Once upon a time you dressed so fine

I've never really read Mojo magazine. Back in the days when music was my big thing, I used to read NME, Melody Maker, Select and Vox, but never Mojo. Mojo was for the oldies, it was what the Ex's dad read. But the Stax film the other week was sponsored by Mojo, so we each got a free copy of it, and I've been reading it on my journeys over the past week. And its surprisingly good. I nearly missed my stop the other night, I was so engrossed in an article about Fleetwood Mac! This issue of Mojo was a Rolling Stones special.

I've never been a huge Stones fan. I mean I like them, used to have a 'Best Of' tape and have a few of their songs on my ipod, but I've never really been that into them. I think it might be partly due to them continuing too long, Jaggar becoming almost a parody of his former self and the rather distasteful way he now runs the band as a business (charging the support acts to stay for their concerts!). And Jaggar's outfit in the 'Its Only Rock n Roll But I like It' video, a favourite of the aforementioned Ex's father. It may also have something to do with me actually being scared of Bill Wyman - I used to have nightmares about him when I was a teenager, although obviously I'm long out of this preferred age range for girlfriends now, so I'm probably safe on that score.

But I enjoyed the articles and have been listening to more of their stuff this weekend, discovering some of the 50 Greatest Stones tracks that I didn't know before. The thing that struck me most about the Mojo articles were the photographs and how good they looked. I don't think they were particularly good looking in a traditional handsome way, but together they just looked so right. And their girlfriends too - I've developed a slight crush on Anita Pallenberg in the past few days - I don't want to know if she's become haggard and had an awful life - back then she was stunning.

Last night, we went to see the film 'The Hoax' - it was quite good (the OH loves Howard Hughes - he is his favourite billionaire!) but it ended with 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' which has always been my favourite of their songs, and it sounds particularly good last night.

The question 'Beatles or the Stones?' is often asked and I would always have unwaiveringly said the Beatles, but at the moment I'm not so sure.

Media Manipulation

I've previously written about my qualms with the way the Madelaine McCann story has been given huge amounts of media coverage, but I held back on the cyncism about the parents, mainly because other people had written about it elsewhere. Then last the London Lite newspaper led with the story about blood being found in the apartment in which the McCanns were staying. The article on the frontpaper said that the police were now concentrating their enquiry on the family and their group of friends and it was looking less likely that she was abducted. The picture editor had earned their money as the photograph of the McCanns was not of them looking distraught as previously, but incredibly shifty, almost as if their eyes had been narrowed in PhotoShop to make them look suspicious. So the story on the front page was, as near as it could without risking a libel case, accusing the parents.

"An interesting turn of events", I thought, turning to page 11 where the story continued. But on page 11, the picture was muddied further with mention of the possible abduction again, another possible suspect and British police criticising the Portugese investigation. It was so contradictory to what was on the front page. All that really could be concluded from it is that still nobody knows anything.

Now I'm not going to defend the McCanns at all (regardless of what happened to Madelaine, I have problems with them hiring a Campaign Manager and taking money from the public), but really I'm disgusted (again) with the Lite's coverage of the story. If I hadn't read the rest of the article inside the paper (and so many people do just read the first few paragraphs), then that was them pretty much condemned as guilty.

Aesthetics of Death

Warning, a major rant follows.

As mentioned previously, I was rather concerned as to why the abduction of the little girl in Nigeria received relatively little coverage compared to the Madelaine McCann story. Thankfully, she has been returned to her family but that is besides the point. Yes, the little girl lives in Nigeria but her father is British and I understood she is a British citizen too. Plus, it was actually known what had happened to her, a terrible event, whereas as far as any of us really know, MM may have just wandered out of their apartment and fallen into a ditch/the sea (as I've read speculated elsewhere). Then there was the whole political angle about multinationals in Nigeria - plenty of stuff in the story worthy of coverage. But it wasn't given many colunm inches at all.

Then today's main stories. A beautiful girl connected to a posh school was murdered by a drug-addicted man also connected to the same posh school. She was a fashion-designer and alot of the print was about how beautiful she was, and her father said it was her downfall. This is debateable as the young man was having delusions so the same fate may have befallen her if she was ugly, but you can bet it wouldn't have got the same amount of coverage if she had been.

