Jobs for Girls

Well the Cru-blog has certainly been written of my Mac and my iPhone for a long time. But I don't have anything particular to add to the discussion of Steve Jobs' death. It's sad when someone dies, of course, whatever their role in life. There isn't really anything else to say.

Naturally enough though, the media is in need of something to pad out their articles with and the obvious choice is tributes from well known people in relevant sectors. The Daily Mail for example includes comments from 22 people in the worlds of IT, politics and the media. All 22 of those people are male. That's pretty sad. Later on they list a couple of twitter comments from Kylie Minogue and Tyra Banks but it's sad to think that women are so hugely under-represented in these areas in the 21st century.

Screw Optimism!

This is such an insightful piece. And fun to watch.

Look! Feminist T-Shirts!

Good - pretend to be straight so some stupid guy buys you dinner.

Better - invite your girlfriend to join you and watch as he frantically plies you both with drinks in a futile attempt to engineer a threesome.

Best - send him home to play World of Warcraft while you and your girlfriend head over to Stand-Up For Women, May 19th, Comedy Pub, Oxenden Street.

Or have I missed something? T-Shirts available from one of those crappy tourist places on the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street where despite the evidence presented about you are apparently "not allowed" to take photos (ooops). Tickets for Stand-Up For Women available from clair@object.org.uk. Guys welcome, just not the sort of dickheads who go round in T-Shirts like this one!

Women Bosses: Line-by-line!

The Daily Mail. Ah. It's my birthday today (drinkies on Saturday at The Comedy Pub, Oxenden Street show at half eight, pub closes 2am, please come if you're in town) and the Daily Mail's lovely gift is clearly this Amanda Platell article charmingly titled "Moody, indecisive and always trying to behave like a man, why ladies make truly lousy bosses". It's a stonker. It really deserves the proper Cru-blog line-by-line treatment so here goes... happy birthday me!

"Why is it that in a society overrun by greedy fat cats - where the Sir Fred Goodwins of this world continue to outrage with their business brutality, unreasonable demands and outrageous bonuses - there is not a single woman’s name in the rogues’ gallery?"

Yes Amanda why IS that? Maybe women are less unreasonable, less brutal and less demanding. Still at least they're not in charge eh?

"Why is there not an equally hated Lady Freda Goodwin, Freda The Shred, riding roughshod over the poor workers, slashing costs and sacking staff? Because, ladies, we are not nasty enough. "

Oh trust me Amanda, I'm only two lines in and already I'm planning to be pretty nasty here. But if women aren't capable of being like Fred Goodwin shouldn't we hire MORE of them? Or are you the only person in Britain still rooting for Fred in this whole fiasco?

"Nor are we single-minded enough, nor focused, nor task driven, nor adept at that simple but essential boss task of giving orders."

No doubt this sort of offensive baseless sweeping generalisation will be backed up with hard cold facts.

"In short, our commercial DNA is not wired for corporate success."

So we're biologically incapable of running a business? Weird that so many of us do run businesses then. Perhaps someone should let Martha Lane-Fox know.

"And nowhere was that more graphically demonstrated than last week when the much-feted co-chairman of Gordon Brown’s Women’s Enterprise Task Force was successfully sued by one of her employees for bullying."

I'm waiting for the cold hard facts and I'm getting a single case study. Just as well you don't run a business Amanda - "I asked my cat and he doesn't want to buy football tickets so clearly there's no market for them..."

"Dr Glenda Stone runs a successful recruitment website, Aurora, with her husband. So even this colossus of female business success, the woman chosen to front such a highprofile government body, co-runs her business with her spouse.

Not much of a triumph for feminism after all, is it?"

She runs a business with her husband? But who cleans the bathroom and does the ironing. Daily Mail head overload alert!! But seriously as an official spokeswoman for feminism - we weren't claiming her as our key triumph this year. I was at Reclaim The Night and the Emma Humphrey Memorial Prizes went to Sandra McNeil and Object. Dr Stone was not nominated but I wish her the best of luck.

