…just on line, rather than in a newspaper magazine. Well, that’s the plan, anyway.
I’ll do my best to have it waiting for you each Saturday morning, but there may be some teething problems as I get my head round a new deadline, the time difference and – most crucially – remembering to put the post up after I’ve written it.
I’ve had a legendary team of subs (hi Ros! hi Cindy!) to do that part of it for me for the past twelve years, so I’ll have to get on top to the extra discipline.
And, over time, as that becomes a reflex in my working life, I’m hoping you will be able to make reading this online part of the delicious weekend routines and rituals that so many of you have told me about on my other blog, when you heard the column wasn’t going to be in the paper anymore.
Ah, yes, the other blog. I am going to keep that one going, as the reading record it started off as . I also have plans for a third platform, on more general topics (it’s a full life…) and the idea is to bring it all together in one website, which should be ready to fly in the New Year.
I’m rather excited about properly engaging with the brave new world of blogging I find myself thrust into. I’ve wanted to do get more active on line for a couple of years, but held back for fear it would stop people buying the paper.
Now I am free of such trifling concerns (so last century…) and hope that you will hop aboard the flume ride with me.
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Style Notes 
Whee indeed! I feel a bit giddy with excitement myself. Maggie – delighted the column will now be a blog. The website is a delicious new year’s anticipation.
Welcome to your new ‘home’ – where I’m sure your readership is about to explode!
Thank you – my second comment! I am terrified no one will notice, as I was so befuddled at the time I was writing it I didn’t think to put the link to this on my last column, so thank you SO much. xxx
Hooray! Looking forward to it Maggie.
Ooh! My first comment. Thank you so much. Please tell all your friends…. It’s all a bit terrifying, as you can imagine. Maggie xxx
Glad to see you have made it to WordPress! Looking forward to reading your column here. Will tell all my friends. 🙂 xx
Well done! It’s looking great and can’t wait till January to see the new site! x
Nothing to fear- those who love your musings will follow you wherever you go 🙂
I’ll be looking forward to reading your column each saturday when it’s delivered to my inbox. 🙂
Excellent! **Rubbing hands with happy anticipation (although I fear I look evil doing so.)**
Best of luck with the new venture – exciting stuff indeed.
Squuueeee! I can still get my Maggie dose every Saturday. This is fabulous news as are the plans for the new blog. I can’t wait! ♥
That is very exciting and helps me feel less downhearted about the end of your column. Now I just have to decide whether to keep bting the Age, something which I am more and mor edisinclined to do.
Looking forward to continuing to read on Saturdays, and hopefully webpage soon.
Cheers
Thank goodness – I was already dreading the Age arriving on Saturday sans Maggie! Having shrugged off the paper-based shackles there will be no stopping you now! Will watch with interest and as always, great enjoyment. Jacqui
I am so pleased and EXCITED for you …and for me to be able to continue to read your column here 🙂 thank you Maggie!! Good luck.
Hi Maggie,
I hope you are well. I would like you to write a column about your observations of how difficult it is for once funky, but now aging homos, to remain funky. Seriously I am 41 and my options are increasingly limited. I’m not ready for high pants and cannot carry off an “Ali G” look without great mirth.
XM
Ha ha ha. That is such a great idea. Watch out for it! xxx
Thank you SO much for all these lovely encouraging posts. I know I keep saying this, but I want to get the message out: please tell your friends!
How exciting! Can’t wait to read your column each week xx
Oh, Maggie, I’m so relieved. I threw my hands up in horror when I caught up on your column yesterday. Now I can still get my weekly fix. I wonder if Stephanie Dowrick is doing something similar. To have both of you bid farewell from the SMH at once was crushing for me. Yes, go ahead and embrace the blogosphere. I’ve only been blogging for four months but am astounded at how many delightful people blog. Enjoy! J x
Looking forward to more Maggie!
Welcome to wordpress.
