SATC DVD Release

While chopping veg for din with the tv on, I saw the ad promoting the upcoming release of the SATC dvd and felt a sudden urge to: first, wildly overspend; and second, drink something pink. Quelle Pavlovian response, n'est ce pas?

Pomegranates

For the past few weeks, I have been wallowing in the comforts of girl-tv. The channel in question is called Cosmo, and it features amongst other things movies starring Julia Roberts, Colin Firth, Sandra Bullock and repeats of such uber-feminist gems such as Sex and the City, Charmed and Veronica Mars. It's completely addictive. And advertisements are awesome. It's clear who they're targeting. Women in need of the most technologically advanced pregnancy tests, wholewheat pasta and pomegranates. Pomegranates in everything: not just bevvies but hair dye and chewing gum. C'est fou!

Do you know if you misspell the name of the fruit, as I just did, your google query will bring up links explaining how to eat one? It may be have ascended to power food status, but the pomegranate still manages to leave people in the midwest slightly baffled. And that is awesome too.

Image: slashfoods.com

SATC

It's difficult to pick just one, but I think my favourite SATC episode of all time has to be from Season 3 when the girls go to LA and Carrie hooks up with Vince Vaugn's character. Not only does it feature Mr Sunshine but also a cameo from the incomparable Carrie Fisher. And it makes an interesting statement about the consumer culture of the late 1990s, in particular the status accessory, which in this instance is a faux Fendi bag.

SATC

Somehow, through no fault of my own, I missed season six of SATC. Since the nights are still drawing in, I thought I would remedy this oversight. Tonight I wept a little, okay a lot, when Harry proposed to Charlotte. I'm a sucker for a happy ending! Now watching my new fave show 'Ugly Betty'. I love that plucky, yet resolutely unplucked, Latina!

SJP Gets No Love From Nirpal Dhaliwal

Ranking at number 29 in a recent celebrity poll, Times writer Nirpal Dhaliwal exposes the other ugly side of Sarah Jessica Parker. A brilliant piece. Straight men have always been impervious to Ms Parker's charms. I remember listening to my college friends debate the merits of SJP's character Carrie Bradshaw. My friend Wade sniped that she looked like a woman's idea of an attractive woman whereas one clever wag shot back that she was a gay man's idea of a hot chick. A silence fell over the group and the point was settled. Boys dig Charlotte but Carrie gets no love.

The Sunday Times | Celebrity: The Power 50 Part Two

She legitimised being a vapid, shoe-obsessed cretin, says Nirpal Dhaliwal

The only women who are uglier and more disgusting than models are those who aren’t but wish they were. Carrie Bradshaw — brought so vividly to life by SJP — epitomised these empty-headed klutzes and their desperation to conform to the junk middle-of-the-road lifestyle peddled in glossy magazines. Parading as hip metropolitan divas, they are, in fact, driven by the most mainstream and conservative preoccupations: fashion, diets and men.

Sex and the City began as a humdrum show about some whitebread squares trading stories about their boring yuppie lives. It soon evolved into what modern women want most: a reason to hate themselves. In the process, Parker played her part to the full. She got thinner, her outfits grew more expensive and glamorous and she became another strand in the web of self-loathing in which today’s women are entangled. She legitimised being a vapid, shoe-obsessed cretin for an entire generation. Posing as a kooky, self-deprecating slave to fashion, her character was, in fact, a narcissistic witch who flaunted her possessions with ruthless vigour.

Her bouncing self-confidence was flabbergasting. Her irrepressible zest and nitwit smile beamed out the message: “I’m thin and I’m blonde, and I’m all that!” But, apart from Matthew Broderick, guys aren’t hot for bony, big-nosed, big-chinned girls. And that mole! Couldn’t she have skipped on a few designer frocks and had it fixed? Carrie always questioned why her relationships never lasted, but the answer stared right back at her whenever she looked in the mirror.

Thanks to Parker/Bradshaw, I can’t go to any bar without hearing moronic, bellini-bingeing wannabes brag about blowing the peanuts they earn in PR/media/retail on the latest stupid accessory. Men have been robbed of sexy, interesting women. And SJP carries a big chunk of the blame.