In which La Roux is speared and BG thanked.

Well, I am back from my 5 days of holiday in the North of England. I spent FIVE DAYS in the constant company of another human being, even sometimes not getting enough sleep as a direct result of said human being's presence. Yet I did not swear at him, or cry. He got up waaay too early one morning, to unblock his nose, at which I apparently told him, semi-consciously, to take an antihistamine. I have vague memories of awaking to find him awake, hugging and kissing him, telling him I loved him, and then falling asleep again. I even deliberately forced myself awake twice, once to rub some cream into his chest, once to rub a cramp out of his leg. I think I'm getting the hang of this 'love' business.

It [ze holiday] put a not-unremarkable amount of life back into me, which was swiftly diminished by a) coming back home and b) the number of idiots who continue to (sadly) blare on the Internet about how Islams are all evil and call themselves 'climate science rejecters' - YES, REALLY.

What is needed sorely, very very sorely indeed, is a lengthy rant. I have been in danger of seriously losing my sense of humour as I attempt to break into the dubious world of adulthood. Doing this post is a concerted effort on the part of something survivorist in me. I cannot continue to let the atmosphere of the family home (and family) subdue me.

Firstly, I must give props to Dr. Ben Goldacre for this Bad Science column about PR and prejudice, centring on the misreporting of a study about rape. As one of the most well-known and influential scientists out there in the British media at the moment, it is good to see him giving victim-blaming his characteristically dismissive short shrift. Theoretically, feminists should not give male supporters too much credit (or 'cookies') for thinking women are people. Practically, however, there are many many men out there who can't even seem to check their racial privilege, let alone their 'superior male' status. That includes 'liberal dudes' just as much as it does right-wingers. Sooo... thanks, Dr. Ben!

Secondly, I must move onto the all-important business of slagging off La Roux. I will just declare my interest here: I was vaguely intrigued when I saw the woman who fronts it, Elly Jackson, and I like their song Bulletproof. I may also like the song Quicksand, but this is looking less and less likely with each play of it.

I know 'tis deeply unfeminist to say it, but by God, I don't half want to slap that girl one. I was pretty unimpressed when I checked out La Roux a little more. Then the F-Word posted this article, where Elly Jackson reveals herself to have some pretty unpleasant views. What disgusts me about this woman is her graspingness. It comes across not a little in the article, and in other interviews with her I've read, such as one in the July issue of Asos magazine. With the finesse of a seasoned publicity piranha, she has eagerly latched onto the coverage from various quarters which proclaims her as something 'new.'

New? New? OK, let's run through the checklist here. M/F pair in which the man does the 'real work'/wields the power - check. They claim to be a duo who share things '50/50' but let's not kid ourselves here - as the producer, he's the one who provides the necessary foundation for her ludicrous posturing. So, y'know... an 'equal partnership' in which the male's role is more important? Yeah, that's NEW.

Trying, really blatantly, to be a mishmash of people from the '80s, while being barely old enough to remember said people? I'm sure she LOVES their music or whatever, but n***a, please. You're MY AGE. Blatantly ripping off/'paying homage' to a past decade whilst pretending to be new... God, that just HASN'T BEEN DONE BEFORE.

Let us not forget that this is a white, middle-class, slim, Beauty2k-compliant (as Twisty would say) young woman. Let us also not forget that La Roux did not get where they are through the sweat of their brows; they did so through Jackson's parents giving her a 'small allowance' to pursue her music career and through her father passing their CD to a well-connected music industry friend. Wow, nepotism. SO NEW.

In fact, let us not forget that were it not for pure LUCK, La Roux probably wouldn't be where they are today. 'But they're in the top 10,' you cry. Well, yes. That's because EJ isn't totally stupid. Talented, she isn't particularly (her wailing style of singing grated subtly upon my nerves, until I realised I could only stand the songs where she was barely audible). Ambitious, she is - and an opportunist.

