Have you heard the raindrops drumming on the rooftops?

Have you heard the raindrops dripping on the ground? Have you heard the raindrops splashing in the streams? And running to the rivers all around? You have to use your imagination a bit for the last one. But finally! I'm really enjoying the two things I've been waiting so long for, in my unbearably hot and cripplingly Primark-bereft universe: Rain and Sales. Today I noticed 50% Off sales in Oasis, Miss Selfridge, Debenhams (still doing those amazing cheapo make-up packs incidentally - why haven't you bought them all yet?), Warehouse, Top Shop, H&M, and, I don't know, wherever else you can think of.

If you're ever looking for high streets stores online, this is better than a kick in the face. If you can read the fonts.

Every holiday romance must come to an end, and that sequinned slag Oasis finally broke my heart today when I noticed that the shop has started giving style advice on its website - patronising, smacking of capitalistic self-interest, and further proof that Oasis, although catchy and popular, will never be as good as Blur. And now they're selling waistcoats. Cripes! It's like 1991 all over again! Except that actually the Oasis waistcoats are quite nice, smart and businessy, and much as I disdain of recycled "looks" a part of me will always thrill at the thought of the rat race restyled into millions of highflying Cissys. Cigarette-holders are too-goth but in every other respect the 1920s cross-dressing lesbian look must be the only novel vintage look left, and I'm sure you'll agree that if the world needs anything, it's more girls in monocles.


Jesus brings us the water of life, but St Michael brings us the glasses of shade. They really are doing some terrifically exciting sunglasses at the moment, around £10. (Although the real bargain is in New Look (naff website - gasp!) who've sensibly lost the stick-on jewelling/ pink-tinted glass of 2004 and are turning out nice ones for about £5.) Marks and Spencers might just be my surprise summer favourite, in fact, if only for their acknowledgement (unique on the high street) that sequins on vests look naff, and their generous provision of very pleasing alternatives: plain basic vests and frankly superior linen shirts. Per Una hasn't quite got it right yet, they're still trying (and perhaps that is the problem). Turn your back on the Per Unas and the Autograph and anything advertised by Claire Sweeney's baps, and instead look properly at the "basics" they barely even try to sell. If you can't imagine yourself wearing it, try it on. Unlike Top Shop, these things are made to fit. M&S has had a bad rap but M&S is clever, and when M&S isn't trying to be clever, it is cleverest of all. I think there's a lesson for all of us there.