Next, on leaving work, I saw the newspaper heads ' Television Singer Murdered'. Who I wondered, struggling to think of many television singers - Lesley Garrett? Jane MacDonald? Howard from the Halifax adverts? No, it turned out it was a girl who had been on Stars in their Eyes. The news of her, her mother and brother's bodies being found should alone have been enough but the London papers decided to take this spin on the story, as if her appear on some television show somehow made it all the more tragic.

In the same way whenever there is the death of some young woman, whether by tragic accident, NHS cock-up or at the hands of a crazed ex-boyfriend, more often than not it seems she will have been a model or described as wanting to be a model (even when, not wanting to talk ill of the dead, they frankly had no chance of actually being a model). As if the loss of a potential model is somehow worse than if she'd wanted to be a nurse, teacher or even a secretary.

What happens to the victims who've never entered a televised talent show, are ugly and never wanted to be famous? Is the crime against them somehow lesser? It certainly receives less coverage. And do the newspaper reading public 'enjoy' these stories of death of the beautiful/talented, taking a voyeuristic pleasure in their demise, like Hitchcock making his beautiful blondes suffer?

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't

I was rather disturbed by the story in the Metro this week about Melanie Griffith's knees. Not sure much by the picture of her wrinkly knees - I hate the bit above my own knees and I've seen pictures of that bit of Kate Moss too, accompanied by an equally bitchy item about how her hard-living was taking its toil there. What disturbed me more was that such an article was being written and published at all. On one hand, it criticised Ms Griffiths for having spent a huge amount of money on cosmetic surgery in a bid of look young and in the next sentence was mocking her knees for daring to show signs of aging. You really just can't win. And whilst, I have a minimal amount of sympathy for the rich & famous, it is really is no wonder that so many women have body-image issues when articles like this are published in what is supposed to be a newspaper.

On a similar note, I have recently been suckered into buying a jar of the much-hyped Boots Perfect and Protect serum. I didn't queue at dawn for it - I bought it online with relative ease. It promises to reveal 'younger looking skin within 4 weeks'. I've been using it for two now and can feel a slight tautening of the skin. I am slightly concerned though by the thought of any return to my own younger skin - whilst my skin now isn't great, I don't want to go back to the spot-plagued skin I had at 19 - someone else's younger skin is what I'm hoping for. Really I'm not normally one for such vanity and no doubt I'll lose interest in applying it before I see any results.

Look Magazine: A Review

I received my free copy of Look magazine with the London Paper yesterday. I had been quite interested in the prospect of something new to read on the way home and it was free.

I don’t normally read women’s magazines. I find that the features just seem to cover the same old ground that I’ve read a million times before and worse they assume women have a very narrow field of interest - when they features books, films and music, it is only ever the lowest brow, lowest common denominator stuff.

But I did think the Look’s USP of weekly fashion that was affordable and available in the shops now was a good idea, and to be fair that part of the magazine wasn’t bad. But unfortunately that only amounted to about 8 pages out of the 100+. The rest of it was dire. Lots of inane celebrity non-stories (Posh doesn’t speak to some people that much anymore, people Justin & Cameron aren’t going out with). Topped off with some real-life stories; the serious issue of honour killings/rapes presented in a salacious manner with shouting headlines that demeaned the subject.

I came across this quote elsewhere from the person responsible for it. This should have been enough warning really.

"'Young women now have 11 years from when they leave home to when they have children,' says Eve Webster, the IPC executive overseeing the launch, 'and they want to cram everything into their lives.' That could mean walking the Great Wall of China, but it is more likely to include owning a Chloe handbag, buying a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes or dating someone famous. So Look will focus on young women's twin obsessions - fashion and celebrity - to the exclusion of almost everything else; and, at more than 100 pages, will do so in forensic detail."

Is this really all women are interested in? And what happens once they have children – do they cease to be interested in anything or do they suddenly subscribe to New Scientist and Private Eye?

I read this magazine on the same day, I found out that the Arts Council will no longer be funding the women’s theatre company because ‘women are no longer a priority’ and Wags Boutique started on television – a new low for our gender.

I definitely won’t be buying this magazine in the future – if I want to know what is in the shops, I’ll just go and look for myself.