Vogue

Gwen Stefani rocked the house on Friday night - Scarf and I are now officially her biggest fans. One and a half hours, a 7 piece band, 6 Harajuku dancers and one remarkably tiny woman packing some huge punches.... we have a new saying: "No-one is cooler than Gwen." Is it ok to be a bit star-struck at the age of 27? I mean, I thought I was too affectedly world weary and mature for that. If I was chatting to Shoes' 14 year old sister, for example, and she started going on about how rad the Band of the Moment is and how brilliantly Elektra dances / Mos Duidelik raps / DJ Tjek-My-Tjoons mixes, I would smile indulgently and feel very grown-up and sage. Oh my good Lord, I have become my parents. Except with Gwen, I felt far closer to K's 14 than I did to my own 27. Scarf and I jumped around like morons and all you can hear in the video clips we took is us bellowing at the tops of our lungs - Gwen, microphone and all, didn't stand a chance against our trumpeting rendition of Hollaback Girl.

In what turned out to be a very chick weekend, we left the guys again on Saturday morning for our first foray into the world of London's fashion elite at the Natural History Museum. The problem is, it wasn't very elite at all; in fact, it was nothing like I expected it to be. For starters, you'd think Fashion Weekend would be very larney. Lots of fashionistas in the latest catwalk-inspired creations touting big bags of designer gear and saying things like "Daaahling, you absolutely MUST visit Crystal for your next eyebrow wax, she's just genius!" and "Have you seen the new Marc Jacobs sailor-striped muumuu, it's just faaabulous sweetie." You'd imagine the decor to be understated and elegant, yet with an obvious throwback to the days of Old Money - not ostentatious, but no shrinking violet when it comes to showing one who's boss either. What we got was a temporarily erected white (washed) plywood structure, closely resembling a marqee but with slightly more reliable walls. Still, you had cause to be grateful you were not window-shopping in the hurricane-prone Pacific, as you know you would have been the first to touch the eye of that storm. The "designer stores" were no more than hastily set up stalls a la your local Sunday flea market, and their contents were, erm, bordering on the ludicrous. I'm not sure whether the whole thing was an inside joke, as in "Let's put this over-priced junk out and see how many people accept it as the latest style." Either that, or I just do not have Designer Taste. Excuse me for wanting to look a little more classy than your average London chav or stick thin supermodel parading around with clothing schizophrenia (because let's face it, that dress may look good on THAT person at THAT angle for the magazine spread, but you and I would just look like severely misguided children playing in the school dress-up box). Maybe it was Chav Fashion Weekend, and the real deal was rather more exclusive and open only to the likes of Victoria Beckham. There was no sign of Posh - in any sense of the word - at this extravaganza, let me tell you. I needn't have worried about having no money; with the exception of a few pieces of jewellery, I didn't find a single thing I would have wanted to buy, even if I was loaded.

On Saturday night we had a braai with G-Days, OJ and Lareye. Halfway through our second bottle of wine, Scarf and I managed to convince them to go down to the offy to get more beer, and hey presto, we were free to watch Grey's! We were a bit worried about watching Grey's pissed, but luckily we managed to piece together all the major events the next day, and we caned it again on Sunday - 5 episodes throughout the course of the weekend. The reason for the hurry is that Season 4 has just started in the States, and we want to be done with Season 3 by the time it comes on Sky. We've been through a dry spell in TV land recently, what with all our favourite shows finishing and only X Factor to warm our Saturday nights (ok, we're not that sad - we go out on Saturdays and watch the taped show on Sunday). Luckily Prison Break has just premiered its third season, and Ugly Betty and America's Next Top Model are both due to start within a couple of weeks. This is good news, as with our lack of funds and the wintery weather rolling in, the need to live vicariously through others will only increase until our lives are exciting again.

Baby Love

I have won two tickets to London Fashion Weekend! How about that? I snagged them by entering a staff competition to name our new staff magazine. All entrants with names that will be considered were put into a hat for a lucky draw, and I won! They haven't decided on a name yet, so I don't know if any of mine will be used, but I will certainly be using those tickets. Scarf and I are going on Saturday afternoon. I know the biggest part of Fashion Week is the shopping, and we are both as poor as churchmice so that's kind of an issue, but at least we'll get to soak up the shopping glow with elite fashionistas and catch a catwalk show or two.

In other, rather more frightening news, I was out seeing one of my covens at lunch today and I just saw babies everywhere. Babies babies babies, like they were falling from the sky or something. And, even worse, I wanted them. I didn't think: that's the cost of 10 pairs of really expensive shoes this month, I thought, aaaahh, wouldn't it be nice to have one those (babies, not expensive shoes). It's finally happened. The day I thought would never come, the day where my age catches up with me, where my biological clock is not just ticking but spinning around and making coffee in an effort to be noticed, the day I am ready to give up SHOES! I want a baby. I can't help it. I don't WANT to want a baby, I just want one. It's like when you want to watch that gory, violent, psycho-thriller movie on late night TV, or perhaps a spot of porn, depending on your preference... you don't want to be the person that wants to watch these things, but you are and there's not much you can do about it.

I still maintain I am too young for kids, and I don't intend to go slicing my arm with a razor blade to rip out the one thing that is preventing me from having them just yet. I also won't be buying baby books, offering to babysit all and sundry's children or quizzing Shoes about baby names and whether or not smacking is acceptable in today's society (for the record: if it's a girl, Ayla, or a boy, Lincoln; and I'm totally into smacking, it's the greatest discovery by parents since the beginning of time). But I can't stop myself from cooing over every baby I see in the streets, something most women do but which for me has increased from Would Like To to Must Have, Gimme The Baby Now, and wanting to hold every tiny person I can get my hands on. Shoes has told me several times in the last month to tone it down lest people start thinking I have an unhealthy interest in children. Parents can't be too careful these days.

So what now? I want a baby, but am savvy enough to realise it would be kind of disasterous right now, considering a) our massive debt b) our lack of owned property c) the small problem of being a few hundred thousand miles away from the place we want to raise our kids and d) our massive debt. Oh yes, and the fact that Shoes would probably rather die than be a father right now. Just a wee bump in the road.

Does this condemn me to the status of irritating woman in a group of young and care-free 20-somethings who is constantly nauseating her peers with her baby obssession? Not me. I'll not do it. Emergency shoe shopping this Saturday. Stat. Maybe I'll spend at a bit at Fashion Weekend after all.