fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Last stop on the London tour for February was my long overdue expensive London haircut. I went to the Vidal Sassoon Advanced Hair Academy, handed over the tiny amount of £9.50 and sat in a chair for four hours getting my hair cut as a model. Thankfully curly hair is far harder to turn into a 'David Beckham', a 'femullet', or an asymmetrical style, so I did not walk out with a trendy and high maintenance haircut as the other models did. The students that day were a group of thirty something hairdressers from ... St Petersburg! As soon as they walked in you could tell they were from Eastern Europe, blonde hair, razor sharp cheekbones and the most divine boots *squeak* Half the entertainment was watching the towering blondes listen to the translated instructions of the diminutive gay brit flitting around instructing them. My stylist Tanya was straight out of ABBA; dead straight white blonde hair and leopard print top. And I must commend the little gay brit for making her

Quite apart from the fact that this piece is about me and the well documented Look, this is just very funny. Monica sent it to the usual pub quiz suspects the day after the quiz at which a photo was taken - Monica's headband broke and the first thing everyone thought was 'we can make them into horns for Claire ...' Why I Am Afraid Of The Claire - by Monica White. Claire is small, granted. There's a formidable intellect there and a fierce streak. All fine and well, but I'd usually tell someone like that to bite my kneecaps if an argument wasn't going my way. The Claire, though, has one weapon that chills my blood. The Look. This is reserved for those times when words would be utterly superflous. It's usually aimed at me when I say something of a particularly stupid bent. I watch myself around The Claire. For Claire's calling (not unlike Buffy) is to be an assistant to the supernatural. 'Nothing new,' you may say, 'I've seen

Being footloose and fancy-free in the boyfriend department, and the proud owner of a ‘Friends of the British Museum’ card (a brilliant present from Kim), I spent the weekend of love with my greatest love – HISTORY. Thus my first visit to the British Museum was on the Buried Treasure weekend that included gallery talks by BM curators, displays of ancient crafts by re-enactment societies and guided tours around the Buried Treasure Exhibit itself. As a young ‘un I wanted to be an archaeologist, and throughout changes in career I have never lost my desire to find historical treasures in the ground. I still have a battered crucifix, with the body of Jesus broken off, that I found in the sheep pens on our first farm. And of course there was that dinosaur bone in a rock that I picked up at the base of the cliffs at Yallingup, which Mum threw away after three years gathering dust in the shed – Claireosaurus: Lost Forever. The Buried Treasure Exhibit displayed the Hoards (ie collections of

Well, the birthday was a rather fabulous affair actually. It kicked off with drinks in town on Thursday. I invited all the best friends – most of whom are regulars at the Pub Quiz each Tuesday. Once everyone was there the night really took off. I was bought Baileys all night and they changed from singles to doubles without me noticing(!) and that is when I got VERY tipsy. Towards 11 o’clock I was very happy and there were many hugs, declarations of love for London and my friends in it, and all such things. Great friends as they are, some enterprising ex-perthites even tried to freak me out by setting up a random man in the bar to say he had met me at the Cott and we had *ahem* locked lips! At first I thought that I was starting to forget faces, but as soon as he tried to claim tonsil hockey I smelt a rat … never done THAT in the Cott. I was rather blasé about my lack of headache the next morning, and all involved in the buying my drinks scam were a little miffed. There w

I helped at a press conference run by the Media Consultancy team at the EA for the launch of an art exhibition in St Paul’s Cathedral. The exhibition featured works from some of the foremost artists in Britain at the moment, including the controversial Tracy Emin , so the media interest in the story was considerable. The journalists had shoes with worn heels, flapping grey or beige overcoats and assorted bags and notepads - the reporter from the Times was a perfect Hollywood journalist with his lean height, thin blonde hair and harried look. The photographers were, to a man, dressed as if ready to hop on a plane to a war zone somewhere; the khaki fatigues, pocket-covered safari vests and the pure amount of gadgets draped around necks and flourished in their hands. Most had two mobile phones, one to send photos and one to receive calls, as explained by the guy I actually spent most of the conference in deep discussion with. He was a photographer from AP, a news agency of the size of