We love a bit of no-nonsense chat here at Dollymix. So it's probably no surprise that we love Mary Portas. Her various shows, where she uses her experience of retail success on small shops who are struggling to make a profit, is as entertaining as it is informative. Despite the owners often protesting, Mary usually wins them round with a mix of charm, straight talking and real results.

In fact, she's gone on to revamp the entire charity shop sector. From my own experiences, I've noticed many charity shops making more of an effort to make their shops more enticing to customers. Many people have suggested that Mary's series on charity shop revamps has led to an increase in prices. And they're right. But personally I think as a charity they have to make money, and if raising prices slightly (so that they're still discounted from new items) is the way to do it, then that's possibly the only option.

Like us, Mary is a big fan of buying local, and it's great to see a public figure not only encouraging this, but promoting small businesses that do it.

Mary Portas is an icon because of her take life by the ball outlook, her assertiveness, and her ability to be a career woman without going all Katie Price on us.

Frozen Planet is his latest project, focussing on (funnily enough) the polar regions of the earth. The first episode aired last night, and it was as fascinating as it was beautiful. The clip detailing the creation of snowflakes was strangely captivating. There was also a memorable scene where the shadow of a seal appeared in the waves, creeping up on a crowd of unsuspecting penguins. Sadly there's no clip of that online yet, so it's worth popping over to iPlayer to catch it again if you missed it.

Still not convinced? Watch this clip.

Someone took it to the next level.

The structure contains a supportive back frame, which attaches to the air vent below. It also come with noise-cancelling earphones, shades and an umbrella for if it rains.

The guy in the picture is Jamie O'Shea, the inventor and guinea pig. He actually managed to sleep for 40 minutes in the middle of New York with the vertical bed. 

So, Yay or Nay?

Don't get me wrong, I like that couples can express their feelings for each other. What I don't get, is why they need to throw things like this out into the public arena:

This is not cool people. Not cool at all.

The thing is, this is what Facebook messaging, texting and IMing is for - expressing your love for each other in a private manner. Let's be honest, your mum, your nan and your boss don't really want to read that. 

I guess I don't understand why people do it. Part of me wonders whether it's either a) a way of telling everyone you're together or b) a smug married action.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely cold-hearted. I send lovey dovey texts to the boyfriend, and love seeing happy statuses on Facebook about the engagements, weddings and babies of friends and family. 

But I'll gag a little if you tell me how happy you are tucked up in bed with your snookums

What do you think? Are you a fan of Facebook PDAs?

Want to know what the Aigua Media team have been up to this week?

• Catwalk Queen have been behind the scenes with BINTM winner Jade at her New! Magazine shoot.
• Shoewawa rounds up the best jewel tones for the festive season.
• The Bag Lady shares their winter sun finds, and where to source the right accessories out of season.
• Crafty Crafty shows us how to make a steampunk pumpkin.
• OSOYOU looks behind the scenes of Breaking Dawn.
• Trashionista discusses book covers and chick-lit.
• Kiss and Make Up compares the Urban Decay and MUA palettes

According to the study, published in the journal proceedings of the Royal Society B, women taking the contraceptive pill tend to choose reliable and caring men instead of dashing, adventurous lotharios. This is due to the hormones the pill attributes, it steers away women away from men who may not stick around, instead favouring sensitive types who are better suited for fatherhood in the long run.

The research questioned 2,519 women about how happy they were in their relationships. Women on the pill reported less sexual satisfaction than the women not taking the pill. They also said they found their partners less attractive and exciting in the bedroom.

However, the study was not all doom and gloom. Although women did say they found their lovers unexciting between the sheets, they rated them highly in other areas, seeing them as faithful, supportive and overall better providers. Plus the relationships lasted a whole two years longer than those not on the pill.

Why is this though? 

Image via Wikipedia

This week's Yay or Nay is all about the C-word - Christmas.

If you've popped into town in the last few weeks, you might have noticed the odd Christmas chocolate display in the supermarket, a Christmas section in a department store or a full-blown window display in some of the high street stores.

Is it too early to be thinking about Christmas? Personally, I like to start my Christmas shopping early, and spread the cost across a few months. That said, I think festive music should be left until December, and I can do without having Santa thrust in my face every time I pop into the shops for a new dress.

What do you think? When should the shops go Christmas crazy?

