sam_tom_sam | Pshaw!

I decided not to attend the 20's-themed Club Bohemia tonight. Most of my friends aren't going, and I don't think I'm missing anything I would enjoy very much. The 20's aren't my favourite decade style-wise - I prefer the 30's and of course, the 80's - and the thought of the white Josephine Baker tribute act 'Baked!' was fairly off-putting to me.

Call me a politically-correct hysteric, but I find the idea of a gaggle of almost entirely white 'glamourites' being encouraged to celebrate what now seems an appallingly dated exercise in racial stereotyping, appears rather crass to me. Josephine Baker's line in banana-aided dance routines may have been seen as avant-garde back in the old days, but the fact is, it's not the old days any more, and this stuff doesn't wash with modern minds.

In fluffier news, I had a nice afternoon shopping today. I visited B Never Too Busy To Be Beautiful and bought a sandy-coloured bar of soap with an orange lion embedded in it, for the leonine lovely Sarah.

I also went to Lush, which now proudly bears a sign saying none of its ingredients are tested on animals. This is presumably a sideswipe at the Body Shop. The latter has recently sold out to L'Oreal, who apparently use ingredients tested on animals and whose founder had nazi connections.

I was finding the Body Shop's self-righteous campaigns increasingly irritating, so am quite pleased that Lush presents an alternative. I agreed with the Body Shop's promotion of cruelty-free cosmetics and fair trade, but when they starting to campaign about self-esteem and body image, with the aid of window displays featuring fat, naked plastic Barbie-type dolls, it began to grate. Overweight people should of course be able to enjoy cosmetics like anyone else, but cosmetics advertising is supposed to be aspirational. I think most people know that pictures in ads are edited anyway. Who are they to say that a fat woman is more of a 'real' woman, anyway? Pshaw!