I’ve been meaning to post this for ages. Well, since Fashion Week actually.
Wallpaper* magazine, that creative authority on all things design, dedicated their whole March issue to the fashion world. Hugely enjoyable it was too, but this double page spread was my favourite (click here for a larger, higher res version):
A few of my favourite highlights:
- 20: pounds of gold glitter dumped on John Galliano during his post-show bow
- 37: pairs of titanium heels trashed minutes before the Lanvin show when it was discovered the models couldn’t walk in them
- 100: %age of RTW on the Prada women’s runway made from cotton only
- 800: hand-painted feather butterflies on a single Alexander McQueen dress
- 1,930: pieces of metal (safety pins, grommets etc.) sewn onto one Balmain skirt
Tom Hodgkinson in today’s Style magazine in the Sunday Times raises some interesting challenges to the way we spend our spare time in the modern world. Are we making the most of it? Or are we squandering what little time we do have to ourselves, falling into the trappings of convenience?
His opening lines below and, as they did for me, may ring scarily true:
“What do you do in your spare time? Maybe you indulge your precious moments of leisure with a £5 bottle of Chilean Sauvignon blanc and a DVD box set of Mad Men or The Wire. Or do you find yourself in front of a Champions League game, or the Brits, or the latest episode of Glee, with your phone locked to Twitter in one hand, the remote control in the other? Or are you on Facebook status-updating, or discussing house prices and schools over a “kitchen supper”, or getting competitive over YouTube — who has the funniest clips? (I always feel a bit disappointed when other people don’t seem to find the clips I like as funny as I do. But anyway.) Perhaps you might go for a little eBay surfing or browsing on Net-a-porter. Later, you’ll nod off with your new Stieg Larsson book.
Yes, well, it’s the modern world, and I suppose we have to live with it. But couldn’t we be doing something more satisfying in our spare time?”
Ringing any bells? Tom offers a plethora of more worthwhile, simple pursuits that might offer more fruitful development of the mind and body, without huge expense or dramatic lifestyle change – such as learning to sing or sew, getting into the garden, learning a language or how to play an instrument, or simply drinking good wine.
I’m also reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows at the moment – a fascinating and worthwhile read about how the universal expansion of the internet into every facet of our daily lives is essentially re-shaping the way our brains work. We have smaller attention spans; we find it harder to get lost in lengthy pieces of text; we jump from one communication to another and depend on a constant feed of information to keep us occupied.
Perhaps we could do with putting down the mobile, switching off the TV and shutting down the inbox every now and then. Sometimes it’s tiny changes that can dramatically change our quality of life. Food for thought.
It is no secret to this blog that I’m a big advocate of cheerleading. As a former cheerleader myself – in support of our American football team at University, and competitively in London squads for the three years following – this is perhaps no surprise. I don’t pretend to offer an unbiased viewpoint, but I do hope to offer an informed one.
Long-standing has been the debate over whether cheerleading can be deemed a ‘sport’. Yesterday, in a strongly voiced opinion piece for The Guardian, Victoria Coren (daughter of Alan, brother of Giles, star poker-player and one-time porn star) made her position on the point crystal clear. She’s entitled to her opinion, but I wanted to respond – if only to expand on the rantings from many a disgruntled cheerleader who posted some of the 300+ comments in response to the original piece.
What provoked Coren’s opinions was a news story that ran two weeks ago, presenting the latest statistics that show cheerleading has become the fastest growing physical activity picked up by school P.E. departments across the UK. In a nation of growing obesity, where the inactivity of our children regularly hits the headlines, one would think the discovery of a discipline that engages children in this way would be celebrated. Apparently not.
(c) Ascension Eagles Cheerleaders
For me, focusing on the sport question tends to overlook the inherent values of the discipline, but more on that later. For now, let’s entertain the harshest critics for a moment and deal with the debate at hand, which requires two distinct definitions: firstly, which section of cheerleading is being referred to and secondly, the definition of sport being put forward.
