Flea Bag, Way Beyond the Fleamarket

Remember the "I'm not a plastic bag" craze? Of course you did =) Well, get ready for the next storm to hit. The Flea Bag rage is gathering strength at the handbag replica market and you will be seeing, hearing and buying a lot of this as editorial continues to flood worldwide. The original design was intended for the flea market, thus the name, to fit all your purchases while shopping. What makes it timely is the eco-conscious part, it is not vegan but the leather uses vegetable dye, the canvas is all organic hemp and cotton and the ink on the print is water based. There is nothing toxic, not even glue! And they are handmade in New York so you are also supporting the dying fashion coach wholesale manufacturing there. Essential for the summer for beach, on the road and weekend getaways. Or if you love flea markets and farmers markets, use it for what it was intended and avoid all those plastic bags! It is pretty big, 16" x 16" at its widest. Comes in white, pebble, saddle and coffee bean leather trim. At Luxcouture for $395 I also saw it in orange, which is fab, at WWD.

UPDATE: Already the demand is out of control on these bags and the designers have raised the price to $415. Hope you got one while you could at $395!!

Japan: The height of stupidity

I'm shivering in a toilet three-quarters of the way up Mt Fuji in my Japan holiday. My four climbing companions and I have organised ourselves into a toboggan-like sitting arrangement on the floor and only just fit into the small wooden structure.

This isn't as strange as it sounds - a toilet being on the side of a mountain in Japan, that is. After all, this is the country where you can buy disposable clothes from a vending machine.

The fact we're cuddling each other without embarrassment might seem weirder.

But when your face is so cold you can hardly feel it, your teeth are chattering like a chainsaw and your toes seem to be suffering from the early stages of frostbite, wrapping your arms around another man and wondering what it might look like if a stranger walked in just doesn't seem to matter. What matters is keeping warm.

Earlier that day, we had boarded a bullet train at Shin Osaka station north of Osaka City and caught a bus from Shin Fuji station. We were dropped off at Fujinomiya/Mishima 5th Station, which is about 2700m above sea level and one of the 10 stations the mountain is divided into.

Most climbers start from one of the fifth stations, which can be reached by road and approached from different sides of the 3776m mountain. It takes about four and a half hours to climb from one of these stations to the summit.

To kill time, so that our triumphant ascent would coincide with the 4.30am summer sunrise, we hung out in the station's cafeteria for a couple of hours until the surly proprietor tired of our mooching and shooed us away.

Off we went at 9.30pm into a light drizzle - novice climbers clad only in shorts and parkas. But surely adequately attired - Mt Fuji is frequently climbed by children and grandparents. In a few hours, our lack of respect for the mountain would come back to haunt us.

Very quickly, we divided into three groups: pacesetters, Englishmen Grant and Aaron, who leapt up the trail like demented gazelles, with me in the middle and Mike from Oregon and Carl from London lagging behind.

The higher we climbed, the darker, wetter and colder it became. Along the trail are a number of stations and huts offering food and accommodation (if you book ahead, as we would find out later).

At most of these we stopped, allowing Mike and Carl to catch up. Each time we stopped, though, we had to wait just a little bit longer for them to materialise.

There is a quiet you experience on top of a mountain, as you stare out into the black starry night, that defies description. It is so calm, not even your mind can interrupt the tranquillity.

But a voice can. A gruff and concerned American accent cut through the still air, ruining my moment.

Boom times in Dublin for Chinese 'massages'

The Chinese brothels which advertise as "body massage" parlours appear to be doing a roaring trade around the city and have also moved out into several major towns around the country.

The "massage" operations continue to cause headaches for strictly legitimate Chinese masseuses and masseurs who are offering genuine traditional therapeutic treatments.

Legitimate Chinese massage people, like their Irish counterparts, generally have landline telephone numbers and their opening hours are generally from mid-morning to around 7pm or 8pm

Last summer, when the brothels were advertising in the Irish Times under its 'massage and therapy' small-ads section, the Sunday Independent detected just under 20 brothels all offering identical sexual services for the same price.

They are now advertising mainly online and have also become more circumspect with none any longer offering "hand job" when called. All answer that they are open and some quoted a price, usually from 11am to 11pm often seven days a week. When visited, the prostitutes wait to be asked for sexual services before agreeing on a price.

Since last summer the number of brothels fronting as "massage" parlours has doubled across Dublin and are located in the city centre and suburbs including Churchtown, Fairview, Dun Laoghaire, Blackrock, Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Terenure, Crumlin, Phibsboro, Baldoyle, Harold's Cross and Rathgar.

Most are situated in what were formerly small offices, mostly beside rows of shops. Staff in two shops beside the entrance to a brothel in a former office over their shops said they had complained to the gardai shortly after the brothel opened its doors in February. The brothel is believed to have opened in this premises after its former location was exposed in the media.

Gardai have prosecuted a number of people in relation to the running of the Chinese brothels which they believe are mostly centrally controlled. One source said it would be easy to close these illegal businesses down once it was established they were brothels, by closing down their mobile-phone accounts.

A recommendation to this effect was made in 2007 after prolonged investigations into the running of brothels in Dublin by a special unit. However, the recommendation to gather the mobile phone numbers and close the accounts was rejected by garda management, the reason never given.

One of the concerns about the Chinese women working as prostitutes are that some may have been trafficked into the country and are being forced to work in the sex trade. Gardai have asked a number of the women questioned about this but none indicated being made to work as a sex slave."It is very difficult to get anything out of these people. We know some have very good English. They pretend they don't understand you."

The source said that as the gardai often have to hire translators this is costly and, with the cutting of budgets, senior gardai are often reluctant to spend money on translators in cases which are likely to result in little more than suspended sentences if convictions can be won. One pointed out that in the cases of the girls being convicted it would be unlikely they would face anything other than a caution for a first offence. Brothel operators could be jailed but the only sentences passed so far by the courts are usually lenient.

Another garda pointed out that, despite the recession, business seems to be booming.

It is also expected that the growth of the Chinese sex trade here will increase over the summer when many of the East European prostitutes working here over the winter leave for the summer trade in the Costa del Sol.

Why no Viagra for women?

Why can't the drug manufacturers find something that will work on women the way Viagra does on men? For that matter, do Viagra and the other pills like it ever work for women?

Viagra does seem to work for some women. The reason is that it sends blood to engorge the genitals. Where that creates an erection on men already feeling desire, for women it simply sends blood to the area, which can feel like arousal to some women, but doesn't for most. Viagra and its like do not affect desire in men either, just the ability to have sexual intercourse. Because most women always have that ability (excluding painful conditions such as vaginismus), creating desire is what's complicating the creation of a magic pill. For many more women than men, the desire for sex is bound up in relationship issues and beliefs about appropriate behavior, and there can be no magic pill to deal with those psychological factors.

Is there any way to tell for sure whether your partner is lying to you?

For sure? No. There was a rumor that one could tell always when a certain politician was lying. It was whenever he moved his lips! In all other cases you have to rely on what you know of the person's record of truth-telling, certain body language cues, and on what your own gut is telling you. Beyond that, your only recourse is private investigation.

My daughter's breasts are beginning to grow and they are coming in lopsided. Are they likely to even out when she is through maturing? She is 11, by the way. Isn't that early?

Young women are maturing much earlier these days. The average age for first menstruation in the 19th Century was around 16; now it is 12. Better nutrition is one probable cause. If you look carefully at your own body, you will see that things that come in pairs are not exactly equal. Some adults need a different shoe size for each foot. Some women need different bra cups. If her breasts are noticeably different when she is an adult and it bothers her, she can have them altered.