Today's comment on contemporary culture

I read with interest that the Advertising Standards Authority have received complaints from several viewers this year's M&S Christmas advert (sacrilege!) Apparently gruff Philip Glenister’s line about ‘that girl prancing around in her underwear’ is considered by some to be offensive and 'demeaning to women.' Gosh. Funnily enough, I don’t feel terribly demeaned when I watch that bit. Wistful, maybe, and slightly depressed. I'm sure lovely, bad-tempered Philip wouldn't consider it a festive highlight to watch me prancing (prancing? Not sure I even know how…) in my grim, workhouse undergarments.

I hope that M&S respond, with due responsibility, by making a second installment featuring Robert Pattinson stripping off to his (100% easycare cotton) boxers. Actually, I think I might complain too, just to add weight to the argument.

(Have just realized that this is the latest in a succession of TV-related blog posts recently.Oh dear, my cultural references are pitifully limited. Come back next week when I shall be analysing the use of dramatic irony in Harry Hill's TV Burp and discussing madness and morality in the X-Factor.)

Home Truths

Happily settled myself on the sofa last night to watch the BBC 4 docu-drama on childrens' novelist Enid Blyton. Helena Bonham Carter was fabulous (and sexy Matthew McFayden was, well… not sexy, but fabulous too) and I deeply coveted her office, her clothes and her ability to write 6 000 words a day. However, the programme was not all sunshine and lashings of ginger beer, focusing as it did on the bitter irony that Ms Blyton was so busy writing about the endless joys of childhood that she ruthlessly sidelined her own children.

Gulp. Better get back to my own book, where the hero and heroine are lying in the afterglow of hot sex on a car bonnet and try not to dwell on the fact that the most intimate thing I’ve done with my husband this week is discuss car insurance.

Three Things to Celebrate

1. Francesco Da Mosto’s new BBC series, Francesco’s Mediterranean Voyage. Research, inspiration and relaxation in one gorgeously-accented package, this goes a long way to filling the viewing gap left by The Apprentice. Just add sofa, wine and olives for the closest you can get to heaven on a Tuesday evening.


2. Translations of my first and second books into Spanish and Portugese. New covers, and great new titles. Innocencia Oculta... how fabulous is that? (Have had enormous fun opening them on random pages and trying to work out which bit I’m reading, but even though I know the books inside out it’s surprisingly hard! Since I’m obviously never going to be able to sit down and skim read through them, if anyone would like a copy just drop me your address via the website and I’ll get one off to you.)

3. Finally, after months of trying, yesterday I managed to get project playlist to work on my website. Apologies to anyone within a three mile radius of my house who would undoubtedly have heard the whoop of triumph, followed by an ear-shattering rendition of the songs while I danced round the house. Expect a further slump in word count over the next few days as I exercise my new found competence and play!

It's not fair!!

Last night, while sitting in a PTA meeting at school, I got a text from my lovely cousin. Opening it surreptitiously under the table, I was instantly transported about three hundred miles (and about the same number of years) away from catering arrangements for the summer fair by this picture. It's the view from the beach in Western Scotland where we all spent endless childhood holidays together, and in her message she said she was there for a friends wedding on the beach, and was at that very moment watching the sunset and drinking whisky. I almost expired with envy right then, before we'd even reached Any Other Business. (I wonder if that would have appeared in the minutes? Mrs India Grey turns a funny shade of green and falls off her chair, muttering incoherently about where it all went wrong...)

It was a pretty bad day all round for the Green Eyed Monster, since earlier on the postman had delivered to me a copy of Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife sent by the wonderful Michelle Styles, and featuring just the hottest cover guy in existence. I mean, seriously pulse-quickening, with untidy, bed-tousled hair and a perfect profile. See?

Not a beige polyester shirt or shaving rash in sight. Who do you have to buy chocolate for to get covers like this?

In addition to my acute envy-itis, at the moment I am also suffering from a severe case of Short Attention Span. This is an uncomfortable condition whose symptoms include a pressing need to browse ebay for obscure items, a sudden obsession with filing my nails and applying handcream, and an irresistible compulsion to run downstairs every four and a half minutes to check email and see whether anyone’s added any new clips of Alex from the Apprentice to Youtube (Oh yes! They have!) Its main side effect is painfully slow progress on the book. It’s a comfort to know that Natasha Oakley is similarly afflicted, but if anyone knows of a cure (preferably involving an afternoon nap and a bar of Toblerone, or something nice like that) please let us know. Otherwise I might inadvertently find myself heading up the M6 for Scotland...

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest sources

I’ve come to the conclusion that I'm a bit like a goldfish in some respects. Not in the ‘being able to swim really well and hold my breath underwater for long periods’ (like, maybe indefinitely) ones, but certainly in that I completely forget things I really like 15 seconds after they’ve finished. (Except Ikea’s Dime Bar cake. I sooo remember how much I like that.... Anyway, I’m digressing)

Take The Apprentice, for example. Not being a business-minded ball-breaking kind of a girl, it’s not something that automatically flashes up on my viewing radar, but a couple of weeks into every series I tend to find I’m hooked. This time it’s happened more quickly, but I suspect that my instant enslavement has more to do with the candidates themselves than with the programme’s intense focus on cut-throat business practise . Because, is it my imagination (or my hormones) but are a couple of the blokes surprisingly hot?? (You can largely ignore the front row here...)

It's surprising because, unlike The Palace, The Apprentice is a programme I collapse onto the marital sofa alongside my lovely husband to watch. It’s not supposed to be a full-blown fantasy-fest, and yet, I'm finding that I’m strangely inspired. On first glance you might think that super-suave, smooth-talker Raef was going to be the alpha male hero of the piece. Er, hell-o? I think not. Check out world-weary rough diamond Alex, or tall, chisel-cheekboned Lee standing at the back here....

The really great thing is it's on for another ten weeks! Yippee! Let's just hope that Alex stays in (and that one of the tasks involves a beach, surf shorts and oil...) and we'll all be happy!

*(I apologise for the shallow and un-politically correct content of this post. Naturally, here at IndiaGrey.com we would like to offer our best wishes to all the candidates, regardless of their gender or the excellence of their cheekbones....)