The Day Democracy Died

So this morning, I was feeling pretty sunny. Shallow creature that I am, cute boy in the office telling me I was beautiful yesterday brightened up my mood no end. It's not like that; he has a girlfriend, and it's not like *that*, for those of you who are unfortunate enough to know me so well they're about to point out that men having girlfriends hasn't exactly stopped me falling head over heels in love with them in the past, it's total harmless fun. I wear short skirts and bend over the photocopier, he stares at my arse, everybody goes home happy. If I were his girlfriend I'd probably not be best pleased, but recent experience has left me feeling rather unsisterly, to be honest. I'm not interested in this guy in that way, but I'm coming round more and more to my friend's saying, "girlfriends aren't mountains, they can be moved" - prefereably to the bottom of the ocean, weighed down by their giant noses, in some cases. (To my loved up female friends I should probably mention I'm still all talk, and I don't fancy any of your boyfriends. To the boyfriends: sorry. You're nice people though.)

Anyway, I was in a good mood. And like most of my good moods, it wasn't to last. If you want to feel the full extent of my incomprehension of what happened next, check my Twitter feed from about 9.30am, where I live-blogged my rage. Otherwise, read on. Up fairly early for a Saturday (and a little pleased for it), I stepped, blinking, into the early morning sunshine and went to buy a paper. I already knew about Alternative Vote (AV). Last night, as the results filtered through, I wasn't even angry. Just sad. Sad and incomprehending how anyone could turn down the first and probably last chance we'll have in our lifetimes of a real democracy. Obviously I'm doing my stages of grief in the wrong order, because anger came this morning when I was halfway out of the shop door, Guardian in hand, and caught the front page of the Daily Flail:

"The Day Britain Stood Up For Democracy"

I thought until very recently that that comedy skit thing, where people are so shocked by something their jaws drop open was nothing more than a comedy device for sketch shows and cartoons. But I stood there, literally agape. They were crowing, triumphantly, about *keeping* FPTP. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING FUCK?!?!?! Because of FPTP our Prime Minister is the leader of a party that won 35% of the vote. That's democracy? Our deputy prime minister, who literally decided what shape our government would take, having the official responsibilty of choosing between the Tories and Labour as coalition partners, is the unpopular leader of a party that won less than a third of the popular vote. That's democracy?! AV isn't perfect, but at least the winning candidate has to have accrued 50% of the vote, even if it's on aggregate. Under FTPT we've ended up with a government who more than 50% of the electorate didn't vote for. How is that fair? All the main parties elect their leaders using a form of AV or Single Transferable Vote (STV). Cameron went through four ballots before winning the Tory leadership contest on aggregate. Using FPTP it would have gone to David Davis. Is that how Cameron governs? Sticks his fingers up and says "do as I say, not as I do"? How is that fair? Plus, if I were Australia I'd have something to say about the Tories and the fucking Dail Fail labelling AV "undemocratic" - Australia have been using AV for more than 100 years. Oh, and the NO campaign argument that AV results in more hung parliaments? Australia have had one, in 100 years. We've had two in 50 under FPTP. Maths - not a Tory strong point.

So now all that is left to do is apportion blame. I'm not blaming no-voting Tories; they're Tories, they're evil, that's just how they roll. I blame fucking lefties. Yeah, like a cannibal, I'm savaging my own. Deal with it.

Not all lefties, obviously, all but one of my friends who shared their voting preferences with me voted yes. That's not surprising, my friends are all lovely, intelligent people. And the YES campaign didn't even fail because of people voting no. It failed because of idiot lefites NOT VOTING. It breaks down like this:

Idiot Group One - Those who didn't vote because they felt AV was a compromise when what they really wanted was Proportional Representation (PR). Is your face sore, since you cut off your nose to spite it? It's called progression people - AV, like cannabis, is a gateway drug, nobody *starts* on crack. For fuck's sake, you morons, SEE THE BIGGER PICTURE.

