Vivienne Westwood again

Looking fab and wearing a necklace made of conkers "by a student"

The marvellous Viv was on Woman's Hour, facing very lightweight questions from Jeni Murray. I do love Jenni but on this occasion she seemed to be harking back to the punk era all the time instead of asking Vivienne about her activism and about her philosophy of fashion. Vivienne is clearly keen to give others credit for their ideas and input; I see what Andreas means about her honesty. She is generous about Maclaren who was never generous about sharing credit with her, but her relationship with him seems to have been horribly abusive, in that his need of her made him very cruel.

She wants people to know that capitalism is the enemy and that we should go and protest about it on Guy Fawkes night, wearing Guy Fawkes masks (V for Vendetta by Alan Moore: it's a classic graphic novel but I don't like it: have only got halfway through.) we should go and march on the Houses of Parliament.

I went to the website and I found it somewhat disturbing in that the participants are clearly expecting a punch up with the police. Well, overthrowing the capitalist system has got to start somewhere I suppose but this is really very feeble. Russell Brand is also active in anti-capitalism and his daily Trews is brilliant, but although he wants to protest against everything I have no idea what he does want.

He wants to write off consumer debt which is quite good in a way - people in poverty should not have been allowed to borrow in the first place. However, as someone who has been trained to be very careful with money for nearly 30 years, and as a result has come very close to paying off a large mortgage, I feel people need to change their attitude to buying things. That would be far more revolutionary than encouraging them by writing off their debt. And Vivienne W. agrees with me. She says we need to reduce what we use - including clothing - as part of a programme to change the world.

Hoorah for Viv, who wears no knickers!

here is a link to Woman's hour

Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler

If it wasn't for this interview in the Times magazine of early June (I wonder where I picked it up?) I would never have known how much I admire Vivienne Westwood.

1. 25 years ago, she  married a man 25 years younger than herself and it doesn't seem like a big deal to either of them. She is 73, he is 49. She says Andreas is much more sociable than she is, but she doesn't mind. "With me being older and everything, and not expecting to have a husband in later life, I'm very tolerant. He doesn't have to do anything as if it is somehow expected of him. Only if he wants."

They work on the designs together.

She often wears clothes that make her look quite ridiculous, but they are at least original

But her designs (like this one) are very beautiful and flattering for the older woman

However, on the day she wore this one she forgot that she was wearing no knickers

2. she is active in saving the honey bee.

3. She lived in a 2-bedroom council flat for 30 years - even after she became successful.

4. She is completely unmaterialistic : "She doesn't care what other people have. She is only curious about what other people know. Their wisdom."

5. She doesn't watch the TV.

6. They went to the Sex and the City film but couldn't sit through it. "It was a terrible film."

7. She reads.

8. She campaigns on the subject of climate change. climaterevolution.co.uk

9. At home, she is very frugal with lights and water.

10. She never lies.

11. She cycles around London. Is that why she has such great legs?