Ok, so most of the classes I teach have stopped now it's the summer holidays, and won't be up and running again til September.  However, I am still teaching the Thursday morning drop in at Patcham Community Centre right through the summer except for Thursday August 7th when I'll be away and will have nobody to cover for me.  Whichever of the classes you usually go to, you're welcome to come along to this instead.  See the Yoga Classes page for details.

The Monday evening group marked the end of the term by having dinner at the wonderful Preston Park Tavern in Havelock Road.  We've done this several years in a row now, and it's a great opportunity to catch up on how people are getting on in their practise.  The food is some of the best I've eaten in Brighton, or anywhere come to that, and the atmosphere is as they say, convivial, and it's interesting to see people off their mats and in their civvies.  Interesting too for me is the adjustment I make from being teacher to just being one of the gals.  In the course of the evening we talked about how the yoga practise has helped one of the students sort out her frozen shoulder, and how it has helped the rest of the class feel sane and relaxed.  Aside from yoga conversations we talked about our kids, grandchildren, pets, partners, what shoes to wear and where to buy the latest pink high heels at a bargain price, and who of us has style and who of us sadly doesn't.  I came into the second category unfortunately.  I had the wrong shoes on.  My favourite DM sandals.  Clodhoppers our glamourous student called them.

Anyway, I'm off camping this weekend to Buddhafields in Devon where stylish shoes will be the least of my problems as I expect to spend the entire week in wellies (actually they are quite stylish and have big pink flowers on them...).  I'm looking forward to spending longer times meditating than I usually do, and generally being in a retreat type situation, my batteries will get recharged and I can't wait.

1. The Attire – This young professor wouldn’t look bad at all, but he might not dress up either.  He could be seen wearing a dress shirt with a jacket that has patches on the elbows.  He would also wear interesting shoes such as Doc Martens or maybe even boots.  His pants were often a little baggier than the older professors as well.  No matter the day though, this professor looked cool as hell.
2. The Accessories – Dr. So and So would also have other cool features about him as well.  He might have earrings or black rimmed classes that made him look super smart.  This was the envy of many of the male students in the class who wished they could look as smart and cool as he did.
3. The Stroll – This professor could not be seen walking around campus.  He was actually never seen walking around campus.  He could definitely be seen strolling around campus though.  The young professor walked the same way that Tim Robbins does as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption.  He strolled around campus taking in the sights, making terribly smart observations to himself and taking general pleasure in his genius.  This professor wasn’t stuck up, but rather he had…
4. The Confidence – The professor conducted himself in class with a superhuman level of confidence as a genius of his caliber should.  He would walk around the classroom gesturing with purpose while explaining Immanuel Kant’s Second Categorical Imperative.  He was able to deflect, explain and elaborate any question, especially from the obnoxious kid in the back row who took a summer class and thought he knew everything.  Cut it out, Mike.
5. The Sense of Humor – You couldn’t quite classify his sense of humor as conventional, but good God was it hilarious.  It was the dry observations and subtle interjections into the lesson that made all the guys retell the jokes later and the girls talk about their crushes on him.  For example, the professor might be an ethics professor who is discussing the morality of sexual acts, “Some people believe in sex with one person, maybe twenty seven people.  Some people believe twenty seven is too much, maybe it’s just right.”  See, that isn’t funny to anyone but two of my friends that I took ethics with.  But we thought it was the funniest thing ever.  But the point is that every student who has had a professor like this has a similar story.
6. The Legend – This might be specific only to my friends and me, but we made a list of ridiculous things that our professor’s genius was able to accomplish.  They are similar to the Chuck Norris list of facts.  Here is that list: 

(To protect the identity of this professor I will not use his real name)

• Dr. Jones gets Connect Four in one move.
• Dr. Jones’ earrings are made from Excalibur’s scabbard.
• Charles Xavier is paralyzed from the waist down because he lost to Dr. Jones in chess.
• The computer game “Myst” is based on a dream Dr. Jones had as a toddler
• Dr. Jones made a fully functional computer out of Legos.
• Dr. Jones plays golf with Socrates on the first of every month.
• Dr. Jones is the only human to successfully train a cat to fetch.
• Dr. Jones is the only person to have solved the Rubik’s Cube without touching it.
• Dr. Jones wins American Idol every year.
• Dr. Jones has a light saber… and is proficient in its use
• Dr. Jones’ cat is a saber toothed tiger
• Dr. Jones drives the car from Speed Racer.
• Event Horizon is a movie based on Dr. Jones’ fifth grade science project.
• Jurassic Park is a real place and it is Dr. Jones’ summer home.
• Beer was a gift given to humanity by Dr. Jones.
• Dr. Jones’ security system for his house is an army of Kantian robots.
• Dr. Jones is the only person allowed to use middle fingers instead of X’s and O’s in Tic Tac toe.
• Stephen Hawking is actually Dr. Jones’ pen name.

I would imagine that some of you probably don’t think these are funny.  But that’s the point.  Every person has their own experience with one of these professors who made class interesting, made you learn the material, and it made you like the material.  So thank you to all of the professors out there who fall into this category and have affected the lives of students all over the country.  I’m off to get my ears pierced and a Ph.D.

