Stupid shoppers

Tuesday May 1 is set to be a monumental day. Crowds are already forming in central London. Is Tony Blair stepping down I hear you cry. Perhaps Nelson Mandela will be addressing crowds in Trafalgar Square. No something far more important is about to happen.

Are you ready? Can you stand the tension? Wait for it…..here goes….

Kate Moss is launching her clothing line in Top Shop. Yep, that’s right a clothing range. Shoppers will be allowed to enter the hallowed turf that is Top Shop Oxford Street to purchase 5 items of Kate’s range (and it’s a bloody awful range at that – hot pants, waistcoats. Very original).

I think the world is going mad. I mean, why would you queue to buy a couple of T shirts ‘designed’ by a model with no artistic integrity. I don’t think posing for a couple of photos which appear in Vogue gives you a green light to become a fashion designer. There are people studying at art schools all over the country that would kill for an opportunity like this. Oh yeah, I forgot, Kate Moss sells. Quite why I don’t know. Apparently every woman wants a piece of Kate (not me, she’s been near scuzzy Pete Doherty). We all want to look like her and dress like her. Don’t you?

A few weeks ago people queued outside Sainsbury’s all night to buy a £5 bag. Yes, all night. And then they promptly put them on ebay for 100 quid. I have one word to describe people who willingly pay £100 for a £5 bag. Fools. Actually can I have two words? Tossers. And it turns out that the bag isn’t organic and might not have been made in an ethical factory. Hmmm. Perhaps the twats (ooh, that’s three words, sorry) might have given the money to an ethical charity instead.

And don’t even get me started on Primark (I mean, why would anyone queue for hours to buy a dress for £5). And remember the scenes when Ikea opened in North London a few years ago?

Fools the lot of em.

Welcome to the ghetto

March 2007: I’m a Londoner. I was born there and raised there. Hell I even went to University there. London has so much to offer, it has amazing restaurants, beautiful parks and some of the best museums and galleries in the world. I’m a big fan of London. It’s a truly cool city.

April 2007: I wrote the above description last month when I was feeling a bit homesick. Sadly I’ve changed my mind and now I can’t wait to escape the city I grew up in. Last week I went home for a visit. And I was struck by the fact that the whole city has become a ghetto. Kids are being shot, stabbed or beaten up every day, the streets are filthy, people are just as filthy (have you been on a bus recently?) and most teenagers are obnoxious, ignorant little gobshites. Yeah I know what you’re thinking, she’s exaggerating. I really wish I was.

Scenario one: I’m sitting on a bus – top deck as there is no room downstairs. A group of teenager girls get on mobile phone on loud speaker so that everyone could hear the offensive hip hop they were listening to. They proceed to scream and shout for the next half an hour. Their language is appalling and their grammar and enunciation even worse. They made me feel ashamed. They had no regard for anyone on the bus and didn’t seem to care that they were offending people with their gutter tongues. So thanks very much Mr Livingstone for allowing them to travel for free on the buses. It makes my journey – and lots of other peoples journeys so much more lively.

Scenario two: I’m walking through Soho minding my own business. It’s about 9.30 on a Friday night. Its warm and I could almost be on the continent somewhere as I watch people drink coffee outside Bar Italia, soaking up the warm weather. Suddenly two guys walk past. One of them leers at a woman drinking her cappuccino and spits in her male companions face. They walk away laughing at their own bravado.

Scenario three; I’m sitting on the Piccadilly line watching the millions (well, it does seem like that) of stops to Heathrow Airport. A girl sitting opposite me takes a tangerine out of her bag. She peels it and as she does some of the peel falls to the floor. She looks at it but doesn’t bother to pick it up. She then dumps the remaining peel on the shelf behind her and gets off at Hounslow East.

You see what I mean? Londoners aren’t the friendly cheeky chappy types you see on Eastenders. They’re rude, ignorant and obnoxious. They drop litter, spit, get drunk and beat up innocent bystanders, push you through the tube barrier so they don’t have to pay, throw litter and never offer their seat on the tube or bus to someone who really needs it.

Will I be moving back to London when I return home in the summer? You must be bloody joking. I’m going to find a nice house in the suburbs and moan about the state of my home city to anyone who’ll listen.

Someone once said “If you are tired of London, you’re tired of life” (I can’t for the life of me remember who and even Google doesn’t appear to know). Well, I’m not tired of life but I’m certainly tired of London life. You can keep it.

Getting older

Last December I turned 35. I never really worry about getting old but turning 35 really hit me. I mean, that’s half of 70. I’m closer to 40 now than I am to 30. God, it’s all too depressing. Thankfully I don’t look my age but I do look more closely for lines and wrinkles and yesterday I spotted a couple of varicose veins (thanks mum!). According to a lot of teenagers I am officially old. And boy, do I feel it sometimes.

10 ways to spot you are getting old:

1. You look at the Kate Moss collection for Top Shop and think I remember wearing waistcoats in the 1980s. And as for those hot pants – I couldn’t get one thigh in them.

2. Who the hell are Razorlight?

3. You’d rather be gardening than drinking beer in an overcrowded, noisy beer garden in Camden.

4. Gardeners World is infinitely more interesting than the X Factor.

5. A glass of Chianti tastes so much nicer than an overpriced luminous cocktail.

6. You can now play scrabble for hours and even construct a couple of seven letter words.

7. You always read newspaper reports about new anti wrinkle creams.

8. You can’t climb over a railing without pulling a muscle in your thigh.

9. You couldn’t care less that hotel bars are now hip hangouts.

10. Doughnuts go straight to your thighs.

But you know what, I’d rather be 35 than 15. All those dreadful hormones….