nutritionist said that it's fine as long as that's all I have (and yes, I admitted to the couple of squares of chocolate I have after my dinner!).

Because compared to what I used to eat at times (and this wasn't all the time), I would eat biscuits during the day at work, or even go and buy Double Deckers and scoff them. I don't do that anymore, so a brief lapse at home in the shape of a homemade cupcake is hardly a dreadful sin. And yes, I could drop the cupcakes and lose weight faster, but it would be a pretty boring life (and the nutritionist said this is fine - the band allows you to have small quantities of nice things, rather than live in a state of diet all the time. Bear in mind too that every day for lunch I have a salad - every day - and I think you might notice that I'm not exactly going wild and supplementing my cupcakes with burgers and chips.

The other thing about cupcakes is that they're good for portion control. I can eat one cupcake and be satisfied, whereas before if I bought one of those terrible supermarket sponge cakes, I'd eat most of it myself in one go (not on a daily basis, by the way). It's part of my food re-education - I spend time making the cakes rather than just going into a shop to buy them, and I concentrate on making them very flavoursome and decorated nicely. I also share them - this is quite a momentous step for me because before I used to take possession of food and find it very hard to give it away, but now I offer them to people who come round and even take them into work.

The popularity of cupcakes, especially the way they've become indissoluble from the current 'vintage scene', is worthy of mention. I've noticed a lot of people "getting into vintage" because they view it as equalling ladylike glamour. It's not a massive step to go from there to pretty cakes and women returning to their kitchens to bake for fun. Nigella Lawson is to blame for all that - remember the cupcake she had on the front of her cookery book? And of course, she's been photographed wearing repro 50s circle dresses.

I loved baking when I was a child, and have happy memories of helping my mum in the kitchen, wearing an apron that was bigger than I was! I even baked on and off when I was a teenager - I once made an ENORMOUS Victoria sponge, because I didn't realise the batter would rise and thought it didn't look like there was enough in the cake tins. Cue a cake twice the size it was meant to be because I doubled the amount of batter... it was an awesome cake, though. And to be honest, I don't think a shop-bought cake (well, supermarket, at least) can taste as good as a home-baked one. Well, except those very naughty chocolate fudge birthday ones... OH MY.

But to return to my original topic... if you're thinking "shit, Helen, why the hell are you EATING CAKE? You're supposed to be losing weight, you stupid cow." Well, let me tell you the following:

1. people with gastric bands lose an average of 1lb a week. I've lost an average of 1.4lb per week, which is obviously more than would be expected. I don't know how that's happened, really.
2. I've lost weight so fast that my body is in shock and my hair's falling out. So to be honest, eating a cake so that I don't lose weight too fast is probably quite good, if I don't want to end up bald. Thought I'd end on that note... (but worry not... I'm taking zinc and selenium and my bald patches are filling out and the hair loss isn't quite as bad. It's not back to my pre-operative shedding amount, but it's not as bad as it was, when I'd wash my hair and have a ball that would fill my hand - and I have very large hands. Plus I have thick hair, so even the bald patches weren't that noticeable.)

This is Anachronistic Nostalgia '86

2010-09-08T12:37:00.005+01:00

So last night I watched the first episode of This is England '86. I LOVE the film - dramatic stuff, edge-of-the-seat, and so to be quite honest I found this TV version rather disappointing and underwhelming.

In the ad breaks, some car manufacturer kept banging on about how they were sponsoring British drama. Well, I couldn't see any. TIE 86 had a sluggish pace and no real purpose. Yes, ok, it's a tv series, but even in a tv episode you expect some kind of story arc, but this was: boy buggers up exams, gets punched by Windsow Davies in a shellsuit (don't think they had shell suits in 86), gets upset he doesn't have a scooter, bumps into old friends at a hospital who were at a wedding that didn't happen. Erm... yeah... thrilling stuff. You see, if I pretend I didn't see This is England the film, I still think I'd feel that.

The acting was good though - you can't really fault it - and the dialogue was mainly good (I felt the phrase "I chose the wrong crisp-buyer" was too clunky. I mean, 'crisp-buyer'?), but there just wasn't enough dramatic tension or even things happening to maintain my interest over an hour. Half an hour would've sufficed, quite frankly. As someone on the twitterverse quipped, "without all the slow-mo he could have squeezed all four episodes into a 1hr special & saved £56k in piano royalties".

Other than problems with pace and plot, there's a problem with believability (they didn't have cupcakes in 1986. We've had them here for about 5 years at the most. Fairy cakes, yes, cupcakes - f*** off. You may as well have Shaun using Bebo) - and this I base on what I know of youth cults and what my boyfriend (21 in 1986, so a contemporary of the characters) has told me about what life was like then.

Basically, youth in the 80s were incredibly tribal. If you think kids are bad today, splitting themselves up into... well... whatever they split themselves into (gangsta kids, chavs, goths, emos, skaters), then bear in mind what life was like then. Psychobillies who weren't really billy and were all psycho with their unquenchable desire to stove in as many skulls as possible (with a vintage baseball bat, of course); smoothies - a combintation of football casuals and mods; a few eccentric people who were mods and had to hide from everyone else to avoid being punched; moped gangs; scooter gangs; skinheads; punks; goths; Jesus & Mary Chain fans with massive hair; cheesy George Michael fans in white hatchbacks; ravery disco twats; alternative types; terrified indie kids in corduroy jackets, etc etc etc.

Some indie kids, 1988 (every gang of indie kids had at least one person wearing pointy shoes, and some poor bastard who looked like Morrissey)

Despite the impression you may get from the This is England franchise, it was very rare to have a gang made up of every youth cult going. While it was fairly easy for the girls, at least, to be quite fluid in their appearance and thus the youth cult they identified with (hence the presence of gormless Boy George/new romantic crossover, Smell), it was much harder for the blokes. You were a skinhead, and that was that. You ride a moped? You'll have your arse kicked by scooter boys. You just wouldn't have a mod (Woody), a - erm - well whatever Milky's aspiring to now with that tash (kind of skinhead-with-a-tash), a ravery disco bloke in a tracksuit (Gadget), an indie/psychobilly bloke (who looks like he's off the Hulmerist video) in a Cramps T-shirt (Harvey) all hanging out together. Yes, they started off as skinheads, but as they got into different things, they would've gone off and hung out with other blokes.

And can we discuss Woody's mod look? Like I said, mod really had dwindled by the mid 80s. Even Paul Weller wasn't particularly moddy by then. If it was 79 or 80, then fair enough, but by 86, you had mods on scooters wearing deer stalkers - it had become quite underground and purist and rather eccentric in some respects: "The 80s was a purist, traditionalist, insular, This Is A Mod Scene For Mod People Only affair." Read this review of a book on the 90s mod scene to appreciate what the 80s mod scene was like: "I kept a note of all the gigs I went to; whereas there were two or three a month during 1985 they completely dried up in 1986. For me, the 80s scene ended in September when I saw Makin' Time for the last time (at the Oval Cricketers) and went to the farewell Prisoners gig at the 100 Club. Terry Rawlings and Verguren make the point the scene collapsed without its bands and I'd fully concur." Yes, there were a lot of mods about initially, but by 86, there weren't many. And I'd be very surprised if they had that terribly unflattering hairdo that Woody sports, which makes him look like a simpleton.

But in some respects, it doesn't seem to matter how accurate it is - Woody seems to be a mod, not because he wants to be a mod but because he's a skinhead turning into a yuppy. As Lol says to him at the hospital, "You've changed since you got your promotion." Which could lead to the idea that skinhead = working class, mod = out-of-touch middle class.

Having a photo on the wall of his dad on a scooter "at the rally in Brighton" in the 60s was a bit odd too - yes, they're called scooter rallies these days and have since the 70s or 80s, but when mods and rockers engaged in fisticuffs in Brighton, did they go "Hey, we're on a mod rally!" I doubt it very much: they just turned up because they were British and you went to the seaside on a Bank Holiday. Besides which, having an actual photo of him "on a mod rally" just seemed bizarre - the impression I get is that they were too busy shopping, dancing, being anal about obscure records, ignoring fawning dollybirds, washing their hair, doing more shopping - to bother with taking photos (but then I suppose that's the poser mod idea - the scooter mod idea was rather different and perhaps best personified by Jimmy, but again, I can't really see him stowing his Box Brownie in his side panel compartment).

My mum: being a mod. Too busy to be photographed very much as she was hanging out with rockers in amusement arcades in Clacton

The other strange thing about their gang is... what's with the two creepy old geezers who hang about with them? I really don't get that at all. Unless they were drug dealers or something. Why anyone would want to associate with Meggy (played by the child murderer from Scum - hope this means Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels will turn up, but alas, I don't hold out much hope...), who seems entirely devoid of charm, I can't imagine, and it makes no sense that while Shaun stopped hanging out with Woody & co after Milky was attacked (in the film) because he felt guilty, Meggy and Banjo, who were far more into the racist skinhead stuff (well, I doubt you could really called Meggy a skinhead, to be honest), are now amiable comic turns, and everyone's devastated when Meggy nearly dies. Callous as I am, I was rather disappointed to find out he survived. Are we to intuit from this that Milky's attack changed Meggy and Banjo's political views? That'd be good - that'd create a nice bit of tension and drama, but... no. I get the idea that for Lol, her friendship group is a substitute family, but Meggy? Why?

The whole thing seemed to me to be a piece of nostalgia, and as with all nostalgia, it's slightly skewed (cough ahem Wayne Hemmingway/VAG cough). If it is the writer's youth expressed here then he lived in a strange bubble that really wasn't representative of the 80s as lived by anyone else - and this wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the nostalgia has been larded on in an attempt to make it seem like a representation of "hey, this is what we all did in the 80s". Chucking in a crummy dole office and some Tupperware won't help.

'Ello me old china! How vintage crockery can aid weight loss

2010-08-30T18:43:00.002+01:00

I suppose it's time I did another weight loss update, so here it is, but to make it more interesting, I thought I'd mention my crockery that I've been collecting recently!

Ever since moving in with my boyfriend.. erm... several years ago, we've never had matching crockery. We'd just go to charity shops, find a couple of nice plates, and that'd do. We've had some rather nice plates over the years - but when Fiona from Notorious Kitsch was ebaying a set of 6 Alfred Meakin 'Bamboo' bowls, I thought - isn't it about time I actually had some matching china? So I acquired the bowls and not long after, found some side plates:

Here's the dinner plates (left) with the sandwich plates (right). It took me ages to find the dinner plates for sale - they're my most recent purchase. It finishes off my collection, pretty much, unless I can find a gravy boat!

I've managed to find little & large jugs:

I've got a sugar bowl and a cream jug...

I've even got cups and saucers...

The pattern appealed because I recognise it from somewhere - some elderly person in my family at some point had this and I ate peach melba off it. I love the Homemaker crockery, but it's very expensive to collect and use as a set - I have one side plate and that'll have to be it, unless I find some in a charity shop for 50p. I have a feeling it's my stepdad's mother who has the bamboo crockery, but having looked at hers it's the other version which seems to be a knockoff - same pattern with the bamboo but with a little figure punting along in boat (or Meakin nicked the idea from there?) - there's no makers mark on the bottoms.

Meakin seem to have made the Bamboo over a long period. If you look at the jugs, the handles changed, so that the cream jug has a round handle with gold decoration, but the pair of jugs have squared handles. The cream jug is also a more yellowy colour than the whiter square handled jugs - and they say "GLO-WHITE" underneath, so presumably at some point Meakin brought in a new process to make their crockery whiter (you'll notice this change across all the items I have - the bowls are GLO-WHITE but the side plates aren't). I do like the yellowy colour of the non-Glo-White though!

You're wondering what this has to do with weight-loss - well, as I have to eat off sideplates, I thought it would make my dining life a little more interesting if I had a nice plate to eat off. So I found those Bamboo side plates, and in searching for Meakin I found this rather fab side plate depicting women in wiggle skirts and circle skirts, walking their dogs. It's so 50s it's unreal - and just imagine having a whole dining set with that pattern on it!

There's some fabulous Meakin patterns - I love the Parisian pattern which has a woman walking past a typically Parisian café, but it goes for high prices so I'm yet to get one.
(from A30yoyo's Flickr stream - do check out the pics of all the other gorgeous vintage china!)

I don't know if the pretty sideplates are working or not, but at my last weigh-in a week ago, I was 15 st 10lb (220lb, 99.8kg), so I've lost 2 and a half stone (35lb, 15.9kg) since I decided to have a band fitted. Now that it's properly filled, I can feel a difference - in fact before, there wasn't a massive amount of restriction compared to what it's like now, so it's rather amazing that I've lost as much as I have. Now, hopefully, it'll be coming off faster, plus I have managed to exercise more. Whereas the nutrionist said to walk home once a week, I managed twice a week and then went up to three times a week. I try to aim for four or five, but I'm not walking home in a tempest, thank you very much!

And with apologies for looking scary without a scrap of make-up on, this is me today:

Compare it to David Mitchell-in-drag from mid-March, before the operation:

Ahem.

What I did at the weekend

2010-08-24T20:11:00.001+01:00

While rather a lot of people were wading about a field in Surrey, being vintage in joke shop Afro wigs, I went to see my friend in Manchester, and there just happened to be some war re-enactment thingy with people in 40s clothing. I'd never heard of it before because I'm not really into war re-enactment (my brother is in the Army so it's not like people in uniforms isn't something I have experience of... besides which, I did feel rather ambivalent about people wearing forces uniforms who haven't had to go through the hell of Basic Training or will have to encounter roadside bombs), but it sounded like a fun thing to go to, because heck I like old things, and it's up in the Pennines so I could combine my love for all things brooding of moor and Bronte, with vintage stuff! Sounds good to me! So here it is, in photos. Yanks is a weekend event but I just went to the Saturday, with Jen, her grandparents (her grandad was a Bevan boy, working down the mines during the war), her great-aunt and her daughter (who goes swing dancing), with her boyfriend (teaches mountaineering) and his son (who I ended up talking to, as I have 3 younger brothers so 11 year old boys don't scare me).

At Oxford Road Station in Manchester
Jen doesn't do vintage usually and so experienced the sensation of being stared at by everyone. I didn't notice cos it's been happening for years. Come on people, I'm sure there's more interesting things to look at than two mad cows in old dresses!

Me with Jen's gran. She was very impressed by the snood, and even more impressed when she found out it was made by a woman in her 80s. I think she might get out her crochet needle now!

Jen hadn't seen someone doing re-enactment as a Nazi before, and I have to admit, although I've seen pics of people doing it, and my friend's ex does it too, it was still rather unnerving seeing it in the flesh. But worry not, cos this one's from Sheffield...

Nice to see people in 40s gear! There was a DJ (looked like a rockabilly to me) playing to people jiving and strolling in vintage clothing. It was kind of odd for me though cos whenever I see people jiving and strolling usually, they're decked out in leopard print and cherries rather than Land Girl uniforms! There was even a rockabilly band on later. But then there is a lot of sliding between 40s and 50s. I mean, did people wear victory rolls in the 50s as often as you see them at rockabilly dos? Who cares? (as long as it's not a joke shop afro wig, of course).

While the dancing and cavorting went on at the pub in the village, over on the green there were stalls and vehicles. Check out this Airstream! It apparently belonged to Fiona "Notorious Kitsch" 's neighbour, so small world and all that. It was in residence by a rather awesome stall where I bought my boyf a 40s silk tie and myself a fab bracelet made of plastic roses, as well as the cherry brooch which you'll see coming up in a second. I can't remember their name but they'll have a stall at the Rhythm Riot, so I shall come prepared! They had some AMAZING hats as well as some lovely clothes.

Pearl Harbour, Greater Manchester

POSE-A-RAMA!!

POSE-A-RAMA-LAMA!!
(I did Jen's hair - the rolls are rather good, I feel!)

POSE-A-RAMA-LAMA-DAMA!!

POSE-A-RAMA-LAMA-DAMA-DING!!
(by the portaloo, because fascists are shit, presumably...)

POSE-A-RAMA-LAMA-DAMA-DING-DONG!!
(HOW nice is the shape of this car? Why don't they make them like this noooowww???)

Rather beautiful shot of the purple heather'd moors. Very Bronte, if they had tents.

My fab new hat! I had been wearing a snood so hadn't bothered to curl the rest of my hair, so that's why it doesn't look quite right, but I didn't care - fab new hat! It's a repro as well. LOVE it!

The moors again, with me standing in front, blocking your view in my Tarantula "Smoothie" dress. Sorry about that.

Jen's great-aunt strikes a pin-up pose.

And last but not least, because this is SO SURREAL it has to wait for the end... did you ever think you'd ever see a photo of my shoulder, Ian from Shameless and an SS officer? No, you didn't think you ever would, gentle reader, but now... you will....

From starting out thinking "Might be interested, not sure about the uniforms", I actually came away from the day having really enjoyed it and realised that I do actually like a lot of 40s stuff without realising how much I'm into it. Quite an achievement. I will definitely pencil it into my diary for next year - Uppermill is a lovely village in a gorgeous location and the stalls were great, the music excellent, and the outfits fantastic!

To round it all off, Jen and I walked to the next village to get the train and we were passed by a brogue-wearing chap in a demob suit, who doffed his hat and said "Evening, ladies." That made my week. Thank you, chap, whoever you are!

In Training

2010-08-13T18:09:00.001+01:00

Reader, I write to you from the wheeled hell of a Virgin train. Or a Cross Country train - I can't remember which. The reason why I'm hurting my knuckles, typing this on tiny Blackberry keys, is because I want to know - am I an arsehole?

I've become a horrible person of late, I admit. I don't adequately know why, but I seemed to be filled with sourceless, directionless rage and anything even vaguely irritating finds me unleashing vitriol and bitterest bile. It's not a pleasant way to be. It's not nice feeling that kick and churn in my stomach as anger errupts and I am torn between screaming or holding it in and turning away. Yet millions must do this every day - is this not fundamental to the human condition?

And so (at bloody last) to the point;

I'm sure that any of you, who've ever had the misfortune of getting a train in Britainn have reserved a seat and found, on struggling up the aisle, that some git's sitting in your seat.

Now as cheeky as I find this, it does make sensee to sit in an empty seat until you reach the station at which someone else's reservation begins. But when you reach that station, why would you look surprised when that someone arrives to claim their seat?

My reserved seat was next to an unreserved one and I find an Oompaloopa (going on her unnatural orange shade of skin) and her boyfriend. It took determination to encourage them to yield my seat butb as I went to sit down, I find Boyf's backpack filling my footwell. And as I sit down I notoce that he hasn't gone to look for another seat, but is stood leaning against the back of mine, intending to chat for the duration of the journey over my head.

I think not! That hot, soupy rage in my stomach, which had started to swirl as soon as I noticed someone was in my seat, threatened to engulf me. I was, I shuidder to say it, on the verge of causing a scene. And British people are so inept at scene-causing: rage, repressed, squeezes out through an unusually high-pitched voicen rendering any view expressed automatically comical to anyone nearby.

Luckily for my composure, I noticed the seat in front was empty. It had been reserved though and I feel awkward sitting here in it, as if the person who it belongs to will reappear at any moment having spent, now, half an hour in the loo. Which circumstance would involve me being unseated whilst then having to involve myself with Boyf and Oompa again.

I do wonder if people really stop and think about how their behaviour on public transport impinges on other people. I am now sat two seats from some annoying cow yakking on the phone about every detail of her dull life in intense detail, with added fascinating insights on her need for a pee, and the fact that her friend is bonking a man who's married, but she doesn't know that the fella's got kids, and he's a drug-dealer. Now she's going on about. How she's going to Athens and what about the riots, and what will she do about her safety? Who is she talking to, because her waffle is yet to pause, and I suspect whoever it is has died from boredom, as I would have too, if I wasn't fearing the imminent arrival of a fictional person who's coming back from the lav and wants their seat back.

All of which in mind, it's popssibly not a surprise to learn that I've got a ten pound first class upgrade for the journey back.

Bemusement at Goodwood

2010-08-12T13:04:00.006+01:00

I've been trying to get my head round Vintage at Goodwood, and sadly I just can't. I feel like a bitter ol' party-pooper but then I've heard things from several directions where people feel as though the organisers have been... well... behaving in a manner which has led to much ill-will in those people they approached. The idea of it appealed to me to begin with, but I didn't really plan to go anyway (cos I loathe camping) and to be honest, it just seems very scattershot. Is it about the shopping? Or the music? Can you camp and be glam? Is it all very expensive or shouldn't we be surprised? Is it the apex of style over substance?

Me, personally, I've never liked tents, except in 1995 when it was extremely hot all summer and I slept out in the garden for a while to cool down! Right now, as I type, there is a threatening, inky cloud lowering over head and you just know that glamorous camping won't be possible in 4 foot of mud and a lake with Noah sailing on it.

The trouble is that 'vintage' means many things to many people, so having an event called 'Vintage' is going to spring many a leak before it even leaves port because it's got so many bases to cover. How is it going to satisfy everyone? How will they balance ecowarriers whose idea of vintage is a ra-ra skirt from Oxfam, and women in floor-length sequinned evening gowns from the 1930s? (a quick check tells me the 1930s isn't included anyway... which is strange because I thought that decade was represented at the Goodwood Revival?).