On Sunday, I was wasting time researching for future posts on Twitter when I spotted @Sarah_Scribble tweet about a podcast she loved. Her actual words were:

"New FAVE thing on a Sunday: Blogging, cuppa tea, whilst listening to the AMMAZING  @TheHighTeaCast podcasts........Bliss much?!"

And you know what? She's bloody right. 

The High Tea Cast is a "UK Female Lifestyle & Podcast Blog", starring the sassy Sam Sparrow and the lovely Lea Rice. It's a bit like listening to your best mates chat about all your favourite things. In the first episode alone, they chatted about tea, cakes, Caitlin Moran, embarrassing incidents and Drink, Shop, Do.

Each podcast is around an hour an a half long (perfect for Sunday afternoons or for your commute to and from work), and is themed around a particular topic, like fashion, bodies or embarrassing moments. 

The thing I love about The High Tea Cast, is that it proves that you can be a feminist and still love cake (Check out Sian's post on The Great Feminist Food Fight for more on this particular debate). 

So why not take Sarah's lead, pour yourself a cup of tea and enjoy an hour and a half of debate, interviews, cake chat and giggles.

You can download The High Tea Cast through iTunes for free. Go check out their blog too for some behind the scenes videos. 

The Aigua Media ladies have been a busy bunch this week!

• Jess had a TOWIE makeover over on OSOBLOG
• Gemma tries out Gok Wan's new range from Tu at Sainsbury's for Catwalk Queen
• Abi rounded up the best fetish shoes for Shoewawa.
• Deadlyknitshade discovers a Tardis corset in CraftyCrafty.
• Abi rounds up her favourite elegant hats on TheBagLady
• Steph debates the dip-dye look on Kiss And Make Up.
• Elle is running a competition to win tickets to the Festival of Romance on Trashionista.

Image by hdzimmermann via Flickr

BT, Virgin Media, Sky and Talk Talk are planning to ask new customers if they'd like to 'opt in' for adult content.

So, um, they're asking customers if they want access to porn. Which won't be an awkward conversation at all...

The purpose of this opt in process is to limit children's access to unsuitable websites. It's part of a series of moves by the government to stop the sexualisation of childhood. 

Other moves include a new website called ParentPort for parents to report unsuitable websites, and a reduction in the number of billboards with sexual images, placed near places like schools.

But what do you think? Is this a responsible move? Or should parents implement their own security measures?

In just a few short weeks, supermarkets will run out of oversized round vegetables, Ann Summers will see a rush to their costumes section, and children will knock on the door of their elderly next door neighbour in a frightening costume, and demand sweets.

That's right people, it's Halloween.

If you haven't got your outfit sorted yet, we've got a few ideas.

Lady Gaga

Nip down to ASDA, pick up their cheap frying steaks and fashion it as a dress. Ta da! You're Lady Gaga. (OK, strictly speaking this is 2010, BUT it's still pretty scary).

Facebook

Change your outfit constantly but subtly throughout the party, to confuse and anger everyone around you. Poke people.

Any cast member from The Only Way Is Essex

C'mon people, you know the drill by now - Fake tan, fake boobs, teeny little dog. This outfit can also double as a Big Brother or X Factor contestants.

Bella from Twilight

Image via CrunchBase

We're bringing back an old Dollymix favourite this week - polls!

With all the changes to Facebook recently, more and more people are threatening to quit. The thing is, very few do. All of our friends are on there, We hear about engagements, weddings, pregnancies and even break ups on there. Frankly, we've tailored our online lives around it, and it's difficult to detach ourselves.

We know Facebook are unlikely to ever start charging (they get enough money from their advertisers, it wouldn't make sense to ask for money from both parties).

But what would make you leave?

Image by Steve Ganz via Flickr

This week, freshers across the country will be settling into their new halls, flats and houses, and getting used to sharing space with a whole bunch of strangers. Strangers who have very different feelings towards washing up/buying their own food/common decency in the bathroom.

So now seems as good a time as ever to remind them of the briliance of the site PassiveAggressiveNotes.com. If you've never heard of it before, it's a site filled with all the best passive aggressive notes, left on fridges, office pinboards and pushed under doors.

The site offers such gems as this note requesting that the accused housemate buy more loo roll.

We've spoken a fair bit about airbrushing here on Dollymix. Often, it's suggested that airbrushing gives young people a false idea of celebrities actually look like. 

Now, a not-for-profit organisation has launched a teaching pack in partnership with the Government Equalities Office to teach children about airbrushing - and how it differs from the reality.

