Nigella Quick Collection App

What could be more wickedly delicious than Nigella vibrating in a lucky chap’s trouser pocket? (A rabid rat chewing his 'nads off, I say) For those who find her sugar-coated patter a turn-on, download the cook-teaser to your iPhone for just £4.99. As the domestic goddess ain’t ever going to drizzle and lick her way around your sad bachelor kitchen, this app is the next best thing to the real thing - even if  'real' isn't an adjective I readily associate with Ma Saatchi's TV shtick.  For those short on time but big on taste, the application promises advice, inspiration and recipes for super-quick weekday suppers. Hopefully, these include her 'squink risotto'. But as Nigella is like Marmite -  love it / hate it - reviews at the iTunes store are somewhat mixed. ‘Her linguine with lemon, garlic and thyme mushrooms just smiled at me’; ‘not a PATCH on Jamie Oliver's’; ‘kinda screams money grabbing and taints her brand’ - just some of the opinions ventured. Do I detect that some disappointed customers rate it a wee bit on the  cr-app side? How beastly! Time to comfort yourself with a Big.Hot. Steaming. Mug of yummy cocoa, Nigella. 

This Week at Waitrose I'm hoping to find..........

More oil, Madam?

Tradition dictates that Britain’s Italian waiters grind their crotches in unison with pepper mills bigger than the Leaning Tower of Pisa and enquire, all oily slick, if ‘la signorina’ fancies anything else? Their act is cheesier than mozzarella, but as they are merely confirming our prejudice of Milan man as a harmless bum-pinching Latin Lothario out of Carry On Up The Tiber, it’s dismissed as all part of the trattoria tradition. When it comes to home-grown British waiters, however, we expect Basil Fawlty or worse, to have mentored them. So what to think of Pizza Express, now reportedly training staff in the gentle art of flirtation? Minefield! Come-hither looks over the lasagne? Extra sauce with your pasta? That’s strictly for Continentals. I see trouble ahead if other chains adopt this initiative. Imagine the scene around midnight at the nearest nosherie: ‘Coffee, tea or me?’ winks Romford Romeo waiter. Cue lagered-up of Luton, ‘Oi, tosser! It’s the salad that’s supposed to be fresh. Look at my missus like that again and I’ll tear those dough balls to shreds!’ 

Political Comedians

(Doris Karloff - Hell mend her!)

Once, has-been MPs quietly faded into obscurity or spent their dotage dozing in the Lords. No more! Now, they want to be entertainers. The trend took off when Neil Hamilton and battleaxe Christine, became a sort of peripatetic Punch & Judy show. Next, came George 'The Cat' Galloway in his red leotard - possibly THE most embarrassing five minutes of  TV ever, from which I am yet to recover -  followed by Andrew Neil’s resident stooges, Abbott and Costello - sorry, Portillo - who surely have a future in panto once failed Labour leaderine Diane departs da House. The latest political comedians are Lib-Dem oddball, Lembit Opek - whose stand-up routine is, by all accounts, as cringeworthy as his turn on Come Dine With Me - and Strict(ly) virgin Ann Widdi-Waddle attempting to reinvent herself as our favourite cuddly aunt - like we’ve forgotten Doris Karloff’s toxic Tory horror show. Whither next? MP Alan Keen and defeated MP/ wife, Ann, camping it up, Kim and Aggie style, as ‘Mr & Mrs Expenses’, sifting through members’ claim forms on a Westminster special of How Clean is Your House?     

True Blood For Ya Bluds

The shops are full of orange and black tat. Must be Hallowe'en. And, in keeping with the season, what red blooded young male fan of emo-friendly Tv tosh True Blood wouldn’t fancy a Sookie on one of these babies? Aka ‘V-Juice’, the synthetic life blood that flows through Channel 4’s camp vamp-fest, this soft drink, described to me as ‘like sugary Fanta’ (nice!), is what to break out with your bluds whenever you tune in to telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, aka Anna Paquin, the hit show’s bodacious heroine. The manufacturer's PRs - who described the fizzy potion as ‘like sugary Fanta’ (because you sooo want that! ) - suggest using tit in various specially-created vodka cocktails such as Fangbanger, Death On The Beach and Plasmapolitan, perfect for Hallowe'en (apparently). The price of each four pack is a mortifying £19.99: for that, I expect nothing less than the elixir of eternal youth. What's that about marketing Muppets sucking another TV series dry? 