Other events, like Viva Las Vegas, Rhythm Riot, or the various mod/60s-influenced scooter rallies that happen around the country, are successful because they are FOCUSSED. Yes, there are people who'll whinge that going to something like that makes you a 'vintage purist' who's too much of a snob to 'have fun' and 'mix & match' (Douglas Coupland called it "decade-blending"), but these events work and have done for a very long time. I don't see how VaG's (LOL) mixing of decades and then mixing of meanings will work (ie. is vintage about saving the world or wearing nice shoes? Where you have one group doing a talk and demonstration workshop on repurposing old clothes for eco-style, while people pootle round John Lewis 10 feet away? Can - should - Mick fucking Hucknall be on stage at the same event as Imelda May?).

Do these kind of events work, where there's music and loads of shops? And people in tents pretending they don't mind kipping in a tent? VaG (LOL) hasn't sold out all its tickets yet, and has caused, in some quarters, bad feeling amongst vintage bloggers and retailers. Hmmm... *could* it have worked if they'd thought it through?

But this is the thing... it looks very much to me like they *haven't* thought it through at all. I mean, what the dickens is a John Lewis doing there????

As a result, I have speculated on exactly what happened at the VaG (LOL) brainstorm meetings:

Vintage - glamour!
Vintage - 80s!
Vintage - 60s!
Vintage - get an advert in SAGA magazine!
Vintage - recycling ra-ra skirts from Oxfam!
Vintage - people what blog ra-ra skirts from Oxfam!
Vintage - roll out the lie about 1960s Cool Britannia again! Sandie Shaw's looking a bit confused - let's get her into it! Wayne, you know Jeff Banks, don't you? Yeah, get on the blower to him and get his ex-missus over right now!
Vintage - all those posh people that go to the Goodward Revival! What do they like? Oh - they like posh stuff, don't they? Shall we have a stall selling sandwiches from Waitrose? No, wait, I've got a better idea - you know all those stalls we've got with people selling second hand stuff, right? Well, why don't we have a branch of John Lewis for the posh people! They don't have to buy old tat and can watch Mick fucking Hucknall murder "Maggie May" whilst wearing their new John Lewis pashmina! GUYS I'M TOTALLY COOKING ON GAS TODAY!
Oh shit, man. Slight problem. Where are all these people going to stay?
Don't be a twat, mate - they can sleep in tents.
Tents? That's not very glamorous!
Yeah, but we can make people think it is if we conjure up a nifty, soundbitey portmanteau word like - GLAMPING!
Oh man, you are ON FIRE!!!

The forecast is for rain.

So tired of waiting...

2010-07-24T20:34:00.005+01:00

As someone who runs a shop, I always make sure I put my customers first. When an order comes in I do my best to send it out as soon as I can; if someone has a problem, I reply to them as quickly as I'm able and sort it out. Sadly, not all places think customer service is important to them. Today I encountered poor customer service in FOUR places. So, ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you:

DPD couriers ('Don't Predict Delivery', presumably)
Café Soya
MAC
The Body Shop

DPD
I paid £10 for the pleasure of having DPD redeliver something (quite what, I'm not sure, but it's possibly a hat for my boyfriend from Fogey Unlimited) when I'm actually in my house, ie. Saturday morning, between 9am and 1pm. We waited. And we waited. And we waited some more. The boyfriend held the fort while I went to the Post Office. He held the fort while I hoovered the stairs. And the rest of the house. He didn't leave the front room for over four hours. 1pm came and went. None of the phone numbers we could find for DPD were answered. I looked at the "sorry you weren't in" card and noticed it was numbered - the "card number." I went on their website and discovered that the "card number" also acts as a tracking number (it's hardly explicit is it, though?) and from this I found out that "delivery attempted at 11.11am."

Erm... I think not. But then they had a note: "landmark: white door." We have a green door. The other two delivery attempts said "landmark: green door." Ah. They tried to deliver the parcel alright, but to the wrong house.

Both of us were exploding with rage and it's probably just as well that DPD's phone centres were closed, because they would've received a phone call rather like Father Ted's rant in the Eurovision episode where he uses the word that's worse than feck.

Café Soya
I'm fond of Café Soya - they do Chinese food with a really good vegetarian menu and it's always very nice and very well presented. Alas, the service is a bit slow sometimes, but today it nearly ground to halt. There's nothing worse, when you've been waiting forever, and someone who you've seen come in 30 seconds ago gets served. But this would happen to me later in MAC too.... Anyway, after putting my hand up, a waiter went off and grabbed the girl taking orders (my boyfriend by this point had picked up his bags and was halfway out the door) and sent her over. We had our lunch and then we were waiting for the pudding (please note it was one scoop of vanilla ice-cream and I had about two teaspoons of it, in case anyone feels the need to tell me off for not eating lettuce). It took FOREVER. I kept looking hopefully at passing staff, but they were wiping other tables, wrapping cutlery in napkins, serving other people. This was insane. So my boyfriend whips out his Blackberry, finds Café Soya's website, gets their phone number and then rings them up. This is his conversation, as taken from his blog:

================================================

the conversation went something like this:
hello?
yes, hello, i would like our second course please.
sorry?
i would like our second course please, we are waiting for our ice-cream, and it has been too long.
ah...(pause)... which table are you at? (the penny dropped with an audible clang)
we are sitting under the tv with the horse racing on.(this is a quality chinese restuarant, the other tv screen was showing a frank sinatra film, where he played a soldier in korea ISYN)
oh, i see... errrm, thank you.
thank you, goodbye.

there was some commotion and shouting from the back office - followed by pots and pans crashing no doubt around the kitchen area... and our ice cream arrived in about 30 seconds.

==============================================

(he was playing a soldier in Japan, actually, but still).

Normally when you pay in this restaurant, they ask you if you would like to eave a tip, because they can program it into the mobile card paying doodad. Strangely, perhaps because they had noticed the look on my face, they didn't ask today....

(that said, I'll go back. It's not like they were rude, just... inept. Unlike in Druckers when one of their staff yelled at me. Not so much Druckers as F*ckers, quite frankly).

MAC
By this point I was pretty well fecked off by waiting around for people. It's not like I'm putting these people out - these are their jobs and I'm paying them for a service. I went to MAC because I needed more Studio Fix foundation. It's frustrating going in that place because I seem to be the only person shopping there who knows exactly what they need. Everyone else seems to turn up for a free make-up demonstration. They have 6 or 7 staff on duty and I think only one of them wasn't applying Oompa-loopma orange to someone who's overused their straighteners and as a result has an expression like a professional lemon-sucker. I waited. And waited. One of the girls doing a make-over came over, touched my arm, looked concerned and said someone would be with me soon (she must've seen the look on my face - by this stage it could've frozen the effusions of a volcano in under 6 seconds).

I went over to the Studio Fixes and mused whether I should go for a different shade. I looked through every Studio Fix they had. I decided that I should stick with NW20 because NW25 is verging on the You've Been Tangoed. Someone kept asking me to move to get to the drawer. And this other drawer. And that drawer. I started to feel as though I wasn't particularly wanted. My boyfriend, patiently waiting outside (he refuses to enter the MAC shop), strode into the shop, and if we were in a Batman episode there would've been a cartoonish flashcard declaring "POW!!!".

"Come on, this is enough!!!" (he has a habit of striding in like a poorly-executed Byronic hero)
To which I replied, like a brat, "I'm next! I haven't waited here for 15 minutes just to walk out before I get served!" My voice was tight and high with a day's worth of frustration.
Woman who had shown concern looked concerned.

Someone was free and I looked up hopefully and.... you guessed it, she went straight to someone who'd just walked in 2 minutes before.
"I'M NEXT!" I said, my voice even tighter and higher, like the tone it reaches when you burst into tears when the bus is an hour late and it's raining and the bus shelter's been vandalised so there's nowhere to stand and you forgot your umbrella.
Woman who had shown concern went straight to the other saleswoman and said, "She was next" and waved me over, but just as I went over, someone else came free, and served me, in a the most frostily way possible.

It evidently doesn't do to lose one's stiff upper lip when shopping. Doesn't matter if you've waited ages and are pretty well justified in feeling rather fagged off, one simply doesn't rant and rave in public. Sadly, however, I do. (this is the girl who stood in the doorway of Morgan and yelled "BORING!" I was slightly mad at the time, though, but perhaps my actions that day were actually quite sane).

The Body Shop
As we left MAC, I said to my boyfriend, "These things always happen in threes. I should've known that MAC would've had a massive queue, just to make it three places that we've had to wait around in today."

Oh, brave words! And yet... Anita Roddick's progeny decided to make it four.

There appeared to be two staff in the shop and few customers, so I was confident there'd be no problems with waiting for ages. Little did I know, though, that one of them was very busy doing the important job of chatting with the security guard at the front of the shop (ironically, I knew the security guard because he worked in my libraries when we had some cleaners in dusting the books). Meanwhile, the other sales assistant, who was on the till, had a customer who couldn't grasp the, I would've thought fairly simple concept, that their Body Shop loyalty card had run out. On and on it went. I felt discontent build behind me and looked round to see three other people stood in the queue. We all looked down the other end of the shop at the other shop assistant, hoping, in that rather British way, that she would take the hint.

I wasn't going to though. I had had enough of waiting today. It's my day off. I have things I need to do, places to be, things to buy. It's not the day for waiting around because some dick has tried to deliver something to the wrong house, or overworked waitresses forget to take my order or bring me my pudding, or waiting an age while people ask inane questions about lipgloss. It's certainly not the day for me to wait to buy some cucumber cleanser because someone's loyalty card's expired and the other shop assistant is occupied because she's having a chinwag.

So....

(bearing in mind I've had acting lessons at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama)

I said, projecting my voice to the other end of the shop,

"EXCUSE ME."

The shop assistant appeared. She looked, quite frankly, rather pissed off with me, but I don't care. You're supposed to serve customers and if I was the manager, and I'd seen you chatting away while three people waited to pay for stuff, I would've kicked your arse.

Waterstones
Not particularly apposite, but... we went to Waterstones and I decided to buy Sarah Mallory's latest Regency bodice wripper, The Earl's Runaway Bride (Sarah's stories are very well researched - I forgot to mention it but I read More Than A Governess and it was fab. Loved the bit when they played blackgammon at the inn. Looking forward to this one, partially set in Napoleonic Spain. Anyway...). The bookseller (I think that's what they're called there, instead of sales assistant) decided to talk to me about Mills & Boon (heck, there wasn't a queue, why not). He was actually really surprised when I said they have sex scenes - he thought it was all implied. "Oh, no, they're actually quite rude." "Really? I'll have to read one." A man in his 20s, with trendy beard and blond corkscrew curls, wanting to read Mills & Boon. Unless he was just chatting me up because he assumed that I'm sexually frustrated. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who reads Mills & Boon must be in a want of shag? It is not. And then he looked embarrassed later when he spotted me and my boyfriend in the graphic novels section.

(note about Waterstones: you know all those books called things like No, Daddy, No! and Mummy Burnt My Dolly? They actually have a section in Waterstones now called Painful Childhoods. My. God.).

The final irony
We came back to find a "sorry, you were out" note from DPD. They had returned to redeliver the parcel at 1.28pm. We had left the house 5 minutes earlier. Said parcel is now residing at my neighbours house. I shall still ring them up on Monday though and demand a refund. You can't promise delivery between 9am and 1pm, try to deliver it to the wrong house, then try again after 1pm. FFS.

So there we are. Just as well my stomach ulcer has gone - it would've burst today!

From now on...

2010-07-22T08:58:00.006+01:00

...any post I do about my gastric band will come with the following disclaimer:

"Do not bother posting any anti-gastric band bullshit on this blog. Any comments of this nature will be deleted, your IP address and location being noted down for future reference."

My very first post about this process had a similar disclaimer, but everyone's been so supportive that I didn't feel the need to reiterate it. Never underestimate the internet, though - there's a moron waiting to post anonymous abuse round every corner. Why? Because they are pathetic wimps who don't have the balls to stand by their remarks, and hide as an anon because they know that their views are objectionable, unfounded and ignorant. Because they think they are a weight-loss expert because they once lost a stone (14 lbs or 6kg) in six months. Because they are deluded enough to think someone's going to be interested in judgemental claptrap from someone who won't identify themselves, ergo "Wow, someone anonymous left a rude comment with passive-agressive smilies on my blog, I must do just as they advise!" I don't really understand it myself, especially on a blog where someone is being honest about what might be considered a personal experience, other than that it gives them a nice change from wanking or licking windows.

If your views mean anything, air them with your name to it. If you don't, your views count for NOTHING, and as such are only destined for deletion (although I reserve the right to pass them round amongst my friends so that we can have a good ol' laugh at your wimpy expense).

An update about my stomach

2010-07-20T15:08:00.005+01:00

Back in May, I got all excited after having the band-fill and thought I was 16st 3, according to WiiFit, but I went to see the nutritionist and he said I was actualyl 16 st 5. Waaah. And then I went on WiiFit again and it told me off for putting on 2lbs. This is one thing I hate about WiiFit, besides the talking WiiFit board which is related to Clippy, and the impossible "island view" level in cycling: if you put weight on, it forces you to declare how, and there is no option for "I'm a woman, possibly I was bloated" or "I've had obesity surgery, my weight might appear a little strange because sometimes I can have nothing but liquids."

I was supposed to go to the clinic at the beginning of July, but I was in Spain, so I went on Saturday. Alas, I am 16st 1. Yes, I'm pleased that it's coming off, but it's disappointing that I haven't lost more than 4lb, especially when I have so far to go. Mentally though, although 12 stone is my goal, I think to myself, "Won't it be nice to be 15st something". I did this when I was 17st something, thinking "Won't it be nice to be 16st something." And it does work, because once you hit that next stone, it's all hurrah!

I know why I haven't lost as much as I'd hoped though - the band needed to be tightened, so I felt hungry and ate more than I would normally. Also, I have really very little motivation when it comes to exercise, even owning a WiiFit so I don't have to face the discomfort and indignity of going to a gym, so I spose losing 4lbs is actually quite impressive. Also, Auntie Flo is due to visit today, so it's quite possible that I'm actually a pound or two heavier, being weighed down by Lady Bloating.

Also, I went on holiday for two weeks and drank way more alcohol than I would normally - the twin evils of wine and the very naughty "Bomba" (chocolate milk and brandy) are not usually known to be dieting aids. I did however go swimming several times and hike up a mountain, and in fact the walking I've been able to do has been a revelation to me - I just couldn't have walked like that before because my knees and my feet hurt too much. I have promised to do more exercise, so I'll be walking home once a week. I did say "I'll do it 2 to 3 times a week!" and George (the nutritionist) said, "Just do it once a week - it's more than you're doing now and there's nothing wrong with small increments." Very true. And it's now Tuesday and I haven't walked home from work once this week....

The nurse topped up the band. They weren't sure how much it contained thanks to laughing boy at the hospital who filled it to begin with. Mine is a 10ml band, and laughing boy said it was filled at 4.5ml. The nurse emptied it completely and then put it another 1.5ml, and it turns out there was already 0.5ml in there (during the operation, they swish some saline through it to test it, and sometimes it stays in), so I'm now up to 6.5ml instead of 6ml. I can certainly say I've noticed the difference, and it's a lot more uncomfortable now if I eat too fast without thinking. The nurse said that the band doesn't really do much until it's filled to over 5ml, so maybe I'll lose more than 4lb this time....

I'm glad I was honest and told people about my operation because it's really obvious that I've been up to something - my weightloss is evident to anyone who looks at me.

Meanwhile, in celebrity land...
...Vanessa Feltz has had a gastric band. First Fern Britton, now Vanessa. Will it be Dawn French next? I read Vanessa's interview in some celeb magazine, and it was vile - the silly cow was posing with plates of crisps and chocolate biscuits! Hahahaha, how hilarious, I'm fat and posing with food, and I've just had obesity surgery! She had her operation done in Belgium, which isn't uncommon because it's cheaper there, but COME ON: you live in St John's Wood, for god's sake, you can't be that skint. The clinic team I have are invaluable, and I don't really know how people manage without that closeness when they go for the cheaper option. She went on about how easy the operation was - she had it on the Friday, was back in London on the Saturday, and then she was at work on Monday.

Seriously.

I was off work for a fortnight and it PISSES ME OFF when celebrities come out with this tosh. She was probably driven to the radio station and was there for just a couple of hours. It's not like us poor sods who crawl into work on the bus and drag ourselves back again 8 hours later. There's no way on earth I could've gone into work - the pain for one thing was so bad that once I was in a chair, I didn't want to move out of it! Just getting to my feet was agony! How the hell she managed I don't know, but then again, we all know what celebrities get up to, so maybe she had her own way of dealing with the pain - a little more Columbian than my paltry Paracodols.

Then the magazine interview had the question: "Why did you have it done? Couldn't you have just dieted and exercised a bit more?" As if having the band isn't dieting, and as if you magically don't need exercise after having it done?

The most vomitous thing about the entire interview was Vanessa crowing about how she's going to be a size zero bride, and look like Cheryl Cole. *pause for you to turn away from the screen and sigh and/or vomit* How completely unrealisitc can you get? I mean, seriously? But then again, I wouldn't know what it's like to go through life gushing soundbites and sounding like Alan Partridge telling an anecdote in everything I say:

"Right, I'll tell you an anecdote. In 1974 I was catching the London train from Crewe station. It was very crowded; I found myself in a last-minute rush for the one remaining seat beside a tall, good-looking man with collar-length hair, it was the seventies; buckaroo! I looked up and saw it was none other than Peter Purves, it was the height of his Blue Peter career. He said, "You jammy bastard" and quick as a flash, I replied, "Don't be blue, Peter!" Needless to say, I had the last laugh."

I am perhaps being a bit mean to Vanessa though because it's not easy making the choice to go through with the operation and all that goes after it, and you have it knowing that it's not a quick fix, yet you'll have it done and people will line up to wag their fingers and tell you that you're stupid for having it done because "it's not a quick fix." Do you know what it is, oh ye doubting Thomases? It's a diet aid. So shut up, Coleen Nolan (even at her largest -a size 18 - she wouldn't have surgery - try being a size 24 and in pain, and then think "hey, maybe I could do with some help here"), The Sun (who confusingly say "Feltz gives up on dieting". Erm... wtf?), and The Express (sympathetic but misleading - "Within three days she had lost 9lb and by yesterday she was 16lb lighter." Because of the liquid diet, which isn't to do with the weightloss provided by the band, but to be gentle to your stomach until it heals.)

Meanwhile, Sharon Osbourne had a gastric band, and then had it removed, because she ate chocolate and chips and so wasn't losing anything. Was she particularly huge when she had it put on? I never thought of her as a large person, but that's because she'd had the band by the time The Osbournes was on. Whenever I feel tempted to stray, I just remind myself about the money I spent on the operation, and the horror of having a panic attack on a commode. I didn't do all that just to eat Ben & Jerry's and get bigger than I already was.

A lucky day for finding awesome stuff!

2010-06-20T17:37:00.004+01:00

Last Saturday, there was a massive vintage sale running at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. We went to the last one and got there earlier to avoid the queues, but it was still packed with people, milling about buying... well... I dunno what, cos it mainly looked like 80s tat to me, which I'm not interested in, in the least (over the years - the 15 years - that I've been into buying old stuff, I can tell if a rail of clothing has anything interesting in it from 3 metres away. Time-saving skill!). They do however sell nice cupcakes, so that was the sole purpose of going in. As nice as the cupcakes are, though, we have decided not to attend again.

On Saturdays they have the Saturday Flea so we looked about and couldn't really find anything (yet more 80s stuff - the youngsters with that strange backcombed-matted-with-over-use-of-hair-straigteners-in-the-lengths-racoon-striped-dye look are into it, I suppose), apart from a stall run by a pair of old dears who I think sell stuff at the monthly vintage fair in Kings Heath as well. They had heaps of earrings and necklaces and brooches, and among the Molly-Ringwald-at-a-Wham-Concert stuff I found:

Atomic earrings!

Necklace that matches!

I also got another lucite brooch, but I don't seem to have a photo of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We came home then decided to nip out onto the High St and, why not, pop into some charity shops. I'm a bit fed up of charity shops, to be honest. They really don't have much in them that interests me these days, unlike the golden days I remember in the 90s when you could find all kinds of amazing stuff - I once found a 1960s Pierre Cardin coat for £10! However, our luck was in:

Alfred Meakin starburst dish:

Snowflake gravy boat with matching dish. The plate underneath it was one we already had. I'm quite impressed that the boat had survived with its dish:

And then I found an un-used powder compact. It was £6, but they offered to sell it to me for £5, because it had been sat there for so long - I said I'd pay £6 anyway. I don't have a photo of the lid, but you can see how awesome it is inside. It still has its sifter and the sponge, and there is narry a trace of powder anywhere. It's a Caprice by Kigu.

Nice, huh?

So, the moral is, sometimes it's worth looking for this kind of stuff outside of Ebay, because sometimes you'll get to it before the Ebay flippers do!

Romance reading and Me.

2010-06-13T19:05:00.002+01:00

Back when I was about 8 or 9, a letter was sent home from school:

"It has come to our attention that a book is being passed about which we think is unsuitable for young readers. Please make sure that your daughter doesn't read it and is warned to avoid it. It is called Forever by Judy Bloom."

It didn't pass into my hands, but it was an early lesson - there are some books which have naughty things in them, things you are not supposed to read.