The pack is tailored for the 10-11 age range. Teachers can download the free pack with images from advertising campaigns that have been airbrushed, and ask students what they think has been changed.

They'll also be able to ask students questions like 'Did you know that looking at magazines for just 60 minutes lowers the self-esteem of over 80 per cent of girls?' 

Critics have suggested it would take time away from other core subjects, like maths and geography. Personally, I don't think one lesson is going to harm a child's education that much. And if people are more aware of how doctored images can be, it might stop them aspiring to something unrealistic. 

What do you think about these lessons?

Image via Wikipedia

I'm a chronic blusher. Nowhere near as bad as I was back at school, but I still find myself blushing when I speak to important people or do something embarrassing (sadly, the latter happens a lot more than the former).

But it turns out, this inability to control my face colour makes me look more trustworthy.

A study was carried out by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, where they did two experiments. The first experiment involved 60 students who were filmed talking about embarrassing situations or moments in their lives.

Their level of embarrassment, judged by blushing etc, was graded. The participants were then given ten raffle tickets and asked to keep some and give the rest to another person. Those participants that were most embarrassed, tended to give away more of their raffle tickets.

Another test took place, where participants were asked to watch someone being told he received the perfect score on a test. The person, an actor, then responded with embarrassment or pride. The participants then played games with him to test him. They found him most trustworthy when he looked more embarrassed.

Are you a blusher?

Last weekend, I jumped on a coach to Brighton from London, boarded a yacht and enjoyed an evening of tasty BBQ food. I was apparently 'Living Social'. http://livingsocial.com

The day was organise by Living Social, who treated a number of us bloggers to one of their 'Adventures'. The day consisted of a couple of hours sailing a yacht, riding a speedboat and an evening of BBQ food overlooking the harbour (beautifully timed with the sunset).

If you're not familiar with Living Social, they're a group buying-style website with a twist. They offer Escapes (holidays) Daily Deals (products and treats) and the previously mentioned Adventures. They're also launching Instant Deals, which are localised deals which you can buy and use on the spot.

The Adventures have set dates, so you don't have to spend ages on the phone attempting to book something in for 6 months time, and range from cocktail making classes to activity days. The emphasis is on having a good time as a group, and they provide a team to keep everyone together and happy.

Image via Wikipedia

According to new reports, the coalition government is planning to destroy thousands of DNA samples from those suspected of crimes, included 17,000 samples from suspected rapists.

The plans also suggest that future samples from those that have not been charged will not be stored.

While the samples are from those who haven't been charged of that particular crime, DNA samples in the past have helped to catch some of the looters from the recent riots, and can therefore help in future investigations.

In fact, John Worboys, the Black Cab Rapist, was caught by DNA stored after he was arrested but not charged for a sex assault.

Do you think this is a necessary move, or unwise?

How about a 'Sorry you lost your job' card? Hallmark seem to think now's a good time to take advantage of the recession - with a selection of cards to empathise with a victim of redundancy.

They're only in the US at the moment, thanks to customer demand, but redundancies are still commonplace here so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw these sympathy cards soon.

Would you buy someone a 'Sorry you lost your job' card? 

Image by NatBat via Flickr

It's one of the great British traditions. If there's a queue for something, we'll join it. Even if we don't have a clue what it is.

That's not to say we're a patient bunch though. In fact, a study has discovered that the average Brit runs out of patience after seven minutes.

(No, I'm not sure why they've done a study on it either).

This level of patience varies on the activity. after six minutes on the phone to a call centre, we're tearing our hair out. For supermarket checkouts, it's six and a half minutes (though I suspect it's down to 30 seconds if you have to deal with a self-service machine).

We're more relaxed when it comes to travelling and eating though. We'll be good for 11 minutes when waiting for public transport, and 13 minutes if we're waiting to be served in a restaurant.

It's no wonder everyone hates a queue-jumper really, is it?

Source

Image via Wikipedia

If ever there was a museum targeted at uni students, this is it - the instant noodle museum.

My diet at uni mainly consisted of supernoodles, cheap white wine and ice cream. So the opening of an instant noodle museum brings back memories.

The museum is the brainchild of Nissin Foods, who manufactures the ramen noodles used in the products. The museum, based just outside Tokyo, has been opened to celebrate 40 years of instant noodles.

Visitors can make their own noodles, design their own noodle pots and choose what flavour combinations they want to create. Which all sounds surprisingly fun.

This is actually Nissin's second venture museums. There first noodle museum was launched in Osaka in 1999.

