boycott topshop

Photo source: fashionmagazine.com

Up until now I've tried to not really mention my opinions on Topshop on this blog. Mainly because I'm quite conflicted about how to explain them, but also because I know people don't really give a shit because they do what they do really well. If you like that sort of thing. But fuck it. It's something that I feel really angry about & if a blog that started off kind of personal style like can't talk about Topshop then the universe must be broken right? Because most people I talk to about this don't know & I think that's the problem.

So right. 

We all (mostly) know that Amazon, Google and Starbucks don't pay their tax. But why does no one ever mention Arcadia? Probably because no one's heard of them. Arcadia Group Limited own some things you have heard of though; Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Wallis, BHS, Topman & yes indeed, Topshop. They are theoretically owned by Lady Christina Green, or Tina Green. She happens to live in Monaco, haha isn't that handy? A tax haven! Of all places! (She also, on a side note is a white South African, which is something that sits with me extremely uneasily.) Her husband, Sir Philip Green is actually the owner of Arcadia Group and all the others. He does the day to day running and for all intense and purposes is the owner, except he lives in London. Where you (well.. most of us) have to pay tax. So you know as a gesture to make her feel involved or whatever he put his conveniently placed wife at the helm. Imagine earning £1.2billion one year and not even being the owner! No wonder David Cameron asked Sir Green for advice on how to cut government spending, considering he managed to cream off all that profit. 

This wasn't the thing that made me stop shopping there though, like 3? 4? 5, maybe, years ago though. No. It was the experience of being in a Topshop. The images showing girls with personality, models that you'd heard of, wearing clothes you could actually buy. & this is the thing "personality". I think Topshop was the first place where I ever really felt like they were trying to sell a personality to young girls. You know, like buy this dress & you'll totally be Kate Moss! Buy these shoes & you'll be Claire Danes in My So Called Life! Buy these & that guy who's never spoken to you will immediately love you! I know all advertising is like this but it felt more so in Topshop for me. I also felt like their copies of runway looks were being sold to people without the information. & the fact that Topshop is now trying so hard to drive the London Fashion Week scene makes me sort of physically sick. The fact that Samantha Cameron can pose with designers, Philip Green lurking in the background, whilst her husband diminishes the arts and pretends the fashion industry isn't one of the only things we still have going for us in this country. That the name St Martin's resonates around the world more than Eton should fucking mean something, should translate.

But it doesn't. Instead they churn out polyester copies at massive prices and inadequate quality & then turn round & tell us they know so much about fashion because they've worked with a couple of brilliant designers. & I can't say the collaborations are a bad thing to be honest, apart from the obvious fast fashion (& high fashion) guilt about eastern factory workers & the fact that they are essentially more expensive Topshop clothes that they didn't have the guts to make themselves. I also can't explain why I still shop in places like H&M or Zara who pretty much do the same thing. Well actually, H&M doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. It's collaborations are a genuine surprise and it is fast fashion but it doesn't ever say it isn't, it doesn't tell me it knows more than I do about how to dress myself. 

So basically I'm still very conflicted. But my anger remains and that keeps me away. I read someone's post about Topshop clones once who probably wrote this out better than me. I mean my generation did it because it was there, I don't hold it against them. I like that everyone looks better than they did in the 90s, is more aware of fashion than they were, I just fucking hate that they all look the same & that that seems to be the ultimate goal.

You know?

tumblr feminism

Right so this is really fucking hard to write. I'll start with the fact that tumblr has taught me a lot about how to talk about things & not be an ignorant dick about stuff, but it also makes me sensor myself quite a lot. I over think reblogging or reposting or commenting on anything because I do not ever want to derail a conversation I'm not meant to be a part of, I don't ever want to make someone feel shitty because of something I've inadvertently done because I don't know any better. & basically this comes down to the fact that I'm a white & cis. So my opinion has obviously, been rammed down everyone's throat for years. Not as long as that immovable object that is the white cis man but you know, I get it. Here's my privilege if you want to check it for yourself.

Let me point out too that cis, privilege etc are all things that I've learnt on tumblr. They also mean that I take a fuck load of white feminism with a massive pinch of salt because whilst you can obviously only talk from your own experience, you should also halt yourself before you try to apply that to a whole gender. 