1.) The aesthetic and cultural mindset of the early 1990's is without a doubt returning.

2.) Doc Martens shoes are gaining popularity again, largely due to some new design ideas and Kate Moss adopting the style.

3.) Gladiator style shoes are all the rage right now, and appear to be developing into less of a trend piece and more as a new classic.

4.) Guest designers doing capsule collections for lower end brands (think Target's Go International line, or the upcoming Comme Des Garcons collection at H&M) is the total shit right now...

So.......

What the fuck is up with the hideous love child created by (otherwise excellent designer) Raf Simons and Doc Martens? These aweful shoes are scheduled to be released for Spring 2009, but with the negative reaction they are getting from just about everyone who has seen this preview, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing got scrapped.

Doc Marten boots seem to be the one shoe that always manages a revival. Heavily associated with the Grunge movement of the early 90's , you can now find them in fluorescent colors. and im sure you have seen them on everyone from Lil Mama and Aggy Deyn to your local hipsters and even on the Chloe runway show.

Also back are British Knights, remember those? Who didn't have a pair of those in the 90's? They have gone through an image overhall and now look something like this:

--Mikey

Take it for what you will, but It looks like 90s favorite, Doc Martens, just got a second wind from an unsuspecting source.

It appears designer Raf Simmons will be collaborating with the shoe brand on a limited-edition line set to drop sometime in spring '09. Three prototypes from the collaboration recently appeared at Bread & Butter, the Barcelona trade show where lots of popular niche brands show-off all of their new designs for buyers.

While I understand Raf's decision to bring the modern minimalist aesthetic that has made his own lines so popular to the Doc Martens franchise by streamlining an otherwise boring shoe style, there's absolutely nothing even mildly attractive in his two opened-toed shoes. In particular, the "mandel" with red stitching. It's looks like a fall '07 Balenciaga gladiator sandal gone awry.

Hopefully, the women will be spared from this collaboration because I would hate to see what a remixed pair of day-glo hi-tops would look like.

Just need to break them in now.

(The hot guy that is apparently a professional dancer. Hee hee. :D )

Anyways, was at Club Answer for the Wally Lopez DJ show last night with Roos and towards the end of his set, I got invited up to stand next to him behind his equipment! He waved at me to come up, and up I went, haha. There were some club staff that tried to stop me, but he waved his arm to let me through and then I was standing next to him! It was really cool! I looked at the equipment and it seems like a completely multi-tasking job. So many things to control and be aware of at once; you have to insert the right CD to play the next song, you have to listen to the headphones to decide what track to play next, you have to fiddle with some buttons and slides to add and control sound effects, etc. etc. Oh yeah, he took a picture with me hahahahaha. It was seriously so fun! I now want to try DJ-ing more than ever. However, the crowd last night was ok. Not many of the usual hipster-ish crowd that I love to go and see, haha. That's ok, I think the crowd was right for the DJ, anyways.

But it was amazing! I think I've turned into a club rat, hee hee. That's ok... it's all in the pursuit of great music.

But I am still VERY MUCH so upset about missing the Steve Aoki show at the Walkerhill Hotel the weekend I was in Daegu (대구). The freaking COBRASNAKE WAS THERE. AUGH. I can't believe I missed one of the biggest shows of the year in Seoul. Sigh. When I found out the COBRASNAKE WAS THERE... you have no idea how crushed I was. Sighhhhhhh.

I really want a white pair of Doc Marten boots. The issue is... do I buy a pair of them here, where they're like 2x the price, or when I go back to the United States? The logical answer is... I wait and buy them when I'm back in the United States but... I really want them now. Typical Eunice thinking. And yes, I shouldn't and I probably won't, but I WANT I WANT I WANT. It's totally illogical to buy them here because they're so much more incredibly expensive, and they'd be really heavy to ship back when I can just buy them in the States for cheaper and be able to choose from a wider variety of boots. Oh, how I love and dislike this city. Seoul has captured my heart and will always.

Yummy... *drools* Also need to find a pair of silver or gold sneakers to wear to the SPEKTRA show on June 6th, once again at Answer...

Back to the boots at hand. I'm really into the whole early to mid 90's Grunge, flannel, torn jeans, hating parents and life era; so naturally, I'm all for this trend. (I obviously wasn't kidding around when I mentioned several posts back that I was singing Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" in a bar.) I'm also secretly hoping that the pair of Docs that my father bought for me (from the Alley) years and years ago are collecting dust somewhere in the garage. OK fine, I won't wear them because I'd obviously look like a fool, but I just want them to have them, ya know? Plus, I think they look good on the model above. Female Caucasian Cokeheads of the world unite a la Kate Moss and Agyness Deyn. Isn't that the demographic that will be rocking these the most in the upcoming months, anyway?

