| LETTERS FROM LONDON |
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| REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL 21 February 2016 |
| When Pigs Fly Not quite. It’s when dogs fly. No, really. No, not with strapped on wings, attached to drones, shot out of a canon (oh definitely not), but aircraft as in - planes. Twelve pups are being trained to be pilots. OK. Not for jumbo jets but for light aircraft. No pressure; it’s early days yet. Amazingly amateur fliers reported a dog at aircraft-style controls – last year. Surely they were shocked, as you would be. The rescue (what’s not to love here?) dogs have been living a lovely life at a mansion in the Sussex countryside (what’s not to love here?). The best of the best will be sent to flight school. I can’t write ‘what’s not to love’ again, but you get the point and may even be saying it to yourself. The dogs will undergo 10 weeks of intensive training. The best of the 12 will take the controls and fly. Sky1 is offering a series, Dogs Might Fly. ‘I got no car and it's breaking my heart…but I've found a driver and that's a start…beep beep beep beep yeah’. Food for Thought Asda removes food bank donation points from UK stores. Nice. American Walmart owned (take over from originally British-founded in 1999), second largest supermarket chain in Britain, has made the decision to stop customers from donating food bought in store or brought from home. This without revealing its intentions to the media or to the local charities. Nice. The massive supermarket chain has also ended its green token scheme. Nice. Having never pushed my trolley around Asda, I just know it isn’t a good thing. These tokens had allowed control over which local charity donations went to. Asda’s contributions accounted for 15%-25% of a single charity’s donations. Asda’s excuse? According to the chair of trustees of one charity now says: “The explanations we have been given are that customers want to know where their donations are going, and that there has been shoplifting from collection boxes.” Oh right. It was because of all of the shoplifting. Even cats didn’t escape Asda’s determination to remove all help helping the helpless. A charity that helps stray cats (called Cat Call, what else) were recently told that a box for donated cat food and a box for cash contributions would have to be removed. The cat collection point had been in the store for about two years providing 85% of the charity’s cat food. I know. It’s cats. But if you have one, you’ll be ‘barking mad’. All pet-lovers’ sympathies are welcome here. ‘Mad enough to kick a cat’ is just not on is it? Asda said they would invest £2m “into local good causes” via their Asda Foundation. Do they consider cats a ‘good’ cause I wonder. An extra £2m? Really? Hmmm. The company’s spokesperson said: “We’re investing an additional £2m, so it’s definitely not to do with cost-cutting.” Really? When their owner (the evil) Walmart is closing masses of supermarkets in the US and clearly is suffering financially. Hmmm. The media has revealed that Asda has an ongoing cost-cutting drive due to pressure from increasingly successful rival discount chains Aldi and Lidl. Charity begins at home I’m thinking; if you have one. After a Fashion Is it just me or was the New York Fashion Week ironically boring since American designers did their feverish best to be oh so bizarre, cool, innovative and the results screamed arghhhh. Eg: Marc Jacobs did gothic. Oh really. Think matte black lipstick. Oh really. And I thought that was so last year. Okay; last month. All over-zealous, over-sized, over-done, over-the-top, over-hyped. Thom Browne did the ultimate ‘chalk & cheese’. Oh dear, not bits of coats/jackets recombined and sewn together. All so ‘make do and mend’ – and not in a good way. The designers were trying desperately hard to be so, so cool and their outfits look so, so ridiculous. Loads of disparate deconstructed elements: leather + lace + real fur + patchwork + ad inf. They should have used Victoria Beckham’s latest line as an inspiration on how to do clever, wearable and actually bloody brilliant. Carine Roitfeld, Ex-chief editor of Paris Vogue, now a global director of Harper's Bazaar, who has her designs for Uniqlo now in the shops, recently said London is and always has been the source for all creative fashion. Not Paris, not NY. London. No matter how many American (sportswear) brands have taken over the high streets and malls, it still holds true. In and Out Good God. Not another four months of ‘are you in’ or ‘are you out’? Yes, it’s the endless EU referendum. Isn’t literally moment-to-moment Trump coverage enough to drive us into a catatonic state? And now it’s in or out…out or in…in or out…I’m in. And no, Brexit Boris and his new ‘adult’ hair style won’t convince me. George Galloway and Nigel (Farage) are enough to keep us in. The Independent front page: Boris Out For Himself. No News there. Sigh…. |