29 may 2007

Sooo..... well.. yeah.

Just trust me that I'm rather busy right now (why does that come out as busty each time I type it?). I've not gone away, but right now work is taking up more of my time than pretty dresses. Bah.

Still, I've found a few moments to put bloggy type stuff on the front page. Does it work? I guess it would be more impressive if I posted things a bit more often.

See.. look.. the next one is years ago.

9 august 2006

You Tube is the next big thing. Forget wonky trannies in Flickr, the future is in moving images. Or maybe looking convincing and moving might be too much to ask.

So whilst I'm sizing up video cameras, why don't you pop over and look at silly people on treadmills. Well, it made me laugh.

13 may 2006

Primal Scream's Country Girl video shows something I've been trying to do for ages. When I'm putting together something more 'costumey', I want to make it look real - look like this is a real person inside the clothes, a new persona. I'd like to look like someone who would wake up on an average day and choose to dress like that, even though it's trashy, ridiculous, outrageous, rather than because it's a stereotypical image of sexuality.

As a tranny, I'm technically still in my teens when it comes to fashion sense so making it all look natural is a tough act. The result is I end up looking theatrical, simple, two dimensional.

So I've bookmarked the video - it's not so much the cute dress as the fact that all the rest of the styling, the accessories, the makeup, the whole look works. It's not the height of fashion, or slickly sexy, or deeply sophisticated but even though many trannies have outfits quite like that they look like trannies, not deranged music fans. And I'm trying to look like a deranged music fan not a tranny. Hey, everyone has to have an ambition.

Ok, maybe it's the cute dress as well. And the hotpants.

9 march 2006

Six and a half inches of patent pink...um.. why does that sound so rude?

Look what arrived in the post today! It doesn't look like I could begin to compete with Siobhan's legendary dress of bigness, so perhaps the only option has to be heels so high I can't take a single step. No, really, I can't.

Oh, OK, so I can't blame anyone else really. Apart from Isobel who has been selling some items from her wardrobe at prices that were obviously too good to miss.

Now I just need to work out how to stand in them. Listen out and you'll hear the crash. Pictures of the plaster cast will follow.

There's just one more parcel to come and it'll definately be time to take some more photos.

2 march 2006

I'm so glad that Belle de Jour wrote a really positive article about Jordan. I can't help admiring her, but end up feeling guilty about it. It's not quite politically correct for anyone to admit they like someone who, on the surface at least is nothing more than 'just a glamour model'.

At last someone else has said it - Jordan is great at being straightforward, great at cutting through the double standards in today's media and great at knowing exactly what makes Jordan successful. I'm on a weak footing when it comes to post feminist theory, but I'm more and more convinced Jordan - or Katie Price - is real. There's nothing theoretical about her, she takes a path that is utterly her own and I think it would take a brave person to accuse her of being a victim of male society.

The trouble is it seems that Jordan is tarred by the attitudes of the knuckle dragging men that see nothing more than a big pair of boobs. It's strange how critics seem to think that she is somehow a representative of her lowest common denominator fans. The same seems to apply to trannies - there's a big assumption that we're no more than the worst case hairy panty wearers. In either case, open sexuality of any sort is treated as a sign of crass ignorance - when doing it right is a difficult, creative act.

So there we are - Jordan and trannies - surprisingly cool.

24 february 2006

There are some 'tranny' pages I check daily, for their great writing and the vicarious pleasure of living through somebody else's wardrobe. In fact the great thing about Siobhan's Blog - Trannifesto and Becky's T*Blog is that they aren't about crossdressing. Well, they are, but crossdressing is not their obsession but just a detail in the background. Hey, cool trannies, who would have guessed?

Of course then in that silly competitive way I keep thinking I should update my pages more often. You know, try to be just as cool as they are. Or wear a school uniform as often as Siobhan does. Bitch. :-)

12 january 2006

"What sort of tranny are you??" - SBH asked me.

Here's the confession. I'd been playing with http://www.myheritage.com which has some clever software that tells you which famous people you resemble (Click on the Beta Center link to have a go, you'll have to register though). Apparently I most look like Rudolph Carnap, philosopher and leading exponent of logical positivism.(*)

It was only after I told SBH about this (oh, how we laughed), that she asked the question.

"What sort of tranny are you??"

I'd spent fifteen minutes uploading pictures of myself en drab and hadn't actually thought of uploading a picture of Claudia. How embarassing.

Anyway, Hilary Swank (67%), Sarah Michelle Gellar (50%). We won't mention Margaret Thatcher or Barbara Streisand. Weirdly in boy-mode I look a little like Whoopi Goldberg. When I'm dressed up in my prettiest gear, I also look like Ewan McGregor (48%). Results like these suggest to me that computers are not smarter than us after all.