]]> http://halfpintpixie.wordpress.com/?p=666 Fri, 23 May 2008 13:54:17 +0000 halfpintpixie http://halfpintpixie.wordpress.com/?p=666 I used to live in Doc Martens in my pre-vegan days, I had black ones, purple ones, burgundy ones, a pair lovingly customised with sparkly coloured nail polish, my so-called "baby-docs" which only had 6 holes, ah those were the days! I still have the old pair of burgundy ones with a worn away sole sitting upstairs in my wardrobe. I am considering turning them into a plant-pot!

Anyway, I loved them, they were so comfy, after the initial foot-destroying "breaking-in" period. But DM's are made of leather so replacing them wasn't an option. Until today... upon my toes I am sporting my brand new burgundy "Airseal Boulder Boots" from vegetarian-shoes.co.uk, with my good old purple laces rescued from the old docs! They are exactly like docs with the exception of the stitching, it's not yellow, it's grey, maybe the yellow is trademarked.

A big huge "thank you" to Mr. HPP who insisted I take the plunge and order them online, because of my bad foot I usually don't order shoes online as I prefer to check the fit first.

But I ordered these on Sunday and they arrived today, and they're gorgeous (if you're into docs, if you're not then you'll probably think they're hideous). I'm breaking them in as I type.

They're made from Vegetan Micro which is

The toughest, hardest wearing and most water resistant breathable material that we use. Like all our materials it takes little 'breaking-in', is exceptionally like high quality leather in performance and has a distinctive grain.

And they're sweatshop-free, they're made in one of England's oldest shoe-making factories, established in 1881. I wonder if it's anything like the factory in Kinky Boots?

But they're certainly not cheap, let's hope they're good and longlasting :)

For those history-buffs in our midst, apparently Dr Marten used to make veggie non-leather boots, but when they moved production to China & Thailand in 2003, they ceased the veggie line. So there you go!

You're probably going to burn in purgatory for a minute or two for directing your browser to Coolspotters, but hec its probably worth it. The idea is you can do a search on brands and see which celebs dig them or you can do it the opposite way and check out what a celeb is into. Of course that is totally shallow and pointless and a symbol of the moral decay brought on by exposure to E! Entertainment/Heat magazine but also slightly addictive once you get going with it.

Having posted on two footwear brands recently I road tested it with these:

Converse - actually i might want to take everything nice i said about them back, Avril Lavigne likes them. Dammit

Doc Martens - no results, meaning they're awesomely cool obviously

(via PSFK)

There's nothing new about customising Doc Martens. Why back in the day I gave mine a splendid Daisy and James motif (if only i'd kept them dammit). Of course back in the 1890s we didn't have the internet or sites like Threadless and Etsy for brands to nick ideas from. Slight dig aside i love this - what would be even more awesome if you could order any design you liked from them. Can't have everything I guess. And listen i've been saying this since last year DMs are coming back in a big way. Be ahead of the curve and get yours now.

Here's the textbook Dr. Patterson required (actually it's the primary textbook; she required three):

*Image accessed via Amazon

Quote of note:

"Just because two people share a common language does not mean that they can easily communicate." ~Stueart & Moran

It’s not that things are any more interesting than usual.  Maybe it’s that I’m more interested than usual.  The kids are also making me laugh quite a lot and as I don’t do photos (see previous blog about my prowess with a camera) I do verbal snapshots instead, which means I wander round with a notebook a lot taking cryptic notes about the stupid stuff they do and say.  The problem is that my notes are so cryptic that if I don’t write them up fairly promptly I have no idea what it was that made me nearly die with laughter and valuable ammunition is lost for the time they get boy and girlfriends and I produce all this as evidence before demanding genetic testing and insanity clauses in the pre nup.

So.  I posted earlier about their collecting and disco dancing with pants on their head.  Shortly after that we decided to go out and meet my friend Saj at Borders.  Saj is a serial dumper in our friendship.  She frequently promises to come round and then invariably gets side tracked and doesn’t.  It has been six months and about fifteen promises since we last saw her.  As she was definitely within geographical range today, having a pathological need to shop at the shopping centre near our house we decided it was too good an opportunity to miss and went to capture her and bring her to our king.  To be fair to her, I never go to see her.  This is partly because she lives in Loughborough and I have a pathological hatred of Loughborough based on the fact that it is mostly full of physical education students running around in purple tracksuits and looking healthy.  It is also because she lives a student type life style in a shared house and I have three small children in tow.  The two lifestyles are not really compatible and never the twain shall meet.

Saj shops more than me.  Saj’s hobby is shopping.  Last time she came to my house she was three hours late because she was canoodling with a personal shopper in Monsoon.  She is unable to resist the siren’s call to go to the shops as often as possible.  Saj shops more than a personal shopper.  This is frequently why Saj fails to come and see us.  She is too busy maxing out her credit card.  To be fair to her she is also young, free and single and has a social life that put mine to shame even when I was young free and single myself.  She is often too partied out to come and see us too.  And who can blame her? Who wants to be surrounded by three hyperactive midgets all clamouring for attention when their head is pounding to the rhythm of the previous night’s pumping bass tunes and their handbag is full of sick? Not me, and I’m related to them.