Scent To Try Us?

It seems celebrity is merely the means to an end. Forget the talent -or distinct lack thereof -  that first propelled you to fame, it’s all about becoming a money-spinning überbrand and milking it like cash cow Katie Price who is unleashing yet another perfume aimed at Poundland princesses. Now, I totally get why a bloke might fancy firing into someone who smells of Hilary Duff, Kate Moss or J-Lo, hotties with pongs to peddle, but the Pricey don’t seem righty! Anyhow, from October 25th, you too can douse yourself in Precious Love - ‘a tribute to eternal love’, something she’d know all about as Peter Andre - who, stealing a march, launches Mysterious Girl For Women (huh?) tomorrow - will tell you. The latest Jordan juice comes in ‘a bottle that represents her life’ (cheap? plastic? see-through?) ‘with a frosted centre’ (you don’t say!) and ‘topped with her signature diamond cr**’..or was that ‘cap’? Victoria; Paris; Coleen; Chanelle Hayes: what next? L by Maureen from Driving School? Night Gusset by Amy Wino? Chip and Chavvi di Katona? `Seriously wrongpong.

Fashioniseateries

Fashionistas rejoice! Buoyed by the success of a Vogue Café, GQ Bar and Tatler Club in Moscow - a dump formerly so starved of fashion outlets, its grateful bling-crazy citizens' sartorial choices make Katie Price look like Grace Kelly by comparison -  publishers, Condé Nast, are reportedly looking at a global roll out for their licensed concept. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t there once a Vogue Cafe where now stands Itsu, in the same Hanover Square building as the publisher’s London HQ?  No matter, fashion exists on a diet of regurgitated trends, so bring it on again, boys!. To the marketing wallahs at Condé N, it seems restaurants are ‘a natural way to extend our brand’: this, despite my supposition that the spaghetti-thin noodles featured in their titles' pages exist on a diet of Evian, Marlboro Lights and gossip and that US Vogue’s pencil-like bobbed boss, Anna Wintour, would surely never resort to anything as common as eating out in public. Over a decade after New York and London’s Fashion Cafés sank like soufflés, despite the best efforts of Naomi, Claudia and Elle, the world has become one vast style-obsessed global village. The label-loving diners of Luton, Lanark and Llanelli are surely clamouring to shell out on fashionable suppers of three steamed edamame beans and half an egg-white omelette. As for those GQ bars, ‘honey, crème de menthe? With your complexion?’ Divine! Let’s hope the profits amount to more than a big fat size zero.  

Hollywood(en) Remakes

Most Americans never venture abroad. In fact, very few even have passports. After all, didn't they move the Eiffel Tower and  the pyramids of E-Jipt to Vegas? Could such insularity explain Yankee antipathy towards non-English language films, manna to studios that repackage world cinema for Mikey and Miley Mall-Rat’s consumption? But why do so many slightly more mondaine Brits ('yeh we've been to Benidorm, innit?') also lap up Hollywood(en) retreads? The ensuing car crash when Tim Story hijacked Jean-Luc Besson’s Taxi; Richard Gere’s vague turn as nouvelle vague icon Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless; the leaden Vanilla Sky: remakes rarely shine. Will David Fincher’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo really improve on the enthralling (subtitled) original? I admit, Brits occasionally play their part in cooking up a Stateside turkey. Mercifully, Lina Wertmüller as imagined by Guy Ritchie (and ‘star’ Madge) was deservedly Swept Away at the box office. The latest such Hollywood horror in cinemas is Francis Veber’s appetising French comedy, Le Dîner de Cons, regurgitated as Dinner For Schmucks. If you’re schmuck enough to fork out on indigestible tripe, go armed with Rennies - that's Pepto Bismol, or near enough, to my American friends.