I've always approached feminism with caution, because to be honest, a lot of it to me is very problematic. The fact that somewhere along the line the shift refocused to academia from self empowerment bothers the hell out of me. When I talk to my mum's friends about the fact that I don't care about whether young girls call themselves feminists, I care that they have enough self empowerment to say no to things they don't want to do, yes to things they do & generally do whatever the fuck they want without anyone (male or female) judging them for it. That's more important. It's more important that every single woman in the world has the ability to do whatever the fuck she wants.

And that's the biggest thing. Every woman. Regardless of skin colour or wealth or appearance. Because the biggest thing tumblr has highlighted for me is the divisions in race. I knew racism is everywhere, I know this, but now I see it everywhere. It's like when you first realise that as a teenage girl you are suddenly sexualised & start to see signs of that everywhere, you can't stop seeing it ever again. & it makes me pissed that not everyone sees it. For example, the other night on my way back from work (6ish, so not late but dark) a man walked up really close behind me and then overtook me with inches between us. Now ok from his point of view he's just trying to get home, he's in a rush, I'm walking slower than him, whatever. But rape culture means that as a woman, at night on my own, if you walk that close to me it's a fucking declaration that my feeling of safety does not concern you. He doesn't see it because he doesn't have to. This is so much of why racism was all but forgotten by white feminists. Because they just don't fucking see it.

Tumblr means that I can follow debates and learn a fuck load about what isn't being seen. I can check my privilege and adapt my behaviour in my real life. I can call out racism when I see it. But again, as a white woman it's not my debate. I will never comment on a post by the "woc" that I follow because it's not my debate, my opinion does not matter & they are not fucking posting to teach me, it's got nothing to do with me. But I can observe and come away educated and move forward as a feminist who doesn't want to make the same mistakes of the past.

Shit I really hope I've articulated this properly.

boycott amazon

Whatever your opinions on the book vs the e-reader (& I could write paragraphs on why you'd be wrong if you picked e-reader, in fact I just did & deleted them. Because.. you know.. focus) there is absolutely no reason to inflate the profits of a company intent on putting multiple staples of our high street & our lives out of business. I do not want to live in a world without books, but more than that I do not want to live in a world without shops, where the only place you can shop or need to shop is Amazon.

As much as that, I do not want to buy my nails and hammers from the same place I buy my DVDs. I want to talk to a human being & not scroll through reviews before I can be bothered to make my own mistakes and form my own opinions about things. Specialism is good. Come into the bookshop where I work and the first table is called "Staff Picks" because we know the stock best, we can pick out all the best things because we love them, because we can see past spines and because we know what we're fucking doing.

Of course one of the reasons Amazon became so popular (apart from price, which we'll come to) is because this is dying out, or was. Because scorny faced bored looking assistants in Urban Outfitters don't make me want to shop there. I know they probably get treated like shit & their managers a dick or whatever, but to be honest I don't care. If I'm having the shitiest day in the world at work I'll try even harder with customers so that they don't know that, so that they come back & I still have a job next month.

Now. Back to the most important thing. The thing that makes people mention the "A" word to me at work, immediately deeming them unworthy to shop there; the prices. How can you buy a book on Amazon for half (or even more) than the price in a bookshop like where I work? I'm not going to talk about the tax dodging because if you care enough to read this I'm sure you know enough about it. So let's focus instead on the main costs that Amazon and bookshops share: rent, staff, stock and why it's a totally uneven playing field in those areas as well as tax.

Rent. Bookshops need to be in prime locations so that it's convenient for customers and attracts passing trade, like any real world shop. The rents in these locations are completely extortionate as the private rental market drives them up and up at inflated prices because (some) chains think they can afford them. There are also business rates. Which charity shops do not have to pay, that's why they spring up in prime locations when other businesses can't afford to be there. At these locations too, space is limited, obviously, meaning stock has to be limited. Meaning bookshops can't have every single book you have found in the recesses of Amazon, because we wouldn't expect to sell it. 

Amazon on the other hand, well they rent warehouses. The four in England are in such top locations as Marston Gate, Rugeley, Peterborough, Doncaster and Hemel Hempstead. In the first six months of opening a warehouse or industrial building you pay no business rates. In this time they've probably made up their initial outspend to set up the warehouse. Imagine if your average retail shop had this kind of initial crutch? Although the rent and business rates (when they start paying them) are more, they're huge enough to house enough stock to make this worthwhile in a way that a small shop on a high street is completely unable to.

