The Primark of a True Woman

Is clothes shopping enjoyable?

I suppose you might say it depends on gender: I will partially agree, I'd quite happily trawl around the shops on a Saturday morning for two hours with a friend or similar while my other half will stop into a shop on a complete whim and buy one shirt. But seriously. Push aside the image of woman holding up the same garment three times in different colours and her partner grunting his ambiguous approval and really have a think.

When was the last time you went? Did you buy one thing or many? How much did you spend?

Okay, now you've distance yourselves as far away from my paltry writing as you can I may as well cut to the chase: shopping has evolved. It really has. Myself, my impulse-buying other half, even my younger sibling (yes, he's buying his own clothes and has absolutely no perspective of size or colour combination, bless him) are in the throes of the Primark generation.

Take this. Now 'This' may be a problem linked chiefly to women, but I can go into town every day for the next week and I guarantee you that if you crack open my shopping bags you will find no consistency in sizing whatsoever. In Next I am a 14 on top, a 16 in New Look and a 12 in Peacocks. If you attached one of those delightful things known as a stressometer to me (or merely accompany me on my shopping jolly) you will watch my mood and self-esteem plummet and rise like a demented yo-yo. I can honestly boast (and I often do) that in Primark alone I can fit into both a size 10 and a size 18 garment. It just buggers belief.

So where am I going with this? The answer is, I'm entirely unsure: this may be merely a Teenyrant against the problems of buying the same clothes from the same supplier or employing under-12s to work in your warehouse. Or I may print this out, envelop it and send it to Primark's Head of Department.

Or maybe I'll cut out the middleman and stick the thing on the compost heap.

Bitchiness: The Gender Debate

What better topic with which to commence my Blog.

It is universally known, even if you've been living in a cave for the entire duration of your High School education or any other period of your life for that matter, that all women are born with a bitchiness gene. It's just there. You inherit it along with your vagina and the gene that compels you to fill a wardrobe full of shoes that you "neeeeed".

For those of you who still live in a cave and will therefore be receiving this via lucid dreams, let me explain: if a man has a problem with you, it's quickly discussed and concluded over a pint/paper/fisticuffs or else left alone, in which case both parties pretty much forget what the problem is in the first place; if a woman has a problem, she will be incredibly sweet to your face all the while speading rumours that you are, in fact, a post-op transvestite named Clive.

Okay so it's not that black-and-white. However I would like to meet someone, gender regardless, who doesn't at least partially agree with me on that front. Men, I admire you. The number of times a girl has deliberately wound me up and I have had to affix my mouth shut with No More Nails so as not to turn around to the second closest girl and whisper, "She obviously doesn't shave her armpits".

I guess the trick is this: women work in cliques, men work in groups. Women are fighting to be Alpha Female and not shop consistantly at Primark and subsequently be labelled: "Cheapass"; whereas men are just happy to indulge in each other's company without having to remember that Jim once did your ex to piss you off and Barry called you a racist last week*.

More on this subject later.

* Apologies for the rough generalization, and of course to Jim and Barry.