Aged to perfection
Some things in life improve with age; a classic car, a fine wine, a particularly stinky cheese - and I would add, fashion. Fashion is ever a cyclical creature, and once a look is past the initial phase of being so unfashionable you wouldn't even be seen at your local church hall in it, a strange transformation occurs. The look becomes so dated it's cool again; it becomes kitsch, it becomes retro. As a case in hand, would any of us have believed in the mid-nineties that pretty soon leg warmers would return as a viable fashion accessory? Frankly it makes me worry that some crazy-minded designer might bring the shell suit back to haunt us. Designers are obviously fans of vintage. It could be an admiring homage to the eras that just got it right, (if it isn't broken, don't fix it), then again it could just be a lack of modern inspiration and originality. The debate is open as to whether fashion has anywhere else to go but backwards....
Columns: Crash Cooking
The Scene: Dear old mumsie's been giving you an ear-bending. "You are eating enough vegetables, aren't you?". Hmmmm...that probably means that you're eating a student classic Chinese dish at least once each week: the stir-fry. Well, they are easy, and almost always veg-packed, but don't they get boring after a while? Isn't stir-in sauce getting you down? Stop stirring and frying and try a whole new way of experiencing vegetables eastern-style. This basis of this dish is an Indonesian meal called gado gado, but I've added a bunch of flavours from around the Far East to give it a completely fresh angle. It's like a cooked vegetable salad with a thick peanutty dipping sauce, and the recipe here should make enough for about four people....
Columns: Top Ten Children's Television
1. Rainbow: Geoffery (bloke), George (gay hippo), Bungle (big bear) and Zippy (God only knows...)
Columns: The Deadly Sins
The best things in life are free. But I'll give them to the birds and bees. I want money. That's what I want. Oh yeah, that's what I want. Our resident theologian Godfrey Jollygood doesn't. In his penultimate sermon for this paper before he departs on a missionary tour of Iraq and Afghanistan (all expenses paid), he cautions against material greed:...
Columns: Letter from Japan
One of the wonderful things about living in a foreign country is that your nationality suddenly becomes interesting to every Tom, Dick and Henry you meet. To say "I'm British" in Britain is deeply trivial, mundane, and well, boring. People don't give a fig about your nationality - everyone else has had the same one since the year dot, they don't think it's that special, and would you shut up about it please? But to point out that you're from a different country entirely - that's exciting. Sexy even. And when you're in a country as nostalgic and novelty-driven as Japan, to say that you're British is to stake your claim to fame and fortune....