The Coolness of Smeg Fridges

Smeg is an innovative, Italian based company specialsing in high quality home appliances for the trendy, moneyed set. Their vintage designs are reminiscent of the 1950's and 60's yet incorporate top engineering and the latest technology.

Founded in the 1940's, Smeg is a family owned company, under the guidance of Roberto Bertazonni, who had the vision to employ some of the best Italian architects (such as Mario Bellini, Guido Canali and Renzo Piano), to work for the business. Smeg's strength was to see appliances as something more than utilitarian objects - with Smeg function and form work together and one is not overshadowed by the other. One of the more iconic objects in Smeg's range of products is the iconic retro refrigerator..otherwise know as The Smeg.

Hand-finished, limited edition of ithe Smeg FAB28

Red Smeg

Cachet

A Smeg refrigerator is a desirable object, with its rounded, retro lines, cool functionality and stunning finish. The European beauties come in a variety of colours, way beyond the bland white and stainless steel of many other manufacturers. The handle alone, is a design achievement - great looking and easy to use.

Available colours include red, lime green, mint green, pastel blue, orange, pastel green,silver, black, pink, blue, cream and some limited edition colour combos (such as the stripe at right) that may be hard to get.

There's no doubt uber cool Smegs have a fashionable aura and almost have a cult following - it's the vintage charm. They have been featured in various films such as V for Vendetta and East Enders and styistically, are an antidote to the souless modern appliances that permeate contemporary showrooms.

Specs

The classic Smeg has a capacity of 9.22 Cu. Ft. (271 Litres) Dimensions are (HxWxD) 57½ x 23⅝ x 27½ inches and features include:

• Antibacterial interior
• Interior light
• Defrost
• Thermostat: Adjustable
• 3 adjustable glass shelves
• 1 bottle storage shelf
• 1 fixed glass shelf
• 4 adjustable bins
• 1 fruit and vegetable container
• 1 Ice cube tray
• 1 diary box
• 2 adjustable covered bins
• 2 bottle storage bin
• Rating: Tropical
• 2 egg bins

Perfect for the City trendoid - matching mini and Smeg fridge

Inside a Smeg

Vittorio Bertazzoni

Vittorio Bertazzoni, was born in a tiny village in Italy called Guastalla and started out as an enameled appliances manufacturer and made a name for himself through the use of unique designs and quality craftsmanship.

Smeg is an acronym for Smalterie Metallurgiche Emiliane Guastalla, meaning “metal enameling factory of Guastalla - too much of a mouthful for most customers.

Buzzwords

What's a Buzzword?

Good question. A buzzword is a word that has become so fashionable and over-used, it's almost a slogan. Often such words begin as pop-psychology jargon in the corporate, media or academic world and then spread out to become more widely used.

A buzzword can come across as pretentious, as the word may be an attempt to make something seem more important than it is. When someone says they felt "empowered", what do they really mean? They felt stronger, better, more able to cope? "Empowered" implies they've been injected with a superhuman tonic, which of course they haven't so it's really just a feel-good word designed to motivate people for political, social or personal reasons.

Buzzwords aren't necessarily a bad thing but they do tend to be overused, sometimes to the point where they become meaningless and just glide over the listener, elliciting no emotional response. Often they're very effective as a motivational tool and can stir people to action, such as the call for "the empowernent of women", though that term is now so tired few would be excited by it. They can also be suffocating and even a form of compulsion, especially in a corporate or academic environment, when it becomes a requirement to speak in buzzwords. 

Marilyn Monroe Posters

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Photogenic

Marilyn Monroe, AKA Norma Jean Baker, was one of the most photogenic women in the world. So powerful were her images, she still continues to fascinate half a century after her death. What made her so photogenic?

Well for one thing, many of her pictures were taken by the world's best photographers, including Ceceil Beaton, Philipe Halsman and Eve Arnold ...but it was more than that. Marilyn had many attractive features tht the camera loved; she had the curvacious lines and voluptous shape that resonated in the 1950's; unike the idealised super-slim figures of today she was fleshy, though not fat.

