MORE TRAFFIC-STOPPING NEWS

In my eagerness to report on NYC's very latest pedestrian crossing graphics I am delaying all other aspects of my life. I just have to rant and ramble in true Blogger Style.

Because now, peeps, the pedestrian crossing on Broadway, near my very own home is doing a new thing. Even more annoying than the 'walk, walk, WALK!' voice and machine gun noise, it now counts down how many seconds are left to get across the road before the red-man-of-doom returns. How distracting is that? By the time I've stood there watching the seconds tick down from 10, wondering if I have enough time to get across, I could have crossed. As it is I am now in  mathematical space and time torment every time I want to cross the road. How many miles an hour must I dash at to make it in 4 or 3 seconds? I don't know. What will happen if the lights get to 0 before I do? It is extremely anxiety-inducing, like almost everything else in this city.  New York, it's a wonderful town but every aspect of living here is designed to panic the living daylights out of you.

By the way, we watched Bonfire of the Vanities last night, a silly movie version of a great book. Once a fantasy tale set in a faraway land for me, noddanymore folks, noddanymore!

ENGLISH TREATS

Yum yum! Just admiring my haul from Myers of Keswick

Bisto, Paxo, Heinz Salad Cream, Ploughmans Pickle, 3 Chocolate Oranges, 2lbs of sausages, 4 bags of Walkers, a packet of Bourbon creams and some Penguin biscuits.

It's not as if there isn't plenty of processed food available here in Manhattan, because of course there is. It's just that we, in our little family, like our peripheries to be processed and not the main deal. We prefer to smother something genuinely grown in a field with factory made salad cream, rather than something also made in a factory. It's called a balanced diet, foodie freaks!

Myers of Keswick is a shop in the Meatpacking district owned by a British bloke. My kids absolutely love it if I go there but I am dreading the day they discover the truth. The truth being, it's a short hop from the subway stop at 14th St. Since we moved here I visit only rarely and tell the teenz it's because the shop is far, far away, difficult to get to and in a very dangerous area. Myers of Keswick in their imagination exists as a lonely island in an urban hell-fest of shooters, muggers and video game type zombies. One day they will see it's dotted along from the Catharine Malandrino shop, close to the gourmet-heaven of the Chelsea Market. On the other hand, the particular bit of 9th Ave where it lies is pretty bleak and I noticed today that the Nicole Farhi shop/cafe in Chelsea Market has closed.

The secret truth is: Chelsea is still rickety-rackety as hell. Walking west on 14th Street it's hard to believe you're heading into one of the city's priciest areas. Also, talking to fellow New Yorkers including a real estate agent househunting for Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz - I KNOW!! It seems like property there is secretly very CHEAP. It's just that no-one in the property biz wants anyone (the rest of us)  to know.

Well, I've digressed again. Looking forward to cooking roast, organic pork this weekend with all the Myers trimmings - the pork, incidentally, has cost almost as much as an apartment in Chelsea.

SUPERSTAR MODELS

T to B:  Margaux Hemingway, Roseanne Vela, Rene Russo (B/W) Patti Hansen

After having a conversation about teenage makeup with a mate today, I cast my mind back to the look I used to hanker after in my teens - American Model. It's so funny because natch, I didn't achieve it. My secret crush on the above models was mine alone. No one at my school had ever heard of Patti Hansen or Rosie Vela  but these girls were my pin-ups. To me these girls were fresh, fabulous and from another world. High Fashion was completely seperate from street fashion in those days, ditto the clothes, models and designers involved. A copy of Vogue was a fantasy trip to somewhere else and bore no relation to anything ever worn by ordinary people in England.  In 1976 most girls my age had shaggy-dog-style short haircuts, plucked-off and drawn-in eyebrows and tons of glitter make-up.

Anyway, must dash!

SECRETS OF A NYC STYLE GURU

I know a woman as stylish as Audrey....

Anyway, my friend, the divine Ms C is a high falluter in the fashion biz. She always looks amazing. Having a drink with her last night, I admired her dress - a short, navy jersey number, sleeveless with a sort of tie/bow on the shoulder, simple but gorgeous. 'How do you find time to shop for the right clothes, O stylish one?' I asked. 'And how do you match it all together,  moving seamlessly from one season to the next, dallying with all the designers without offending any of them? How, how, HOW?'