Y'see, there's a recession on, and what fashion needs is 'something new.' When repeated sales and portraying overpriced luxury goods as an 'investment' doesn't work, you need SOMETHING ELSE. Elly Jackson is a fucking GODSEND in this instance. As the Asos interview did, fashion and style mags and newspapers can fawn over her, and turn her into an icon to sell clothes. She gets clothes, they get free advertising. Whilst pretending to be feminist, because, look! She has red, short hair! She's pale! And she doesn't wear dresses! Yeaaah.... not new - just different.

The Quietus interview with her is equally embarrassing (and misogynistic). It plays up the stereotypical tactic of pitting superficially similar female artists, emerging around the same time, against each other. 'Girl on girl,' if you will. Luke Turner also refers to Lady GaGa as a 'fashbitch.' Luke, you are a gigantic wanker. Sadly, EJ capitulates totally to this because - wait for it - SHE'S NOTHING NEW. She's just another entitled, spoilt, attention-seeking wannabe celebrity-spawn brat.

Note how she goes on about what a 'real woman' is (how the fuck do you know? You're only fucking 21!):

If you're a real woman you can turn someone on in a plastic bag just by looking at them. That's what a real woman is, when you've got the sex eyes.

Um... so does that make you a real woman, then? Because you don't have 'sex eyes' as far as I'm concerned. You just look like a moody, self-important git.

Perhaps I am being harsh - EJ was apparently a victim of bullying - but it is a bit hard to feel sorry for somebody who eagerly trots that out in interviews whilst claiming that she ''feel[s] sick just talking about it". Also hard to feel sorry for someone who thinks that she is 'someone out there for girls to look up to who doesn't have boobs and a tan and high heels.'

Because, you know, the most important thing about women is HOW THEY LOOK. Screw unimportant little things like talent and hard work! Sod those fake-tan, abusive-man-attracting breasty bitches! What really matters is SEX EYES. Yeah, that whole thing about her offering 'something new' for women? Like, you know, judging them on their looks, just like our misogyny-steeped society does every day? BULLSHIT. Goodfuckin'lordalmighty.

We musn't forget, however, that being judged on her looks is what got lil' Elly where she is today. EJ is a symptom of the celebrity-obsessed culture that we live in. Young people nowadays, even when they claim to have some sort of purpose to their attention-seeking (as she has just claimed there), feel entitled. In EJ's case, that is, entitled to fame and success. She's getting it - but not because she's talented and fresh, but because she's opportunistic and connected. Ah, that sweet, fresh collaborator attitude, new since the dawn of time!

Check out this rant of hers against R&B, for example. She slams girls for selling records 'half naked' - but if she didn't attempt to rebel against that very aesthetic, would anyone give a shit? Hmmm. It's debatable. I certainly don't think the music on its own would hold up.

Typical white girl fucking ignorance, she says that:

"Lyrically it's just like really really bad - I think a lot of it just doesn't mean anything.

"I think a lot of it is, 'Baby I love you, I want to kiss you'. It's just like what are you on about? Shut up."

Wait - isn't that what you sing about? Yet in more pretentious terms? Have you ever heard of Jill Scott, Raphael Saadiq, Lucy Pearl or D'Angelo? No. No, you fucking haven't. Because you're NOT some wizened authority, you're a puffed-up little 21-year-old middle-class English whitey. Clever girl though, she's perceived that people have become saturated with too much of the same. RECENT R&B has been like that - and who better to fill the gap, but another white, pretty, young woman who sings about her love life and pouts? Talent and smarts are secondary. I mean, she managed to fail at getting the bloody band name right - it should be LE ROUX or LA ROUSSE, not 'La Roux.' I can imagine French friends being sardonically amused by this latest example of Anglo-Saxon self-important blindness. She also came up with this genius line, which I had to look up to make sure that I'd heard right:

'And what are feelings without emotions?'

Like I said, not new - just different. For now.

The Politics of Dress Sense?