Her facial features were unique and sensuous. Posessed of a rather large, heart shaped head, her big, deep-set eyes were beautifully set and wide apart, her forehead was broad and her lips were generously proportioned. However, perhaps what really set her apart was the langorous, sexual poses she expressed....she oozed a kind of vulnerable sex-appeal and behind the soft, blue-grey eyes, a hint of tragic neediness lurked. As author William Manchester remarked: "Marilyn's need to be desired was so great that she could make love to a camera."

In addition to her natural charms, the dramatic make-up and clothes of the era suited the camera and Marlyn was the perfect canvas. She wore the markers of the classic sex symbol through her stylized look - the platinum hair, dark, arched brows, deeply coloured lips and black rimmed eyes all emphasised her look and worked photogenically.

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Complex

Marilyn's troubled childhood and the lasting effects of her relationship with her unstable, mentally ill mother are well documented. She was a complex woman..a kind of damaged ideal, whose image seems to mean different things to different people. Some see her as a tortured, unhappy soul, others as soft and vulnerable and others still as relying too much on her sex appeal. Her internal life and the suddeness of her death are something of a mystery. The two most significant men in her life were poles apart - Baseballer Joe Demaggio and playwright, Arthur Miller. When asked once what man she most admired, she replied "Albert Einstein". This suggests that Marilyn valued intelligence and she was no doubt conscious that people tended to value her own worth in terms of her sex appeal.

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Marilyn's Image Outlived Her

As the song goes her candle burnt out long before the legend ever did" - Marilyn Monroe, aka, Norma Jean Baker, was just 36 when she died in her her home in Brentwood LA, from an overdose of barbituates. The final years of her life had been sucked up in a maelstrom of personal problems, including depression, insecurity, alcohol and drug abuse.

Like other Hollywood icons before her, she was entrapped by her own powerfully sexualised image - the woman inside was really a mystery, certainly to her public, who were, and still are, enthralled by the films and photographs. A commodity in the Hollywood system, there were few chances to escape the industry creation she had become.

Many of those who knew her spoke of her desire for self-improvement, and, tellingly, for normalcy. Somehow she could never quite manage it...as she said herself:

"After all, if I can't be myself, what's the good of being anything at all?'

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Bobby Womack

Once a back up guitarist for the legendary Sam Cooke, Bobby Womack began his career back in the 1960's, singing in the family R&B band, The Valentinos. Based in Cleveland where Womack was born, the line-up included Bobby's four brothers, Cecil (of Womack and Womack fame), Harry, Friendly and Curtis, all of whom were songwriters. Notably, Bobby Womack wote the Rolling Stones hit It's All Over Now,which topped the UK singles charts.

It was Cooke who 'discovered' the band and offered them a contract with his SAR Records label, much to the chagrin of the boy's father, Friendly Womack Senior, who considered Cooke's brand of music sinful. At that time in the US there were two kinds of black singers - gospel and mainstream secular and to cross over to the latter was seen by some as selling out to the devil. Although Curtis was the lead singer, Sam had singled Bobby out for attention, remarking that he "sang with authority, and commanded attention on stage".

Zsa Zsa Gabor

The Gabors Flee Europe

World War 2 created flux and turmoil in Europe. It was a time of change and disorder; families were uprooted, homelands abandoned and for some, a chance for new beginnings in strange lands. Amongst those uprooted and thrown into flux, were sisters Zsa Zsa, Eva and Magda Gabor who, with their parents Vilma and Jolie, made their way from Budapest, Hungary, after the Nazi invasion, to America, sometime in the mid 1940's.

In Budapest, the family had been relatively well-heeled and the girls well-educated; they spoke several languages. In addition, Jolie Gabor, who was a kind of Hungarian Mrs. Bennett, saw to it that her daughters were well-versed in the essential charms a woman needed in order to catch a suitable husband.

