The Saturday Miscellany: How to crash a fashion show; model poses; Craig Green's bookshelf; 'Please Please Me' cover versions

How to: Crash a fashion show

By Alexander Fury

Ever read a spy novel? I haven't. Too busy reading 'Vogue' when I was a teenager. But I imagine a spy novel would have given me a better idea of how to infiltrate fashion shows incognito.

Stealth is everything. Stealth in numbers. There's an urban legend that you can get into any Chanel show if you have a ticket-holding mate either side to frogmarch you in.

As that indicates, you need to know people. For instance, know Anna Wintour – the most important editor in the industry. And don't think you can park yourself in her seat.

Remember: you're always on duty. Which means, like a copper, you can never, ever drink. Despite copious free champagne. That's how they root out interlopers. Alcohol has too many calories for most fashion folk.

Alexander Fury is fashion editor of 'The Independent'

Rotating column: Model village

By Ben Smith

A good model needs good coping mechanisms – and in a past life, I was a pretty good model. I walked the catwalk for Dior in Paris, and was shot for the very best. Aloof was easy: I'd let my mind go blank, think of nothing. "I am a mask," I would tell myself. But sometimes the photographers wanted happy, which was a great deal trickier. The rapper Ludacris came to my aid. On loop, his fast-spat verse from Missy Elliott's "Gossip Folks" provided the perfect internal monologue – a soundtrack to make me smile, not grimace. And it did the trick. Inauthentic joy oozed from every pore! The photographers loved it. To this day, I know every single, lip-curling word: "Once upon a time in College Park/ Where they live life fast and they scared of dark...".

Ben Smith gave it all up to work for a charity – dreamboat

Instant Ethics

By Ellen E Jones

Dear Ellen

Q. My friend will only drink bottles of Corona, Sol and maybe Negra Modelo. She calls them 'Mexipops' and asks for such at the bar. How do I tell her to change it up?

A I'm not sure I quite understand this obsession with your friend's non-U drinking habits. Maybe just shut up and get a round in? Mine's a Cheeky Vimto.

@MsEllenEJones

Micro extract: Goat spurt

"If not for the caffeine, coffee would still be just a shrub growing in the hills of North Africa, where, as the apocryphal tale has it, goats nibbled on the plant and suddenly started dancing."

From 'Caffeinated' by Murray Carpenter (£12.99, William Collins)

Four play: ‘Please Please Me'* cover versions

1. David Cassidy

2. The Crickets

3. Blondie

4. Alvin & the Chipmunks

*LP released today, 1963