Let’s talk about sport for a moment. The Olympics, generally considered the ultimate global representation of sporting excellence, makes a discernment between sports (a single or group of sports represented by an international federation) and disciplines (multiple events that can fall under the same sporting umbrella). Thus Aquatics is a sport, fielding activities in the disciplines, swimming, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo.
Now, don’t mistake me here, I am not for one moment purporting that cheerleading should be made an Olympic sport (or, for that matter, convinced that synchronized swimming should be classed as such either). But take a closer look at the IOC’s catalogue and you will find that not only is Gymnastics and its three disciplines (artistic, rhythmic and trampoline) on the official list of Olympic sports, but that ‘Dance Sport’, while not included in the Olympic program is fully recognized by the IOC and therefore could be added to the Olympic program at any given time if sufficiently supported by IOC membership vote.
What I am certain of is that competitive cheerleading represents the ultimate combination of Dance Sport and Gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and, given the impact of a sprung floor on which all competitions are held, arguably trampoline). Just take a look at the most recent World Championship holders (for the fourth year in a row) and see if you disagree:
And this brings us to our second definition – what sector of cheerleading are we considering here? The competitive squads like the Stingray Allstars are a different kettle of fish entirely to the NFL dancer cheerleaders who bring glitz and sizzle to the football sidelines every Sunday and Monday night. But both have their value – on and off the field of performance. The point of the NFL girls on game day is to entertain the crowd – by their own admission they are first and foremost dancers – and do not enter into the gymnastic stunts of competitive cheer.
However, not even NFL cheerleaders should be cast aside with the aspersions so forthcoming from Ms. Coren in yesterday’s unfounded diatribe against cheerleaders the world over. NFL cheerleaders are a combined force of college students and professionals who give up their evenings, weekends and annual holidays to support their football team, fundraise for charity events, promote local businesses, teach cheer camps to local kids, entertain the forces abroad and promote their game around the world. Quite apart from the commitment to honed athleticism and the upkeep of physical excellence that is required to keep their appearance and performance up to the standard required.
NFL cheerleaders, New Orleans' Saintsations, visit Kandahar Airfield in 2009
Whether their activities combined could be deemed a sport? Even I find that hard to argue. But to focus solely on the ‘ass-shaking’ of their poms in scantily clad costumes and over-sexualised dance numbers, is an easy observation to make, but is also a crass devaluation of their role and responsibilities.
But when it comes to the competitive cheerleading that I know so well, it is an entirely different story. It is a form of cheerleading that, sadly, seems to have escaped the research of Ms. Coren. I have seen firsthand this incredible discipline inspire thousands of youngsters to dedicate years of their lives to routines that display such athletic excellence – in the quite astonishing synchronisation of gymnastics and dance – that arguing the case for it to be classed a sport is, frankly, a pretty easy task.
Of course, British sensationalist press, the narrow-minded opinions formed from limited exposure to American high-school movies and a British viewpoint partial to condescension of our American cousins for their brash lack of culture means it is all too easy to make the ‘boots and hot pants’ picture the prevailing image of the cheer world. There follows the outrage of parents who (rightly so) find the concept of their child being taught to shake their booty in hotpants and boots quite horrendous. As would I, were that what was being taught in schools. Obviously, it isn’t.
And therein lies the problem, wrought by stereotype and informed by press exposure of the most commonly portrayed ‘cheerleader’ – that we overlook the athletic, competitive form that can indeed be classed as a sport.
Were these folks to turn up to any one of the several weekly training sessions of a UK cheer squad – national champions AEC a primary case in point – they would see a rather different world. Children who happily sacrifice listless evenings in front of the TV, weekends at the local park with friends; not to mention their adult coaching staff who volunteer their own spare time to inspire them – all in the name of athletic excellence.
AEC were selected to perform at last year's NFL game at Wembley
Perhaps the solution is to take a lead from the IOC, deeming cheerleading as a whole to be a discipline, but discerning the divisions that fall within it – the sport, the competitive/gymnastic cheer (the likes of AEC and the Stingrays), and then the pom dance (the NFL variety) – a system of division that already effectively provides the structure for cheer competitions all over the country.