"And what’s more, by all accounts in the industrial tribunal, she was a terrible boss - overbearing, foulmouthed, petty, bullying, micromanaging-vindictive."

Foulmouthed, petty, bullying and vindictive? Well if the career doesn't work out she can always get a job as a columnist for the Mail hey Amanda?

"I know that type of female boss well, the Bully Boy Boss, who thinks they have to be nastier than the nastiest male boss to succeed. But more of them later."

Earlier on the problem was that we weren't hard-wired to give orders and nasty enough to run big corporates, now we're too nasty and handing out too many orders? It's almost as if women aren't actually all the same after all. Maybe we're diverse, like human beings...?

"Now, before the hate emails start pouring in from outraged feminists and female bosses, I have a special interest in this subject.

Not just because I’ve had the misfortune of having some of the most God-awful female bosses in the history of modern business, but because I was a boss myself, more than once."

So you're allowed to criticise me because you've got a vagina and a job too?

"I have edited two national newspapers, been the managing editor of one, the marketing director of two and the managing director of one national newspaper group.

As William Hague’s Press Secretary, I was boss to a team of press officers.

I have sat in the editor’s chair, the boardroom and the shadow cabinet. And while I can confidently say most of the people who worked for me liked me and respected me (I always thought of them working with me, but that’s such a girl thing), and, more importantly, worked well for me, I’m not sure I was always a good boss."

So this whole article is about how you're "not sure" you were "always" doing a good job. Who is? Everybody has hurdles at work, everybody tries and learns from experience. I've had male bosses who I AM SURE were ALWAYS doing a BAD JOB. Doesn't mean all men are bad bosses does it?

"Believe it or not, I wasn’t tough enough. I had that classic female trait of being able to get the most out of people - it’s called nurturing now - but I also wanted to be liked, a fatal flaw in a boss."

I mourn whatever you threw away to be liked Amanda because I really really don't like you.

"And like most women bosses, I took things too personally."

Yes that's why Fred Goodwin was so great - he didn't let the little stuff, like a balance sheet flimsier than a sheet of Tescos Value loo roll and bad debts piling up faster than dirty laundry in a student flatshare, get to him.

"I remember one particular incident when my woman boss, who was trying to get rid of me in that usual sneaky female way or undermining me at every point rather than honestly pointing out my shortcomings, called me into an ambush meeting. "

I'm not sure what "that usual sneaky female way" is but I'm pretty sure if such a thing exists it's because when women are direct about what they want they're criticised for being too aggressive and "acting like a man" by people like Amanda Platell.

"She’d assembled various company directors and preceded to humiliate me in a most personal way, for my accent, the school I went to, for not liking the theatre, for my university. Not for a moment that I was bad at my job."

You don't like theatre? What's wrong with you Amanda...

What I mean is: That's unfair and I'm sorry you were treated that way. To me that's discrimination against women, in this case you, and I'm fighting that. What I'm not doing is fighting that discrimination by writing national press articles about women making bad managers. [Although I think you mean proceeded, not preceded, any boss who could time travel would have seen this article coming and retrospectively not hired you in the first place]

"And to my eternal shame I took it personally. Men don’t do that."

No they don't. That's why Eddie Murphy didn't threaten to sue Mel B when she implied he wasn't the most caring father to her child. And Peter Andre didn't sue Katie Price when she said he wasn't the most faithful lover.

"I was a good manager of people, but a lousy risk-taker."

Compared to Fred Goodwin Amanda, I'd say you were a brilliant risk-taker.

"With our typical propensity for multi-tasking, I was more comfortable doing ten things at once and keeping all the balls in the air than what was really needed, to focus on one task and nail that ball in the back of the net."

Yes a good manager only focusses on one thing. Really? So the accounts are sorted but the sales strategy is screwed and the premises licenses have expired. Great management. Our hero Fred Goodwin of course only focussed on one thing - getting rich quick.

"Returning to Dr Glenda Stone for a moment, ironically her job on the quango was to teach businesswomen how to take risks, one of the key areas survey after survey finds women are pathologically incapable of doing."