Staff. The minimum wage in the UK for people my age (20) is £4.98 an hour, I earn more than that in the bookshop where I work & after a review last summer I got a raise because of my high performance. We're also becoming a sort of John Lewis co-op thing as soon as the company goes into profit. My manager treats us with total respect, in the 2 years I've been almost full time I've learnt every aspect of the business, had my input in the running of the shop & been listened to when I've had concerns. 

At Amazon workers have quotas that are completely unrealistic, are given penalties when they take a day off work even for sickness and are unable to unionise against poor working conditions. They are also made to work a night shift at the end of a 5 day week meaning they work every 7 days of the week. That, to me, is slavery. There's a great bullet point list of details things that they've done against workers on the Housmans website as well as Against Amazon if you want specifics. Bust basically if you pay staff well, reward them when they work hard and treat them like human beings that is more expensive, but I do not want to pay less for something at the cost of that.

Stock. This is the biggest issue that faces me day to day working a bookshop. "Oh you don't have it/oh it's £20, I'll just get it on Amazon." They sell books at a loss to entice you in and buy other things, something bookshops cannot do because of the two things above. They put huge pressure on publishers for lower prices, squeezing their margins to the point where authors and they earn next to nothing. How can a business be innovative and take risks when if it doesn't sell they're already tiny margins will completely disappear? Publishers are not struggling because people have stopped buying books, they're struggling because the model of supermarkets putting pressure on their suppliers for smaller and smaller prices has been emulated by Amazon. & they have everything because as well as 78 "Fufilment Centers" around the world Amazon also acts as a platform and owner of millions of independent sellers all over the world. So just because something is listed on Amazon does not mean it's still in circulation and in print and whatever. It might just be sitting at the back of some second hand shop and have been there for decades. That's why I can't get it for you. They also fulfil orders for books they do not have in stock without telling customers they're unavailable or will take longer. We've had tons of students who've ordered foreign language books on Amazon that have simply never arrived. 

In bookshops the stock has usually been handpicked by someone seeing what people have bought before, or in the case of where I work, ordered by the staff themselves from experience of what their customers want or simply what's appealing to them. Making it quirky and eclectic and always a thousand times more interesting than having all the choices presented to you even though they're not necessarily available at all.

Obviously I'm pretty biased, but look at the facts. No tax, unfair treatment of workers and a completely uneven market weighted completely in the massive company's favour. Now I get that when skint it's harder to resist, but do you really need to watch or read or listen to that as soon as it comes out? Can't you wait until the DVD goes down in price or the book ends up second hand somewhere? Lack of money is never ever ever a barrier to morality (despite what Tories might think) and in fact shouldn't the skint among us be standing up for this sort of thing? I don't want a job where I'm treated like a machine or simply like shit. I want to work in a lovely bookshop surrounded by beautiful things, recommending interesting shit to nice people. I want to build a house of books inside my walls, I want artists to have jobs designing their covers and editors to make them and commission them, I want weird books that don't make a massive profit & I want huge expensive books that become heirlom's. I don't want a mystery warehouse in the internet controlled by capitalist robots.

Do you?

one billion rising

Tomorrow is Valentine's day! Yay! It's also the day of One Billion Rising. That thing that's been inescapable of late, from Thandie Newton on Channel 4 News to endless articles and interviews with the founder, Eve Ensler. But if you don't have a sadistic addiction to the news like me you might not know about it. Basically all you need to know is:

One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.

And to make a statement against this, internationally, one billion rising want one billion people to rise up against this. On Valentine's day. Tomorrow. So I've had some questions about what "rising" means but they've decided that means dancing (for some reason) but if unlike me, your not really one for dancing not under the influence, or you're like, at work; I think simply talking to people about it is pretty up there for raising awareness. So tell your friends, your boyfriend/girlfriend, tell your boss and your colleagues and the person who sits next to you on the bus or behind you in the queue at Pret. Tell them that (if there are 3 women in the room) that one of you/them statistically is likely to be raped or beaten. Maybe don't like point at someone specifically or anything, but make them realise that it is everyone's problem, it is everyone's fault. That one in three men are raping or beating women* is society's problem and we all need to do something about that. It might not be dancing, but awareness is the start.

(*I don't think that's how statistics work, because it could be the same man raping and beating multiple women, obviously, but like one in three times there's a woman there's someone raping or beating her, so almost*)

This man is now the Mayor of my city.

