Mecca, The Sacred City?

I arrived at the Edinburgh International Book Festival today for my first book event of this year’s packed programme, brolly in hand and wearing two layers of cashmere. Yes, it is August, welcome to Summer in Scotland.

Ziauddin Sardar’s new book, Mecca The Sacred City was the topic of discussion and the charismatic author was full of hilarious anecdotes and opinions of Saudi Arabia that mirror my own. Of course, unlike him, I’m not a respected scholar nor have I spent time living there.

It is in the direction of Mecca and the Ka’aba that all Muslims turn to when (or if) they pray. Mecca is the birth place of the Prophet and pilgrimage to the Ka’aba is one of the five pillars of Islam, a duty for all Muslims. So why do the guardians of the holiest sites in the Islamic behave like ‘cultural terrorrists’? Ziauddin Sardar is no fan of

Coming Into Fashion

Yesterday I had the pleasure of perusing the Condé Nast: Coming Into Fashion photography exhibition at the Edinburgh City Art Centre.  Displaying a century of fashion photography from the rich archive of some of the world’s best loved fashion magazines, it was an exhibition for lovers of beauty.

Beauty in a general sense of the meaning, not just because the models are beautiful. 

The Milestones of Growing Up

No, No and No Way! These were the answers I received after going through my phone contacts of so-called family and friends asking them if they wanted to come and watch a fashion documentary film with me.  It soon became apparent that if I really wanted to watch the film, and I did, I would have to cross one of the great tests of growing up and (gulp) GO ALONE!!!!

How Do You Wear Yours?

A new make-up map of the habits of British women has apparently found that while women in Edinburgh are more likely to go for a blemish-free look, their friends in Liverpool are more likely to go for a St Tropez look.

Further down the map women from Leeds and Essex are more likely to buy false eyelashes and women from London are the most likely to cart their entire makeup bag around for touch ups and a whopping 67% of them apply their makeup on the Tube.

As a Londoner I confess