Bravo Maggie! I love how you have turned a problem into an opportunity. I’m sure you will have a much wider audience now than you ever had before. So great to see you moving forward. I’ll spread the word.
Thanks so much, Judy. That is exactly how I feel about it. I feel really liberated. I’ve got to turn that feeling into $$$ for the family (I’m the breadwinner…) but I’ve always believed to get on with what you DO and the money will follow. Hope I’m right! xxxx
HOOOOOOOOORRRRRAAAAAYYYYYY! this is even better than my idea of you writing for our local paper in Townsville.
Now you aren’t tied to Sydney (and Melb) can you PLLLLLEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSSEEEEE sometimes chuck in a few style notes for us north qlders. You know, stuff for hot and humid ladies who still want to look stylish.
Love
Louise in Townsville
That is a REALLY good point. Thanks so much. xxx
Thanks Louise – I’ll do my best, although that’s the climate I find it hardest to dress for. What are your tips?
Regular Saturday morning alert set …. see you next Saturday and the one after and the one after that. xx
Thanks, Sarah! It is a whole new world of opportunity as now people in countries apart from Australia will be able to read it… Thanks so much for your support xxxxx
Hi Sarah – I’ve actually changed the rules since I posted that (must change it…) and I post every day now xxx
There was a tagline for a Sydney Sunday paper I shall repurpose and say Saturday isn’t Saturday in Sydney without Ms Maggie A..
You are always a must-read even tho I am distinctly not a fashionista..that is your charm. Enjoy this next adventure Maggie
Oh thanks so much for that Virginia – it still feels odd to me. I write a piece every Sunday for the Age, which you can read on line.
it looks beautiful! here’s to wonderful new frontiers. be not afraid maggie .. we’re all coming with you! xx
Brilliant! At the risk of being selfish, this suits me MUCH better as the SMH stopped publishing your columns online a while ago so those of us without easy access to the Sydney papers had to go without!
Congrats Maggie, and look forward to the ongoing Style Notes.
Glad to see your column online! It is in my favourites already…
VERY exciting. You are bookmarked in the best part of my bookmark bar, right between The Sartorialist and Twitter 🙂
Wow, I am seriously honoured to be anywhere near the LEGEND that is The Sartorialist xxx
Maggie! I was bracing myself to miss you – no longer necessary! x
See you online! xxx
Gracious me this is such an exciting development especially as it wasn’t always easy for us non east coasters to get access to your paper column anyway! I am so looking forward to establishing a Saturday routine with your column. Tanti baci,
Cat
So far I’m having great fun with it! x
Yay! I always forgot to buy the paper so this is perfect!
Great work Maggie! Embrace the online world, you have no idea where it can take you!
That’s what I’m hoping! Should have done this years ago, but was trying to be ‘loyal’…. Hmmmmm. x
Yay now i can let my weekend newspaper subscription lapse you were one of the main reasons why I’ve kept it this past few years. Looking forward to your posts and following your great develolments in the new year. Xx
I did try telling them that…! See you on line xxx
I was away and didn’t get to your column until today – most unusual! I was still sleepy as reading it early am so was doing a doubletake and squinting at the ‘farewell’ in the headline. Well no matter, I’ve read practically everything you’ve written and LOVE it all, books, columns, blogs – only some of your tweets though as I only started Twitter recently. And they are as witty and funny as the rest – you are wonderful! One thing I regret is that I didn’t send you our marvellous sunscreen years ago when you wrote about sticky awful stuff – you must have been living in Aust then – I wasn’t sure where to send it, but I felt for you. I’m sure you don’t need it much where you live now. I can help with the rosacea too but don’t want to make this an ad! I can send you details if you tell me where. So glad that you will be blogging the column now – and I’m buying your latest book this week – will be downloading it as the first to read on my ipad. All the best with your new techno writing venture.
