|
HOW TO BE SEXY...
I just love Would Like to Meet. Remember it? Used to be on BBC2 but the new series is on BBC3, 21:00 on Sunday nights. Basically, take a sad, unattached person, let the three style/fasion/confidence gurus deconstruct them before building them up into a new, marketable person ready to hit the dating scene and voila...scruffy nerd becomes confident, hip guy and frumpy gal becomes sexy vamp. It's immensely watchable because unlike a lot of reality TV, if focuses on an all too real problem for many - some people just have no in-built ability to flirt or are incapable of meeting people. Guys are incapable of reading the signals from women and acting upon them, some girls just don't know how to be women and 'turn it on'. Last night's episode was classic stuff. We had Lucy, a 28 year old 'tomboy' from Fulham with a wardobe full of flipflops and unflattering skirts. She talked over people, desperate to fill 'empty spaces' with words, and on her blind date at the start of the program, turned up with her damp hair pulled back, no makeup and a pair of flip flops. Cue Tracy Cox teaching her to be sexy with hints and tips on what men look for (like the 'hair in a clip, now it's not' thing!) and some lessons in Tango; Jay vamping up her wardrobe, getting her into heels and learning about makeup; Jeremey giving her a confidence makeover that by the end had her approaching groups of men in bars with a specific task, such as getting someone's belt, or a kiss. It's brilliant to see the transformation in people as they adopt the panel's advice, becoming adept at flirting and engaging the opposite sex in conversation. Sadly, last ngiht's was the last episode in the current series, although it is repeated on Wednesday, or you can check out the webiste here. WLTM works on many levels; it gives us fellas a fascinating insight into the tips and tricks that you gals adopt, and it gives girls a similar look at the guile we use to seduce. It also highlights a problem for many capable and attractive people of both sexes in their thirties; how do you meet people when all your friends are 'smug marrieds', gay or attached? I seem to know loads of single girls, but all my mates are attached, so there's never anyone to introduce them to. Found a brilliant website on Saturday morning here. It's an archive of every Top 40 Chart in the UK from the 1950s to the current day; List charts by month, early, mid or end of. I've written before about how I find music so evocative, the sound of a track linking through the years to transport you to the heart of a memory somewhere in the map of your past. Pick a date, look at the chart for that month and suddenly it all comes back as you see a song that meant so much but which you'd forgotten. I ended up there by accident after being inspired by late night TV on Friday, some satellite retrospective on child singers which featured Lena Zavaroni, The Osmonds (somewhat predictably) and New Edition. New Edition, you may recall, was consisted of one Bobby Browne, Ralph Tresvant and the others who went on to form Bel Biv Devoe. New Edition were dreadful, but the child stars in that band grew into fellas who made some pretty good choons back in the early 90s. Light on the horizon for me this week as I metamorphose from suburbabn house husband into Freelance journo/photographer/PR type dude. I may be tied to my desk today, but tomorrow sees me in W1 to say hi at 20six Towers before a meeting with a PR over champagne and oysters in SW1. A goes back to school on Wednesday after just ovr six weeks off, so it's back to normality all round as traffic levels increase, the days grow shorter and the sun weaker. Great, that should really cheer everyone up *evil laugh*.
|
|
|
1.9.03 13:59 |
|
|
SEXY KIT
I was wrong. A few days in, the menus make sense, I'm familiar with the SMS layout and I've got a ring tone I like. What I hadn;t recloned on is just how seriusly sexy this damn phone is. At 8cm by 4.5cms, it's got to be about as small as a mobile can get from a practical perspective and still be usable.
Bizarrely, you don't need to open it to make or receive a call resulting in strangers thinking you're talking to you hand - it's that small, it's secreted in your palm when you talk and invisible to anyone looking. I'm still finding features every day too, like the hands free function. And it's MMS enabled and can take pix with a tiny attachment which fits on the bottom. Looks like I'll be swapping the pay-as-you-go sim that I use as a spare for my main moby one now. I love it. It's sooooo cool (it must be, my daughter keeps running off with it to show friends!). |
|
|
1.9.03 15:39 |
|
|
£200 FOR THE MEAL; £10 ON TAXIS; THE DAY - PRICELESS
Yup, that was yesterday, a day so perfect I'd like to bottle it and bring it out on those occasions when life's lustre has worn thin. Some days are good bescause you achieve something extraordinary. Yesterday was good simply because I was with good people, ate good food and the sun shone; simple things which make all the stress of life just fade into the background, like confetti on a pavement. Headed into London for 20six towers and coffee with Azeem and JoJo as first port of call where the three of us wandered over to Starbucks. Wandering north along Great Portland Street we espied Tony Slattery, a man who's visage was once as ubiqutous on our TV screens as Peter Kay's is now, but who has since adopted a somewhat lower profile. He seemed a little awed to be in such illustious company but at least he didn't embarrass himself by asking us for our autographs. Just as well because I didn't have a pen, Jo was so out of PR shots of herself to sign, and Azeem was in no mood to be papped. Had a nice chat over coffee and then I hailed a cab to take me to Wheelers in Duke of York St, SW1 where I had a lunch appointment with Al the PR. Al is great company and always a pleasure to be around, and the food was just delightful. We had a fair bit of business to discuss, but it's no hardship when the waitress thrusts a glass of chilled Louis Roederer Cristal into your paw whilst you peruse the menu. Oysters were back, a sure sign that summer is over, so I eschewed them in favour of dressed crab to start follwed by grilled dover sole with Spinach. A bottle of Pouilly Fuisse washed that down and we had a pleasant time talking through the agenda. When I left him at 16:00, it seemed to early to go home so I dropped in to see Jak1960, an old friend of some years and many nights out. He was amiable and pleasant company and great fun to be with which rounded the day off nicely given how much seemed to have occurred in such a short space of time - I'd arrived at JoJo's at 12:30, met Al at 14:30 and an hour and a half later was swapping stories with Jack and reminiscing about lost nights and forgotten friends. I must have been pretty dehydrated because I got through a whole litre bottle of mineral water. Quiet night last night; my head was pounding (drinking at lunchtime is a bitch for evening hangovers) and I was still full from the lunch at Wheelers so i settled for a bowl of soup. Couldn't even manage a glass of wine! Back to semi normality today; A was back to school for the first time in six weeks so it was back to the old routine; Up at 06:45, get her breakfast, make her a packed lunch and drop her round her friend's to catch the bus by 07:30. P was off again today, her last day of leave so tomorrow real normality beckons; A at school, P at work and me out at a meeting. Still, it's a short week; roll on Saturday.