What surveys? Really. I have never seen such a survey. I saw a survey that said men are bad at taking risk and that's why they make worse car drivers. Even if we could prove somehow that women are more risk-averse though: Firstly when I look at the credit crunch and it's impact on Britain the one thing I have never though is "If only our business leaders took more risks". And secondly it is discrimination to make recruitment and promotion decisions based on generalisations. If you want risk-takers, ask for risk-takers and ask applicants to take one of the many tests of willingness to take risk at interview - don't assume you know what someone is like based on their gender.

"Even in countries where positive discrimination is enforced by law, such as Norway, the underpinning beliefs are that women bring different mindsets and skills to business.

In that country, by law 40 per cent of all corporate positions are now held by women, but even they concede women are by nature more ‘risk-aware’. For which read ‘risk averse’, for which read useless to thrusting, high-risk, high-profit companies."

Yes I remember reading all those articles about how badly Norway had been hit by the credit crunch. Forget all-male-run Dubai, the biggest sufferers have been the Norwegians right? The PROBLEM with businesses right now is that they are "high-risk".

"Women do, however, make a difference to bankruptcy levels, says a study by Leeds University Business School. It surveyed 17,000 companies and found that having at least one female director on the board cuts a company’s chance of going bankrupt by about 20 per cent."

Right so seems like Norway was right all along. And for one this argument actually has a source, it's based on fact.

"Why? Because we’re more cautious. But a study of 2,000 companies in the U.S. found a correlation between companies with disproportionately more female board members and lower profitability and lower market value. "

What study? By who? If you don't give me the source I can go and see whether the methodology is valid can I? Looking back thought at the last ten years of business I think profits were pretty high but risks taken were too high.

"So it appears that companies made up of more women executives are good at keeping afloat, but not at motoring ahead.

We’re good at preventing bust but not at facilitating boom."

Haven't we been saying for a long time we want to get away from a boom-bust cycle and into a steady growth economy? Don't we want more bust-preventers and less boom-facilitators?

"These studies indicate why women bosses are so unrepresented in corporate life. We have different skill sets and the things we’re naturally good at don’t necessarily make companies rich."

I think in the long term "not going bust" is quite a key component of "getting rich".

"That may go some way to explaining why every time a list of overpaid bosses appears, it’s a case of Spot The Female."

Yes it's called a pay gap.

"When the list of 323 public service bosses was published last Friday, there was not a single woman in the top ten. The Royal Mail’s Adam Crozier, Channel 4’s Kevin Lygo, the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson - all household names. Still no women."

If Adam Crozier had been a bit less greedy maybe there wouldn't have been a huge mail strike. Are these examples of great managers? Are these guys SURE they are ALWAYS a good boss. Honestly Amanda I think you could have done better than most of them and there are very few women I can think of I wouldn't have offered the job to ahead of you.

"Women have railed against it for half a century, the Labour government has legislated against it for a decade, and yet we are still in a minority in the companies that dominate our country."

Oh well we had a little try - lets give up now. Did anyone ever say the battle for equality would be easy and over in a fortnight?

"And where women do score more highly, it’s in the caring, catering or fashion professions."

Oh so we do run some industries but apparently these aren't as important as the others? Caring for the needy, feeding people and providing them with clothes to wear - yes I think are the most trivial roles of industry too... Clearly running a TV station or a casino is more important.

"As Dr Stone demonstrated, women bosses tend to fall into two categories - too soft or too hard."

Earlier on we were all the same - now we're scattered at two ends of a (mythical) spectrum. Or could it be that any woman you can't write off as too soft you're writing of as too hard, creating a no-won situation because you have a problem with women.

"There are the Caring Collegiate Bosses you’ll find running shopping, retail, fashion and style companies and the middleranking public service sectors."

Well they seem to be good at what they do, don't they?

"Tesco, Sainsbury and M&S are three of the top 11 companies employing female directors."

And they're on the brink of going out of business right?