I can hardly talk that makes me so fucking angry. He was elected on the back of lies & the white middle classes. THE BIGGEST ISSUE IN BRISTOL IS INEQUALITY & GEORGE FERGUSON IS THE EPITOME OF THAT. In a city that has the highest sexual assault rates of anywhere outside of London we have elected a man who believes prostitution can never be got rid of, into a council that is on the brink of allowing a Spearmint Rhino to open in my city. My city. MY CITY. My city. My city did this.

So why do I call him a liar? The media is calling him an independent. He quit the Lib Dems practically seconds before announcing running for Mayor. He says he way key to the redevelopment of Bedminster. He bought a piece of prime property at the right time as the middle classes moved into Southville & instead of turning it into affordable housing or a place for the community is became a hub for theatre, organic food markets & middle class white people. Awesome. At one end of North street and the other the polarities of the city have never been clearer. He says he's "actually done stuff" in Bristol. What he does is campaign against any form of development until it's not approved & then presents his own architecture firms plans and wins the new contract. 

This man is completely self interested. He has been elected by sections of society in Bristol that have too much say already (40% odd turn out in Henleaze, Westbury & Redland) whom I shall forever deem as "The Unthinking Posh". He has no policies on inequality. He has no policies full stop. This is not about one in the eye for party politics as he is at his core a Lib Dem, this is about the fact that people can be bought.

He has admitted to spending at least £60,000 but what about the PR people around him? Every member of the Labour party staff have to declare their time as a deduction from the campaign fund. But I guess they were just volunteers right George? Not that they're getting paid fuckloads from their firms to campaign for you. He needs to be investigated.

I will fight every fucking thing he tries to introduce. If he has any power it will be detrimental to Bristol and will only line his pockets further. This man is poisonous. & we have just put him at the head of our city. Are you fucking happy Bristol? This might be a deal breaker for me to get off my ass & actually leave this ridiculous city.

Oh but PS. The Independent woman won for our PCC, which would be great, if all the above didn't apply.

FUCK.

Will be working on some posts tomorrow. I promise. I just had to put these up because I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to make tumblr suitable gifs of Malcolm's last speech in the last ever episode of The Thick of It. Which you can still see here. I literally had goosebumps. & my gif making skills have been pushed to their limits so before I drive myself crazy trying to get them tiny enough to work as a set I just thought fuck it I'll put up the big versions on my long neglected blog.

What have I been up to? Um... went to Paris, welcomed by best friend home from Russia, decided on a harlequin clown for halloween (because clowns are the scariest of all things), became scarily emotionless about dickhead students at work... That's all I can think of right now. I'm sure you aren't that interested. Oh & I saw that new Elle Fanning film Ginger & Rosa last night, it was extremely bizarre, in that is was so glossy that she made a totally unrealistic & wrong decision at the end of the film that sort of ruined the almost beauty of everything before it. I would recommend not going after a morning of watching Honey Boo Boo reality TV as well, so you're not unnecessarily cynical about staged filmic beauty.

What have you been up to?

Sticker from the etsy shop of the amazing Midge AKA ModernGirlBlitz.

So over my apple & coffee this morning I read this article in G2 about teenagers not knowing what consent means. Interesting, given that recently high profile men & what would appear to be the whole British media, are pretty sketchy about what consent means as well. The only good thing about the Julian Assange fiasco is that if it comes up in conversation I now have a great way of telling what side of the "rape fence" someone stands on & can adjust my behaviour towards them appropriately. As in "Wikileaks is more important than whether two women were raped" = spit in face/point & scream rapist.

The sex education in this country (never mind the rest of the world) is appalling. I was shown the same video twice, about cartoons having sex & what this does to their body. We were never talked to about what constitues emotional abuse, or that because boys are often raised on porn nowadays their expectations of girls are unrealistic & that the girls themselves should treat them as such. Basically, to say girls you have the power to say no to anything you don't feel comfortable with because the boy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about or wants anyway.

Recently I've had several friends tell me that guys have taken condoms off whilst they were having sex & although they felt completely violated, they didn't consider it rape. This totally astounded me. All of them are confident, self assured feminist women. It angered me so much that if it could happen to them & they did nothing, then what would these guys get away with, with more vulnerable women? They all agreed in the end that they had consented to one thing & the guy's had crossed the line into something that they had not consented to. Whilst I don't know the technical term for rape, it sure sounds like it to me. & I cannot believe that there are teenagers out there thinking this is ok. That there are guys that do this at all. I just... I can't believe it's so fucking common.