Most bile however reserved for:

Idiot Group Two - Those who didn't vote because AV won't stop the cuts/end world hunger/solve every problem that has ever existed ever. A dichotomy of our times is that younger people are more politically aware than ever before, and yet more apathetic than ever before. Fringe reactionaries like Laurie Penny have devoted their entire careers to getting young people to pay attention to politics, but by convincing them that all MPs are facists, all governments are oppressive, and there's no point voting because the only person who speaks for the poor and socially disadvantaged is her. One might question how much insight Laurie really gained into poverty and social injustice during her time at a fee-paying secondary school and then Oxford University, but obviously she's learning by Cameron's example.

I'm not saying if you're wealthy you can't care about poverty, or that anyone naturally doesn't care about something that doesn't affect them directly, but honesty is key. My upbringing was nowhere near as privileged as Penny's obviously was, but I've still lived a comfortable lower-middle class lifestyle. I live in a small house in the nicer part of a run-down town, but I never wanted for anything I really needed. I was pissed off that when I was at school because I never got to go on the foreign exchange or the big trips with the school choir, or have dance lessons or horse-riding classes or any of that because my parents couldn't afford it. But I had my own bedroom, I had access to books and a computer, and I had nice clothes and good food on the table every night, and as you get older, and you realise that a lot of children grow up without those things, you realise how lucky you really were. And part of that is owning up to your relative privilege. There's something so snide and slimy about the way Laurie Penny is always reporting from "inside" the squatters camp, how she's always pretending to be "one of them", but at the end of the night she goes home to her nice flat, or by her admission, to drink free champagne at posh parties with all the other media luvvies. It's no different from all the upper class Gap Yah! kids going to piss all over Africa for their holidays and then talk about how it like, *totally* changed them - it's poverty tourism in its purest form.

So yeah, you've got the Laurie Penny anarchist-lites, who didn't vote because "no authortiy represents me man, no matter how it's elected". Then you've got people like Lisa Ansell who inexplicably is a regular contributor to the Guardian, despite not being a particularly talented or engaging writer, and only having one area of interest - herself. Everything is seen through a prism of how it affects her, as a single mother. Hence the appaling piece of trash the Gruan shamefully ran the day before the referendum where she droned on about how she wouldn't bother voting AV, because it did nothing to halt the cuts, which were making her life, as a single mother, very difficult. "Why vote for AV while public services are being cut?!", she and her cohorts cry. "Why not accept that they are totally seperate concerns whose relative merits have no bearing on one another?!", replies the voice of sanity, drowned out by all the madness.

Feeding from that, and from the whole Laurie Penny Gao Yah! thing, there are those just too *global* to care about aything as *parochial* as a national referendum. "Who cares about AV when children in Africa are starving, dude?" "Will AV stop the hurricanes? Fuck AV man. Now pass the weed." You can tell I spend too much time in Shoreditch.

To borrow a line from an erstwhile favourite band of mine, you lazy hipsters make me sick. With your one moment of arrogance, you've screwed everything, for a generation or more. Think about it. Who wants politcal reform? The Lib Dems are the strongest supporters, and they'll be lucky to see power again in 100 years after what they've done. Labour are split on the issue, but could be convinced to pursue it if public favour ever turned that way. But when will they ever get the chance? If they offer another referendum within ten years they'll be accused of trying to force people to change their minds when they've already spoken. Bring it in without a referendum, which is the better option, because the British voting public have continually proved themselves to be idiots, and they'd be slammed for bringing it in by the backdoor and get chucked out at the election along with their policies. We may never see a chance like this again in our lifetimes. And lefties, that's on you.