Zsa Zsa

Glamor and the Gabors

The girls were quick learners and fast workers; Eva had already secured herself a doctor husband, whom she had met while on holiday in America some time before, Magda was also married and before 1946 was out, Zsa Zsa managed to snag Hilton Hotel chain magnate, Conrad Hilton and had produced a daughter, Constance Francesca Hilton, who would prove to be the only offspring of all the Gabor sisters.

Conrad Hilton was Zsa Zsa's second husband, as she had been married before to the much older Turkish foreign affairs minister, Jan Bychowski in 1937, although she swore the marriage had never been consumated.

Once in New York, the glamorous Gabor sisters were lured by the promise of Hollywood stardom and all that that sparkling Emerald City entailed. Magda had already appeared in a few films in Budapest, Zsa Zsa had been Miss Hungaryin1936, (though Eva too, claimed to have won that title) and it wasn't long before the ultra-feminine threesome established themselves as professional celebrities. They played the game well and with a certain European aplomb; flirting, flitting like butterflies, being seen at the right places, meeting the right people and running up large bills that they somehow avoided paying for themselves.

Career-wise, Zsa Zsa's first big break came in the John Huston film Moulin Rouge, in 1952 playing Jane Avril opposite Jose Ferrer as Toulouse Latrec. She was well-suited to the role and her performance was well-received, although Zsa Zsa would, in the end, be more famous for her husbands than her acting.

I want to choose the man. I do not permit men to choose me! ~Zsa Zsa

Eventually the marriage to Hilton grew a little tiring (he had her on a strict budget) and while still wed she spotted a suave actor on stage one night and declared "he will be my next husband". Thus the fate of the Hilton pairing was doomed, though the couple remained on amicable terms and Conrad Hilton did in fact offer her a lifetime of cheap rate at all his hotels.

Scene from "Moulin Rouge". Zsa Zsa as Jane Avril.

George Sanders

"The Love of my Life"

Actor George Sanders was a debonair, cosmopolitan sophisticate, who's dry personality seemed on the surface, a mismatch with the professionally vapid, vampish Gabor but the two managed to tie the conjugal knot in 1949 - Zsa Zsa it seemed, always got her man.

As fond of Sanders as Zsa Zsa claimed she was - having once described him as '"the love of my life", this did not prevent her from having an extra-marital affair with Dominican playboy Porfirio Rubirosa.

Of course the marriage didn't last and eventually George went the way of her previous husbands and dissappeared from Eva's marital orbit. Oddly, Sanders married Zsa Zsa's sister Magda in 1970 but that too, was shortlived. Sanders later comitted suicide, citing a 'boredom with life' as the cause, though those who knew him noted he was in serious debt at the time.

Nine Husbands

Zsa Zsa's acting career teetered along in no particular direction; she appeared in a few quirky films and scored a few cameo roles on televison,. However hercalculated have-as-many-husbands-as-you-can plan was right on track. There were nine in all, too many too explore here in any depth:

• Burhan Belge Turkish diplomat, married in 1937, divorced in 1941
• Conrad Hiltonhotel founder, m.arried 1942, divorced in 1947,
• George Sanders(actor, married in 1949, divorced in 1954
• Herbert Hunter, financial consultant, married in 1964, divorced in1966
• Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. oil heir, married in 1966, divorced in 1967
• Jack Patrick Ryan Barbie doll designer, married in 1975, divorced in 1976
• Michael O'Hara , attorney, married in 1977, divorced in 1982
• Felipe De Alba, Mexican actor, married. 1982, annulled, lasted one day
• Frederic Prinz von Anhalt, married 1986, still going...

Peas in a pod. Zsa Zsa and sister Eva (left)

Feisty Gabor

Reputedly Zsa Zsa has a strong, volatile personality which has landed her in hot water from time to time. Some very public incidents include: slapping a bellboy, being removed from a plane after it came to light that, among other convenient memory lapses, she had left an upaid bill behind, drunk driving and suing her own daughter for fraud. Controversial to the end, it was reported in the tabloids recently that Zsa Zsa, having already lost a leg to illness and now in her nineties, (although her birthdate, like everything else, is murky) and her sixty-seven year old husband, were last heard trying to have a baby via any means possible. Never say die.

