The day Amy died (with apologies to Frank O'Hara)

With love and squalor

I was on my way back from the beach. My friend Paul wanted directions and I was only half paying attention as I pissed about on Twitter. "Amy was a legend"- eh? “Amy you will be missed”. “RIP Amy”.

I cried. Remembering that moment makes me cry.

When I got together with the boy who broke my heart all I could listen to was Amy and The Pixies. Maybe I cursed the affair with sympathetic magic. No-one did heartbreak like Amy. He'd leave early in the morning and I'd walk to work listening to Wake Up Alone, my bones aching as if made from eggshells, happy because I was in love and sad from a spooky feeling that the whole thing was doomed.

And then, when the sorry thing finished itself I listened to In My Bed on a loop. The logical conclusion to love gone wrong. The only song that nails post break up sex. When she sings " Wish I could say it breaks my heart, like you did in the beginning" she sounds tough, not fragile. Sometimes she sounded delicate, but never in a little girl way, but always haunting, worn out, a woman who had lived.

When I got my first tattoo, it was Amy I was thinking about. She made me want to be a circus freak, a sailor girl, someone with spirit. I know a tatt is not a signifier of cool - Sam Cam has a bloody dolphin - but she wore hers with reckless, gorgeous grace. So many people leave marks on you that marking yourself is deeply satisfying. And when you have unhappy moments, it does you good to remind yourself where your own bones are.
It sounds stupid, but Amy sang about her thoughts and feelings and experiences so vividly she felt like a mate. She probably wouldn’t have thought we had anything in common. I’ve lived briefly in North London, but was never part of any kind of scene there. I’ve been on nights out that got out of hand and I’ve found that alcohol can block out pain and make happy times happier. She was dealing with addiction - I can't compare my experiences there with hers. But I have been in love with someone who didn't love me back. And Amy's music is at its most eloquent when it's about unrequited love. I try to wheedle stories out of tween pop stars sometimes, saying "so many singers talk about romance, but you know they're not feeling the song. With you, you can tell it's real. What are you connecting with as you sing?" Usually if they're singing about anything honest it's about snogging a Jonas brother and thinking about Justin Bieber. But Amy is the real bleak, black, beautiful deal. Back to Black is astonishing piece of music. The control of "and my tears dry, get on without my guy" and the soaring, keening "I died a hundred times" happen barely a minute apart in the same song. It’s unbearably honest – the second to second swing between wearing a façade and shattering it yourself because you just don’t care any more.
 
For all her brokenness, even though I knew she was constantly dealing with something frightening, she stayed inspiring. I loved her cartoonish beauty and the griminess and openness of her sexuality. She looked strong and brittle at the same time, a pin up girl gone wrong, and even though she was all hair and boobs she didn’t seem to care about making people think she was hot. . And the voice. The throwaway scatting at the beginning of ‘Stronger than me’. The buttery warmth of “There is no greater love.” Describing it as ‘soulful’ seems far too ephemeral. All I can do is compare her to other voices I love and say that to me she was wittier than Nina, deeper than Ella, warmer than Billie.
 

There aren't many women that just say 'fuck it' to all the gloss and styling and media training they're offered. It's boring, but as a woman there are so many variations on 'this is how you should be' and every time we fall over drunk or get a stain on our clothes, we feel that we've failed. But I connected with her scruffiness straight away. When Amy was photographed in her blood stained ballet pumps I felt desperately worried for her, but I loved her for not wearing heels.

I never saw her perform. I wasn't cool enough to catch the first wave, at her zenith, I never managed to come by tickets and then, later, I decided I'd wait until she was 'better'. I didn't want to be part of that crowd who paid to watch her stumble and mumble, cackled and demanded their money back. Sometimes I had silly daydreams about setting up some sort of short term rehab for her (I also planned to invite Britney Spears). I wanted her to come and stay for a long weekend. I'd feed her up on vegetable risotto and really buttery toast, wrap her in blankets, put her on the sofa and make her watch Clueless and Empire Records. I'd run her a hot bath with my nicest Molton Brown bubbles and chat to her from the loo seat while she was in the tub, and talk about boys. How boys can be so much more fragile than girls, how the wrong boys would rather slowly destroy you than nurture the gifts you have and how important it is to find people who nourish and love you.

