WHAT'S A SQUIB?

So it seems to me that this is a very important time for people who fancy themselves as intelligent and outspoken. There are articles and tweets and quotes flying around at such speed and frequency that I feel like I ought to dive for cover into the nearest trench.

Now, London just experienced a fairly significant event – a strike by public sector workers that spanned the nation and involved an estimated 2 million people.
Now, I’m being very diligent as I write this to not open any browsers and Wikipedia my life away with facts and knowledge to pawn off as things I already knew, and pretend as though I rock around with an encyclopedia of quotes from David Cameron jostling around in my head. Though he did refer to the action as little more than a ‘damp squib’. Bit harsh I thought – especially since he’s still speaking to and about potential voters. Silly, silly David! Also, who strings words together like ’damp’ and ‘squib’? Mind blowing.

I don’t know all of the nuances of the pension cuts, increases in working hours and future pay, equation. What I do know is that a huge amount of people decided that what was happening was not acceptable, so decided to do something about it. Fair play! If someone slapped me in the neck, and I perceived that to be a bad thing, I’d certainly arrive at some course of reactionary action! Can not argue. It may have inconvenienced others to some extent, but I guess they thought a reduced pension may well inconvenience them at a very inconvenient time.

I’m only writing this because a whole lot of people seem to be producing really extreme and emotional opinions on the matter. Me? I guess I just fancied joining in: down with them all!

And when I say ‘them’, feel free to plug in whichever group or demographic you fancy… I’m a liberal girl after all.

HEY GOOD LOOKING

So my fantastic sister Jennifer has a mate whose company I get the pleasure to enjoy from time to time. He’s a curious fellow. He, to me, appears to have a firm grasp of the person that he is and is wonderfully comfortable in his own skin. So when Jenz informed me that he had laid down a gem in conversation, I was genuinely interested.

And rightly so! This is how Jenz relayed it to me:

“He kinda said… ‘Girls who say ‘I dress for myself’ – crap! Personally, I dress so others will agree that I look good’”.

A smile crept across my face when the idea sunk in, and then I found myself fully on board with his thought train. Even in the case of the most extroverted people it seems true– I went to the Rankin event last week for the new magazine ‘The Hunger’. There was a fellow dressed in forehead-to-toe black patent ‘leather’, with a huge, black tousled wig and red lips.

I say ‘fellow’, because I was fairly sure it was a man as he stood at about 6' 5", but for the life of me, I couldn’t detect any tell-tale bumps or clues. Now this fellow, I’m sure, felt they looked good, by means of their own unique definition of the word. But there was a reason he kept circling the densely packed room – so everyone could get a good look, and silently agree that he was shocking and amazing and all that stuff that he was desperately trying to be.

So that girl with as much of her boobs out as possible without actually showing off her areolae, and that guy with the trainers so fresh that they cause momentary glare-blindness – it’s all for our benefit too. Though if they had simply asked, I would’ve just said ‘no, I simply don’t agree’, and that could’ve been that!

*You may be wondering 'why Johnny Bravo?' Well, because he looks good, and is convinced that everybody agrees. And damn it, he's right!

MUSH!

Just got a great comment on fb, from a young man named Kieran. Literally, one of the best fb comments I've received I reckon!:

"good to see your writing again, read one of ya blogs like a year ago, you write well, and your repugnance of the common man and the rat race goes down well too lol"

At first I thought 'repugnance' was a bit strong. Then I reconsidered...

Thanks Kieran. It's comments like that that light a bit of a fire under me.

MIDAS TOUCH

Still on that learning vibe, here’s another person that I feel compelled to take my hat off to. So Tom Ford. I suppose a lot of you will be at least vaguely familiar with his name, associating it with fashion in some kind of respect.

Any you’d be right. He has his own brand, titled after himself which he launched in 2005. But before that, he was the man behind the name Gucci. Now, before I loose your attention, I’ll relay the piece of info that made me reach for my bowler brim (that’s the kind of hat I imagine myself wearing). Within the space of a year, once Tom jumped on board the Gucci train, sales increased by 90%. Yes, that’s very close to 100%. And yes, that’s unreal. Moreover, he joined the group when it was on the brink of bankruptcy, and by the time he left, it was worth $10billion. Count the zero’s.

This guy isn’t messing around! Also, if I was Mr. Gucci, frankly, I’d be embarassed of myself.

So Tom, do you know what, take the whole hat. You deserve it!

FAIL

erm... fail?

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

In the spirit of not feeling like doing work, despite being at work, I’ve spent my morning learning and generally informing myself about various topics in arts, politics and religion. Who says skiving can’t be positive?!

So, I thought I’d share a lil’ bit of it. So Damien Hirst. I took a pic (probably illegally) of an image of his 'For the Love of God’ piece when I was in an art gallery in … somewhere in Australia. I liked that it was a bejewelled skull, in the first instance. And then I loved the title. As it was on the plaque, it read, ‘For the Love of God , laugh.’ The piece is a Memento Mori, which is a style or genre in art that aims at reminding us of our mortality.

I then learned that it weighs a total of 1,106.18 carats and is made up of approx. £15,000,000 worth of diamonds. Yet, it had the asking price of £50,000,000. Yes, we’re talking about millions here – count the zero’s with me.

I did a lil’ research on the fine fellow and found that he is reportedly Britain’s richest living artist. ‘Playa has game’, I hear you say. Indeed.

A quote that stuck with me went a little like this: "I can’t wait to get into a position to make really bad art and get away with it. At the moment if I did certain things people would look at it, consider it and then say 'f off'. But after a while you can get away with things."

So the aim of the game is to amass enough wealth and power that you can basically do whatever the hell you want. Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for that day. Legend.

SNOOZE

Do you ever wake up to find that you're simply not in the mood? For generally anything? 'Sans everything...' Now, don't get me wrong - I can handle life and the things that it throws at me; I've come to terms with the epic charade.

But today, I just can't be asked. Just seems a bit long really!

Rain-check, please.