GlobeStrutting

I love to travel, and it grieves me that the only real way to get started as a travel writer is to travel as much as you can and document your adventures. This is tricky as a would-be writer, because if you’re doing all you can do get into the industry - work experience, internships, further education - you probably can’t afford a constant stream of worldwide jaunts. You save for periods of unpaid work like others save for holidays, and while they’re often great fun and invaluable experience, on grey and drizzly weeks like this that have no place in August, the lack of vitamin D and new sights can really drag you down. This is the first year I can remember that I haven't been abroad, and I have felt it. I live vicariously through travel sections, friends’ tourist photos and travel blogs, visually cruising through New York, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia and mentally jotting down my ‘to go’ list. Those who trot the globe in style constantly inspire me and make me long to extend my travel knowledge further than my own (lovely) continent and the US.

It isn’t all bleak though; I really enjoy reading about someone’s connection with a place, and there are some excellent blogs out there, in particular. A friend recently went to Tokyo and wrote a street-style piece about her trip on her great fashion and pop culture blog. A girl on the same journalism course as me this autumn has a great account of her travels through Vietnam, as well as some fab film and music reviews, and for completely unrealistic travelporn, you can’t beat the luxe offerings of the Mr and Mrs Smith blog. It might sound a bit sad to muse about travel heaven when you have neither the time nor the funds, but one day I will and all this inspiration will be put to good use.

I think a lot of people that know me would laugh at the thought of me roughing it on a shoestring in foreign climes, but isn’t that the point of the Big Travel Experience? I didn’t do it at 18 and don’t regret that; I think I would have been overwhelmed, frizzy and subsequently diva-ish for most of it, not especially making me a better person. But while even a week in the med is unattainable travel heaven in my current lifestyle, it’s nice to think that a few years of hard graft and experience could lead to more of an adventure somewhere. I do think it’s important to do it, even if that means sacrificing a hot shower and fluffy white towels in favour of grubby sleeper trains and greasy locks once in a while… what else are dry shampoo and baby wipes for? Granted, I’m not usually a festival type, but I’d do it for the right destination. I also have a split in the places I’d want to hit with a bit of cash (Tokyo, New York, Cairo) and those I’d be happy jetting off to on a budget (Bangkok, Prague, Budapest).

I think if someone handed me the money right now - where’s that anonymous benefactor when you need them, eh? - I would probably head to Asia, as it’s somewhere that I’ve never been and has always fascinated me. Something like Thailand (travelling 101) – Vietnam (history & culture) – Hong Kong (shopping & skyscrapers) – Tokyo (style & sushi) – and then rounding it off with somewhere beachy and glorious like Bali would be heaven. I’ve never been that desperate to hit Australasia; it does look gorgeous but I’d want a more alien experience, but I can imagine it being perfect for a career gap or family trip later on in life. South Africa is a little daunting but also rich in sights and culture; I think I'd need to go with someone I felt safe with and later in my travel life. Another friend recently went to South America for a few months and has been posting endless stunning photos of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Belize and Guatemala amongst others. It helps that she’s as ridiculously photogenic as the scenery itself, but that was definitely my biggest pang of travel envy this year. So that corner of the world is firmly on the list as well. At this rate I’ll have to win the lottery and take a few years off to work through it, but one can and should dream.

Here are the top 10 I’d love to explore:

Vietnam
Japan
Hong Kong
Thailand
Indonesia
Brazil
Cuba
Hawaii
Madagascar
Southern India (Kerala etc)

Timeless

At the weekend, my sisters and I threw our wonderful parents a surprise party to celebrate their Pearl wedding anniversary. The surprise part was a bit of a first for us, but we pulled it off (as my dad's best man later remarked, it had better-kept secrets than parts of the Gulf War.)It was a truly lovely day and I felt it somehow refreshed my attitude towards life; not merely making me feel hopelessly single and miles away from my dream career, as I had suspected, but renewing my belief in several more fundamental things. Firstly in people genuinely enjoying each others’ company and being good to each other for such an impossible time span as thirty years - rare, but it happens - and secondly in lasting friendships, as I watched them greet people they’d shared their younger years with, as well as our childhoods, and who we knew as the cast of many fond and hilarious stories.