FaFoBas

To fill their pages, gossip mags have created a monster: the FaFoBa. That’s those Famous For B***** all, basically (see also ‘nonebrities’). Cretinous reality show losers; witless Wags; famous parents' in-ya-face offspring with zilch talent (you know who you are P, P & K)| and myriad desperate red carpet cockroaches that would attend the opening of bowels: such is the Z list fodder whose only press mention would otherwise be a three line appearance in their local rag’s death notices. Quoted recently in Grazia, voici dress-up dolly Kim (pictured), of US reality-TV Über-FaFoBas, The Kardashian sisters whose 4.7 million followers on Twitter, if rounded up and culled, would not be missed.  ‘Our family has baggage, but like Louis Vuitton baggage you always want it.’ She has a point. It seems Britain has grown an insatiable appetite for the minutiae of the planet’s most pointless baggages’ lives. Inevitably, the bit we relish most is when, their fifteen minutes up, Kim and her like are dumped in the lost celebrity office along with their LV trunks. Call it FaFobafreude.

Slick Photography?

On the pristine sands of The Hamptons, St Tropez and Sardinia this summer, debate has raged among the fashionable beau peeps (rhymes with…) about photographer Steven Meisel’s recent work for Italian Vogue. Is his Water and Oil shoot art as political commentary or just sensationalism in very poor taste? Basically, the snapper’s idea was to use a beautiful model juxtaposed against an approximation of the ravaged American shoreline - a metaphor for environmental rape, perhaps? If endless imagery of stricken avian life struggling hopelessly for survival didn’t resonate with Voguettes, the sight of Kirsten Macmenamy, clad in ludicrously expensive couture smeared in nasty gunk that even the best dry cleaner would not shift, surely would? I’m not saying all fashionistas are shallower than the polluted waters lapping the Gulf of Mexico’s shores, but when one of their feather-brained number tells me - without a hint of irony - that ‘this season’s palette of oil and tar and petrol blue is to die for,’ you have to wonder which bird is the most tragic.   

Can't (cake) stand 'em!

I can't believe people still insist on offering me a vulgar, upstart import that is way past its sell-by date. It's as if I should be somehow grateful and wowed. Now we all know that what America pigs out on today, Britain troughs tomorrow: Krispy Kreme donuts (bleech!), Oreos (I mean why would you, FFS, and do you actually know anyone who'd go there?) but, even people of hitherto irreproachable bon gout, it seems, can't resist the dubious charms of the ubiquitous cupcake. Vile! No catered event or humble tea room is complete without these icky fatty buns; which is how your tramp stamp ass will end up if you keep gobbling ‘em like a gavage-crazy goose with a death wish on a Dordogne foie gras farm, muffin top! A ubiquitous TV presence (Come Dine With Me, Four Weddings, countless sleb chefs and Lord Icing-Sugar’s Junior Apprentices have all pimped them). Had Mary Queen Of Shops insisted the old bat who ran that half-baked Raynes Park bakery that turned into a right nightMary for the retail guru in Ms Portas's last series sell nothing but cupcakes, the place would be raking in hundreds and thousands. But that's suburban taste for ya. A dozen jumped-up fairy cakes gussied up in pearls and feathers with my name in puce piping as a birthday present? Because I’m called Princess and I’m four today? Gimme the Marks and Sparks socks every time! When Metro's resident foodie, Marina O’Loughlin, states ‘I want my tastebuds back for something entirely more sensible... like cheese’, trust me, a trend is over.

Must-Have Gadgets

Can’t wait to get your hands on the new iPad? Not me. Now, I am a big Mac fan - the computers, not the burgers - but isn’t there such a thing as too much technology? Still struggling to get my noggin around the latest ‘how-did-we-ever-live-without-that?’ piece of ‘essential’ hardware I’ve been suckered into buying, up pops another gizmo, without which, excommunication from the modern world is surely imminent. Geeks will snigger at such naiveté, but what exactly does Apple’s latest ‘must-have’ do that a phone/ laptop/ iPod/ paper and pen can’t? Wash the car? Iron shirts? My cupboards are crammed with ‘the next big thing’:  Betamax player, Sony Watchman, Psion organiser, a robot vacuum cleaner and the combination calculator/ cigarette lighter (yes, really!) that seemed somehow indispensable after a sake-soaked lunch in Tokyo. iPad? iPass.