David Willetts I can solve your problems - don't cut funding, cut classes

Every day this week, another university has announced its intention of charging the new maximum tuition fee of €9000 per year. Oxford and Cambridge, naturally, were first, presumably because they're always on the look out for ways to dodge their quota on state school intakes. A long line of others followed; around two thirds of British universities have so far announced they will be charging the maximum possible fee under the new system. All have trotted out the same line - with the cuts being made to their funding, they *have* to charge the maximum rate to "maintain educational standards". For the most part, I suspect, this is probably true, although there are almost certainly some liberties being taken, not all universities are actually any good in the first place, on which more later.

The only way for an institution to avoid charging the full fee, it has been said, would be for it to cut class sizes. Of course, everyone recoils in horror at this idea, with a third of all applicants already missing out on a place at university this year, so we're back to full fees again. Thing is, cutting class sizes isn't a bad idea. I wouldn't just cut university places - I'd cut universities.

The over expansion of certain areas of higher education is something that's been bothering me for years, and I always meant to write about it, even before the fees increase. I've possibly been putting it off because I fear holding this opinion is going to make me unpopular, but screw it - I'm right and Tony Blair was wrong; not everyone needs to go to university. I know the statement and the following policies were made with the best intentions - graduates (at least at that time) tended to out-earn non-graduates, due to having better job prospects. All well and good, although you have to question how much of this is also down to the fact that by and large, graduates are still from wealthier families who will always have a greater level of social mobility. But, noble as the end is, the means has actually managed to destroy it.

There is now literally no point in having a degree because EVERYONE has one. Yes, time was, having a degree opened up a whole new world of job opportunities; now walking into an interview and saying "look at me, I have a degree!" improves your chances about as much as walking in shouting "I have a puppy!". Most large cities such as Birmingham or Manchester have three universities, small-to medium sized cities have at least two and even shitty little nowhere towns have one these days - I think when I lost faith in the system entirely was when I was introduced to the University of Basildon.

It's not just quantity that devalues degrees, but quality. To meet expectations that every young person should go to university, regardless of academic ability, a lot of the new universities that sprang up had incredibly low grade requirements. I remember when I was applying to uni there was a big scandal involving South Bank University as it had been revealed in an undercover sting operation that they were offering places on the condition the candidate achieved three Es, sometimes not even requiring them to pass any A Levels at all. Back then it was a massive scandal, now, that's normal. So you end up with universities full of people aren't really suited to it, staffed by unenthusiastic lecturers (lets face it, teachers will always prefer teaching the brighter kids to the no-hopers), with lower pass requirements because otherwise the majority of the students would fail anyway and it'd all be an exercise in futility. So having a degree no longer has any cache in terms of setting you apart from other candidates on the job market, and it no longer implies that you're particularly intelligent and/or well-educated. I don't mean to sound snobby here, by the way, if someone really wants to go to university but doesn't have the grades, there should always be a way, be it resits, taking a foundation course or proving your ambition with extra-curricular activities. Universities should and do have some discretion on individual cases. But the problem we have now with the whole "everyone must go to university" drive is that people who would normally not even want to go to university drift into it blindly because the presumption now is that going to university is normal and not going is not.

I think somewhere along the line as well we're having problems with the fact that university is no longer primarily seen in some quarters as about education, but as a "life experience". Remember last year, maybe the year before when the idea of condensing degree courses into two years was mooted briefly and everyone went mental? Everybody was up in arms over the fact that if students had more classes during the week it would impact on the amount of time they could spend socialising, and they would not be able to enjoy "the university experience". What the actual? Even when I was a student I wondered what I was supposed to do with 30 free hours a week and three months off over summer. I'm not a joyless harridan opposed to having fun, but dude - you signed up for an education, not a three year party. And if I can work 37.5 hours a week and still have as rad a social life as I do, I think you can manage if your contact hours go up from seven to 14.

But, dear readers, I do not present you only with a problem, I present you with a solution. David Willetts, take note, I'm going to save your ass here:

1.) Don't cut funding, cut classes. I'd question whether every city in the UK needs two universities or even one (can't Bognor Regis just be a holiday resort?) but they certainly don't need three. Get rid of the excuses for learning institutions whose only entry requirement is a pulse.

