During my break from personal blogging, it saddens me to report that people haven’t gotten any better at telling the difference between me and Joan Rivers. The E! channel’s Fashion Police show is currently back on the air, which means that every morning I wake up to a barrage of emails and tweets about a show I haven’t even watched, much less presented/produced. Witness:

—–Original Message—–
From: Someone who doesn’t know the difference between Amber and Joan Rivers 
Sent: 01 September 2010 02:20
To: Magic Amber
Subject: The fashion bullishit show 

I am whatching the Fashion Police “show”  I think you don’t have people have a knoledge, mrs plastic Surgery, Miss I was fat forever, and I don’t know Who’s the gay guy… What they talk and the criticism is sooo poor and low,I am sorry but can you get better people on you show?

Thank you ,

 Person Who Thinks Amber is Joan Rivers

I did have to laugh at “the criticism is sooo poor and low”, though, especially with THIS person’s piece of criticism being of such a high standard, and not at all “bullishit” (which is totally going to be my Word of the Week)! Oh, kettle, you’re sooo “poor and low”! Looks like kettle doesn’t have a “knoledge” of who is Magic Amber and who is Mrs Plastic Surgery and Miss I-Was-Fat-Forever. (Is it just me, or do these sound like characters you’d find at the top of a more adult version of The Faraway Tree?*)

(At least she said thank you, though. That was polite.)

Here is a handy clue for my correspondent, and all the other people who have been contacting me this week to complain about the plastic surgery etc:

NOT ME

Seriously, people.

(*There totally should be a version of The Faraway Tree for adults. Maybe I will write it, once I’m done with presenting US cable TV shows. Whoops…)

P.S. Speaking of weird email, Darika Aherns of Grapevine Consulting is currently running an excellent series on blogger outreach on her site: I answered a few questions about how PRs interact with bloggers here.

Foot fetishists. They’re everywhere, aren’t they? And by “everywhere” I mean “they’re on eBay”. In large numbers, apparently.

Last week I decided to sell some shoes, you see. (I know! Me getting RID of shoes rather than acquiring them: who’da thunk it?) And as with every other time I’ve ever tried to sell shoes on eBay, this brought the foot fetishists out in droves.

It always happens the same way. A question floods in. The question is from a man. First of all, the man comments on how “sexy” the shoes I’m selling are (Note: always “sexy”. Never “cute” or “beautiful”or “stylish”, or any other of the dozens of words you could use to describe a pair of shoes. Just “sexy”.) Sometimes he’ll say that he wants to buy them for his “girlfriend”, but other times he’ll just miss out this part and leave me to conjecture what someone named “Jim” or “Pete” or “Brian”, or whatever, wants with a pair of size 4 ladies shoes. Then comes the kicker:

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Brian will say (for he is a polite young man at heart),  “could you take some photos of your feet inside the shoes? It’s, um, so I can see how high the heel is, because there’s no other way to know that than by looking at a strange woman’s feet.”

Now, you could argue that this is a perfectly reasonable question for Brian to be asking. But in response, I would argue that Brian is a foot fetishist. He is only interested in seeing photos of my feet in high heels. It’s just a feeling I get. A sixth sense, if you will. There’s always just something a little bit off about these messages. Something that triggers my “this is a foot fetishist” alarm. Also:  women never ask these questions. I mean, I’ve been using eBay for years. In that time, I’ve sold a lot of shoes. NEVER have I received a question from a woman who’s asked me to take some photos of my feet in the sexy, sexy shoes. And in all the time I’ve been buying shoes (which is… a while) I’ve never emailed a complete stranger and said, “Oh, hai, could you send me some photos of your feet, please?” It’s just not done, is it? OK, sure: sometimes a shoe looks different on the foot than it does in the image. Sometimes you really do need to see it being worn to know what you think of it. But, I dunno, something about asking a stranger to photograph their feet for you just strikes me as odd. Maybe it’s just me?

The final clue that all is not what it purports to be on Planet Brian/Steve/Tony is the final line of the message which always, without exception, says something like, “By the way, could you please not publish this question on the auction listing? Just send the photos to my private email instead.”

