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Thursday March 31, 2005
The Guardian
As far as striking magazine covers making points about womanhood go, it's probably not up there with a naked Anthea Turner getting it on with a python on the front of Tatler a few years back. But then, budgets are tighter at the New Statesman - apologies, New Stateswoman, as it is calling itself this week - and there is no doubt that Sarah Teather, Caroline Spelman and Tessa Jowell look every bit as relaxed in their masculine suits as they would if they were nude and fending off the attentions of a reptile. Looking at the picture, one can't help feeling that a fantastically subtle point is being made somewhere. But what? That "Politics: still a man's world" seems to offer a clue, but the culture secretary's smile is so enigmatic, her grip on her cane so tight, that the search for meaning is somehow frustrated.
Naturally, when a magazine that never features posed cover shots gets three women to dress up and grin for the cameras, we are required to examine the results with a certain degree of irony. Perhaps the inherently cliched nature of this shot is intended to suggest that these are women who work within an established framework but are nonetheless subversive, radical presences. Or maybe they just like dressing up. After all, how meta can you get about a picture which, with the best will in the world, appears to have been styled by someone after the fashion of a fifth-form production of Bugsy Malone?
As with all things in aid of excellent causes, it should of course be cut a large amount of slack. And anyway, the New Statesman has always been like Playboy. People really only buy it for the interviews.
Marina Hyde
· There is surely no truer sign of love than the unstifled urge to text your paramour a photograph of your naked bosoms. So pity poor Ms Charlotte Church, who chose to profess her ardour for her new suitor, rugby player Gavin Henson, in precisely this fashion, only to be thwarted when Henson "lost" his phone and the picture was texted to hundreds of opera fans across the isle. Let this be a warning to us all. In future I, for one, will be employing a body double when making such visual displays of affection.
· The chief inspector of prisons has announced that Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison, has unacceptable levels of hygiene. On her inspection of the prison in north London last October, Anne Owens noted that it was infested with insects, mice and pigeons, and that inmates frequently resorted to using sanitary towels as makeshift seats on filthy toilets and to plug gaps under doors to keep out vermin. Also, conditions have barely improved since the last inspection. Can someone tell us why?
· Footballer and erstwhile brothel-creeper Mr Wayne Rooney is up in arms after his fiancee, Coleen McLoughlin, was photographed on holiday in Tenerife in close proximity to a handsome young barman. The wanton harlot! What galls Mr Rooney more, we wonder - that she should be fraternising with another gentleman at all, or the fact that she didn't have to pay for his services?
· CPB-watch: the countdown to the royal wedding has begun in earnest, and with it endless column inches devoted to the Robinson Valentine gown, the nuances of napkin-folding etiquette, and a raging debate over whether Camilla - our next queen, lest we forget - should ever wear jeans at her age. These are the burning issues of the day. And, according to the Times, CPB is "spending the days before her marriage next week in front of a mirror, rehearsing the royal wave and the curtsy". What, non-stop? Blimey, that's dedication. More news as we hear it, folks.
· They're all heart at Nestlé. Apparently concerned that teenage girls are not getting enough calcium in their diets - owing to their peculiar refusal to drink milk, on account of its taste and the suspicion that it might make one lardy - Nestlé has chivalrously launched a new probiotic dairy drink named Sveltesse Optimise. Mmm, yes, it does sound like a brand of body-sculpting tights, but apparently it's a pineapple-flavour beverage; we'll believe it when we see it. But we're more than a little concerned that a company should see fit to prey on the insecurities of body-conscious teens with 0% fat drinks with names one step to the left of Slimfast. Can't our young women just be allowed to grow into their bodies without every Tom, Dick and Harry having something to say about it?
· Thank you all for your plentiful responses to Mimi Spencer's piece on what to call one's ladybits (I believe that's the medical term). On the subject of which, we bring you the startling revelation that Grape Street in central London was once known as Gropecunt Lane, in honour of the good ladies who plied their trade in the vicinity. Personally, we favour its old moniker. So, like a flock of Eve Enslers, we hereby launch the campaign to reinstate it. Want to join our campaign? Let us know at women@guardian.co.uk.