Anyway, she was at Fosse Park shopping today, so we knew we could creep up on her.  We met her in Borders for cake and coffee.  Saj doesn’t usually shop at Borders so it was virgin territory for her, but due to the cake and children who threw themselves at her, squeaking with delight she liked it, although she was quite perturbed that Jason bought a book, particularly because it was 1984.  Saj had to read it for GCSE English and apparently it made her sick with boredom and frightened the pants off her.  Not a winning combination then really.  Still, she should have been glad that we didn’t buy it for her.  And Tilly did a picture of some Jimmy Choos for her, so all was not lost. 

Saj’s fatal weakness in the grand scheme of shopping is the sub category of shoes.  She has been known to offer workshops to men on the subject of how to judge women and relationships by the qualities of the shoes of both parties involved.  It is a serious subject.  She loves shoes, shoes, clothes and makeup, but mainly shoes.  She’s also been known to walk a mile over hot coals for a handbag, but only if it will match her shoes.  She doesn’t envy me any of my pairs of shoes, although she doesn’t know that my mum bought me a pair of Gina shoes the other day, so she might now.  She does envy me my Ghost handbag though.  Unfortunately my Gina shoes don’t go with my Ghost handbag.  I still love my handbag best.  It is the nicest handbag in the world and luckily for me it is so big I could fit a child in it, or enough things so that I can keep a fractious child amused for several days.

When Saj went to America for four months before Oscar was born I had to babysit a hamper full of shoes that she couldn’t be parted from so that nobody would steal them away while she was gone.  She also brought the girls two carrier bags full of killer heels for their dressing up box and deposited several more hampers with other kind people with shoe shaped spare rooms.  It is a serious addiction.  She favours Choos.  I prefer Manolos and Louboutins.  I don’t have either.  Saj does have Choos and killer Armani heels which look like weaponry.  She goes out dancing in these things.  Much kudos to her.  My dancing days involved Doc Martens or Mary Janes.  A lot, lot easier to dance in than four inch spikes.  Just the thought makes me want to cry.

Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was not the delights of our visit with her, because it was indeed delightful and I did promise her that I would write about her in the blog, hence the preamble.  What I really wanted to write about was what happened with the children both before and after we met up with her.

Before we met her we had to get out the door, and with three kids it’s no easy matter. The shoe cupboard has become a midden and is full of things that nobody wants to wear any more, or which the kids have grown out of, but which we haven’t gotten round to throwing away yet.  It also seems to contain three kites, two water pistols and a broken umbrella which I’m still puzzling over.  The forage through the shoe cupboard takes twenty minutes and a miner’s lamp and that’s before they have to have a wee, find their coats, argue over who is sitting next to who and then realise they need another wee because they’ve spent so long doing all the other things. 

Now, we have to keep all the bathroom doors firmly shut at the moment because Oscar has taken to turning on all the bath taps and dropping various crucial items down the toilet.  Ironically one of his favourite things to drop down the toilet is the wooden toilet from Tallulah’s dolls house.  It’s all very quantum. 

So, Tilly was rummaging in the shoe cupboard while Jason directed her with a torch and an ordnance survey map, I was doing something complicated in the study and keeping half an eye on Oscar, and Tallulah was in the toilet having her wee.  Tallulah came out of the toilet and unbeknownst to me, forgot to shut the door.  I turned to find my purse and Oscar toddled into the toilet and grabbed the first thing he could see which happened to be the toilet brush.  He then appeared round the study door, waving the toilet brush triumphantly and looking extraordinarily happy with himself.  He shouted ‘Teef! Clean!’ and shoved the dripping end of the toilet brush into his mouth before I could a) scream or b) run towards him.  He did not look very impressed with himself after he had lowered the brush, nor when I wrenched it out of his hot little grip.  Tallulah didn’t look very impressed with herself when she got a firm reprimand for not shutting the door, and I was not very impressed with myself for not having Zola Budd’s sprinting abilities.

My one consolation is that the toilet brush is much larger than his mouth and I am hoping that very little of it managed to wend its way into his gaping maw.  As it is I have been forcibly giving him lots of liquids ever since and praying a lot.  I really, really don’t want to spend the next few days trying to explain to the hospital how I let my child get dengue fever from the toilet brush.  As it is I nearly had to take him this evening because he tried to sit in his favourite bucket while he was having a shower and got his little fat bottom wedged in it.  Luckily he fell over because he was top heavy and that shunted it off his bum with a small pop!  Phew!  I spoke to my mum afterwards, and when she had finished picking herself up from the floor laughing she pointed out that it would have come off easily if I’d drilled a hole in the bottom of the  bucket to relieve the pressure.  A useful tip for the future no doubt.  She sounded very knowledgeable about it, so I presume that either me or my brother has been this way before.