I've just been to a debate on the "Future of Feminism" that makes me truly think that the future of feminism is fucked if it's left in the hands of these "sisters". Not only were the panel patronising, they didn't answer the questions from the audience. They also intimidated other members whilst talking about patriarchy and how we have to bond together in a "sisterhood" and stop judging each other. In the words of my wonderful feminist mother "If you are against the patriarchy then stop patronising my daughter". 

When I asked a pretty legitimate question about the fact that the furthering of the feminism is more about empowering women from the ground up rather than having theoretical debates between like minded people about how we can further equality for everyone; I was met with defensiveness and talk of outreach programmes. The panel were very happy to talk about getting involved with the community to further the "feminist movement" but nothing about actual real women and what it can do for them. Nothing about young women which I specifically mentioned. And don't even get me started on Finn Mackay's response.

Other audience members asked questions which were repeatedly not answered or brushed over into areas the panel felt more comfortable talking in. There were interesting points raised about the role of black feminism as a separate entity within feminism as Chitra Nagarajan from Southall Black Sisters was on the panel. There was also a comment from Finn Mackay to the effect of "In the media feminists are painted as hairy, man hating idealists, like that's a bad thing" which was met with laughter. BUT IT IS A BAD THING. That's the reason young women do not want to identify themselves as feminists. That's why the girl in the audience who'd prompted this reply was being taken to an employment tribunal after making a sexual harassment accusation on the basis that she was an outspoken feminist and didn't know whether to identify herself as such in court.

She was also told to walk into court and tell them "to fuck off" by an American woman who had already read a piece from Sian Norris' book that was straight out of the handbook of bad 70s feminism. This is support. This is "sisterhood".

This same woman had grabbed the microphone to tirade a girl on the other side of my mum who had wanted to ask a VERY RELEVENT question about the medias perception of feminists. Offhandedly she had asked why writing about feminism is still seen as something to tiptoe around & apologise for, unlike racism or homophobia. But the high & mighty couldn't let it slide & answer the pressing question about perception of feminists, they decided to barrage her with complaints about how people are still racist & homophobic. Huh! Really? They patronised her to the point my mum was sat between two young girls shaking with anger at being scrutinised for wanting to move the idea of feminism & the moment forward. Into the future. The point of the whole debate.

No wonder young women do not identify with the idea of feminism if it is still purely a debate for academics. When the idea of patriarchy is still introduced. When we are told to "say the word feminism everyday". When those on the "feminist scene" are too closed to talking about feminism with anyone who doesn't identify with "sisterhoods" & "women only spaces". I am one of those young women & I can tell you for sure that I have said the word feminism to more people in my short 20 year lifetime outside of the world of "feminism" than any of them. I have debated what it means to be feminist with teenage boys raised on pornography & Lil Wayne. & I don't fucking care about pornography & I fucking listen to Lil Wayne.

If you preach non judgement on other women then do not belittle me because I oppose your arguments & can back them up. Do not set up a debate of the future of feminism and only talk about ideas of feminism that have been irrelevant for decades. We need it more that ever & they're taking it & turning it into something cliched & undebatable. So fuck it. Maybe I'm not a feminist. Maybe I'm an equalist. Because if the debate of feminism has been hijacked by these people then I do not identify it & I'll move onto a different debate. That of equality for all. Because that was meant to be the message all along.

A little bit disjointed but oh well, roll with it. Firstly how nice is the orangeish & red contrast of my scarf & t-shirt today? Wasn't feeling very inspired, top & disco pants...yeah, I've gotten boring dress wise. My wonderful scarf was knitted by my mum after I left the original in Cornwall last year, the pattern is like deer antlers, plus it's extra long "Like me" as I said when I first put it on. Haha.

More importantly though UK Uncut, the wonderful people whom there is a link to at the bottom of this blog, are planning some Christmas disruption for the bastards getting away with not paying their taxes. Now, bad banner & branding aside, lets move on. They're having a poll on facebook to decide who to target. Now, as I do not have facebook (I know, it's too hard to explain, basically, I have a phone) please, please, please vote for Topshop on my behalf!? PLEASE!? If I shout at you with caps does that help? I'm sure a majority of you like the world love Topshop, but Phillip Green is evil. EVIL. & it's the busiest of his stores so it deserves to be shut down. The only problem is security... Anyway, follow the linkage. & you know you could make up your own mind or I could try & filter it into your subconcious... Topshop. Topshop. Topshop.

