Yep, they are putting down their expensively shod feet and declaring the fascinator a big no-no. Oh no. That’s terrible news for me should I be attending Royal Ascot this year, as I am a fan of the fascinator. And so is my favourite person Princess Kate. This will be big news for her since the fascinator bar applies in the Royal Enclosure, and since she’s royal I’m guessing that’s where she’ll be.

I like a fascinator because you avoid the dreaded hat clash. You know the one when you lean in close to your big hat wearing friend and the brims of your hats collide causing both a wardrobe malfuntion and the abandonment of the wonderful piece of gossip you were going to share.

Anyway if you are intending to go to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot this year keep in mind the following dress code, or they won’t let you in.

For women:

• Hats are desirable but anything with a base of less than 4 inches in diameter is not acceptable as a hat. Got that.
• Skirts and dresses need to be of a ‘modest length’ and fall just above the knee or below.
• Pashminas are banned/barred/disallowed.
• Strapless tops (and I assume dresses) are also out.

For men:

• Waistcoat and tie are compulsory.
• No cravats (Matt Preston is not attending in protest).
• Black shoes only. Polished is mandatory.

What do think would happen if Kate lobbed up in a fascinator? Do you think they’d really chuck her out? Probably. They can be very rigid about these sorts of important things. Image

The IV bit is from the couples love of the Roman numeral for four not for IV as in drip. Honestly I thought the child was named after a rehydrating product Blue IV. “Nurse, get me the blue IV, stat!”

Doesn’t matter though. She’s Beyonce’s and Jay-Z’s kid. She has coolness bred into her. She’ll survive the medical jokes.

In a tribute to American royalty (aka the Kardashian sisters), K names are all the rage in the US at the moment. Karis, Kay’lyn, Kristina, Kyren, Kalylah, and Khloe have all made the cut for baby names in 2012. Calling your child Kalylah is rather cruel and I predict that she will sue her idiot parents and the Kardashians at a later date. Heck all the K kids could implement a klass action (sorry). Image

Rightio then, fantasy time over. I may have made up the True Colours duet (hell maybe even the whole karaoke thing) and I know that that blue jumpsuit I wore in the 80’s wouldn’t get past my thighs, but a blogger can fantasise on her blog’s second birthday. Because Gen X Journey and Princess Kate share a birthday. How about that?

So what was happening when I first blogged two years ago. Well one of my all time favourite authors Marian Keyes went into hiatus due to depression. Anyway she’s baking her way out of depression and is bringing out a cookbook as well as writing another book about the Walsh family which should be more fun than those depressing novels she’d been bashing out. No wonder she got depressed.

I also reviewed the Sherlock Holmes movie which I didn’t particularly like, and in a fit of irony, the sequel to that was released last week. I’ll have to go and see it for old times sake. I’ll give you a review.

One year ago, my hometown Brisbane was underwater and I tried to document what it was like to see people’s lives washed away in a sea of water. Fortunately the city is back to what it used to be. Individually there a still plenty of sad tales out there.

During the past two years I have written and published 519 posts. My most popular post?–Would you vajazzle your vajayjay? The one about Australian men’s penis size gets a regular airing too. Family stickers suck was quoted in the media. I now have a weekly newspaper column and I wait in hope for someone to realise my potential and syndicate it. I’ve also got a book waiting in the wings that is absolutely nothing to do with Gen X. I just need to find someone to publish it. Actually I need to find the guts to send it to a publisher which might well be a start.

Thank you to all my regular and loyal readers and those who make the effort to comment. I really appreciate it. Blogging can be a lonely process and I’m thrilled when people even read my work, let alone respond to it.

So happy birthday Princess Kate. And happy birthday Gen X Journey. Image

This is my weekly Gen X Girl column from the Townville Bulletin’s Savvy magazine.

Well it’s that time of the year again. We’re all scratching our heads trying to think of presents for our loved ones, and I’m here to help. Well I’m not going to help you. I’m going to help Santa find the perfect gift for some prominent Aussies who may have been naughty or nice this year.

