Chanel hell in John Lewis

As heads of marketing and directors sit around expansive boardroom tables pondering why retail revenue is falling and what they must do about, perhaps they should head into the festive fray and experience customer service - or lack of it themselves. I experienced a tiny but telling moment of bad customer service last weekend. I couldn't have been a more easy sale. I headed for John Lewis' Chanel make-up counter in Norwich with my empty bottle of foundation. It was Sunday and there were no other customers in this section of the shop, let alone at the counter itself. 'I've used this up and I need some more,' I said. The disinterested assistant - peroxide, middle-age, heavy-make up, bored - was checking some product lists. Pen in hand, she looked up and looked dismayed that she needed to attend to me. 'But, I'm not sure exactly what colour I need, whether I might need darker,' I said. Looking yet more annoyed, she squirted three blobs of different coloured foundation on her own hand. I had to lean across and ask if I could test them on myself. She reluctantly agreed. I felt humiliated, embarrassed and as if I was wasting her time. I gave up headed for Debenhams down the road. Here the assistant sat me down, smothered me in reassuring, clucking banalities and tested the foundation colours on my face. Of course, I paid £22 for a pot of foundation. So far away from the John Lewis board room - but such complacency will cost them dearly in sales. I advise them to head for the shop floor and try and buy some foundation from their own Chanel counter - it's not a pleasant experience.

Invisible housework chores

Women do more housework than men. Studies show it. Disgruntled women know it. Dish washers, microwaves and hoovers may have made it less back-breaking but the spread of tasks is still far from even.

Aside from the traditional, obvious tasks like washing up and cleaning the loo, women’s ‘to do’ list always contains a host of invisible housework chores that nobody notices unless they’re not done, nobody cares about, unless they’re not done, and are never considered when it comes to working out who does what and what’s fair.
Women are responsible for strategy management – that usually means planning evening meals, scheduling children’s appointments, arranging birthday and family parties, buying gifts for relatives, buying gifts for kids to take to parties. An endless thankless list of invisible chores.
A new study shows the gender gap is closing for obvious tasks – like putting the baby to bed, washing up or cooking supper. But there is still a hidden inequality for ‘invisible’ household work.
Indeed, Pamela Smock, a University of Michigan sociologist who also works with the council, said a persistent gender gap remains for what she called "invisible" household work — scheduling children's medical appointments, buying the gifts they take to birthday parties, arranging holiday gatherings, for example.
I’ve always said that my husband may start his job earlier than me, but his ends hours before mine does. Mine doesn’t end until the kitchen is clean, the lunch is prepared for the following day, the phone calls are returned and, tired of running through the mental rolodex in my head of things I still need to do, I finally collapse into fitful sleep often to be woken in the middle of the night by some task I failed to do.

Onion peeling eye mask sign of advanced capitalism

My brother will be 39 on Saturday. He is impossible to buy presents for because he doesn't want or need anything. And like most of us in the UK, if he does really,really want something he can probably buy it himself anyway rather than having to wait to be given it as a present. So, as is the typical present-buying dilemma, that just leaves fripperies and coming up with new needs and wants that the recipient never dreamed they had. I was delighted then to discover in John Lewis, at a ridiculous £15.99 an 'onion-eye-peeling mask'. Which is little more than a pair of white sun-glasses with clear plastic frames and a little bit of plastic round the sides to stop fumes upsetting our poor little twenty first century wealthy-nation eyes. Seeing this as a symbol of advanced capitalism gone insane, I just had to have it. He needs it as much as he needs a new pair of socks or another box of Thornton's rather grim-tasting chocolates. The perfect present for the person living in modern Britain who has everything. I want one for myself.

Guide to journalistic cliches

Found this 'guide' on the internet... if you can think of any I should add send them to me at info@lizhollis.co.uk

Reader's Guide to Journalistic Cliches

Controversial: He did something bad but we're not sure what
Scandal-plagued: Guilty
War-torn: We can't find it on a map
Knowledgable observer: The reporter
Knowledgable observers: The reporter and the person at the next desk
Screen Legend: Reporter is too young to remember his movies
Teen idol: Reporter is too old to have heard of him
According to published reports: We got scooped
Embattled: He should quit
Recently: We lost the press release
Shocking revelation: leaked on a slow news day
Highly placed source: one who would talk
Supermodel: picture was printed somewhere
Celebrity: has a publicist
Superstar: has a publicist and an agent
Family Values: right wing idiot
Progressive: left wing idiot
Couldn't be reached for comment: the reporter didn't call until after 5pm
Unclear, uncertain, unknown at press time: no one will tell us
Conflagration: what was a fire in the first paragraph, a blaze in the second and an inferno in the third
Long-time companion: they had sex
Tearful: Could have been crying
Choked up: Definitely could have been crying
Weeping: Tear spotted in one eye
Entrepreneur: Hasn't made it yet, but we're doing a nice story about him
Mogul: Has made it, and we're doing a hatchet job
Hot-button issue: only editors care about it
Towing industry expose: editor got a parking ticket
With news wire services: no original reporting whatsoever

Psychology samples - why always students?

I look at many psychology papers. It seems to me that most of them carry out their research on 'undergraduate students'. Is this a representative sample - educated, intelligent, young...can we base our psychological understanding of the whole of society on paper after paper that researches this specialised group? Why don't researchers get out in the real world and do study some real people? Unfortunately, when you read a newspaper report about the latest study it usually fails to mention the sample.

Boden appeal vanishes in credit crunch zeitgeist

I'm fascinated by brands and Boden childrenswear is one that appeals to me. I certainly am not Boden woman frolicking on the beach in a shapeless purple sweater and flat pumps. However, the children's catalogue appeals and I usually buy my daughters something from it each season. The new catalogue arrives, they peruse it at huge length ticking off things they like and I pay for one or two items that usually total about £100. The catalogue arrived today but the magic has been broken. It went straight in the bin. It's not as if I have dramatically less money than usual but I've been swept up in the credit crunch zeitgeist that is making me question aquisition of material possessions. I thought about the Boden items I had bought and realised that they weren't actually nicer than much cheaper items from H&M. I was merely buying into the back-story brand psychology of happy children frolicking around in middle-class clothes. Well at the moment Johnnie Boden, I'm sorry but I don't want it and I don't need it. The catalogue is bin fodder and I'm making do with the clothes we have already. Although, come to think of it I did spend £100 on children's clothes in designer store Desigual in Amsterdam last week. Hmmm...

Pimp my fashion

Red Light Fashion, Amsterdam
Authorities in Amsterdam are cleaning up the red light district in Amsterdam with fashion. Where once there were dodgy mafia sex traffic operations, now there are young designers, bows, satin, totally unwearable designs, dreams of fame in high fashion, hugs and air kisses. I'm just back from a press trip to Red Light Fashion - where we had a guided viewing behind the windows of former canal houses that have been transformed into designer showcases. Designers are using the old tiled beds with their grotty plastic mattresses as sofas and desks and one has even turned a former prostitute's bidet into a fish tank with two black guppy fish gurgling around in it. The fashion houses are slotted between windows of bored-looking prostitutes (I did visit at 11am) and our group of journalists was carefully lined up so we didn't stand in front of the girls, blocking the view for punters. 'They are doing their job too,' we were told. Definitely worth a look if you are visiting Amsterdam.
http://www.redlightfashionamsterdam.com/