World Cup Songs

More contemptible than any cynical Argie tackle, isn’t it time World Cup songs were shown the red card? Mercifully, England - presumably distracted by Embrace’s World At Your Feet and before that, woeful tripe from Ant & Dec and The Spice Girls - have no ditty this year, the players advised to focus on their game - and, boy, do they need to, Fabio! Thierry Henry may have done us all a favour, albeit inadvertently; with Ireland dumped out, there can be no reprise of 1990’s Give It A Lash Jack, while fellow failures, Scotland, are denied the chance to bludgeon us with the caber toss that was Ally’s Tartan Army. Official anthems fare no better; witness well-know er, South African Shakira’s 2010 effort.  With lame lyrics such as ‘When you fall, get up, oh oh. And if you fall, get up. oh oh..’ it’s entitled Waka Waka. Nuff said!

Your Big Gay Day

For fash-pash lesbians about to enter a civil partnership, the question is what frock (or not) to rock on your big gay day? With such ceremonies still a fairly new trend, no ground rules exist. On her fashioneditoratlarge blog, it’s a dilemma currently exercising Grazia’s Mel Rickey, soon to make an honest woman, so to speak, of the similarly stylish Mary (Queen of Shops) Portas. The butch/ femme cliché of trouser suit and tulle meringue - as favoured, respectively, by Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi -  cuts no ice with Mel and, despite heavy rotation on the Spring catwalks, I’m guessing matching denim dungarees mightn’t look so hot when the Rickey-Portas’s revisit their wedding album circa 2020. For gay guys, it’s an equally difficult call: are bare torsos, leather chaps and matching tattoos ever what to wear when being whisked up the aisle?

Propagreenda

Hot on the heels of product placement, now deemed suitable for British TV viewers’ consumption, a new subliminal soft sell from America is set to appear on our screens. Plot points such as a character in Law and Order who switches to energy-saving light-bulbs are being increasingly worked into the narrative as networks attempt to attract advertisers out to court the eco-aware buck. It’s a phenomenon that goes by the distinctly Orwellain sounding title of ‘behaviour placement’ although I prefer ‘propagreenda’. Cynical marketing ploy or nay, anything that helps preserve the planet can’t be all bad. How will it translate here? Could The Bill, recently axed, be recycled with bobbies in hand-me-down vintage uniforms riding tandems rather than tearing around in gas guzzler cars? They could rebrand it as Dixon of Dock ahem, Green.

Ballots!

Polling day can’t come soon enough, if only to shunt the Dave ‘n’ Gordie show (featuring Nick C, Alex S, leuan W-J and sundry fringe loonies) off our TV screens. I’m all for politics as light entertainment - Portillo’s face as he lost at Enfield; Kinnock’s hubristic ‘victory’ rally; Prezza’s inner Alex Reid unleashed on an egg thrower - but this tedious campaign has thus far been about as amusing as a bad case of gout. The gaiety of the Hunt the Chris Grayling contest aside, the only good bit so far was when oleaginous grande-dame Lord Mandelson called Old Etonian hoodie hugger, Dave, ‘toffee-nosed.’ This, from an arriviste schmoozer of high society who once also resided in Notting Hill, a ‘hood where £595 is considered ‘reasonable‘ for a pair of loafers to knock around in? Le Creuset pot? Alessi kettle? Black! More hypocritical bitchiness please!

The Future Of Clubbing?

