Credit Crunch: Taking the blame for everything lately

In the Times today, there is a page feature on the credit crunch. It contains a full on chart illustrating alarming rising costs and depressing consumer spending. What I find interesting is that if you turn over, there is a story on the Max Mosley case and it seems that even sex-scandels are at the mercy of the recession:

'The News of the World had offered Miss Whiplish originally £25,000 for her story on Mosley, but ended up giving her £12,500, blaming the credit crunch'.

Who'd have thought?!

WALL-E: My Film of the Year

WALL-E: A film with a lot of heart and invention.

A cynical part of me was prepared for WALL-E, a lonely waste disposal robot, to be another piece of arch emotional manipulation from Disney. As I sat there waiting for the film to start, I was thinking "Come on Disney, what have you got? You are going to orphan something, I know it...BUT I am adult now, I can HANDLE it." Then within minutes of the film opening, tears were steaming down my face. I admit it, I was totally won over by WALL-E and the story. The film had so many great messages about life, the environment and really fighting for a better world and values.

I couldn't help reflecting on WALL-E's mission to clear up unwanted materialism, whilst helping out at the Children's Society this week. The store was shut for two weeks and there was a huge backlog of clothes, toys and books, most of which we couldn't fit into the shop. I ended up bagging most of it for an international charity and when their collector came I was curious about what happened to it all? (mostly Primark, cheap toys etc). He explained that they air-drop the stuff in containers on-to African villages. Or as a friend summarised to me, "So poor Asians make stuff that eventually ends up dumped on poor Africans?" Yes it is a bit surreal....

Maternity: The New GAP Year?

Helen Mirren Looks Amazing!

This photo came out mid-week and caused a frenzy in mature female columnists everywhere. 'Mirren the poster-girl for sexy sixties' gasped India Knight in yesterday's Sunday Times. Knight could barely breath for gushing over Super Hot Gran Helen Mirren. Hmm, hate to burst her bit of cheerleading, but Mirren is not a Mum or Gran. So yes her abs do look great, and she is rested looking. I know Knight is trying to make women feel good about themselves by saying we can have children, get older and have a sexy bikini bod - but she should pick someone who has actually done it all. I kind of feel cheated.

Baby Gap Year?

The danger of being at home in the daytime; is daytime TV & Radio. I feel totally trapped by women's issues.The shows and presenters would provoke even a pavement into outrage: 'I am so angry I can't take time off to be with children.Why should a man be allowed to run off with younger woman after a 23-year marriage'. So I quite liked it when a guy called into the Jeremy Vine show, to comment on whether small businessess should pay maternity leave.

"I'd like a GAP year or a Porsche but I don't expect my company to pay for it"

Cue - absolute phone-in mayhem.

BBC3 Beauty Season

'Mum, didn't we do this stage mother horror doc last year?'

Sasha Teen Queen: Deja-ITV documentary

I posted about this story last summer, and this BBC Three documentary just goes over the same ground as last year's ITV show on Sasha. If anything, it seemed fuel Sasha's stage mother to drag her around more beauty queen pageants, but this time in Houston. It was meant to be a key highlight in the BBC Three Beauty Season, yet when watching it did not feel investigative (it didn't really reveal more than the ITV expose) it just felt like the same narrative but set in the US and all for the sake of aquiring a new audience. Bit tasteless.

BBC Three: Sleepy Beauty Season

I think for me, the season could have achieved so much more than these cut and paste magazine feature docs. How about taking beauty mags and advertisers on a roadshow to directly talk to young women in schools about what they think real beauty is? What stands out so far in this season, is that the BBC has not spoken to one important person in the beauty industry as it is today. Yes extensions are an interesting topic, so is airbrushing, but I feel they could have gone deeper and been more ground-breaking.

DOVE: Are They Really Forward Thinking?

Another issue I have with this season, is that the BBC cite the Dove campaign as a forward thinking beauty advertisers, as they use non-airbrushed real women as their models. But the BBC seems to have overlooked two massive media stories regarding this campaign and Dove:

a) the women were rumoured to have actually been airbrushed 
b) Greenpeace is campaigning against them for using Palm Oil in their products, which is causing deforestation

I can't help feeling that Dove's consumer campaign is a shoddy cash-in on we are on the side of real women, therefore I don't think the BBC should be using them at all as a good example. 

Grazia: Sticking to Their Cover Plot-Lines

Still going strong
I love this mag at times but at times I just feel it is obsessed with materialism and recycling the same cover stories that we in our 30's are meant to relate to. I do like their debates on issues, this week's was: Does a women earning a lot put off a potential partner? Using Madonna as an example, ahh, you have to love them for doing that. I do like Angelina on the cover, she does inspire me a lot, though when I looked into voluntary work in Africa it is so expensive.

TWO Great Women Pics: 'Juno' and 'I Could Never be Your Woman'

Michelle: 'But I'm a 40-something!'
Guy: 'Hello Cat-woman!'

I watched these two movies back to back, which was interesting viewing, starting with the teenage comedy-drama Juno. Okay so Juno is 16 and pregnant and plans to give her baby to a woman who is desperate for her own. I liked Juno for having so much to say for herself and interests, and I missed being 16 and wondering Who am I? and just having a bunch of loves, films, music, and that youthful enthusiasm. All Jennifer Garner's character was interested in was the serious business of being a Mum. Would Juno end up like that? When Jennifer's character says 'I always knew I'd be a Mum', it sounded kind of creepy, and I really sided more with being Juno. The film for me made me think; at different life stages, you might for for different things, but I hope the core of you stays the same. I couldn't imagine my identity just being 'Mum'.

Michelle Pfieffer stars in a straight to DVD cougar comedy, I Could Never be your Woman, is still so beautiful, that it's hard to buy into the premise that she is a 40-something who is 'passed it'. When her character is pursued by a 29 year old, Pfieffer is so down on herself and says things like 'but youth outranks age each time' and fights the attraction to the guy. She has a 13 year old daughter (played by the young girl from Atonement) who is very good in it. The rest of the cast is like a who's who of British comedy; Graham Norton, Smack the Pony girls, Peep Show guys & League of Gentlemen and Gareth from Office. They keep the laughs coming in and it's directed by Amy Heckerling, who did Clueless. I thought the film was delightful and sparkly, so I would say it is worth renting, as Pfieffer is really good in it, and they actually have a mother-daughter story that seems real and works well. It definitely wants women in their 40's to feel good about themselves, and had some really laugh out loud moments. I guess it went straight to DVD because of trouble marketing it to cinema audience - perhaps hey should have promoted on the back of Sex and the City?

A Monsoon, Good Film and a Rabbit

Most peculiar day. After leaving a friend for lunch, I was just crossing at Oxford Circus towards Hamley's, when a rabbit hopped across the main crossing, which made me feel slightly Alice in Wonderland, until it went under a red bus, then it hopped away, towards H & M. I continued walking down Regent Street in the English Monsoon ( as reported in the paper yesterday ), and back to the tube when my umbrella snapped, just gave up , and was getting completely soaked. So whenI I saw the Odeon in Leicester Square, I dashed in for cover, and ended up seeing Gone Baby Gone. I had wanted to see it after friend recommended it. It was a pretty gut wrenching about a little girl that is abducted, similar to the Madeleine McCann story, really dark, but very thoughtful and well worth watching.