Cheerleading teaches them teamwork, trust and commitment and gives them a cause to focus on, learning that with enough dedication and practice, great outcomes can be achieved. And with this, combined with the tough athletic program that cheerleading requires, what more could we want to teach our kids?
To find out more about UK cheerleading – in schools, universities and beyond – visit BCA, UKCA and Future Cheer.
And head down to Trafalgar Square on 30th October to see the 49ers Gold Rush in action ahead of the NFL International Series at Wembley on 31st.
I’m a big fan of The Sunday Times, and in particular their Spectrum section (and not just when it features National Cheerleading Champions). In their own words, Spectrum ‘showcases astonishing photographs from the front line of life over 12 awe-inspiring pages’. True enough.
This weekend, sitting on a sun-drenched Clapham Common on a welcome weekend break from the marketing bubble in which I live my week, I found the images particularly worthy of reflection. The cover feature, which always contains a collection of stunning and astute shots illustrating one central theme, this week concerned itself with ‘Bare Necessities: The lives that consumer culture cannot reach.’
In the feature, we were shown a glimpse of a world beyond everything we know. Imagine a place with no iPhones, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Internet, no TV, no shopping (in the Western sense), no advertising (in the mass-consumer sense) and no commercialisation of absolutely anything.
Pretty difficult, huh.
And yet, as the images below will hopefully show, this world does exist – in fact it is very much a part of our own. Albeit a few thousands of miles away in the Greater Caucasus mountain village of Xinaliq (Khinalug) in Azerbaijan.
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I think why they struck me most was because it actually tore a fairly sharp rift through what I do for a living, and therefore a huge part of who I am (well, maybe it shouldn’t be ‘therefore’, but that’s another issue entirely…)
In the marketing world, we live for commercialism. We live and breathe the brands we work so hard to protect, to grow, to promote – and yet, when it really comes down to it, what does it all mean?
In the end though, everything is relative. World economies are built very differently and comparing my yuppie life in South London with mountain-life in the upper mountainous regions of Azerbaijan is perhaps futile and the two are incomparable. But I do feel it is a comparison that we should nevertheless strive to make occasionally, and can learn from, in order to fully appreciate what the priorities in our lives should be.
Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, and in living the life I have I wouldn’t choose to work in any other industry. But it does make you think how different life could be with a markedly different spectrum of experience.
*(Hopefully The Times and talented photographer Rena Effendi will not mind me replicating the images here, but please do check out her whole collection here to see more stunning shots.)
Just a quick post this morning. Continuing the trend of heart shaped creations, the below page of Stylist magazine caught my eye this morning. For no other reason than it was a cool arrangement of imagery that promoted their next issue well – and, well, it’s true: true love is bag-shaped.
(Husbands / boyfriends – Christmas is coming. Take note.)
Following England’s recent victory at the Oval to reclaim Ashes glory, reflections have been made far and wide on the scale of achievement accomplished.
His piece mainly focused on the commendable decision not to repeat 2005’s ‘bacchanalian bender’ (to use his glorious phrase) in light of the relative triumph this time around. In Johnno’s words, it must be remembered that we are celebrating within the context of one average team beating another average team, and not the toppling of a cricketing giant, ending nearly two decades of humiliation.
But his reasoned argument touched on the subject of a fairly lively debate I found myself in during a car journey back from the Cotswolds the previous weekend. Why exactly is it that England cricket fans – the media and civilians alike – seem so ready to forget the 2006-7 debacle that was in fact the previous Ashes series?
Said car-debate was triggered by some frustration with Sky Sports who, throughout this latest series, chose to dominate their match-break inserts with highlights from 2005. Sky, seeming to choose patriotic victory over recency, barely acknowledged what little encouragement might have been drawn from the albeit few inspiring individual performances in the previous series. Instead preferring to instill – or rather reiterate – the blind English belief of, ‘well, we did it four years ago so we can do it again.’
I found myself arguing that this was a symptom of our English optimism preferring to gain strength from previous victories, in order to support our current campaign, rather than dwelling on lessons learnt from past failures. The counter was that while ‘optimism’ might be admirable and reflections on previous success understandable, this should not be at the cost of total denial that an intermittent (disastrous) series ever even happened.
