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!