At senior school, when I was about 11 or 12, I first encountered a Mills & Boon. We thought this was terribly daring - someone found it amoungst their mum's books and it had... it had... SEX IN IT! A rumour went round the class and at breaktime we accosted the girl who'd brought it in and we thrilled and giggled while she read out the "good bits". The good bits being the bad bits, ie the sex bits. She also brought in another of mum's books - I seem to remember it was Rock Star by Jackie Collins, wherein I encountered my first ever pregnant sex scene. All this though was surpassed a year later when I was 13 and someone found their parents' copy of The Good Sex Guide: it was illustrated.

But it wasn't very romantic, was it?

When I was 15, my dad lodged with a woman who was a teacher and I had to go and stay with him one week. "Help yourself to something to read," she said, and I went up to the landing where I was confronted with shelves and shelves and yet more shelves of romance novels. I suppose that letter floated into the back of mind and I couldn't bear to pick one off the shelf, even though they fascinated me. These are naughty books, I'm not allowed to read them. Even though I was invited to read them. I lurked about in the vicinity of the landing and finally temptation gave way and I picked a tome at random. And knew the drill - let the book fall open and you'll land on a good bit.

I scribbled later into my diary (this is what I recall I wrote but the quote from the book itself is branded onto my brain):

Hehehehe! I found the naughty bits! Here's a sample: she grabbed his swelling manhood Hehehehehhe! And the cover is really scary - there's a muscly man on it with a mullet! Hehehehheeheh!

I was muddled with the temptation to indulge in novels that I found - let's face it - arousing, and the concommitant guilt of doing so. And that I mocked the books for the very content that I found arousing. How British....

And that doesn't even include intellectual snobbery. People just don't read these books if they want to be taken seriously as an intelligent person - or do they? Because this teacher who collected the trashy books - she was an English teacher.

Two tears later, I was earnestly penning (as I thought) worthy novels about angsty teens. The one I finished couldn't find a publisher. I went on an open day at Oxford and a very posh girl started to talk to me - I seem to remember she was a pupil at Roedean, and when I said I lived on the Isle of Wight, she assumed I went to the public boarding school that her mother had attended. She seemed rather surprised when I said I was at a state senior. Anyway, we hung out for a while, going about Oxford, and I mentioned my novelistic labours. She cut into my plot explanation with "I wite too - I wite bodice-wippers!!" I cringed very, very hard, dear reader. Oh yes I did. Which showed me to be a bigger snob than the girl with the outrageously Jilly Cooper novel accent and the uncle who edits The Times.

(hang on... where's his trousers?!)

Fast-forward a few years and I couldn't go into a second hand shop without doing the "pages falling open on the good bit" drill, even though I never bought a copy. That is, until I was doing a course on "women's literature" as part of my English degree (I was tempted onto the module from a lecture we had where they talked about all the different options we had, and they said "some of the students who did this course before found out that some Mills & Boon authors are men!"). We studied Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle, which is about, in part, romance writers (the "some writers are men" revelation is actually in Lady Oracle's plot, and as part of my wider reading, I decided I should just damn well buy some second hand Mills & Boon from a charity shop.

(isn't that Lloyd Cole?)

I read a doctor story, and then a general contemporary ("She opened the door to find the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever seen." Don't you just hate it when that happpens?) and then an historical. These were my bathtime reading, but the historical made it out of the bathroom and into the lounge where I read it, without caring about ridicule from my boyfriend, because damn, this story was great! I have no idea what it was called, and very little memory of the plot, but I recall an impression of swishing skirts and a handsome man in Regency dress, and there was a ship in a storm, and a castle on a crag - all that, AND some rumpy-pumpy. Quite a lot of rumpy-pumpy, in fact.

This was great, and as the author of about 10 unplublished novels (well, there's one in the British Library, actually, but I printed it myself, so it doesn't really count - a 1960s spy thriller about mods, and I found out recently that someone included the main character in their own James Bond fanfic - how neat is that?), I decided that I should try my hand at a Mills & Boon. I had no plan that it should be published and so the queen was my friend Jen, and the two men fighting for her affections were the only two men on the teaching staff in the English Department who got our pulses racing in a giggly way.

It was all well and good writing that, but it got a bit silly. It was a Medieval (as we were studying Arthurian romance, Margery Kempe and Julian of Norwich at the time) and it ended up being very camp and sub-Monty Python in its insistence on corsets and bodices that "he didst rip ope with the tip of his mighty schword", a sex scene in a forest and finally a scene in a castle where so much fabric (her corset, bodice, nightie, bedclothes and bedcurtains) were rent asunder that it was amazing anyone was able to leave the castle the next day clothed.

(Tim Roth?)

The sense of guilt returned (well, it had no doubt aided in the silliness of my story to begin with) so I went post-modern and provided it with a framing narrative - about a teenage girl who writes the romance novel. Because we are all post-modern now you see, and we can't enjoy anything unless it's ironic or cheesy. God forbid that we should admit we actually like something unless it's heavy-going, boring and profound.

Ironically, I gave this tome to my English teacher to read and she liked it. I even read a bit in at a writers' group hosted by another English teacher who - I later found out to much amazement - is the model for a character in an A. S. Byatt romance. Well, I say romance, but it's got a framing narrative so THAT MAKES IT OK (Jeremy Northam's in the film adaptation, if that helps).

(this doesn't count as romance or ladyporn because it has a veneer of intellectuality. Even though it's about people shagging in period costume)

At about the same time, I decided to push the boat out a bit more and started to buy Black Lace erotica - seeing as my main fascination with M&B was the sex, why not just be honest about it and read stuff that it just one shagfest after another, with the most paper-thin of plots threaded between? But I was put off by the second one I read which had a woman forced into a sex act. And I mean, really forced - there was violence involved. I don't find that very erotic, I'm afraid, and so I was turned off by all the genres.

Reading those novels gave me a good grounding when I became a fangirl and wrote fanfic - slash fic, to be exact. Slash fic, which took over my life so much that me and my boyfriend recorded a slash fic song. Yes. A song.

My slash authoring was a secret but one of them was written about in my mum's paper, so I had to come clean. I thought she would be horrified, but no. She was even quite proud that it had been written in her spare room during one of my visits. Damn it, they even read some of it out on Radio 1!

Mum tried to get me into Jilly Cooper - she gets a lady boner for posh horseriders, apparently. I thought, "oh for god's sake, how naff" but then I started to read Pandora and there was cross-dressing backdoor whoopie in the first chapter! After I'd recovered from the mortifying knowledge that my mum read books featuring anal sex, I tucked in and enjoyed the ludicrous plot and daft coincidences. It's not serious or profound, no, but it was entertaining.

A few years ago, I saw someone on Livejournal mention Smart Bitches, Trashy Books because their cover snarks are really funny. My mind hurtled back to my encounter with the vast collection that the English teacher had, and I crept over to the site, hoping no one would see. And if they did, I could just laugh about how I was only doing it because it was ironic.

The other day I bought the spin-off, Beyond Heaving Bosoms, and it was reading this that I finally felt able to accept a truth which I had struggled with for so long: that I enjoy reading romance novels. And not just for the sex scenes. Although I do like a good sex scene (witness the slash fic). Having been on several medications which had combined to completely supress my sex drive, I hadn't been involved with slash fic for a couple of years, but now I'm off the medicine, my libido has rallied and with it my ability to write. I'm even writing something which isn't a romance or a slash, and won't include a sex scene, and which will no doubt remain unpublished - but I don't care. The words, they are spewing out! Anyway, a by-product of my returned libido is my need for romance books. And I'm not going to be shy anymore, or snarky - if it's nicely written and got a good plot and semi-believable characters, then I'm happy (and if the cover's a bit questionable, then it merely adds to it).

(and yes, I read this on the bus, and yes, people kept staring at the cover. Because they wanted the mantitty too).

I'm even attempting a romance too - don't know what'll happen with that. It's low on romance and high on bonking. Well, it'll be fun to write, and my mum'll appreciate it at least.

But share in my joy, reader, for the liberation of reading something even if the world thinks it's cheesy. Do I enjoy it? Yes, yes I do. And I don't feel ashamed anymore.

Shelvebook Tomes and The Anachronistic Book Cover

2010-06-12T22:08:00.002+01:00

After reading lots of stuff at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and having finished their book Beyond Heaving Bosoms, I decided it was time throw off my inhibitions (mainly pretentious, learned inhibitions) and just go "dammit, I love me some cheesy romance!"

I strode into Waterstone's and then wondered where the heck to look, but soon found Romance, American Romance and Erotica. Erotica is right next to LGBTQ - I don't know why that's noteworthy, but I found it amusing. And also nexgt to Crime. O RLY.

Years ago I started reading Black Lace (atmosphere! I love a party with a happy atmosphere!) erotica and quite enjoyed one book, but then another I read was a bit... erm... rapey. Y'know, the woman's been kidnapped and she keeps saying no, but is tied into a chair and [a sex act which women generally find pleasurable when performed consensually] is forced on her. Squick, squick and squicky-mcsquick again. So I never finished that one and was put off. Waterstones didn't seem to have a very good stock of Black Lace (atmosphere! I love a party with a happy atmosphere!) - I was looking for Emma Holly's Menage, as recommended by the Smart Bitches, which is on that imprint, but nope, couldn't find it. I was also finding the photos of perfect heart-shaped bottoms a bit distracting.

I headed to American Romance with a few names in mind. There were about 1 million different Nora Roberts novels (well, ok, 4 shelves, but that's still two more than Virginia Andrews had, and I'm not reading those cos that's what we read at school... in break times....) - she's a name I've heard of so I was tempted, but I had no idea where to begin, so some research is required.

I headed back to Erotica - now Helen, be strong, brave the whips and chains! But my eye wandered to Lesbian & Gay Etc and I saw... vintage pulp fiction cover art! Someone has reissued classic 1950s lesbian novels, so I decided to buy one set in Greenwich Village (as I'm also currently reading Helen Weaver's The Awakener - not only was she the girlfriend of Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce (not at the same time, no matter how kinky you might find the idea) she was also active for a time on the Village lesbian scene - well, she danced in a lesbian club and had short hair). So I bought Ann Bannon's Women in the Shadows.

But I still wanted cheesy hetero romance, and so settled on a Mills & Boon, even though there are hundreds in my local Heart Foundation Charity shop (how sweet, romance in the heart shop). When I saw this cover, I'm sure you'll understand why I bought it, even though he looks a bit like Robert Redford, and even though the wilting flowers look like an unfortunate metaphor - will this be a romance about erectile dysfunction? It does however contain the magic word "Regency".

Imagine my surprise therefore when I started reading it and saw the first chapter said "Surrey - 1783." Erm... are you sure that's the Regency? I looked it up and even Wikipedia doesn't think that's the Regency - it's officially 1811 to 1820. Not 1783!

And the image on the cover.... Note the hero's short-ish blond hair. Now note the following description of the hero from the second page of the novel:

"His black hair was caught up in a ribbon."

Black hair. Long enough to require a ribbon. Not short, blond, Robert Redford hair.

Note well the trousers, dear Reader, sported by our man on the cover. For they are about to disappear! No, not like that! Like this...!

"Richard [his valet] had worked hard to coax him into his dark blue frock coat and the knee breeches..."

Hold on there, can I get a rewind? KNEE BREECHES? But of course... quite the thing in 1783. Not the thing in Regency England!

Arrrrgh!!!!

The novel itself though is just what you want from a Mills & Boon, and seems to be quite well-researched. The valet is called Granby - and the Marquess of Granby is a popular name for pubs in England as the man himself arranged (I think this is about right) some kind of allowance for ex-military types so they could set themselves up as innkeepers on leaving active service. And Granby in the book is ex-Navy. The sex scene (nice to find Mills & Boons don't keep these for the last chapter anymore) is well-written, but I find it odd that the heroine, who has never seen a naked, excited fella before doesn't comment on Wylder's (oh yes, tick that one off on your Hero Name Bingo card) Magic Wang of Lurve. Even just in her mind? Nothing? I mean, some books go overboard on the amount of trepidation experienced by the heroine on seeing the hero's necessarily unfeasibly humungous manroot, but Evelina doesn't comment: she goes on about his rippling muscles a lot (was he taking Regency steroids?) but the peen? Nothing. Not a word. She also loses her virginity very easily, but who knows, maybe she did gymnastics as a child - we're never told.

The same author has written More Than a Governess - methinks Bronte, Thackeray and the Forsyte Saga got there before her, but it does pique my interest, I must shame-facedly admit.

I think my reading of romance novels requires a whole blog, so hold tight for that one. Anyone who's ever picked one up in a charity shop and flicked through it to see where the pages stay open - you have a kindred spirit in me.

Shelvebook Tomes & The Dodgy DVD Covers

2010-06-02T20:28:00.004+01:00

Cristina from the Bronte Blog pointed out that there's something odd about some Jane Eyre DVD covers - to whit, that Jane isn't actually on them. And so Shelvebook Tomes decided it was time for... MORE COVER SNARK!

Apparently Jane was in the middle of a sandwich when they got the shoot ready, so she had to run. Or it's the tale of a manly ftm, hounded by her sister.

He was called Jane, and Michael Douglas stole his woman.

Jane: just stepped out of a salon. (ok, Tobes looks superbly grrrr in this photo, but it's really no reason to stick it on the front, alone).

THAT'S more like it!

From having just Rochester pretending to be Jane, we now have Blanche Ingram too! She's advertising toothpaste, and he can't remember where he left the car keys.

Does putting Jane on the cover more prominently make for a good cover? The 1997 version says... no.

Jane Eyre: just one clap and the sun rose. Good party trick.

Someone thought it was a good idea to hire Mills & Boons' art department for this one.

Ron Mael is a huge fan of the Brontes. So huge, in fact, that his disembodied head is regularly seen floating over film sets whenever they make an adaptation.

This is probably the best one I found of the 1997 adaptation. They do seem to love the orange sky in these covers - I'm assuming it's the conflagration, but she never sees the orange sky - Rebecca, however does (people are confused, clearly).

If the George C Clark version above was weird, what do you make of these?

Remains of the Day in a castle setting?

Irish folk music, anyone?

Fun fact: Charlotte Gainsbourg is related to Inspector Gadget.

The trouble with Timothy Dalton is that, when he's not hogging the photo call while Zelah Clarke's been delayed with a vol au vent, he's just... too damn tall.

So this Dutch import has sorted it out once and for all by just having Jane on the cover by herself. And some scribbly stuff. And Masonic symbolism. Which is really relevant.

What of classic Hollywood? They don't make 'em like they used to - for which we should all be relieved!

I've racked my brains but I cannot think what scene this happens in. Oh, it must be the... erm... ball sequence! When she dances with Mr Darcy - oh no, wait.... (and what's with the... ahem... phallic object poking up between them? You forget yourself, Mr Rochester!).

What of Awesome Welles?

"Oh, I keep asking him not to wear that thing in the house, it sheds all over the sofas, but he just won't listen."

Oh yes, that scene! The scene with the gate!! Yes... erm... that scene... the what?

I quite like this one, if not only for Ruth in her Charlotte Bronte repro dress. Top marks! And we should be grateful they didn't use a photo of Heathcliff from the Masterpiece Theatre version of last year (which is presumably in this box set) - he looked like a cross between Keanu Reeves and David Thewliss, which was just confusing.

This one's better, even if it makes Toby look like he's trying not to laugh. "LOLS! My hair dye's running!"

So what would be a good cover then? May I suggest:

I nearly fell off the sofa when that happened: true fact. One had to fan oneself.

Meanwhile, my research uncovered something remarkable about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - did you know it's about a menage a trois?

Quick update

2010-06-02T09:04:00.002+01:00

According to Wii Fit, as of yesterday evening I was 16st 3lb, or 227lb, or 103kg.

So since Wednesday last week, I've lost 2kg (I think that's about 4 or 5lb). I attribute this in part to the two days on liquids after the band fill.

I total, I've lost 2 stone (28lb or 13kg).

What's it like now it's filled, I hear you cry? Well... it's not hugely different, really. Though I spose I've been eating strangely for a month so maybe I haven't noticed. I do still feel a bit hungry, but that's right before mealtimes, and if I didn't feel hungry then, it would just be weird. The small portions don't seem particularly odd either. Way back when I decided to do this, I bought myself some nice Meakin bamboo crockery so even though it's a side plate, it's a very pretty 1950s side plate.

Shelvebook Tomes investigates: dodgy Jane Eyre cover art

2010-05-30T20:00:00.002+01:00

The other day I was catching up with the romance novel cover snark to be had at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I mean, when faced with a cover like this, how can one do anything but snark?

Smart Bitches pointed out the Twilightification of Wuthering Heights cover art, as has the encyclopaedic Bronte Blog (a must for Bronte fans!)

"Love never dies", apparently. It just turns you into a vicious maniac! Fab!

Makes you wonder what The Kidz'll make of Joseph's hieroglyphs. Being raised on a diet of Johnny Briggs and All Creatures Great & Small ("Cow's got them mastics") meant I made short work of Joseph's mumblings, but what that bloke from Harry Potter's drooling fans will make of it, I can't imagine. But hey it'll be good if the Brontes get some more fans because of it.

And so to the point of this post - there I was in HMV on Saturday, noticing that the room previously filled with classical music has been turned into the merch room. Gone are the CDs, replaced by books about Ian Drury, ACDC T-shirts and... erm... a big pile of classic novels. I find this a bizarre concept - I'm not sure who goes into HMV to buy a poster of Motorhead, and is then distracted by Dicken's Oliver Twist and decides they simply MUST have it there and then. Being an English lit grad and a librarian, I was drawn to the pile (ok, so that's who they're aiming for) and there I found Jane Eyre. Except... well, the cover didn't exactly scream Jane Eyre.

(purloined, as you can probably tell, from Amazon).

And my undercover video when I went back today to film this terrible cover for posterity! (you even end up inside my pocket - it's very exciting)

First of all, what the heck is she wearing? Jane herself rambles on about her black merino cloak, her dove-grey gown - she even jokes she will be married in lilac gingham rather than pearl grey silk. So I can't imagine Jane wearing the get up depicted in this image. Added to which, it doesn't even seem to be the right period. Dating the action of Jane Eyre is perillous, but generally it's assumed to be about the 1840s - and women in the 1840s didn't wear dresses like that.

This is a fashion plate from August 1844:

Need I go on?

In the video, I say it looks like underwear. What would Jane Eyre be doing in her underwear in the library? Could it be a nightdress? She does of course run into Rochester's room in her nightie (oooh er missus!) to put out the fire in his ~~trousers~~ bed. But not into the library. It looks more like 1700s underwear or a 1700s day dress, looking at bodice, sleeves and the panel running down the front of the dress, and in fact the colour of the dress (it might be more suitable for Cathy in Wuthering Heights, to be honest, but not for Jane!). But it's crucially not the right time period for the novel. Neither is "Jane's" hair correct.

She seems to be sitting on a sofa as well - not a Victorian sofa, oh no, but one that looks like it's been borrowed from reception.

And onto the shelves in the background. The library figures quite often in Jane Eyre, which Rochester uses as a sitting room - but what we have on the book cover doesn't look like the library in a large Victorian house. In fact, it looks like 1970s library shelves from a university or public library - those are metal shelves! I even recognise them from the library I work in! (they're horrid, too - like giant, unwieldly Meccano).

Despite all that, I quite like the pose, and Jane looks about the right age, too - but I do think this Collins Classics cover is suffering from Twilightification.

That said, Harpercollinschildrensbooks (phew, pant) did the actual Twilight-tie-in cover which pairs up with the Wuthering Heights one above:

"You can't choose who you fall in love with."
And neither can you choose who you get doing your cover art, apparently (especially if you've lain under the floor of Haworth church for 150 years).

If you go to Amazon where the dodgy cover ed can be found, and click on "look inside" you'll see a previous edition from Oxford World's Classics (very good editions they are too) and the cover is a Victorian portrait (I don't know if that's because Collins Classics have taken over from OWC? Anyone know? Or did they just go "oh it's this old book, that'll do").

Old paintings are the usual way with Bronte cover art (indeed, most 'classics'), such as:

My personal favourite though is when they use Charlotte's portrait on the cover - this is the well-thumbed copy I own:

There is a trend to have photos though, and they're not that great either:

What's with the hair? Again?!

Oooh, we have photo collage!

Sanitary product advert gets on a book cover by accident. This can be the only explanation.

York notes again with a photo - it just looks like the teenage girl who's using the book to crib for her GCSE exams! (is it just me or are York Notes and Cliff Notes not actually all that useful?)

It's every-woman, sort of. She reminds me quite a lot of the Jane from the Timothy Dalton version (swoon).

Speaking of whom:

Cor.

The BBC series tie-in cover is quite nice (and what a fine adaptation it was too, Toby.... swoon!.... apart from that naff bit with the group photo at the end)

So after all that, I suppose I'm saying that I find the Collins Classics cover choice rather bewildering (yes, enough to secretly video it in HMV and mutter darkly about it being a "terrible travesty" - no more terrible than sitting indoors on a nice summer's day to write a tedious blog about it, of course). It's historically inaccurate in costume and backdrop and I'm afraid that grates on my nerves! I just find it amazing that a reputable company like Collins would produce something so shoddy, something so ill-thought-out. I remember something on TV once where a publishers were going through a massive pile of old paintings trying to find suitable ones for book covers. The effort they went to was admirable, and yet Collins Classics just throw something together like they don't really care. Well I do, Collins! I DO!

