Labelling things and people.

I spotted a label in my swimsuit and for some daft reason decided to have look at it. Washing instructions. The usual stuff about washing dark colours separately and so on. And then came the incomprehensible bit: keep away from direct sunlight. What?!? This is a swimsuit we are talking about. Am I supposed to wear it only in indoor pools or for swimming on cloudy days? Too late! It has been exposed to plenty of direct sunlight already.

I read somebody's fashion blog the other day. She was going on about her body shape suddenly being fashionable. According to Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, writing in the Guardian, big bottoms are in back fashion. Kim Kardashian may be to blame. Ms Brinkhurst-Cuff declares "My body shape may be in fashion just now, but for how long?" It's a balck woman thing apparently. I have no chance. If my bottom was a big as Kim Kardashian's I would have no waist to speak, which would rather defeat the object. Fashion is a strange and fickle thing!

Reading that stuff, however, I was reminded of a time when my sister and I, in our mid-teens, used to get hold of American "true romance" magazines from friends. We had to hide them from our parents who would have disapproved of such reading matter. We were both intrigued and mystified by adverts for underwear you could buy on mail-order, knickers, no, bloomers really, with padding on buttocks and thighs, intended presumably to give a shapely figure. We could not understand who would buy such things.

On a completely different topic, but related to the USA, here are some statistics: the United States has more than 20% of the world’s prison population with only 5% of the world’s population. More than half of those incarcerated in the US are black. What a complicated country.

Michelle Obama was talking about racism recently. Even someone as high profile as she became suffered from racism. Such things are no respecters of rank or status. In her speech she also talked about changes being made to what kids get to eat in their school meals, on restaurants and shops and food outlets not saying what the calorific value of food is. She was protesting that mums (or moms) need the information. All of this is stuff she worked on as First Lady. Most of all, I love what she ended her speech with this comment, reflecting on her life since leaving the White House: “Everything is really great. Being ‘former’ is all right … The president’s good. He’s running around out there in the world with his shirt unbuttoned."

Now there's an image to conjure with.