Acceptable in the 80s

We have been having a succession of dreary, drizzly days here. Fortunately, I have a secret weapon to ward off rainy day blues...

I went through a phase of collecting 80s girls annuals - Patches, Blue Jeans, Jackie. They are packed with endearing photo love stories, dreamy pin-ups, entertaining quizzes, and ideas for inventive things to do on a rainy day...

There are some cracking suggestions here: 'Crawl everywhere! Everyone'll think you've gone mad!'; 'Put on your youngest-looking clothes and go to a children's matinee. Join in the jokes and eat plenty of ice-cream'; 'Clean the inside of your bedroom window and watch the outside being cleaned for you by the rain'. I decided to brighten up my rainy day by following one of the last injunctions: 'Give yourself a rainbow face, 'cos you often see a rainbow when it rains!' - here is the result.

My third and final play this term, which opens next Tuesday, is set in the 80s. I have gleefully taken this as an excuse to seek out films like Sixteen Candles, to hunt through charity shops for shoulder-padded chic, and to experiment with make-up. Elsewhere in the annual, Patches '86 advocates such classic combinations as orange and pink for eyelids, so I decided to try it out. The above photo does not quite convey how much make-up I had on - I felt like the widow Twanky, and yet I appear positively subdued in contrast to this audacious party look:

It's difficult to know where to start - the jaundiced stripe above her cheek bone, the darkened brows... The thing that most attracted me to this image, though, was the slightly wonky phalanx of stars marching across her forehead. It reminds me of a look I attempted to create for myself when I was about 13, that involved a similar line of jewels carefully Pritt Stick-ed to my visage.