Be bold, be British

WITH the release of the second Sex and the City film on 27 May there will be a collective sigh across the land and a lament from women everywhere that they want to be styled by cool fashionista Patricia Field.
"I wish I could dress like that all of the time - I wish I could take my wardrobe to a whole new level," a friend of mine said this week after seeing the film trailer.
And she wasn't talking about the designer labels either, but the combinations of colours, styles, patterns and the ever-refreshing twist given to each outfit seen on Carrie and co. 

True these are New York ladies with money to burn but apart from that, are they really so far removed from us? 
Is their eclectic fashion ever suitable for us mere mortals?
Actually, I would argue that as a Brit, you have more encouragement than most to dress like that.  Last week my French mother told me about a middle-aged couple she had seen walking down the street; he was wearing a burnt orange cord suit, she was in a long tutu with a raincoat slung over the top.
As other shoppers stopped to witness the spectacular sight, mum smiled and told me later: "It's only something you would see in Britain and I love it." 

And she has a point. As a nation we are known for being eccentric (bog snorkelling and cheese racing anyone?), but cool Britannia is still a phrase commonly heard too and I think the two ideas are very closely linked.
After all, when was the last time you saw someone in comfortable jeans, shapeless sportswear top and bland trainers and felt a deep respect and admiration for them?

It's our ability to be eccentric which has earned us a place on the fashion radar. 
There doesn't have to be any hard and fast rules about fashion so when you choose your clothes in the morning, the last thought you should have is: "Does this top stand out too much?" or whether the colours clash.  Sure you can dress accordingly to the occasion, whether it's office wear or a weekend look with friends and family, but don't for a minute consider that you are confined to blending in with the background or that you don't deserve to look good.

Clothes aren't about how much they cost - they are about how much they make you feel.
And if that feeling is less than £1million, then don't bother with it; your country needs you goddammit.

The tweets and the bees

I NORMALLY get the hang of social networking sites very easily, MySpace? Yup. Facebook? Yup. Bebo? No, I'm not 14. 

So after a news-training course at work, I was feeling particularly inspired to sign up to Twitter (yes I'm aware I'm about two years behind the rest of the world). The benefits for keeping up-to-date and looking out for potential stories were highlighted and I thought it would be very exciting. Uploaded my photo, linked this site to it, hunted down celebrities to follow and wrote a couple of tweets.

Within a day I had three random people following me. Fantastic, going by those statistics, I should have an army of followers within a month.

However a few days later I had lost two of them. Clearly they weren't impressed by my tweets: "Why are there so many bumble bees this year?" and "I keep finding glitter on my skin, maybe I lose it through my pores."  So for a day or two after that, I was suddenly scared to tweet - just incase I lost my one remaining follower.  And I felt ashamed, I did want to announce my new Twitter profile to my Fbook friends but then worried that they would laugh at the one-follower freak.

I searched through other tweeters - and I'm still failing to see the difference between my bumble bee observation, and someone else who has nearly 200 followers and their latest tweet was about buying asparagus. And the person wasn't even famous.

And that's another can of worms: you can follow celebrities.  You can literally keep up to date with what they are doing daily. If I tried to follow them in real life and watch them pop into Asda for a packet of Nik Naks or try to climb in the same black cab, I would have a restraining order slapped on me in no time.  The cynic in me asks how long will it be before some American wins a legal case against a celeb for stalking them because they were already posting that info on a tweet anyway?

Obviously the celebs have high numbers of followers and it's a good way to keep fans updated; I can see how Twitter works from that perspective. 

So I don't know how much longer I will keep tweeting. I'm confused by all of the little symbols you need to use; and the fact you have to shorten links; and I'm already feeling trapped by the 140 character limit; and generally for something which offers the virtual spacial equivalent of a Post-It note, it is causing me so much more stress than I had expected.

Perhaps I'll just concentrate on answering the great bumble bee question and keep my thoughts to myself. 

Caffeine? Only in a traveller's dream.

I AM cursed. Doomed to wander this lonely planet of ours without the single thing which keeps me relatively sane; caffeine.

Alright technically it's not wandering on foot, it's by rail. But no matter what train I travel on, my sheer presence ensures the immediate disappearance of the drinks trolley or a functioning hot beverage machine.

The last journey I undertook, is a prime example. Despite assurances from the over-friendly driver ("Hey there! Call me Nick - just checking out your ticket sweetlips!") on the first of three trains that the snacks cart will board at the next station and will serve hot drinks and a selection of 'lite bites', it never materialises.

On the second train there is a buffet car. Grabbing a seat near-by in eager anticipation, my caffeine dreams are shattered as some nasal voice overhead announces the hot drinks machine is out of order. Damned straight it is.

The third train is as empty as my expectations by then, three quarters of the way into a six hour journey and so far not even as much as a used teabag or empty sugar sachet to prove the existence of a hot drink has made it onto a train. My cynical side questions whether it might just be the Fates' way of suggesting I'm not made to travel and perhaps a life of agoraphobia and collecting Persian cats would be preferable. Just live my days out watching through windows, clearing up furballs and shopping via the web.

It isn't just my quest for caffeine which raises these questions. I book my tickets in advance like the adverts cheerily suggest; Coach D, seat 50A. I board the train, wander through coaches A, B, C and... E. I ask staff for directions to my seat (just incase it's a bit like Harry Potter and I should be jumping into some gap between platforms or something); with a reassuring smile they inform me that coach D won't be running today so I can sit anywhere... Anywhere except - as they clock my appearance and distinct lack of laptop, Blackberry or terribly important briefcase - first class.

I take my rightful place between a family of pale-pink sportswear-clad chavs and a woman struggling with a cello.

The stations are once more a reminder that I'm not a born traveller as I get stuck at virtually every ticket gate. The machine rejects everything I offer it, from valid tickets to old ones, Boots Advantage cards and petrol receipts. As a crowd of frustrated commuters gather behind me, bouncing off in other directions, confused that their very regular and rigid flow of people - like a line of ants following each other - has been disrupted, I am made to stand to one side.

The line of commuting army ants recovers and continues onwards as I explain to a very official-looking man with a walkie talkie how exactly I had escaped my little town and made it this far into the big wide world without being stopped before now.

Eventually I am allowed to get on my train and as it pulls away I observe two characters called Teko and Zarx have been very busy bees. For at least a mile or two from the station their names are spray-painted in graffiti on every wall, electricity box and even a forgotten wheelbarrow.

For just a fleeting moment my caffeine-starved brain seriously believes that next time I dare to join the railway elite, I should offer a sacrifice of coffee beans to the Train Gods, Teko and Zarx. After all, they have perfected the celestial skill of omnipresence; well, for a mile or two anyway.