You see, I hear your pain. I, too, suffered from bad haircutitis, a rare follicle condition peculiar to the ’80s that no woman should endure today.

Ok – back the truck up: is that the past tense being used by the Gluc? Clearly that should be ‘suffer’ – present tense. Elsewhere in the article Gluc goes on to suggest…

Not that I’m mocking your style. In a woman’s magazine spread recently, you appeared all shiny, polished and new. I’m just saying, it’s funny, isn’t it, how far you’ve come.

Yes. It is great how far Sara has come, after all she built one of the country’s only successful modelling agencies – so she’d probably know an ounce about style. Pity the same can’t be said for the Gluc – on either front.

The second stunning post is Rachel’s sorry take on Kiwi girls ‘storming the world’. It justifies it’s own post which will follow shortly. We’ve decided at D&D that the sheer regularity with which the Gluc fails, we have no choice but to start numbering them. We’ll restart the clock at zero and this is now officially GlucFail#1

As has been disclosed, we’ve been in regular conversation with fauxialite and Gluc-creation/celebutante Ms. Going for about 3-4 months now. And she seems pleasant enough and has been happily obliging to a very long drawn out and extended conversational interview via the web. Which we are most appreciative of and respectful of.

However, all has ground to a halt this week as she has kindly requested us not to proceed posting anything due to a family illness.

What do you think readers? Shall we proceed, or shall we oblige?

It’s good chop to cut your teeth as an asipring docu-photo-journo-social. We’re not even doing a hell of a lot of content yet here at D&D but our readership continues to inexplicably grow so it’s good exposure and maybe you’ll get into all the cool parties just like our friend Norrie.

And if the quality is there – we may even pay you. No seriously, we may just do that.

Seems like someone in the Twitterati decided to turn the tables on our dear friend? It was reported in the Herald on Sunday that someone was ‘impersonating’ Rachel on Twitter (which in itself is an incredible honour). This has been a common instance internationally of late, and Twitter have willingly obliged to remove or ‘clamp down’ on said impersonators of credibly, well known people of note.

Herald says, “Twitter refuses to identify ‘fake Glucina’” – well, if they had to deal with every ‘fake’ Tom, Dick and Sally then they’d have even LESS of a business model than they currently do because all they’d end up being is one big call centre (probably in India…) dealing with the wannabe’s trying to ‘protect’ their name. I guess Glucina isn’t a big enough name over in Twitter HQ to warrant attention. Shock. Horror. How. Can. That. Be.
Thankfully Twitter didn’t oblige to the strong-arming from Auckland. “Twitter has refused to identify who was behind the fake Glucina, saying it does not give out such information”. And in any case, as the Valleywag notes, ‘everyone is a fake’ on Twitter even the fake Christopher Walken who exists no longer in the Twittersphere.

Glucina, who is not a member of Twitter, became aware someone was impersonating her when a friend alerted her to the fake account on March 24.

“It was hurtful that someone could write such ugly, defamatory comments under my name,” she said

You will find us fakin’ it good now on Twitter at twitter.com/obamaandmichelle so *follow us!* with glee.

Does anyone in New Zealand actually use Twitter? “Tweet” us if you do…we find it all a little over-rated and a lot undercooked.

Marcarena (Mark Harrison & Carena West)
The question today is whether they are still a couple or not – however fan feedback has required we cover them anyway. D&D’s requests for clarification to Ms West were unanswered as of Friday.

Mark’s a likable charming rogue with a cheeky side although we don’t really know what he does. We heard a rumour about something to do with fences and that seems to be verified by a recent Facebook comment about Mark sending $430 to a ‘Matt Rose’ for referring a fencing job his way?

Historically, Mark’s propped up many a bar in many a year in his time. We do recall with fondness however the first time he really hit the ‘press’ years ago for his supposed relations with Charlotte Dawson and when he put up his hand at a charity auction for the winning bid on a swathe of diamonds that he never really intended to pay for – (and bid below reserve anyway so didn’t have to) but kudos for the stunt and the balls. Rumoured to have bedded the said lovely Ms Dawson, Carena has been the eye candy on Harrison’s arm for some years of late – that is, up until now perhaps?