The Eternal Celebrity

In many ways Zsa Zsa was a precursor to the kind of 21st century vacuous celebrity to be found via the likes of her niece, Paris Hilton - infamously famous for being infamously famous. The Hungarian/American glamor queen personified a certain type of woman through the ages - she was a Hollywood Queen, a courtesan, a socialite, notorious husband hunter, a pampered princess and most of all...a priceless treasure in the annals of the kitsch, rich, society beauty sphere.

Diplomacy the Game

Diplomacy

The other evening I was wandering aimlessly through the games section of Amazon, as is my want, when I came across a product that stirred a strange little memory - partly warm and fuzzy, partly uncomfortable. It was a board game called Diplomacyand when I spotted it I felt a zap of recognition and surprise because I hadn't seen it for years.

My older brother and sister and their friends used to play this game when I was growing up and frankly, as an onlooker, it drove me mad. As I was apparently "too young" too understand the cutthroat and complicated nature of international diplomatic relations, I was excluded from play. I still haven't played it, so this isn't a review but I can attest to the dedication, seriousness and profound involvement it inspires in its players.

The game of Diplomacy

Diplomacy Amazon Price: $22.99 List Price: $29.99

Political Intrigue and Alliances

The game of Diplomacy usually involves seven players who become totally consumed by the game play, which can go on for many hours, during which time alliances will be formed, traitorous actions performed, slimy promises made, heated words exchanged and copious amounts of tea, coffee and various snacks consumed.

Long suffering little sisters who are not allowed to play will often be sent on tedious missions to provide these nourishments and non players will get annoyed and frustrated as living areas are completly taken over by the game.

Oft described as game of "intrigue, trust and treachery" this is not a game for the faint hearted and in truth I'm not sure how hard it is. As a young teen, I could never make head or tail of it but then, I was never given the chance to learn properly. I mentioned this re-encouter to my star Diplomacy playing brother recently and I don't whether this may be an unfortunate, innate sexism within him but he tells me my older sister, who wasallowed to particpate, never really understood the game either: according to him, she just "pretended too". (Oh my, I know she'll be furious if she reads this.)

The Birth of Diplomacy

Diplomacy has been commercially available since 1959 and was created by Alan B. Calhamer in 1954. The story goes that, as a boy he was intrigued by an old geography book found in an attic that showed a map of the world prior to WWI. Years later, while at Harvard Law School and recalling the geography book, he developed a game of strategy and alliance, which put seven players in charge of the major world powers.

For those who really get into Diplomacy in a big way, there have been tournaments held since the 1970's and playing Diplomacy by mail and now emailhas been an option since the 80's. Not so surprisingly, it's Henry Kissinger's favourite game and evidently John F Kennedy was also a fan.You'd think these politicians would have got enough cuttroat intrigue in real life wouldn't you? Apparently not.

Rules of Diplomacy

There are no dice in this game - it's all about negotiation. The game is set around the turn of the 20th Century, when the major world powers vie for supremacy. According to the folks at boardgames.canada.com,who seem to know all about it:

Military forces invade and withdraw, shifting borders and altering empires with subtle maneuvers and daring gambits. Form alliances and unhatch your traitorous plots as you negotiate and outwitin a delicate balance of cooperation and competition to gain dominance of the continent! In Diplomacy, your success hinges not on the luck of the dice, but your cunning and cleverness.

Yes, from memory that sounds about right. One of these days, I'll get around to playing this game and what's more, I'll damn well win! I know how to be ruthless if I have to...

The Diplomacy Board. Image from boardgamescanada.com

Doris Day Hairstyles

Doris Day -1954 covergirl

Fresh as a Daisy and Clean as a Whistle

soft and romantic...a very young Doris Day

I confess, in my callow youth I was critical of Doris Day - her appearance, manner and general aura, which seemed so pert, accommodating and just generally reeking of repressed glass-of-white-milk niceness. At that time, the 50s era hadn't yet taken on it's cool retro cachet and it seemed to my sensitive fashion palette an era of excessive bad taste mingled with blatant sexism. I was a 70s snob (yes I know, the 70's! In itself, a fashion disaster).

