I have a long history of loving good bad songs. I’m not ashamed of it. I truly do love them. I learn all the lyrics. I put them to the top of my iPod playlists. I have special dancemoves for them that involve a lot of miming and shimmying and frowning-head-bobbing.

The other day I began singing this song, and all I can remember is that it’s from about 2002, the guy’s name is Lemar, and I think he won some kind of talent show like Pop Idol. Fuck, I loved this song. This song is SO forgotten that there doesn’t even seem to be a YouTube video for it.

LEMAR, DANCE WITH YOU

Note the extremely short use of a voice equalizer on ONE WORD. Wow, that is some cheap-ass production values right there.

PARIS HILTON, STARS ARE BLIND

I loved this song too. I actually loved the entire album.
Loving Paris Hilton songs means having conversations like this with Chris, my lovely then-art director who is truly into music and used to be in a band and everything:

Me: This is the best song.
Chris: No, it’s really not.

Me: Paris Hilton is really talented.
Chris: No, she isn’t.
Me: Watch, I can do a Paris face. Don’t I look like Paris when I do this face?
Chris: No, you don’t.

(Chris and I found common ground with early 80s new wave music, and this was our Friday song, but it is a really genuinely good song and thus has no place in this post.)

Loving Paris Hilton songs also means bobbing around the DJ box using a bendy straw as a Madonna microphone and trying to get the Djs attention to ask:

Me: Hey, will you please please play Paris Hilton’s Stars Are Blind?

DJ: (incredulous pause) No.

Me: (shouting) WHY NOT?

ABZ, STOP SIGN

Yeah. That’s right. I mean Abz from 5ive. Stop laughing! This is a great fucking song. I listened to it a lot when doing my early-20s elliptical trainer workouts. God, those workouts were boring. And pointless. Back to the point: turn it up and dorkdance your heart out.

What are you doing right this second?

Right this second I am on the sofa, half-watching a Saturday Night Live marathon and half-writing a synopsis for a new project I’ve been thinking about for a while. The baby is asleep.

I am contemplating eating some toast with Nutella, but it probably won’t happen, partly because I ate my way through Christmas Day like a heartbroken cheerleader and should really step the fuck away from the carbs, and mostly because I am too damn lazy to get up and make it for myself. What else? During the commercial break just now, an ad came on for a tweeny brand of shoes called ‘Daddy’s Money’. I thought was an SNL sketch as it’s so bad. It’s not. It’s a real thing. What the fuck? It reminds me of the time my friend Sarah and I made up pretend perfume names and straplines. Like ‘Patriarchy. Daddy knows best!’  and ‘Solipsism. It’s all about you.’

Tomorrow I am having a seriously overdue PG (Personal Grooming) afternoon. I’m going here. You can figure out why. And here to get highlights. I like to pretend that getting my hair done really doesn’t impact my writing schedule, as I always take my laptop with me and taptaptap away. But I don’t think I can writing during a Brazilian. I am only human.

And that’s the end of my blog. I am doing Right This Second blogs regularly from now on, as it’s so more satisfying (I hope) than my usual crappy Think Of A Theme And Take Three Weeks To Write And Edit A Blog About It. And if you like it, please share your Right This Second stories in the comments.

Kittens, I have an announcement.

The series-previously-known-as-UNION-STREET is now called BROOKLYN GIRLS.
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Caveat! This isn’t the real cover. We’re still finalising the image and design, and it will be something very similar to this. But this cover is already on Amazon as a sort of placeholder, so I thought why the fuh not throw it on the ol’ blog, hmm?

BROOKLYN GIRLS. Doesn’t it just reek bestseller?

It’s been a hell of a week in Manhattan. It was just Errol and I huddling together in the dark while the storm raged… I’d been totally blase about it, too, and hadn’t even bothered to charge my phone. I know. Every time I think about it, I hit myself on the forehead. Thtoopid.

But we were so lucky… We only had one night without power / phone reception / water, we were never in any real danger, and while I write to you now warm and clean in an uptown hotel room, with the baby asleep, thousands and thousands of other people just like you and me are still in their cold dark homes (or temporary shelters as their homes were blown away entirely), with no phones, no power, no showers, nothing… Every time I think about the past week, I feel so lucky. So goddamn lucky.

