A Rambling Train Of Thought That Touches On Big Issues

[poliphilo]

I don't get handbags.

I mean they're obviously very useful things but I don't get why they've become such fetish objects.

craftyailz was in Wilmslow yesterday. She came back with horror stories about how there were handbags in the shops  with price tags of £800- and counting.

I've seen these designer handbags. They look like handbags. I don't think I've ever seen a handbag I've considered beautiful. 

I mean, it's just a bag.

Ailz doesn't think anyone should pay that sort of money for such a frivolous object. Not in a world where people are struggling to feed their children. I agree. 

Wilmslow, of course, is in WAG country. Lots of premiership footballers have houses round there. Omid Djalili was saying on Have I Got News For You last night that it shouldn't be Wives And Girlfriends because you can't really be both at once.  It should be Wives Or Girlfriends.

It took a moment for us all to get the joke....

Omid Djalili is new to me, but it seems he has a show of his own in the pipeline. I'm looking forward to it.

He's a British Iranian. Big and bald and beautiful. Two of the most amazing people I ever knew were British Iranians. 

Michael Hashemian and Sherry....? No I forget the second name. Sherry was short for Sheherezade.

There are several Michael Hashemians out there. One of them is a dentist in Florida. I don't think that's my guy but who knows? He was 19 when I knew him. A Greek God-  with brains to match his beauty.

As for Sherry- well, I remember discussing Baudelaire with her. I was a terrible prig and saving myself for marriage and she was already spoken for, but it didn't stop me fancying her like crazy. 

I am dreading the moment when Bush attacks Iran. If Brown backs him up I shall feel as if my country is no longer my country .

Comments

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Bushe's crowd's time to implement their sucky ideas is running out. From 1 Jan he'll be a lame duck for real. We need to keep an eye out that they don't sneak something in on us when the world is distracted by Hilary and Obi but I think Gordon Brown is smart enough to know that supporting a lame duck president will get him dis-elected.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

I saw Omid Jhalili (I think it's the same guy) on the Jack Dee show a couple of years ago, and he's brilliant!

Friend?

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I surfed into your journal from fickleasever's and am enchanted with the way you write. I hope this is okay...

I cannot express how much I think and feel that the Bush administration has erred by not inviting Iran to talk without imposing sanctions. While I do not personally condone many of his views, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is likely a genius and could be an invaluable contributor for negotiating peace in the Middle East. Iran is poised to become a major world power because of it's oil reserves and economic resources and cannot be ignored or shunned. The US cannot afford another war. Period. I live int he states and more and more do not feel it is my country. I'm reminded of some amusing graffiti from the Haight Ashbury when I lived there in the 1980's: "US OUT OF NORTH AMERICA".

Handbags are useful if you live in an urban environment and travel on public transportation just as cellphones are useful for business and in emergency situations. Along with your apparel and choice of automobile, they tell people who you are and what your status is. It is sort of darkly funny.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

Writing as both a handbag-toting woman and as a no longer proud US Citizen:

Why anyone would be willing to pay more than $25 American dollars for a handbag is beyond me! All we need is something that is not unattractive, has a strap (for me, a shoulder strap), and several pockets or compartments in which to stow our various necessities. Personally, I fail to see any difference between a so-called "designer" bag and those that are sold in the Wal-mart or Target, or even from sidewalk pushcarts. I guess the thrill in a handbag or any other item (car, condo, what have you?)consists for some in going to their friends to brag about how much they paid for it. Each tries to outspend the other, insane though that may seem.
By the way, I feel the same way about a Rollex watch as opposed to a $25 Timex. Call me crazy!
Now, about Bush, and to a certain extent, his Democratic opponents who are running for the presidency in 2008: "A plague on (ALL) their houses!" I still contend at the old age of 66 years that it has never been my function as a woman to produce cannon fodder for some old men's wars, whether it be my children, my grandchildren, or my far-in-the-future descendants. As for that blasted BOMB, I was among the "cranks and Kooks" who marched to ban it as early as 1957, when I was only 16. At the time it was a highly unpopular cause -- those were the McCarthy years.
Bush's obsession with WMD's got us into Iraq, and if he has his way it will get us into Iran, leaving the new President with a double mess.
And just as an aside: where did the leaders of the United States get the idea that the only country that should be allowed to have WMD's is also the only country that ever dropped TWO of them - on a civilian population, at that? If the US needs these horrors for "defense" in a country that has not had a live war on its shores since the mid 1800's, then why not other countries whose enemies are on their borders? Just a thought....

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

You are right about the handbags. The Sunday papers are trying to make us all aspirational and dissatisfied and saying we should buy £1000 bags. Mine cost £60 from John Lewis and it is fine, it has a bright orange lining and that is all the funkiness I need. I will be posting later on the Stuff fetish we are all being caught up in.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

I'll leave the politics alone, but will comment on handbags...

Can't abide anything costing so much 'just for fashion' that makes no sense to me. But then I've never been a fashion victim... (a victim of other people thinking I'm unfashionable, yes, but that's different).

Handbags... My own was borrowed by my (now late) father and taken on holiday with him. It's black, a shoulder bag, with a lot of zipped compartments and is useful. I lent it to him back in... I dunno, the early eighties and it's still going strong. I've mended it several times. I prefer to mend something old and useful that still has use left in it and than buy something new.

And... I have two handbags that I don't use, that I wouldn't want to use. They belonged to my mother and I am emotionally attached to them.

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

typo 'than buy something new' not 'and than buy something new'.

:/

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Oooh, can I join you in your fresh-minted Omid Djalili crush, please? So gorgeous! So camp! So clever! So funny!

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

I put Omid Djalili in the YouTube search engine and there are loads of videos of him:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Omid+Djalili&search=Search