2.) Bring back vocational training and apprenticeships. I want to reduce university numbers, I don't want to throw people on the scrapheap of life. Not everyone may be suited to university but that doesn't mean they're not suited to further education - there should be a variety of educational options on offer to school leavers.

3.) Part two of this - scrap ridiculous academic requirements for entry level jobs. Because everyone has a degree now, employers are jumping on the bandwagon. It is being brought to my attention more and more recently that entry level office jobs - office junior, admin assistant, receptionist etc - are seeking applicants "educated to university level and above only". I saw an advert for a temporary receptionist for a two week (two week!) contract last week and it specified graduate applicants only. I'll level with you - I have far more experience working reception desks than I care to think about, and at no point did I need to draw on my extensive knowledge of 17th century poetry or the fall of empires post 1945. You know how when you're a kid, say five or six, and your parents teach you how to answer the phone; pick up receiver and say hello? Yeah. That's all you need. There's something uniquely depressing about the realisation that for the majority of your working life your job could have been done by a five-year-old. Thank goodness they're all in school. Employers - stop it.

4.) If you have to raise fees, raise them for masters degrees. A consequence of everybody pursuing undergraduate degrees is that in the last five years, the number of people taking masters degrees has exploded. When I graduated, I knew two people who went on to do masters degrees; one was a research scientist, the other had done a generalised humanities degree and was now specialising in the field that she wanted to work in. Pretty normal. But now, because ev-ery-one has a bachelors degree, ev-ery-one now does a masters degree, in a desperate attempt to put something on their CV that marks them out; and a tragic number of people doing MAs and MSCs are the "university experience" enthusiasts of earlier, who just want to defer getting a job for another 9 months. I know of far too many people doing masters degrees who have no regard for their subject, but are merely pursuing a higher degree because it's virtually intertwined with a bachelors degree now, so customary has it become, or because they view it as an excuse to drink more for longer. And it's not stopping there - I'm pretty sure it used to be unusual to know more than one person doing a PhD; I know seven. How long before it becomes necessary to have a PhD to get an office admin job? Keep undergraduate fees at the current level, raise fees for unnecessary masters courses to make up the shortfall. Again, I'm not anti further degrees, I still want to do one myself, although that's almost entirely because our current climate forcing all graduates to do one makes me feel thick as hell for not having one, even though I have a professional qualification that was actually harder; I'm anti it being essentially compulsory and treated so flippantly.

So, there you go. You might hate me, but my method would work, and no one would have to pay €9000 a year.

Sunday Confessional

The internet, it has been said, is a dangerous thing, because the presumed anonymity encourages people to confess to far more than they would in a face-to-face conversation. I was reading the Observer Magazine today about blogging horror stories, people who've lost jobs and relationships because of revealing too much online.

I found it interesting because I've never been a woman to keep secrets, online or in real life. I'll happily tell people I've known only a short time how many lovers I've had (five, but I've set myself seven as a goal, I just think it's a better number. Although I read an article once about how the eighth person you sleep with will be the one you go on to marry, so maybe I should try for that? I never did like even numbers though); about weird sexual experiences (I wouldn't say it was a "worst" experience, because I was arse over tit in love with the guy at the time, but I was slightly taken aback that he apparently favoured the Hollywood for himself, and he was a little overweight, so his stomach made this soft and vaguely discomforting slapping noise the whole way through); all about my insecurities about my appearance (my eyes are too small and my mouth is too big, red lipstick makes me look like a niche-market sex doll run amok, like a porn version of Mannequin) etc.

I'm always harbouring painfully unrequited crushes which last for years because I apparently find rejection or total emotional unavailability a turn-on; I get the feeling these sorts of things are supposed to be secret but my friends get sick of hearing about it because I can tell everyone about my feelings except the person that inspires them, although I'm sure they most end up knowing because I've told so many other people, and because I blush every time they so much look at me.