Something else that celebrated thirty years of success this month is the excellent film Airplane! which my parents, who have impeccable taste in comedy as well as life partners, introduced me to years ago. The Guardian celebrated it with this article, and even more significant than their hefty praise are the 129 (and counting) comments that come below it. I am a little bit obsessed with reader comments, as you may have realised from my posts about other online press, but I find the comment function a fascinating cyber-addition to the press. You can absorb a massive wave of public feeling, wit, anger or mockery just by scrolling down a little further than the last published line. The Guardian website’s commenters are also very, very funny (although they have competition from the Daily Mail’s less intentionally hilarious readers.)

Obviously with the mention of 30 years of Airplane! came a lot of quotation. It is probably one of the most-quoted movies of all time, and even before I can remember cracking up at the laugh-a-millisecond script, I know my parents were saying things like, ‘…and don’t call me Shirley.’ I caught a bit of Team America: World Police last night – very funny, but still one I can promiscuously channel-flick during – and it struck me how Airplane-ish the humour was, with a much more four-lettered Parker/Stone twist. While the design & puppetry are sheer genius, Team America just feels so heavy-heanded in its delivery, and sacrifices all the lightness and joy of its 1980 predecessor in favour of more accepted obscenities and racial issues. This year one of my favourite nights in included having some good friends round and watching Airplane!, and we still chuckled our socks off at the brilliant disaster movie parody and off-the-wall moments. There are too many sublime gags to pinpoint; it makes more recent comedies just look lazy. Someone commented on the Guardian article that they’d been on a plane recently where a small boy was taken by cabin crew to see the cockpit, and a nearby passenger couldn’t help leaning out and commenting ‘Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?’ These moments just lodge themselves in your funnybone and refuse to leave.

I love how the combination of silliness and deadpan have made this film so enduring, where the swearing, puppet-sex and casual racism might make something like Team America more divisive (the Airplane! team also didn’t need to resort to a five-minute vomiting sequence to pad out their story.) The latter is probably top of my comedy list, and if somehow this cultural gem has passed you by, I suggest you grab the DVD now.

Incidentally, I believe a capacity for silliness and humour is a large part of my parents’ success, and their shared love of films like Airplane!, along with Monty Python’s Life of Brian and these days, everything from The Simpsons to Gavin and Stacey, have made me able to laugh at others and myself in a good way, I think. I can only hope the film-makers of this century’s teens will rise to the challenge and create more stellar comedies that will stick around into their tricenarian years (and if someone wants to stick around with me for that long, I’ll count it as a huge blessing too.)

'Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue...'

Turning points

I’ve read a lot of try-hard books lately. Or more accurately, I’ve attempted to read them. After three years of over-analysis in lecture theatres and libraries, books start to become merely a product to pull apart and judge, rather than the cosy old friends of my childhood (when I would routinely romanticise the process by trying to find a window-seat to curl up in – or at last the end of the sofa nearest the window.) Books used to be an irresistible chance to float away on a story and become completely embroiled with its characters; from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s tragic and hopeful A Little Princess – dogeared with re-reading, even in adulthood – to Noel Streatfeild’s charming Ballet Shoes, I devoured my houseful of books. Wherever myself and my family went, we brought far too many books, and there were even books I associated lovingly with my grandparents’ houses. My childhood reading just preceded the trend of absolutely everyone reading a series (think Jacqueline Wilson, Harry Potter, Horrible Histories) and I like to think I chose and loved my books free from PR tactics and peer pressure.

So how I came to be two years out of an English Literature degree, a self-confessed bookworm but secretly, thoroughly out of love with reading – I don’t know. When you’ve learnt to take apart a piece of music bar by bar and question the composer’s motives and influences, it never quite sounds the same. And so it is with books; I find myself unconsciously picking up on Shakespeare-derived sayings, Austenian plots, oxymorons, repeated words, mixed metaphors, overpunctuation, streams of consciousness and the influence of postmodernism, when really wishing I could go back to finding characters, stories and little worlds created seemingly for my entertainment alone. Post-degree, I also tried to go for prize-winners, dark themes and inaccessible styles to continue my analytical education, when really I should have been letting myself back into the groove of enjoyable bookwormery with that elusive of genres, the Great Read. Only two GRs have this year sliced through the pedantic layer of academia that still obscures my reading: the first was the beyond-charming The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (highly recommended) and the second was my most recent commuting - and lunch hour, and bedtime – book, the newly-published Turning the Tide by Christine Stovell. This book has, quite simply, made me hate having a job and a life. What I wouldn’t have given to have an empty weekend to sit and read it from intriguing beginning to satisfying end (it definitely warrants a re-read.) But then again, it just may be the perfect commuter's novel. With the artful suspense of a six-part TV drama – a form which I think it would suit perfectly – the plot ebbs and flows with each chapter, giving you a little more information with each burst of reading.