Laura Barton
Thursday March 31, 2005
The Guardian
As far as striking magazine covers making points about womanhood go, it's probably not up there with a naked Anthea Turner getting it on with a python on the front of Tatler a few years back. But then, budgets are tighter at the New Statesman - apologies, New Stateswoman, as it is calling itself this week - and there is no doubt that Sarah Teather, Caroline Spelman and Tessa Jowell look every bit as relaxed in their masculine suits as they would if they were nude and fending off the attentions of a reptile. Looking at the picture, one can't help feeling that a fantastically subtle point is being made somewhere. But what? That "Politics: still a man's world" seems to offer a clue, but the culture secretary's smile is so enigmatic, her grip on her cane so tight, that the search for meaning is somehow frustrated.
Naturally, when a magazine that never features posed cover shots gets three women to dress up and grin for the cameras, we are required to examine the results with a certain degree of irony. Perhaps the inherently cliched nature of this shot is intended to suggest that these are women who work within an established framework but are nonetheless subversive, radical presences. Or maybe they just like dressing up. After all, how meta can you get about a picture which, with the best will in the world, appears to have been styled by someone after the fashion of a fifth-form production of Bugsy Malone?
As with all things in aid of excellent causes, it should of course be cut a large amount of slack. And anyway, the New Statesman has always been like Playboy. People really only buy it for the interviews.
Marina Hyde
· There is surely no truer sign of love than the unstifled urge to text your paramour a photograph of your naked bosoms. So pity poor Ms Charlotte Church, who chose to profess her ardour for her new suitor, rugby player Gavin Henson, in precisely this fashion, only to be thwarted when Henson "lost" his phone and the picture was texted to hundreds of opera fans across the isle. Let this be a warning to us all. In future I, for one, will be employing a body double when making such visual displays of affection.
· The chief inspector of prisons has announced that Holloway, Britain's largest women's prison, has unacceptable levels of hygiene. On her inspection of the prison in north London last October, Anne Owens noted that it was infested with insects, mice and pigeons, and that inmates frequently resorted to using sanitary towels as makeshift seats on filthy toilets and to plug gaps under doors to keep out vermin. Also, conditions have barely improved since the last inspection. Can someone tell us why?
· Footballer and erstwhile brothel-creeper Mr Wayne Rooney is up in arms after his fiancee, Coleen McLoughlin, was photographed on holiday in Tenerife in close proximity to a handsome young barman. The wanton harlot! What galls Mr Rooney more, we wonder - that she should be fraternising with another gentleman at all, or the fact that she didn't have to pay for his services?
· CPB-watch: the countdown to the royal wedding has begun in earnest, and with it endless column inches devoted to the Robinson Valentine gown, the nuances of napkin-folding etiquette, and a raging debate over whether Camilla - our next queen, lest we forget - should ever wear jeans at her age. These are the burning issues of the day. And, according to the Times, CPB is "spending the days before her marriage next week in front of a mirror, rehearsing the royal wave and the curtsy". What, non-stop? Blimey, that's dedication. More news as we hear it, folks.
· They're all heart at Nestlé. Apparently concerned that teenage girls are not getting enough calcium in their diets - owing to their peculiar refusal to drink milk, on account of its taste and the suspicion that it might make one lardy - Nestlé has chivalrously launched a new probiotic dairy drink named Sveltesse Optimise. Mmm, yes, it does sound like a brand of body-sculpting tights, but apparently it's a pineapple-flavour beverage; we'll believe it when we see it. But we're more than a little concerned that a company should see fit to prey on the insecurities of body-conscious teens with 0% fat drinks with names one step to the left of Slimfast. Can't our young women just be allowed to grow into their bodies without every Tom, Dick and Harry having something to say about it?
· Thank you all for your plentiful responses to Mimi Spencer's piece on what to call one's ladybits (I believe that's the medical term). On the subject of which, we bring you the startling revelation that Grape Street in central London was once known as Gropecunt Lane, in honour of the good ladies who plied their trade in the vicinity. Personally, we favour its old moniker. So, like a flock of Eve Enslers, we hereby launch the campaign to reinstate it. Want to join our campaign? Let us know at women@guardian.co.uk.
Laura Barton
