"Get Thi Coat, Love, Tha's Pulled!"

A smart girl's guide to avoiding the cloakroom.

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Mams been at me again. You know the sort of thing. After a month of moaning about me not making the best of myself I get out the slap, the slinky and the stilettos and she goes ballistic. It wasn't the dress - which believe me leaves nothing to the imagination! - it was the coat. Or lack of it. OK OK OK she'd gotten me a really cool John Richmond red leather effort from Pollyanna's for Chrimbo and yeah yeah yeah I haven't worn it out yet. But no-one wears coats out. She just doesn't know the score.

There's no pleasing mi mam at the moment. I've had a year of it. "You're a bonny looking lass if you'd just make the best of yourself..." "I wish I'd still got me curves to show off.."" Don't they sell skirts down the Oxfam Shop, ducks...""Snake-print does not go with gingham.." Coming from someone who spent the better part of the eighties in fishnets and permanently attached to a crimping iron she's got some neck.

If I want to wear lime green dockers and a baggy jumper to Aunty Alison's wedding I'm bloody well going to. Weddings are full of people in uniform anyway, and I'll be damned if I'm going to join the ranks. "Be a good girl and smile in the pictures.." She says. Like there's something to smile about. If I'm going to get hit on by that pug-ugly best man all night I'm keeping well covered up, thankyou very much. "So you can wear duffle coat to a wedding in summer and bugger-all going up town in a winter blizzard! I just don't understand." Mothers.

She seems to think that we don't make an effort. That we have no sense of occasion. But that's the whole point. If I want to be grungy, or funky or sporty I've got the gear to pull it off. Out in Tenerife last summer it all got pulled off later in the evening anyway:-). The dude running the nightclub always got a walk up from my leafleting whatever I wore. The sun always shines outa my backside, I always say! And when I dress to pull, I am buggered if I'm going to be worrying about where I left my Diesel khaki. Someone would lift it as soon as my backless was turned anyway. Big Macs are for eating and chucking up, not lugging round half the clubs in Sheffield.

If I had my way there'd be a bloody great cloakroom on the M1, just after Woodall Services! All them southern coach parties coming to clog up the queue at Insomniacz or The Republic. We should confiscate their fake furs at the Humber Bridge and their vintage Levi jackets at the Snake Pass. This is Yorkshire air! Lets see the colour of your goose pimples!

Its a Yorkshire tradition nowadays. Its been like this for generations. You want to pull, you've got to make a bit of effort. Show some flesh. Get out yer goosebumps! Wear your Jogger's Nipple with pride! Lads love it! They'll be writing it all in the history books alongside Gatecrasher and Jarvis Cocker. Lets get this clear. Coats are for wimps and wallflowers. Am I right, girls?

Ann D (off on one..)__________________