They've even written a Christmas song to go with it, look:

"Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the town,

Cash tills were ringing, snow falling down.

Big business is merry, and with good reason-

For it's the busiest shopping day of the season.

But not every CEO should sleep snug in their bed,

As dreams of big profits dance through their head,

Because any tax dodgers with hop of good cheer:

UK Uncut know you've been naughty this year."

Vote for Topshop x x x

Good luck to everyone striking today, or standing next to public sector workers on marches & picket lines. Because the private sector has shitty pensions is not a reason to down grade those in the public sector. If, in the work place for example someone is discriminated against, you do not then decide to discriminate against everyone so it's equal, you sort out the original discrimination. If they wanted better pensions, they should've fought for them & put pressure on the government to put pressure on their employers. 

Anyway, today is not about the sceptics, it is to show just how much our country relies on hard working, low paid public sector workers to keep everything going. I think I could live without a couple of bankers, or retail workers (which I am one of) but I could not live without nurses or teachers. That's why they deserve better pensions & a bit of fucking respect.

& don't even get me started on the bullshit that cascaded out of George Osbourne's mouth yesterday. Literally, lets behead them. Or read Channel 4 new's fact check & smile/cringe/cry.

It's been 44 years since the Abortion Act was passed in the UK, 4 decades since my mum defended that same act against threats to change it & today on the front page of the paper is yet another threat against one of the most basic women's right we have in this country. An evil, spiteful & unfortunately powerful woman by the name of Nadine Dorries got elected as an MP in 2005, since then she has twice made ludicrous attempts to undermine basic rights by being the driving force behind the Conservatives obsession with shortening the abortion limit & teaching abstinence alongside sex education to girls - not boys - the clear misunderstanding there obviously being that ideologies are more important than arming our young vulnerable people with the tools they need to protect themselves, whatever promises they make.

But this isn't about Dorries, however much of a despicable character she may be, this is about the fact that the government is listening to people like this & that today, with the strategic words from a lawyer or two, they are proposing to change the decision making process of women considering abortions. A small change means it doesn't have to go through Parliament & so on the grounds that those evil, selfish (note: sarcasm) people who go into the British Pregnancy Advisory Service are money hungry emotionless baby-killers; proposes to replace them with softly spoken heavily biased towards religion, pro-life & supposedly "independent" advisors. Advisors who will go onto softly, religiously whisper words of encouragement into ill-prepared vulnerable women's ears about the fact that the cluster of cells is in fact already a human being.

They can say they are "independent" because they keep their religious funders in hushed whispers & out of the limelight. No doubt it's a man, whom I'm afraid has absolutely no authority over anyone's womb & has no idea at all about what a heart wrenching decision it is for anyone to go through an abortion. & an even more sinister thought that was niggling at me until John Healey said it, was that this highly controversial & oddly timed announcement comes just before the Commons debate on the Health Bill as a whole. I wonder how much of that two day debate they will happily hand over to suitably angry opposition MPs who they will accuse of living in the past, when in fact they simply can't believe we're still having this conversation.

Full Article. Picture Source.

Finally. If your gonna fight, fight for something. Proving stereotypes... Targeting the wrong people... Showing that if you call generations stupid they'll start acting like they are... Did it occur ironic to anyone else that The Smiths are the perfect soundtrack to this so called riot?

Anyway, I'm off up to London tomorrow to buy some pattern cutting supplies. Might stay on & uhr...loiter about Parliament on Thursday though. What do you guys think of this mess? I thought they were justified up to the people's housing & independent businesses. I mean the enemy is police, government & capitalism right? Or maybe this is the riot for capitalism. Anarchy for free stuff. Oh my, the debates we could have in our ivory tours... I sound like a dick. Time to bow out.

2 posts in one day!?

Quick post to say I have FINALLY finished tumbling all my favorite looks from the past Resort, Spring & Couture shows over at ICBFASHION.tumblr.com. I know you can pick your own but I like to narrow down my choices for collages/inspiration/overview you know? It also gives me an excuse to flood this blog with more gifs! Mwah ha ha, this time a copycat of another seasons Christopher Kane collection because damn his clothes look good in quick succession, no?