(*) Confession in a confession - I had to Google that

2 october 2005

Well, I got almost all the way through Miss Congeniality last night before saying it. I adore Sandra Bullock's costume. SBH rolled her eyes when the words finally came out - she knows me far too well. The film gets a lot of humour from the tom-boyish Gracie Hart (Bullock) having to wear a girish, ridiculous outfit to go undercover at a beauty pageant. That the outfit she chooses is just wrong for the pageant she's infiltrating just adds to the fish out of water fun. Of course Sandra Bullock still looks as pretty as ever, even when dressed like a full grown Heidi doll.

Besides the fact that Sandra Bullock looks both cute and not a little sexy, the appeal to me is that outfits like that just overwhelm any attempt I could make at looking boyish. I would love to look just like that - ridiculous, cute, sexy, vulnerable, pretty. To any woman who's had to battle to be taken seriously that probably sounds rather foolish - but I suppose I'm coming from the other end of the spectrum. I'm running away from being serious, responsible, smart - and straight to the outfits marked 'bimbo'. Just as often when I dress I want to look like a chic, sophisticated woman, but not all the time. Why should I put myself through the stress of trying to get everything just right, immaculately detailed and convincingly natural when I'm dressing up for fun? It's great when it all comes together perfectly, but why bother with such hard work all the time?

Anyway in the film, Sandra still gets to kick ass, so where's the problem?

As an aside - it's so frustrating to see high quality outfits that work so well and be completely unable to find anything nearly as nice. Sandra, if you happen to read this and kept the costume, maybe you're getting bored of it now, you can always drop me a message.

17 september 2005

I was browsing the usual shopping sites online the other day, with the television on in the background. Through my internet-induced coma, I vaguely heard the following:

'Now you can collect FIRE ENGINES OF EUROPE with our new magazine!'

And people say we're weird for dressing in women's clothing?

4 july 2005

I hope you haven't been expecting anything too exciting.

If you have, the best I can offer are these pictures.

5 november 2004

What is it about the 5th of the month?

Not so much back from the dead as waking from the traditional summer tranny hibernation. Unlike bears that crawl into a cave to cope with miserably cold winters, trannies have a little studied tendancy to go into hiding during the hottest season. Strangely, despite the heat we grow our body hair as a form of camouflage - so we can wear shorts to visit relatives without getting them too worried. Hot wigs and complex underwear get put away, and other than the occasional whistful glance at floaty summer dresses, Claudia doesn't get out much.

Bah.

So, now it's cold and wet I can't think of a better time to wear as little as possible except maybe some padding to fill out those curves, tart around as usual and generally make a nuisance of myself. Yay.. and aren't the winter styles just delicious? Can someone lend me their credit card, I need to shop!

5 may 2004

See, I told you it's not a blog.

Just to prove I have a life outside of the internet and delicate lace lingerie, I've been running around doing other things that are (a) sadly more important than updating this website and (b) not even slightly interesting to you. So just accept that I'm busy, and that the photos and updates that I've been working on are a little delayed.

It's all a little stressfull really, but SBH is far better at coping than me. She saw that I was quite uptight the other day and gently suggested I should dress up. It's funny how I forget that finding time to relax and play actually helps. It's also funny how I still can feel dressing up is not a good thing - yet when I walk into the front room wearing a quite innappropriate little dress and impractical shoes the smile on her face is quite genuine. Yes, I can get it wrong and be obsessive and withdrawn, but at the right time being playful together is such fun (and yes, we were very playful thank you). She is utterly wonderful and a lot smarter than I am, which makes me a very lucky person.

The frankly amazing statistic for today is that since the site update, over ten thousand people are visiting this site each month. Wow. Now for the depressing bit. Of the last twenty thousand visitors, how many would you guess have visited one of the affiliate sites I link to and actually bought something? Of course, not a single person. The commission for an affiliate sale isn't a lot, but it's the only thing that goes towards the cost of keeping this site online. At the moment, it's also the only way I can justify another photoshoot. So, if you're a fan of sexy underwear, wild costumes or impractical shoes why not support this site by clicking on one of the adverts that show up in the top left of the page and buy something delicious - for yourself, for your partner, for your boss. Then bask in the knowledge that not only have you made the world a prettier place, you've also kept Claudia's Diversity online a little longer.

5 april 2004

The latest issue of Skin Two is out and... besides wishing I had long red hair and a lot of rope, both I and SBH took some time to drool over this coat from Ectomorph which has been added to the top of the 'please will somebody buy me this' list. How many ways are there to say "It's gorgeous"?

