Recently by Diane Parkes

THE new spring campaign from Next is just hitting the shops and I was expecting something really amazing having been told they had overhauled their marketing images this year.

But has anyone noticed a dramatic difference in their look?

IF there is one thing more tedious than buying clothes for your boyfriend, it has to be helping a friend buy clothes for hers.

How many Paul Smith shirts do I have to look at and try to picture her boyfriend wearing?

And why does my opinion actually matter?

I came back from a holiday abroad proudly displaying my goodies - which included a very expensive designer leather bag which is to take pride of place in the wardrobe.

But you can't please everyone. On its first public showing, my mother dismissed it with the following words...

"I can't believe that someone who comes from Walsall would buy a leather bag from anywhere else. Don't you know that Walsall is the home of the leather trade? If you wanted a bag you should have gone to the Leather Museum in Walsall and bought one from there."

That is the last time that bag is seeing the light of day.

Thank goodness all those racks of tatty old sales clothes are finally being removed from the shops.

I never understand that mad rush to buy things which have been on a rail for months just because there is suddenly "one-third off".

The very reason they have been left at the end of the season is because they were so awful no-one wanted to buy them the first time round. But hey, offer a bit of cash off something which was over-priced in the first place, and it suddenly becomes something we can't live without.

Personally I never sale shop. I can't be bothered with the crowds, with trying to find something my size or with then having to check them from top to bottom for lipstick smudges, pulled threads and missing buttons.