I know the image above is actually pretty hilarious given that I recently went out in public wearing two different boots, but allow me to bask for a moment in the reflected glory of The Fashion Police, which has just been named the winner of the fashion category in The Appletiser Blog Awards! Let’s just hope they never read Forever Amber, eh?

This is the second award the site has won, and both were the result of a public vote, which is particularly flattering, so if you were one of the people who voted for it, thank you: you helped make my day, week and month!

Yes, it’s true, folks, I have won something!

Well, OK, actually it’s my blog, The Fashion Police, which has won something, but seeing as I’ve never won anything else in my life before (Disclosure: I once won bacon and eggs in a school raffle. I was 12 at the time.) I’m feeling pretty pleased.

The Fashion Police was the winner in the fashion category of the Glam Network Awards 2009. It’s an award that’s voted for by blog readers, and, as I say, it’s the first thing the site has ever won, so I was super-excited when I checked my email yesterday and discovered we’d won. Especially given that, moments earlier, I’d received a comment from someone letting me know I’m a “jackass” because I don’t like these:

Yes, it’s true, I don’t like them. And I know it’s a controversial thing to say, but I? Totally wouldn’t wear those. If this be the test of jackassery, then I stand fairly accused. Isn’t it inspiring, though, to know that even the kind of jackass who wouldn’t drape cigarette butts from her ears (!) can go on to be successful, and, indeed, to live a normal life? I think so.  Also, if you’ve ever wanted to know who IS a jackass in life, and who ISN’T one, you now have this handy test: the jackasses are the ones who DON’T have used cigarettes hanging from them. Got it? Good.

(Just to be clear, I’m being facetious above. I actually don’t give a rats jackasses ass about these kind of comments – I just think they’re funny.)

So anyway, yes, The Fashion Police! I don’t know if anyone here reads it, but if you do, and you voted for it, a huge thank you: that little button is better than bacon and eggs any day*.

(*Bacon and eggs ARE pretty tasty, though. Hmmm, I’m hungry.)

Terry pointed out this morning that my last post here was not only several days ago, but was also a post in which I insinuated that if there were no further posts, er, I was probably dead. Whoops.

Well, I’m not dead, although thanks for the massive outpouring of anxiety, folks!  I’m just lazy busy. Also, The Voice hasn’t spoken again since, and if I can’t give you tales of mysterious voices which speak in my bedroom, then what can I give you? Absolutely nothing has happened recently. It’s just been all work and no play, and you know what that makes Amber, right? Yes, it makes her a CHUNKY MONKEY. I know this because someone very kindly left a comment on The Fashion Police to that effect this morning. The full text of the comment read:

“That dress looks like all ur faces! Don’t hate the player hate the game! Ur chunky monkeys! “

Geniuses walk amongst us, folks, they really do.  And just imagine, there’s a dress in the world that looks like ALL my faces! Wow! Not just one of my faces, ALL of them! And I are a chunky monkey – sorry, monkeys, plural, whee!

Another excellent comment from today, this time concerning one of my “Ugly Prom Dress” posts:

“naw aint no way in hell she must was on drugs or something need to kill herself asap”””thats sad a hot mess omg omg omg omg omgll”’

Omg omg omg omg omg, indeed! Because a bad dress is totally good reason to kill yourself, “naw”? ASAP!

After some consultation with my Twitter followers, I have decided to give this bizarre type of English used by tween blog commenters a name. I am going to call it “Blinglish” – the type of English used in blog comments. And, having named it, I am now adding it to my list of Things I Would Ban If I Ruled the World.  A further example of “Blinglish” can be found here, incidentally).

I’m quite liking being a Chunky Monkey, though.

I’m feeling a little better today. Only a little, but hey, at least I wasn’t up all night waiting for the sweet release of death, so that’s something.

In a break from our regularly scheduled “Woe is me!” programme, then, I present an email I received this morning from one “Cathelina Waldron”, who I can only assume has stumbled across one of my posts on the subject of 80′s fashion over at The Fashion Police.

Cathelina writes:

“First off i want to say that CLEARLY you dont know nothing about fashion if you state that 80s fashion is a crime of fashion, and also you stated that there was very little about 80s fashion to love. I just want to say that you are wrong, you just have to love everything about the 80s fashion. In case you havent already noticed the 80s fashion has laid out the foundation for the fashions that we have today. In fact 80s fashion is still in fashion. You must feel really dumb for posting that. Considering it makes you look like you dont know anything about what you are talking about. if you need examples i will gladly give them to you to present to you how wrong you are about 80s fashion, and how it is infact, still in fashion today! “

(Spelling and grammar as in the original. Imagine the text of this email in bright pink to get the full effect.)

So. Obviously I had no idea I was supposed to run all of my opinions past this woman, who clearly has the authority to tell me that I “have” to love certain things. This has seriously concerned me: I wonder if there are other things out there that I “have” to love, but don’t, because Cathelina hasn’t written to me yet to tell me what my opinion should be on them? Maybe I should ask her to give me a list of all the things I “have” to love? Hmm.

All sarcasm aside, though, can you even IMAGINE getting THAT annoyed about someone’s opinions on shell-suits and puffball skirts that you feel the need to email them an ugly rant? Seriously, I have no idea what Cathelina’s problem is, but I really hope she’s getting help for her obvious issues…

I also hope the wind blows really hard and messes up her hair.

Dear Idiot Teenagers who thought it would be a good idea to post a whole bunch of stupid comments on The Fashion Police this week, calling me an “idiot” and generally advertising your lack of brain cells:

It was not a good idea.

It was an even worse idea to use your actual email addresses to do it, though.

You actual email addresses that were issued by your actual high school. Your high school whose Internet connection you happened to be using at the time you posted the comments in question. Your high school Internet connection with an IP address that traced right back to… you guessed it!… your high school!

Also not a good idea? Repeatedly posting your mobile phone number, asking me to call you on it. And yeah, sure, it could’ve been a fake number, but given that you weren’t bright enough to use a fake email address, I’m going to guess it was real. Hey, guess what? The site had almost 15,000 visitors that day! That’s a lot of phone calls from potentially dangerous random Internet strangers you could be receiving, huh? So you’ll understand why I had to notify your school and ask them to notify your parents, no? It was my duty as a responsible adult. And as an ever-so-slightly vindictive one, to be completely honest.

Also? You’re SO grounded, chilluns. And on detention for the rest of the month, hopefully. Enjoy!

Love,

Amber

Seriously, I don’t know what they’re teaching kids today. In my day we knew how to troll a website, and we knew how to do it right. None of this “using real email addresses and posting from easily-traced IPs” nonsense. Honestly.  What is the world coming to when the youth of today don’t even know how to remain anonymous on the Internet? This was all fields then, you know…