Hello from the back end of Wednesday.  

Thank you kindly for all your birthday wishes on the blog and elsewhere yesterday.  It was lovely hearing from all of you and a reminder of just how many people read the blog and follow on other social media.  I’m very touched and humbled.

Fast forward to today and I’m seriously looking for a touch of another kind.  That of my head being applied rather firmly against a brick wall like one of these at Birkenhead Point.  Seriously.  Banks.  Were they put on this earth to shorten our lives and to make our blood boil through every minute of the life we have left?  The endless signing and counter signing of their documents, the repeated cross checking and just when you think it’s all done?  It’s only just begun.  You discover a major stuff up in the repayment process only after opening last week’s mail.  I’ve sorted out as much as I could today during one of the most stressful lunch breaks ever but it was hard work.  Interbank transfers.  More painful than nails down a chalkboard.

Time to take myself far, far away.  Off to a different world completely.  In lieu of an uplifting walk through a manicured garden, perhaps we could talk books?

www.booktopia.com

You know how I’m not particularly high brow in my literary tastes most of the time?  How I’ll read anything with an open mind and be prepared to leave most of my IQ points at the door?  Well, I’ve had to draw that line in the sand with my first attempt at reading a Roxy Jacenko novel (it would be petty to place inverted commas around ‘novel’, wouldn’t it?).  From what I can gather from the internet, Jazzy Lou is a Sydney publicist who is under siege from her evil ex boss who’s trying to steal her clients.  I can’t say much more because I was physically unable to read past the first Kindle page.

Is it just me or is the prose cringe worthy and the main characters more frustrating than dealing with banks?  Please confirm of deny.

I’m having much more joy with ‘Tongue in Chic‘ by former Vogue Australia editor, Kirstie Clements.  Yes, the world of high fashion magazines is fluffy and the movers and shakers take themselves far too seriously but Clements manages to write about her world with a wry wit and intelligent self analysis.  She discusses the high drama she and her staff create over the purchase of this season’s key items only to have the ‘it’ thing discarded the moment a button falls off or the suitcase gets unpacked.  This is in the context of most of her staff being payed close to minimal wage for a job that promotes a luxury lifestyle to the reader and she concludes, wryly, that at the end of the day, the rent still has to be paid.

There are interesting references to the fall out of having the worlds of fashion bloggers and legacy fashion magazines colliding.  On the one hand, fashion bloggers help brands reach hundreds of thousands of readers quickly and with minimal ‘middle man’ costs for things like sub editing and production but does widespread coverage of a product by a blog take away from the artistic value of having that brand’s same pieces styled into a magazine feature?  Does this difference even matter anymore in a fashion world driven by profit and the need for global brand recognition and desire?

If you’re a fan of the ‘Babylon’ take on what appear to be glamour industries, you’ll love ‘Tongue in Chic’.  I’m off to find ‘The Vogue Factor’, Clement’s other novel.

In more fluffy news, but with a slight edge of profit margin, have you heard about the David Jones takeover by Woolworths?  There’s been a major shake up in senior management positions and the papers today were full of potential new directions Woolworths would be taking with the current brand mix at DJs.

While the customer will continue to shape stock, there’s going to be an emphasis on inhouse labels which apparently are huge in the South African department stores that Woolworths manage.  There were also whispers of more floor space being devoted to Country Road and Trenery.  I think I’ve written enough in previous posts about where my relationship is with CR at the moment so I’ll leave it today.

I wonder what the new DJs will look like?  I’m missing what they are now already.  The awesome heavily discounted finds on the Ladies Designer floor that always seem to find me in my moments of need.