Lead us not into temptation

Factors indicating that Liz Hurley may be a slavering demonbeast from the burning furnace of Hades

Played the Devil in Bedazzled.
Joined in unholy alliance with cosmetics giant Estee Lauder since 1995.
Has a son named Damian.
Had talons locked around Hugh Grant's soul until DIVINE intervention saved him.
Committed sacrilege in Church of Beckham by flaunting cleavage at joint christening.
Eats six raisins three times a day (666).
Been branded the actress from hell.
Looks like this at the age of 40:

The state of one's cuticles

It was a pleasant surprise to find the HK Yellow Pages secreted by the front of my door this morning. I read it from cover to back and highlighted all the interesting bits in yellow!

The 100 page colour section on acrylic nails, I felt, was a real keeper. It seems that HK women with too much time and too little taste on their hands have raised manicured nails to an art form. I think the state of one's cuticles says a lot about their personality:

Ethnic tribal, displaced from native land and living on reservation


Harbours fetish for crayolas or jellybeans or both


Retro mod, trying to work a mini skirt in late 60s (actual age, not era)


Thinks that love means never having to say sorry I can't afford to buy that for you:


Bleeding profusely and slightly gangrenous


Regular at the Xanadu Roller Palace


Positively infantile at best


Lacking Vitamins A, D & E


If your idea of nail fun is scraping them against a blackboard then visit V Nail Shop & School.

Pepsi Degeneration

No it's not some kind of bizarre diva on diva leather catsuit chafing-ass standoff. It's a new Pepsi commercial that's set in the noirish underworld of Hong Kong. Or as we like to call it over here in Asia, Japan. Have things like dojos, kimono-style clothing and kendo already been rewritten out of the Japanese textbooks and into Hong Kong ones? Why I haven't seen a more gross misstereotyping of Hong Kong since..well since Martin Yan's faux Chinaman accent!

Oh there are things that blur the cultural boundaries between HK and Japan like a shared inability to resist regular onslaughts of new Hello Kitty products or luxury goods. And the casting of Takeshi Kaneshiro in their films (rrrowwrrrr...he can throw his flying dagger in my house any time *lewd chortle*). But there are also key differences between the two that Pepsi execs should learn to recognise.

HONG KONG: Disneyland (in September 2005)
JAPAN: Disneyland, DisneySea, Universal Studios, Sega Joypolis, Expoland, Cosmoworld and so forth

HONG KONG: Fascination with all things Japanese
JAPAN: Fascination with all things Beckham

HONG KONG: Triads with meat cleavers
JAPAN: Yakuza with samurai swords and flying ninja monkeys

HONG KONG: Talented Sammi Cheng
JAPAN: Talented Norika Fujiwara

HONG KONG: Lee Kum Kee soy sauce
JAPAN: Kikkoman! He came from the planet of soy.

HONG KONG: Street signs with minor typographical errors
JAPAN: Engrish.com

HONG KONG: You have offended my family and you have offended the Shaolin Temple.
JAPAN: Wax on....wax off. Wax on...wax off.

HONG KONG: Dried squid junk food
JAPAN: Tentacle p0rn

Keeping It Pure

Yesterday we spoke at length about chaste garb, twittering excitedly over how it has become dernier cri. But what's the damn point of covering up if you're just going to give it up like Bai Ling to the nearest person within thrusting distance. Doesn't complete the look quite as well as one would have hoped.

For that you need a big bag. A bagful of abstinence! I'm not going to lie and say that a little abstinence goes a long way. A little abstinence is pathetic, it amounts to taking a 5 minute cigarette break between orgies in newly opened Swedish furniture stores. All of this purity talk applies only to unmarried people. Married folks don't need to keep their hormones in check. They have surmounting debts, in-laws, possibly children and keeping up with the neighbours for that.

Boys, you can aid the priggish Victorian fashion revolution by leaving girls alone. If this real life Barbie doll saved herself for marriage, it means that there are many others like her who have sashayed off the assembly line in Pucci wedges. Take the abstinence pledge NOW at Sex is for Fags, abstinence only coolness for boys:
To keep my groinal giblets inside my GAP khakis, and to punch those sweaty bits into submission whenever they percolate with desire.

Abstinence instils morals that should have been thwacked into you by your parents anyway, PLUS a strong dose of homophobia thrown in for free. Channel your erectile energies into other productive activities:
Nothing gets icky premarital sex off the brain better than an impromptu game of touch football with your Sex is for Fags brothers. Sinful thoughts dissipate like magic while you writhe under a pile of your buddies' taut high school bodies, bulging zippers grazing firm buttocks, touching, tackling, and wrestling. Then afterwards, you can all take a long, hot, group shower and talk about baseball!

It takes two not to do the horizontal tango, so girls, you MUST also take the abstinence pledge at Iron Hymen abstinence only coolness for girls:
To never wear trampy stuff like shorts or t-shirts or open-toed shoes, which basically tell horny perverts that I'm a major tramp who's just asking for it.

You won't need any further persuading after learning the truth about boy's privates. It's not really worth all that effort just for the cheapest Louis Vuitton pochette he can afford, is it. Think of it as a fun waiting game. Love or barring that the Church of England will find a way eventually! They couldn't possibly have had premarital relations. Fairy tale romances don't work like that.

Hit me with some modesty

Oh man, modesty is so hot right now. So hot. That's gotta hurt people like Samantha Cole. Maybe she'll just burkha herself into oblivion.

It's convenient to graze on mass market fashion fodder with the rest of the sheep but consider this. An off the rack prude will never attain the same levels of self-righteousness than a bespoke prude. You know you're in good, decent hands with Lydia of Purple. Bookmark the site, wouldn't want your wrist to explode by typing it all out.

Lydia of Purple specialises in "custom sewn garments for homeschooling mothers that homeschool their young ladies and girls in modest dress". Niche operations like this cannot be beaten for quality and value for money. Of course there's the small matter of having to be a Christian to wear Lydia of Purple's creations. Any other religion just wouldn't go with what you're wearing:
Our truly custom sewing in combination with the fabric of your dreams in the color that enhances your natural God given beauty, you can radiate God's creation framing your reflection of God's only Son and that LOVE only HE our Saviour can give.

Her catalogue features swimwear, aprons, pantaloons, Cherokee tear dresses, maternity wear, nightgowns...can a Victoria's Secret catalogue offer even one-tenth of that? No, because they spend all the time and money on trying to make Tyra Banks look vaguely human.

Don't even think about trying to slip some two-bit piece of tricked up harlotry past Lydia of Purple. Because if cleanliess was next to godliness then sluttiness would be away over there ---> next to the guy with horns and a pitchfork:
we DO NOT sew: sleeveless, slit skirts, mid-rifts, low cut neck lines, or low backs. We apologize if this offends anyone but our goal is to help both ladies and men keep from inciting lasciviousness (wrong lusts). We view this as a sewing ministry and only want to plant good seeds.

Anything else you can have, even a dress of cetacean fabric that's shaped like a cetacean:
This cape dress was made for a young lady who wanted a waist on the hips. She also likes killer whales and wanted her dress made of them.

Lydia of Purple also offers more sizes than Starbucks:
As of 2004 we now sew Large, Plus, Majestic Size, Full Figure and Hard-To-Fit, which Sizes are hard to find also.

Match your daughters to their dolls or match yourself to your daughter, while waiting to marry them off:
We like some of you have daughters....still living at home waiting for God to supply a Godly young man as a life-mate

Who is Lydia of Purple? Who is the lady who deftly weaves such patterns of strict propriety? Why excuse the cussin' but she's the best darn seamstress this side of tarnation! Tailoring prowess aside, she's just like you and me but with slightly more progeny:
Out of ignorance to God's word we used "the pill" closing the womb for eight years after our first child. Then by Bible reading Christ came into our lives and we submitted to God's will; allowing HIM total control of family planning thereafter. God graciously gave us eight more children.

Get thee down to the gentle whirring of sewing machines cloistered at Lydia of Purple. Your cape dress awaits you, virtuous maidens! Glasses not included.

Fashion Roadkill of the Day: Vol 28

There comes a point in every child's life when the easy free-wheeling all-you-can-eat-candy-times come to a jarring halt. The little darlings grow up and encounter the pressure to perform and achieve certain standards, otherwise it's ADIOS, don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out! In Hong Kong this generally occurs around the age of five.

I know this because the kid next door often passes out at midnight while doing his complex Fourier series maths homework. He's then waken up at 5am to get ready for Grade 6 piano lessons. Little Royce is a bit of a slow learner because his brother Rolls was already studying for Grade 8 exams at the same age. Not once do his parents stop and say to him: You know what, screw piano. If when you grow up and decide you want to make a career out of shopping mall performances, then we'll let you go on a reality show. Screw the maths too. The bank will work out all the mortgage and interest payments anyway. Here, have a piece of chocolate. And yeah, just so you know, it's not cool to jump off a building if you don't get straight As.

No wonder so many schoolkids turn to unsavoury methods of stress relief. They start experimenting dangerously with fashion and fall deeply into colour abuse, pattern abuse even.



Of course peer pressure has a lot to do with it. At first it's little whiff of tartan (come on, all the cool kids are doing it) or maybe a dash of fluoro green lace crochet (are you in or are you out?), then they find themselves developing a taste for ruffled paisley. Pretty soon, they're HOOKED on the rush that accompanies candycane socks and chunky white platform boots:



What's even worse is that these fashion junkies mature into badly-dressed adults who mate, spawn and drive their spawn to repeating the same mistakes. How to break the vicious cycle? The answer is through drugs. If kids experimented with drugs instead, we would not be having this conversation today.