Soon to be married Shane Warne. For you Warnie I gift a Twitter ban. Now I know that you are addicted to Twitter and enjoy sharing every banality of your relationship with Ms Hurley (and by the way congratulations on bagging her), but given your history with phones, you’re bound to blow it. So no more Twitter for you. Look what happened to Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

Cricketer Ricky Ponting. A gift of dignified retirement and every bit of news footage featuring Darren Lockyer in the last six months. That way you will have a practical and perfect example of how retirement should be handled properly.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard. For you Ms Gillard I gift Obama-inspired manchester. The item I have in mind features President Obama’s head and chest spread across a pillowcase. That way you can lay your head on his manly chest and slip him a quick kiss or two as you bed down for the night. Sweet dreams.

Champion racehorse Black Caviar. For you I gift the title of Australian of the Year. I can see nothing wrong with giving a racehorse the title. Can anyone out there even name the 2011 Australian of the Year?

Tennis player Sam Stosur. Another tennis grand slam victory for you Samantha. You proved yourself a worthy competitor and an inspirational winner. Such a breath of fresh air after those grunting Russians and injury-faking Williams sisters.

Hurdler Sally Pearson. Oh this is an easy one. For you Sally a gold medal at the Olympics next year. Quite simply, you deserve it. Go Sally.

Rugby league coach Wayne Bennet. Oh Wayne, you went with the money and you’re going to have to earn it. Nathan Tinkler, Newcastle’s owner, has sacked more people that he’s had hot dinners, and judging by his girth he’s had quite a lot of them. So Wayne I’m gifting you a thick hide. You’re going to need it.

Queensland Roar soccer team. I’m giving you the title of Queensland sports team of the year for 2012. You actually deserved it this year, but those mouthy rubgy union people who think that theirs is the only sport, gave it to the Reds. You were robbed.

The Cowboys, the Titans, the Broncos football teams. I gift you a place in the finals. Never again do I want to sit through the dilemma of not having a single team to care about. No wonder a person took to supporting The Roar.

Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh. I gift you an election defeat next year. You’re bored, we’re bored.

Anyone involved in the 2011 natural disasters. I include victims, heroes, emergency service workers and volunteers. I wish for you peace and happiness and absolutely no reason to do anything but relax by the pool during the holiday season.  Image

Anyway that’s off the point. Here’s one of Jane’s workout vids where she get Lilien to sing Do It. Tragically I remember all the words. I also remember my intense dislike of the exerciser wearing the stupid white visor. I hate visors–white or otherwise. And why does anyone need a visor inside? Wonder what she looks like now and if she’s still wearing that stupid white visor.

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This is from my weekly Gen X Girl column that appears in the Townsville Bulletin’s Savvy magazine.

Like a pre-teen girl to Justin Bieber, so is Julia Gillard to Barack Obama. That’s the only comparison I can make after last week’s touchy-feely visit from the most powerful leader in the world to our shores.

In fact I feel like chanting “Julia and Obama, sitting in the tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G”. And I wouldn’t be lying because that’s all they seemed to do. Get off the plane, double cheeked kiss. Official function. Kissy, kissy. Another function—pucker up. And if they weren’t all kissy, kissy they were all handsy, handsy.

There is one photograph of a back view of the couple where they have their arms around each other, with Julia’s hand drifting very close to the President’s behind. I may have just vomited in my mouth a little as I wrote that. It’s a bit like finding out that your parents have sex.

Anyway, it’s all terribly inappropriate. They’re world leaders not dizzy teenagers.

Julia behaved like the nerdy high school girl who scored a date with the captain of the football team. She’s all blushing and batting her eyelashes and setting the women’s cause back forty years. And Obama isn’t setting any kind of example either, constantly putting his arm around the Prime Minister. If this were the real world he’d be up on a sexual harassment case.

We couldn’t even count on Quentin Bryce to behave herself either. She looked for all purposes like a proud mother of the bride watching Jules pecking away at Obama’s cheek. But then I realised that she was just waiting for her turn to grope the President with the longest handshake in history—even longer than her Melbourne Cup presentation speech.

