Greetings and salutations my ravishing readers!

I am honoured and thrilled to be the travel correspondent for the global phenomenon that is emmaheaven.com. My name is Lady Perdita Fitzwilliam Tudor-Croft, Perdy to friends, Ditsy D to family and Dirty Dita to my unsavoury exes, but you can all call me Lady P.

Greetings my fabulous, loyal darling readers! One has decided to hitch one’s perfectly pert derriere to the bandwagon by wholeheartedly embracing this month’s theme ~ ‘Defying Gravity’. 

At the heart of its message is how now is the time to defy those people who say you're not good enough, or will never amount to much. 

It's time to start believing in yourself, be proud of your uniqueness and not to conform to the norm!

It’s about encouraging people to not be afraid of who they are or what they believe in. It's time to fly high and live our dreams. Doesn’t that spur you on and energise you my darlings? It certainly uplifts and empowers little ol’ moi, AND one is rather partial to flying high, especially where First Class travel is involved, and even moreso when one has good company in tow with them...

Anyway, I digress…back to this month’s feature.

Now the eagle-eyed, attentive readers among you will have noticed that one drew attention to one’s body earlier, by describing one’s derriere as ‘perfectly pert’! Therefore, you may find what follows next in this month’s column to be more than a tad hypocritical, but we’ll address that elephant in the room, and I shall set the record perfectly straight, right here, right now! 

“I am totally allowed to describe myself and MY anatomy as I see fit. HOWEVER, that does not give free license to every one of those Peeping ‘Tom’ paps, ‘Dick’ head ‘cleb columnists’, or ‘Harry’ have a-go journalists the right to invade my privacy nor pass salacious comment about my appearance. #MyBodyMyChoiceMyRules”

In fact my darling readers, looking to the future, it may be prudent to create a ‘Dita’s Little Guide to Life & Love’. Just imagine how lucrative that little venture could be, alongside the gems in my Little Black Book…?! One would absolutely love to be a published writer with one’s own pearls of wisdom, forever immortalised in print and online! Anyhow, I digress…

You may be wondering where the source of one’s (seemingly uncharacteristic) incandescent anger has come from this month, and with good reason!? 

I shall let you into a not-so-little secret. It has come about after reading that the ginger pea brain - off on yet another leg of his world privacy tour I see - is attempting to take on the gutter press in the law courts. Tho when someone is so adept at being such a sitting duck (BTW, that’s not posh rhyming slang), one can’t help but be considered fair game, non?!  

Anyway my darlings, you know what a resourceful lass I am, so with my love of research, one went off to dip one’s pedi’d tootsies into the seething cesspit of the tabloid press and the world of tacky magazines. Without exception, all seem to be hell-bent on describing women, in particular, in the most derogatory terms, and as if our sole existence is to be little more than eye candy, gratefully awaiting our turn to be leered at and groped! How terribly unchivalrous! 

Now whilst one does love a compliment - who doesn’t? - there is a line between being complimented on looking good and wearing something fabulous, versus being displayed purely for ogling purposes or ‘hung out’ - ripe and ready - for an onslaught of nasty, unnecessary, uncalled for comments. 

Comments which are thoughtlessly (hmmm!) written and thrown like hand grenades, by washed-up, vitriolic ‘poisonalities’, giving clickbait fodder to the trolls and keyboard warriors, who live and breathe to be ‘mean girls’, green-eyed monsters, misogynists, etc. etc. 

The following smorgasbord of derogatory terms used when describing female celebrities is just a very small sample of the complete and utter garbage put out by the media in just a few days alone: 

• Shows off her toned legs in bejewelled lingerie
• Bares taut midriff in a tight busty top
• Showcases stunning figure in skimpy bikini
• Flaunts her incredible figure in a bikini
• Shows off sculpted arms in a sleeveless top
• Bares her impressively taut midriff as she heads to dinner
• Showcases her slender physique in a revealing bikini
• Flaunts her jaw-dropping figure in a TINY bikini
• Showcases her incredible body in a nude swimsuit and larks around on a giant inflatable unicorn. Methinks they might be spending too much time focusing on mythical creatures with this particular effort!
• Looks chic in a busty fitted midi dress
• Showcases her stunning frame in a revealing dress
• Displays her slender physique in a teeny tiny bikini
• Puts on a busty display in a tight top
• Showcases her toned legs in a mini dress

They do seem to love the words ‘showcase’, ‘flaunt’ and ‘bikini’! How terribly derivative darlings!