With meow meow banned, cats seeking an alternative sensory experience must pray venues nation-wide embrace ‘premium’ London club Merah’s ‘ingenious light therapy system’. Why? Because, according to its PR, Merah's resident techie genius claims lighting can affect and change mood. Well, hello Einstein! Programme orange and yellow in that order and your sex drive and intellect will be stimulated, apparently: hence the scenario whereby your urge to snog the babe at the bar is tempered by the realisation that to do so will earn you a lamping from her bruiser boyfriend. More innovative still, Merah (that's harem spelled backwards, since you ask) plans to pump in its own branded scent so punters will feel ‘at home’ Halle-flamin'-lujah!  It may not be exactly novel - 70s sex clubs in America used to pump in amyl nitrate to get the party started -  but post-smoking ban, any trend that obliterates the now ubiquitous fug of sweat, farts, beer-sodden carpets and Katie Price’s Stunning sure smells like the future of clubbing to me.  

www.merahclub.com

Two-bit Tassel Twirlers

It’s been several years now since the burlesque revival took off. Executed with wit, élan and the right ratio of bump to grind, glamour pusses such as Immodesty Blaize and Dita Von Teese -their sophisticated tease sharper than the cup of a Jean-Paul Gaultier conical bra - have elevated their métier to an art-form. Now, it seems every old neighbourhood bar is jumping on the bandwagon, showcasing ‘artistes’ who are basically in it for pin money. At an East End dive, I sat, cringing, while two Readers’ Wives liberated their blubber from cheap nylon basques, wiggled their cellulite-y asses in our faces the unsuccessfully attempted to twirl their tassels to that old Peggy Lee chestnut, I’m A Woman. Yes dears, and so is Vanessa Feltz but I wouldn’t pay to see her flaunt her bits either. Cover up and leave it to the pros: bargain basement burlesque is getting on our tit ends. 

The Sound of Musicals

The aptly entitled Les Misérables - highlight: its revolving set breaking down - was the soul-sapping experience that spawned my hatred of the type of mass-market musicals - beloved of the charabanc trade and polyester-clad tourists from Hell - that increasingly dominate Theatreland. If Ibsen or Brecht hoped to get a look in nowadays, they’d need to bung in a few cheesy crowd pleasers and pray high-kicking Dames Judi, Maggie and Diana would razzle-dazzle ‘em in sequins and Lycra. Sister Act; Wicked; Dreamboats and Petticoats; you couldn’t bribe me to sit through them, let alone prize sixty quid out of me for the dubious privilege. News that Coronation Street is to be turned into a musical surely represents a new nadir for the genre: ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’ yodels madman Tony Gordon as he escapes jail intent on murdering the show’s hairdressing heroine, his estranged fiancée. Mamma Mia!

Encore Nul Points?

It’s time for making your mind up as nations short on pop pedigree select ditties purely for our amusement at May’s Eurovision Song Contest. Previews suggest a Greek tragedy caused recent unrest in Athens and that Iceland should have stuck with Kerry Katona. Turkey? A right turkey! Should we feel smug? Not while UK hopes rest on a chap with the charisma of a courgette performing dire Stock (no Aitken) and Waterman dinosaur Sounds Good To Me - but not to anyone south of Dover, I bet. It’s payback time as Eastern Europe gets to punish us for inflicting Waterman protegées Sonia, Sinitta et al on them, their canon employed by KGB interrogators to break refuseniks, apparently. Meanwhile, Russia has rejected Eurovision gold in not adopting Buranovskiye Babushki. Sung by six gummy, gurning grannies - think Loose Women of Leningrad - watch it on YouTube and weep for what might have been.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrWhK9Q4aNA 

Plex Pests

The first time I went to the flicks in the USA, I was totally unprepared for the cacophonous soundtrack that would accompany the main feature. Used to a culture where the occasional rustle of a sweetie wrapper or a polite cough was as loud as it got, a brash Brooklyn audience’s rumbunctious behaviour seemed shocking. Sure enough, where America leads...Visit any British multi-screen now and the unruly ‘plex pests rule. Remonstration is pointless; Beavis and Butt-head know their rights. You’ll get done for harassment...or worse. Last Saturday, I literally (and figuratively) lost the plot - driven to distraction by the oiks in the row behind, noisily chomping the contents of buckets twice the size of their fat heads and engaging in popcorn flicking contests when not loudly discussing half-term - or the sexual availability of ‘that slag, Paige’ - on their mobiles. ‘I’m at the cinema’ is the new ‘I’m on the train.’ Bring back the silent movies! 