I don't think it would have done any good. I'm still sad I never met her, and so happy I discovered her music.

Dear fringe...

Dear Fringe,

When it started I thought we had something special. You made me feel skinnier, prettier and younger than I had done in ages. You wanted so much, so fast, but that was ok, right? We had the whole summer. I thought we were going to be like Kate Moss and Docherty in the halcyon days of 2005. Maybe we still are. Look how that ended.

You moved onto my face five days ago and I want you gone, you awkward, wonky, serum guzzling fucker.

You might not like what I want to watch on TV, but there's no need to hang over my eyes to stop me watching. That's spiteful. I looked hot in glasses until you came along and made me feel like Dana Carvey in Wayne's World.

I've committed to you. Commitment wasn't my idea. You made me. Why can't you at least show me the same respect. Why do you keep hanging about with my other hair, getting caught up with all the long bits and ruining my look. I'm always chasing you. I never asked to do this much chasing. You don't act like part of my hair cut - you act like a child!

I used to think that maybe we could hang out sometimes, hook up, stay friends without being involved. But I don't think it's going to be like that for us, it's all or nothing. It's not like it was with my last fringe, side fringe.

One day I'll look back at this and laugh. There were some good times, right? But I won't get fooled again. In the meantime, you've got some growing to do.

Love, Daisy

Dear Nadine...

Today I sent an email to Nadine Dorries following her comments about introducing extra abstinence themed sex education for girls. Here it is:

Dear Ms Dorries,

I was shocked and saddened by your suggestions for changing sex
education in schools.

I write for a national teen girls magazine, and I'm the elder sister of
teenage girls. I'm very aware that teens are faced with thousands of
challenging choices and an overload of information can make it difficult
to pick the right one. I'm also very aware that my sisters and the teen
readers I come into contact with daily are intelligent, vivacious
informed young women who will seek out as much information as possible
when it comes to making the right choice.

Even though our culture is a seemingly permissive one, young women are
still judged and damaged by old rules that dictate that they are going
to be judged by their sexual behaviour. Especially when there are barely
any guidelines governing teenage boys or young men, who live in an
increasingly sexualised world and are not pressured to be held
accountable for their behaviour.

Before girls are targeted with extra sex education, boys desperately
need much more education and information about the importance of respect
and consent, and the danger of basing their sexual expectations on
pornography. Girls do need more sex education, but the kind that teaches
them to respect themselves - obviously, acknowledging the risk of
pregnancy and the importance of the age of consent is vital, but the
message I impart to the girls who read my features and the one I wish I
could give every single young woman in the country is this:

Sex with someone who cares about you is wonderful. Sex with someone who
doesn't care about you can be dreadful. When you're young, hormones and
emotions can lead you to make bad decisions, but there shouldn't be any
decisions you make where the consequences ruin your life. This means
contraception and abortion should be freely available, but also that no
one - not a boy or a teacher or a parent or a politician - should ever
make you feel sad and ashamed about what you have done with your body.

The best way to foster rebellion or unhappiness in a teenage girl is to
dictate the way she should feel about her body. As someone in the media
I'm proud to take responsibility in enforcing positive ideas about body image, and
encourage readers to feel in control of their bodies. As a politician I
feel you have a great responsibility to encourage girls to take
ownership of their bodies and themselves - and if you pressure girls to
stay chaste, then you're making girls feel just as powerless and
potentially alienated as someone pressuring them into sexual activity
is.

I hope you consider my comments, and if you would like any further
information about the subjects I have mentioned I would be happy to
assist.

Kind regards

Daisy