Quentin further brought into the hoopla by dashing home and changing from the lemon-coloured suit and emerging in an orange affair half an hour later. She was a veritable bowl of citrus. Is our Governor General a head of state or an Academy Award presenter?

To Obama’s credit though, he has made Jules glow like a giddy schoolgirl and heaven knows she needs a bit of fun with her opinion poll numbers. His aren’t that flash either.

Just an aside: did you know that they were both born in 1961? And that they send each other birthday cards? I’ll bet Julia actually goes out to the newsagent and chooses the cleverest Hallmark card she can find, writes a personal message, seals it with a kiss and sends it off. I think Obama gets his secretary to do his.

Back to the visit though. The first bloke, Tim Whathisname, knew that he was beaten. He didn’t even hang around to wait for a car to take him to The Lodge. He hot-footed it out of the lovefest with a comment that Obama was a good bloke. Smart man. Who wants to be Kevin Dillon when George Clooney’s in town?

Benneton have just had to pull an ad campaign that featured Obama kissing the Chinese president and the leader of Venezuela. Those images were photo-shopped and condemned by the US Government.

Silly Benneton, they just had to wait around till Obama visited with Julia. Kissing everywhere. No photoshopping necessary. Image

This is my Gen X Girl column from this week’s Savvy Magazine that appears in the Townsville Bulletin.

It’s no secret that I enjoy a drop of wine. OK, to be fair maybe that could be more than a mere drop, but I’m hardly Robinson Crusoe. Anyway big suck in to me because now I’m definitely going to get breast cancer. Well that’s what some study says anyway.

According to a recent Harvard University study, having one unit of wine a day could increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by 15%. Having two units of wine a day will increase it by 50%. This is very bad news, especially when you consider that a unit is a piddling 100ml.

Is anyone putting down their glass of sav blanc as this read this riveting piece of information? Didn’t think so. If you’re anything like me you’ve learned to disregard information like this. We’re all suffering from Conflicting Health Theory Overload Syndrome.

Now this is not yet a medically recognised syndrome. I just made it up, but I have every confidence that it’s going to be picked up by the medical profession.

As a practical example of CHTOS let’s take my old friend wine. Wasn’t it only last year that health experts were advocating a couple of glasses a wine for cardio-vascular health? So for the sake of our health we enjoyed our daily tipple, reinforced by the results of another study that says drinkers live longer than kill-joy abstainers. Yippee. Heart beating fine and we’re fun and then along comes the latest study saying that we women are going to get cancer. Stupid sexist study.

Wine’s not the only breast cancer causing culprit out there. Apparently underarm deodorants are a big no-no. Sorry, I’m not giving that up—no one will talk to me. And wide strapped underwire bras are also taboo. That should boost the sale of those hideous ah ha bras that are being flogged on TV at the moment.

We’re also warned to avoid tooth fillings and root canals. I’m not sure that one can avoid a root canal. It’s not as though anyone chooses to have one. It’s more the pain that drives people to pay exorbitant sums of money to dentists rather than an aesthetic but there I go being all judgmental.

Anyway because I read a lot of women’s magazines and spend too much time on the internet I have a wealth of conflicting medical advice that may be helpful to you. So here goes.

1. Yoga does not make you fit because you mostly lie around a lot.
2. Bananas can help you give up smoking. A banana costs more than a cigarette.
3.  If your poo looks like little hard balls you are in trouble. Miranda Kerr says so.
4.  Drinking eight glasses of water a day is bunkum.
5. Your coffee addiction is inherited from your parents. Yes it really is your mother’s fault.
6. The whiskey diet is true. Lady Gaga said so.
7. Swearing reduces blood pressure.
8. Running is bad for you.
9. Soy can lead to the excessive feminisation of men. Put the soy and linseed bread back on the shelf boys.
10. 30% of men do not wash their hands after going to the toilet. Image

It’s like stepping back in history, isn’t it?  So who are they?  Top to bottom: Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney; Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn; Sophie Loren and Jane Mansfield (don’t you just love the look on Sophia’s face?).