"The two great success stories running UK companies demonstrate this point - Marjorie Scardino at Pearson, the publisher dominated by female magazines, and Angela Ahrendts at Burberry."

What point? The point that some women have managed to break through the glass ceiling in publishing, food and fashion and are doing at least as good a job as the men they had to fight out of the way? Yes point well made...

"And then there are the Bully Boy Bosses, like Dr Stone, the women who think you have be tougher than any male to succeed in a man’s world. Yes they’re tough, but they’re also petty, small picture people lacking the risk-taking, taskdriven skills necessary for running a big, successful company."

Yes many women believe (rightly) that they have to be tougher than their male colleagues to succeed. The rest is just meaningless drivel right? Also note that this is the opposite type to the Marjorie Scardino type. She's not tough of course, she got where she is by smiling and agreeing with people.

"Successful bosses mono-task, women multi-task; men are dispassionate, we are naturally emotional; they take risks, we ensure against loss."

So bad female bosses are "petty, small picture people" but men are "mono-task"-ers. That is the same quality only gendered to be negative for women and positive for men. And again what is so dreadful about ensuring against loss?

"But women’s DNA is only part of the answer as to why there are still so few female bosses in corporate life."

Which gene is this in? Which report shows a genetic difference. Go look in your local Early Learning Centre at the pink cookery sets and the blue science kits ... even if we can determine a difference in business performance based on gender - to call it "DNA" is a big (and offensive) leap.

"Even in the U.S., where 60 per cent of all college students are female, less than 15 per cent of board seats are held by women.

In the UK, the picture is worse. While the number of women in the top 100 FTSE boardrooms has doubled since 2000, it is still only 12 per cent."

So why doesn't this dreadful DNA prevent women getting in to university? Surely universities want these risk-takers since there's really no "risk" at university. If student's experiment and fail they just get kicked out or get bad grades.

"That despite a decade of social engineering and an ethos of positive discrimination by this Labour government."

It's almost like there could be nasty forces trying to hold women back? One of them is call YOU Amanda.

"Women are their worst enemies in some ways, with the avalanche of eye-watering sexual discrimination compensation claims in corporate life. Only last week, we had the absurd sight of banker Haley Tansey suing HBOS for £600,000 for sexual harassment."

Yes, absurd, Fred Goodwin deserves millions for running a company into the ground but Haley Tansey shouldn't expect compensation for illegal and terrifying harassment.

"The £39,000-a-year businesswoman said it all began with a colleague tricking his way into her hotel room while she was asleep then appearing naked before her. An eight-year nightmare of appalling sexism followed, she claims."

Oh well as long as nothing BAD happened eh? That's appalling.

"Why didn’t she tackle this undeniably unacceptable behaviour head on, when it happened?"

Because she didn't want to lose her £39,000 a year job? Because she didn't want to go through a horrific dragged-out court case and have her private life splashed all over your newspaper columns?

"A man would have."

How many men are vicitimised by having a naked colleague come in their room in the middle of the night? I've never heard of that happening.

"Victims don’t rise to the top."

You imply Amanda that victimhood is something that people can choose. Not true. Regardless of when she had reported it Ms Tansey would still have been the victim of this incident. And actually many victims of all sorts of crimes do go on to be successful in their own lives.

"Cases like this put the frighteners on companies. I know female bosses who privately admit that it has made them wary of employing female bosses."

You would hope that cases like this made businesses scared of sending naked men into women's bedrooms at night. Sorry if you think Ms Tansey is making a big deal about it - I think she's very brave to come forward and deserves to be thoroughly compensated if her claims are well founded. I think companies need to be sent a clear message that this sort of behaviour is not acceptable.

"Add to that the Government's new generous paternity rights and it's a double whammy for women, especially as it’s still mainly women who take time off after having children."

Then the next thing we need to address is why men aren't more involved in child-raising. See your local Early Learning Centre for clues.

"So it’s not getting better for women, it's getting worse. In this recession, companies have become wary of employing women at their key career stage - in their 30s - when professional women are most likely to step up the corporate ladder but also likely to want to have children."

