Katwalker: Rough work if you can get it

The light switch over the moot question of wages in our industry was recently flicked by our esteemed editor on the front page of Ragtrader's March 23 issue, based on a scary report that spot lit exactly how much of a mug you'd have to be to work in TCF manufacturing these days. I thought coal workers had a rough trot - all those fumes and perilous dust

particles that give one's complexion and personage the general appearance of a conning tower - until I heard that TCF workers are over 20,000 smackers less well off a year than fossil fuel jockeys. Honestly, who would want to work in TCF? I don't know the answer to this, but I'm glad there's still a few of you out there, otherwise we at Ragtrader would all be out of a job.

Although, thinking about it, if that happened we might be forced to move our weary backsides into one of those in-house editorial positions with a large pay packet attached, communications manager at Coal Smut Incorporated for example. Fashion may have the appearance of unattainable price tags, gazelle-like models and all those other silly attributes that make us yearn, but, as we all know, the reality has about as much allure as a date with Pete Doherty.

High street retailer Ojay, which recently garnered the Sweatshop Award 2007 "for excellence in avoiding transparency and accountability", no doubt knows a thing or two about this. I'm honestly not sure whether poor old Ojay has really been harbouring warehouses full of frightened slave wage earners or, which is more likely, has failed to comply with the award's outworker protection measures in its paperwork. Either way, the retailer will no doubt be working hard to polish its less than gleaming image in future... I wish the same could be said of certain supermodels.

Is it me or is anyone confused about Naomi Campbell? I'm torn between two urges. The first is to throw a mobile phone at her head, but most likely it would bounce off with a metallic "kloing"; La Campbell is clearly an unrepentant hardhead. I almost fell for her demure community-service-toilet-cleaning gag and was poised to write a column about how her dressed down look would more than likely spawn a rash of "department of sanitation chic" imitations.

When she left community service dressed in a couture gown however, with a putative W magazine deal already in the bag, that's when my own phone-or-any-other-heavy-object throwing urge kicked in. As I said, there are two urges at work here though. Violent rage at Campbell's arrogance in the wake of her allegedly unhinged behaviour was also tempered by something I find it shameful to admit to; a very teeny tiny, oh-so-secret modicum of admiration. I know, I know, it's wrong to admire such appalling behaviour, even in a "micro" way. But sometimes it's just so good to be bad... which sums up Campbell herself really.