And yet... those old portraits might seem rather dull these days. So I propose that THIS is what all Jane Eyre covers should look like:

"There's a fire in my trousers, and you're all invited."

She's with the band - the day the band was filled

2010-05-27T09:59:00.007+01:00

This whole thing has been dragging on for ages now. I was getting really paranoid that I wasn't eating properly and then realised that it didn't matter because the band wasn't filled.

But now it has been.

I had to be nil-by-mouth for 6 hours, which wasn't as bad as I thought. Except that while my appointment was at 6.30pm, I wasn't actually seen until 7.30pm. THANKS FOR THAT. My stomach was groaning and rumbling and roaring away and I was sat right by a water fountain in the waiting room which was clearly taunting me.

I laid on a bed with my feet up against a footboard (oh god, I thought, the last time that happened they angled the bed - and they did! I was nearly stood up for some of the procedure) with an X-ray machine hanging over me. I laid there for about 5 minutes on my own and I started to panic so I got up and walked about the room, which is where the nurse found me. I sheepishly crept back onto the bed....

Finally the doctor appeared and X-rayed me to see where the port is. Ahhh, fantastic, it's twisted round. It *should* look like a ring on the X-ray (titanium ring with plastic centre), but mine's twisted round so it looked for all the world like a hat. In my stomach. Like a bad cartoon (there wasn't a boot or a fish skeleton, you'll be pleased to know. Well, I was pleased to know, at least).

"No one'll be able to do that blind!" the doctor assured me, "But I can do it - I'm the best in the world."

WTF? Was he late because he was snorting coke?

He just had to poke it and hold it to make it turn 90 degrees. They let me look at the X-ray, which was quite odd - I've never seen my vertebrae before! Or in fact the clips on my bra. To begin with I thought they were surgical staples, and then realised... erm... no. But this is no time to be shy - they'll see far more detail when I next go on a plane. Then again, they'll probably do a strip search and get out the speculum at the airport because the titanium on the port *might* set the metal detector off. That'll be fun. I'll have to waft my medical card (it says "I have a gastric band" in 10 different languages) and hope for the best: "Señor, tengo una banda gastrica." "Estás gorda, señorita." "Hijo de puta!"

They kept changing the angle of the bed so I was on my back, then nearly standing.... I was sipping away on barium in a cup (nice stripey straw - you wonder if there's a medical supplier they order them from or if they have to nip to Sainsbury's and pay in petty cash). Up, down, up, down....

I was dreading the needle and did utter the words doctor's no doubt hate - "I'm REALLY scared!"

But why, didn't I remember that he's THE BEST IN THE WOOOORRRRLLLDDD???? Maybe he was related to James Cameron, I dunno.

It didn't even hurt though: I didn't even notice. I'm assuming needles hurt when they go into the muscle, but the port is lying on top of the muscle, so it only has to go through the skin and the subcutaneous fat.

He decided to fill it quite tightly, and then said that next time it'll be filled more. Will I ever eat again?! Anyway, the fat around the organs reduces as you lose weight, so the band will become looser as it's not placed directly around the stomach, but over the fat around the stomach. Oh good. Another ride on the X-ray machine.

I still find it grim though when they muck about with the angle you're at, but I should be happy, really, as if they were working on the other end I'd be upside down with my head filling with blood. NICE.

The doctor said that because he's made it so tight, I have to be on liquids for 4 days (which I imagine will induce ketosis), whereas the nutritionist told me 2 days liquid and 3 or 4 soft (mashed potato in other words - in case you're wondering, I'll be able to eat most normal foods, but I have to aim for crunchy stuff because it'll stay in my pouch longer before dropping into the remainder of my stomach - if I have mashed potato it'll just slide right out). So now I'm really confused and I'm trying to track down the nutritionist to find out what to do.

It took me twenty minutes this morning to drink a mug of peppermint tea and a cup of Complan. This sucks. If I hadn't let myself get so cocking enormous, I wouldn't have to go through all this bullshit and actually SPEND MONEY on doing so. Why can't I be content with sore knees and bad feet and a wardrobe furnished entirely by Evans? Oh, because it sucks! It sucks more than what I'm going through at the moment! (or so I keep telling myself anyway).

Oh and he said that "this restriction" will only reduce me from 105kg to 98 or 97kg. I don't even know what that means. And I don't see how eating so little would only lose me that amount, and I don't know when they'll do the next fill. I haven't gone through all this to lose half a poxy stone, thank you very much.

(my google powers tell me that 105kg is 16 and a half stone. 98kg is less than 15 and a half stone. Ok, I'll stop whinging then. I want to be 12 stone though! Hurry up!!!!)

An Essexian in Paris

2010-05-24T15:45:00.000+01:00

And so, finally, after many years of saying "yes, I do mean to, but..." we finally went to Paris. We went on Eurostar, which was an inspired choice because back in January when I booked, I nearly chose the plane - back in January we hadn't heard of Eyyyffyyyallyyaakkyylyyt, spoiling everyone's aviation fun.

Stuff about travel & where we stayed... vintage shopping to follow!

(just in case... I wouldn't want to bore you)

Eurostar was a truly surreal experience. I'd never been on it before, and was only expecting one tunnel - the one under the Channel. I wasn't expecting to be diving in and out of tunnels across London and Kent, but this handy (some might say geeky) guide explains the exact route. I had wondered how it got round London, so that explains it! Tunnels! It was ironic that we passed the Dartford river crossing, as all my trips to France as a nipper involved it!

I enjoyed the journey through rural northern France as I spent a lot of my holidays there as a child. I was always rather fascinated by the water towers that look like concrete golf tees, and retain a fondness for the drizzle of northern France and the strange Belgium names.

Gare du Nord
The Eurostar just pulls up at the platform in Paris without any passport control or anything. Very odd. Rather confused, we wandered out of the station, thinking we'd get a cab to the office where we were to leave the suitcases and, later, collect our keys. No such luck. First of all, the concourse outside the station is somewhere you don't want to loiter - there are mad drunks yelling at the sky as if they're arguing with God, and then there's general down and outs loafing on sheets of cardboard. Loitering about amongst them are people who don't look like they're waiting for a train, but are waiting for bemused tourists and their wallets.

The biggest thief of the day though was the cabby who wanted us to pay 35 Euros to go a couple of kms. I got out my map and showed him where it was, then said, "C'est pas loin." He said, "Standard fare, standard fare!" Which is cobblers because my Frommer's guide book says the standard fare is 5 or 6 Euros, with an extra 1 or 2 Euros per km. We certainly weren't going 30km! In fact, according to Google maps, it's just 1km! Fout le camp!

So we decided to walk it, which was very stupid and not a great idea when you're tired, you've got suitcases, and you feel like you're about to be pounced on. My advice - get the underground at Gare du Nord. Part of the reason I held back was because I wanted to get those 3 or 5 day Metro tickets, but they're quite hard to get and in the end two carnets of 10 tickets were quite enough for the two of us over 4 days - 22 Euros altogether. I'd also never been on the Metro before (I last went round Paris by car when I was 12...) so wasn't sure what it was like with suitcases.

Barbes-Rochechouard - just say no
My general feeling of unease increased no end by deciding that Barbes-Rochechouard was the best Metro for going to Mamie and Mamie Bleu (vintage shops recommended by one of my Parisian customers). The Paris Vintage book recommended Anvers, but no, I thought B-R was nearer. Just... my god... just avoid B-R! Not only is it insanely busy but when you try to leave the station there are HOARDES of dodgy feckers trying to hawk all manner of goods, including what are clearly counterfeit cigarettes. If you have to change lines here, it's not much fun either because one line is elevated and the other underground - you have to walk past these people at pavement level, trying to stretch through the bars from outside to convince you that you want their wares. Arrrgh! Hold your bag tightly and walk very fast!

And then after all that, Mamie and Mamie Bleu were closed, so we decided to go to Montmartre.

Sacré Coeur/Montmartre
Sacré indeed! How many people can you fit in one place? Well, I dunno, but Sacré Coeur is trying to set a new world record. How they managed to film the scenes from Amélie here, I just don't know. One huge surge of humanity carries you up a street lined with tourist tat shops (who would want a T-shirt with the Eiffel Tower and Marilyn Monroe on it? Is there a connection I'm missing here?), or you can take the one running horizontal to it which stinks of piss and has a huge pile of rubbish at the top of it, which an eager dog refused to leave unsniffed; there was probably a tramp under it.

We squeezed our way up the steps (more dodgy people lurking about - pickpockets and blokes with their hoods up doing their best "hey, look at me, aren't I intimidating" faces) and popped out at the top (there was a demonstration of street dance going on, which involves topless lads in baggy jeans, who I saw once dancing in Birmingham - there were many, many dipsticks who just stood there staring, mainly middle-aged women in anoraks, strangely, with no thought that they were on steps which maybe, just maybe, other people might want to use for either ascending or descending... you know, people like me who should've got on the funicular...).

It was all a bit too hectic to take in the view of the basilica, but we did manage to stop a couple of times to take in the view of the city from the height.

"What's that big building over there - the one with the scaffolding... oh wait, that's the Pompidou."

Thence to the winding lanes of Montmartre - very pretty, but very stuffed. We managed to find a quiet route down, though, and that was really quite pleasant, but we didn't go back to Montmartre - maybe another time. Going up via Abbesses rather than Anvers might be a more sensible option.

St Germain
We went back to the office to collect our luggage and the keys to our apartment, and went down by Metro, getting off at St Germain, with its huge white church rising about the station. Ah... St Germain. It's rather fabulous. I know - it's a bit posh, but it doesn't seem too snobby, just quite pleasant. There aren't huge numbers of backpacked tourists or the aforementioned dodgy feckers, and it's quiet but still lively (which isn't to say we dropped our guard, but it felt safer here than outside the Gare du Nord!!!).

We stayed with Apartment Paris and it was pretty good, not unlike my other apartment experiences in Granada and Barcelona. It's nice to be able to have independence when you're staying away. We did struggle at first to open the front door, though - there were so many keys and codes that it felt like a contest on the Krypton Factor. However, it was nice, and the pic up there at the top is of me sitting by the window! How French is that! (well apart from the English person sat in front of it...)

Notre Dame
As night fell we went for a walk and realised we weren't very far from Notre Dame. We crossed over to Ile-de-la-Cité and the cathedral was open so we went in. Candlelit polyphonic Mass was in progress and it was beautiful and spellbinding.

Friday

Tourist Attraction Bingo
How many Paris sights can you manage in one day? When I was 12, I managed Sacré Coeur, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysées, Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, in the back of a car. On Friday, I managed Eiffel Tower, the national theatre, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysées, the golden ring scam, Place de la Concord, La Tuileries, La Louvre, Place des Vosges, Ile-de-la-Cité AND St Germain in one day ON FOOT. This is about 15km. This is a testament to the awesomeness of my frumpy old lady shoes.

(the umbrella even has tiny Eiffel Towers on it)

I'd completely forgotten just how enormous the Eiffel Tower is, and I do believe at one point it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth. This is no surprise. It's just... well... I mean, even just the size of its feet is enough to make you feel wobbly!

And on the way to the Places des Vosges, we fitted in a visit to the "Mamzelle Swing" vintage shop, and Eux de l'Eau (which is actually on the Place) where I bought some vintage-ish earrings.

Saturday
Pere-La-Chaise cemetary - what a fascinating place. I called in on Colette, Maria Callas, Oscar Wilde, Honoré de Balzac and Edith Piaf (and Gertrude Stein, even though I find her unreadable).

There was no one around Balzac and Colette's graves, or indeed Callas' entry in the columbarium. Actually - the columbarium was the only creepy place in the whole cemetery, being underground with very low lighting. I kept thinking there was someone else further along and yet there wasn't. The rest of the cemetary is filled with French family graves - they're the size of a usual grave plot but with what amounts to a small chapel being built on top, with a stained glass window in the back. They're rather nifty.

Wilde had a bit of a crowd (English-speaking) - it was quite fun to see all the lipstick on the grave (not that I really understand that - ladies, he's taken!) and the missing penis on the tomb's effigy. There's even a metal door in the back - not quite sure why.

Piaf's grave was surprisingly small (but then, so was she!). Her visitors were mainly Francophone. I found her grave the most moving of all and I did cry a bit.

Oh - we saw Jim Morrison's grave as well. It's very unimpressive and a rather messy, plus there were huge numbers of people there and I only went to have a look cos, well, you have to really. I'm not a fan, either!

We followed this up with a trip to the vintage shop "Casablanca" and "Mamie" and "Mamie Bleu". The last two necessitated a trip to the Anvers metro station, which is one stop to the west of my favourite stop - Barbes-Rochechouard. It was PACKED with tourists heading for Montmartre. We did try another go at heading there but you just couldn't move so we gave up and went to the Latin Quarter.

The Latin Quarter was quite nice to wander about in. There's not much to look at there unless you find universities VERY exciting, although there's some nice little streets by the river, most notably Rue de la Chat Qui Peche - Road of the Fishing Cat. And we ate at an American diner called Breakfast in America. It presented us with the unfortunate problem of speaking French to the American waitress, then assuming the other waitress was American and speaking in English to her - except she was French. Whooops. It was quite good, though, if not rather surreal (Surely we should be in a bistro, for heaven's sake!).

Sunday
We went to the flea at St Ouen, and then to the Jardins de Luxembourg as we were having a wander about St Germain that day. It was so nice just to sit in the park! We found the statue of Liberty and we also found a cat who kept finding unusual places to perch, apparently fascinated by the little boats floating in the pond.

We went back up through the Latin Quarter and went by the Pantheon. It's quite a stunning building - and then we went along the Seine, passing the boquinistes, who seemed to be selling more postcards than old books. And of course popped into the "Shakespeare & Company" shop, where my boyfriend bought a book about the Beats - just round the corner was the Beat Hotel on Rue Git-le-Coeur where many of the Beats had stayed.

Next time...
...we're checking out Montmartre more - I'm abandoning Anvers and trying Abbesses instead! And also - we didn't go to Montparnasse! This must be rectified!

(a blog about the shops will follow...)

7 Lies Women Who Hate Vintage Dresses Tell

2010-05-11T19:30:00.007+01:00

In response to this nasty little scrap of vitriol....

1. Ewwww, it all smells of mothballs/other people's sweat/mildew
Not all of it, and even if it does, there's acres of space online with tips on how to remove it - hanging it up over a bath of warm water and white vinegar being particularly effective.

2. It's only worth wearing if it's fashionable
Quite possibly because you're insecure and can't come up with your own style and slavishly follow what you're told to wear, because you must follow the herd, to the point that you can't cope with people who develop their own style, which leads you to write aforesaid nasty shite. In fact, people tend to wear vintage or vintage-style BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT. Not to try to be original, but BECAUSE THEY GENUINELY LIKE VINTAGE STYLE. They don't like contemporary stuff - so should people be forced to wear things they don't like? Because it's a niche taste, people who dress this way do happen to stick out.

3. Vintage dresses' stories don't matter.
Yes it does. Vintage has history - if you listen closely you can hear the stories that it might tell.

4. Ewww... a dead person wore it.
And? Someone walked down the same street you did and died - doesn't stop you from walking down it yourself. It's not like vintage garments are covered in the blood coughed up from a TB-ridden lung.

5. Vintage wasn't cut better
"Better" is down to personal style. And if you like vintage style, then obviously you'll prefer the cut of vintage clothing (or indeed well made vintage repro).

6. People who wear vintage are smug.
People who bang on about how much they hate vintage and the people who wear it are not only smug, but also boring #*$@s.

7. People are interested in what "The Gloss" has to say.
Well, that's certainly not true, is it!

(I could go on, but it's not worth wasting the energy typing it! But I will say this - I've been physically attacked for wearing vintage style, and I know other people who have been too. So when someone writes a hate-strewn piece of shite like The Gloss article, then I'm afraid I have to respond!)

This Wrote Itself

2010-05-11T08:51:00.006+01:00

For reasons best known only to himself, Gordon Brown claimed that he was like Heathcliff. Ah yes, Wuthering Heights, the love-triangle to end all love-triangles. But wait, what is this? Inspiration has struck!

Wuthering Parliament

“Oh, dear!” Clegg cried at last. “I'm very unhappy!”

“A pity,” observed I. “You're hard to please; so many friends and so few cares, and can't make yourself content!”

“Dimbleby, will you keep a secret for me?” he pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting his winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it.

“Is it worth keeping?” I inquired, less sulkily.

“Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. To-day, David Cameron has asked me to form a Conservative/Lib Dem collation government with him, and I've given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.”

“That's very strange! I cannot make it out.”

“It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it: I can't do it distinctly; but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel.”

He seated himself by me again: his countenance grew sadder and graver, and his clasped hands trembled.

“Dimbleby, do you never dream queer dreams?” he said, suddenly, after some minutes' reflection.

“Yes, now and then,” I answered.

"Dimbleby, I shall oblige you to listen: it's not long; and I've no power to be merry to-night.”

“I won't hear it, I won't hear it!” I cried, hastily.

I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Clegg had an unusual gloom in his aspect, that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. He was vexed, but he did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, he recommenced in a short time.

“If I were in heaven, Dimbleby, I should be extremely miserable.”

“Because you are not fit to go there,” I answered. “All sinners would be miserable in heaven.”

“But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there.”

He laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.

“This is nothing,” cried he: “I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Parliament; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to form a coalition with David Cameron than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Gordon so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to form a coalition government with Gordon now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Dimbleby, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Cameron's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Gordon's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Clegg say it would degrade him to form a coalition government with him, and then he stayed to hear no further, by resigning his position as leader of the Labour party. My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure; but I started, and bade him hush!

“Why?” he asked, gazing nervously round.

“John Prescott is here,” I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his cartwheels up the road; “and Gordon will come in with him. I'm not sure whether he were not at the door this moment.”

“And how isn't that nowt comed in fro' th' field, be this time? What is he about? girt idle seeght!” demanded John, looking round for Gordon.

“Oh, he couldn't overhear me at the door!” said he. “I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Gordon has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does not know what being in love is!”

“And now let us hear what you are unhappy about. You will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one; and you love David, and David loves you. All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle?”

“Here! and here!” replied Clegg, striking one hand on his forehead, and the other on his breast; “in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!”

(Wuthering Heights, chapter 9, bludgeoned)

Spam - weird and weirder still

2010-05-10T08:35:00.004+01:00

No one is surprised now when they receive an email from the Chancellor of Tanzania, offering you $10,000,000 if you only send him your bank details as his entire family died in a plane crash and were eaten by crocodiles.

But how odd it is to be emailed personally by Gordon Brown PM, MP, GCSE, himself! I really am very grateful to him to think of me during what is surely a stressful time, and offer to send me £2,000,000 - perhaps he confused me with Nick Clegg? Or perhaps he thinks I'm his wife - after all, Sarah and I wear the same bright red Marks & Spencers rain mac. Unless he's doing this for everyone who voted for him?

But he's having to inform me in secret - his email address is registered in Hungary.

From: xxxxxxxx@xxxxx.hu
Subject: Our ref: ATM/13470/IDR

OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER
TREASURY AND MINISTER FOR CIVIL SERVICE, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.

Our ref: ATM/13470/IDR
Your ref:...Date: 07/05/2010

IMMEDIATE PAYMENT NOTIFICATION

I am Hon Gordon Brown MP,Prime Minister British Government. This letter is to officially inform you that (ATM Card Number 0480001017665450) has been accredited in your favor. Your Personal Identification Number is 477.The VISA Card Value is £2,000,000.00(Two Million, Great British Pounds Sterling).

This office will send to you an Visa/ATM CARD that you will use to withdraw your funds in any Automated Teller Machine (ATM) CENTER or Visa card outlet in the world with a maximum of £5000 GBP daily.Further more,You will be required to re-confirm the following information to enable;Hon Gordon Brown MP Secretary of State for Foreign and Common wealth Affairs. begin in processing of your VISA CARD.begin in processing of your VISA CARD.

(1)Full names: (2)Address: (3)Country: (4)Nationality: (5)Phone : (6)Age:
(7)Occupation: (8) Post Codes

Forward Reply To: directgov1@w.cn

TAKE NOTICE: That you are warned to stop further communications with any other
person(s) or office(s) different from the staff of the State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to avoid hitches in receiving your payment.

You are to choose on the Options of delivery of your ATM Card:
1) DELIVERY BY DHL COMPANY
2) BANK TRANSFER

Regards,

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
Prime Minister.

(honestly, how stupid do these spammers think we are?!)

A wee weight loss update

2010-05-06T10:14:00.005+01:00

(yes, thrilling)

I haven't weighed myself for a couple of weeks, but I can give you some measurements!

I started at:
Bust: 47", Waist: 44", Hips: 50".
On 27th April (I found the Tweet!): bust: 45", Waist: 37", Hips: 48"
And today it's: Bust: 44", Waist: 37", Hips 47"

It's kind of annoying that my waist has stopped shrinking for now, but I think it's quite ingenious how my body decided to get the waist down and then reduce in proportion. Well, let's hope so, anyway. At least now I can comfortably fit into a Bettie Page Clothing XXXL! (I could before, but only the Captain dress, because it's so stretchy! And without the belt. Seeing as the belt is designed for a 36" waist...).

