Brands that make you shudder: 1. Boden

Boden. Online purveyors of strangely shaped 'fun' skirts and embellished cardigans to the chattering white middle classes of the UK.

Their marketing makes your teeth curl.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the ferocious Mumsnet group invited their members to a meet with the dress code "Boden", we now see that "Johnnie" - the MD who infuriatingly emails you as if he's known you all his life - has created a Boden community with blogs and aimless chit chat.

As you might imagine, all the Bodenettes who have signed up so far have sickly sweet little names like Passion Flower and Secret Star, and they're all busily exchanging tips about cup cake makers, flowery pinnies and villas where you can take the kids.

Now I do possess a few items of Boden clothing, but I order a lot fewer these days, ever since they started posting reader reviews. Now you can save yourself the trouble of ordering a skirt or dress and being mystified by its cut, a classic Boden problem, because you can read about it before you order.

But I don't buy into the sugary halcyon image that Boden likes to portray. The whole thing is a bit creepy. Boden women have straight figures with no waist or bust. Notice how nothing is ever vaguely low cut because surely that would be offensive to the children. The label is now aiming for global domination, with various new lines including a less garish women's line and kids' clothes. And, I hear, they're targeting the US.

I suppose I should say "respect" to Johnnie as he seems to have hit the magic formula for reaching a particular demographic, but unfortunately the whole thing just makes me shudder.

Primitive marketing drives me round the bend

They say an Englishman's home in his castle, and I couldn't agree more. I would be more than happy to have a drawbridge and moat so that I could stop people leafleting the house at all hours of the day.

I had a real Victor Meldew moment today as I surveyed the detritus that makes up most of the post. I'd just spent a good half an hour de-cluttering the house. Considering there are only two of us, there is a lot to de-clutter! John's running gear and associated apparatus (water bottles, heart rate monitor, sheets of paper with stretching exercises, safety pins) seem to find their way all over the house. My hobby - scrapbooking and painting - also extends beyond the lean-to and you find buttons and glitter dust in the most unlikely places.

Anyway, I digress. Having done the de-cluttering, the post then arrived. For those who work at home, a pleasant milestone in the day. (Particularly if accompanied by the doorbell ringing, which means a nice parcel to open). Well, I had a subscription magazine; good, but it came in a plastic bag with several of those wretched inserts. A Lakeland catalogue. A Boden catalogue. More plastic, a whole sheaf of inserts from Lakeland, order forms, vouchers. Sheesh, why do these people still send me catalogues when they should KNOW they I only order online? Why are companies' marketing methods still so primitive? And both of them are always sending out new catalogues, as do Toast, whose "tastefully" lit catalogue is so gloomy the clothes look foul.

Then there was a letter from the bank. Apparently I have been chosen (along with millions of others) to be upgraded to some new type of account, which, reading between the lines, is just them promoting their call centre (which I already use) and having people interrogate me every time I enter the branch about why I haven't yet spoken to my "personal banking manager." Not to mention someone from the call centre ringing me and trying to talk me into loans, ISAs or whatever else they're trying to flog.

I noticed the letter gave a number to call if you didn't want to take advantage of this new service so I rang it. It took me to the call centre. Ideally, I should have been able to signal my "NO THANKS" by either entering some numbers into the phone, on my online bank account, or by ringing a number which was automatically answered by the "no thanks" person. Even better, I should have been offered the chance to opt in or opt out. But again, it's just poor marketing.

And while I'm ranting, I'll tell you another thing that makes me mad. MORI amd Gallup, the poll people, keep sending people round with clipboards to do surveys. They have called twice now about getting us to do a survey on buying new cars. It's quite hard to get rid of them, as if it's our duty to speak to them. One of them very indignantly said "we do pay you know,". I don't care what they're paying: I'm not divulging lots of private information which then goes God knows where.

Nothing to wear!

Male readers suppress that wry smile. It's true, I have nothing to wear! You see, I indulged in a Trinny and Susannah style raid on my wardrobe, having brought down the summer clothes from the loft. Garment after garment was thrown into a black bin liner. "Too old," "too middle-aged," "never wear it."

The outcome was that there's a lot more room in the wardrobe, but finding an outfit for the office yesterday was quite a trial. The fluctuations of the English weather don't help. Normally, for my one or two days in the office, I wear dark trousers or a skirt and a jumper (short sleeved for summer). Before you visualise reindeers on the jumper or cute embroidery, they are very plain cashmere jumpers from M&S. And I usually wear some large-ish beads in dark colours.

But now that we're on the cusp of spring and summer, my two grey skirts were ruled out because opaque tights don't seem right, but nor will I be seen dead in sheer tights. And it's too early for bare legs, so that ruled out last year's pair of navy city shorts too, and a cream skirt that I love but have only worn once.

So that left me with trousers: black or brown, two pairs, or new, cream flannel (but I have the sneaking feeling they make me look fat). There are three other pairs but they've all mysteriously gone half-mast. Perhaps I'm confounding science by continuing to grow? The only way I can wear those trousers again is by buying ballet pumps, but as they're the most uncomfortable footwear known to woman, and old hat now to boot, I won't be doing that.

Eventually I put on what I call my David Bowie Oxford bags: fairly wide dark brown trousers that come up to the waist, Simon Cowell style. (But that's trendy now, right?). But what a time it took. I thought I looked a bit wintery at the time I left home when it was sunny, but by the time I got to Swindon it was pouring with rain and I was lamenting the fact I hadn't brought a coat.

Ideally, I should seek out some beautifully cut Joseph trousers, uplevel my cashmere to Brora and source some spectacular beads. I need more shoes too. And I used to have several simple shift dresses in plain colours, but they seem very old-fashioned now with all these ghastly smock and empire line frocks around.

Clothes shopping has become a bit of a bete-noire. I just don't like doing it. When I go into most women's shops, there's a niggly voice inside my head that ruins the experience. It's constantly saying "your arms are too big for sleeveless," "you can't wear empire line," "your thighs are too big for those." And with shops like Zara, where the clothes are mysteriously sized, there's the stress of wondering what size you're going to have to have to buy. I am a fairly normal size 12 to 14, I would add (US eight to 10).

So I always scuttle back into the relatively stress-free environment of M&S in Marble Arch where the inner voice is largely silenced, and some of the Autograph and Limited collections are very good.

But it's not always a happy experience. There are always depessing racks of clothes that refuse to sell: the jumpers in hideous colours, ghastly cheap looking peasant style flouncy skirts in Per Uno and acres of Footglove shoes built for comfort. Coupled with hideous changing rooms with mirrors that act like searchlights, this is often not a pleasant experience and probably why so many of us buy clothes there without trying them on and then have to bring them back.

Mail order is not the answer either. I get some wonderful tops in flattering colours from Kettlewell Colours which don't need to be sent back, but when I bought clothes from Boden they always seem to be disappointing in fit and quality, but too much of a faff to send back, so they're kept but seldom worn. Life is too short to have to wait in for couriers all day, or have to go to the post office and queue for 20 minutes. So what's a girl to do? Answers on a postcard.