Trouble and strife

Unfortunate analogy of the week: Tony Blair's description of himself, according to a new book, as feeling like "an abused and bullied wife" during arguments with Ed Balls last year about the timing of his exit from No 10. However harassed Blair may have felt, I think it's fair to say that most abused wives won't recognise much comparison between their experiences and the power struggles of a world leader. No need to get too upset though, ladies - he's gone.

Return to vendor

Word reaches me of the work of Aya Tsukioka, a Japanese fashion designer who has been devising novel ways to keep women safe. Tsukioka's idea for foxing street attackers is to carry a sheet printed with the image of a vending machine: if pursued, a woman just unfurls this and hides behind it. Tsukioka has sold only 20 of her hand-printed designs, not surprising when you consider the $800 price tag and, let's face it, impracticality ("especially when your hands are shaking" notes Tsukioka herself). Fun idea, though.

Fluff and nonsense

Amidst the congratulations for Doris Lessing's Nobel win, American Prospect magazine recalls her longstanding battle ... to describe women's body hair in print. They quote from Lessing's memoir, Under My Skin, in which she divulged that, "in the 1970s, I wrote a story called One Off the Short List, and in it a woman is described as having golden fringes of underarm hair. An American publisher, and then magazines, would not print the story because of that hair. Yet in America you might describe any killings, tortures, rapes, horrors of war, cruelties. Not underarm hair in a story about seduction and sex. But I insisted, for by then, it was a matter of principle." Noble indeed.

The Guardian