Did they go to journalism kindergarten to learn to write? Can they not afford a thesaurus?!

Who writes this utter piffle? It’s so unbelievably unimaginative, boring and repetitive. And to think someone is getting paid for this nonsense!

What a load of hogwash - utter word salad bollocks 101! Those ‘prime’ examples are an absolute masterclass of how NOT to write.

What makes it worse is that some of this tripe is written by OTHER WOMEN!!! I don’t necessarily totally buy into the whole ‘sisterhood’ ‘thing’, but a modicum of (moral) support wouldn’t go amiss, rather than perpetuating the patriarchy. 

And no. Before any of you ask. I have NOT been to see Barbie! 

Nor Oppenheimer, since you didn’t ask… 

On a side note, I was never one of those gals who liked playing with dolls. I was more of a tomboy, who liked getting out into the woods with the local village boys, building dens, making mud pies, and in later years, playing kiss chase. Tho I shall leave it to your imaginations my darlings as to whether I was the ‘hunter or the hunted’! However, I digress…

One can’t help but wonder if these purveyors of piffle ever got the memo to tell them that women are so much more than boobs and butt! Or ‘tits and ass’ as our transatlantic cousins would say! “Hey ‘journos’ - the 1970s called - they don’t want you nor your hackneyed misogynistic views back”.

Talking of the 70s, just last week, whilst idly channel hopping, I stumbled across a 1970s film, ‘Spanish Fly’. Well my darlings, what an eye-opener that was re that era’s social mores!! Whilst there has been some progress as to how us females are treated, it certainly helped me to better understand how there are still those of a ‘certain age’, like Mummy, who will tolerate poor behaviour and put men on a pedestal, deserved or otherwise...or think that uninvited physical contact (aka a ‘cheeky grope’) is still acceptable! Have you ever managed to walk through a crowded bar ‘untouched’?! Quite…

I shall only briefly digress here whilst we’re on the topic of uninvited attention…I am reliably informed that over in TV-land, NDAs galore are proving not to be worth the paper they’re written on! Apparently, NDAs are null and void if they are being used to conceal wrongdoing. Thankfully my darlings, all of my NDAs are watertight, as this gal knows how to delicately tread that fine line between what is classed as immoral vs illegal…

And on that note, I shall leave you to enjoy this quote from Jurassic Park. Let it be a warning to the sexists and chauvinists who think women are the inferior sex, or pretty decorative items there to be gawped or pawed at for their sole pleasure and amusement. 

Dr. Ian Malcolm: "God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man, Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs"

Dr. Ellie Sattler: "Dinosaurs eat man..... Woman inherits the earth” 

To aid one’s creative juices, I thought I would share with you this playlist I pulled together, which echoed my thoughts whilst I wrote, and to fire up my inner warrior, to write this potentially controversial piece. Have any of you tried to write whilst wriggling in your seat, fighting the urge to strum an air guitar my darlings?!? One’s struggle is real…

Toodles my darlings. Until next time…
Mwaah..

Lady P’s Blood Sweat and No Tears #BST Playlist #VibeAndScribe

Our Lips Are Sealed - The Go-Go’s
I Heard A Rumour - Bananarama
Kiss And Tell - Bryan Ferry
Roar - Katy Perry
Stronger - Britney Spears
Little Lies - Fleetwood Mac
Shut Up And Drive - Rihanna
Shut Up - The Black Eyed Peas
Hunter And The Hunted - Simple Minds