John Lewis’s swop shop
NEW bras for old. New bras for old. Abanazar used a similar refrain to winkle Aladdin’s magic lamp out of his grasp. Now John Lewis is trying the same technique to help reduce the mountain of unwanted clothing sent to landfill.
If you bought the items in the store and the buy-back value reaches £50 John Lewis will send a courier to collect your worn out brassieres and motheaten jumpers free of charge. M&S already has a “Shwopping” service and H&M offers a £5 voucher for unwanted togs, so the message is loud and clear.
Buy stout clothing constructed to survive the ravages of time. Cheap and cheerful is bad news for the planet. Dig out your mum’s “good” camel coat and wear it till it evaporates. Classics don’t date. We have to wean ourselves off that “wear it once and if it falls apart, so what?” philosophy and remember days of yore when an item of clothing’s chief appeal was that it was built to last. ANT McPARTLIN’s wife Lisa is a gutsy girl, authoritative head of make-up on Strictly and hugely entertaining company. Ant himself is a titan of British broadcasting and as charming and unaffected in the flesh as he appears on TV. Both deserve happiness. Ant, it seems,
THERE’S no reason to shed a tear for the rich and infamous, Gentle Reader. To some extent high-profile individuals thrive on publicity and reap more or less what they sow. Women, however, who go privately about their business, making a living, caring for their children, whizzing about their personal lives and end up with a creepy stranger’s phone aimed at their nether regions have done nothing whatsoever to deserve such invasion.
Upskirting is no accident. Chaps don’t just find themselves snapping pictures of womens’ intimate anatomy. It’s a repugnant practice requiring stealth, deceit, strategy and technique. So insidious are the world’s upskirters often victims don’t realise they’ve been violated. Those women who are aware that they’ve been the focus of such unwelcome attention are rightly outraged. Gina Martin, brave enough to grab her unwanted snapper’s has found it in the company of the couple’s former PA, Anne-Marie Corbett, 42. Obviously the news is gutting for Lisa, who considered Anne-Marie a pal. She responded to a fan online that her husband was “seemingly hiding someone all along. Yeah, my friend and our PA, phone after he upskirted her at a festival, went to the police with the evidence. They told her he hadn’t committed an offence. There was no specific violation with which to charge him. Appalled that our law deemed upskirting no more serious than urinating in a field, she compiled the petition which led to an attempt to change legislation in who I let into our home”. Seeing the man you love waltzing off with another woman is agony. When she turns out to be someone you knew and trusted the pain ratchets up to an excruciating level.
It’s impossible not to feel conspired against when a former parliament on Friday. The Voyeurism Offences Bill was thought to be uncontroversial until Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope blocked it. He was thoroughly trolled for his efforts and emerged spluttering that he’d only done it to stop legal changes being “nodded in” without debate on Friday afternoons.
Forsooth! Let’s move this nonsense confidante, someone with whom you were relaxed enough to let your guard down, swoops into the vacuum in your relationship and nabs your husband. Whether Ms Corbett had long-term designs on Ant, or mutual affection erupted inadvertently we will never know. along without further ado. No woman is ever sending secret coded messages to lecherous strangers inviting them to photograph her genitalia signalled by her choice of skirt. She is merely getting dressed. Her hem-length is none of anyone else’s business.
Keep your camera to yourself, or you’ll be prosecuted. End of.
AT THE VERY LEAST ANT AND HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND COULD REFRAIN FROM LOOKING IDYLLICALLY HAPPY
What we can be sure of is Lisa will be aching with hurt and fury and Ant and his new squeeze should be sensitive to that fact and do their level best to avoid being photographed looking idyllically happy. Rubbing salt into a seeping wound is downright mean.