When smooth-talking hottie Matthew Corrigan starts nosing around the sleepy seaside town of Little Spitmarsh, its bored residents are stirred by his plans for a chic new restaurant on the waterfront, to be followed by apartment blocks and a new-look waterfront. Many think a change is just what the town needs, but tomboy Harry Watling is distraught at the thought of her scenic childhood haunts and the tiny boatyard she inherited from her father being swept away by modernization. As Matthew puts his plans into motion, his cool business head is turned by feisty Harry as she becomes determined to make it as hard for him as possible (no pun intended, although there is a more than a dash of sauce to this classic romance.) Any girl who has been single for too long will identify with the confused and restless girl below Harry’s spiky exterior, and rakish Matthew is almost more fanciable than fictional. I was completely absorbed by the comings and goings of the Little Spitmarshers; adorable gay couple Frankie and Trevor trying to start a new life together, Sophia Loren-esque trout-pouting Carmen Moult waxing, plucking and coiffing the locals and gruff ex-naval handyman George with his immaculately kept caravan and tightly-sealed biscuit tin. You wish them all well in different ways, desperate for Harry to use her feminine wiles as well as her fighting spirit, willing father-figure George to come clean about the family secrets of Harry's past, wanting Matthew to soften and see the natural beauty of the place and its most snarling inhabitant. There is even a compelling mini-drama involving the florists’ canine companions Kirstie and Phil. The book’s magic lies in the frankness of its characters, the balance of their perspectives and Stovell’s ingenious ability to add a tiny twist or leak a piece of vital information just at the end of every chapter, making the wait for the conclusion absolutely thrilling. The romance is, perhaps, inevitable but their slow-burning attraction is realistically muddled and complex, making the reader root for them even more.

The bottom line is this is a fabulous summer read – romance, escapism and chuckles galore – but it is also intelligent, exploring business head versus vulnerable heart, natural beauty threatened by modern progress and the pain of losing an idolised parent, all while neatly avoiding cliché and schmaltz. I would love to go to a rugged coastal town and re-read this compelling novel in a complimentary setting, but it was vivid and absorbing even when wedged against a fellow commuter’s shoulder or in a city park surrounded by noisy teenagers and daytime drunks. Huge credit to Stovell’s talent as an author – she paints the quaintest seaside setting, complete with flaws, and makes her reader care about it so fervently that they begin to feel fiercely defensive of Harry and her quirky home. The chemistry between the two lead characters is tangible and the obstacles dividing them excellently placed. Even if you are nautically ignorant, the sailing theme gives you a taste of the freedom and beauty of our native waters, and Harry is the ultimate independent woman, mastering manual labour and tempestuous seas if not her own desires. As the last chapter came to a close, I got off at my station, sat on a bench in the sun and postponed my walk home by ten minutes or so to enjoy the last few pages uninterrupted, a little oasis of sublime romance in my rushed day. I knew from the first time I picked up Turning the Tide that this was a chance to renew my friendship with reading, and I greatly look forward to enjoying more of Christine Stovell's animated and intricate storytelling in the future. If your mind needs a little break from urban life, take a trip to Little Spitmarsh and fall in love with the sensation of diving into a Great Read again.

