Fashion Depression?

Living in London on my own, in a little shoe box flat, with two rabbits who've eaten most of the furniture, provides many opportunities for one to feel a twang of misery.

Yet nothing makes me more miserable than creating a fashion shopping list, with the organizational skills of a dictator who is losing a grip on his land, only to get to said shops and find that nothing fits. Too short, too stumpy, bottom too large, feet to wide - it all leads to an incredible feeling of foreboding that nothing is *ever* going to go my way.

In fact, the only thing that can be relied upon is handbags. Expensive ones. If not for them, I would seem but a tramp to the city masses around me.

I work in Putney - for a company where spending two hours preparing your hairstyle in the morning seems the norm, no less. I haven't been to a hairdresser since January, and I gave up straightening it around about the same time. I fear I'm about two weeks shy of being nominated to appear on 'ten years younger'.

My only real consolation is that, whilst I may not be the 'it' girl of South West London's work scene, at least I'm not in a prison finding God.

In other news:

My Yahoo! shares are circling the drain, and have been for months. The news that Terry Semel has stepped down and there is a 16% drop in profits in the first quarter of 2007 alone does not bode well for any imminent rise in their fortune.

With my much anticipated trip to Cuba, less than two weeks away, I am also saddened to hear of the death of Cuba's First Lady.

Should I worry about Fidel Castro also? I have been trying to organise a trip to Cuba for nearly a year, making sure I beat the American's to the island. Old cars, old bars, old cigars... I can think of nothing better. I wish the rest of the Castro family good health, and heartfelt sympathy in this time of grief.

Saving the Planet

I always feel a continuous and unenviable guilt about the lack of "green" living I undertake. Yet, now the option has been made easier for me, I do recycle, I do turn off my lights, and I did spend 5 weeks living in South Africa with endangered beasts of many shapes and sizes, trying to improve their lives. Well, that or I was counting the number of plants in a 10 meter square swampland. Tics anyone?

Even now, I am sipping water from a bottle that will eventually completely corrode in my mouth (www.belu.org), helping save the planet, even if I should die of chemical poisoning along the way.

Yet, somehow, it doesn't seem enough. How can I, one small person (mothers genes), make a difference to a planet inhabited by 6.6 billion people (see the world population), many of whom don't even know what the ozone layer is?

Depressingly, it is those living in the most poverty that cause the smallest emissions of dangerous gases. If the Western world doesn't grow a pair soon, we'll all be wallowing in a deep, dangerously toxic, cow pat like mess.

Whilst the government seems completely uninterested in approaching this at anything exceeding snails pace, luckily there are some people who seem more open and willing.

So, if in London, or heck, anywhere in the world, why not do the right thing tonight and turn off your lights and appliances from 9-10pm. Visit lightsoutlondon for more information.

Of course, when the world is decimated from a nuclear war sometime in the next couple of years, this will all be a moot point.

We can but try.