'Simple' she said, 'I don't shop. I have a little man - an ex-design house technician - who makes all my clothes. He makes me three styles of dress in four colours, jackets, skirts, shirts everything. Then, do you know Uniglo?'
'Yes' I said, tearfully by now as I KNEW SHOPPING FOR THE RIGHT CLOTHES CONSTANTLY IS IMPOSSIBLE AND DOES YOUR FREAKING HEAD AND WALLET IN AND THAT THOSE TRULY IN THE FASHION 'KNOW' NEVER, EVER DO IT....
'Well,' says my friend 'He gets me all my cashmere from there, such great value. He's not cheap, he makes my clothes very well, from great fabrics, but it's not like shopping designer retail.'

OMG. That's the way forward for me. Not that I need a working wardrobe like Ms C but I do spend too much time and money looking for the right, knee-length, covered up dress. Thank you design label Tucker by the way for recently producing the Dress That Saved My Life.  Oops, anyway, back to my friend. She splashes out on the latest bags & 'statement' jewelry pieces, but she leaves the foraging through Barneys to the sad & desperate like yours truly.

Well noddanymore designer rip off clothing stores, noddanymore!!

I DON'T HATE KATE BUT I DO LOVE......

Try singing today's post to the tune of 'We didn't start the fire' by Sir William of Joel (can't you tell I once worked somewhere where they made Smash Hits)

Barbara Castle, Helen Mirren, Alison Stedman, Kate Bush, Kate Adie, Jennie Murray, Stella McCartney, Cilla Black, Caroline Charles, Mary Quant, Lulu, Betty Jackson, Jean Muir, Marianne Faithful, Camille Bagwhandala, Ena Sharples, Anita Roddick, Joanna Lumley, Shirley Manson, Sylvia Plath, Bronte Girls, Boudicca, Vivienne Westwood, Afra Benn, Erin Pizzey, Sarah Parrish, Hermione Norris, Margaret Rutherford, Joyce Grenfel, Florence Welch, Marge Proops, Eve Pollard, Dierdre McSharry, Joan Bakewell, Cheryl Cole, Wendy Richards and all hard working British girls with the guts to make something of their lives.

It's a random list, don't ask why...just who popped into my head. Also I have to go out. Who have I left off?

FASHION'S MEAN GIRLS

A clip from Mean Girls

Can't resist another comment about Fashion World! Just reading about the furore over Daphne Guinness calling Victoria Beckham nasty names. Just want to tell people this:  That quote is solid gold. When Camilla Long filed her copy to her editors at the Sunday Times, the place will have lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. Lawyers, editors, MDs etc will have run around verifying the quote and then hitting the bottle to celebrate. How many extra hits/purchases must the Sunday Times have received yesterday? It's mind-boggling. Murdoch owes Camilla Long way more than he must have paid her for that article.

I hate the way non-journos like Daphne claim journalists make things up. These days you just cannot make stuff up. Editors, lawyers, Legal Directors, Publishers breathe fire down your neck every step of the way. You can't invent quotes like Daphne Guinness's. If only!!!!!! But you really, really can't.

LONG DISTANCE RANT

I am not the first to suggest he's running BBC R4....

Been feeling a bit out of touch with British culture this week so I tuned into some Radio 4 comedy. Oh good grief! Using the term 'comedy' very loosely here because I had already given up on it some months ago. Back then RBH and I decided that certain un-comedic writers must have something on the commissioners of comedy at the BBC. The same names pop up on the credits year in, year out, what do they know?

Anyway, I tried listening to more 'comedy' shows this week including The Ladies, about a public toilet and a John Godber thing about a cafe, plus the Now Show. My verdict: Barely concealed, ultra-posh accented voices stumbling over lame, cliche scripts and outdated concepts. Where is the Modern World? Not at bbc Radio 4. ALL the actors' efforts at regional accents were woeful. The underlying plumminess wouldn't matter if the stuff was clever and funny. I was worried when I heard about plans to change Radio 4 but I am absolutely behind that idea now. Keep the news and quizzes, but boot out ALL involved in comedy there. In fact, the thing to do would be to actually fire everyone at the bbc whose parents/immediate family ever worked there. Plus all the producers who constantly re-hire Quantick and co because they obviously feel they have to keep him/them in employment. Perhaps they all went to university together? Anyway, this would reduce the workforce by at least 3/4s but then they could at least install some Genuine Talent.

Not very NewYorky, I know!