Life’s Instructions – Dalai Lama

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three R’s: Respect yourself, Respect others and take Responsibility for all your action.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules, so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realise you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good and honourable life. Then, when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation; don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge, it is a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year go to some place you have never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon

For all your sample and vintage sale needs

www.youlovefashion.com

40 years of women's lib, and where are we now?

We are 40 years on but only in certain countries and still, the pay gap in the UK is something to balk at.

The new film, Made in Dagenham promises to bring some of these issues to the fore this year. Watch the trailer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0LF-F1QNAw

Made In Dagenham (15)

* Consumer Advice: Contains strong language
* Run time: 1 hour 53 mins

* Genre: Drama
* Release date: 1st October 2010

* Starring: Rosamund Pike, Miranda Richardson, Bob Hoskins
* Directed by: Nigel Cole

* Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Plot Synopsis

From the director of Calendar Girls comes the new comedy-drama with an all star British cast, Made in Dagenham. Paramount Pictures UK is delighted to announce the theatrical release on October 1st in both the UK and Ireland for the film that was formerly known under the working title of We Want Sex.

The film stars the award winning Sally Hawkins as Rita O'Grady who is the catalyst for the 1968 Ford Dagenham strike by 187 sewing machinists which led to the advent of the Equal Pay Act. Working in extremely impoverished conditions and for long arduous hours, the women at the Ford Dagenham plant finally lay down their tools when they are reclassified as "unskilled". With humour, common sense and courage they take on their corporate paymasters, an increasingly belligerent local community, and finally the government itself. The leader of the women's struggle is fast-talking, no nonsense Rita whose fiery temper and occasionally hilarious unpredictability proves to be a match for any of her male opponents, and is echoed by Barbara Castle's struggle in the male-dominated House of Commons.

Is there enough sex in the city?

Various criticisms of the latest Sex and the City Movie have included comments such as: the sex was less gratuitous or, how can they have everything and still not be happy?

However, for me, the girls or rather, the women in the film, demonstrated the basic state of the human condition; that most of us strive to achieve perfection, in whatever form that may take. We all have hopes and fears that permeate our day to day existence and sometimes, make us question ourselves or drive us to frankly, in Carrie's case, silly behaviour. And is it truly possible, to live in bliss daily? Surely, there will always be something that niggles at us? Some slight annoyance? Whether it be the cashmere scratching our skin or going to the box of chocolates only to find it empty?

This particular film felt more real for me - perhaps because I'm soon to be faced with some similar questions that Carrie and the others have to grapple with. Do I want children? Do I want to bring children into a world that is so full of destruction and poverty? What constitutes contentment? Existential questions that for many, never seem to arise as they follow the flock but which for me, appear as mountains in my path which unavoidably, I must traverse. Relationships inevitably move on from being just about sex and fun and enter a new terrain so perhaps, Sex and the City 2 was not the most appropriate title for the film?

It is also apt that the film skillfully tackles questions of femininity and sexuality across cultures in a year when the Women's Liberation Movement celebrates its 40th Anniversary. I couldn't help but identify with Samantha when she screamed at the Arab men in the Souk, "YES. I HAVE SEX!"

So, it's definitely a film worth watching, the odd laugh, the odd touching moment and it overflows with style and class. I was especially heartened by Carrie's gesture and would definitely recommend you go see it!

Cherry Picked Pop Up Pamper Parlour Tickets

Hi there little cherries

You can purchase tickets online at http://www.eventsbot.com/events/eb831958006

For a sneaky peak at DJ Kira's music, check out this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxnbGedqpRg&feature=related

See you there

xx

Cherry Picked Pop Up Pamper Parlour

So girls, it's all busy busy right now to finalise details for the very first, Cherry Picked Styling event. My pop-up pamper parlour will be visiting various venues around London on, hopefully, a monthly basis from the 30th June onwards.

MAKEOVERS - TO BOOK, PLEASE CONTACT NICOLA ON cherrypickedstyling@yahoo.co.uk. We only have a limited number of slots available so get in quick!

CLOTHES SWAPPING

I want to make sure we all take treasures not trash home with us so clothes will be graded according to their quality and points awarded accordingly.

Please don't bring anything that is stained or in bad condition. Minor repairs/alterations are ok but it would be good if you could make this obvious on the garment e.g. pin a note to it or something.

Please don't bring more than 8 items per person.

You will only be able to swap an item of one grade for one of its own. So if you are given 25 points for boots that are graded Mid, and 20 points for a dress graded Mid, you have 45 points to spend on anything in the Mid category.

Gradings are:

High Street Low (H&M, Primark),
High Street Mid (Topshop, Bershka, Zara, Mango etc.). Vintage will also be included in the Mid range unless it's designer.
High Street High End (Karen Millen, Ted Baker, All Saints etc.)
Designer


Points will be awarded as follows:

Boots 25 points
Shoes 20 points
Dresses 20 points
Jeans 25 points
Belts (leather) 5 points
Belts (non leather) 3 points
Handbags 10 points
Scarfs 3 points
Jewellery 2 points

Anything left at the end will be given to charity unless you spot something of yours at the end that you want to take back with you.

Hope this all sounds fair?!!

In the meantime, don't forget to buy your ticket.

It's not just election time

Was it Shakespeare who said
What’s in a name? David Cameron by any other
Name would smell of slime and deceit
But what shall we do when, as deserved,
Gordon Brown’s gonna lose his seat
And the Liberal Democrats seem
Quite frankly, weak.

Vote Green you might say,
Save the Planet come what may
But can they keep the world at bay
When the Japanese wanna eat Whales all day
And there’s a war going on in Afghanistan
With us Brits and the US of A
That no one’s gonna win.

Truth is can’t trust none of ‘em
They’re all out for themselves each and every one
They got their own agendas,
Their own wallets to fill,
And they don’t care ‘bout no national bill
Cos for sure they’re on the payroll
A steady income that’ll grow.

But it’s for our homeless I worry
And the miners who no longer quarry.
The kids without jobs and the
Man who no longer drives his lorry.
Or the pensioner who in their winter home freezes
And asylum seekers brought here
Under false pretences.

Our rubbish bins over flow
With the melting glaciers which show
The warming of our planet
They used to think was slow.
The mountains will fall
And the rivers run red
With the blood of the dead.
For the nature of human beings is such
That God, Buddha, Allah etcetera or not
There’s always some excuse to
Destroy our lot.