Uh-huh. FOOT. FETISH.

I should add here that I have nothing against people with foot fetishes. I really don’t. I honestly couldn’t care less what people do in the privacy of their own homes, or what turns them on. Each to their own, after all. It’s only when they try to involve ME in their little fantasies by, say, trying to trick me into sending them photos of my body parts, that it starts to bother me. I know it’s not actually harming anyone (although it IS wasting my time, given that these people have no intention whatsoever of bidding on the shoes), but even so, it’s still devious and underhand, and, you know, some women charge good money for those kinds of “services”.

(That was a joke.)

With that in mind, I’m afraid to say the latest “can you send me photos of your feet” message was the one that tipped me over the edge. In fact, I was so annoyed to be receiving this request AGAIN that a red mist of anger descended over my eyes, and in my haste to send my “Actually, no, I won’t be emailing photos of my feet to strange men on the Internet,” response, I may have accidentally checked the box that says “publish this question and my response on the listing”. Whoops. My bad.

Still, I guess there’s no harm done. If it WAS a genuine, reasonable request, people will see it as that and think no ill of my high heel lovin’ correspondent. And if it turns out that Brian IS actually the kind of man who tries to get women to send him photos of their feet for his own, er, use, well, so be it. After all, if you don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking people to send you photos of their feet, then there’s no reason to be embarrassed, is there?

1.  Pre-school age children should not be handed the car keys and invited to treat the vehicle as a giant toy. Cars are not toys.

2. Car horns should not be leant on for five minutes at a time.

3. Nor should they be blasted repeatedly for a similar amount of time.

4. Cars should not, under any circumstances, be treated as mobile discos. They are not mobile discos.

5. Houses are not nightclubs. They should not be treated as such.

6. Garage roofs are not for dancing on.

7. Nor are the roofs of garden sheds.

8. The Others should not throw raw burgers into other people’s gardens.

9. Or even cooked ones, for that matter.

10. Or empty beer bottles. (I mean, at least throw full ones, for God’s sake.)

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to how many of these Things That Should Not Happen have, indeed, happened recently in this part of the world (and not all involving the same household, either)? Go on, it’s easy really…

So, I’m out walking Rubin. I’m NOT wearing a dress, you’ll be pleased to know, and neither is he. He is, however, wearing his leash, and because it’s one of those extendable ones, and Rubin likes to be as far away from me as he possibly can on his walks (perhaps he’s embarrassed by what I’m wearing, who knows?), this leash is stretched taught between my hand and his body, and remains like this for the duration of time he pulls me around the footpaths of The Ghetto. (Actually, I don’t know why I even call the outings Rubin and I take together “a walk”. It would be better described as “a pull”.)

Now, note the word FOOTpath, here, folks. This is a path for FEET. Not for WHEELS, say, but people on wheels do love to use it: mostly cyclists, but we also get the occasional MOTOR CYCLIST roaring along it, and all I can say about that is that I hope there’s a particularly hot space in hell for those people, I really do. The regular cyclists, on the other hand, don’t really bother me. Most of them are really good about ringing their bell when they get close to a pedestrian, and this gives me ample opportunity to reel Rubin in and prevent him from trying to throw himself under their wheels, which is totally what he would do, and why he is kept on his leash on this particular footpath.

Yesterday, though, this did not happen. Instead of ringing his bell to let me know of his approach (INCOMING! INCOMING!) one particular cyclist decided to sneak up on me in complete silence: a Stealth Cyclist, if you will. It was only when I felt one of those rare pricklings of danger at the back of my neck that I turned around and saw him… just as he prepared to cycle at speed into Rubin’s leash – an act that would surely have sent his bike spinning out of control, with Rubin and I spinning right after it.