E is for Elegance

When I'm wandering around London or at a glamorous party, my eyes are never drawn to the suited and booted gents around me, but always to the female of the species. This is not me coming out to the blogosphere; for kissing, dating and arguing with, I like boys. That's just me. But for sheer aesthetic satisfaction, it has to be women who win every time. It's probably because of the range of fashion options and physiques, whereas boys just have short or not-so-short hair and dark or not-so-dark jeans to work with. I've been enamoured by a number of women who have passed my way lately due to an elusive elegance that wafts along with them. It could be a symptom of my working in a far more corporate environment than I'm used to, but mainly it's because I have become less than elegant, and I aspire to be a lot more so. I hesitate to use the term 'let myself go', but I've certainly become a bit relaxed and blase to the way I eat, (skip) exercise and dress day-to-day. Not necessarily a crash in self-esteem, but a lack of anything to make me up my sartorial game. I am not naturally elegant, but I seem to have stopped trying to be, and this is what peturbs me.

A number of factors foil my attempts to join the E-list, and these are as follows: I am incurably clumsy (known as 'the spiller' amongst friends), prefer keeping my heels under my desk than braving the commute in a sleekpair of 4-inchers, I do not drive, therefore acquiring a flustered rosy glow on the trek to various chic destinations, I do not have a limitless bank balance (I know money shouldn't matter but with style it definitely helps) and alas, I am not of the pale, slender, high cheekboned, ravenous Eastern-European persuasion which bombards our perception of beauty. Actually the latter does not quite fit my own idea of elegance; it can be anything from exceptionally radiant skin to beautifully coiffed hair, stopping by cinched waists and gloriously classic handbags on the way. Beautifully pedicured feet in sandals, light golden or porcelain skin, a glimse of slender wrist in a simple bracelet or a little Smythson leather diary are all part of a very London-specific elegance.

I keep seeing effortlessly shift-dressed ladies, their (usually glossy brunette) hair piled up in a chignon - seriously, who in real life can put together a chignon at 7am? - sleek waxed legs lengthened by simple black or nude pumps, a tres-chic hint of perfume completing their aura. It's true, many of these women will also have the misfortune of being a UBH (Unfriendly Brunette Hottie), casting doubtful glances at frizzy-haired, flat-shoed bag ladies like myself as they grab a soy latte. But often they are smiley, chatting ladies with a spring in their step who are just that lucky. It may take a few more hours at the gym, some high-maintenance grooming and months of saving for a better handbag, but I am determined to take a few more steps towards this kind of urban elegance. I was definitely more gazelle-like a couple of years ago (when I was also brunette, incidentally, although hopefully a friendly species) and I'm sure it can't take too much willpower to head back that way.

Thandie is Chanel-clad, Moet-sipping, chignon-rocking elegance personified

Playtime

As a follow-up to this post, (and a neat way of side-stepping more commenter abuse in a fortnight where I've had to work extra hard to slip my blogging in around a new job and show rehearsals and performances every night) a more lighthearted style post today. I bought two playsuits as part of my 'Break the Rules' plan for my Spring/Summer wardrobe. Having browsed around some of the high street shops and not seen anything perfect, I found two gorgeously retro and curve-friendly ones on Boohoo.com (I must add to that free advertising that they cocked up the 3-5 day delivery more than once and they took two weeks to get here.)

They are both gorgeous on, however, and such a joy to wear. The shorts are flattering on my less than sky-high legs and the whole look is every bit as glam as a dress while feeling more casual and playful. I road-tested the more daytime checked one yesterday and felt great in it, while I'm saving the more dressy navy one for another occasion. I'm so glad I decided to branch out on my clothing options, it is so easy to get stuck in a jeans and T-shirt rut at weekends. Now I just need the sun to return so I can actually wear my new purchases...

So little time...

I've been wanting to update this blog for well over a week now, and consequently have way too many topics to choose from. So I'll do sub-headlines for each to avoid the contents of my headspace spilling over you like a molten stream of consciousness.