I think something is wrong with me. There's a type of (usually) white person that drives me insane. I don't altogether know why. This 'type' is perhaps best summarised as the sort of people who tend to be Drama students my age. I say 'white person,' but that is purely by-the-by. The fact of their being white may simply arise from the fact that my university is a Muslim hub - and hence virtually everyone studying an Arts subject seems to be white.

When I say my university is a Muslim hub, I mean it. Let the words be taken at face value, with no extra layers of prejudice or analysis. It is filled with girls wearing hijabs - a garment so expressive of a certain attitude (particularly towards faith) that even having a sports commentator strapped to one's skull could not compete. There are also a few guys with the little prayer-caps (sorry, I don't know what they're called) and the large beards. Need I characterise the mindset that accompanies such an overt expression of faith? - I think not. Suffice it to say that girls draped chin-to-ankle in carefully concealing fabric are REALLY unlikely to be doing Drama - a subject that requires costume changes, flexibility of appearance and even nudity.

No, (not unlike many South Asians...) most of these girls and boys will be studying things like Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. Chances are that if they're in Languages, they plan on teaching afterwards. In a lot of cases, it's not really their fault - they'd have to fight big-time in order to diverge. Much as I did. So when I see the sort of university sweatshirt and Ugg-boot-wearing blonde-haired guffawing girls (or their tight-jean and striped-cardigan-sporting male equivalent), a powerful and irrational dislike fills my heart.

I think it is their uniformity that annoys me. That universal uniform of the undeservedly comfortable. Ugg boots don't come cheap, and neither does make-up, good-quality or no (I don't even want to think about how much MAC, beloved of two of my mates and probably more people, costs on a regular basis). It is a uniform of aspiration, based on aping people like fucking Alexa Chung and Sloane Ranger-type girls. It is a uniform that says: 'I don't have to worry about getting a real job, because I am white and middle-class, and ultimately I rule this country.' A sense of entitlement radiates from the whole bloody thing.

I hate tribalism, and seeing it signalled in a common 'uniform' makes me uneasy. I feel similarly oppressed around 'typical Asians' - girls with their love of black, tiny-skinny bodies and coloured contact lenses, guys with their oh-so-enterprising minor designer/sportswear brand-blending and gelled-porcupine heads. The way you dress is a statement, I suppose. Some people balk at 'chavvy' sportswear, gold hoop earrings and Burberry sportswear - well, I balk at the cut-off denim minis with black footless tights! I balk at the 'ethnic' scarves and the proliferation of black, brown, denim and if you're lucky, monochrome!

For me, it represents the ugly delusion of the youth of today. Here are all these girls and boys who (to me), are emblematic of an increasingly apathetic and anti-intellectual society. Why do you keep blindly taking what the celebrities, celebrity-worshipping sites, shops and magazines dole out to you? Why in the fuck do you want to look like the ever-vacuous Peaches Geldof? Why don't you descend on the shops and ask them why they keep making clothes for the likes of Agyness Deyn and Alice Dellal? There are plenty of boys and girls - white and non-white - who don't fit the fashionable norm, and instead of trying to bridge reality a little, Fashion simply pounces upon girls like Jourdan Dunn, who, although beautiful, still represent Europeanised ideas of beauty and the ideal shape.

Why on Earth am I getting so worked up over what people wear? - because it matters! In a heavily-mediatised, visually-obsessed age such as is ours, it MATTERS more than ever! Perhaps because the speed of change is so great these days, that young people dress safer and more formal because they start having to 'grow up' sooner. Or maybe they can't be bothered to rebel. Maybe I sound like a fashion-fascist, but I think it's a shame. Why? Your youth is supposed to be a time of experimentation and craziness! Maybe it is simply a sign of the times; maybe people are so sick of gnawing upon their future prospects amid The Impending End of The World (aka the never-ending financial crisis) that risk is (and has been) dying out in the search for stability...

Or maybe the amount of introspection, analysis and obsessive-symbol-seeking of my degree is driving me insane, and I need to get a life?

I will probably post some related thing at some point soon, trying to explain a bit more why I feel this way. In the meantime, I will let VICE sum it up for me (replacing 'New York' with 'London', of course).