Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill
Julie Burchillis an English writer. Beginning as a journalist on the staff of the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has subsequently contributed to newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. Describing herself as a "militant feminist", she has several times been involved in legal action resulting from her work. Burchill is also an author and novelist: her 1989 novel Ambition became a best-seller, and her 2004 novel Sugar Rush was adapted for television...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth3 July 1959
No matter how old and glorious the models, sad indeed is the woman who sees fashion as a means of self-expression rather than an agent of social control.
I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties, entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad, as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time, such as kindness or cleverness.
As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.
Surely being a Professional Beauty - let alone an ageing one - is one of the most insecure and doomed careers imaginable.
We are used to female writers who use their private lives as unmitigated material being somewhat hormonal; this somehow 'excuses' what might be seen as a highly unfeminine ability to turn their personal upsets into money.
The secret is not to care what anyone thinks of you.
As I have got older, I have found myself making friends with the ease and swiftness that other people pick up fuzzballs on their jumpers. And I believe it is probably my lack of longing for 'The One' that makes me so popular.
I've always thought of beauty therapy, 'alternative' treatments and the like as the female equivalent of brothels - for essentially self-deceiving people who feel a bit hollow and have to pay to be touched.
One of the few ways in which I feel I've actually matured is that as I've grown older I do find the concept of 'men' mystifying, whereas when I was a feisty young thing I was forever saying 'The most fun part of being a feminist is frightening men!'
Show me a frigid women and, nine times out of ten, I'll show you a little man.
She may have done, but I don't recall.
Most women are wise to the fact that lots of men love a cat-fight, and thus go out of their way not to give them one.
No one knows 'men' as such, any more than anyone knows 'women,' and if they do generalise they're probably trying to hide their own ignorance. You might know one 'man,' yes, or even lots of individual 'men'.
My dad didn't drive - the only dad I knew who didn't.