As Johnno himself slipped in one point:
‘…many half expected England to win and retaining the Ashes did not come as a total surprise’.
And what’s wrong with that?
Err, hang on a second - England were never in a position to ‘retain’ the Ashes this summer… seeing as we lost them two and a half years ago. Remember that?
Johnno did at least acknowledge this oversight in the same breath; his point being made that the England cricket fan-base has become so accustomed to blanking that mortifying season from our collective psyche that we barely notice we’re doing it.
He went on to offer a brief account of 2006-7 and the errors inherent therein – so astutely that I felt it worth repeating here. I’m not saying this should excuse our national denial of that series’ existence or that it explains Sky’s seemingly delusional exclusion of those highlights from this summer’s coverage – nor does it solely account for our truly shocking performance that winter. But it does touch upon some key lessons that (please God) the ECB will learn from before packing the boys off for the 2010-11 tour – when we really will be aiming to retain that little urn.
‘…but 2006-7 doesn’t count in that the boys went to Australia on holiday rather than to play cricket.
‘‘They didn’t actually start by sitting around the airport departure lounge wearing shell suits, drinking larger at 9am and checking in at the EasyJet counter, though everything thereafter reminded you of a package holiday booked online at lastminute.com.
‘‘There has never been any adequate explanation for a touring party expanding to 95 people for the flight from Syndey to Perth, a population explosion unmatched outside any colony of rabbits, and there were so many pushchairs in the hold it’s a miracle the plane managed to get off the ground.
‘So…it is also incumbent on the powers-that-be to make sure that this time England’s defence of the urn is treated more like a serious sporting mission than a family outing to Mablethorpe.’
Australia 2006/7 - that's not actually an England player. I don't think.
But to end on a positive note - one final counter to all those antipodeans’ protestations that Oz were the better team on paper and thus were the real victors:
‘Let’s hear no more about who, statistically, were the better team. When you’ve got 35 balls to dismiss Monty, and can’t do it, you don’t deserve to win.’
With England cricket fans still reeling from the devastating annoucement of KP’s withdrawal from the remainder of the npower Ashes series, the above image found its way into two of the national broadsheets today.
PA photographer Nick Potts managed to capture and distill into one image the cloud of troubled thoughts surrounding England’s would-be captain at the present time. Standing in front of the sight screen branded with title sponsor npower‘s latest slogan, the boarding rather ironically conveys: Home Team – Service and Repair – this summer… just what KP had hoped for and, unfortunately, was denied.
The Times‘ Norwegian satirical politcal cartoonist, Morten Morland freqently delivers great insight onto topical issues with the stroke of his pen. What is quite striking about his style, is his tendency to cleverly merge two newsworthy subjects from completely different sections of the paper, juxtaposed to create a strong image with a cutting underlying message.
Case in point was today’s offering which I found particularly striking and worthy of sharing:
And the below, after a particularly vociferous day in Parliament within the Wimbledon fortnight, shows another of his sporting endeavours. Disappointingly, he doesn’t seem to have published a book collecting together his best work (though I’m sure there will be one forthcoming) so for the time being check out his stuff online here.
I loved this story in Metro this week. No, not the Barbie-doll-like Jessica Simpson kind, but actual life size human dolls. Still in the box and everything.
Not quite the entrance I would have chosen to my high school prom (despite my love for the pink blonde plastic brand) – Mattel might think these two high school students are pretty cool given the global press coverage attained, but I’m guessing most of their peers thought differently.
Less positive for his racket sponsor, HEAD, was that half way through a game in the crucial fifth and final set his strings broke, forcing him to play out the rest of the point effectively using a hand-held trampoline. Granted, the conditions may have induced a weakening of the strings beyond Murray’s usual expectations of his racket’s life-span, but even so – hardly an ideal impression to give tennis fans during play.
With that in mind, the Daily Mirror’s back page today made me chuckle:
I guess a back page headline must be some consolation for a broken racket.
A few of my favourite highlights:
