A Crepey is not just for Christmas...

[oldqueencrepey]

It had to be done.
Phew that feels better.
Over here crepeys. All very welcome (but only if you're crepey).

Happy Birthday CV glad yours was a vast improvement on mine...

mrs s hope you're feeling better. We've got through industrial quantities of Lemsip this winter - I've even converted French husband. By the way my DH equally useless for birthdays cointreau - I could leave a catalogue in front of my DH open with gift circled and he still wouldn't get the hint.

Happy Birthday CV.

I have gone back to bed now.

Happy birthday CV
AND happy belated Mrs S

For the first birthday I had after taking up with DP I got nothing...except a positive pregnancy test, which was A Bit Of A Shock.

Happy birthday CV!

Hope you feel better soon, MrsS.

And if you are forced to struggle out of bed to meet with AB tomorrow, make sure you give him your cold. With knobs on.

MrsS here's hoping you are tucked up in bed with a nice drink and a good book and sod work....

Came home at lunch time as temp started to go up again, had nice sleep. Now having a lem sip. Feel very odd - have absolutely no energy and feel like I did when I had glandular fever years ago.

MrsS take it easy - listen to your body!!!

Spent the morning with my father putting the National War Museum right - and spent afternoon re kitting ds after two laaaaarge glasses of white....

Oh sympathy Mrs S. if its the same wretched thing I had Im v sorry for you. Heavy limbs weepy blurry eyes temperature etc.
Décontracté un peu!

Oh dear. MrsS, I do hope you feel better soon.

I have had a rather spectacular day during which I discovered I have made a fuckup faux pas which will cost Rather A Lot Of Money to repair. (A photoshoot that went wrong. There is stuff I never, ever knew I was meant to do in connection with this. Never. Ever. Nobody told me. Eighteen months down the line, though, I merely look like an imbecile.)

A question, mes amies crepusculaires. If a friend, totally hypothetically you understand, was possibly going to be doing some work on a hypothetical relaunched women's mag, a fairly thinky-read-y mag targeted at women who're capable of reading a few paragraphs strung together; not a seriously Intellectual magazine but one taking an intelligent look at those things like friendship/sleep/happiness/how we 'tick'....what sort of thing would you be wanting to read? And if you don't read women's mags at the moment (or only as an entirely guilty-snack pleasure) why not? Is there stuff you'd like to be reading?

Entirely hypothetically, obvs.

I weaned myself off magazines to save cash about 10 years ago but now when I pick one up I do mostly feel somewhat alienated from the content - perhaps I'm just looking at the wrong ones.
Stuff I like to read about:
Putting outfits together for my body shape and age that's relevant to what can be bought currently.
Room transformations on a budget.
Weekly meal planner ( fresh from naice ingredients) with modern ideas and divine pictures.
Allotmenteering.
Eco politics articles
Developing your career after 40.
Loving that programme about small spaces with George Clark - something along those lines??
Solid book reviews and suggestions within genres.
Proper DIY articles( not decorating a Poundland mirror with shells FGS)

Ill shut up now. Maybe all that exists somewhere but I don't know ?

I am back in the land of the living and spent the day interviewing (interviewer, not interviewee).

It is easier to say what I hate about magazines.

I hate the "look for a lifestyle" articles beloved of GH where "Lucy and her Stockbroker husband gave up the rat race and bought a bijou 8 bedroomed cottage in the Cotswolds/Cornwall, where Lucy has taken up macrame/tatting/insert useless craft of your choice here, which she sells on line..." I want to stab Lucy. It is never a single mother who works full time and lives in a grotty flat in South East London with unsociable neighbours.

I hate meal planners, which assume you have all day to shop and ponce about looking for obscure ingredients, rather than coming in late from work yet again, to find that there is no milk, and the only ingredients available in the cupboard mean that you can have either the Meal of Last Resort (tuna pasta bake) or a take away.

I don't want to see room transformations that require an architect, an interior designer or anything from Osborne and Little.

I would like an occasional, well written short story, not a la People's Friend, but something a bit dark and thought provoking. Book reviews and suggestions are good. I'd like to read about normal careers, not people earning megabucks or someone's little job, but stuff like most of us do. Fat Fashion, provided that nothing is made from polyester, comes from the Fat Shop (Evans) or is simply voluminous amounts of fabric "accessorised" with a large polyester rose and large (enormous) beads and a haircut that looks like a helmet.

Travel, focusing on a region/place and what to do. I don't give a fuck if Gillian had a lovely all-inclusive in Lanzarote that cost her an arm and a leg, but the food was delicious. I don't want to know.

Health and happiness, yes. A good article about wine - regions/grapes etc. Not simply where to get the cheapest Sav Blanc. And similar on food (I mourn the passing of "Fromage Gourmand.") Friendship and how friendships change as your life progresses.

Does that help?

Mrs S you put that much better than I did. Lol
Esp regarding kazillion pound revamps and girls called Camilla who make a living fabricating yogurt.
Or those gamin types whose daddy bought them a fucking fripperies shop. Boke.

Well - pretty much like Schadenfreude. I do like looks for body shapes though and makeover stuff How to put your make up on if you're beyond help. Like decorating for normal people. Hate crafty stuff (probably jealous of aforementioned Camilla).

I like the Marie Claire articles on women in the third world etc. Also maybe a bit of science/Geography. Art and Culture

Like book reviews - also there is a magazine where somebody well known choosed books that mean a lot to them - like this - a sort of Desert Island Discs with books.

Travel - but as Mrs S says - proper travel with proper information that real people can afford.

Don't think my sort of magazine exists . Did have a very happy afternoon in the hairdressers though with Paris Match/Elle combos - am up to date with the gossip now.

Mrs S - how to you say "avoid helmet head" in French - it was exactly what the woman next to me had. Happily I have a sort of Emma Watson thing - although unfortunately not the gamine features to go with it!

Another one who gave up on magazines, not just to save money but because they are so unsatisfying.

Going back to the LRB, having been reminded why I loved it so much. Want to read thoughtful articles which are long enough to develop arguments properly.

I go to Tchip, Hattiemattie, and they do a damn fine job - 56 euros for highlights, cut and blow dry, but they do have definite ideas about how they want to cut your hair. No helmet head, though, and they avoid that 1980s/1990s sculpted immoveable hair look that is much beloved of French hairdressers.

Wow - that is good - I paid 82 in my local Franck Provost for the same.

Many thanks. Keep 'em coming. My hypothetical friend thanks you

Am loving the Paris haircut chat

82 euros is not bad!

I am in an utterly foul mood and have barely held it together this afternoon at work. I didn't even get an interview for a job I thought was perfect for me. Just an illiterate letter of rejection. I left early rather than running round the office shouting "Cunts! The whole fucking lot of you!" at the top of my voice, and smashing things, which was the alternative. We are definitely coming back to London in the summer now, and now have to go through the palaver of sorting out schools for the girls and giving notice to the tenants.

Oh mrs s you are really coming back to the uk? < gives up dream of Paris meet up >

Also loving paris haircut chat. I had a 'brushing ' last summer and was very impressed that the chap actually did proper brush styling and was not as reliant on a pair of GHDs as his uk counterpart. Felt swooshy after instead of ironed.

MI - ideas for your friend's feature could include:

What's gr8 about your 40s: how not to become bitter and twisted about life passing you by
Leggings, batwings: if you did it the first time, should you do it again?
What's important: we ask 20 80-year-olds what they've learned.

I'll take a 20% commission, please!