From June 2011, an interview with Jane Pratt.
I was very excited to speak with Pratt, as she’s a bit of an idol of mine, because she was the founding editor of Jane magazine, which as any fule know, was one of the best reasons to cut down trees ever. RIP, Jane: we loved you (and Sassy before you).
Jane has a raspy voice, FYI. And she was lovely, where I had been expecting spiky. So now you know.
My online column made it into the paper New Statesman! (out now at all good newsagents) *hits my dougie*
From June 2011:
“These are heady times for tactical frivolity. Will glitter take over from the stalwarts of the protester – the more traditional eggs, flour and pie? Is shoe-throwing dead in the water?”
My editor called me and told me about this poll and then asked, “You’re Nigerian, right?” I am! I’d only just got my first Nigerian passport the summer before. Lucky, happy me.
From January 2010.
The arrivals hall at Murtala Mohammed international airport in Lagos has the kind of humidity that feels like a warm towel. The minute you shake that off, you notice the massive board that proudly welcomes you to Nigeria. Underneath the greeting, written in cheery, cursive script, is the tagline: “The happiest place in the world!”
“I know a lot of freelancers. And I know how important it is to keep up that image of being so inundated with commissions, so in demand, so under deadline. We tweet about it, all the time, lest you appear to look like you are doing worse than anyone else. But in reality, we know it’s not *always* the truth.
You can’t really ever slip out of the game for too long. Because if you do, then it’s like starting from scratch. All over again.”
In which I write about ‘modest dressing’. I was really interested in this piece (as I am for every piece I write, obvs) and still visit several of the blogs I researched for the story.
This is from June 2011 for The Guardian.
Mark Zuckerberg got a dog, the internet went a bit silly.
From March 10, 2011:
“Pets on social networking sites are huge – high-profile Beast is liked by more than 42,000 people so far – and more and more of us are creating online lives for our companion animals, despite Facebook rules that state you must be over 13 to use the site (at just two months, even in dog years, Beast is only 16 months old) and, more importantly, you cannot create a profile for anyone other than yourself.
But who befriends a dog on Facebook or follows a cat on Twitter? And why?”
I wrote a post for the Guardian’s Shortcuts blog this morning, about new promotional photos of Beyonce, in which she appears ‘lighter than normal’. Here is a link. I then went in to have dental surgery (So. Much. Blood.) and did not join in the comments on the Graun website. But then I went…
In July 2011, I wrote about Rania Matar’s photography project, A Girl and Her Room, for the Women’s page.
Turns out teenage girls, whether in Beirut or Boston, have a very similar design ethos - stuffed animals.
From April 2011, on the ridiculous lengths advertisers will go to when it comes to selling to women.
You can read the story here.
5 October, 2011.
My very first solo g2 cover. Writing about the “scourge of shadism”.
