I hope you like

PS On the subject of cool images, check out Little People In the City.

By the way, did you notice how thin some of those models were? Bad example? Well yes, but they don’t even look good. I think people can go OTT with wanting models to represent normal people. Designers want to show off their collections as best as possible and get that by using tall, slim models. There are limits though. Spiky shoulders and skeletal faces are not nice to look at and it defeats the object.

Go and have a look, anyway :p

I’d love to know what that dream meant, anyway. Apparently we all dream lots every night but I don’t usually remember them. I wonder why last night was different…

Interpreting my dream would be a bit Freudian – an area I’m not convinced about for the same reasons as most people who’ve studied any psychology. I could probably put together some vague explanation but it would take forever to explain it and you’re probably not that interested.

Psychoanalysis is quite an interesting thing though, whether or not you trust Freud. Last year I read ‘The Farther Reaches of Human Nature’ by Abraham Maslow – a proper psychology book, and one you should look at if you’re at all interested in understanding people. Be warned, though, a lot of it is quite deep and complicated – I certainly didn’t understand it all, but there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Very insightful.

I’d better go now before I miss another lecture.

EDIT – I should probably say though that book isn’t really about psychoanalysis, it’s slightly more scientific.

- When people start reading too much into your wall conversations with other people.

- Mischievious applications. Most are fine and just a bit of fun but occasionally you discover that an application you added on a whim six months ago has been sending notifications out that it looks like you’ve sent personally when you haven’t.

- Relationship status changes appearing on the newsfeeds, especially when all you’ve done is deleted it completely and left it blank!

So the government wants to get everyone spending again by making credit card debt cheaper than it normally is. Since half the population are now in debt and many facing unemployment it doesn’t make much sense to me (though I realise it’s probably much more complicated than that – perhaps it’s more important for the economy if companies are doing well).

Anyway, what about those of us with savings in the bank? It’s not good for us, is it? (Though I expect these people are in the minority.) On the other hand, in my case, I’m being charged interest on my student loan so it’s probably a good thing there! (EDIT: I was getting 7% in a fixed rate account until Feb then it matured and the best rate avail now – a month later -is 2%!! I don’t think I’ll bother.)

Also, who even said the banks are going to pass on the rate cut? They’ll probably just keep the extra money for themselves.

I wonder who will be next. Debenhams apparently has a lot of debt and is trying to raise some cash and Premier Foods aren’t doing much better. This is the company behind brands like Hovis and Cadbury, yet they’re being forced to restructure their finances to stay within debt covenants. Should such an important firm ever be allowed to fall though? And surely turnover on bread sales can’t be that bad! I suppose it’s more about cash flow issues.

It seems to be like a domino effect. I heard that the main reason for Zavvi calling in the administrators was that Entertainment UK, their supplier, has also gone into administration (because it’s a subsidiary of Woolworths!).

It’s not all bad news though. This morning the Financial Times described how John Lewis “…saw overall sales surge more than 20 per cent…” over the past week. Turnover at Waitrose increased by 40%. It makes a change to hear about something good happening, and if they can do it then there’s hope for everyone else

Wouldn’t that just be such an amazing thing to do? You should see the people’s faces at the end! It would be so worth it. Now just gotta make a few million first…

The kinds of brands included are  Gio-Goi, Samsung and Storm. I didn’t even know modelling agencies counted as brands, but apparently they do, which is kinda interesting. Generally I agree with most of the list. There’s a few I haven’t heard of before but that’s probably the most exciting thing about it. Some of them I don’t understand – Top Trumps for example. Apparently it has been ‘reinvented’. Maybe I’m just not cool enough to get it.

So if I had power over this list, what would I include instead? Urban Outfitters  is the epitome of cool, so that really should be there somewhere. Innocent is quite a nice one, I’ve been on their mailing list for years – and actually look at the stuff they send out because it’s just funny to read. There’s no reason why Apple shouldn’t be listed, except for maybe their bullying of Microsoft with the whole ‘I am a Mac’ thing – and we all remember from school that bullying is not cool. 

If anyone wants to buy me something this Christmas but just can’t decide… the latest edition Cool Brands would be awesome :p