The Save 6 Music petition

I’ve long held the BBC needs the budgetary equivalent of a gastric band but axing 6 Music is insane. An incubator for potentially world-conquering British musicians - watch Mumford & Sons go! - it’s run on a shoestring budget of around £9 million. Ditching it is the equivalent of a morbidly obese glutton removing the lettuce leaf from his afternoon snack of half a dead cow on a bun with chips. Slash the insane sums wasted on a bloated administration, vanity building projects, overpaid ‘talent’, Shearer and  Hansen’s taxis, or indecently large crews at events such as the Winter Olympics where BBC staff outnumbered Team GB. On breakfast TV, one fat cat chirruped that 6 Music’s output could be easily absorbed by Radio 1. So, they’ll play an obscure Welsh-language indie band between Gaga and Ke$ha?  Phil Jupitus rightly brands the threatened closure ‘an act of cultural vandalism.’ Join the clamour to save it at  http://www.petition.fm/ and remind the Beeb who foots the bill.    

And the winner is....

Beating Mariah Carey in the sort of slag rag Corrie's Liz Macdonald would fancy and Sigourney Weaver - clearly Alien to style in a red St Trinian's hockey slip thingy- the Oscar for worst dressed goes to Zoe Saldana  for this red carpet-rash, loo roll holder dolly's dress. It's apparently  'chic' according to my mate, Fashion Thing, who reported in on the bash from his distant star orbiting whatever planet the Na'vi inhabit. From planet moi, this looks  like it would bring my car's alloys up a treat; Zoe has nicked my local car wash's purple roller brushes and tacked them on to her hem. Hilary Alexander in the Telegraph rated her the best-dressed on the night. Shame Hil didn't go to Specsavers. It's by Givenchy, since you ask. Didn't he do the frocks for Breakfast at Tiffanys? Not loving his atelier's effort for the sequel -Dog's Dinner at the Kodak.

Clinton: she's a card!

So Señora de Kirchner - the only world leader who looks like she was cast from Desperate Housewives - snaps her manicured fingers and Hilarious Clinton comes rushing to Buenos Aires for a spot of 'friendly mediation' between the Argies and the Brits over the Falklands, thus  handing the former a diplomatic coup at the expense of Washington's  most faithful poodle...sorry, ally? Yalta/ Suez/ Eye-rack (as Americans annoyingly refer to it)...when will British governments learn that the Americans' idea of a special relationship translates as 'you bend over and we'll shaft you up the Twitter whilst preferably, simultaneously robbing you of your gold' as happened in WW2? What's to mediate on? Do the Falkland Islanders want to stay British or not? Mind you, I can see Agentina's point. How would we like it if a load of gauchos set up shop on the Isle of Wight? What? nobody would much notice? Cancel your hols to Disneyland! Boycott Oreos! Bodyswerve Aberzombie & Bitch! Refuse to buy Gaga tracks off iTunes and the next time Hil & co come looking for support for some fatally flawed Yankee misadventure, make her sit through a performance of Andrew Lloyd Wibbly Wobbly's Evita - that'll teach the interfering Clint!


 

The PMX Factor

With UK Plc drifting towards the same titanic icebergs that sunk Iceland and, soon, Greece, what the country needs is vision and inspired leadership - albeit not in the style of Saint Tony of Chilcott, perhaps. But no, our would-be leaders are cynically dumbing down any debate to levels that will have Atlee and Churchill spinning in their graves. Incisive political interviews make for riveting TV viewing, but Gordon Brown’s cosy chat with pal Piers Morgan was hardly Frost/ Nixon. Look! Tears! That’s Doreen and Noreen’s votes in the bag. Meanwhile, PR boy Dave is bravely risking all by squaring up to heavyweight inquisitor Alan Titchmarch later this month. ‘So, are you more of a pansy or a wallflower man, Mr Cameron?’ What next? Nick Clegg gets grilled on Saturday Kitchen? Who needs actual policies? Let Simon Cowell orchestrate The PMX Factor; the winner - styled by Sinitta and choreographed by Jedward - whoever best covers Alice Cooper’s (I Wanna Be) Elected.  

