Britain's next prime minister?

See his first campaign speech here

Now we are one and a quarter

While I was in Toronto, The Thoughtful Dresser celebrated its first anniversary, and some time in the small hours of this morning will mark its quarter of a millionth visitor.

Ready For A Brand New Beat

Harry reckons the time is certainly right for Martha and the Vandellas




And I am immensely cheered to read the following account from today’s Guardian:

I emerged from the subway in central Harlem at half-past midnight to what sounded like the seconds after the whistle at a World Cup final. (One of the many subsidiary victories being celebrated was the death of ice hockey as the country's presiding sports metaphor). On Martin Luther King Boulevard the traffic congealed around thousands of pedestrians, who rapped on car windows to embrace the inhabitants, climbed on to fenders and generally met and exceeded every cliche of mass public joy in existence, including the D-day celebrations and the final scenes from Fame.
Every stereo in the neighbourhood was jacked to full volume; every car bonnet drummed on. People weren't dancing with but at each other, in undulating circles that admitted new members as they flowed up the street and must have looked, from the air, like cell biology. Three women climbed on to the roof of a bus shelter and gyrated outwards to a roar from the crowd, and as I walked east past the Apollo Theatre, a man came towards me engaged in what might just be the prime indicator of emotional overload: banging two saucepans together. ( Read the whole piece here)

The pear-shaped public profile

For the next four years (hopefully eight) we are going to have a lesson in how to dress the pear-shaped woman. At our election night party someone said, you know she shops at H&M, and peering at her red and black dress I said I rather doubted it. The dress is Narciso Rodriguez. SS09.

Here it is on the runway.
Interesting to see how it looks on a woman with hips. Interesting, too, to see how a dress is altered for production - the side panels added and the lace removed.

But whatever you think of this dress (and I loved it) I can only commiserate with any woman who has had to spend weeks shopping for a dress to wear for her big night.