Do you know that companies are reimbursed 92% of what they spend on maternity pay? And more than 100% for small companies. In a recession a pregnant employee means you can cut your staff temporarily at almost zero cost and ramp back up to full power in a few months.

"Like many women born into the postfeminist generation, the high-fliers of the Eighties and Nineties, I was once surprised by the lack of success of women at corporate level after decades of equality."

How can you be "postfeminist" when I'm still "feminist"?

"Once, we could blame prejudice and sexism, now increasingly we have to look to ourselves. And it’s not just that women are lousy bosses of big companies because of our DNA, it’s also because of the choices we have made."

Of course looking at those women who make it to the top we find that they are in fact not women who have chosen to remain childless. Marjorie Scardino has three children. What holds women back is not choices - it's sexism, sexism that you are all too keen to excuse.

"For perfectly legitimate, complicated reasons of family or love or work-life balance, many of us have chosen to leave or never even enter the corporate jungle."

Lucky that men don't have relationships or families isn't it?

"But we can’t go on blaming it on men and an unfair system weighted against women."

We can - if that's what's really happening.

"You have to ask yourself why even in modern times there are few great female boss characters. There is not one female boss in Sex And The City, the single most iconic feminist TV series of a generation. When we do have successful women bosses, as in The Devil Wears Prada, they’re running fashion magazines, not blue chip companies."

Carrie's boss in Sex and The City is a woman. But I agree - we need more positive role models from TV and films. You do know Amanda, don't you, that those shows are not documentaries?

"Simon Cowell has The X Factor, in which Dannii and Cheryl are little more than pretty props. Even on shows such as Dragons’ Den, there is only one woman dragon."

No wonder our young women are not aiming higher and no wonder senior managers don't think to recruit women into top level positions.

"Can you imagine The Apprentice with a Lady Nicola Horlick at the helm, the ultimate female corporate Superwoman boss?"

Yes I can. I think I might actually watch it whereas Alan Sugar makes me puke my tea up and start grabbing for the remote.

"We’ll know the world has changed when the planned sequel to Wall Street has as its star not Gordon, but that mean mother of all bosses Greta Gekko."

If only Hollywood would lead the way and make a film about a woman who could lead a business. We could call it The Associate and have Whoopi Goldberg play the lead. Or we could make a retro-1980s film with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda and call it Nine to Five. That'll never happen though will it? Did Platell miss a meeting?

As he famously said in Wall Street: ‘Read Sun-tzu, The Art Of War. Every battle is won before it is ever fought.’ And alas in the boardroom, that’s never been more true than it is today for women.

I'm still fighting. Your help Amanda is not appreciated.

Barbie World

I am featured in a student documentary about Barbie dolls and their impact on young women. It's in two sections below - I'm mostly in the first half of the second section. For some reason as soon as I start talking about feminist issues all the cats in the neighbourhood show up - it's like they know that secretly I'm their leader...

More Free Tampons

Re-posted from The F-Word where I am currently guest-blogging.

Lil-Lets have out-done themselves now. After last week's "Free Tampons" offer, they are now offering a free box of tampons with some free sample packs to give to your friends. But this offer breaks new ground in also offering a do-it-yourself "dip test" - their brand and a rival brand of tampons with two test tubes and some suspicious-looking blue liquid for you to recreate the thrills and spills of being in a sanitary product advert! Really! I suggest take the freebee and use the test tubes as shot glasses!

Tesco and Me

Re-posted from The F-Word where I am currently guest-blogging.

Somehow or another I have failed to tick a box somewhere online and I have been added to a mailing list run by Tesco. Today their marketing director Kendra Banks has written me with some recommendations. Her first pick for me is Eminem's new album "Relapse".

This album's title track includes some interesting lyrics, like this one:

"he stuck the bitch with the pitchfork with the long prongs"

I wonder how this fits with Tesco's fancily worded policy on diversity and inclusion: gender?

