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Nothing to worry about



Dear Disneyrollergirl,
In our drive to fleece you even further, provide excellent customer service, we are reviewing all our customer accounts for accurate gas meter readings. In doing so, we have noticed that there has not been a reading obtained from the gas meter at your property for some time. So it would be greatly appreciated if you could read your meter and complete and return the enclosed card to us.
Yours,
London Energy

Little did I realise in doing so that I would find a newly revised bill plonked on my desk four days later. These people want their money and fast, and what’s this – EEK! – £247! £70 more than the last quarter and this is for the gas used during the summer when we didn’t even have the heating on (apart from the last week – yep, autumn’s here already in the DRG house). I’m not one of those people who dreads the arrival of their bills as money is one of the areas where I’m generally quite anal and organised, so I have a (usually accurate) budget all worked out and the funds sit patiently in their allocated ‘pots’ in my bank account awaiting their turn to be duly paid.

In fact, when I worked on a magazine, I actually secretly enjoyed processing the invoices and updating the spreadsheets. It gave me a quiet ten minutes to don my ‘Do Not Disturb’ hat*, get stuck into the figures and make sure everything tallied up, and I always got that satisfied feeling of everything being up to date and nicely balanced. The arrival of the Bill From Hell did throw me temporarily but as usual, I did some juggling and worked out that if I delayed the payment of another bill and borrowed some money from that ‘pot’, then things could easily right themselves. Looking out of the window and seeing D getting the breakfast ready in our sunny courtyard, I decided anyway that this bill brouhaha wasn’t going to spoil my day. As my mantra banner says so succinctly…Worry About It Later. So I’m doing exactly that.

*What’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ hat? It’s a paper hat with Do Not Disturb scrawled on it with magic marker so people know not to bother me while I’m in concentration mode. Alas, my colleagues did not take it very seriously. Can’t think why.

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‘My granny’s died’



I’ve spent the last two days styling up-and-coming models and working with a new assistant who I shall call J. She’s not really an assistant as much as a trainee assistant but so far I’m quite impressed. She spent yesterday pre-empting my needs (the golden rule of being an A-plus fashion assistant student), ironing without burning and interviewing models. The project is a commentary on wannabe models and their aspirations. So far the models have included a girl whose favourite model is Tyra Banks (‘she’s nice and she looks nice’), another whose parents don’t mind her modelling ‘but would rather I’d played handball as a career’ and a third whose dream job is ‘a shoot with a horse’. But the majority of our time was spent hanging around waiting for the photographer to finish faffing with his lights and polyboards. So I was pleasantly surprised when J turned up on day 2. From past experience, when the job isn’t all fun and games it’s not uncommon for the assistant (read: work experience) to call in the next day claiming ‘my granny’s died so I won’t be coming back in’. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not unsympathetic when grandparents pass away but it’s surprising how common these granny deaths are when someone is on a less-than-exhilerating work placement. When I worked on a magazine, we had three of these ‘my granny’s died’ phone calls in three months. The point is, if the job isn’t shaping up to involve parties, free swag and interviewing celebs then by all means share your concerns, give us a chance to put things right or even make up some other excuse. But please, don’t trot out the old granny cliche. Believe me, we can see straight through it!

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Zara vs Gap



“If Gap wants to cater to a jeans and t-shirt customer, then do that, without mixing in Pierre Hardy shoes and ThreeAsFour dresses, but if they want to cater to a customer who cares about Philip Crangi and Rodarte, do that. They’ve overreached, leaving their customers, and apparently their own brand strategists, quite confused.”

Good analysis from Britt Aboutaleb over at Fashionista regarding the Gap vs Zara debate (Zara has overtaken Gap as the world’s largest fashion retailer). Poor old Gap.

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