You may or may not recall that we covered young Carena previously highlighting a Facebook faux-pas,  running paid ads for her personal ‘Page’. We think her page has, subsequent to our article, been removed as we can no longer find it anywhere in the Face-osphere – if you can pls advise D&D. Carena, is the perpetual tier-2 pageant Queen and hosts a typically pedestrian blog on such riveting topics as tiaras over at the A-List. You will find her appearing as a promo girl at events all over town dressed in not a lot.

Status as at today? Well after a stream of ‘sad’ and ‘upset’ Facebook updates from the two, it appears Carena still features in Mark’s Facebook profile pic – although so does another equally scantily clad brunette. So we can’t interpret what that means.

Mark +2

Mark’s still heavily featuring in on-campus life during  ‘Orientation’ with girl’s just about half his age for as far as the eye can see. We think he’s still the host of Trivia/Quiz Night at the Uni pub ‘Shadow’s’ which must also provide a fresh stream of youngsters to meet, but we have to be honest and admit we’ve never actually gone and checked this out. All being said and done, D&D posit that this kind of socialising and larakining probably has partly contributed to whatever rift or break-up that may or may not exist between the two.

Mark is now also a ‘commentator’ on the A-List, most recent event ‘covered’ being the Masquerade Ball. O for Osome.

Interesting couple or ex-couple, doesn’t appear to be a lot going on though and as noted, not sure what the future holds and all comments/debate is welcome.

Style: 3
Money: 1
Controversy: 3
Local Cred: 2
Global Cred: 0

Thirdly, we’ve decided we’re going to kind of get into a bi/weekly rhythm vs a sporadic unpredictable flow…month of April we have earmarked a few topics to focus the lense on and should avoid the droughtness. Included is the couplet profile on MurAnna (Murray Bevan and Anna Fitzpatrick, to open to debate), the microscope on what we found of Kiwi’s in aSmallworld, the results of our interview with Pearl Going and cohorts (this is so long it probably needs to be a Part I, II, III and IV…and whatever else we pick up along the way.

Lastly, talk soon…have faith. Don’t be a hater ;)

But we’re back. And we’re soliciting your help so that these ‘spells’ of silence can be avoided.

And we’re on the lookout for more goods, bads and uglies… but I think we’re going to start with the goods, to be positive!

Well, we had our latest article all written up (profile on MarCarena) but they went and got all broke up, so we had to scratch it.

Also, we want to hear from more of you…so, let’s have it please – get in touch..

Another embarassment for our small but proud nation is about to unfold, televised for us all to see.

The original American version is so classless, embarassing and cringe-worthy enough we can’t even start to think about contemplating how imagining how painfully excrutiating the Village’s version will be.

But we’ll hold our breath.

Let's pray. For their sake.

The ugly details unveiled at the Herald this week include the following shockers:

The remaining models were treated to an appearance by kooky fashion designer Lucie Boshier and model Ngahuia Williams.

The inside word is that Williams – best known as the model who fronted campaigns for fashion label Max – has been hired to live in the mansion as a “mother hen”, teaching the girls about the grace and poise needed to be a model.

But Williams…scrambled clumsily over the mansion’s electronic fence, flashing her knickers to passers-by.

Awesome. Class personified. But she is gorgeous.

Really, though, to be honest we are far more concerned with the involvment of the appalling Boshier, “rumoured to be supplying clothing for photoshoots”. Kooky.

God. Help. Us. All.

Choo-choo

Said she was not allowed to say anything about her involvement with the show.

“But I can’t wait for it to start on TV. I really want to watch the whole thing.”

Of course she can’t – our Boshier is the best example of those who think that any-PR is good PR and that being ‘wild’ and ‘out-there’ and ‘yourself’ and ‘colourful’ is the way to be great and amazing and so great and amazing – grrrrrl-power etcetera etcetera.