I was having a huge panic yesterday (I felt generally rather stressed all day, to be honest, and lost my temper a couple of times - humans were getting to me), thinking that I haven't been eating properly on soft food, and that I've put on weight, and then I was panicking about what I can eat once they've filled the band, and I was worrying because I don't know what the right portion size looks like... etc etc etc.

I emailed the nutritionist and he reminded me that I have a meeting with him on Saturday - when, presumably, all this would be explained to me. He sent me a huge word doc explaining what I can and can't eat. Pretty much, I'm not allowed anything too soft (so no mashed potato - but let's face it, it's not going to a huge disaster if I have it occasionally). And in terms of portions, I need to eat off a side plate (which I haven't been doing... I've been using a sandwich plate, which is smaller than a dinner plate, but bigger than a side plate). Side plate. How depressing. Then again, it's eating off a side plate or not being able to fit through the door, so there's no choice really.

If worrying was an Olympic sport, I'd do rather well.

Ebay - the emotional roller coaster ride

2010-05-04T20:21:00.004+01:00

It's not all dresses, you know. A proportion of my time running Pin-Up Parade is spent on Ebay buying very exciting things such as polyethene posting bags and tissue paper. And it should be very simple to do this. I go on Ebay, I look for what I need (large letter padded envelopes, burgundy tissue paper 20" by 30"), I click to buy and a few days later, stuff turns up.

So today I went to buy some tissue paper. First of all I had feedback to leave. And not very good feedback at that. I had ordered some large letter padded envelopes from XXX Packaging, who I've ordered loads of stuff from in the past. They're reliable, they're good value. Except my envelopes didn't come, and it took me investigating and finding their phone number for me to chase them up. "Sorry, they're out of stock, we'll send them when we have them again." Couldn't someone have... you know... told me? (In fact, the exact same thing happened to me with Hotter Shoes recently). I just don't understand why you would leave your customer dangling, not knowing! I tell *my* customers as soon as I realise the item is sold out - but are we seeing here the difference between a one-person enterprise and a many-people organisation which relies too much on computers to tell them what's happening? I just feel that a courtesy email WOULD BE NICE. Online retailers take note! (or at least try to avoid listing things which you don't actually have in stock - mistakes can happen, I know, but come on, communication PLEASE!). I felt bad, but I had to leave honest feedback, and gave them a neutral, and a low score for communication. When I checked their feedback, I discovered that I wasn't the only person having problems. What gives, XXX Packaging? It just makes me feel sad when a company I could rely on go tits up like this. Have they gone bust? Or are they being crap? Who knows....

A couple of months ago I ordered some tissue paper from XXXKare. I kept finding sheets with holes in - like water burns. It was very odd. So I emailed them:

Dear XXXkare,

Hello, I received the tissue paper quickly, which is great, but there's holes in every sheet! I say every - I haven't gone through checking every one, but each time I pull a sheet out to use, it has a hole in it. I thought I should let you know because I've bought loads of tissue paper over the years from various people and although perhaps the top sheet might have a tear in, I'm finding at least one (sometimes two or three) in each sheet. I'm not sure how this happened. They look a bit like water burns, but I assume it's not becuase the colour hasn't run. I haven't left feedback yet because I don't want to be vengeful, especially if you weren't aware the paper was so holey.
Thanks,
Helen.

They replied:
Hello.

We were sorry to hear that your tissue was not up to our normal high standard.

We have checked the other tissue of that batch and cannot find any reoccurrence of the problem. We have spoken to our supplier and they have not had any other reports of this nature.

I have spoken with the person who did that tissue. Part of their job is to check for problems with the tissue as they are counting/folding it. For them to miss something of this magnitude is unforgivable, and they have been so informed - especially on the 8 sheets that are fully in view!

We have refunded your payment and hope that you can use most of the sheets you have.

Once again, sorry for the problem.

Good luck

Awesome stuff! What nice people. They didn't even demand photographic evidence of it. Anyway, so it's time to buy more tissue paper, and I return to XXXKare because I feel I can trust them - after all, they dealt with my problem very fairly (the refund was for under a tenner though, so let's not get too excited, but still, it's more than some other people would've done!).

I find they're still selling the same kind of paper, so I click to order some.

And I can't.

Because they've blocked me.

So I email them:

"hi, I'm a bit surprised... I went to order some more tissue paper from yourselves as I feel I can trust you as a reliable seller in the way you dealt with the issue I encountered - but alas, you appear to have blocked me from being able to buy from your shop! Shall I go elsewhere or will you unblock me? Or do you think I'm a serial complainer and want nothing to do with me?"

It's just so odd. I don't block my customers if something I send them turns out to be faulty, it's just one of those things with retail. And I buy a lot of tissue paper - I even tell them this in my original letter. I was so... not offended or insulted, but just, I suppose, somewhat amazed, that I thought "Well, if that's what you think of me," and bought some tissue from someone else.

I spose it's like that scene in Pretty Woman when Vivien goes back to the boutique where she was sneered at by the staff - "Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now."

The Secrets of an Old House

2010-04-30T15:14:00.008+01:00

It's not unusual to live in a terraced Victorian house in Birmingham (technically I don't live in Birmingham, I live in Sandwell, W. Mids, but that doesn't really mean anything, does it!).

I moved into the house in October last year and it dates back to the 1880s. It has Victorian house numbering too - where you normally have a side of odd numbers and a side of evens, my street is consecutive numbers. It goes down to the bottom of the hill, goes over the road and carries on. I've even been able to look it up the house on the 1911 census (bearing in mind the house numbers probably haven't changed, it's likely to be accurate) and so I know that a Mr Steele and his family lived there then. There were six people in my two bedroom house which sometimes seems too small for two adults!

There are some surviving original features, such as this fabulous grate (it's a great grate) upstairs:

(that twig-stuff in the corner isn't mine - we took the pic when we went to look round before moving in!)

We had some fitted wardrobes put in recently and to install them the fitters had to remove part of the skirting board. I saw the resulting hole, and so knelt down to have a peek, Amélie-style.

And I found myself staring into the roof space above the kitchen. I don't know when the kitchen was added - back in Mr Steele's day it's unlikely to have been a kitchen and was probably a scullery. Then, when gas and electric cookers were invented and came into domestic use in the 20s and 30s, people started to have kitchens added to the back of their properties, converting their sculleries.

In fact, this must be what happened with my house - either they added the room on the back, or converted the scullery, and did something with the roof. Because there inside the roof space I found an old twist of paper.

I carefully unfolded it and at first could only see a retro typeface - but as I didn't want to jump the gun in dating it, I assumed it was 1950s. I opened it a little more and it had a huge hole in it but I was able to see that it was the front page of a women's magazine (I can't remember the name now but it was the kind that have lots of stories in it).

And then I was able to date it. Because on the reverse was an advert for a hair product (a shampoo, I think) and there was an illustration of a woman with short, finger-waved hair. It must be from the 20s or 30s. And it's very likely it ended up in there (I have no idea why - perhaps Mrs Steele wanted to leave something for a curious person in the future to discover) when they were adding their modern kitchen to the house.

Alas, I no longer have the paper because I took it downstairs and put it in a bag, to keep it safe until it could be photographed. And then it disappeared (also known as, my boyfriend put it in the bin). But it was fun finding it and it made me feel connected to the secrets of the house and the people who have lived here before.

I like it when things like that happen.

Edited to add:
The boyfriend read this and then said that it hasn't been thrown out afterall - it's around somewhere, apparently. If it ever surfaces, pictorial evidence will follow!

Photo update!

2010-04-26T22:00:00.005+01:00

It's been 2 weeks now since my operation. As you know I started off at over 18 stone.

This is me in Cheltenham two weeks before the operation, doing a passable impression of David Mitchell in drag, having got down to 17 stone and half or just over:

And this is me today, 4 weeks later (2 weeks after the op) under 17 stone:

It's hard to see how large I am in all that black clothing! But you can see there's a difference to my face, as I seem to have lost weight off my face, arms and waist. (and yes, my clothes look shabby. These are fat girls clothes - the best I could make do with as I hate Evans and this was all M&S had which was classic without being frumpy. Bear in mind of course that this is what I wear to work, where I run the risk of being covered in dust (being a librarian), so I'm hardly going to wear my best frock. Not that I can without using a tube of Lanacane Anti-Chafing Gel, but such is life).

And a close up of the face. Not particularly flattering (bonus points for looking like my brother as well) but you can see some chin flab - best of all though is the reappearance of my cheekbones! (almost!) You can definitely see a difference though - my face shape has changed!

So this is the reference for what happens next.

I won't put up anymore pics until the band has been inflated. At the moment it's empty so it's not restricting my stomach at all and it's not doing it's job yet. So I'll probably put on weight! Oh noooo!!! Anyway, the band fill is in a month, so more news then.

The Week of Soup

2010-04-19T18:02:00.003+01:00

I have been on solids (albeit puréed!) since Saturday and I feel a bit more energetic than I did, but not enough to do much more than sit in a chair and maybe walk a little. I was worried that puréed food would look like vomit, and it does, but it also looks like soup, so I tell myself it looks like soup and then all is well.

I saw the nurse on Saturday and she freed me of my plasters, but the one which was giving me trouble apparently has a "little infection". I take it that little means, it's infected, but it's not gangrenous. It is however rather sore. I spent the rest of Saturday covered in manuka honey, which means I got my top all sticky.

It didn't look like this:

Apparently the wound had been glued, rather than stitched, and as sometimes happens with the glue, it had popped open. Thanks, guys. No, really, thanks. I am a bit worried though that if it doesn't heal it'll need stitches anyway.

She also addressed the loose wires - the stitch thread ends, which she said should've been snipped off so they went inside me as the bit where they come out of the skin gets sore. So she pulled each stitch taught, snipped it and it pinged inside me. And yes, this hurt.

I got to play with a gastric band, though. The port was quite heavy, so it doesn't surprise me how I've felt that dragging thing where they've stitched it in. It even has a lot number on the back, which means I have a lot number inside me. That's a weird idea. It looked a bit metallic (I thought it was plastic - the band certainly is, but I'm not sure about the port) so going through airport security should be interesting. I do of course have a card which says "I have a gastric band" in 20 different languages along with a very pleasant drawing of it, which now resides in my purse.

And the nurse weighed me as well. When they saw me for the pre-op meeting, I weighed 112kg (17 stone 9lb), and on Saturday morning I weighed 107kg (16 stone 12lb).

Hang on, this deserves a special dance - the HELL YEAH I'M UNDER 17 STONE dance!

Of course, now I'm back on solids, and the band isn't tight yet, I'll probably put weight on, but heck.... In fact, when I was admitted at the hospital I was 16 stone 7lb (but that's with a 12 hour fast factored in... I must drink a lot of water usually!). And then on the Monday after the op, Wii Fit told me off for putting 3lb on. It gave me a list of reasons as to why I'd put on that much in a few days and sadly they didn't have an option for "My insides have swollen from having an operation, you annoying twat." (seriously, that talking balance board is as annoying as Clippy).

His cousin works for Nintendo:

Thing is, I don't particularly feel like eating. It was 4pm today when I realised I hadn't had any lunch! But then I'd been chugging fruit smoothies (well, not exactly chugging, but you get the idea), which probably satisfied me. I nearly bought a Milka bar (not the huge size!) but didn't. My old impulse of "MUST BUY CHOCOLATE WHEN IT'S ON SPECIAL OFFER EVEN IF DON'T PARTICULARLY WANT IT" seems to have taken a right-hook.

I thought I was going back to work today, but I didn't. I'm still very sore, and I can't wear a bra! I think I'll wait until the infection has died down a bit because I don't want it spreading to the other wounds. The manuka honey definitely seems to be working though as it's made the wounds scab faster than I thought they would. I don't feel as spaced out as I did, but that would be the food, I imagine.

Talking of wounds - I'm going to wear a bikini for the first time since I was 16 (because I wore it once, tried to go face-down topless, and broke the clasp...). This is my treat for when I'm slim. I was thinking "Oh, I can't do that if I've got scars on my tummy" but they'll be very small, and I have a massive scar on my back from when they removed the tumour (twice) and I've been in a swimming costume with that showing, so does it really matter? And anyone who says "Eww, that's gross" can sod off, because at least I won't be the size of a house. Not that I mean to offend, of course, but I wouldn't dream of wearing a bikini at the size I currently am!

Of course the trouble with wearing a bikini is that you have to do intimate topiary, but I shall address that nearer the time. Of course I will also need a place to actually wear the damn bikini. Can't just slope about the house in it!

Added to which...
Today I heard about a woman who went abroad to have her gastric band done for £500. She died two days later from infection caused by an insanitary hospital. I don't know how she would've coped with after care such as meetings with the nutritionist or even the band fills - they must be putting the bands on full. I know you can save lots of money doing it that way, but you really need the aftercare, and it's not worth dying just to save £6,000.

The further thrilling adventures of someone with holes on their tummy

2010-04-14T21:45:00.006+01:00

(I try to avoid exact gross detail but there are some salient facts which I put forward here so that if anyone else is considering this surgery, they can read about what it's like. To be honest, there's some stuff here which I wish I'd known beforehand! So I shall try not to be too explicit, but there is medical... erm... stuff).

I'm now in the recovery stage. I seem to feel only a few things: pain, boredom and fear. I didn't have a good night's sleep so this morning I felt quite down and questioned what the hell I've gone and done to myself.

I was given a huge bag of medication: pain killers (which don't seem to work), tablets for nausea (which I haven't used as I don't feel nauseous), tablets to ease indigestion (which I forgot I had and I imagine I'll only need them once I'm eating solids again), a spare pair of pressure stockings (more on that later), and... *drumroll* some kind of anti-clotting stuff to stop me getting DVT.

DVT:

I'm not sure if everyone has this when they have an op, but it looks like it's for people "at risk" when they have abdominal surgery, and fat people, I suppose are in the at risk group, just by virtue of being a chubster. Awesome. I even have my own sharps bin, and I have no idea where to get rid of it.

I am so very bored though. My brain is addled still so I can't reply to long emails. I can't seem to think for very long. I was going to do some writing but I just feel rather blank. I have the telly on in the background but fart about playing Spider Solitaire at the same time. Why do I keep watching Law & Order? Chris Noth isn't in it enough to justify me watching it but I prefer it to Jeremy Kyle. In my state I might get worked up and burst a stitch!

Oh hang on, here he is:

I find it hard to get in a comfortable position to sleep in - it has to be half-sitting, which I don't like at all. My back started to hurt just before the op, so when I find a position that doesn't hurt my wounds, it hurts my back. When it doesn't hurt my back, it hurts my wounds. Last night I woke at 4am and couldn't get comfortable and ended up taking off a pressure stocking because it was irritating me so much I couldn't sleep. Naughty. But then I was looking at my wounds earlier (which is hard to do as my boobs are in the way) and I realised that where a piece of tape had come off, there was a hole underneath (too small to have been stitched) which was open. Lovely. I had some spare dressings so have changed all my dressings and added one over the open one to see if that makes sleeping more comfortable tonight. We shall see.

Except it was smaller.

I can have solids again from Saturday - well, I say solid, I actually mean purée. So at the moment I have three Complan and lots of tea and water, and yes, an Oxo cube each day. You will note an absence of fibre in this diet, so I was told to take prune juice or liquid senna. I've only been able to find Califig and let me tell you, if you can't push to help nature on its way, and you've had no fibre to aid nature either, then you are stuck in the bathroom for a very long time....

Oh, and it's really hard to cough as well. I'm glad I don't smoke anymore because this would've been horrendous! (but lest we forget, I gave up smoking and put on more weight). This is all on the left where the port is, which is apparently sewn into the muscles - hence the dragging feeling. Hence the pain. Hence the massive bruise.

Yesterday I managed to go for a walk - to the chemist's. Very exciting. I was ok but had to go slowly and I could feel things pulling. :-/

My friend Olivia came over today and we just hung and watched daft videos on Youtube. I laughed but only just! (that Chatroulette piano man has done another video). She washed my hair for me which I really appreciated!

So yes, these are my adventure thus far.

Burping, yelling, commodes and panic attacks

2010-04-11T18:20:00.007+01:00

(please note: the content of this post is rather gross so look away now unless you like hospital drama, well, drama as in the humiliation of sitting on a commode in front of strangers.)

Hi everyone!

I'm home. Actually in bed. I've slept most of the afternoon. I spent yesterday after the op very drowsy and didn't have an amazing night's sleep as I was wired up to a drip, oxygen and had these automatic squuezy cuff things on my calves. :-/ The nurses kept coming in to check my heart rate and blood pressure, but they were ok.

The worst thing was going to the loo. I was so thirsty and my throat hurt so I drank lots of water, but I had to call the nurse to go to the loo because I was attached to the drip and I couldn't get the cuff things off myself. It was agony to lift myself up and then off the bed so 2 nurses had to help me up onto... a comode! It came wheeling in and I thought, has it really come to this?! I'm not in my 80s yet! And so I sat on the comode and had a panic attack and nearly threw up, so they gave me oxygen. There I was, one arm taken off the comode, hospital gown flapping, wailing "I WANT TO GO HOME!!! I'M GOING TO BE SICK! I FEEL LIKE SHIT!"

They see me rolling, they hatin'

And I needed the loo again later and the same thing happened. AWESOME. Except that time there was just one nurse who wouldn't help me off the bed because there's a "no lifting policy" apparently. It was just so traumatic and scary that I couldn't do something as easy as getting out of bed to have a wee!

I should've called it Mark:

I didn't have much fun in the recovery room either. They woke me up in theatre and I didn't realise my eyes wouldn't focus. They were saying "HELLO HELEN!!!" and "How long were you under for?" so I looked at the clock on the wall and couldn't read it, and then tried to reply, only then realising I still had a tube down my throat.

I was shivering and shuddering, which started to make me panic as well, and of course as I struggled with the shivers, I was thrashing about and the pain was intense (in case you're wondering, it's on my left side and feels like tearing. It's apparently gas trapped from when they inflated me). Because I was shivering, they stuck this hot air-filled duvet on me and then I was panicking more because I was too hot. The nurse insisted on moving me off the sheet (I was back in my bed by this point so I assume they lifted me off it in the theatre while I was still under) and I was yelling because it was so much agony to move, even to roll sligtly to one side. But she wouldn't leave me alone so I shouted! And while I was shivering, they told me to stop moving! Erm... sorry, I can't.

Then I heard someone say, "I'm just going to have a sweet, I'm really hungry" and there on the side by my bed was a massive bag of sweets that the nurses were dipping into! Erm... slightly insensitive or what? I've filled out a complaint form about it, actually. They were sat there drinking Pepsi as well. I was so thirsty, begging them for water, and they wouldn't give me any, while they were swigging pop and eating sweets! And going on about how hungry they were in front of someone who had fasted for 18 hours and had been on milk and yoghurt for 5 days.

And THEN they started talking to each other about "the most pain I've ever had". "Oh, yeah, doodah says a hernia was the worst thing he'd ever had." Guess what, I DON'T CARE! And "they did tell you it would hurt." Well yes of course they did, but it hurts, and this, I'm afraid to say, is my reaction to pain!

And THEN, after all my yelling (I was in pain and I was terrified, so I'm allowed), they're wheeling me about and made some comment about the walls not being noise-insulated and how the other patient had heard me. What, I should apologise?

Not that I'm being melodramatic or anything:

I have five gorgeous wounds across my abdomen, two of which are bruised, but skilfully sewn up with dissolvable thread. Mr Khan is clearly a proficient cross-stitcher. I also have bandages on my hands from where the cannulas were. I look like I have stigmata.

Not that I'm being melodramatic or anything:

Yeah, so this wasn't fun at all but some of the nurses were really lovely and helpful. It's kind of weird being helped back into bed after peeing in a comode and then they put the duvet over you and tell you, aged 31, that you "look just like a princess." I'm not 7! But it beat being told to stop shouting.

Oh, and aside from all that, my boyfriend gets an honourable mention for looking after me. He's even going to give me my anti-clotting injections. Although he was basing it on that bit in "Pulp Fiction" so the nurse told him he doesn't need to do it that hard....

And... (some of you will think I'm mad for saying this, but I don't care) my late grandfather made an appearance. He was stood by the wardrobe. I couldn't see him but I could sense that he was there. So when I was wide awake at 2am I said, "Grandpops, is that you?" And I heard a knock. There was someone else on and off by the door, and one of the nurses came, and she jumped about a foot in the air. Oh yes, creepy hospitals.

It was a bit scary walking into the theatre and seeing the operating table which had feet rests on it and arms - it looked like the thing they put prisoners on to give them lethal injections! And before I was knocked out, they tipped the bed up so I was half standing up during the op at 25%. Yikes. Apparently it's to do with the angle taking pressure off the organs, but it did seem very odd at the time when the bed started to move.

"I shall describe my operation through the medium of experimental dance!"

Not that it matters now. I'm in bed drinking (low fat) hot chocolate! Still feel achey and it does hurt when I have to get up but it's been lessening over the last 24 hours. Just with all the gas percolating out of me, it means I burp I lot!

The last day

2010-04-09T09:21:00.003+01:00

Well here I am finally - the day before having my operation. I'm feeling tired from being on that crappy 800 calorie a day diet since Monday, I'm scared of having a general anaesthetic (I've never had one before), my back hurts (I think because I've lost weight off my waist - I can't prop myself up on flab anymore!), and I'm worried I haven't finished off all my work as I'm not in next week.