After we got back from our trip out the girls were playing upstairs and Tilly came running to see me, trailed by Tallulah.  Tilly was in one of those breathlessly expectant states of excitement which meant that she had either discovered how to turn lead into gold or had found something which she thought was really going to get her sister into trouble.  The lead thing turned out to be a red herring and it was just the usual.  Tallulah is an avid collector of tea sets.  If you ever ask her what she wants for birthdays or Christmases a tea set will be somewhere on the list.  She has several.  One of her nicest ones is a really beautiful carved wooden one that my friend Rachel bought her. It comes complete with wooden tea bags on strings, lumps of wooden sugar and wooden cake.  It’s excellent.

As exhibit A for the prosecution Tilly had one of the tea cups in her hand.  She showed it to me wide eyed and bushy tailed, positively quivering for the kill.  In the bottom of the cup, in fact, half way up the sides of the cup was what looked like melted chocolate.  I enquired further.  It turns out that it was melted chocolate.  When I asked how come it was melted and how come it was in the bedroom, where they are not allowed to have any food of any kind, particularly not quantities of melted chocolate, it turned out that Tallulah had been smuggling portions of her sweetie time upstairs in her cheeks like a hamster.  Once it was sufficiently melted she was drooling it into her tea cups so that she could pretend it was coffee and play proper tea parties.  Yum yum.

I was a) disgusted, b) impressed at her ingenuity (we have discussed before how I find it much harder to get annoyed about naughty things which show some creative flair) and c) splitting my sides with laughter.  I tried to be cross, but unfortunately me falling about all over the floor and holding my sides put paid to that trip to the naughty step and I had to make her vow never to do it again before sending them both packing.  Tilly was quite disappointed that fireworks hadn’t erupted, but was forced into laughing along with everyone else, bless her scheming, black little heart.  We’ve scrubbed the cup, raided the giant tea set mountain to make sure there is no more evidence of chocolate based drool products and vowed never to speak of it again, except to you obviously….

Shirt: DIY
Suspenders: Le Chateau
Pants: H&M
Socks: Mom's
Shoes: Doc Marten

I'm kinda down. Me and my boyfriend went to an info night for an amazing program that pays you to create animations and do art. It's hosted by the local Quickdraw Animation Society. I know, almost too good to be true, right? Well, it's sponsored by the Youth Employment Initiative, so they can actually pay a select number of youths to gain work experience. I really, really, really wanted to do it, but one of the requirements is not being in school. My boyfriend is doing correspondence schooling, so he qualifies, but I don't. This also means that he's going to be working full time during the summer! To be frank, it just kinda sucks. I'm pretty jealous of him, but I'm also really happy because I know he's going to create amazing things and he really deserves the opportunity. He's already got ideas! Maybe in a couple years when I'm out of school I can do the program, and in the meantime I can get a membership to QAS and work on my own projects. That's not so bad!

http://www.dmbootdesign.com/designs/view/2472

]]> http://providentstyle.wordpress.com/?p=117 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:52:10 +0000 carvedstars http://providentstyle.wordpress.com/?p=117 Success! I now own everything I was looking for in this post with the addition of a new pair of Doc Martens to my shoe collection. I love the stitching and the colour of these, and the leather is surprisingly soft.

These were originally $175 (!!!) but I got them for $115. (Well, my mom paid for them, since I've been wanting them forever and you can't really get much more practical then combat boots). I'm so excited to wear these with my new glasses and maybe some lipstick tomorrow. But with what else?! I guess you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to see what I figure out!

Always buying sneakers? It's the sign of a leader: poll

Tue Apr 1, 9:50 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Got a passion for buying sneakers? It could be a good sign, with a poll finding that people who buy three pairs of sneakers or more a year are far more likely to be a leadership type than other people.

Mindset Media, a media company that examines personality traits of different consumers, found that people who buy more than three pairs of sneakers a year are 61 percent more likely to have the qualities of a modern leader.

These qualities were defined as having ideas and vision, and a style with others that is both inclusive and decisive.

The survey of 7,500 people, using market research group Nielsen's online panel, found multi-sneaker buyers were 50 percent more likely to be very assertive and 47 percent more likely to be spontaneous.

Lauren Arvonio, a spokeswoman for Mindset Media, said sneaker buyers were more likely to fly by the seat of their pants.

"It is often said you can tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear, and now we have some hard data to back that up," Arvonio told Reuters.

"What is interesting is that these personality traits held true across the board, regardless of age, income, or gender."

Previous Mindset Media surveys found that people who pay their credit card bills off each month were more likely to be "highly deliberate," thinking through their actions, but also less modest than others, likely to brag about their habits.

Hybrid car owners were found to be 78 percent more likely to be highly creative than other people and less dogmatic.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Patricia Reaney)

Source: Yahoo.

Here are my questions:

1. What if, like me, you just prefer sneakers over other kinds of shoes? I've never liked high heel shoes. I don't understand how a woman can walk let alone drive with those things on.

2. Does the term "sneakers" refer to brands more affiliated with athletic activity and competitive sports (Nike, Adidas, K-Swiss, Reebok, New Balance) or those associated with comfortable and cool (Skechers, Converse/Chuck Taylors, Puma, Doc Martens, Onitsuka Tiger)? Or both?