God. Help. Us. All.

She probably paid to be on the show, well, she would have if she could afford it but as her business implodes and the closing of the shop etc I’m sure that’s not a technical possibility either.

In any case, the winner will land a magazine cover shoot and representation from a modelling agency.

Repeat that?

Sounds like the winner wins absolutely nothing at all, and just like every other reality show in New Zealand in the highly unlikely case that any one at all is going to end up as a “winner”, it’s most likely only going to be (in order), the producers of the show, the agency, and maybe maybe the on-air-media-exposure-PR-hungry ‘talent’ hosting it.

Why are we so dark on this?

Well, it’s just that we know it goes against everything we need to be doing to lift the game in the Village.

If you’re going to do a show like this, get some world class involvement and calibre involved and at least give the winner something that they actually win. Like a small car, or a holiday or a wardrobe, or just something. Plus, as a curation of our view of models and fashion – the risks with this show are enormous on the young girls around the country being misled and misdirected by totally unqualified commentators and ‘personalities’.

Bleugh….the train rolls on.

We so badly want to be proved wrong on this BTW.

It all started when we were innocently minding our own Facebook and ignoring the ads on the right, as you do – when lo and behold, we recognised the model in one of them. All of a sudden we were inflicted by an ad from none other than Ms Carena West. Yes, the ‘brand’ Ms Carena West. Like Coke, or Pepsi – Ms West is now a brand people. A brand that advertises in social media.

The ad is what Facebook call ‘Social Ads’, and we quote Mark Zuckerface himself: “Page Admins will have an opportunity to incrementally increase distribution as well with paid advertising. Paid promotion are the Social Ads created specifically to promote traffic to your Facebook Page.”

Now, it’s one thing to be naturally popular and have a lot of fans – like, say, Flight of the Conchords (497,023 at last count). And then another altogether to start shelling out the dough to recruit to break the 50 mark. D&D posit: how is this different from ‘rent-a-crowd’ for your own 21st? Is it? Hard to tell. Click to see what we’re talking about…

Reinventing the phrase 'rent-a-crowd' to have new meaning for the Facebook generation

Carena West is one of New Zealand’s hottest rising media stars. First spotted on Sky TV’s Miss Hawaiian Tropic Uncovered and Celebrity Treasure Island in 2006, Carena has gone on to feature in magazines, beauty pageants and on television world-wide.

Talented enough to achieve winning Miss New Zealand Asia Pacific and Miss Hawaiian Tropic NZ in the same year, Carena was also the face of clothing brand Stella Gregg and make up brand Designer Brands.

From April 2009 Carena is starring in the Prime TV show Girl Racers, competing against eight other stunning models for victory in this octane-packed show.

In regular life, Carena is the owner of the Miss Hawaiian Tropic NZ bikini pageant which takes place every year. Carena, who has a Diploma in Fashion Design, is also studying for a Bachelor of Business majoring in advertising.

Become a fan and keep in touch with Carena’s ongoing TV and modelling achievements.

You want more punishment? Fine…

Facebook Page

Carenawest.com (simply directs to Carena’s own riveting blog within the section which comprises the ‘A-List’s contributing Z-list ‘bloggers’.)

Misshawaiiantropic.co.nz (which also directs to the Miss HT Coverage page on none other than, surprisingly enough: the A-List.)

Call us Sherlock’s but I think we’ve picked up a closed-loop connection.

West = Miss HT > < A-List x Z(squared)-blogger = West

Is it right to judge her by the company she keeps? As the saying goes, all publicity is good publicity. So we guess West should be happy. But, seriously now – what is it that she does anyway?  Whatever it is, we’re pretty sure it won’t be ranking highly in the D&D ratings.

“If you were to read nothing else about Auckland but these columns you might believe the place is filled with beautiful people leading terrifically exciting lives of free booze and even freer sex.”

So true.