And I keep finding more and more stuff which I can't have once I've got the band in. It's only little things, but I'm worried I'll forget! Like say fizzy drinks (no more gin and tonic) and even Fibre Sure (which has come in handy on a diet which is devoid of any fibre at all).

Plus there's the great mystery - can you wear a corset if you've got a gastric band? Google is flippin' useless in this regard because if you google "corset" and "gastric band" you get people wanking on about how a corset is an alternative to a gastric band for weightloss. Erm... yeah right. If it was that easy I would've worn my corsets more and not gone through this! (which is to say, I haven't gone through very much yet!). I wouldn't tightlace or wear one for hours, just really for a little bit. That said, I've got lots of corsets to sell, so if anyone takes a 30" in What Katie Did corsets, let me know!

Then again they say that the pre-op diet is the hardest bit so I feel quite pleased this is my last day of it. It's been weird starving myself like this. It's made me oddly peaceful and detached, which reminds me of the starving saints who were held up as ideals of human sanctity by refusing the lusts of the body (lust for food, of course). I suppose that's what they thought was holy, but it's the body slowing down from lack of energy.

That said, yesterday I came home from work and did some gardening, painted my house number on the wheelie bins, changed the water filter... But then I need some activity because otherwise I'd go mad from worry.

Totting up: As of yesterday evening, I weighed 17st 2lb (109kg/240lb). As of this morning my waist measures 38".

So in total I've lost a stone and 6" off my waist. Which wasn't very easy, I can tell you....

How things have changed... or not

2010-04-06T11:45:00.000+01:00

Eightball had a troll lurking under the bridge the other day, and his post on trolls got me thinking about how the internet has changed, and as a result, how people behave on it.

My first forays into the internet were in the late 90s. There were no forums in those days, just email lists, hosted by Yahoo Groups and Topica and that kind of thing.

Email lists, whilst a great way to share information, led to frequent discord. I suppose it's the way an email lands in your inbox - it feels more personal than something you had to go to someone else's site to read. And because you're just typing a reply to email, it's easy to forget that there's a huge audience who will read what you've sent as it drops into several hundred inboxes world wide.

I was on a mailing list where I managed to piss off huge numbers of people without even trying. I was so enthusiastic about the internet, having spent ages farting about with 20 penpals and fanzines, that this sudden ease of communication was very exciting for me. I'm embarassed now, really, when I think how I behaved (I wasn't rude to people, I just posted rather a lot), but I didn't understand netiquette. Though in all honesty, the impression I got was that some people just want you to sit over there in the corner and shut up while they stand in front and talk crap that's not even relevant to the mailing list's theme. It's rather painful to me that a google search for my name brings up me having a tantrum and accusing people of bullying me.

Email lists: not everone's smiling:

Next, there was a website I used to write women's 'fashion' articles for ('fashion' in its loosest sense as we're talking vintage style here!). There wasn't a forum on it but there was a guest book which was used as a forum. There were no login accounts so you could type your comment under any name you felt like. So people would turn up under assumed names and give people (me amongst them) abuse. That was, until someone pointed out you could look at the page source and find their IP address.... I even received abuse from someone posting under their real name: a very bittter woman who banged on constantly about being a "professional journalist" (as in, writes for trade magazines. Yeah, well done, what a success...), who took umbrage at people writing on the internet for free about stuff they like - WITHOUT HAVING HAD ANY FORMAL JOURNALISM TRAINING, BY GOD - and so took every opportunity to rip me apart and shit on me. No one ever defended me because... I dunno. They were scared of her and thought she'd turn on them if they did? People contacted me and said "She's got problems. I'm sorry she's like that with you, but I can't say anything because of her issues. It wouldn't be fair." Erm... but it was fair for her to give me a hard time several times a day? And it wasn't like I could walk away. I was one of the website's editors, ffs! A fight ensued when I typed something in a rage and thought I'd deleted it without submitting it... but I hadn't. I was nearly chucked off the website (despite most of the site's top 10 most popular articles having been written by me), but I left the site voluntarily as it upset me that I'd been subjected to so much abuse on a website I worked on. This woman's contribution was pretty much only her nasty comments about me.

(I apologised to this woman in person - pathetically, apologising for something that she'd done. She was about 2 feet tall and really, that expression "a bulldog chewing a wasp" perfectly summed up her sour expression. I tried to speak to her in a friendly way but no... she pursed her lips and glared at me and didn't say a thing. Which made me think, well, who's the better person here? At least I'd made an effort to patch things up! But that's it, isn't it, it's so easy to say whatever you feel like online, but try saying it face to face.... I came across her on t'internet not long ago and there she was on Twitter, tweeting away being just as bitchy and unpleasant as ever before. What a nasty piece of work.)

Then forums came along, which are a VAST improvement on the mailing lists and guestbooks. You're not getting unmediated shite tumbling into your inbox, which is good. On some forums, you can block certain people so if they annoy you, you need never read another word of theirs again. If a certain topic annoys you, you can keep out of the part of the forum where people bang on about it. It's slightly less personal because it's not in your inbox personally addressed to you. And if it's moderated well, and people behave, then it's great. And bananas dance.

Sadly, this doesn't always happen. There's an infamous Morrissey forum which I attempt to be a member of (I've been registered on it for years but have only managed to post less than 200 times), which is a perfect example of what happens when members are allowed to run riot. The forum's owner believes in free speech, and so doesn't like to delete anything or reprimand anyone. Some horrible things go on there, but hey, it's freedom of speech. My feeling personally on that one is that freedom of speech on a forum requires politeness. Going about saying what you like just because you think you can, means I can't be bothered with a forum full of members intent on being as offensive as possible. It's like a competition. When a perfectly interesting thread gets hijacked by people posting the most disgusting euphemisms possible for female genitalia, then... I don't want to know.

So what about forums with effecient moderation? Well... let's look at the **vintage forum**. I've joined this forum twice, was kicked off once and left once because I'm incapable of posting anything without it being removed. For one thing, it's not really covering the periods I'm interested in, and for another... there's some very boring bastards on it with no sense of humour, which makes it a very tedious place to wade through. I got reamed for using a British expression. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologise for how I speak, and I'm not going to check with a token American everytime I want to post something, to make sure they understand it! However, there is a way to be quite rude to people - in the same post you need to bang on about how many times a week you go to church and how many good deeds you do. Now, I'm a Christian myself and I thought humility was rather important - God doesn't like a show off. I'm assuming the rather ferocious approach to moderation adopted by this forum is to control the flow of information because there's so many members, which is fair enough, but I long ago lost patience with working out the protocols so I shall have to go without.

And that's another thing - who runs the forum? Sometimes it's possible for the person who runs it (and their boyfriend) to go about saying whatever they like to other members, even being rude, two-faced, hypocritical and pretty damn unpleasant, but say anything against them, or make a mild criticism about something they like, and you're out. Not that being out is a great disappointment because who wants to be in an environment like that, where a forum is the extension of someone else's ego, by choice?

There are some megalithic forums about - the Morrissey forum and the **vintage forum** mentioned above are examples - but smaller ones have become a lot quieter and newly set up forums are filled with nothing but tumbleweed. I can only assume this is because of things like Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter: you can even pretend you're friends with famous people, even if you have to put up with their blatant advertising for Apple. All. The. Fricking. Time.

It's easy to see why. Your account is your patch. Even if a forum allows you to block a member so you can't read their stuff, it will still appear when someone you haven't blocked quotes them, whereas on Facebook and Twitter, you can block people entirely. It does look a bit weird if someone you're pals with hasn't blocked this person and you see a one sided conversation going on, rather like someone talking to themself. "Oh really. But did you like it? Yeah it's good, but I don't like it myself. That big? My god." etc. And you wonder what's going on, but not enough to unblock whoever they're talking to. And again, Twitter. Choose who to follow, choose who to block, choose who to report for spam! On blogs it's easy to set up something like statcounter.com so you can find out exactly who that a-hole is who leaves you nasty comments (which, of course, you have the power to delete). You can even set up scripts to block them or redirect them. Marvellous. And you can control your privacy: you decide who sees your photos and your ramblings, which leaves you a lot less open to trollery.

So we've come a long way. Ten years ago mailing lists ruled supreme and abusive emails were easily fired off. Forums took the helm of internet communication and, depending on how good the moderators were, fights were diffused, trouble makers curbed and dancing banana smileys jigged with joy. But it wasn't enough. People like to think they're in control of their own destinies, and so they like to be in control of who they interact with online. So setting up your own space is really a fantastic way to do this and avoid hassle - and trolls - online.

(myspace and livejournal? That's another story...)

Sold

2010-04-04T13:25:00.003+01:00

Whirling Turban dress, £100
WT make amazing dresses. I got this from their Boutique. The page is still online so you can see all the details regarding the sizing, plus extra photos (but don't try to order it cos it's no longer available!). It's bust: 45-48", waist: 37" to 38". It comes with 2 halter straps - one is pink, matching the contrast, and one in the plue and pink fish print.

Stop Staring Doll dress, £20
Labelled as 3X but runs small so is 2X. Bust: 44", Waist: 38". Peter Pan collar. Black bengaline with tiny red dots.

Stop Staring Flirty Swing dress, 2X, £20
Black bengaline with white cotton collar and bow. Bust: 44", Waist: 38".

Big Beautiful Barbara Brown "Girl About Town Dress" £15
Cotton. Bust 49", Waist 42". The fold over part of the collar isn't black but is white on my dress. Usually costs £65.

Top Runway dress, £10
Stretch satin with peplum and front kickpleat in white satin. Bust: 46", Waist: 39", Hips: 50". Please note this has cap sleeves - I'm wearing a cardigan in the photo!

Butterick 4790 dress, £15
Cotton. Bust: 42" to 44", Waist: 38". Made in the black and white colour way shown here. (the dress is for sale, not the pattern!)

A bump in the road of my weight-loss journey

2010-03-24T09:20:00.006Z

*waits for the groans to die down - sorry about that pun-laden title*

My operation is now taking place on 10th April. As you can imagine, I heard this and burst into tears, which is rather pathetic, but I was looking forward to it so much and it was the only thought that was getting me through the terrifically awful diet that I've been on for a week - I've now lost half a stone, and 5" off my waist. Besides which, when you're having an op you prepare yourself mentally for it, and I was even looking forward to it!

It's all down to a plane being rescheduled. Yes, and a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan, apparently.

I was supposed to meet with the surgeon on Monday, which would've been ok as his flight was arriving on Sunday. Alas, the plane was rescheduled to arrive late on Monday, thus I missed the Monday clinic, and instead went on Tuesday.

BUT!!!!!!!!! By law, they have to give you 5 day's "reflection" after meeting the surgeon to decide if you want to go ahead with it, so I would only have had 4 days reflection because the clinic was moved. I think this is pretty bloody stupid because if I've already researched it, if I've already arranged a bank loan, and if I'm so committed to it I've spent all week eating nothing and spacing out, you'd think I wasn't going to change my mind, wouldn't you? I imagine this is because it's an elective procedure, and also because they do cosmetic surgery (there was a massive box of breast implants in the room I met the nutritionist in) they have to allow people breathing space so they're absolutely sure they want to do it (besides which I'm a huge library nerd so of course I researched and I even found the academic journal articles written by the surgeon! Not everyone will do this...).

The patient co-ordinator did what she could to reverse the decision and even kicked it up to a director's meeting, but they (who have probably never lived on 3 pints of milk, 2 yoghurts and an Oxo cube for a week) said no.

They have however given me a £550 refund, which is rather good, in a way.

And the nutritionist has changed the diet I'm on and says I can even have half an Easter egg on Easter Sunday - so I spose it's not all bad! I can now have proper food, so for breakfast I had one scrambled egg on one slice of toast, which before I would've struggled with but today felt like a feast!

Besides that, I did meet the surgeon and he's really lovely, so I feel like I'm in safe hands. He also has an aura like a film star. And he's slim, too, which isn't particularly surprising given his chosen profession. He even said that if after the 2 years aftercare lapses and I have a problem, my GP can refer me to him directly because he works for the NHS as well as privately.

Ho-hum.

The Girl With Two Bodies

2010-03-17T09:36:00.002Z

Before starting the pre-op diet, I measured myself.

Bust: 47"
Waist: 44"
Hips: 50"

This isn't as large as I was at my biggest, when I had a 49" bust and 52" hips. In fact, even after losing loads of weight in 2008 and getting down to 16 and 3/4 stone, my bust refused to get smaller and was 46".

Anyway, I measured my waist this morning - I always lose weight off my waist first (as well as my face) - and it's down to 42". In one day. I was aware that I was losing a hell of a lot of water yesterday, so that's how that happened.

The pre-op diet is really hard though. I drink milk, tea or water when I'm hungry but it never quite works. It's there like background noise. The worst thing though is that yesterday afternoon I was spacing out, but was fine after having the stock cube when I got home from work, so I've decided to have that earlier in the day.

Anyway, do you know what's quite sad? I keep forgetting how big I am. I think this is probably one of the reasons why I've ended up the size I am - I just forget my size and go "Oh, a cream meringue from Druckers - that'll do nicely." (thanks to the rude waitress I encountered last time I went there, I won't be going back, so they've done me a favour there - thanks!).

It's like I have two bodies. One is the fat, flabby body which I currently inhabit, which doesn't feel like mine. Really - it's like someone else's fat suit, which I can't take off.

In my head though I'm a size 14 like I was before. I say before - when I was 19. This is what I think I look like, until I'm reminded I'm not when I'm squeezed into a seat on the bus, or struggle to do up my jeans. I look down and see the rolls of flab and remember what I actually look like.

I have no idea why this is and I don't think it counts as body dysmorphia (or does it?). Maybe it's my coping mechanism - once I accepted that I was large, I put it out of my mind to a degree, so that on a daily basis I'm not large. Except I am.

Which probably makes no sense at all, but hey....

More on the band...

2010-03-15T16:32:00.003Z

My operation has been booked for Saturday 27th March, and I'm seeing the surgeon on Monday 22nd March (well, I'll see him on the Saturday as well of course, except I probably won't, because I'll be unconscious and wearing paper knickers. Probably best that I don't see him. Ever. Again).

The reality is starting to break in on my overly optimistic mind. "This'll be easy!" No it won't! I'm on the pre-op diet from tomorrow so for a week and a half, each day I will consuming just the following:

3 pints of skimmed milk
2 low fat, low sugar yoghurts (but they can have little chunks of fruit in them!)
1 stock cube dissolved in water
a complete multivitamin with minerals tablet

Plus as much liquids as I like (as long as it's calorie free), apart from the booze, which is a shame for the very lovely rosé sitting in my fridge.

Guys, seriously... I can't imagine how I'm going to manage on so little. It's 800 calories a day. :-/ Thank god it's only for a week and a half! At least the milk will settle my stomach, but I'll feel so damn tired. Perhaps I'll manage one attempt at the "Warrior" position on Wii Fit and that'll be that.

I think I'll have a yoghurt for breakfast and one for lunch, and then in the evening a stock cube. If only it was 3 yoghurts! God almighty, I feel ridiculous. :-/

In case you're wondering - they're not trying to crash diet me to make me super-slim ahead of the operation. They do it to reduce the size of the liver, otherwise the operation is harder to perform. Now, I'm not keen on any scalpel nicking my liver, thank you very much, so I shall be sticking to this regime with gritted teeth (and at least if my teeth are gritted, I can't get any food in there, can I?).

Think happy thoughts...

Plus size - but for how long?

2010-03-12T20:10:00.003Z

Ladies, gentlemen, pussycats, I have a confession to make.

You'll have seen me wittering on about size-acceptance, size positivity, etc etc etc. You know I stock clothes in the largest sizes I can; you know I accept larger girls onto the Pin-Up Parade galleries. You know all this.

But what you don't know is that I've decided to have a gastric band.

**Pause for readers falling off their swivel chairs - perhaps even swivelling off in a dramatic fashion.**

You see, the thing is, I haven't always been a big girl (despite me going on my first diet when I was 10). There was a time when I looked like this:

By 2008, I was 19 and a half stone and looked like this:

Now Nicole from The Hourglass has done a mighty good job there of making me look rather fabulous. But there was rather a lot of me to makeover, let's be honest.

I didn't enjoy being 19 1/2 stone. I could barely lean forward enough to fasten my shoes. I was a size 24 and as a result could find no clothes. I was faced with buying my entire wardrobe from Evans - can you imagine anything more horrible?

I changed anti-depressants and dropped a stone without doing a thing (a sign if ever there was one that my weight gain was caused - in part - by taking them). I was so pleased about this that I went on the Food Doctor Diet and ended up at 16 3/4 stone. I was a size 20 again! But the weight stopped coming off. I stalled, I plateaued, I conked out. I noticed I was getting bigger and my doctor weighed me recently and gave me the slightly worrying news that I'm 18 stone and 1 ounce (for those of you watching in Technicolor, that's 253lb, or 114kg).

Dammit!!!!

By this point, though, weight-related health issues are making themselves known. I have terrible problems with my knees - they ache all the time. I have problems with my feet - my chiropodist told me that my weight "isn't helping". Last year I underwent a fairly routine operation to remove a benign tumour and nearly passed out on the table from the amount of anaesthetic they had to give me, and went into shock. The surgeon said - this would've been a lot easier if you were slimmer. Then I had a stomach ulcer and was bleeding internally - possibly caused by gastric reflux, which is less likely to be a problem if you're not overweight. I'm 31 and at some point would like to have a baby - being overweight can affect your fertility and it's not necessarily that healthy to have a baby if you're already carrying excess weight.

I could go on.

You see, if you're happy in your body, then that's one thing, but when it starts to cause health problems, then it's really time to act.

And why am I posting about this in public? Because it'll be fairly obvious I've been up to something when I start losing weight and I don't want to be secretive. I know some people will decide I'm some terrible hypocrite; others will decide I'm "cheating" and should just "stop eating loads and go down the gym." If only it was that simple, I wouldn't be undergoing surgery!

...and I know some people will think this because I thought the same thing about Fern Britton. I thought it was awesome that a plus-size woman was fronting a major tv show, and then she lost weight and 'fessed up to having a band. "CHEAT!!! TRAITOR!!!" I thought. But now I understand why she did it and why she came forward to admit it. And how that was a very hard thing to do.

(tax payers need not fume that my flabby arse is costing the NHS any money - I'm having it done privately)

I'll be having surgery in a few weeks' time - I'll let you know how it goes.

(and haters, don't bother commenting, cos this is my blog and I'll just delete you).

The £5 Vintage Day

2010-03-06T21:24:00.005Z

We don't have a decent vintage shop in Birmingham so it's great when someone decides to put on a vintage fair. There is one on the first Saturday of the month in King's Heath (on Facebook) but now we have another fair which is unfortunately on the same day - The Vintage Fair at the Custard Factory, which arranges fairs in Manchester and Sheffield as well.

We were supposed to have our new boiler installed today but a last minute cancellation left us with the day free to go and vintage. I'll be honest - I wasn't holding out much hope with the fair because everything's so 80s these day and as much as I enjoy John Hughes' films, I don't aspire to dress like Molly Ringwald.

We got in 5 minutes after it opened at 12, and there were already lots of people there, so I spose they'd been queuing up outside (like me at a Morrissey gig). There's no point in me buying clothes and to be honest it was too 70s and 80s for me, but I did see two gorgeous 50s 'prom' dresses (really - one day I'll watch Pretty Pink and find an alternative ending where Molly doesn't butcher that poor dress). Of course, far too small for me. But I did score some jewellery! The brooch is, I think, lucite, and a bargain at £5, and the earrings were a fiver too. The woman said "I'll have to charge £5 for these earrings - they're very old." Yes, I know, you're talking to a woman wearing a snood!

Here's a large size pic of the brooch.

We ate some rather lovely cupcakes from The Tea Boutique and brought four home with us for... £5!

We came out of the fair and saw a MASSIVE queue, so we dodged over to the Flea Market. This is usually very crap full of nothing but 80s and "reworked vintage" (argh), but today there was a stall run by a bloke selling huge quantities of 50s and 60s homewares.

Have you always wanted a guitar which is also a clock? I have. This was £5.

And have you always wanted a fruit bowl which is also a gondola? I have. This was also £5.

We popped into Urban Village as I remember them selling homewares and I wanted to see if they had any Meakin crockery (I've decided it's time I had a full dinner service, but vintage crockery of course, so I now get the thrill of the chase to collect each bit! And as much as I love "Homemaker", everyone's after it, so it's a bit of a cliché.... And more expensive.)

Urban Village is a mod shop - years ago we went in there and they pretty much had our entire front room. At one point they had hundreds of pulp fiction paperbacks which were quite fun. I think they'd changed the shop for the fair so it was full of stall holders. We waited to go in as a group of people were leaving, and then some mod bloke - wearing skinny fit suit, chunky loafers and a bouffant - came passed and gave me the snootiest look you ever did see.

Of course I found this funny because I was a mod once. I ran a fanzine which was Record Collector fanzine of the month, I was a covergirl on a mod magazine, I wrote for a well-known (at the time) mod website and I was pretty much well known "on the scene", despite my love for quiffs and Mark Lamarr's radio show! Oh and my poodle skirt. Maybe he'd heard about the poodle skirt and felt that earnt me the sneer. Or perhaps it was the red orthopaedic shoes I've been told to wear by my chiropodist?

