Shouldn't have gone to Specsavers....

The Christmas advertisements are rampant just now and I am not impressed; except for that super little gingerbread man singing Be My Guest in the Morrisons offering, they have all left me feeling queasy. Even the Bear and Hare from John Lewis, though cute and cuddly, is lacking something – dialogue maybe? Nope, my ad du jour is the wonderful offering from Specsavers. As a person who has supported a raft of optical professionals throughout her life, I have a right to comment. I just lurve the sequence. The door busts open on a room filled with senior citizens, all apparently awaiting something. A young lassie heaving a ghetto blaster hurries inside and the music begins – and her dance begins with it. Shake what yer mother gave ya, she shouts, among other aspirational taunts. Soon, the entire cohort of joy-filled older folk is swaying and synching to the beat. The door opens and another woman comes inside, a much older (than the dancing lassie) and rather puzzled looking person carrying a basket of hopeless bingo balls. Should’ve gone to Specsavers, says the questioning voiceover. At this point, I always shout a resounding no! The dancing lassie is my spiritual sister, and long may us short-sighted people bumble through the world…

Post Office Encounters...

One week ago, I went into my local post office to buy a stamp. I have gotten used to personnel trying to hustle me into changing my broadband and telephone service provider, so I wasn’t bothered about that. However, on this occasion, the sales’ woman also asked me if I had life assurance arranged – yes, life assurance. I was so shocked that I didn’t have the presence of mind to dismiss her with a simple “yes” but mumbled a few personal details before deflecting her. All this happened in front of a queue of people, by the way. I’m not complaining about the woman, in particular. She is only doing what she is paid to do. But could someone “high up” in the post office please explain why members of the public must be subject to an onslaught of aggressive sales’ technique every time we try to access a vital public service? I know the post office has to make money and all of that, but there must be a better way to sell services that entail discussion of sensitive, personal information with the sales’ person. The really biting question is: just how do I avoid being accosted by sales’ people every time, yes, every time, I walk into this particular post office? Short of wearing a cheeky “I’m only here to buy stamps” badge, I don’t see what I can do. (I have sent a copy of this complaint to the Post Office website.)

Things Happen After A Great Bath...

When I was a little ‘un, pouring over “grown up” newspapers and magazines, I became fascinated by a series of advertisements. They concerned an attractive young woman who, still wrapped in a towel after her bath, looked out her window to hail the arrival of a man whose physical attractions were in parallel with her own. Things happen after a badedas bath, ran the strap line. Of course, when I came of age, I had to find out what did happen after the bath, and in spite of receiving a bottle of badedas one teenage Christmas time and loving it, I’m still awaiting the arrival of that man. Badedas is still with us and the advertisement series has achieved historical status in the same way as Milk Tray and Martini. Just recently, a leg injury gave me cause to renew my acquaintance with Badedas Original Indulgent Bath Gelee, and my love of the product came rushing back. Online reviews are wildly out of synch with one another. Some reviewers liken it to cheap, pine toilet cleaner – never! – while other reviewers love it as much as I do. The smell of it is extraordinary, so much that after a half-hour soak, I can spend twenty-four hours without using any other scent. Instead, a tangy, spicy cloud, redolent of mountain forests and rushing streams, envelops me throughout the day. Yes, it is expensive; I paid £6.50 for the standard 300ml flagon. But a little goes a long way and a few drops of the dark-green liquid will colour the bath water, rendering it soft and soothing, with a cleansing power that makes soap redundant. And yes, it does seemed to have shrunken the swelling on my leg – one reviewer even said that it helps her psoriasis. The active ingredient in Badedas is aesculus hippocastanum or horse chestnut extract, which contains aescin, an age-old remedy for inflamed and distended skin. Much debate rages around the safety of aesculus hippocastanum, and whether or not it is toxic. One thing is certain; chestnut seed must not be given to horses. They won’t be getting my badedas, either…

Harvest Moon, Shine On...

Normally, I write about manmade objects and this post is no exception. But instead of cursing my broken kitchen light, I praise the opportunity the darkened kitchen gave me to take notice of the glorious harvest moon. Have you seen it lately; a great, glowing lamp in the dark-blue sky, casting its lemony light upon us miserable, earth-bound denizens? No doubt some astronomer somewhere (Brian Cox, please!) could tell us all why the lunar disk is now appearing 10% larger than it has for many a day. It is probably something to do with the proximity of the autumn equinox in combo with unusual atmospheric conditions - or something sniffy like that. Whatever, the moon has inspired Beethoven to write Moonlight Sonata and drew forth the lovely and delicate Claire de Lune, from Claude Debussy while one of my favourite poems (by Walter de la Mare) runs slowly, silently now the moon walks the night in her silver shoon… This very week, Blue Jasmine, a movie by Woody Allen and starring Cate Blanchett, has just been released. The film tells the story of an unhappy woman whose favourite song is the evergreen Blue Moon (you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own…) In summary, the moon has inspired countless poems, songs and other works of art. It has appeared in paintings many times over (most notably by Joseph Wright of Derby), and was the subject of one of the earliest animated movies, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, by Georges Méliès – gracious, we have even been there. In a weird way, the moon is manmade. On that note, I bow out with one of my favourite autumn ballads….shine on, shine on, harvest moon, up in the sky…

Architecture or Arson: What next for the Glass Towers?