Best bar Nun

Last week I went to see the newly-opened Sister Act musical with my two own lovely sisters. It was the younger one's birthday, and we all had a delicious meal at a little cafe/bar called Libre around the corner - highly recommended. After the nicest Thai red curry I've ever tasted and a passionfruit-champagne cocktail, I was very much ready for some singing nuns. The production was, in the words of its main character, Fabulous. You can tell it has Whoopi's Goldberg touch (I'm sorry, in an awful pun mood today), and effervescent lead Patina Miller has all of her attitude and comic timing, with the added bonus of being a lot more Beyonce-licious. There were hardly any filler songs at all in my opinion (I know some of my musical theatrey friends disagree) as they were all lyrically slick, often hilarious, with a strong theme of 70s disco, soul and funk. There were lots of genius close-to-the-mark rip offs (one VERY Dancing in the Street, one very Barry White, one very Marvin Gaye) but Alan Menken's astonishingly good score also has a few classically Disney moments, which might grate on less of a Disney-lover than myself. Katie Rowley Jones, previously a fab Nessarose in Wicked, does a great job of being the 'straight' character, and her voice lives up to the contradiction of little meek nun/huge voice, which notably had to be dubbed in the film. Overall it was a wonderful night out, with heartfelt, funny, poignant and downright camp moments, and everyone should treat themselves to it this year! In these crunchy times, you never know how long even the greatest West End show will run.

Deal Breakers

Another interesting quirk of humanity that came up over dinner on Monday night, and was in the London paper the following day, as well as popping up in July's Cosmo - those little niggles that can make or break a new romance. Various anecdotes revealed how we (not just men) find those irritations that we just can't live with in the other sex. Some were physical - who can forget Chandler's issues with oversized nostrils: 'When she leaned back, I could SEE HER BRAIN' - some etiquette-related (talking too much about themselves, name-dropping, poor hygiene) and many far more random reasons. Cosmo's Tracy Ramsden has a beady eye for bad accessorizing, citing "dodgy man jewellery" and "a friendship band screaming 'I spent my gap year in Thailand'" as bad omens on a second date. I do despise this kind of walking stereotype, the surfy haired, stoner-voiced, quite-rich-really-but-desperate-not-to-look-it guy, so that would probably be a deal-breaker for me. My own personal ones? Hardcore Daily Mail reading, rudeness to waiters, excessive vanity, drug-addled brain masquerading as 'chilled out', anyone described by their friends as a 'legend' or addicted to the word 'banter' (translation: loud, drunk exhibitionist with an inflated sense of their own brilliance), and fussiness with food. That's not such a colossal list, is it? But I am less tolerant than some; I truly believe I know in the first five minutes of the first date if the guy is a keeper.

The Glad Game

I mentioned in this post that I was coveting some gorgeous gladiator sandals for summery days. After extensive searching (and only one purchase-and-return error) I have found my perfect ancient-history-chic sandals. They're not actually classic glads, more Grecian-goddessy than Spartan-studded, but I love them. Yes, they murder my feet - all sandals do, I have oddly angular feet and ankles - but I'm determined to wear them in and enjoy my summer footwear romance.

And finally...

Funny story of the week: New Yorkers are getting a system of STI identity cards. The idea is that men register with the site, which synchs up to their sexual health history, and by acquiring their STI-dentity code (I really will stop soon), women can access their man's last two STI tests and make sure they're getting a clean slate, as it were.This is responsible, clever, and a little weird - a brilliant reflection on savvy New Yorkers. In one of the early series of Sex and the City, back in the days of the surreal vox-pops-style sequences, a guy remarks that women want a blood test before they'll even have dinner with you (or words to this effect). It seems SATC were way ahead of their time, and in the cynical, 'wise-up-and-get-a-grip' world of the Big Apple, falling in love really can be as practical as checking a bank statement.

Do comment on any or all of the above... I love comments.

Silver Foxettes

I have rarely delved into the world of fashion in this blog, partly because it is everywhere at Elle and this is just for my extra-curricular amusement, and partly because I am a little apathetic about the whole thing. I love reading about designers, trends, shows and the whole glamorous circus, but it doesn't really penetrate my little bubble of comfy jeans, pretty dresses and killer shoes. I prefer the word 'style', because I think the true, lasting style icons have always been the ones that dressed to please themselves and kept to a signature look which suited them. This is true of Marilyn Monroe (curvalicious gowns, halterneck dresses, feminine blouses), Audrey Hepburn (cropped cigarette trousers, androgynous jackets, polonecks and ballet pumps) and Jackie O (classic shifts, tailoring, those enduring glamourpuss sunglasses). The stars of more recent years who get the most 'best dressed' accolades are also people with a signature silhouette, usually from a favourite designer (Keira Knightley in luxe, draped Gucci, Jennifer Aniston in clean, simple Calvin Klein, Sienna Miller in goddessy Marchesa). I think style is something totally undefinable, something personal to you, and something you have to be an absolute fashion athlete to really maintain every single day.