& holy shit, whilst I was painting skirting board & watching prime ministers questions the Murdoch empire took a massive step back! Go us & our signatures & Ed Miliband who is frankly kicking ass right now, along with Gordon Brown, who personally I think should still be PM. I want sturdy moral politicians like him, not slick robotic evil PR machines like who we've ended up with. Looking forward to reading about the Guardian picking apart exactly how Cameron was lying in Parliament about them not warning him, because I am smug in the middle-class way sometimes. I'll go there. Although by pure definition I am not middle-class I read the Guardian, ergo it comes with the territory. Anyway enough of my extremely English internal class war...

It's sunny tomorrow.

What's happened can only be expressed through garish gifs, ok? Ok. So it's a displacement activity. But how HOW if you are a brand can you 1. Wait until all this broke to take your advertising out of a newspaper like the News of the World. 2. Work again with basically the same people at a different newspaper, as they're the ones who were there when the whole shit was going on. 3. Work in any way shape or form with Rupert Murdoch, his brood or News Corp again. I say boycott anyone who was there in the first place. (PLUS Tesco are still fucking there!?)

**Edit. The urls for the Sun on Sunday were registered two days ago. Seriously? He loses nothing, if anything he's cut his losses on a tired paper & will carry on as usual**

WE CANNOT LET THEM USE THIS AS A BRUSH OFF FOR THE PROSECUTIONS & INVESTIGATIONS THAT NEED TO TAKE PLACE. THESE PEOPLE ARE STILL DOING WHAT THEY DID & WE NO LONGER HAVE A DEMOCRACY, I REFUSE TO GIVE UP OUR FREEDOM OF PRESS (WHAT LITTLE WE HAVE LEFT) WITHOUT A FIGHT.

Sign below

Please sign this.
"In 48 hours, nearly half the British mass media could be bought by one of the world's worst media moguls.

Rupert Murdoch has exploited his vast media empire to push war in Iraq, elect George W Bush, spread resentment of muslims and immigrants, and block global action on climate change. He undermines democratic government across the world by threatening elected leaders with vicious and often false media coverage unless they do his bidding.

Britain plays a key role in Europe and the world. If Murdoch has a lock on British media, he will use it to undermine UK, EU and UN support for human rights and democracy. The UK is up in arms over the Murdoch bid, and even the government, elected with Murdoch's help, is split down the middle as it makes a decision this week. Global solidarity bolstered Egypt's pro-democracy protesters -- it can help Britain's. Let's build an urgent global outcry to stop Rupert Murdoch. Sign the petition to Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Clegg!"

Taken from: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_3/

I've been a shit blogger & it's not going to improve as I'm heading up to Glasgow to see my father & talk business plans ooo. So uhr, for now I urge you to sign the above & look at the new Couture shows because there are fucking ace.

Love.

Last Friday was the 40th Anniversary of the Misuse of Drugs Act & seems like a good as time as any for Release's newest campaign for better laws on drug legislation. As you can see there's a glitterati of celebrities & important folk signed up to be associated with the campaign, mainly because it's headline is about decriminalizing possession rather than anything to do with the controversial subjects of reclassification and legalization.

As I've written about before on the blog, I feel pretty strongly about the failure of the drug education & legislation in this country & around the world. Whilst it is great that this has got into a national newspaper - the Guardian obvs - still we're discussing the minor subjects in view of avoiding the bigger ones. Today also New York has released it's new Global Commission on Drug Policy but have come out against any change to their laws & I feel the UK government will take the same line. With Rupert Murdoch & his followers & against "mad lefties" & well, science.

If we allow the government to continue only releasing drug figures when for some reason unconnected to anything they've done, the drug use (by their estimation) goes down. & to keep painting people who believe the drug laws need to be changed as being "mad lefties" & hippies; then there's no way to get the unfiltered message across. In the early months of the Tory-led coalition in the UK they gave over a House of Commons debate to David Nutt (the fired scientific adviser to the last Labour government) & others, including Caroline Lucus who made some great points based around a trial run in Brighton of which I forget the name... Anyway, unless like me you have a penchant for BBC Parliament you probably didn't catch anything about it in any of the newspapers or media because whilst our politicians are kept in line by businessmen they are unable to have any real opinions that go against them. So let David Nutt's comment above ring in our ears & be fucking ashamed we never listened to him in the first place.

Discuss.

From my monthly Fawcett Society e-mail. I was thinking of moving to Spain with their lovely Socialist government & then... Los Indignados aka The Indignant One's both prove that even a socialist government can't ride this out whilst still paying back the debt, but also that their young people get angry about the right things. 45% youth unemployment versus tripling university fees, I think I know what's more important. Anyway...

Happy Sunday