It's strange, I've always envied Kate Moss, not only for her looks, her career and her life, but also for the fact that she is a global icon whose name everybody knows, yet no one knows very much about her. It's not that she's secretive, but she somehow never gives much of herself away, so half the continued fascination with her is because she's so totally unknowable. I'm the opposite of that - I want people to like me, but I go about achieving it by giving too much of myself away, which ironically probably makes people think I'm a weirdo who embarrasses them by saying completely inappropriate things.

Actually I retract that slightly, I *am* over-eager to please, in all situations (I have about a dozen good bye cards from various temping jobs that say "thanks for making all the tea!" or some variation thereof), but for all my crippling shyness, I'm just not a particularly reserved person - sex is a valid and entertaining topic of conversation, in my opinion, and I quite like making tea. I can't fucking stand small-talk; I've almost been thrown out of cabs for taking the conversation from "terrible weather we're having" to "I can't believe you voted for him, you fascist cunt" in three easy minutes.

In a way, I don't think the online scare stories apply to me; I don't link my blog to my Twitter, though I do link to my blog on Twitter. My username would identify me to my friends but not really to anyone who didn't know me, but I do use real photographs of myself and I imagine it probably wouldn't be that hard to track me down if you really wanted to. On Facebook it's easy to think you're only posting to friends, but like anyone I have acquaintances and work colleagues as "friends". Largely I think they're not interested enough in my life to bother reading my self-involved streams of conciousness, but maybe I *should* watch my mouth.

So the question is, do I reveal too much, too easily? It'd be interesting to see how much of this was left if I subjected it to outside editing.

A view from the other side: reviewing an LFW review

Friends, followers and strangers who glance at my Twitter feed occasionally - you know me well enough by now to know that it does not take a lot to make me angry. I've come close to punching people who press the button at pedestrian crossings when it's CLEARLY ALREADY LIT on a shameful number of occasions. If I blogged every time something pissed me off, I'd have little, if any, time for anything else. So you know that this must have really annoyed me:

http://dianaes.posterous.com/pierre-garroudi-royal-collection-aw-2011

I don't normally read fashion magazines/blogs, because for a model, such as I am, I have alarmingly little interest in the genre. I know what I like, I don't really need someone telling me what I "should" be wearing, thanks. But self-Googling is an affliction that affects us all, so of course I was going to check out the reviews of the show I modelled in (completely against both my will and better judgement, I'll add).

I understand the appeal in the bitchy style of review. It's fun and you get to show off how very witty you are. Lord knows, I do it myself all the time. But would I write it differently if I knew what was going on behind the scenes? I like to think so. For the sake of accuracy I shall henceforth point out what this journalist might have changed if she actually had a clue.

On accusations of "cheesy bum wiggling": Pierre, the designer you so readily praise as though he were nothing to do with his own show, was the architect of his own misfortune on this score. Models were instructed, by him, to "walk like a cat". I'm not sure if cats wiggle their bottoms when they walk, in a cheesy manner or otherwise, but that was what he wanted; he demonstrated himself. Signs were up all over the backstage area saying "Walk sexy - swing your hips!!!". So please don't criticise us for doing what we were told to.

On accusations of "sleazy pouting and winking at the camera": again, the models didn't magically come up with this idea on their own. There was much fraught discussion of how we were going to look like absolute idiots if we went along with the poses we were instructed to pull. But a good model does what she's told, and that's what we were told, by both the woman heading up the organisation (who this journalist seems also to think is blameless in all this) and the designer. Again with the signs: "Be sexy, bitchy, playful and FLIRT" was also plastered around the dressing area. You wana know why people were winking at the camera? Probably because they were instructed to "flirt with the camera". Yeah, that cheesy old line. Not one "sleazy" pose wasn't pre-approved - the woman organising the catwalk made us practise our poses all night and shouted if they weren't flamboyant enough. So yeah, maybe ask WHY people are behaving in a strange manner next time, because there's usually a reason.