The commute into London is a veritable playground of people-watching; I love, love, love the way London women play with layering, contrast and colour, and the mix of ethnicities, ages, shapes and working environments means a little fashion show is put on for me every day between Waterloo and Bond St. I am particularly admiring of Stylish Older Ladies in the capital; like Stylish Pregnant Ladies and Beautifully Dressed Children, it always puts a little joy into my heart to see them. There was an immaculately put-together SOL next to me on the tube this morning; in a black cotton wrap dress, impossibly soft chocolate cashmere cardi and accessorizing with a classic black Prada bag and sunglasses, perched elegantly atop perfectly Mirren-esque bobbed silver hair.*

I think it can be a challenge, but a fun one, to maintain a sense of style after a certain age. My mother gets more chic every year; she's having fun with finding glamourous workwear and bold accessories as trends change, but never forgets the best way to dress her shape. A lot of women slip into 'comfy' territory - this can be a good thing; my grandmother chooses the best quality materials and workmanship due to her dressmaker's instinct, and as a result is a very stylish septuagenarian - but I am determined to hold on to my style regardless of age and its restrictions. The absolute worst type of ageing is the surgery-stretched, teen-haired, muttony celebs who refuse to accept the inevitable (take note Joan Rivers, Madonna and Donatella). The SOLs I see around West London are passionately clinging to the classics; the camel trench coat, the wrap dress, the cashmere cover-up, the elegant pumps, the pearls, and the short, bouffant blow dry. I think you can be more diverse with your wardrobe than this Mayfair look post-50, but the silhouette is a brilliant place to start. I'm still trying to forge my style on a high-street budget, but it does make me smile to see so many British women working a fabulous Spring/Summer look in the city.

*Helen Mirren is quite literally the Queen of SOLs: gracefully looking her age but keeping her hair and dress daringly Oscar-worthy. I can only hope I have such poise and va-va-voom at 63. Here are my holy trinity of graceful ageing:

Summer Forecast

Here comes the sun... Or so say the Met office, predicting blue skies and temperatures exceeding 30 degrees at times. Being a total sun bunny, I was thrilled to hear this, as I'm hoping for many a summer weekend filled with barbecues, lawn-lazing, beach trips, water fights and countless ice lollies. However, I did have to fight the urge to snigger at the news coverage of today's report. BBC News online led with the Met Office's scientific declaration that we are "odds on for a barbecue summer", while the Guardian hammered home the vital 'breaking news' that we are 'unlikely' to have as much of a poor summer as the previous two 'wash-outs'.

Now, I am no meteorologist but even I know the weather is an unpredictable beast, often undermining the experts with its random twists and turns. This struck me as a bit of a non-story (actually, it failed to even strike me- more of a nudge, really), with on-the-fence vocab ruling out any real facts. If anything, the tone of the press seems to be humouring us, trying to boost us amid swine flu and debt hell with a vaguely hopeful guess about whether we'll be breaking out the SPF or the brollies this summer.

The mission to understate the matter did bring a smile to my face, however. BBC broadcaster Laura Tobin was determined not to be outwitted by the wily British climate, announcing that 'Compared to last summer, which was miserable,' (thanks for the reminder) '... it will probably be positive for the majority of people.' No hate mail for her come August, then.

Also in the news today is the announcement that summer-born children will be given the opportunity to start school or nursery up to two terms earlier, with schools offering with a free place after their fourth birthday. Any talk of 'summer babies', particularly August-born, always makes my blood boil. Writing as the owner of a very, very end of August birthday, I resent the constantly patronizing tone towards those just a few months younger than their school peers. I emphasize 'younger than', as people often confuse this with 'behind'. I understand how a child can fall behind in school, but surely an August 31st child starting the same school year as a September 1st child has exactly the same exposure to the curriculum?

Many would take into account maturity (which is surely not based on month of birth but style of parenting, number of older or younger siblings and many other variables) and amount of home education, which I would argue also relies on the parents preparing their youngest-in-the-year for the pressures of school. I can say I have never felt overwhelmed or particularly struggled with school, while I know many of my peers born the calendar year before me have repeatedly fallen behind. I remember feeling incensed when, as I got ready to receive my First class degree last summer, GMTV were reporting in the background about 'poor' August babies not being given extra attention in the classroom. I'm sure there are a few cases, but I'm equally certain that this rationalization is being used left, right and centre to excuse laziness, behavioural issues and even valid learning difficulties.