But maybe lyrics about killing women pale into insignificance next to some of the other things he says in the very same song. Such as these:

"Slice you up and cook you after you`re murdered by strangulation
That`s bacon souffle you makin`, ain`t you? well, thank you jason
There goes one more coma
Due to blunt force trauma"

"The medication is making my hands a little shakier
Hand me the 18 month old baby, come shake `em up
It`ll only take me a second to choke his trachea
Breakin` his neck in eightysome places"

Maybe someone could print out the above stanza and put it in Tesco stores next to the nappies and baby food? Or maybe Kendra Banks should double check what is being sent out to Tesco customers with her name on the bottom!

Free Tampons

Re-posted from The F-Word where I am currently guest blogging.

It hardly needs saying that I am a big advocate of alternative menstrual hygiene products* - moon cup, sea sponge tampons, washable pads, etc but of course these don't suit everybody all of the time. So I thought I would mention for the benefit of those interested that Lil-Lets are currently giving away free samples of their new applicator (yes, I know, the waste!) tampons. You have to register but you can opt for not joining the mailing list (or join and then barrage them with messages demanding they switch to recyclable products) to get the free sample here.

*What a stupid term - I mean period products!

Why Do We Have An ASA?

I've written to the Advertising Standards Authority several times this year. There is no need for adverts to be offensive or promote negative attitudes (like objectifying women) but of course they do it all the time. The ASA never do anything, they just write back to say they've thought about it and decided to do nothing.

Well this interesting article lists the top ten most complained about adverts of 2008. In all ten cases the ASA decided to respond by doing ... nothing! That's pretty depressing as is the fact that certain really horrid adverts didn't make the list - like that nasty Rustlers burger advert where the woman is shown rotating on the sofa like meat in a microwave (pictured above). In fact the most complained about advert received only 840 complaints and you could have made the top ten with 100 complaints. But then what's the point of complaining when the ASA do nothing?

Mile High Misogyny

This article is from the latest Ryan Air inflight magazine. It lists their recommended top ten lap-dancing clubs worldwide. Has anyone told them that some of their passengers may be female? Or indeed for any number of other reasons not comfortable with an article like that peeking out of their seat-pocket?

But the article is also interesting in that they admit two things that most lap-dancing promoters will aggressively deny:

They admit that "gentleman's club" is a direct synonym for "lap-dancing joint".

They admit that the claim that these places are frequented by "adventurous young couples" is a lie and that the actual clientele is "randy blokes".

London's was represented on the list of course by Stringfellow's, a club whose owner is delighted to brag on his blog about his great friendship with David Cameron. How nice.

Gardener's Question Time

Try the new online Cru-blog personality test. Simply watch this catchy video. Now answer this question... Does it make you feel:

a) Like buying a razor?

b) Like puking in a bag?

I'm going (b) here.

And A Little More Ammo

For the argument Jean Kilbourne is making in the video here. A great blog post from The Illusionists.

Virgin Problems

In reaction to my last post someone has kindly sent me a link to this hilarious complaint letter sent to Richard Branson by a passenger on Virgin Atlantic! Enjoy!

Corrupt Capitalism

I know we all know that corporations will always try to rip us off whenever they can but I still find myself surprised by how bad things are.

Here's the situation - I'm trying to quit the gym. My old gym that I liked was taken over a couple of years ago by Virgin Active and suddenly they have adverts everywhere around the place, mostly featuring semi-naked women with perfect bodies. They show MTV all round the gym - typically videos of women in next to no clothes, and in some cases actually women on leashes and chained up, etc. I go to the gym to feel good about myself so I've complained a few times but nothing has changed.

They also seem to have changed in their attitude to customers. Posters around the gym have sprung up featuring angry-looking men with megaphones and captions like "Don't forget your card - or else!". And suddenly there is an extra fee for everything - borrowing a padlock if I forget mine, forgetting my card. I was even told at one branch I would have to pay to borrow a towel because I wasn't a "corporate" member!

Well I put up with all this for quite a while because I liked the trainers in the martial arts and boxing bit of the gym. Then the guy I was training with got suspended from his job. I assumed they would ring me to let me know what was happening and find me a replacement while the situation was sorted out. No. Nothing.