On snarks about "the shaky footwork of unexperienced (sic) models: first up, and I know people hate to be pulled up on spelling and grammatical errors, but it's inexperienced models. IN. Do you not have a spell check? You should turn on the automatic spell check thing that most modern operating systems have. The word "unexperienced" came up with a squiggly red line underneath when I typed it. There are forces in this world greater than yourself. Accept that and accept their help. You'll be happier for it, I promise.

Secondly, we weren't all newbies you know. I'm the model that tripped and provoked the simultaneous gasp from every person in the audience. I'd have laughed were I not so mortified. Why did I trip, when I've actually been doing this for more years than I should let on if I still want to get booked for anything? Shitty, cheap-ass, ill-fitting shoes, in a word, Well, several. You know when Naomi Campbell, supermodel, fell arse-over-tit on the catwalk? It clearly wasn't because she didn't know what she was doing, it was because she was wearing platforms that really should have never made it out of the design stage on health and safety grounds. And so with the shoes last night. These weren't couture, they were New Look, spray painted with shit stuck on the front and the heels. "Embellishment" I believe you'd call it in your line of work. Nothing wrong with New Look shoes, obviously (although it's nice not to have to stuff your shoes with tissue because they're too big); the problem is the DIY. There were large net flowers stuck on the front of my shoes. Not a problem in and of itself, but there were also loosely attached strings of beads that suck out from underneath the flowers. Beads and net - a couple made in Hell. As I walked, feet perilously close together, as instructed (apparently, that's how cats walk), the string of beads on one shoe snagged the net on the other. Over I went. I damn near broke my neck, so I'll thank you not to snigger.

Finally, on the journalist's sincere hope that Pierre will next time "invest in the right cast to better execute his idea". Yes, one can only hope he'll sack that bitch of a woman who insisted we pose like inpatients at a sex addiction clinic. And if he wants better, less "unexperienced" models, the tight bastard might consider paying them. He's not a new designer, he can afford it. Instead, he recruited models through open castings advertised on those dubious "model connection" websites where anyone can upload a web cam picture and call themselves a model. Those of us with agencies did rather wonder why we'd been sent there. All so he can save a buck or two. You reap what you sow.

A retrospective realisation of sexism

A few years ago, I was bridesmaid at a friend's wedding. We picked our own dresses from a big wedding warehouse type place (seriously, *thousands* of dresses), the only rule was we had to all get the same colour (colours were very precise and had different number for different shades, so we all matched exactly).

Anyway, my friend and I both found dresses in our size, and had alterations made by the instore fittings people. Mine needed to be taken in a little, owing to the fact that I am, as we are by now all aware, ridiculously thin, but without asking me, the woman took it upon herself to sew giant fake foam breasts into the bust.

At the time I thought it odd, but didn't concern myself much more with it. Now, and call me slow on the uptake as well you may, I've just realised how fucking sexist it was! "Woman has small breasts, must want/need enhancement to be attractive"! Fuck off. It didn't make me more attractive anyway, from a certain angle I looked faintly like a blow-up doll.

Picking holes in substance abuse statistics

I'm pretty sure everyone will by now have seen the world's new favourite statistical finding - cocaine users over the age of 35 are seven times more likely to die than cocaine users under the age of 25. Now, it's unlike me in the extreme to get involved in anything to do with drug use, largely because no matter how hard I bloody try, I am seemingly destined to live a frustratingly clean, law-abiding lifestyle forever and also because I'd never actually advocate taking or legalising drugs because I do have my qualms about them (the children of over-protective medical professionals are destined to live their lives wrestling such internal conflicts). So yeah, don't expect it to become a running theme of my notes or anything. BUT - the statistic, which keeps being bandied about with very little further information seems very misleading to me, and although I've sat here, waiting for some nice scientists to come along and debunk it, none have appeared, so I've determined to take on the challenge myself, despite the fact I have no scientific background and everything I say will probably be wrong. So, here goes:

1.) How is this a fair comparison? The number of drug users under 25 is a MUCH smaller sample than over 35, unless people are starting their kids on coke at five, like the French do with their children and wine. More people, higher likelihood of a death occurring. This is maths for nursery school children.