I am not ashamed to admit that I shrieked like a girl at this point. OK, I am a bit ashamed to admit it, to be honest, because it was a particularly dramatic shriek. He was SO close to us, though, and he cycled right up to Rubin’s rear (note: there was plenty of space around Rubin and I, so there was no need for him to do this. I did wonder if he just hadn’t noticed the leash, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt there, it would still have meant he was planning to pass really close to me, and he was cycling fast) before swerving at the last possible second, giving me plenty of time to imagine him flying over his handlebars, and me and Rubin ending up in court on charges of Interfering With a Cyclist or somesuch. (And I just KNOW Rubin would sing like a bird to get the law off his back, and would blame it all on me…)

The cyclist, meanwhile, didn’t even give us a second glance. He just sped away nonchalantly, and I got the distinct impression, although I’m possibly just making this up, that he felt the shrieky scare he’d given me served me right for daring to be in his path. It was this, rather than the scare I’d just had, that prompted me to shout feebly after him, “You’re not supposed to cycle on footpaths, you know!” Which would’ve TOTALLY told him, except at this point I noticed that he had headphones on and wouldn’t have heard me anyway.

And THIS is why Terry normally doesn’t let me walk the dog on my own…

—–Original Message—–
From: Peter’s #1 Fan
Sent: 09 March 2010 04:48
To: Magic Amber
Subject: peter

 
Where is PETER???  we want peter backl Peter had knowledge and opinions that mattered.

Joan is funny, the others are boring  and bland. bring back peter,kate

 

Peter? PETER? Are you out there, Peter? Because I think Kate wants to speak to you in all lower case, Peter, and she seems to have decided to use me as her intermediary. If you’re reading this, Peter, I’d really appreciate you stepping up to the plate and answering your own Email From Crazy People, and letting me get on with answering mine. You have knowledge and opinions that MATTER, Peter! Use them!

Also, Others? Y’all are boring and bland, BRING BACKL (sic) PETER! Whoever he is.

A comment I received on Saturday morning from a reader known as “Dillon”:

 

 “I personally hate gingers. the red hair is not pretty, dye your hair please! i live with a ginger and she is the worst person ive ever met. she is mean about everything and never stops complaining. not to mention she smells like tuna. don’t even get me started on the freckle situation. all im saying is that gingers really have no souls, they are heartless little gingers.”

Dear People who keep sending me hate mail relating to the E! Network’s “Fashion Police” show,

I AM NOT the E! Network. Or, indeed, Joan Rivers. And I don’t have Kim Kardashian’s number either, so no, I can’t pass on your message to her.  Oh, and I have no idea who ‘Guiliana’ is (see: NOT THE E! NETWORK, above), so I really can’t comment on whether or not her head looks like “a giant pea trapped in a worn out floor mop” although I’ll certainly be Googling that as soon as I finish writing this.

To get back to the topic, though: please stop sending me angry messages about people’s pea heads. If you absolutely MUST waste your life sending complete strangers abuse via the internet, at least make sure you get the RIGHT stranger. I have my own hate mail from lunatics, I don’t need to get Joan Rivers’ hate mail too, OK? Don’t they teach you kids ANYTHING in school these days? GOD. When I was a kid, we knew how to properly address hate mail. This was all fields, then…

I would have sent this to you personally, of course, but the first email just made me shake my head and say, “Terry, we got us another idiot, here, open up the Idiot File!” and the next person had managed to make their reply email bounce back. (Which was stupid, by the way. How can I reply to your concerns about the whole pea-head thing if you won’t tell me who you are? I mean, YOU know who I am, so … oh no, wait: you don’t, do you? You think I’m Joan Rivers. There’s no point in me even writing this, is there?)

Yours,

Magic “Not the E! Network” Amber

It’s been pointed out to me that I haven’t updated my blogs in a while. Now, I  did warn people about this: two of the sites were updated throughout the Christmas period, and during the two-week holiday that preceded it for me, but because there is only one of me, and because I am not, despite popular belief, made of magic, there did have to be some down-time. Breaking news, folks: I’m actually a human being, and sometimes I need to take a break. Sometimes a long one. And sometimes, when I get comments like the one below, I feel like making it a permanent one:

Author : Jellybean

E-mail : too cowardly to provide one

Comment:

It’s been a month since you last updated.   Sorry, but that’s just ridiculous when there are so many other blogs available that cover the same ground.   After the recent downtime and server crash, this is the final nail in the coffin for me.   Deleting my bookmarks for this and Realtor and moving on to greener pastures.