This week, we've got a guest post from Penny Golightly. Check out her blog, PennyGolightly.com for more money saving tips, and on Twitter.

As much as I love some good home cooking, it's also a real treat to go out for a restaurant meal every now and then. Here are some of my favourite ideas for finding the best cheap eats in town.

Restaurant chains

In the last year or two, all the big chain restaurants have started running offers almost non-stop. Most of these are in the form of half price or two-for-one vouchers, usually in return for joining their email list, and it's now relatively common for there to be offers that cover peak days and times too.

If you're looking for a range of vouchers to browse through, try these sites for starters:

VoucherCodes
My Voucher Codes 
Moneysupermarket 

Look out for offers from Pizza Hut, La Tasca, Ask, Loch Fyne, Giraffe, Strada and many more. I regularly have one or two of these vouchers in my bag, just in case I meet friends for a quick drink and we then decide to go out for a bite afterwards. If you're a cinema fan you can also benefit from the Pizza Express deals that run alongside Orange Wednesdays, where you're sent the offer by text.

Just one thing though, if your waiter or waitress is good, remember to leave them a decent tip even if your bill is very reduced.

Westfield Stratford have put together this cute video demonstrating the last 100 years of East London style in 100 seconds (from Sept 13th 1911 - Sept 13th 2011). 

How many of you will be settling down to this guilty pleasure?

It's all rather glamourous, with Holly Valance, Jason Donovan, Nancy Dell'Olio, Lulu, Harry Judd, Dan Lobb, Audley Harrison, Chelsee Healey, Anita Dobson, Robbie Savage, Alex Jones, Russell Grant, Rory Bremner and Edwina Currie taking part. I have a feeling Dan Lobb might end up being every granny's favourite, while the teens will love McFly's Harry Judd.

Many of the contestants, like Lulu, Holly Valance and erm...Jason Donovan, have had some dance experience, so that might help. Not that having two left feet stopped Ann Widdecombe doing quite well.

Will you be watching Strictly Come Dancing this year? 

Image via Wikipedia

From today, you'll be able to walk into a McDonalds and see how many calories are in your Big Mac on the menu (490 kcal, if you were interested). Burger King and KFC have agreed to display their calorie content too.

It's not exactly a new move for McDonalds, who have shared their calorie contents on their tray sheets and their website for a while. KFC and Burger King also offer nutritional information on their website. But how many of us hop on a fast food website before visiting?

Funnily enough, Subway and Nandos have declined to take part in this. I find this particularly odd, as Subway often bills itself as the healthier option, and Nando's tends to be lower in calories than a lot of other fast food restaurants.

It'll be interesting to see if this makes any difference to how customers order. It's not like people walk into McDonald's expecting something healthy. But perhaps it'll make people think twice about going large, or adding a milkshake (420 kcal!) to their order.

What do you think about this move?

Image via Wikipedia

Last night, I was listening to a debate on my local radio station about school uniforms. A new report by Family Action, a charity supporting disadvantaged families, has looked at the costs of uniforms, and how it impacts on those that struggle to make ends meet. For parents around the UK, it's hardly a shock to hear that kitting out your kids for school is an expensive business. So why do we need school uniforms?

As far as I see it, there are pros and cons to wearing school uniforms

For those not familiar, it's a video site packed full of tutorials. You can learn how to do pretty much anything just by watching their videos. From how to ace an interview to erm..kissing. And it's free. There's a great iPad and iPhone app too, so you can have it on the side when you're using one of the cooking tutorials. 

Not only does it save you money on expensive courses, but some of the videos teach you how to make things that would normally costs a lot. Like this guide to making invisible shelves (which I've seen selling online for quite a bit more.)

Ever used VideoJug?

Image via Wikipedia

The city of Bonn, Germany has found an interesting way to tax their prostitutes. They've converted some roadside vending machines, which the prostitutes have to use to pay £5.30 per evening (from 8.15pm to 6am)

Bonn city council spokeswoman Monika Frombgen, explains:

"This is an act of tax fairness. Prostitutes in fixed establishments such as brothels and sauna clubs already pay tax."

It's not the first time they've tried to tax prostitutes, but previous efforts have failed due to language difficulties.

Those prostitutes who don't buy a ticket can be issued with a warning, and continued avoidance can even lead to a fine or ban.

What do you think? Should prostitution be taxed? Or should more be done for those that are prostitutes through need rather than want?