Thanks Robin. Tell me about the sunscreen and the rosacea. The latter is much better thanks to mineral make up, but still interested. And welcome aboard! Maggie xxx
excellent – I feel like I have found a funky new online space to hang out.
I have subscribed and look forward to all the updates
yay! thank you xxx I’m excited.
Welcome to a world without borders…. and from those of us sitting in New Zealand where the Age newspaper costs $23.50 and comes on a Monday, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Welcome to a world without borders…. and a loyal reader in New Zealand where the Age newspaper costs $23.50 and comes on a Monday, thank you, thank you, thank you!
Now THIS makes me happy. I’m so excited to think that I might be read in other countries now. I never put the column on line out of loyalty, thinking it might stop people buying the paper if they could get it for free, but I was aware it was limiting my horizons. Now I’m heading for infinity and beyond! Please tell all your friends who might not know my stuff and might like it! xxx
I’m sooooo excited for you Maggie! Congratulations!
I’m sure you will be as magnificent online as you are in print!
I’ve been reading your column + books [forever]+ blog [more recently] and I love them all! I have regular conversations with you [in my head :)] and I wish we were friends and could sit for hours sipping tea and talking scarves and shoes, mothers and daughters, fashion magazines, books, and Paris, Paris, Paris…
Somehow I feel that we are on the same page – sounds a bit funny/spooky [?] when put like that but that is how I feel – I see many common themes in our lives, from the Balkan connection to the world of publishing and plenty more in between.
I’m currently reading Shall We Dance?- up to p.96 and loving it!!!! I had to stop and take a deep breath when I read about the ‘accessories orgy’ [top of p.72] How did you know that? I’m from that brigade – have been various sizes in my adult life – from 12 to 20 and back to 10 [12 at the moment] and jewellery + shoes have been my saviour in larger times :)!
I’m blabbering a bit [please forgive me] but I LOVE this interactive medium!
I hope you feel strong, confident and really loved by all your readers! I’m sure your column in its new format will be even more popular than the previous one!
All the best Maggie!
PS: I’m sending you some glorious Sydney sunshine, the smell of summer morning, a magnificently purple jacaranda tree and a bowl of cherries!
Hi Antonia, thank you for your lovely comments. I particularly love my Sydney present! Gorgeous. See you on here xxx
Great news. Another one here who won’t be buying the newspaper anymore.
Thanks Jules x
Maggie, was devastated to read it was your last column on Sat. Your column was my favourite read to be savoured like chocolate. Many times I have laughed till I cried and many times I just thought what a kindred spirit. (My husband bought me I think it was shoe money just for the column on cardigans…I love a good cardy!) Thank you again for the column and all your books. All the very best… Glenda
Thank YOU Glenda. Let’s have fun on here now! Maggie xxx
so Y have u quit the sat good weekend magazine in vic and NSW or did they dump you? ageism?
teel the truth – U did NOT resign!!
I can feel it in my 43 yr o waters, U did not resign, teel the truth – don’t “apologise” for that being your last column, when I feel u were edged out, joisus, it gives me the shits that people 20 yrs old look at me like “u are an old person, therefore I will ignore u” i imagine a 28 yr old has told u that u r old and your values are old fashioned? I hate to say it, I swore I never would, but “BACK IN MY DAY >>>> blah blah we had respect for the eldery!”
Now I’m 43, don’t look it, but am looked at being a bit old, deaf and passed it by the 20 yr olds I work with when they meet me.
One shift, and their perception has changed, but man, it gives me the shits!
Maggie, if you’ve been forced out, sue the male 70 year olds in charge of the Oz press for ageism, but if u really just want to go, no worries, good luck and be happy and like you, I’m still relentlessly searching for coloured cotton balls, I love them!
I imagine the dye may be bad for me, but my roasacre flares so badly now and then, I doubt the cottonballs will harm me further.