Anyway, snooty mod bloke - do NOT look down your nose at me, you silly little boy! (then again, the snootiness of Mods, particularly the "if you don't live in London, you're not a real mod" types finally put me off it forever and I fully embraced the 50s stuff! Thank you for doing me a big favour! Not that I hate 60s stuff but still. I find rockabillies more friendly. Obviously there's up-themselves a-holes in every subculture, but the rockabillies don't seem to be as bad as the mods!).

Apparently the mods have been getting into tweed in a big way, even tweed Norfolk jackets, which is rather amusing - they appear to have been Chapped! (they also have been getting into rockabilly, because The Polecats played a mod club in London recently, and another London mod club (yes, you have to keep mentioning London, because that means it's PROPER mod) has opened a rockabilly room. The hassle I got for liking 50s stuff... and now it's cool...).

We left Urban Village in a state of hilarity and went back to the Flea Market because I'd seen a chalkwear head at the homewares stall and decided I couldn't live without it.

I love the way it matches that fabric!

We left an hour after arriving and were AMAZED by the size of the queue. It was huge. There must've been over a hundred people trying to get in, and from what I could see they all looked like the "70s and 80s mix-and-match" types. Which isn't my thing, but there you go. Right at the end of the line were a couple of 40s girls (from the Birmingham swing scene? I didn't know... didn't recognise them from Ladywood rockabilly). "Oh, we must be at the end of the queue," one of them said, and I didn't know if I should intervene and say "I wouldn't wait in the queue for long unless you like disco gear."

Anyway, I'm rather pleased with the haul! And at very bargainous prices to boot! (not that I bought any boots).

More reasons to hate the Daily Fail...

2010-03-05T20:30:00.004Z

The Daily Mail is well known for printing racist lies, so of course I shouldn't be surprised by the bigotted twaddle they've printed today about Essex girls.

Someone's started a charity called EWAG (Essex Women's Advisory Group) to empower women from Essex who get railed at the moment they open their mouth and say where they're from. And it's about time to.

I was born in Essex & when I moved to the Isle of Wight, teachers at school made fun of me for being from Essex, in front of the class. They apparently thought it was perfectly acceptable and that it wasn't offensive. The fact is, I found it extremely hurtful.

The moment you say you're from Essex, people say "Have you heard the one about...?" My school in Essex got the highest GCSE results in the entire country and what did the media do? They reeled out headlines which seemed to express surprise that all these dimwit tarts in Essex weren't as stupid as they thought they were.

Why do they need to set up a support group to empower women from Essex? You can buy joke books about Essex girls from Waterstones, that's why. And the jokes are all about how we're a bunch of thick slags.

Not that it's much better for other regions. Try being a Scouser out of Liverpool and see how quickly someone will mention shell suits, crime or The Beatles. If people start associating your (somewhat distinctive) accent with criminal activity, you're a bit buggered.

So what do the Mail do? They print a huge list of jokes about Essex girls, these being just a representative sample.

Why don't Essex girls get coffee breaks?
It takes too long to retrain them.

What does an Essex girl say after sex?
"Wow, so you all play for the same football team."

And they make light of it "These jokes may disadvantage and disenfranchise." (and of course, I read these jokes and want to vomit). Oh I'm sorry, did someone tell you to stop telling misogynistic jokes which people find hurtful? If someone says "this is hurtful" you stop doing it, you don't carry on and hurt them more because "they need to get a sense of humour." No, you do, because jokes about thick slags belong in the dark ages.

They even chuckled mightily over these jokes on Sky News this morning on their newspaper review. "Hahahaha, jokes about thick women, isn't this hilarious!" No, and what's especially NOT hilarious is that Essex girls are contributing to your salaries so you should shut the fuck up.

Speaking of which, perhaps you'd like to tell these jokes to this Essex girl and see what happens:

It's Boudicca, and she's going to kick your arse!

Nobody loves you cos your feet's too big...

2010-03-02T09:15:00.009Z

***Shoe companies: stop spamming this entry! I'm deleting all your posts because the shoes you're spamming aren't even relevant! SOD OFF!***

I have wide size 8.5 feet, which has always caused problems for me. In the past I could squeeze into 8's, but no more. Suffering from terrible foot pain I saw a chiropodist, and he recommended Hotter shoes.

I don't wish to sound mean, but Hotter shoes are frumpy. Not frumpy in a good way, like an M&S cardigan. However, they do go up to a 9 and have half sizes up to 7.5 (sadly no 8.5s...), and the insides are padded, and most styles come in a wider fitting.

The most vintagey style ones I could find are the Melody:

And the Nirvana:

They're fine for work but I'm certainly not sporting them on a night out. Unless I go to the open-house bingo night at the old folks' home down the road.

I should mention Rocket Originals, vintage reproduction shoemakers, who do a couple of styles up to a 9. The Georgia are lovely - I have a pair.

And the saddle shoe:

The Esther goes up to a 9 but it runs small compared to the Georgia, so I'd need a 10!

Faith are worth a mention - unlike Shelly's and Office, they go up to a 9 in most of their styles.

Barratts have sell some women's styles up to a size 11, although there's no choice for width or half sizes. They call it the "Big Shoe Boutique". This rather nice sandal is only £20 in the sale, and goes up to a 9:

Whereas this beautiful shoe is only in stock in a 10! A 10!!! I wish my feet were bigger!

Unfortunately Barratts don't seem to have anything other than boots, ballet flats or skyscraper heels. It's an improvement on the past though where the only things that went up to an 8 were blokey loafers or tranny heels!

Katie Long Shoes have some lovely styles but they are a lot more expensive than the likes of Barratts. They have a page of wide-fitting shoes as well. The "Antoinette" reeks of Rita Hayworth and goes from EU 42 to 45. £90.

Amber & Jade have shoes from size 8 to 12. They don't have half sizes or width fitting. I've just ordered a pair of Rose shoes because I have a thing for Mary Janes! (I have weak ankles on top of everything else so I like to wear flats when possible).

Evans stock shoes in sizes 4 to 11, up to width fitting EEE (it is, after all, the shop for the larger lady) but try as I might I've never spotted anything particularly vintagey in their shoe collections, apart from ballet slippers. Which only work if you're going for an Audrey look, and to be honest, if you're over 15 stone, that's not going to be easily achieved (not that it deters me...!). I'm really not sure those gladiator sandals will look very flattering, somehow!

After 8 Shoes are worth a browse, and you can search by wider fitting, plus they do some half sizes. They have some nice light loafers and yes... more ballet slippers, although nothing particularly grabs me.

Long Tall Sally go up to a 12, apparently, but they don't do half sizes or widths. The "Bee" looks quite 30s/40s with that heel shape and peeptoe, up to size 11, and if you like these you might also like the "Persia" which doesn't have the peeptoe.

Special Feetures (lol, see what they did there?!) have scanned in their brochure so I can't be bothered to look at it but they do size 5 to 11 in extra narrow sizes.

Banana Shoes have some unusual things, but I do get rather put off by the porny-looking website. But where else can you find marabou feather mules up to a size 12? I'm assuming the larger sizes are for the benefit of the transvestite community, and I say, good, because it means women with larger feet can find women's shoes in their size!

Or these very 50s satin heels up to a size 10?

With the spring/summer collections busting out all over, expect to see a lot of these companies doing cork wedges and espadrille wedges, some of which you can no doubt pass off as vintage-style.

We're quite lucky really. The choice isn't extensive, but at least we do have a choice. My poor grandma had size 8 feet and in the 1940s this meant wearing men's shoes and cramming her feet into size 7's. She would wear strappy peeptoe sandals so her feet could escape discreetly. Those days have gone, thank god.

Shelve that idea....

2010-02-26T12:21:00.004Z

I'm desparately trying to find some nice 1950s shelving to display my china cats (long-necked 1950s ones, of course) and cocktail stuff (there's too much cocktail stuff to fit on the cocktail bar, without covering it so much that you can't actually fit bottles on it!).

I do covet Tomado metal shelving this from www.mid20thcenturydesign.com - I love the black frame with the coloured shelves.

I would absolutely love this:

From www.mygrannysactticantiques.com Alas, they're in America. The postage might be rather difficult.

This is quite a nice unit from Ikea, but I'm rather intimidated by the place!

The answer may be Argos....
These are their "white hi gloss geometric cubes" for £24.99

The way they interlock is just so 50s to me (and I've been trying to find some 1950s interlocking cube shelves without much luck!), although the "white hi gloss" is maybe going a bit 60s. However, once the matador soda siphon can stand proud by battery-operated cocktail shaker, I'm sure it'll look fabulous.

Then we have the L-shaped units (which makes me think of The L-Shaped Room of course! I'll have to develop a pregnancy and an inexplicable French accent)

£19.99!

Scarf roll hair do

2010-01-22T19:15:00.005Z

Here's a style from the Vintage Hairstyling book by Lauren Rennells, on me. They're actually rather ancient pics of me from last summer, and I took them for my own reference rather than to show them off. It's first thing in the morning on a weekday, about 7.30am (I have to leave by 7.45am), styled standing up at the mirror on my very badly-lit landing, in a rush, hence this is all very rough and ready!

But someone on the Pin-Up Parade forum was asking if people had tried styles from the book, and I have (well this is the only one I have photographic evidence of), so... here it is...

Method: put on scarf, do victory rolls, roll hair around scarf at the back.

Back view:
Rather crucial to the style, given that it's a "scarf roll". It's quite easy - you just position the scarf, Rosie Riveter-style, then roll the hair around it. The trouble with my hair is that it's long and thick so it's a bit of a challenge to get it rolled round, plus the weight of it means it needs repair-pinning during the day.

Side view:
With more time this would be better - I would brush my hair out more so the victory roll is smoother, and smooth the roll at the back.

Top view:
You can see my horrendously messy make-up table over my head - oh dear!

My hair is cut in a centre parting but for victory rolls, I comb it into a side parting so that I don't need to get them matching. Uneven ones with a centre parting would look a bit crap. And let's face it - this isn't the view of a victory roll that you would normally have! I suppose it's possible to roll the victory roll around the scarf, somehow, whcih might work really well if your hair is quite short there. It doesn't particularly help that the remains of my black dye are visible, but it adds texture to the roll. Erm. Maybe. At least you can't see daylight through them!

What I tend to do with this style is use it a few days after I've done a set. So for the first day or two I've got curly tresses, then when the curl starts to fall out but the wave remains, I do the scarf roll. It was a nice style for summer because it kept my hair up and out of the way.

Since moving house, I now have my mirror set up at a decent height (and a decent size - the one I used in these pics was tiny!), in a well-lit room!

The life & times of a cocktail bar

2009-12-29T11:05:00.005Z

I blame my grandparents entirely - they installed the cocktail bar in the conservatory, but rather than call it a conservatory, they called it "the bar". It had fairy lights, optics for the bottles, and a mass of cocktail ephemera. The bar even has a rubber runner around the bottom where you can rest your feet! My grandad, as a good Methodist, was in the Temperance League in the 1930s, but left it when he met my grandma in 1941.... The bar now lives in my dining room, and at the weekend, it was dusted off following our move and back in business.

The giant pin-up playing card looks like a George Petty to me - no neck, but she's on the phone! That didn't belong to my grandparents, in case you were wondering.

And here it is with added chilli fairy lights:

When my grandparents moved to a bungalow, the bar moved to the hallway, and when I stayed over, they left on the fairy lights because I was scared of the dark.

The cocktail ephemera (some of which was my grandparents' and some of which is stuff we've found over the years) is still packed in boxes upstairs but if I unleash the ephemera, there won't be enough room on the bar for the booze! And that would never do!

It comes in handy as a photography prop too:

And if the bar had a name, it would be called Bert, but as it doesn't have a name, "The Bar" shall suffice.

PS: A good place to get cocktail ephemera from is Notorious Kitsch: tiki napkins, hula girl coasters, you name it.

Who invented vintage?

2009-12-14T09:11:00.004Z

I started wearing second hand clothes when I was 16, back in the mid 90s - it was very easy as I lived on the Isle of Wight right near a street full of well-stocked charity shops and a very nice second-hand clothes shop called Crocus. I went every day after school, in case they had found something during the day for me, which they would put aside for me. Lovely 1960s suede jackets, dresses, a mohair skirt suit with a box jacket and 3/4 length sleeves. A couple of times I went to Portsmouth to One-Eyed Jockey for my second hand stuff. Sometimes the little antique shops would come up trumps - they were great for diamante jewellery and I once bought a lovely black silk 50s dress which had started life at Bond Street boutique. I bought various second hand nicknacks as well, and while being a bit of a Britpopper I bought up old vinyls too and longed to drive a scooter or an E-type Jag. Every day I backcombed my hair into a fabulously huge late 50s/early 60s bouffant.

But I never called it vintage.

I called it "mod" or "60s" or "retro". But never vintage.

So I find it odd these days to see the word "vintage" bandied about, and to be honest, it's being bandied about so much now that it's losing all meaning.

When I first came across it, it was in the early 2000s, when someone suggested it to me as a way of finding good second hand stuff on Ebay. It was only American sellers who used the word, and it was far more the preserve of 1920s to 1950s than it was for 1960s. People tended to use "retro" to describe 60s and 70s, and back then, no one wanted to wear 80s (why anyone does these days is a mystery to me, I must say).

But somehow the word "vintage" and "retro" had their meanings changed. Suddenly "retro" is synonymous with "repro/reproduction" or "vintage-inspired" and poor vintage - vintage seems to mean any old tatt that isn't available for sale on the High St this week. Some cheap, shoddy, sweat shop crap from Primark that you bought last year? It's VINTAGE! Or even better, "00s does 40s" - this is a huge flashing neon light that should send shivers through you because usually "*insert decade here* does *insert earlier decade here*" means "horrible piece of crap".

80s fright perm? Don't be surprised to see it appear on anything branded as "vintage", be it a website or a Livejournal community.

To me, it's not vintage. Not in the least.

But why do I care? I'm not saying I own the word. Of course I don't. I just feel the need to register my... dismay? as someone who's been "into vintage" for half their life (yet only recently, and relunctantly, started to use the term), that this word has taken over, and yet the way it's used to describe anything non-current means that its meaning has become flabby and farty and borderline meaningless.

In fact - someone once said that if something is advertised as "cool", it probably isn't. To this end then, I shall avoid anything that calls itself "vintage" because it's probably a lot of poop.

What ever happened to...

2009-12-04T14:40:00.004Z

...pubic hair?

I'm really quite confused by this. I'm sure it wasn't that long ago that having pubes was considered quite normal, but in the past few years it seems that the tide of opinion has changed, so that having pubes or even mentioning pubes is considered to be "gross". The reaction of people seeing photos of Bettie Page entirely nude, pubes and all, is very telling. "She needs to trim that bush!" "Ewww, she's so hairy!" She was also an adult woman, and that's what they tend to look like in the nude! Or at least, they did.

About ten years ago, a friend of mine said she was embarrassed to go to the doctor's for a... shall we say... under-the-bonnet check-up because she'd shaved off her pubes. It's a common thing in Pakistani culture and she didn't realise the associations it has elsewhere. Hence we have the phrase "shaven raver" - girls without pubes were seen as being "a bit of a go-er". "Will the doctor think I'm sex-obsessed?"

I assume pube-removal in Pakistani culture is to do with hair removal being seen as hygienic, but I'm not sure there's the facts to back it up. Some consider pubes as nature's way of maintaining under-the-bonnet hygiene (although no one knows exactly what purpose they serve) whereas others seem to think that pubes are unhygienic, hence the "gross" and "ewww" you might hear if someone admits that they still sport their trouser bristles.

Bikini-lines seem like sensible things to trim - they're fairly easy to do as they tend to be at the top of the leg rather than anywhere more delicate, and being in a swimsuit in public is embarrassing enough without worrying about the fact you could plait your follicular effusions sprouting from the sides. But then when people decided to wear smaller and smaller bikinis, the bikini line took over the entire public mound and no pubes were to be seen! Porn actresses did the same and became as bald as children. And now that porn actresses bleach their bumholes, will we see this too? "Oh my god, you have naturally darker skin around that area of your bottom that no one besides you, your partner if you're at it with the light on, and the doctor doing your colonoscopy see! How GROSS!"

The arguments for pube-trimming seem to be hygiene (which no one can prove), it makes men's willies look bigger (get over it, fellas!), it makes oral sex more pleasant (no hairs stuck between the teeth) and it makes sex more pleasureable (apparently).

The arguments against: it makes you look like a child, which I think is actually rather pervy, in a bad way. It may be more hygienic to keep your pubes (seeing as the jury is still out on this one). If you don't go about in tiny bikinis, is anyone else going to notice? If your significant other has a pathological fear or revulsion of pubes, then they should seek help, rather than seek a razor for you. To remove it, you either have to put sharp implements where, let's face it, it's rather dangerous for them to go, or you go to a beauty parlour and kneel on all fours while a complete stranger puts warm wax where it really shouldn't go and then - ouch! Cripes, I was embarrassed enough being stripped to my knickers to have my legs waxed! And then the regrowth itches like mad. And at the end of the day, I have enough trouble keeping up with my eyebrows, armpits and legs. I don't really want to add another area, thank you very much.

At the end of the day, I don't really care what other people do to parts of their bodies I'm not going to see, but I just felt the need to say... to ask... why is it that pube-removal is now seen as the norm? Who made this decision that pubic hair is gross? And why does something as intimate as pubic hair have to be dictated to by a trend?

Interesting pube facts:
In the 18th century, "goose" was slang for a prostitute. By the Victorian period, "goosebury bush" was slang for pubic hair, hence "you were found under a gooseberry bush." Once the slang meaning of "gooseberry bush" passed out of use, this phrase caused some confusion.

In Japan, the public display of pubic hair in art was illegal.

Mary Quant trimmed her pubic hair into the shape of a heart, and later, creative trimming and dying of pubic hair became a fad, helped along by Rudi Gernreich's pubikini.

Classic knitwear

2009-11-23T10:52:00.006Z

I do like a nice cardigan (which may or may not be related to the fact that I'm a librarian) and I've mentioned before how accomodating Marks & Spencers are in this regard.

If you go over to their Classic Collection, you'll see loads of tasty twin sets. Ladies, it's time to stock up! In another part of the shop, they still have the satin-covered button twin sets as well.

I bought myself this one on Saturday in red and I rather like it!

I've got masses of twin set cardis (which aren't technically a twin set because they don't have the non-cardy top with them), so when I saw this one, I thought it would be a nice change. In fact, it looks like it was made using a vintage knitting pattern!

It fits quite long in the body, and does actually come up a bit large, but I suppose this is because it's in the range for the mature lady. If you click on the link, you can even see a video of someone wearing it. I shall resist the temptation to put my hands in the pockets or indeed stuff them with damp, wintry tissues as saggy, stretched out pockets look rubbish.

Now, you may be wondering... "Helen, why do you want to wear all this old lady stuff? It's really frumpy!"

But to me, these things don't look frumpy. What does look frumpy to my eye are the other things M&S sells. I was drawn to their "Smart Tops" section and couldn't find anything I liked. If it didn't have a pattern that looks like the uniform of bank counter staff or a travel agents, it was these tops that had no shape to them at all, and hung from the bust like an unenthusiastic tunic. If I want something like that, I can go to Evans*, for god's sake.

*Evans are currently using Chaka Khan to advertise their wares. I didn't realise she was a secret fatty. It's rather a climb-down after using Beth Ditto, who far more resembles the physique of your average Evans customer than the Amazonians they usually use, who are only a size 16 because they're 7ft tall.

When "similar" is "identical"

2009-10-06T09:10:00.016+01:00

When people start doing burlesque or pin-up (or both), the first thing they do is try to sort out a name. Then a bit later, they discover someone else has the same name, or a variation thereof.

But how similar can a name be to actually mislead people into thinking that someone else is you?

This situation arose recently for one of the pin-up girls I know (let's call her Miss X), who has been bullied into changing her name by someone who, I think, is lying about the amount of time they've had their name for. Now, I'm not going to name names here which will make this a little awkward because I can't demonstrate the degrees of similarity or difference, but I'll try.

Miss X's name consists of two words, and the girl protesting (let's call her Miss Y) has a name consisting of three words - so right away you can see that they don't have identical names. The first word in their names is the same and spelt identically (and it's a name rather than a title like "Miss" or "Madam"). The second word is just a letter in Miss Y's name, whereas it's the same sound but expressed by a word in the Miss X's case. Then the third word of Miss Y's name is a word which works only in conjunction with the middle word. Let's say that Miss X's name is AB and Miss Y's is ABC.

In order to force Miss X into changing her name, Miss Y has accused Miss X of directly copying her. I can only suppose this is because Miss Y has an inflated sense of her own importance because not only had Miss X never heard of her before, I hadn't either and nor had most of the other people I know who have been involved in pin-up for ages.

