Morning:
10°c
There's no female face of the recession, we are told. Well, there is now, following Tuesday's premiere of the film of Sophie Kinsella's bestselling novels, Confessions of a Shopaholic, my first pick of the half-term week.
At the weekend, I prematurely lumped it together with egregious examples of regressive Hollywood chick-flicks in which girls want designer shoes followed rapidly by marriage. Far from it. Forget whatever you may have read written by men eager to blame the global financial meltdown entirely on girls queuing for Fendi baguettes.
Shopaholic does for shopping what Trainspotting did for heroin. Our consumer-addicted heroine, Becky Bloomwood, does say things such as "underwear is a human right" but also weans herself from the drug of retail, pays off her debts in full with her own money, develops a sideline as a financial hackette, and doesn't seem remotely interested in snagging a rich husband.
Far from glorifying the life of buying stuff you don't need with cash you haven't earned, Ms Bloomwood could be a poster girl for the credit crunch.
Eat your heart out, Pesto! Becky's the real money honey of this most unminted millennium.
* My second half-term pick, then, is the coming-of-age, thrash-punk Wedekind musical at the Lyric. I took my 14-year-old and 16-year-old but tactfully sat in a different row.
It's not perfect - the endless pop songs and gloopy plot make one long for the piece to be titled Silent Spring rather than Spring Awakening - but the hairstyling alone is worth the price of admission: dos range from Eraserhead spikes to monkish tonsures via periwigged George III updos.
It throbs with raw energy and smells, one has to concede, exactly like the purest teen spirit. Admittedly, the subject matter is very GCSE drama course - it covers the waterfront from child abuse, masturbation, abortion, adolescent suicide, Myra Hindley (OK, I made the last one up) - but anything milkier wouldn't have worked.
I had to make a great effort not to laugh out loud or nod my head to the beat during some of the more banging numbers (there is a song called "F*cked, which had us stomping and cheering in the aisles), or, indeed, draw attention to myself in any way.
If there's anything worse than being 16, it's having parents visibly reliving their own teenage years in your anguished presence.
* Met two fortysomething friends in the park this week, with new puppies frisking on leads. Both said exactly the same thing. "I can't think why I didn't bypass the children stage altogether," they mused, gazing rapturously at their adored pets, "and go straight to dogs."
Reader views (1)
That`s how your wired to behave, I`m afraid - and the lower your self esteem, the more you need to shop.
But as the ad says - it`s OK - your worth it!
- Darius Midwinter, London United Kingdom, 19/02/2009 10:43
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