3. In order for this study to correlate positively the higher number of sneaker purchases with a leader type personality, would the number and kind of other shoe purchases have to be considered? The article cites that three sneaker purchases a year ~ 61% more probable that the buyer would possess "modern leader" characteristics. What if you only bought sneakers (the athletic and casual)? Would you then be discounted as part of the data set? I only buy sneakers (by choice rather than necessity--there are instances where I have to buy slippers or sandals) and sure as Irony will not stop tormenting earthlings, I am no modern leader type. I'm more the Superego type.

Well, spring is here again, so who's using Kurt's name (and lyrics and personal journal notes) for financial gain this time? Besides Courtney ("the girl with the most fake"), you mean?

Converse®.

You see, Converse® is about to celebrate it's 100th anniversary (it's 5th anniversary since being purchased by Nike, btw). And what better way to celebrate the "Converse® Century" than to, as Nike... I mean Converse® says, "honor Cobain" by reproducing the One Stars® Kurt was wearing when he "killed himself"? And what better time to do so than just a month after the anniversary of his "killing himself"?

Using a dead celeb to hawk merchandise is, of course, nothing new:

• Elvis.com has a TCB (taking care of business) sink strainer with heart-shaped holes ($12.99)
• Jamesdean.com has a James Dean Celebriduck. "It's a bird... it's a duck... it's a James Dean Celebriduck!" ($9.95)

I can't imagine who would buy these shoes except for either teenagers who would like to emulate Kurt or a fellow Gen Xer attempting to relive the early '90s, because s/he didn't really get it until the late '90s. There's still hope for the former. The latter? You're on your own, although I'll give you a bit of advice–Audioslave isn't Soundgarden and Velvet Revolver isn't Stone Temple Pilots.

Anyway, if you're a kid thinking of purchasing these shoes "featuring artwork and scribbles borrowed from Cobain's personal notebooks," please remember that Kurt pretty much wore thrift store cardigans, old pajama tops, ratty t-shirts, torn jeans and pre-Nike Converse® that he wore until they were falling apart. There's a reason music of the early '90s was called, Grunge. The Cobain Nike/Converse® of 2008 come with "wear and fray detailing."

Seriously, regardless of your age, if you liked Kurt or Nirvana, DIY. Here's how:

1. Buy a normal pair of Nike/Converse® (Amazon/Target sell One Stars®, minus "Kurt Cobain's signature subtly embroidered on the shoe's outer" for half the price of the $50 to $65 in which Nike/Converse® plans to sell the Cobain versions). Get a black sharpie. Scribble 'Kurt Cobain' on the side.

Or

2. Go to Goodwill. Buy any pair of sneakers. Get a black sharpie. Cross out the brand. Draw a star, fill it in and put a circle around it. This would be my recommendation.

Then, with the money you and your friends saved, go buy some CDs. Or better yet, buy a cheap guitar like the kind Kurt played early on in his career. Then, as Kurt's friend and Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic said, "just bang something out and mean it," and make your own CD. And as Krist also said, "remember Kurt for what he was: caring, generous and sweet." Not for what he wore... or, in this case, something he never would've endorsed.

Now, if the shoes came in a collectible heart shaped box... well, that would change everything.

"Distressed in the way Kurt Cobain wore them, the shoes provide a rarely seen glimpse into the head of this musical and lyrical genius with sketches that display his hopes, dreams and lyrics from amazing songs such as, 'Come As You Are.'" As my good friend Rick said… "my ass."

Come as you are, not as Kurt was or as Nike wants you to be.

You're still going to buy them aren't you?

Oh, well, whatever, nevermind.

ok so i've just been watching z list music acts covering their 'guilty pleasure' songs.

i'm not sure how embarrassing liking terence trent d'arby is, i mean he's not exactly milli vanilli, but i enjoyed craig david the most. of course thanks to bo selecta many people now in fact feel embarrassed to listen to craaaaaig daaaaavid.

anyway, here are mine. none of them fit with the rest of my music collection. i make no apologies.

further proof of my bad taste can be found in the songs i turn down on my ipod, songs i use to annoy people on the tube and songs i used to taunt old people on the bus.

download here

a-ha - you are the one

well, back in junior school you didn't like certain type of music, you either like it or you didn't. perhaps unsurprisingly there was something melancholy about the norwegian boys. good job they weren't from finland.

belinda carlisle - i get weak

MOR rock has never been my thing but there's something i like about belinda. this has always been my favourite of hers.

billy joel - tell her about it

one of my first tapes was billy joel, except my mum kept nabbing it. i love how steve in sex and the city is a billy joel fan and i love how he asks the russian if he 'knows any billy joel' to play on his thousand dollar piano.

kylie minogue - hand on your heart

most girls my age were kylie fans but lets face it this was more to do with neighbours than her singing voice, which is terrible. like a cat singing through a funnel.

lisa loeb - stay

sensitive 90s twanging bypassed me, mainly, but i loved reality bites. its so worthy and look-at-me-i'm so-understated...but i love it.

phil collins - two hearts

the soundtrack to buster featured the four tops and this song was written in a similar vein to 'loco in acapulco'. but they had to let phil sing it cos he was the main character. liking phil has never really been cool but loads of people do, anyway.