This was posted today on my beauty blog,  Hey-Dollface, which was one of the sites I just wasn’t able to update during the break. That’s just “ridiculous”, isn’t it? Especially after the server crash that almost destroyed my livelihood and which, let’s just be honest, I totally did deliberately, just  to annoy Jellybean. Because the world revolves around Jellybean, didn’t you know?

Needless to say, Jellybean WASN’T one of the people who offered words of support and encouragement in the aftermath of Black Friday. (And, you know, it was hard enough to deal with that, without people acting like we did it deliberately, and berating us for it. Trust me: we suffered enough.) In fact, she hasn’t ever commented on any of my blogs, as far as I can tell: she’s just lurked there silently until today, when she apparently decided she couldn’t get through one more moment without lashing out at a complete stranger on the internet. This is fairly typical of blog commenters in general, sadly: slow to praise, very quick to flip out and start deleting bookmarks. Including the bookmarks for Realtor, apparently, which is interesting, because, er, that’s not my blog, it’s my mum’s. As it happens, my mum lost a very precious friend a couple of weeks before Christmas. THAT is why she hasn’t updated her blog (which, by the way, she writes as a HOBBY, so sorry, but she doesn’t owe you anything, Jellybean) - but, of course, people like Jellybean don’t think or care about the things that may be happening in a blogger’s life. They think we exist purely to provide a source of free entertainment for them: they don’t need to thank us for doing it, but by God, if we ever dare to stop, they’ll suddenly discover the “comment” button, and tell us how much we suck! (Albeit with a “Sorry, but…” Because that phrase makes it absolutely fine to be rude to someone!)

Unfortunately, this kind of comment is becoming the norm every time I take a break. I had a flurry of rude comments when I got back from Florida earlier this year, all to the effect off “It’s been too long since you updated, so you’re a bitch : UNSUBSCRIBE!” The logic of this really confuses me: I mean, telling me you’re never coming back isn’t exactly an inducement to me to start blogging again, and the loss of a reader who sends me rude messages… well, it’s not really a huge loss, is it? I will be honest: in the time I’ve been blogging, I’ve had a few “I’m never reading your blog again!” messages, and without exception, they’ve come from people who sound like absolute assholes. And I’ve been relieved to know their authors will never bother me again: in fact, I’ve often blocked their IPs just to make sure they stick to their resolution.

Despite the fact that this has turned into a huge rant (Happy New Year, folks!), it’s not actually about Jellybean. It’s also about the very first email I opened this year, which was from someone who wanted to make sure I didn’t start the decade without being told that I’m such a bad writer I shouldn’t be allowed to blog at all. (Argh! Conflicting messages! One person wants me to blog ALL THE TIME, without any breaks, the other wants me to be BANNED. FOREVER. Aargh!) It’s about the fact that I almost made myself ill (AGAIN) before my holiday, writing advance posts for The Fashion Police to make sure I didn’t get angry emails from the people who read IT, too… and got a bunch of negative comments instead, from people who obviously felt that the content wasn’t good enough: probably because one person (with the help of a handful of guest bloggers) had to write four week’s worth of content in advance, and it’s just not possible to do that without people being able to spot the difference.

I feel like I can’t win. If I try to make sure the sites are updated while I’m away, people complain about the (unavoidable) drop in both quality and quantity of posts. If I DON’T make sure the sites are updated while I’m away, people send me rude messages telling me off for daring to take a much-needed break. The obvious answer is to pay someone else to update the sites while I’m gone, but unfortunately we just can’t afford to do that, so I’m left with only one option: never take a break, and just update the sites myself, 365 days per year. And actually, that wouldn’t work, either, because if I don’t get regular breaks, the quality drops anyway. It makes it hard to know what to do for the best: I feel like no one really appreciates it when I make the effort to write advance posts, but if I DON’T go to that effort, I get comments and emails like the one above. Gah.