|
|
|
3.9.03 22:47 |
|
|
SMALL, COMPACT AND DESIRABLE
For someone so technology minded, it took me an age to get around to MiniDisc but last year, I finally got meself a Sony NetMD recorder and I have to say, it's blown me away.
|
|
|
4.9.03 16:08 |
|
)to the MD palyer which sits in a cradle connected via USB and it's ready to go. There's something inherently amusing about MDs which appeals to the blokeish aspect of my shallow personality - much more fun swapping MDs around than making do with a solidstate storage medium like most mp3 players. |
JAYNE MIDDLEMISS
She's a Geordie lass, lovely accent, gorgeous all round. I like her. So sue me. |
|
|
5.9.03 11:11 |
|
|
THINGS I MOST MISS ABOUT CHILDHOOD
Yesterday's news that the theme tune to 'White Horses' had been voted the greatest TV theme tune ever got me thinking. Not specifically about the badly dubbed black and white Slovakian TV program itself, but some of the other things in my childhood that stand out. To some extent, I guess those of us in our thirties are fairly prominent in industry, the media, etc - the various retrospectives on TV - the 'I Love' lists programs on BBC2 a couple of years ago, all are indicative of that. We've seen some momentous changes in respect of what we take for granted and the technologies which we've seen introduced into daily life, but they all serve to remind just how far we've come. Childhood for me was endless summers, space dust and cola cubes; playing outside, Chopper Bikes, Roller Skates and Cresta cream soda; the firemen being on strike, the dustmen being on strike; Wizard, Mud and Showaddywaddy; power cuts, Johnny Ball, Brian Cant and Derek Griffiths. Fingerbobs, John Noakes and Shep, Peter Purves and Lesley Judd. Black and White TVs that you had to get up to change on of the three available channels on and which showed old black and white programs like 'Robinson Crusoe'. And whatever happened to the Childrens' Film Foundation, Screen test and The Funky Phantom? School meant outside toilets, an old hand bell that was rung at playtimes; playing 'war' in the playground and making machine gun noises using your arm as the gun. It was the unquestionable security of a rock solid base, the innocence that allowed me to just accept things and not question them. Knowing that I was immortal and thus, fearless. Writing all that and reading it, it seems like aeons ago. It wasn't. We only got VCRs in 1981. Channel 4 was news in 1986. Growing up in the 70s seemed like pants in the 90s, but it ain't now. It was the best. |
|
|
5.9.03 15:16 |
|
|
ffice  ffice" />
I've been meaning to blog about "...she's a flight risk" since I first tripped over the website on Friday but this is the first opportunity that I've had. I'm fascinated by this story, which appears to work on every level - buckets of personality, plaffice:smarttags" /> Notice that I said 'story' as there appears to be some significant debate as to whether the writing has any basis in truth; to be honest, I don't really care but for the record, I fall into the camp of those who believe it's fictitio Esquire Magazine is apparently carrying a 7 page interview with the main protagonist, Isabella, in their October Issue (although I gather this is the "On I'm twenty something and I am an international fugitive. I've been careful up to now to avoid contacting anyone who knew me before. I know that is the kiss of death but the temptation is always lingering, the temptation to reach out and touch the old world. There is danger there, I can feel it. Real and palpable in the air of that world. But I am still tempted... It's a long story and it begins long ago, far before I heard him whisper the words "...I am worried that she's a flight risk." As an opening, it's j Is someone from supposedly so high profile a family really at threat from that same family, especially when she's been largely left to her own devices for most of her life? She's not of Asian origin so there is no cultural precedent for an arranged marriage. She is of means, and a free spirit and it the story had any truth behind it, surely the most viable deterrent to that which she most fears would be the media. Blanket coverage wouldn't exactly make her proposed kidnap by family very easy, would it? In fact, thinking about it, I think I'll suggest to my grandmother that she put her hairnet into retirement and Anyone else care to comment?
|
|
|
8.9.03 10:33 |
|
[next page]
powered by
20six.co.uk