Anyway. Enough about me. Here’s some stuff about Sandy you might like.

I just read Lightening Rods by Helen DeWitt and loved it.

And lastly, Martin Short as Jiminy Glick interviewing Alec Baldwin is the funniest thing I have seen in ages. I can’t stop watching it. Enjoy. xx

My friend Caroline is scared of velvet. No, really, I’m serious, she has a phobia. Even saying the word ‘velvet’ makes her start hyperventilating and clutching at her neck. It’s hilarious, obviously, but it honestly upsets her, so I’ve never even entertained the idea of wearing the velvet shorts and blazers that have been around the last year or two.

However, since we live in different countries now, I think I could get away with these Klaude Stud slippers from Topshop. (Caroline is going to FREAK OUT if she reads this. Very Scottish accent: “I’m not going to come and see you in New York if you get them Gemma!” Yes you are Caroline. Come for New Year’s Eve. Screw Hogmanay.)

I am dying to get this eyeshadow palette from NARS. No, I don’t need it. That is not the point. (That is NEVER the point.)

I love COS. It’s H&M;’s big sister, but where H&M; is increasingly hookertastic, COS is increasingly awesome, and everything that it stocks is just my style. Lovelovelove. Anyway, they are not in NYC. I do not know why the hell they are not in NYC, it’s goddamn ridiculous, but they are not. They are, however, all over Europe and even in Hong Kong. So if I REALLY love something I get it delivered to my mother in HK or girlfriends in London and Dublin. (Clothes addiction combined with a touch of OCD makes you ingenious at this sort of thing. I could source anything from anywhere. If this was 1942 I would be the goddamn black market queen.) And this is the perfect example of Cos perfection.

I’ve never worn Uggs-style boots. I think they’re, hmm, how can I put this… fucking revolting. (And this made me laugh so much, in case you missed it.) But I can’t decide if it would be acceptable to wear these boots from Mou, JUST INSIDE, I promise, because I get really cold feet in winter, and it would be easier than keeping track of dozens of thermal socks. Thermal socks are also the size of soccer balls when they’re folded, which takes up too much room in the drawer, which really gets on my tits. They’re wayyy more than I’d usually spend on, essentially, slippers, but when you consider that I’m a writer and at home 23hrs a day, they make more sense, right? And these are a teeny bit more chic than Uggs, aren’t they?

Confession: I already bought this lipstick.

It’s Chanel Culte, and it’s like no lipstick shade I’ve ever seen – sort of super-sophisticated purply/browny/rose, ultra-moisturising but matte. It makes your skin glowy and your eyes clear and boosts your brain power by 12.5 per cent. It reminds me of Linda Evangelista in the 90s, and early Bobbi Brown and Kevyn Aucoin features in Allure magazine, and everything that made me love make-up. Oh, and it’s just the perfect shade for the autumn / fall / whatever you want to call it. I’m wearing it to a wedding in Ireland in a couple of weeks. Will report back on how it performs. (Oh, of course I won’t, who am I kidding, that is a big fat lie. This isn’t a beauty blog and you don’t care that much, do you? But I will be wearing it. That much is true.)

NARS Exhibit A blush. BEAR WITH ME. I know. I know. It looks like a Kabuki drag queen’s idea of Sunday best. And it is the most pigmented blush in the history of blushes. But this is what you must do: take a big blush brush, a teeeeeeny tiny swish (one, no more than one) of it, then swirl the brush on the back of your hand (to get rid of excess) and then splodge it – GENTLY! – on your cheek. Once. Only once. Voila: Snow White cheeks. I have (dramatic and incredibly superficial statement incoming) never seen anything like it. Best blush ever.

And lastly. After decades of Converse dedication, I growned-up myself to Superga this summer. I was pronouncing it SOOO-per-gah. Then yesterday my super-stylish friend Amy, who works in fashion, told me that her young, cool colleagues told her it’s pronounced ‘Sah-pur-GAAH’. I laughed my ass off. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

This makes me laugh so much. I have watched it twice a day for about four days. So it’s high time I shared it with you.