This week's weirdness comes from an out-of-the-blue email message:

    Please send me two sample copies of your magazines to:
    **** **** *** ********,Qom,Iran
    Ali *******

I'm not sure if I should be offended that the sheer professionalism of this website, combined with my sultry looks (hey, stop laughing!) has this poor boy confusing my personal pages with a porn mag. Maybe I should be more disgusted that, given this misconception, he wants not one but two free copies. Maybe I should just start charging. At least it makes a change from the usual indecent proposals. Britney, how many times must I say no?.

There's a big discussion going on about whether or not the 'Belle de Jour' blog, apparently by a London call girl is real or a literary hoax. Belle has apparently been offered a healthy sum as an advance to produce a book on the strengths of her writings. Having discovered her blog just before some very mainstream and non-sexual publications did, I can say that she's an interesting character. Her style is witty, intelligent and spelt properly - a particularly rare combination on the web, and something I aspire to. Her blog is the perfect combination of dry observations, little personal tales and the occasional dirty bit. The subject of whether she's a talented writer who's pretending to be a call girl, or a call girl who happens to be a talented writer is strange though. Which is the better option? Does it matter? Would it therefore be cheating to steal her idea of listing the underwear she's wearing in each diary entry - a sort of Bridget Jones without the whinging?

If she is real though, I bet she wouldn't need an excuse to buy that coat. Bitch.

(Knickers today: Simple, grey cotton. Cotton that started off grey. You know. Grrr. This sounded much sexier in my head.)

27 march 2004

Mmmmm... shopping. Nice parcels, pretty parcels.

On another note, I was talking a long while ago about a site that listed some of the 'fake t-girls' - people who either steal someone elses' pictures, or forge pictures in Photoshop to claim to be pretty trannies or shemales. Thanks to a kind girl called Marissa, I've now got the URL of the site in question - it's here!

13 march 2004

OMG I've been eaten by eBay. I was innocently wandering around, thinking happy thoughts when - BAM!

Like the bit in Superman when someone gives him a Kryptonite sandwich and he turns out bad for most of the rest of the episode, I've gone to the dark side. Or at least, bought a handful of really impractical things from around the world that all looked so cute when I first saw them. My credit card is currently looking dazed, a bit beaten up and is asking in a little voice "Wha.. what just happened?"

So, we're in the middle of the Superman bit where everyone is holding their breath waiting for the really bad thing to happen. Any moment now, parcels should come thudding onto the doorstep.

After that it'll get messy; there will be dressing up, photos, a last minute intervention from concerned friends and the madness will pass. I'll be cured, and we'll all feel that we've learned something from the whole sorry story.

Except I've just seen this wonderful pair of shoes...

8 march 2004

Waiting for a parcel to arrive this morning, listening out for the post van as I lay in bed. My Significantly Better Half was a bit worried about me being awake enough to answer the door.

SBH: "Are you listening out for the postman?"

Me: "Yes, I'm like a coiled spring."

SBH: *sigh* "More like a slinky, I think."

Mornings never were a good time for me.

6 march 2004

Now where was I? Site redesigned? Check. Set up for regular updates? Check. Banners in place? Ah... bum.

Oh well - I can fix that. There, done! Fast eh?

There are a couple of ideas for some new photos floating around my head, so it's time to go shopping. I've been going through a silly costume phase lately (some say it's lasted about thirty years now) and it'd be a lot of fun to just give in and go with the flow and get some bright and silly photos. It'll be a few weeks before I can bring it all together. That's no problem though, because this winter has left my skin much less than perfect. If you don't have shares in moisturiser companies, now is the time to invest.

If I can get some fresh air, lots of nice water and keep up with my beauty regime maybe I'll look as good as Annie Lennox does. The teenage MTV generation may look damn cool right now, but few of them will look that good a couple of years after their fifteen minutes are up. Annie Lennox on the other hand is amazing. Her appearance at the Oscars reminded me what a stunning woman she is, and how much I love her voice.

Now that reminds me - how do I go about doing a pop video? No, not me singing. Lip synching to a track whilst prancing around, now that would be fun! I'll add that to my list of ridiculous ambitions. In the mean time I need to decide which track to cover. Now who do I look like I'd sound like? Time for a quick quiz

1 march 2004

Soooo... here we go again..

Most of the new site is now in place, and the menus and other little flourishes seem to work. The biggest problem at the moment is that my nicely up to date, virus free and fresh PC doesn't have a suitably ancient copy of Internet Explorer to test things out with. I believe that the funky CSS stuff (that makes the menus look nice) doesn't work with IE5 - which is about one fifth of the visitors here. But until I can lay my hands on that browser, I've no idea how bad things look.

Oh well, at least it's easier for me to look at and update.

this is not a blog