robbie nevil - c'est la vie

sunny 'things aren't so bad' pop that was huge in the late 80s. i usually hate these songs but this really reminds me being about ten.

talk talk - it's my life

sounds like it should have been in a john hughes movie. just sounds so 1985.

talking heads - once in a lifetime

back in the good old days on mtv europe, this used to be part of the intro for mtv's greatest hits, along with inxs. i loved the early 90s mtv - 3 from 1, pulse with swatch, party zone, yo mtv raps, soul of mtv...fruit of the loom ads and ads for frightening german techno compilations...

soup dragons - divine thing

i can't relate to wanting to be the indie girl the soup dragons are singing about cos she was probably had that mousy hair gone pink from trying to dye it red, doc martens and lumberjack shirt. so not me. but i almost wish i could stand to dress like that for the sake of this song.

stone roses - she bangs the drums

a friend who was into the whole madchester scene pointed out that it was all quite dancey. so i listened again. i now have a grand total of 15 baggy anthems on my ipod. well they did play them at the hacienda.

whitesnake - is this love

80s hair rock is the staple playlist of o'neills and chicago rock cafes the nation wide. i hate it. but not this.

We have to thank (or hate) designer Paulo Melim for resurrecting the Doc Marten -- causing fashionistas aching for the $700 chunky Chloes wedges to settle for the original and cheaper punk shoe. Unless, of course, you live in the UK and idolize Daisy Lowe AKA Gavin Rossdale's lovechild. (Scandelous!)

Anyways, as appealing as these neon boots are, we're going to have to take a pass. Aren't these sooo two season ago, anyways?

So, we must ask:

Chic or Troubled?

I am wearing my new vintage kids jacket which I bought a couple weeks ago. Its made of polyutherane and looks kinda cheap but I love it. It will be worn a lot during the Spring as its such a light-weight jacket and I just love the vibrant red colour.

This skirt is a bit too long for my taste so I'm gonna have to buy a shorter one when I have some money to spare. What do you think though? Is it too long for my 5ft2 petitness or is it okay really? Opinions are all welcome.

(Red cropped polyutherane hooded Jacket by Paramount Kids, Striped Thermal Shirt with Skull Diamante detail from Forever 21, Midi-length Black Jersey Skirt from Forever 21, Quilted Silver Bag With Chain Straps from China, Silver Over the knee Socks from Primark & Black Doc Martens Boots.)

It was a very noisy audience though, and frankly I didn't approve.  I did check with Andrea at the interval that it was indeed Wednesday and not Saturday, as it was turning out to be a very Saturday type audience (i.e. people who've come to Stratford on a bus and feel that while they're here they ought to see a play even though they don't like Shakespeare). There was an extraordinary amount of coughing and sniffing, and several people having 'chats' during some of the soliloquies, which is incredibly rude and made me long for the death penalty to be re-introduced.

Andrea and I did think about setting up a vigilante usherette society where we would be equipped with night vision goggles and tasers.  It would be excellent.  I had at least half a dozen people on my hit list last night.  To get on to my old lady soap box (very carefully, you have to watch your hips), I think it's outrageous that someone would pay thirty quid to go to the theatre to have a chat.  Apart from the fact that it's wildly disrespectful of the rest of the audience and the poor actors, it's much cheaper to stay at home and have a chat in your kitchen, and you're less likely to get tasered by me.  That's got to be a bonus.

There were lots of young people.  I also wondered if they were, dare I say it, 'students', which they might have been, judging from their interesting clothing choices and some fantastically improbable hair don'ts.  The white person's afro seems to be having a bit of resurgence.  It's a shame really as I wasn't  a huge fan of it the first time round.  I don't mind black people's afros, like dread locks, they just seem to work so much better that way.  But white dreadlocks and 'fro's just look ridiculous.  They seem to grow rather like out of control box hedges.  It made me long to get out a big pair of shears and set about me.  No doubt there would have been a few ears lost in the mix along the way, but as it was a very bloody play anyway, nobody would have noticed too much.

Having said that, there aren't many schools that can be teaching Henry VI, surely?  It's not known as one of the big show stoppers in the Shakespearean canon.  If my education was anything to go by you invariably get saddled with Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice and Hamlet, whether you like it or not.  Mostly not, I might add.  Hamlet I can just about live with.  I really can't stomach R&J, not even with Leonardo Di Caprio.  He mumbles too much, and he looks like he needs a good wash.  His mother really ought to take him in hand.  I dread to think what a state his bedroom is in.  Lots of clumps of tissues and an interestingly fetid aroma no doubt...

I think I've mentioned my aversion to Leo before, so we'd better move swiftly on to pastures new before I start waxing lyrical once more.

I must add here that I am in no way critical of student clothing habits, as this is one area where I have no sartorial leg to stand on.  My dress habits as a teenager and student were strange, bordering on the bizarre, and it is a wonder that my parents ever went anywhere with me in public.  It can be chalked up as a plus point on their score sheet and brought out in their defence when the therapy bills are finally tallied up.  I've mentioned this before too, but it's late, and I'm tired and I'm beginning to show off...

