Afternoon:
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I've made up many words in my time: “permatrends”, “lumberjacket”, “Mamb”... OK, I'll stop now. Making up words is an occupational hazard if you are a fashion journalist, since writing about clothes is a little like dancing to architecture. My current bête noire is “tregging', a cross between a trouser and a legging. That wasn't mine, though.
And nor was “freemale”, although I rather wish it was. “Freemale” is the new word for “singleton” — and I think any female, free or otherwise, would agree it is an improvement on that bitter little lemon slice of a word.
Upbeat as “freemale” sounds, though, the message behind it is predictably dire: that unmarried women risk loneliness in middle age, a lower income than their married counterparts, and a husk of a life devoid of the succour of children.
When I was a freemale (or singleton, as was), there was more than enough to fret about without doom-laden surveys adding to the burden. So for all the freemales out there, here are a few reminders of how good life is tout seule.
1) You can spend Saturday night watching DVDs, instead of having to press pause at 10.29pm so that your husband can watch Match of the Day.
2) On weekends, you have two whole days to indulge yourself, as opposed to two scant minutes of peace shoehorned between ferrying your kids to 53 different birthday parties.
3) The Green and Blacks is always, always where you left it.
The most vexing thing about being a freemale, I seem to remember, was the married women who rubbed your face in their happiness. Steer clear of them and you'll live a long and happy life.
There are no flies on Kate Garraway. Just at the point where her new, 10-years-younger competition — sorry, companion on the GMTV sofa — seemed in danger of hogging all the headlines for ever more, Kate rallied in the cleverest possible way. In a culture where such events are greeted with more rapture than the Second Coming, poor newbie Emma Crosby didn't stand a chance. However shiny her hair, however clingy her pencil skirt, it was as nothing compared to the A-bomb dropped by Kate: the news that she was pregnant with her second child. Round one to Garraway.
Which sofa will Kate be on, five days after the birth of her baby: her own, or GMTV's? Undoubtedly the former, for we've all been reminded that rushing back to work after a baby is less a guarantee of job security than of public opprobrium. The firing of Rachida Dati (below) seems all the more brutal given that we all know the sacrifices she made to avoid it. As an avid lover of clothes, perhaps she will find some solace in the peerless confections thrown up by Paris Couture Week, which commenced today. Although whether she will be looking or buying depends on her pay-off. Let's hope it's a generous one.
Reader views (2)
Spinster has such a nice, homely feel about it, doesn't it?
- Bod, London, 26/01/2009 16:16
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There was nothing wrong with the perfectly good old English word spinster.
- Cam, uk, 26/01/2009 11:46
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