So I rang up to say I was quitting. They didn't answer my calls or respond to the messages I left for two weeks. Then when I did get through they said "Unfortunately you needed to contact us two weeks ago. There's nothing we can do now."

"...but i did contact you two weeks ago."

"We have no record of that."

"Well keep better records then."

You know if I said I want to give them £50 every single person in the company would be over-qualified to take the money. But somehow only one person out of their hundreds of employees is qualified to "allow" me to stop giving them money. At one point I went in to the actual branch I originally joined (I had been assured that despite the advent of both the telephone and the internet each branch was totally incapable of communicating with each other branch) and asked to quit and the guy said "I'll try and get you a business card for the person you need to speak to". Then he went away and came back and said "Sorry, her drawers are all locked".

Well I've canceled my direct debit to them and I think this means that in a few months they'll be suing me for breach of contract. Eventually I imagine it will get sorted out, already though hours of my time have been wasted chasing up people who don't bother to get back to me. The stupid thing is when I first said I wanted to quit if they'd rung me up and asked what they could do and listened to me I'm sure I would have agreed to stay. But now not only have I left - I recommend to all my readers to do the same! Or indeed not/never to join.

Playboy all over the Western World

Spotted the above at Barratts - the shoe-shop on Oxford Street - it's a Playboy branded satchel. Now admittedly it's on a rail with adult women's leather handbags - but it's a child's eye level rail and who the hell buys satchels as a grown up? These are just the right size for school books and a pencil case! If that doesn't really hang right with you you can let them know at their "contact us" email address enquiries@stylo.co.uk. Do let me know if you hear anything back. Probably just a co-incidence but the whole time I was in there browsing a kid young enought to be my son who was serving me continually referred to me as "love". I did complain about both.

And while we're on the subject I was looking around the web for comedy clubs - like most comedians I regularly scout out for new places I might potentially work. Stumbled across this one in the US - Playboy Comedy. Seems like they book mostly male comedians though... The women on the bill are "playmates" who "appear" during the night! What a lovely industry mine is!

A Tour of the High Temple of Consumerism

On my way back from the dentists on Wednesday I dropped in to the newly-opened Westfield shopping centre to see what it was like. Here are some of my thoughts:

1) The architecture is amazing, what a shame that all this time and effort goes in to designing a shopping centre while so many sports centres and libraries are so run down and so many Londoners live in substandard housing.

2) Boring boring shops - didn't seem to be anything new or different or interesting, just the same stuff. Did we need another M&S in London? Were queues forming outside the existing ones and dressing rooms overflowing? Or are we less filling a need and more just manufacturing a need? Er actually Cru, that may be a stupid question...

3) Why is every single product on sale advertised through the medium of James Bond tie-ins. I heard the latest film is rubbish and I never much liked the old ones, they're all the same misogynist crap and they're totally dated. But Daniel Craig's face is on every wall selling everything from watches to car insurance. No doubt the loos have a sign that says "Have a quantum of solace in our bogs" or "007 - he squats, he squirts...!"

4) I mentioned manufacturing need - there's a salon in there that ONLY does blow-drying. And the appointments they offer are half an hour long! I think half an hour of professional blow-drying is over the top for someone who's getting married in the afternoon, but there were people in there on a Monday morning mid-shop! Not that there's anything wrong with being pampered once in a while but it was pissing down outside so the poofed-up look will only last a few minutes.

5) The sales assistants in many of the designer stores were suspiciously attractive. Makes me want to put on 200 pounds, apply for a job and open a court case. I can't risk it though in case they call my bluff and I end up perched in a mobile hospital bed in the entrance to Ted Baker reciting the company-approved welcome comment and crying on the inside.

6) Lack of seating. They want you to come in, to walk around the 43 acres of shopping mall loading your arms up with heavy and bulky products but if you want a quick sit-down to take the weight off you are going to have to buy an over-priced coffee first. Or a half-hour blow-dry.