Even if I am the exception that proves the rule (and I know a lot of sharp and successful August-borns), what of March, April and May babies? They fall in the younger half of the academic year, and yet there appear to be few educational concerns about Spring-born infants. Enough of a rant, really, but it does make me cross that something as simple as my date of birth should single me out as someone who will find life hard.

I've started back at Elle as their new Features assistant, and am loving it already. Although it will be tough and hectic day-to-day, it is a fabulous office with lovely and very professional ladies, none of your Devil Wears Prada divas. I'm so looking forward to being up in West London this summer, hopefully in some cute skirts and gladiator sandals (still searching for Roman perfection: check out Kate Moss's Steve Madden beauties below), and I'm feeling more like a proper writer every day...

She may just be a bad excuse for Topshop to charge £18 a vest, but by god La Moss can do off-duty chic.

Sunshine and schadenfreude

After a surreal start to the year involving 10 inches of powdery snow in February, Spring has finally sprung. Last week was dreamily bright and daffodil-filled, and I continued with my employment offensive in between bursts of rug relaxation in the garden. On Friday I had my interview to go back to Elle as their features assistant (something I've wanted to ever since my first work experience stint there last Autumn), and I headed up in the sunshine, full of anticipation.

The interview went as well as it possibly could, with lots of lighthearted chat and laughter, I felt really lucky to know the office and staff fairly well. As I left, fingers firmly crossed, I resolved to have a lovely day minus interview dissecting and obsessing. Luckily I had a lovely man on hand to share sunny London with, and we set about a day of eating and drinking by the Thames, wandering around Theatreland, and eventually grabbed some bargain tickets for Avenue Q.

I have wanted to drop by the Avenue ever since the hit Broadway show transferred to the UK, and the residents didn't disappoint. It is a witty, pacy, bareback ride of a musical, with such hilarious themes as 'The Internet is for Porn' and the brilliant look at 'Schadenfreude'. The cast is insanely talented, with soaring vocals, incredible puppeteering skills and many voicing several characters at once. It was a very uplifting way to spend an evening, especially as it involved so many themes of entering the real world of work, love and life, although naturally caricatured.

Speaking of which, I am entering a new chapter: I got the Elle job and start in a month. This means I will get to scour the news for features ideas, attend and contribute to weekly meetings and eventually get to interview people and write up small pieces myself. I am totally thrilled as it feels like things are finally getting started for me; I know in such a bleak time for employment that I'm very lucky to have broken through even a little into journalism, but on the other hand I also know the time I've put in, the unpaid hours of going the extra mile and the effort I've put into networking and persistent follow-ups are a huge part of it.

In the news this week: Two high-profile mothers sadly died, both in tragic circumstances. Natasha Richardson's sudden and unnecessary passing was honoured in a quietly dignified dimming of the lights on Broadway and in the West End. Jade Goody's death in the early hours of Mother's Day has sparked a volatile debate as to whether she deserves such press reverence, which seems ongoing on every social networking site and round every watercooler. Far from questioning the level of 'deserved' press attention, I feel both responses are a direct result of their actions and public personas during their lives. Jade courted attention from the day she auditioned for the entertainment demon that is Big Brother, and lived her entire life in a reality TV bubble. Natasha Richardson contributed some celebrated performances on film and in the theatre, protected her boys from the paparazzi (despite their having two extremely talented and high-profile parents) and lived a quietly happy life in suburban New York.

Yes, Jade's memorial has been public and gaudy, undignified and glaring - but it is all the press can do with the memory of someone who got fully naked, shouted ignorant slurs at another woman, got a death-sentence diagnosis, got married, got chemo, got christened... all in front of the cameras. Her choice. I didn't harbour admiration for Jade at any stage of her life, but only a monster would ever wish an early death on a young mother. Two sets of two little brothers will have had a heartbreaking Mother's Day, and all those nobody vultures publicly criticizing either case seriously need to get back to their own lives.