Pinksplosion

When did it become impossible to buy baby girl clothes in anything but pink?? I don't remember what I wore as a baby (er, what I was dressed in) but I've certainly seen pictures of little-girl me, in all shades of orange, yellow, greens (well - it was the 70's, after all). I even remember a red plaid pant suit. But no pink.

But today - that's all there is... As you can see in this photo of all the clothes we've bought/received for Paige so far... aside from a little beige and white -- it's pink, pink and more pink.

A few recent articles have been highlighting this, thanks to PR efforts around the book Toxic Childhood. I especially like the nugget from the BBC that pink used to be for boys because it is 'a more decided and stronger colour'. Is pink inherently bad? No, of course not. And if you truly like pink, hey, great, go for it. But how boring is a world where 50% of the population is marked out by one and only one colour? What happened to variety?

And of course, as a non- girly-girl myself... why does it have to be pink?

Books into art

If I could afford real, proper, grown-up art, this is the sort of thing I'd buy. Su Blackwell turns books into intricately cut paper sculptures -- unlike anything I've seen. A few of her pieces were displayed at the V&A recently as part of their Blood on Paper exhibit. V&A? Books? Books as modern art?? My kind of trifecta!

Public transport travails

Finally took Paige on public transport yesterday -- tube and bus -- and must say, it takes military planning. Not only are you faced with the normal baby-related stuff (pack enough nappies, possible change of clothes, when/where will you be able to feed, etc...) but you also need to consider which stations (if any) are stroller-accessible.

You'd think in this age of disability-awareness, all would be (if a station is wheelchair accessible, then it's buggy-friendly as well) but no such luck. So to get to the hospital for her appointment, I needed to change lines just to make sure that when I got to Earl's Court station, I was on the line that has the lift (Piccadilly), not the one with the stairs (District.).

And according to this news release, only about a sixth of the tube stations are accessible - and they're on track to have 1/4 accessible by 2010. That's ridiculous! And looking at the map, most of the accessible stops are suburban -- making any central London visits a challenge at best.

Hmm... I wonder what other big-city subway accessibility is like... And in the meantime, buses are definitely the way to go.