Of all the STUPID things to do! No wonder the “general public” thinks contemporary architects are all barking academics, locked up in their ivory (and glass) towers, with as much a sense of reality as any politician. After the events on Fenchurch Street last week, I’m beginning to believe that this word-image has a semblance of truth. What makes it worse is that the same architect who designed the building for developers Land Securitas and Canary Wharf, designed a hotel that caused meltdown in Las Vegas in 2003. The concave hotel produced similar symptoms; singed sunbathers and melted deckchairs. With reference to the London fiasco, the architect has admitted to “making mistakes”, and has also said that “there was a lack of tools or software that could be used to analyse the problem accurately”. Well, lawksamussy! Any school kid can start a fire with a magnifying glass. If only he had hired a mathematician to do a few calculations with mirrors and magnifiers before finalising the design for the Walkie Talkie – surely the shortage of STEM graduates isn’t that dire? Well, what do I know? We could do worse than to take the power of old Sol, the great and burning eye in the sky, on board. On that note, it seems only yesterday that we had an opposition leader who boasted a wind turbine on his house, and went everywhere on a bicycle. Today, the same geezer is poncing about in a hard hat and waxing lyrical on the joys of fracking. In all of history, I ask, has there ever been such a political metamorphosis? Just imagine, if a few unguarded glass windows can toast baguettes and fry eggs on Fenchurch Street, then just think what a comprehensive, nationwide network of solar panels harnessed to the national grid, could do to lower power consumption and lessen global warming. Sadly, I can’t do the maths but those of you who can, out there, send the calculations to the Prime Minister - and then save us all from arson-mad architects.

Perfume: Personal or Political?

I can never convince myself that perfume is just a harmless pleasure, wrote Susan Brownmiller (Femininity, Paladin Grafton Books, 1986). In her book, she writes about the trappings of femininity, the way us females build our popular image with silly clothing and dangerous shoes, affected postures and layers of make-up. Brownmiller excoriates the perfume industry, blaming it for robbing women of self-confidence by making the olfactory masking of our “natural” female odours almost obligatory. I take on board everything Brownmiller says, but I just do not concur with her stance on perfume. The wearing of perfume is a natural development of our link with the world of plants, never a tenuous one. The scented stuff emerged in the hot spots of the Middle East – witness the many references in the Bible – thousands of years ago. Trade and travel slowly shifted those pots and jars to the Mediterranean, from where they crept unrelentingly northwards and westwards. Around a thousand years ago, the denizens of the northwest began to leave their land-based lives and move into towns and newly forming cities. These places were unsanitary and formed only of social and economic necessity. For centuries, the upper classes strove through stink and squalor with the aid of “nosegays” or floral bunches, and pomanders, oranges stuck with cloves, not to “perfume” the carrier, but to help block out the surrounding smells.

In a contemporary world where we have come to accept public squalor alongside private luxury, I wear perfume in the same spirit as the denizens of the past. Sexual allure is the last thing in my mind as I rove about the urban landscape in a cloud of scent; blocking out the traffic exhaust fumes, the reek of putrid drains, uncollected rubbish and the thousand other miasmas emanating from I know not where. Yes, there is a little “cover up” involved, but no more than is involved with the wearing of clothing – has this ever been dismissed as “dishonest”? On that note, I carry the torch for Eau Dynanmisante by Clarins, a glorious, heady bouquet of “patchouli, petit grain, rosemary and white thyme”, having worn it for twenty years and will probably do for twenty more. A perfume expert would be able to explain in detail how these ingredients work together to make Eau-D the vital stuff that it is but alas, you only have my word for it….

The Almighty Nightie

In this column, I have often alluded to nightwear. To recap, one spends one third of one’s life in bed so, logically speaking, one third of one’s attire should be for the night. If you have ever gone shopping, you will know... nightwear brings out the fantasist in designers, more than any other kind of attire… the nighties I viewed seemed to have been made for ladies with Personal Services Plc after their names…the only alternatives to these sparkly, see-through itsy-bitsys were voluminous, Victorian, lace-trimmed behemoths with in-built chastity alarms…

And so on, and so on. The reader who doesn’t want to live out a Hollywood movie star/Victorian matron/happy hooker fantasy while in bed, this summer, ought to head for Marks & Spencer. I have just picked up and purchased an adorable, knee-length number. The nightie is light as swansdown and could fold easily into the shell of a walnut, yet offers ample cover to the body while in the land of nod. Made of 95% viscose and 5% elastane, its label is in a place that doesn’t chafe or irritate. The metal eyelets that allow for strap adjustment are rounded gently and won’t prod the restless sleeper awake. Indeed, this feature echoes the entire, kind design of the garment; with its contoured bust yoke and flared skirt. The garment is feminine, with a frill detail and a soft bow decorating said bust yoke, and made of a slumber-friendly pale blue and brown polka dot print. I have already spent one night in it – the hottest of the year, in fact – and never once woke up in a sweat. Yet, the garment is inexpensive, to say the least, at £9.50. But this is only one item of M&S’s more wonderful current pieces of sleep tailoring; the body in search of a good night’s sleep should get down there – now.