Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook
around the bend. The ease with which someone could attack. There would be no one around to hear me shout. And there was rarely a phone signal.
Cities are regarded as the dangerous places with their knife crime and muggings, but as the awful attack on Julia James has again shown, horror comes just as easily and shockingly to our peaceful countryside.
Is this why there was no Twitter storm?
THE attention paid to murders should never be a competition. All that matters is that some poor soul has lost their life. Nonetheless, there are generational differences at play between the reaction to Julia James’s death and the outcry that took place over Sarah Everard’s abduction on a London street. Sarah was 33 and her killing struck a chord with countless young women who felt it might so easily have been them, just walking home in the big city. And they took to social media to share their anger and grief. Sarah became an icon for their sense of unfair vulnerability. Without question, there are just as many women across the country who identify equally strongly with 53- year- old Julia, who was a mother, a support officer and pillar of the local community. But it is a quieter and certainly more private reaction, without the driving force of hashtag activism.
1980s Madonna isn’t my look any more...
GOSH, keeping up with trends can be exhausting. You may or may not have noticed, but low-rise skinny jeans are now theoretically ‘out’ and the high-waisted, widelegged look is ‘in.’ You also may well think that a pair of jeans is just a pair of jeans, but if they weren’t subject to the dynamics of fashion then we would all still be looking like the Gold Rush panhandlers who first wore them.
The other day I was in Peter Jones, asking the sales assistant if she had a pair of this widel egged style. Clearly thinking that I was a woman who couldn’t possibly know anything about denim trends, she explained that they didn’t do jeans like that nowadays.
I mentally raised myself to my full 5ft 4in Don’t-You-Know-I-UsedTo-Edit-Vogue? mindset and shared the information that, as it happens, they do do denim like that nowadays. She might have thought I was stuck in a style rut circa 1970 but she was wrong. High waist, wide-legged is actually very much of the moment.
Later I tried another store and this time came away with a pair that are even more cutting-edge: high waist and baggy barrel legs, if you can believe that. Think 1980s Madonna. Now, having worn them for a few days, I have the ghastly suspicion that the Peter Jones assistant was unintentionally correct.
Although this may be the last word in 2021 jeans style, I do indeed look as if I am stuck in a mumstyle time-warp.
More Tipper Gore than Kendall Jenner. I should have known better.
My wonky legs won’t pass the IKEA test
IKEA are offering to resell our unwanted furniture in exchange for a voucher.
That assumes a level of competence in the original assembly that is way above my pay grade.
It’s a wonderful thought that I might be able to trade in my old bookcases and defunct TV cabinet for something brand new. But I seriously can’t imagine anyone who would want them with their wonky legs and missing bolts.
Romeo, wherefore art our happy ending?
THE finale of Line Of Duty was certainly a let-down, but how often is there a really satisfactory ending to anything?
I don’t suppose LoD creator Jed Mercurio is too worried, since the episode had record-breaking viewing figures.
But if he were suffering a twinge of concern, he could take consolation from a Washington Post survey showing that the most unsatisfactory ending of all time is deemed to be Romeo And Juliet.
After all the twists and turns, it was seen as just too miserable. Yet I think it’s safe to say the author’s reputation survived that blip.
Why red wine is the perfect anti-freeze
NEW figures show that the greatest increase in alcohol abuse is among middle-class women. That makes sense. Lockdown has driven many of us to drink.
Now that we are allowed to eat outside in bars and restaurants, the weather isn’t playing the game.
It’s been Siberian-icy, no matter how many heaters and fire pits. I doubt if I’m the only one who has justified an extra large glass of red by muttering: ‘It’ll keep me warm.’