It’s particularly galling, of course, when these complaints come from people who have never bothered to comment before. If people don’t comment, then I assume no one is reading. And if no one’s reading, I assume it’s fine for me to take a break now and again – after all, no one will miss me. So when I come back to find random people telling me I suck for taking a break, it comes as a surprise, and feels a bit unfair. In a way it’s flattering to know that my blog is SO IMPORTANT to these people that the loss of it makes them forget their manners, but at the same time: how was I supposed to know they would miss it? If they never bother to tell me they’re reading, I don’t think it’s very fair for them to write and tell me they’re NOT reading. That just reeks of entitlement, and makes me wonder why I bother, to be honest. (To clarify: I’m not trying to bash lurkers here. It’s absolutely fine to read and not comment: I do it myself sometimes. All I’m saying is that if you never comment, the blogger won’t know you read them, so it would be unfair of you to complain about them taking a holiday.)

Umm, this wasn’t AT ALL the post I intended to write today, which was going to be about the fabulous New Year we had with Erin and David in Edinburgh, and how we got a police escort off the Royal Mile at midnight (but still managed to see the fireworks). That’s how I want to remember the start of 2010, and how I hope it will continue, despite people’s best efforts to bring me down. I don’t want anyone to go away from this post thinking that the Jellybeans of the world are achieving their objective and managing to ruin my happy thoughts or anything: they’re not, but the issue of what I do with my blogs when I’m on holiday is something Terry and I have been discussing a lot recently, and it’s something I need to find some kind of resolution to – ideally before my next break, whenever that may be! I figured letting my thoughts about it out of my head and onto the page might help me free up some headspace and let me get on with enjoying the rest of my day: and, of course, any advice you may have is welcome (as long as it doesn’t start with the words “Sorry, but…”!).

Yes, folks, it’s yet another edition of Friday (Stolen) Photo! Which can only mean one thing: another poor fool has stolen a photo of my face and is using it to sell things on eBay! Or at least, I think it’s eBay. I have no idea what “gittigidiyor.com” might mean, so I’m going to have to assume it means “Site where people habitually steal photos of Magic Amber, and use them to sell products including – but not limited to – false eyelashes and lip plumping gloss.”

Or, in this case, “Not-Particularly-Plumping-Gloss”:

Yeah, those are my lips. Hai, lips! Do you see how the “before” and “after” photos are ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME here, readers? That’s because… they are. As I noted in my review of this product, “Sexy Motherpucker” made no discernable difference to my lips at all. STOLEN PHOTO FAIL.

This time, rather than politely ask the seller to remove the photo, I simply asked which address I should send my invoice to for use of the copyrighted images. I get more vindictive with every body part of mine that appears on eBay. The next person to use my face without permission wakes up to a horse’s head in their bed, I swear to God.*

Oh, I’m also now a member of Turkish eBay. Yes.

And here was I thinking the Friday (Stolen) Photo would be a one-off! Oh, if only!

[Thanks to Lucy for letting me know about this one!]

* That was a joke, by the way. I mostly just think, “Wow, AGAIN?” when I see these, not, “OK, horse’s head.” Mostly.

In a change to our published schedule, rather than showing you a totally random photo every Friday some Fridays, I’m now going to use this slot to show you the new places my face has turned up on the Internet without my permission. It’ll be something to show the grandkids, I guess. Assuming Rubin has any.

I’m also going to refrain from rehashing the same old post about the CHEEK of people who use MY FACE for their own personal gain, and just allow you to imagine what I would have written if I wasn’t so lazy. Please refer to this post, this post and let’s not forget this post if you’re not sure.

This week’s Stolen Photo, then, sees me once again advertising false eyelashes on eBay:

There were actually three auctions featuring yours truly, but two of them used the same image, so I’m sure you don’t need the illustration. Oh, and when I contacted the seller she told me she’d removed the images, but it turns out she only removed one. The others are still there. Presumably she thought I wouldn’t bother to check.

Anyway, thanks to Ola for letting me know about this latest appearance. Remember, folks, there are fake Ambers all around you, so if you spot one, please let me know! Meanwhile, if anyone needs me, I’ll be spending my weekend watermarking all of my images. The fun just never starts, does it?