Chablis Chic

Faced with the new austerity, I’ve traded down to supermarket own brand sawdust - ‘muesli’ according to the label - and BOGOF chipolatas; at 59p, containing 95% mechanically-recovered mad cow, presumably? Sacrifices made, so I can continue to indulge in little luxuries like the occasional thimbleful of half decent French wine, bought from a German discounter (clue: see pic) at a fraction of the price of its upmarket cousins abandoned chez Harvey Nics. It’s comforting to read that the super rich are also struggling; but even having seen a reported £7 billion evaporate from his fortune, I imagine Roman Abramovich could still afford to buy out Iceland - the supermarket chain AND the busted country - from the contents of his 4-year-old daughter’s piggy bank. I doubt if, like me, he’s following queen of Chablis Chic Kirstie Allsopp’s show, Homemade Home, learning how to make-do-and-mend like a Baron’s daughter on a budget.


Image: www.fanpo.com/spots/lidl

Ugh!

OK, it’s cold outside, so cosy is a consideration, but does this justify the footwear phenomenon that, like early adopter Sienna Miller, won’t go away? I’m talking Ugg boots, those Aussie clodhoppers that are capable of turning any woman under 5’10” into an Oompa-Loompa, and the shapeliest pins into something resembling the back end of a pantomime horse. With no sign of the craze abating - the new London flagship store is permanently besieged - and fuggs (fake uggs, see above) in every street market - Ugg is now targeting blokes too. NOT ON YOUR BLODY LIFE, cobbers! Angelina AND Brad in Uggs? The Pitts! And teaming his with a purple velours jogging ensemble, Leo Di Caprio could be mistaken for Tinky Winky. If you really must, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eqSM-Z-aLXA offers a priceless video tutorial: ‘Don’t wear them with a bathing suit, PJs, Eskimo coat or to tropical beaches’ they reckon.. or within a mile of me, I say.

Chefebrities

You can’t switch on the box without their ugly mugs gurning out at you. Jowelly Jamie, HF-W and Gordon Gobsh***, that is. Now even hitherto-above-it-all Heston wants a piece of the pie, serving up a TV makeover of some motorway caff that owed more than a little to Ramsay’s well-worn routine. When Jamie was still the Naked Chef - a sight now likely to have me upchucking the chorizo and chick pea on ciabatta - their patter was mildly entertaining. Britain could not be allowed to exist on boil-in-the-bag-cod alone, after all. Nowadays their sheer ubiquity makes these serial airtime whores plain indigestible. What next? If reports about troubles in Big Sweary’s empire are to be believed, a new mutation: Jamie Saves Gordon’s Bacon. Somebody cull these kitchen nightmares now!

Jeanius?

Denim , back in a big way this season and worn head-to-toe (dig those denim spats!) should be about blue-collar utilitarianism. So how come poncey fashionistas like Roberto Cavalli insist on tarting up this most democratic of fabrics? For Muppets with more money than marbles, Balmain’s 1980s-style ripped jobs have about as much punk attitude as Ivana Trump. £1060 to look like an Eastern European hooker? Yeh, right! Denim should be about blue-collar utilitarianism. So how come poncey fashionistas like Roberto Cavalli insist on tarting up this most democratic of fabrics? For Muppets with more money than marbles, Balmain’s 1980s-style ripped jobs have about as much punk attitude as Ivana Trump. £1060 to look like an Eastern European hooker? Yeh, right! Soon to set up shop in London, Tom For, he of the curious forehead and perma-open plunge shirt (so alluring on an older gay gentleman, dontcha' think?), is flogging pre-washed men’s jeans in America that, to my eyes, look no better than what’s on offer at Primark. Complete with gold plated button, these $990 leg pulls look like the sort of slacks Donald Trump might wear to go buy Wal-Mart, assuming they come in ostentatious old fart size. Make my denim indigo dyed and shrink-to-fit in the tub like a Wyoming cowboy's every time.

