Friendship 'trumps' politics

Many of us will remember where we were last Wednesday. The day a borderline racist and a man who thinks nothing of mocking the disabled became the leader of the free world. I actually cried in my kitchen when I heard that Donald J. Trump would become the next president of the United States.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our American friends

These seismic events were all the more poignant because one of my dearest friends - an American - happened to be staying with us at the time, along with her two children. We all struggled to comprehend that Trump was to succeed President Obama, a man who by contrast exemplifies everything that is great about America.

Social outcasts

People watching:
Greg Rook, Artist and Course Director, Fine Art, London South Bank University

Hours before Paris suffered a series of devastating attacks last week, I spoke to the contemporary artist Greg Rook about his latest collection of paintings, entitled Off-grid. For much of his painting career, Greg has been intrigued by communities of people who exist on the margins of society, sustained by the rigours of their own belief system. In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, this preoccupation with survivalism feels strangely prescient.

The Good Life by Greg Rook

Through his early depictions of cowgirls/boys in the American West, Greg explored the myth of the "guy out on his own, working out what right and wrong should be". Comparing the dusty, raw linen on which he chose to paint with the rough ground of the American landscape, Greg explains how the lone figure became a metaphor for his position as a contemporary artist. Later he became interested in the hippy communes of the 1970s and their dream of an enlightened future that never quite came to pass. Greg refers to this notion as "past potential futures" - in other words, hopes for the future that were not fulfilled.

The seductive fairytale

Review: Pretty Woman (1990)

I have been indulging myself this week. My husband was away at the weekend so I sat down to watch one of my favourite, feel-good films: Pretty Woman. For two happy hours, my teenage years of 1990 - the year the film was released - came flooding back. The soundtrack alone transported me to a wistful era of adolescent heartbreak, experimental outfits, thick eyebrows and endless daydreaming. At the time, my family lived in Oman and I vividly remember cruising along desert roads in our 4x4, watching the goat herds at work, with Wild Women Do belting out from the tape-deck. 

I confess that I saw the film at the cinema three times - twice

Pretty Woman made Julia Roberts a star 
© Featureflash | Dreamstime.com

with friends and once with my mother!  Evidently I was not alone: the film was one  of the highest-grossing romantic comedies in history. When I sat down to watch it yet again on Saturday night, I feared that I might have outgrown this Hollywood fairytale, but no! I was caught up in its charm once more, delighting in a script I knew embarrassingly well ("I'm a safety girl... I appreciate the whole seduction thing you've got going on here, but let me give you a tip: I'm a sure thing" etc).