My Little Pony as you’ve never seen her before

For any of you who grew up in the 80′s – girls especially, or at least had a younger sister – you will be no stranger to the My Little Pony brand. A less natural looking animal you probably couldn’t conceive, but hours of fun. I LOVED them. Pink, purple, baby blue… hair you could plat, brush, cut (and sometimes that grew back)… with random cute hearts/rainbows/clouds printed on their haunch. As a six-year-old girl, what is not to love?

(And throw in a beauty stable/salon with clip on accessories – the envy of many a MLP fan – and you’d be lost for days).

Well, enter Finnish artist Mari Kasurinan, who has charmingly transformed the iconic toy into celebrity portraits. As the Telegraph featured last week, there is a whole collection of these little creations and they are so darned cute I felt I needed them on this blog too.

So, begging the permission of Ms. Kasurinan, I have picked out the best of the bunch below. I hope they fetch a fortune. As with their predecessors, each is unique and thus highly collectible. But once you have one, you just want them all.

Everyone always had a favourite, which is yours?

Marilyn Monroe (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Vivienne Westwood (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Lady Gaga (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

..another Gaga (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Johnny Depp (as the Mad Hatter) (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Michael Jackson (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Rorschach (Watchmen) (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Wonder Woman (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Mr Spock (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

Batman & Robin (c) Mari Kasurinan/Rex Features

KP leaves the home team in need of some service and repair

© Nick Potts / PA (Telegraph Media Group)

Couln’t resist posting this today.

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.

Don’t worry folks. He’ll be back.

Barbie rocks the runway in NYC

Far too much cricket and not enough pink dominating my blog space at the moment, so I figured an injection of fashionista fun from our favourite plastic goddess should do the trick.

My colleague Emma at Synergy posted a great piece today including the latest footage from the Mercedes-Benz runway show taking place this week, with Barbie styled by the top designers showing at this year’s New York Fashion Week – from DVF to Donna Karan.

Check out the Telegraph’s slide show of images here and have a look at at the runway edit too.

© Getty / Reuters / Telegraph.co.uk

Pink, proud, and utterly adorable. Go Barbie. We adore you.

…and the Telegraph agrees with me

Just couldn’t resist adding to the Stanford story when I saw this morning’s Telegraph feature on the breaking news of yesterday. For those readers of my humble musings who also have access to my Facebook status updates, you might have noticed my prediction that the famed ‘money shot’ (below) was guaranteed back page fodder for the press today…

© The Telegraph Media Group

And lo and behold, the Telegraph laid their story out with images almost matching mine (granted, a predictable selection, but still). Geek moment, but am rather proud we’re on the same wave-length…

Brand Obama

© Reuters: Japan's Obama action figure, complete with flag accesories and working microphone

Having already touched on the capacity for a big brand to capitalise on Obama’s commencement in office, I just came across the Telegraph’s brilliant collection of other marketing devices that have appeared over the last couple of weeks. And not just in the US – Obamania has gone global.

Check out the Telegraph feature here.

My personal favourites were Ben and Jerry’s  ‘Yes Pecan!’ ice cream (if you don’t get it, remember that for our US cousins, pecan is pronounced pe-can), and the Ikea Oval Office, complete wih FBI security. Awesome.

Cipriani: the Italian fashionista

I greatly enjoyed Jim White’s take this morning on Danny Cipriani‘s apparent disregard for concerns of his increasing celebrity lifestyle superseding his rugby priorities. Clearly moving in the right circles during Milan fashion week, Cipriani and his ‘equally lens-wary’ girlfriend found themselves seated in close enough proximity to absorb the glamorous and successful aura of Golden Balls Becks.

Surprise guests: Kelly Brook and Danny Cipriani sat front row alongside David Beckham at the Emporio Armani men's collection in Milan yesterday

Mind, the chippy young London Wasps fly-half should note: until they reach the dizzy global heights of Brand Beckham, he may want to focus on his goal-kicking abilities and she on retaining a job for more than six days.

Jim White’s comments were worthy of replication in full I felt:

So much for Cipriani resisting siren call of celebrity.

David Beckham has insisted all along that his move to Milan is nothing to do with fashion. The fact that he was spotted in the front row of Giorgio Armani’s show during the city’s fashion week was mere coincidence. But who was that alongside football’s most assiduous clothes horse, just beyond where Mrs B had stationed herself in the line of camera fire? Why it was Danny Cipriani, with his equally lens-wary partner Kelly Brook. Good to see England’s best rugby player has taken to heart all that advice about resisting the siren call of celebrity and concentrating entirely on his game. Mind, if he is seen out and about any more in Milan, it can only be a matter of time before Manchester City put in a bid for him.

English cricket hits the headlines for six

Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

Not since England’s Ashes glory of 2005 has the British press devoted such column space to cricket this week.

And understandably so. While the continuous Breaking News ticker rolling across Sky Sports News may have displayed the hyperbolic phrases of ‘crisis’ and ’chaos’ with characteristic indiscriminate abundance, it cannot be denied that English cricket is enduring a state of turmoil.

I do not wish to add my own twopence-worth to the volumes of commentary on the subject, but would rather highlight some of the more quotable and insightful words of wisdom expressed by some of our best sports journalists this week:

Gideon Haigh, in Thursday’s Guardian:

From an Australian perspective it all seems a uniquely English muddle, everyone just being first a little too polite, then rather too panicky.

Too true.

Andrew Miller likened the whole situation to a Shakespearean history plot in his creative piece on Cricinfo. Lawrence Booth’s outline of the divisions within the England camp created the impression of a high school common room more than a national side’s dressing room. And Jim White’s hilarious depiction of KP placed in Celebrity Big Brother merely emphasized what a farce the whole mess has become.

The schoolboy cliques that had been allowed to develop and divide the ranks were also named in The Times on Thursday – including a small posse, amusingly named (for obvious reasons) ‘The Young and Blonde’. This sat alongside Patrick Kidd’s hilarious introduction of the current situation in the England camp, dramatizing the storyline as all our favourite American drama series introduce the next episode with ’Previously, on…’:

Kevin plotted against Peter but ultimately may have lost his job because Andrew doesn’t get on with Kevin and made sure that Hugh, who has long been a buddy of Peter, knew that he didn’t like Kevin…Michael and Kevin get on but could Michael just be using Kevin to get what he wants? And why does no one ever mix with Monty?

But above all, the most eloquent piece I’ve read throughout all the to-ing and fro-ing this week has to be Ed Smith’s summary of Pietersen’s merits that ran in today’s Telegraph. If you read nothing else on the subject, read that, and then tell me that KP won’t regain the captaincy before the year is out.