EMMA COWING: I need a Mr Prue Leith in my life to spare me hell of High Street shops
I’ve always rather liked Dame Prue Leith. She’s snazzy and no-nonsense, the sort who tells it like it is and seems like she’d be a good giggle over a gin and tonic.
She’s やめる the over-sharer too. In 2016, at 76, she married her husband John Playfair, and in 最近の years has 扱う／治療するd us to さまざまな anecdotes about their life together (含むing the fact that for years she didn’t let him live with her).
This week she was at it again, 明らかにする／漏らすing that Playfair has an online shopping 中毒… buying 着せる／賦与するs for her.
Dame Prue Leith
‘He is really good at it. It’s mostly shirts and 最高の，を越すs and things,’ she said. ‘Often, we’ll be going to bed and he’ll say, “Before you take your bra and pants off”, and then we have this little parade...’
Gosh. Lucky Prue. Not least because, as she 収容する／認めるs herself: ‘I hate shopping but I love 着せる／賦与するs.’
Amen. I can’t be the only woman 元気づける along with this 感情. In fact, I’d say there are a fair few of us who feel 衝突d about 直面するing the High Street these days.
Many women shop online now for 着せる／賦与するs, にもかかわらず the 危険s. The 最高の，を越す might not fit. On you, the dress may not look remotely the way it does on the 22-year-old size 6 model. That skirt is 現実に 3in shorter on the 膝 than you’d realised.
And yet we 固執する. Why? Because ‘going to the shops’ is no longer やめる the 扱う／治療する it once was. City ?centres are gloomier than they used to be. A lot of brands have shut up shop 完全に, while many streets are haunted by To Let 調印するs and boarded-up windows.
在庫／株 is not as high as it once was (probably because so much of it is on the website) and the chances are that even if you do find something you like, they’ll have every size except yours.
設立する something you want to try on? 井戸／弁護士席, you may have to chance it in a gender-中立の changing room, or run the gauntlet of a terrifying changing room capo who 主張するs on counting each item while suspiciously 注目する，もくろむing your every move. Or you may find, as I did recently when asking to try on a dress in a train 駅／配置する-based 出口, that there’s no changing room at all.
Some of us try the hybrid 選択. I was in John 吊りくさび this week (which appears to have grown, Tardis-like, with precious little signage to keep you 権利) and 設立する myself wandering aimlessly through endless aisles of unappealing 着せる／賦与するs, fruitlessly searching 負かす／撃墜する the one 魔法 gem I’d already seen online, 決定するd to get a look at it in all its cottony glory before 手渡すing over my cash.
I think many of us do this thinking ? often erroneously ? that we’re ?saving time, when all we’re doing is giving ourselves a 頭痛.
Off?we trot to the website of some label or other, identify something that ‘looks nice on the model’, then spend hours searching for it in vain in the shop.
It’s an exhausting and often demoralising 商売／仕事. Is it any wonder that so many of us 簡単に give up and stick to the trusty dress we bought aeons ago?
What we all need then is a Mr Prue Leith in our lives. A man with a good 注目する，もくろむ who will do our shopping for us, 現在の us with さまざまな outfits then tell us what looks good.
Is it really too much to ask?
?A Swift 手渡す up the pop charts
Hurrah. Taylor Swift has a new album out. Although it only seems like five minutes since the last one was 解放（する）d (where does she get the time between world 小旅行するs and glamorous football boyfriends?), this one 含む／封じ込めるs an entertaining nod to Scotland.
Taylor Swift gives a nod to the classic Blue Nile song The Downtown Lights in her new album
In a break-up ballad する権利を与えるd 有罪の As Sin?, Swift （人命などを）奪う，主張する s that every time she listens to Glasgow 禁止（する）d The Blue Nile’s song The Downtown Lights it makes her cry.
Many Scots of a 確かな age will know 正確に／まさに what she means: 解放（する）d in 1989, The Downtown Lights is indeed a classic.
Such is Swift’s 力／強力にする, 推定する／予想する it to zoom straight up the starts.
It is not so long ago that splashing out £6 on a 瓶／封じ込める of ワイン meant getting something reasonable. Not Chateau Lafite, I 認める you, but still. Something better than engine oil.
式のs, the 最新の rise in 最小限 pricing on alcohol in Scotland will mean that a 瓶／封じ込める of ワイン won’t be sold for いっそう少なく than £6.09.
Sigh. Nanny Scotland strikes again.
支店 終結s do our banks no credit at all
So the 王室の Bank of Scotland is shedding one in five of its 支店s, with 18 of the 86 in Scotland （ーのために）とっておくd for 終結 within months.
RBS should stop 扱う／治療するing their 顧客s with contempt
I know I’m a broken 記録，記録的な／記録する on this but, yet again, it feels like a 決定／判定勝ち（する） that will impinge on the 年輩の more than any other 部門 of society. Never mind the inconvenience to those in 田舎の areas, many of whom already must travel miles to do any in-person banking.
I do wish these companies, many of them once 広大な／多数の／重要な 会・原則s (the 地位，任命する Office springs 必然的に to mind), would stop 扱う／治療するing their 顧客s with such contempt.
Fascinated to learn nutritionists are ?telling Scots they should take ビタミン D daily to 戦闘 the 欠如（する） of sunlight we receive 自然に, as it 強化するs the bones.
I’ve been taking ビタミン D for years, おもに because I used to get sore ears if I slept on my 味方する (I know not why), and ビタミン D vastly 改善するd the 状況／情勢.
Of course, what we’d all prefer is actual 日光. Oh, how tiresome this wet, 冷淡な 天候 is. Forget April にわか雨s, this is more of an April deluge. At this 率, by the time spring 現実に arrives in Scotland, it’ll be winter again.
Farcical tale of 失敗
So, a 規模d-負かす／撃墜する 見解／翻訳／版 of this year’s Aye 令状 festival in Glasgow will go ahead, but only thanks to the charitable 創立／基礎 始める，決める up by late EuroMillions 勝利者 Colin Weir, which stepped in after 基金ing was turned 負かす／撃墜する by Creative Scotland.?
I struggle to understand how 支払う／賃金ing for a literary festival in Scotland’s biggest city could be anything other than a no-brainer.
A poor 決定／判定勝ち（する） on Creative Scotland’s pa rt.
急速な／放蕩な food as A&E slows to woeful pace
It's the sort of tale that makes your jaw 減少（する）. 患者s are having to wait so long stuck in 救急車s outside an A&E 区 at Aberdeen 王室の Infirmary that they need to order takeaway pizzas.
One former NHS Grampian health 労働者 told of a 事例／患者 where a 患者 was taken to hospital by paramedics at 6pm and still hadn’t been 認める by 1.30am, so ordered pizza from a late-night takeaway.
It would be laughable if it weren’t so horrendous. Because what this story really 最高潮の場面s is the appalling 明言する／公表する of A&E waiting times.
That even those 存在 brought to hospital by 救急車 are having to wait an 容認できない 量 of time before 存在 seen, and 扱う／治療するd.
The 人物／姿／数字s 耐える it out: in the week starting April 8, 10 per cent of the 620 乗組員s waited more than 2 hours 55 minutes. It’s an 容認できない 明言する／公表する of 事件／事情／状勢s. For goodness sake, just 扱う／治療する them.
