The Rules of Dressing -

What to wear can be a daily battle, but it can be resolved easily if you remember two very simple words.
When it really comes down to it, style of any sort is only ever about tension. Art, food, fashion, music… it's always the same. It's the pull between components that gives something the creative equivalent of an electric charge. Style is somebody who is artful, or clever, or just naturally good at it and in the right light asking your brain to rectify two (or more) if not contradictory then certainly counterintuitive things at the same time. Like simultaneously patting your head and rubbing your tummy, this creates just enough cognitive dissonance to momentarily silence a person's ever-chattering monkey brain and gift them a few seconds of blissful nirvana. This, incidentally, is why dressing nicely is a highly generalised type of kindness.

During one pitstop in my illustrious and varied showbusiness career, I had the good fortune to interview a sandwich expert. "All 'classic' sandwich fillings," he informed me gravely (doing inverted comma fingers), "are just a combination of fat and acid." He considered cheese and onion the apotheosis of this truth – and as such it was his favourite flavour. As well as forevermore making the words FAT and ACID flash across the back of my eyes, unbidden, when I eat or select a sandwich, this exchange pretty much taught me everything I have subsequently needed to know about style. Let's take a look.

FAT and ACID, by which I mean:

1. Do two things, a bit, at the same time.

2. Don't do one too much more than the other.

3. Don't try to do too many things.

This really is all you need to know to get dressed quickly. These are the reasons great outfits work and bad ones don't. They're why boots go with dresses, boyfriend jeans suit that jacket and why Kate Moss is more stylish than Kate Middleton.

Here are a few fashion new releases, ripe for playful juxtaposition. Boots and dresses are a classic combination whether your look is young and modern or grunge revival. For delightfully contradictory accessories try Tom Binns safety pins and pearls, John and Pearl's gold and neon necklace, or contrast pieces you already own. Cotton and leather are a great combination – try Phillip Lim or Whistles – and a slick of precious-looking footwear will bring well-worn denim to life.

I'm not one for rules, but reasons can be useful. So, if you'd like to play with the push-pull in your existing wardrobe, shake yourself out of a rut or perhaps just walk the daily tightrope that keeps you looking acceptable rather than plunging into a pit of soul-vapourisingly bad aesthetic decisions (this last one might just be me), all this might be food for thought.

Camille Paglia once said: "Beauty is our weapon against nature; by it we make objects, giving them limit, symmetry, proportion. Beauty halts and freezes the melting flux of nature."

It's not as neatly put as FAT and ACID, but I think I know what she means


#guardian.co.uk #LaurenLaverne

Michael Pollan's food rules for the table

• Eat with others rather than while watching TV/working/driving by yourself – you will eat less.
• Decide how much sugar, salt and fat you want to eat – don't let a food corporation make that decision for you.
• Try to eat food cooked by humans rather than corporations – it will automatically be better for you.
• Don't use the microwave to heat up separate meals – sharing the same food at the same time is better for family life.
• Brew your own beer now and again – it's a great way to bond with teenage children.
• Cook your own meat – then you'll know what animal it really is.
• Enjoy watching cookery shows on TV – but don't let them put you off cooking. yourself and remember your children will learn to cook by watching you.
• Eat as cheaply as your grandmother did by cooking like her – use fresh ingredients and leftovers.
• When chopping onions, just chop onions – give cooking your full attention and you'll find you enjoy it more.
• Eat whatever you like as long as you cook it yourself.

Khloe Kardashian: I Want A Baby Boy For Lamar

There's literally baby fever in the Kardashian Klan. Kim Kardashian is just weeks away from her due date, Kourtney Kardashian's wrangling two little ones and now Khloe Kardashian REALLY has babies on the brain.
Khloe exclusively revealed to Hollyscoop that being a basketball wife has made her want a little baby boy real bad. She wants a future ball player!
“They always say you don’t care, and I really don’t know if I do care...But I think it would be fun to have a boy because Lamar [Odom] is a basketball player,” Khloe tells us.
Lamar Jr. would be the cutest thing ever. Lil Lammy? Lammy Mini?
“[I want] to take him to the games and dress him and up and be like 'oh, lets cheer.' A lot of their players will like take their kids to practice with them on certain days, they allow players to do that, which I think is so good for the team, so I would love for my son to do that,” Khloe gushes.

Awww, Khloe, we want you to have a boy to dress up and take to basketball games too!
But at the end of the day, Khloe’s cool if her daughter wanted to join the WNBA.
“...But I guess girls could do [basketball] too.... I always see basketball players and their wives- they have girls too and they do the same thing. So I don’t know, but I just think it would be SO CUTE [to have a boy]."