You may swear by mineral make up, I find it “cloggy” I use tea tree oil products and its red when I do it, but 15 mins later, I have a flare free face, and it is natural and cleansing, please write more books, love your writing the big novels, Lisa
Hi Lisa – have you tried Bare Minerals? They are the original and the best. I found another brand cloggy. I didn’t want to leave, I was given the boot, but it wasn’t a massive shock. 12 years is a very long time in journalism. Now I’m excited about my new life on line where my friends in UK and US can also read me. Hope you will enjoy it on here. Maggie x
Maggie have joined Twitter just so I will not miss out on your column. It will be a great success and you will have a huge following. I will pass on the word!
I’m waiting with baited breath… Cannot wait to start reading! I’ll be honest, I’m new to your column (an Adelaide girl)but I love, no, adore your books! Rx
Now THAT makes me excited about this caper. x
Yay! So glad that you’re using WordPress…because it’s not blocked at work. Not that, you know, I spend actual *work* time reading blogs or tweeting. No siree, not me! *whistles*
It’s research. RESEARCH. x
YAY
I love your column thank you so much for your lovely words
love to subscribe but not sure which box to click.
OOH! One of my fave ever bands. Song for Summer was the inspiration for the song that Chard wrote in my new book…. If you’ve read it you’ll know which one I mean! Lovely to chat to someone who will get that ref. I love the interweb. xxx ps you click the button which says SUBSCRIBE at the very bottom right of the blog.
Hi Maggie, I am a massive dag but love reading the column and soaking up any fashionable vibes. Ask me no questions about trackie dacks and i will tell you no lies!!
Well I couldn’t live without them either… And Juicy Couture made it alright to go out of the house in them! What’s not to love? xxx
Cant wait to have it waiting for me every sat with out the need to go to the newsagent!!
SLIGHTLY fighting the technology at the moment, but sure it will be fine by Saturday! x
Woo Hoo!!
Dear Maggie,
I actually canceled my subscription to The Age after hearing your column wasn’t going to appear anymore. This blog is delightful news, I’ve bookmarked it straight away!
Wow – thank you. I hope you told them why! xxx
Maggie, my dear old friend (you don’t actually know it, but dear old friends we are), I am THRILLED to discover this page.
Having uprooted from my native Australia to your native UK a little under 6 years ago, I was happily enjoying the sunshine in Sydney last month when the news about your column ending broke – what, at first blush, seemed devasting is in fact wonderful! For here you are.
After years of missing your column each week (and struggling to get the SMH website to find it for me) I look forward to my regular weekend catch ups once again.
I shall be spreading the word far and wide.
Thank you!!!!
Kate
PS Your Antonia, I believe in ‘Mad About the Boy’, had a thing for second-hand textiles, linens and the like… Without wanting you to give too many of your secrets, I should be very grateful for a column one day on locales in the South East that are worth scouring for such homely items. I’ve just bought my first flat and am having a lovely time buying happy little bits and bobs but, being an antipodean fish out of water, am often at a loss as to where to go for certain treasures.
Hastings has amazing junk emporia, but I’m a fan of the boot fair. You’ll have to wait until Easter now, but you can get brilliant stuff at any of the ones in kent and east sussex. Hopes that helps! and thanks for very kind words. I’ve got followers on four continents now and wish I’d done this YEARS ago! xxx
Sadly the Age was not the same last weekend without your words of wisdom.
That’s OK – you can read me on here! Please tell all your friends and print out for rels who aren’t on the net xx
Maggie – the SMH made a grave mistake. So its great to find you on line for us gals at the end of middle youth wanting some straight style talking – and keeping us inspired and confident. I really enjoy sharing those moments of ironic chic that you so wonderfully capture in writing for us. We all need tips to avoid looking like a goth and keeping away from elastic waisted trousers – its priceless. Thank you
Thank you SO much – and please please tell people I’m here xxx
Weekends are not the same without you – googled you to find the blog and so hopefully some normality returned to my life! Probably more freedom on line anyway! (but maybe not the pay cheque :-()