Miss Y has protested that she'd had the name registered (with whom?) for 6 years - not only the ABC version of the name, but also the AB version (which crucially is just the first name followed by a letter, which still isn't identical to Miss X's name). This is rather odd - not only because why would you register two versions of the name (will I explode with rage if I find someone called "Helen High"?) because Miss Y uses Myspace for her burlesque and pin-up and despite her having had this name registered for 6 years, her myspace url features a completely different name. Now, my myspace is www.myspace.com/leatherlibrarian. Imagine if I were to use that for my pin-up stuff as Helen Highwater. That's the difference we're talking about. If I'd registered Helen Highwater before starting my myspace (which would be less than 6 years ago), I would've had www.myspace.com/helenhighwater, surely.

I did a bit of digging and found that this girl's myspace has blogs about her burlesque performances only going back to a month early on this year, starting with a blog advertising her first ever performance. I looked on the Ministry of Burlesque (part of Miss Y's complaint is that she's had her name registered with the MoB "for ages") and it's only been registered on there since a month this summer. Six years? O RLY? So who does she have AB and ABC registered with then? Company House? Equity? I don't know, and nor does Miss Y presumably - if can't spell "copywrite" you are in no position to declare that you own it. Miss X has been using AB as her online handle far before earlier this year.

The formulation of the words represented by BC in my equation are very similar to the formulation used by a VERY famous burlesque performer, who I suppose Miss Y copied it from. But it's quite alright for her to copy from Miss Z, whose name is ZBC (where C is a shortened version of the C in ABC), but not alright for Miss X to accidentally have come up with a similar, shortened version of Miss Y's name.

Returning to Miss Y's ABC name being rather like a cross between Miss X's AB name and Miss Z's ZBC name, one wonders if perhaps Miss Y has indeed created a cross between the two. On purpose. Maybe. Who knows. (please see the addendum at the end...)

All of this though does highlight the problems of choosing a name and for ages I just wanted to be known as "Helen" to avoid it all but in the end stuck a silly surname on, which works for me on a personal level because Helen really is my first name and I have a watery background - my grandad's uncle crewed on the racing yacht Britannia, my dad worked on the naval dockyard in Portsmouth, I lived on the Isle of Wight and got the ferry a lot. I know there's other people called Helen Highwater, but they don't do pin-up. Did I blow a gasket when I found out there's a burlesque pastie-maker called Helene Bach? No. I decided to stock them in my shop.

Think about it. How many people are called Cherry Something or Something Cherry? How many people have stuck "Von" in their name because Dita did? (and she only came up with the surname when she wasgoing to be in Playboy and she found Von Trees in the phonebook, and Playboy changed it to Von Teese). Fredick's of Hollywood came up with a lingerie range called "Pin-Up Parade". Did I try to sue?

There's only so many words in the language and so inevitably people are going to come up with names similar to yours, completely by accident. Even the girls on the Ministry of Burlesque forum are resigned to the fact that similarities will crop up. Even similar performances might turn up - will Miss Y now be after anyone who does a fan dance and accuse them of copying her?

Unless the name is IDENTICAL then I really don't see what the problem is, and if you do want someone to change their name then you must PROVE how long you've had it registered. I've seen this happen with band names too - Suede became "The London Suede" in America and The Charlatans became "Charlatans UK". I knew a band called J-60 who were pounced on by another band called J-60, so they just changed their name to The J-60.

In this case though, I think it's fairly clear that after the way Miss Y has behaved, Miss X wouldn't want to be confused with her anyway.

**Please note: these are my opinions and research and my observations on the situation. I have anonymised the protagonists. Commenting on here to protest might mean you point out to everyone who I'm writing about.**

ADDENDUM!!!
It turns out that Miss Y is even more of a rip-off merchant than she might at first appear. Because there's an established burlesque dancer whose name is very similar - the first name is identical, and the rest of the name rhymes with the last two parts of Miss Y's name. So it's like APC, rather than ABC. It's even more similar to Miss Y's name than Miss X's is!!! It's very much like a cross between APC and ZBC. And Miss Y has the cheek to demand Miss X change her name??????????????????????? Disgusting!

The Trials of Fitness

2009-10-05T19:36:00.005+01:00

I've always tried to exercise - after all, my mum's a qualified Keep Fit instructor so it's not like I have much choice. Despite that though I'm still rather large so I do make the effort anyway and go regularly to the gym.

Unfortunately, going to the gym is an horrific experience where my tastes in clothing and music as well as self-respect are dumped upon from a great height.

Style
I've never beeen one for wearing trainers. Even when I was very young I loathed them and refused to wear them for "casual wear". I would wear my school shoes with jeans if only it meant I could avoid wearing trainers. I don't really know why I took such a dislike to them, but I just found them rather horrible, apart from plimsolls and Converse (which are pretty much the same thing... Converse are basically plimsolls in nice colours). It may have been because the yobs who shouted at me in the street because I didn't go to their school tended to be kitted out in them and I really didn't want to seem like I was aping their style. Oh, and because trainers are ugly.

Now this is my idea of trainers.

But if you go to the gym, you can't really wear Dunlop Green Flash, and to be honest, at my size, that's a lot of weight bearing down on my feet and if I'm doing something energetic then I really need to think about the wellbeing of my tootsies (not to mention my ankles or back). I nearly cried when I left JB Sports with a pair of white and silver New Balance horrors. "I've just spend £30 on REALLY UGLY shoes!"

And then you have to decide what to wear. The simplest thing to do in the end proved to be kitting myself out from M&S's "Active" range. It's basic and it's not covered in logos. I don't mind a Fred Perry logo but anything else can get stuffed. Unwittingly, in my purple vest and black trousers though I look like a two-eyed gym-going version of Leela from Futurama. I did start off wearing ironic T-shirts with vintage prints on them (Kinky John's Motorbike Shop and the like) but I found the fabric too heavy so chose stuff actually designed for exercising in.

Music
So, my sense of style in tatters, the gym continues its assault by bombarding my poor ears with terrible music. Now, you might be thinking, "Oh but don't you have an iPod?" Well no, I have an iRiver actually because I distrust Apple's cultish ways. I have found that rockabilly is good to work out to because it has a good beat. As a result, of Morrissey's oeuvre, Your Arsenal is a good work-out album; Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted are also quite good. A lot of Blur's Modern Life is Rubbish is nice gym music, and so is The Divine Comedy's Casanova album.

Despite this though, I am unable to entirely cocoon myself in my choons because the gym insists on playing a local radio station at the highest possible volume over speakers. It's Galaxy or BRMB, one of the two, who only play chart shite, especially the kind I loathe most which features synthesised hand-clapping that sounds like someone treading on a bag of crisps. Why does it have to be so loud? Not everyone likes chart pop! I feel sorry for the music students who use the library I work in - imagine their pain at nipping the gym after lute practice and having to endure it! Why do these places need to appeal to the lowest common denominator all the time? I don't expect them to play my choice of music at 100 decibels for everyone else to hear - so by the same token why do I have to listen to someone else's choice of music at earsplitting volumes?

At least if I'm on a cross-trainer, I can drown out some of the racket of voices that have lost all soul and meaning through being squeezed through an auto-tuner but if I go to one of the exercise classes, I have no such luck. However some of the music is drowned out by the bellowing of the instructor.

Self-Respect
I have been to one fitness class and one only. And why? Because I came out of it wanting to a. die or b. kill the instructor.

When you're at school, you kind of expect to be shouted at by PE teachers, but when you're nearly 30, and the instructor is younger than you, you expect a bit of politeness. This was a fitness class - it wasn't military fitness drill. It was "Bums, Legs & Tums" at a municipal gym.

So whilst I dealt with the dreadful music, I was trying to move about which was hard as at the time I was 19 and a half stone and was out of shape. I needed gentle encouragement but all I got was "COME ON OVER THERE! FASTER! DON'T BE LAZY!" Lazy? I was trying to avoid passing out, you horrible bitch. The nasty girl then produced giant elastic bands which you put round your shins. See photo. Yes, they make you feel like you're constipated.

I noticed there were two types, so I chose the loosest, kindest looking ones. I've always been taught by my mum that you need to build up with exercising so like you wouldn't go to the gym and start doing weights with the heaviest dumbell you can find on your first day, you work up using smaller weights. So there I was, feeling like a total and utter dickhead straining against this giant elastic band round my legs when the instructor looked over to my corner and yelled at me and two other women who'd chosen the lighter bands.

"WHY ARE YOU USING THOSE??? DON'T BE SO PATHETIC!"

I very nearly crossed the rooom to strangle her with the damn thing.

Suffice to say, I've never been to one of the fitness sessions since.

Weights
I sometimes change my routine of cross-trainer or running machine or rowing machine by doing gentle weights, but the room smells of Lynx and teenage boys and appears to be populated by the kind of youths you normally see loitering about at bus stops. More power to them if they want to do some exercise instead, but I could really do without the territorial testosterone bullshit that is exuded by them. This is not your gym. This is everyone's gym, and you need to share.

And so it's all rather hard...
The combined bollocks of going to gym really makes it hard to do, because on top of all these inconveniences, it means losing precious time which I'm not spending behind a desk at work or on the bus. I know that being fit is important but it comes at such a high and painful price. I soldier on though, trying to tailor it so that I don't get bored or angry with it, but... oh... it's such a challenge.

As a lot of you are ladies...

2009-10-02T13:27:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd help with http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/cervical-cancer-jab-please-hel/ in order for concerned parents to find relevant, informative info on the situation rather than scaremongering nonsense, using Google's way of ranking results higher if they have more links to them. You too can help by linking to the results below, but do see the Malcolm Coles blog entry too.

cervical cancer jab
cervical cancer vaccine

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hpv-vaccination/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://www.immunisation.nhs.uk/Vaccines/HPV

Red rain macs I have known - a story

2009-09-05T20:39:00.008+01:00

Years ago, I got a red mac from a charity shop. I must've been 17 or 18. Ideally, I wanted a cream-coloured one, like Audrey wears at the end of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but red would do for me, I decided. I seem to be able to get away with wearing red, so I shall. I was very fond of it and it was a good coat for Spring and Autumn, and it went well with skirts and dresses. I kept wearing it until I got too big for it, so after a few years of it living in a suitcase under my bed, I gave it to my friend Olivia. It's quite nice to see a coat make it to its third owner!

Today I was in Marks & Spencers (my favourite High Street shop) looking for tops. At work I wear trousers or jeans and tops because I sometimes find myself crawling about on the floor so I can't turn up in a dress because otherwise I'd shred my poor stockings. And in looking for tops, I came across - a red rain mac!!!

It looks so much like my old faithful that I was rather stunned! I had to have it and luckily they carried it in a 20 and I managed to (just about) fit into it without looking like a over-squeezed sausage.

The strange thing is that in the pic above of a normal person wearing it, the top of the sleeves look quite normal. But when I put it on, probably because of the size of my arms, the top of the sleeves puff up, which makes it look quite 40s. Unless wearing a snood with it has that effect!

Buttoned up it takes on a fabulous nipped-in waist shape which is very flattering for a larger person. It's got a silky feel to it on the outside, which has been confusing me a bit because I keep thinking I've got it on inside out, but I assume the silky feel is to do with it being waterproof. I was so excited by this mac that the moment I bought it, I asked to wear it so I put my cardigan in the carrier bag and put on my new mac instead. It was that same feeling as when you get new shoes and you put your manky old ones in the box that the new ones came in. MUST WEAR IT NOW!

I didn't even know I needed a new mac until I saw this, but now I can see that it was something I needed - once it gets too chilly for cardigans, I'll need a jacket to wear with dresses or skirts, but it might be too warm for my woolen winter coat with the fake fur collar. I can't very well wear my Pendleton jacket with a dress, so the mac has ably stepped up. And of course, being Marks & Spencers with their classic cuts, it'll last until several springs and autumns I hope.

I should also add - it has amazing satin leopard print lining!

Having seen Almodovar's Broken Embraces last week, I have to say this coat looks like something from his filmic wardrobe. Nervous breakdown in sight or not! ;)

Marks & Spencer's have got loads of different macs at the moment - many in black, there was a turquoise and then this red one.

They've got their classic twin-set cardy with satin buttons in another colour-way too - a dark, dusky purple/mauve, so I picked one of those up as well.

Cool non-pretentious media types

2009-08-22T21:02:00.003+01:00

If you think of new media and "media types" it's easy to think of people who go about with their heads up their arses and are so pretentious and vacuous that... well... you'll probably think of someone more annoying than Nathan Barley.

However! If you come to Birmingham, the new media types are actually really nice people.

This morning we sat in on The Big Paws' Christmas special radio show. Was it pre-recorded to be played in four months'? Nope. They decided to do it because when it is Christmas, everyone's doing Christmas specials, so they thought they'd be different and have theirs in the summer when no-one else does them.

They had someone out on the road pretending to be Noel Edmonds (who'd even grown an Edmonds-style beard for the occasion, despite it being radio), we had crackers and presents and a box of Roses. There was an open invitation for anyone to turn up, so we did and so did various people who have shows on Rhubarb Radio. One of the other Rhubard Radio people turned up with Santa hats that everyone put on. We gave John and Jules a video each (Jules got the Best of the Best Bits of Tizwas (a 1970s children's programme filmed in Birmingham), and John got a 1980s video made by Birmingham City Council to encourage posh people to move to the metropolis and live palatially in Edgbaston - seeing as he has a tourist information video starring Terry Savalas on his website, www.birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk we thought he might enjoy it). The caretaker turned up and he even has a broom! No BBC sound effect LPs for these folks. We did actually start to watch The Great Escape. And John was wearing a Noddy Holder T-shirt. IT'S CHRIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!

(nicked off Flickr)

They get people to Tweet in while they're on air (serial Twit Stephen Fry is yet to Tweet them as far as I know, but Father Christmas did), and Jules is cat-obsessed and has sequinned cat ears on her headphones.

It's the kind of eccentric thing I've come to expect from The Big Paws. You could say it's silly, but I think it's fun. And how marvellous it is that there are "new media types" who aren't so obsessed with being cool that they're incapable of cracking a joke and having a laugh. Happy Christmas, indeed.

Make-up: foundation and lipstick

2009-08-13T15:01:00.009+01:00

When I was younger, I didn't use foundation. I didn't even know what it did, and when I was into my 60s stuff, I'd just buy white eyeshadow and put it all over my face for a pale 60s look. Good god. I won't mention that I once put spot cover-up on my lips in lieu of pale 60s lipstick... whoops... I just did. I did that the once before moving onto Boots 17 "Blondie" (a white-bronze) and then one I prefered more which was a white-pink. I had a completely white lippy from Miss Selfridges (got it on a trip to Manchester when I was choosing universities back in the 6th form) but it was grainy and yuck.

I was introduced to Benefit (I was seduced by their pretty packaging and friendly staff) and so wore Dr Feelgood instead, which I suppose is a kind of face balm. I rather liked it because it gave a nice matte look and because it's colourless, I felt it would avoid me looking like an Oompaloompa, which was all I thought foundation did, and I wore it with Benetint on my cheeks and lips, which has a nice vintage feel with it being scented with rose. So you feel as though you're rubbing your lips in crushed rose petals, I suppose! I used liquid eyeliner since I was 17, so the Dr Feelgood gave me a good look in my early 20s when I was moving into the 50s and giving up on the 60s. To be honest, when people in their 30s do 60s, it can sometimes remind me of the great-aunts in photos of my parents' wedding in 1972!

But I think as I got older, I became more aware of my face, or at least it had changed, I don't know, and I decided I needed a foundation that would make my face the same colour all over. I'm not just talking about hiding spots, but also giving it an even tone. On the forums, people had talked about Lily Lolo mineral cosmetics, which I rather liked. I used their mica base as well and felt rather grown-up - I was using PROPER make-up.

But for some reason, it seemed to emphasise the creases round my eyes. At the time I was in my late 20s and it didn't seem to make sense that I should have wrinkly eyes at that age! Along came Dani Richardson on a couple of the forums I frequent, a professional make-up artist no less, who suggested MAC make-up. Now, years ago, I'd almost bought a MAC eyeshadow - a very light beige one. But I didn't. And once I tried MAC foundation, I was kicking myself... why hadn't I tried something like this before? I went all-out buying a liquid foundation (Face & Body) and a powder foundation to put over the top (Studio Fix). Although Dani says you don't really need to wear anything else with Studio Fix, but I did. I liked using a professional-quality brush to put the liquid foundation on, and I felt better using MAC for photos because it is actually professional-quality make-up. Apparently the light bounces off mineral make-up which can make one look a little ghostly in photos.

Then Dani said that there was a new make-up range called Illamasqua, started by a make-up professional called Alex Box. I have to say I don't move in circles where I know names of professional make-up people, but they were bringing out pale foundations, which sounded rather interesting. I didn't want to buy online without seeing the products first, and it just so happened that there's a concession in Glasgow Debenhams, so I popped in while we were up there (perversely there's no concession in Birmingham. Weird). Just as I spotted the stall, a bloke came up to me and said, "Excuse me, but you look like the kind of person who would be interested in my make-up." And he was from the Illmasqua stand! The idea with the pale foundations is to reach out to the alternative types (who apparently I am one of - I didn't know that goths wore Pendletons, but there you go), and in fact they support S.O.P.H.I.E. which is good - having been physically attacked myself for how I dress, I'm behind anything which stands up for alternative people. The pale foundation sold out really fast in Glasgow, which doesn't exactly come as a surprise! The one I wanted wasn't available so I took the product number so I could order it online. Except when I got home it must've been the wrong number because the one that matched up wouldn't have really gone with my complexion, unless I had different parents. I worked out which one he probably meant so I'm wearing that.

It's a lot like Studio Fix powder, to be honest, except it doesn't come with a free sponge, which is a bit rub. It's paler than the Studio Fix I have and in fact, I think it might be too pale for my skin! I'm not sure though - I need a second opinion, really. I do think it's good they go pale though because, really, please don't wear white face paints on a daily basis, people. It's like wearing Tippex on your nails.

(For added lols... I showed the photo of the girl up there to my friend's 5 year old, and she screamed and covered her eyes!!!)

Oh yes! Having tried MAC lipsticks and Besame (Besame "Red Hot Red" is my favourite lipstick ever), I found myself spending $22 on a lipstick by someone called Julie Hewett. The story goes that she was doing make-up for Pearl Harbour (terrible film) and couldn't find good 40s reds. So she decided to start her own range. The Noir collection looks to me like the best vintage lipsticks she does, and I ordered the "Belle Noir". We shall see how this pans out! I'm never sure how well impulse make-up buys work out, to be honest (*hides Benefit "I Am Rebel"* what was I thinking of? Horrible stuff!). I should've bought me another "Red Hot Red"... supplies are running low!

Two new pics

2009-07-27T15:01:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we did some pics for the shop of the new pasties and berets, which you can find here.

I decided to get a portrait shot in - may as well.... So here it is....

This is the product photo for the Sailor beret, but I rather like it as a portrait anyway:

I'm wearing vintage earrings in the first pic - I got them in a shop in Glasgow which claimed to be vintage but was stuffed to the gills with questionable 80s detritus. Somehow I managed to find those classic aneomone earrings! Dating them is difficult - I would say 50s or 60s. Warning - they tickle. And that's the "Violet" dress by Bettie Page Clothing.

In the second pic I'm wearing the Bettie Page Clothing "Captain" dress (I really didn't notice the creases until I saw the finished picture! It'd been hanging up in my wardrobe, too!). The earrings are red plastic flower earrings with a diamante in the centre from, of all places, Boots. For a fiver. See, I spent rather a lot in there, as well as getting my mum a "Soap & Glory" box set for her birthday and the Original Formula stuff I was waffling on about earlier.

And the lippy is Besame's Red Hot Red. You can still buy it on its own. I'm not sure what I'll do if they have it as part of that lipstick/brush/other gubbins set thingy. I mean, I do like my Red Hot Red and it would be a bit sad if I ended up with piles of lipbrushes. :-/ That said, I've lost my MAC lipbrush which makes me feel sad! It's in my bedroom somewhere, but quite where I don't exactly know.

Boots Original Beauty Formula

2009-07-27T10:37:00.004+01:00

Boots AND Marks & Spencers reviving old lines. Imagine! M&S hasn't been an unbridled success in my view because it's clothes and they're trying to contemporise it (is that even a word) which spoils the vintage effect. Of course, you can't force the entire population of Britain in vintage-style clothing. Boots have it easier in a way because with their "Original Formula" they can hark back to the days when beauty products weren't sold using stupid faux chemistry (which according to The Beauty Myth was banned in the US for being bollocks, but not banned in Britain.... Then again, the Advertising Standards Agency in the UK are toothless, but that's for another time).

I'd heard that the cold cream was the same as the other stuff they do so I didn't bother getting any, but I treated myself to:

Face Tonic

And....

Vanishing Cream

Vanishing Cream is a kind of legendary vintage moisturiser, which Miss Matilda has been talking about, so I thought I should give it a try! It absorbs quickly into the skin and leaves it feeling nice and smooth. And the face tonic? Well... I find that since using cold cream, if I do use a toner on my skin I find it stings, and that's the Boots cucumber one! The Original Formula Face Tonic feels quite nice by comparison. I've only had them a couple of days so I can't claim to be an expert yet. We shall see!

What I think I love best is the smell - it smells like my grandma's bathroom! Except without notes of my grandad's Old Spice. It's the rose that they use in both items.

Oh and I love the packaging - the tonic bottle is adorable and I can't bring myself to chuck out the cardboard packaging. This could be a bad thing.... If I buy enough of these and don't throw out the bottles I could end up with James Herriot's vintage vet surgery in my bathroom!