2.) As I said, over 35s is a larger sample and hence includes a larger range of ages. People in their late forties and fifties taking drugs, specifically drugs like cocaine is far from unheard of (please welcome to the stage Mr Keith Richards), at the same time people in their forties and fifties are more likely to have developed additional health problems that can occur with age - high blood pressure, angina, late onset diabetes, etc. Decades of the sedentary sort of lifestyle we Westerners seem to have got down to a fine art means people in middle age are more likely to be overweight and/or out of shape. All of which means the risks of potentially harmful activity such as drug taking are significantly increased as the body is in less of an optimum condition to deal with the added strain. (Please note, I'm not saying turning 45 means you instantly become fat and unhealthy, all you need to do is eat well and keep active, just observing that a large portion of society is loathe to do this).

3.) The average 40 something cocaine user is probably not wholly new to the game. I don't think anyone knows for certain what the cumulative effects of several years of cocaine use on the system are, but I'm doubting they're good. Add to the mix that drug users are likely to be more than well acquainted with our other popular vices - alcohol and cigarettes, which we KNOW are bad for you - and yet again you're presented with someone who's not as healthy as someone who literally hasn't had time yet to build up the register of health problems that go hand in hand with an unhealthy lifestyle - so it's not a fair comparison.

So in conclusion, while all this means that yes, the over 35s do incur a higher risk of death than the under 25s if they use cocaine, it's only *technically* true, in the same way that its *technically* true that mohammed is the most popular boys name in the UK if you take into account all eleventy billion different spellings of it, and ignore the fact that it's customary in many interpretations of Islam to include the name Mohammed (or one of its variations) somewhere in a male Muslim child's name.

The promotion of this little "fact" this week has annoyed me because the very premise seems flawed in that ignores the 25-35 age group. What's their risk? Do they not exist, or matter? Once again the media has left me feeling totally disenfranchised. Perhaps the statistics for this group are anomalous, so they've been left out? Very odd, given that all things considered, 25-35 is probably the group amongst which the highest level of cocaine use occurs, being that it's expensive and a favourite of money-rich, time-poor young professionals. I don't trust this at all. Plus, it struck me as rather ageist. Like "35 is too old to have fun, and if you try you WILL DIE". Not that you need to take drugs to have fun, OBVIOUSLY, as I've written about here before, else I'd have had a spectacularly dull life up to now, and I am, quite frankly, effervescent and generally all-round brilliant at parties; but it does have that tone about it, whereas in actual fact, if you're an otherwise healthy person in their thirties or forties, I can't see that the risk is going to be that much higher at all. Of course, their ridiculous age-grouping means they include people of 70, 80 and 90 etc in the spurious statistics for "over 35", and I'd imagine the risk is seven HUNDRED times higher once you reach pension age, but if you're still up for partying at that age I think I'd have to say fair bloody play to you.

So I'm going to Japan

I'm sorry, I've been neglecting you, dear, dear seven followers of mine. What can I say. I'm in Berlin and it's too hot to think. That's why this is going to be a short post. I could import over all of the moany posts I've been doing on Facebook, but since I so rarely post anything positive on here, I thought I'd spare you that and jump to something modelling-related (that being, after all, the nominal topic of this blog).

The salon which cannot be named is taking me to Japan for a week, to do a show. Possibly a couple of shows, I don't know yet, I've not seen my schedule. My point is this. I'm being PAID to go to Japan. You know I rarely brag, so allow me this one moment to revel in the marvellousness of it all, before my life, inevitably goes pear-shaped again.

Much love from Germany. Out.