...not that I really thought I was going to LIKE it!

Consumer Products With Padding

Attention food manufacturers and supermarkets. Just so you know - I've noticed when you pad out your products with cheap ingredients. I know when I pick up a carton of pomegranate 100% juice drink and it turns out to be 50% grape juice that I'm being ripped off. I know grape juice is the cheapest juice on the market. If it wasn't why would there be a never-ending run of clearly press release-driven "news" stories about how good for you grape juice is (note however that that's all purple grape juice, while I'm pretty sure the pomegranate juice is cut with white grape juice)?

I know when I look at a supposedly chicken-based soup and it contains more carrots, potatoes, rice, onions and peas than it does chicken that somebody somewhere thinks I'm stupid enough to base my choice of food on the picture on the front of the tin, rather than the information on the back. And even those ingredients are second only to water. What is the point of selling uncondensed soup?

And on that subject there are adverts on TV at the moment for a fabric softener "now condensed". Surely what they mean is "by the way, that stuff we've been selling you for the last 50 years was mostly water!!".

Isn't it time companies realised that we're not fooled by this stuff any more. Isn't it time these guys cut their advertising budgets and instead spent the money on an internal CSR (corporate responsibility) audit to see how they could be better benefiting consumers, the environment, their employees and the communities they operate in. Then when you've started using better ingredients in a better way, send out a press release about that!

Tesco Nappy Rash

Thanks to Katie Toms on the London Feminist Network for alerting me to this one. Tesco, for 3-6 month olds.

Remember when Dove told us "Talk to your daughter, before the beauty industry does"? Looks like the myths about female beauty are being foisted on kids well before they can even talk.

If this makes you just a teeny teeny bit mad you can write to:

Tesco Customer Service
PO Box 73
Baird Avenue
Dryburgh Industrial Estate
Dundee
DD1 9NF

The Shoddy Shop

Stopped in to the Body Shop on my way today. Used to be you could rely on that place to be making an effort to do the right thing. Today I discovered:

1. Prices have gone up massively. Used to be reasonable, now £11 for a lipstick.

2. They don't really do recycling any more. You used to be able to bring containers in for a refill, which saved some money, but they don't do that any more. They weren't even sure if they could recycle bottles if I brought them in.

3. Almost every purchase comes with a free gift - a bag containing at least four small items, loads of packaging for very little impact. Would be much better to give away a single bottle of something as a gift (or keep prices lower and drop the freebees).

4. Tons of pressure on customers to hand over personal data. Savings and more free gifts if you give your name, address, phone, number, DoB, email, etc.

5. Pushy shop staff. I was asked six times in ten minutes if I wanted any help. Even when I said "no thanks", they persisted. "Just checking out the scents?", "Just looking for Christmas presents?", they'd get on very well with my Granny actually (sorry Gran).

6. Poorly informed staff. One member of their team told me "If you get a second home fragrance you'll get a free gift". I didn't buy any home fragrance but I still got a free gift. And when I asked at the till if there was another gift with home fragrances I was told "no".

7. Not enough till staff. Four empty tills versus one staffed till - this is supposed to be Christmas holiday season! So six members of staff wandering about annoying customers and no-one to serve them once they've been harassed into buying whatever they didn't really want. And given that each customer reaching the tills has to be given a free gift, told if they're missing out on a free gift and offered a Love Your Body loyalty card which is then filled in at the till, this meant a line had formed more than ten customers long.

Ho hum, I guess corporate overpriced goods and bad service is reaching places previously thought to be out of bounds.

As If By Magic

Someone else has noticed the contradiction in the Unilever Dove campaign and the other campaigns it runs. Step forward Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. And in general, what a great concept. I have mentioned it before back in the very VERY early days of Cru-blog. I believe some Scandinavian countries have laws that forbid advertising aimed at the under-12s. It's a great idea, makes complete sense, don't bombard kids with media messages when they're too young to know what's going on. Anyway if you're of a mind to, you can mail the company via the CCFC website and air your views on their marketing strategies.