IMAGE: denimblog.com

Sex And the City -Somebody Stop It!

So SJP and Co have buried the hatchet (again) and the latest instalment - SATC: The Movie: The Sequel will soon be upon us -like some hideous Noughties fashion revival dragged out of Carrie's closet? Well, sorry Ms Bradshaw! There is such a thing as too much Sex, so... ‘not tonight dear, I have a headache’. What started out as a fabulous fling is fast heading towards Heather Mills territory - the tired old format really is on its last leg. Enough! I'm divorcing you before we reach SATC: The Movie XVII wherein Samantha the Saga Years in her Stannah Stair Lift shows us how reversing onto the latest rampant rabbit toy from her local adult store beats nookie with any coffin dodger boyfriend, and frail fashion freak Carrie gets crushed to death under Mr Big- and getting Bigger By The Day by the look of Chris Noth - a plot development the writers can have for free if they agree to implement it straight away. 


Image : www.grannypictures.com

Celebrity Endorsements

Back in Mad Men days - on the say-so of some sophisticate like Cary Grant - the whole world would have happily chain-smoked Camels ‘til the cows came home. But do famous faces still shift product? Perhaps we’ve grown cynical, but more likely, it’s just that certain celebrities lack universal appeal. ‘Let’s cater our cocktail party from Iceland, just like Kerry used to...’ - because bankrupt alcoholic is somehow aspirational down Acacia Avenue? Talk about Desperate Housewives! And any women I know would rather go commando than wear Armani knickers since all matchstick-and-melons Ma Beckham took to moping about in hers. Talking of pants, I hear Procter & Gamble have signed up Ulrik-ka-ka-kan’t-believe-she-needs-the-gig Johnson as the public er, face of their Always Envive incontinence range. For once, expect a flood of takers, although for her verbal incontinence at the BAFTAS, I'd have gone with Vanessa Redgrave.

UPS: Utterly Pointless Surveys

Scarcely a day goes without some marketing Muppet commissioning yet another pointless survey. Headed ‘Research shows...’ these only state the bleedin’ obvious. A recent press release from a well-known tour operator includes the mind-blowing revelation that ‘money no object, 87% of Britons would rather holiday in the Seychelles than Skegness’ - the remaining 13% drawn to the Lincolnshire resort of last resort presumably polled on the streets of Psychoville? Based on yet more in-depth research, chewing gum brand Orbit Complete reports that ‘66% of men find women more attractive when they smile than when they wear make up’; the two being mutually exclusive, presumably? Placing David Beckham in the minority, they advise women looking for a date that most men don’t fancy pouters. Equally illuminating is the knowledge that smiley Louise Redknapp always carries a pack of Orbit Complete when she’s ‘on the go.’ Curiously unmentioned, my own research that shows 97.5% of men would prefer their dates never to chew gum.

Benjamin Button Syndrome

With cosmetic surgery seemingly a constitutional duty in Hollywood, is it any wonder its inhabitants are oft dismissed as ‘plastic’? Now it seems Tinseltown’s Dorian Grays - like Linda Gray, the perennially fresh 68-year-old -  are also putting their apparent ability to withstand the ageing process down to anything but the knife. Recent shots of a transformed Rupert Everett astound me; the greying, craggy features that had hitherto lent the actor a slightly raffish, lived-in sexiness, replaced by a weirdly waxen head seemingly on loan from Madame Tussaud's. I’m reminded of an early Everett film - A Shocking Accident - for although the actor denies having surgery, how else to explain that fresh-from-the-embalmers,  cheesy-1950s-game-show-host look? Lines are fine: the life-lived-to-the-full, furrowed dial of the then octogenarian, Samuel Beckett, beats waxwork dummy every time.  

Image: yeeeah.com