I was a stupendously unattractive young woman, and decided very early on that there was no way that I was ever going to compete with flocks of lithe and lissom beauties (indeed my only saving grace being that I was as skinny as a stick), so I would go the other way.  For a number of years I dressed in cast off men's clothing from charity shops including a surprising number of cravats, sports jackets and pyjamas.  In the case of the pyjamas I used to sew up the flies and wear them around town with doc martens, a DJ jacket and a hat.  I also had large, Christopher Biggins style glasses, not as an affectation, but because I was blind without them and my parents wouldn't let me have contact lenses until I was seventeen. 

I looked like a cross between Marty Feldman and Su Pollard.  It was not a look guaranteed to bring young men flocking to my door.  Perhaps that's why my parents encouraged it.  I was hardly likely to fall victim to teenage pregnancy, although if the Clothes Show had ever come our way I would have been taken in hand by Geoff Banks no doubt.

When I got to University I gave up the menswear for the most part.  Instead I used to visit a decrepit old charity shop which dedicated their profits to cat rescue.  As you would expect, it was run by batty old ladies with giant moustaches who smelled of cats, Yardley Lavender and death.  Because of this, most people wouldn't go in, and everything in the shop cost about fifty pence.  It meant that I had a very large and eclectic wardrobe to which I added items at an alarming rate.  I chose things based on how I was feeling and whether I liked the material.  I never really bothered with issues like whether it fit or not, or indeed whether it was appropriate to turn up to lectures in a moth eaten ball gown with a lumberjack shirt on top.

Generally nobody cared what you wore as long as you did wear clothes.  Really, my clothes were very conservative compared to what a lot of people wore.  As I have explained before, it was a very odd university and they would let pretty much anyone in.  As a result, pretty much everyone did arrive at one time or another.  One guy used to dress in Prussian Army uniform.  Another bloke, who lived near me thought he was a Lancaster Bomber, and a chap who lived in the room below me didn't approve of the modern world at all.  He stopped being interested in anything after nineteen twenty.  He dressed in plus fours and a lot of tweed and still wrote with an ink pen.  His room looked like a museum.  He was nineteen.  Another bloke I knew would wear horns and green and gold dresses for special occasions, and someone else looked like Jesus.  It was all go.

One item in my wardrobe was a constant, and that was Doc Martens.  I pine for a good pair of Docs every now and again, it has to be said.  Jason hates them, so I have resisted the temptation, although I might take them up again when I get to be a pensioner.  They are rather heavy and your ankles get calluses where the lace holes rub, so I will probably have to get an orthopaedic pair so my ankles don't snap in two.

 I spent about ten years of my life wearing very little else in the line of shoe wear mainly because they are just so comfortable and practical.  I even wore a pair for my graduation.  It was the only thing that pleased me about the whole day actually.  My mortar board kept slipping over my eye (I had measured my head with a bit of string and a ruler, and surprisingly, got the measurements way out), the speeches were all in Welsh, and the honourary degree went to a man who wrote a very boring bit of the Maastricht Treaty.  It was a terrible day...

I used to have several pair of Docs.  I had my sturdy, all purpose black ones, and then I had my purple ones for best.  I also had some green ones at one time, which were also lovely.  In my third year they brought out some in red or green velvet.  We all coveted those, but none of us bought them, even at that tender age we realised they would have been completely trashed in less than a week.  You'd feel like a king for a day and then look like a dog's dinner for the rest of time.  Not a good balance.  My friend used to customise hers with beads and paint and stuff, but I wasn't very good at art and knew that if I ventured that way I would end up with something that looked like cat sick on the end of my toe, so I stuck to the unadorned variety.

So, having a horrible queasy feeling that I have told you all this before, again, and again, and we are now revolving on the horrible hamster wheel of time, we should move on.  I am also feeling that this is good limbering up for my old age when I will just continually repeat my stories of the war (despite never having been in one.  Looks like my ninety three viewings of 'The Longest Day' might come in handy after all) and tell everyone how old I am until they want to kill me.  I shall probably be single handedly responsible for the legalisation of euthanasia.

Did some baking with the kids this afternoon.  We raided Nigella Express for ideas and ended up making triple chocolate cookies, which I cooked a tad too long, and which are a little too crispy for my liking, but which we have forced down anyway.  We also made her no cook cheesecake, which she covered in cherries, but knowing my fear of fruit based desserts, you will be unsurprised to find that we substituted crumbled up Flakes for the cherries.

I knew the cheesecake was a hit when Andrea, who swapped a seat at the dinner table for a ride to the theatre, had two helpings.  This is a good sign.  Nigella we salute you...

Tuxedo navy jacket by Tara Jarmon; White Linen Dress by Miss Sixty; Grey Marl Tights by Pamela Mann & Dark cherry red lace-up ankle boots by Doc Martens, Tartan cashmere scarf from China (my mum bought it for me coz she knows I love tartan, except that she calls its "scottish" and not tartan)

*with flash* - lol.