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If you're in London and like Mimi Berry's bags and purses, which I wrote about here (she does an especially fine line in satchels), you might like to know that she's got a late-night shopping evening next Friday the 11th. She's open until 10pm and you get a 15% discount. Say hi if you're going - I'll be there stroking the green goatskin above. 

Available in Mac and PC versions. Also, look at the iPhone/iPod embellishments:

Show post: A post to accompany my weekly radio show
(www.bangradio.fm Saturday 11am)

Tis The Season...

 

...to buy everyone you know a pressie. Well, the most important people...and secret santa at work but if picking gifts is not part of your repertoire then the web is your trusty friend since he's the key to the world of gift aides. The best I've seen so far is Not On The Highstreet - it provides unique, personalised and run of the mill gifts for him, her, young and old. C'est magnifique

On the other hand, if you're thinking like me...Tis the season when flagging profits are remedied by crimbo megalomania. TV says 'shop', man on radio says 'shop', papers and mags says 'shop', shops say 'shop'. Ahhh forget about that guy, Jesus, being born. Let's just buy tons of sh*t for each other (we don't really need) so we can all feel loved and happy for the time is takes to rattle, open and shelve the thing. My alternative to a superficial Christmas is to maybe make the presents or use a talent or skill so it holds some sentimental value, that way it has a meaning. If not Christ, then the time you spend doing something for others.

Curbing (Your Spending)

I figure after all that nonsensical spending and your logic slowly returns to your shopping habits, your pockets will be somewhat all bone barely able to move to make any more payments and will probably go into cardiac arrest at the thought of having to pay full price for anything. So you will be curbing your spending and more diligent with financial activities than any other time of the year (I'm sure this is a fact). I also figure that you will appreciate a bit of that 'outlet' shopping. Yes I know there will be sales but more on that closer the time. It is good to take note of these outlets just in case you get side kicked, pushed and trampled or left empty handed and injured in the Boxing day and January sales.

In London:

Thomas Burberry

29-53 Chatham Place

Hackney

London E9 6LP

The Factory Outlet

805 High Rd

North Finchley

London N12 8JT

Tokio

26 Topsfield Parade

Tottenham

London N8 8PT

Outside London:

Ashford Designer Outlet in Kent

and the best one of all:

Bicester Village in Oxford

50 Pingle Drive

Bicester OX26 6WD

Artificial Assets

This has to be my favourite topic this week. Beyonce come out of the closet, you've been outted...butt pads? Really? I smile because I wondered how this girl could possibly have buttocks that could kill (in her videos) and then buns made from plain flour on any given ordinary day. How you say flat in French? It's the trickery on an international stage that makes me revel in this embarrassing truth. This extraordinary celebrity has nothing more than an ordinary derriere...now enamoured girls can stop praying for Beyonce's bum they can just buy it and at a very affordable price.

Let this revealing fact make men ease on bum bum expectations. Store bought buns of pads that look like perfectly rounded buns of steel, what other things could the superficial world be concocting now. They say (on The Tyra Banks show) the best ones are Esbelt Better Bum Padded Briefs on sale for only £24 at www.themagicknickershop.co.uk (and in the US www.lovemybubbles.com) - beats surgery and months of working out. The only thing that was left out of consideration (much like padded bras) is what do you do when you have to take them off....say for sex? And worse, imagine if the only reason you got to have sexual relations was for your artificial asset. Lol Instant pert batty with them, no batty without lol.

Me

Me

The 100 best quotes from The Wire, part 2. (Part 1 is here). 

I am also really, really *loving* this book

which is by Steve Busfield and Paul Owen, is bang on the money and which you can buy directly from here. Needless to say, a Wire box set (54% off!) would be the best present of all time for anyone who hadn't seen it yet. God, I'm so jealous of people who haven't seen it. 

One of the many clevernesses of the book is that it recognises that brands are thumping great signfiers, so that you know exactly what kind of milieu you're dealing with - arty, affluent, liberal, book-loving - without it being spelled out for you in naff, product-placement sounding paragraphs. You look at the photographs and you get it immediately: this is a world of first editions, Dr Hauschka Rose Cream, Smythson diaries, London stays at the Groucho Club and LA ones at the Chateau Marmont, designer socks and vintage clothing - but also of letters, scribbled-in paperbacks, bits of kitschy tat, postcards, takeaway menus, DVD box sets, flyers, home-made presents. 

It's a clever idea that could have gone nowhere but has ended up being brilliantly executed; I also found myself very moved by it. And it's a pleasure to look at as well as read. Also, it's bang-on about men and women, particularly with respect to men who are slightly too pleased with themselves and women who just want everything to be okay. Get it for your girlfriends - it's *the* perfect Christmas present (and I think really a book that's more for ze ladies). Published by Bloomsbury, £12.99. Here's Rachel Cooke's review from last week's Observer; below is the author talking about her book.

They're £27 each and take 2-3 weeks to be delivered to UK addresses, but if you buy two you get a third one thrown in. I was fine posting all the presenty stuff earlier but now I am in an agony of longing. I want these so badly. *loud voice* If any of my family were reading this, you know, on the offchance, they might like to band together and get me them. Like, all of them. All the letters. For me. For Christmas. Or my birthday. Or both. Please. 

All of these from Not On The High Street, source of mucho goodness.

Oh man, the cosiness. £60 from here.

Angel wings made of real feathers, £14.95

(Except someone's pointed out that the tip of the girl's hair looks like a BEAK, and that it therefore looks like she's got a possibly-not-very-alive swan draped around her shoulders, ew)

A rabbit satchel (also deer and horse), £45.

Airfork One, £7.95.

Now Panic And Freak Out mug, £9.50.

Christmas-pudding flavoured lip gloss, £3.50.

I love this. Moon in My Room is a wall-mounted light that behaves like the moon - it passes through twelve different phases, or it can be set manually to behave like the real moon. £34.50.

 

Vintage Enid Blytons, from £40.

The swimming pool poster from the Seventies, £94 handsomely framed.