However, over the years, I've changed my mind about Ms Day. Whether this can be put down to to general maturity or a growing nostalgic wistfulness for the 1950s, I can't say but I'm now prepared to admit that there was more to Doris than meets the eye. She had something...a je ne sais quo, that stretched beyond the full skirted curviness of her figure, white teeth, sparkling blue eyes, the sexy, whispery, breathless....and yet, forceful way of talking and of course her, powerful singing voice. How she used to belt out those numbers, with a voice as clear and clean as rain on a tin roof.

But down to hair...

the blonde is beautiful philosophy

It seemed to me and still does, that much of Doris's fetching perkiness emanated form her crisp blonde hairstyles and the hair itself, with it's suggestive synthentic doll texture and luminous, equally manufactured colour tones. So Hollywood and yet at the same time, so housewife/good girl. Less tarty than Lana Turner's platinum poof but more oomphy than June Alyson's anal bob. How did she pull it off?

Doris Day could never have been dark. It wouldn't have worked. So much of her image relied on the clean clear purity of a golden halo. She was a kind of refined Betty Grable, with perky Ginger Rogers overtones. Never an obvious vamp in the blonde Jean Harlow sense... but rather a dangerous woman of a more subtle, complex strain - exuding part worldly, womanly vixen and part homespun, earthy domestic warmth. Wow, she was hot!

So young..so nice

Decades of Day

Day's hair went through several transmutations over the decades but it's luminous essence remained the same : always blonde, cute and fresh, with fetching waves and contrivances in the right places.

  Early Days

Doris Day, from  romance on the high seas

Born in 1922, the singer had her first big hit in 1945, with the classic melody, Sentimental Journey and from that pivotal  point, she never looked back, career-wise. that early musical success led to a lengthy movie career and she made 39 films in all, beginning with the technicolor  extravaganza, romance on the High seas, in the late 1940s. Here, Day's hair was moulded into typically 40s, stylised oomph concoction, with bushy, careful, long curls and scrolled up bangs. and of course, very blonde. It was, for the times, a young, bouncy look that perfectly suited day's vivacious personality.

In the 1950s Doris's hair took on a more sophisticated look, in keeping with the changing styles of a new, modern post-war era. Shorter hair was the go, but it was no less blonde. In this decade, Doris wore her hair pinned up or cut into a classically 50s short bob. It was a more mature look but no less pert than the previous decade. Doris's hair was nothing, if not assertive.

pinned up glamour with Cary grant in that touch of mink

One of Day's biggest film role in the 50s was her portrayal of singer Ruth Etting in the 1955 film love me or leave me, co-starring with legend, James Cagney and her hair radiated the jazzy, sexy appeal of a 50s gamine. The film was a critical and commercial success and further cemented Doris Day as a major talent, as well as a considerable box office draw. 

doris day, hot as hades in love me or leave me, 1955.

classic day and hudson, from pillow talk, 1959

Toward the end of the decade, Day launched into the series of profitable, light romantic comedies with hollywood gay hunks Rock Hudson and Cary Grant, for which she is perhaps best known - think pillow Talk. in these films our heroine's hair was less sexy round the edges and more cute and respectable bobsy, in keeping with the squeaky clean tone of the films. It was, after all, the twin bed era.

Doris Day, mature and stylish in a pillbox hat. from midnight lace 1960

the 60s and beyond

still a bob - but longer. Doris Day in the 60s

As the radical 60s swung into action, Doris grooved things up in the hair department, growing her still gold locks into a longer bob and later, for her tv series, the  Doris Day how, which ran from 1968 to 73 a youthful ponytail. By now in her 40s [and in the 70s] her 50s, she still looked good. throughout her career, the hugely successful singer/actress managed to project a fun and sexy, yet level-headed image that women aspired to and men admired. Ms Day was the quintessential all-round gal.

a top notch and a bob...such indecision