28 March - Teenagers & Teen movies

My friend Anne, after a long and tortuous process has finally become a foster parent. Not full time, just started with respite for another carer at weekends. Her foster kid (fk for short) is a young woman aged nearly 16 so they’re busy bonding over watching teen movies (you’re never too old for those though fk couldn’t care less if the plot of ‘She’s the Man’ is actually lifted from ‘Twelfth Night’). One thing that disconcerts Anne is that she finds she fancies the 20something male leads and not only that.. they all seem similarly handsome and are coiffed in similar fashion to the covers of the teen romance books she read approx 30 years ago. This seems to worry her as there's a limit to how much of a Demi More you can do. Other bonding is taking place over hair straightening sessions and manicures. Anne is now however enjoying shopping downmarket on high streets where she squeals ‘shoes for £7.50? wow!’ . It’s a new world.
She’s also getting with it with some updates on modern slang and realising that saying ‘wicked’ is deeply embarrassing post ’85. Fk is a hip hop/rap fan and naturally Anne is finding the lyrics offensive, preposterous, downright pernicious and so on. Though she doesn’t mind the thumping bass. Which brings us to the subject of language and how fk thinks anyone who uses long words is posh. Anne pointed out Victoria Beckham is called posh and doesn’t know any long words clearly from her utterances to the press or ‘I’ve never read a book’ statements. Fk says a propos her sketchy GSCE work that she can’t be bothered to spell correctly words that she will never use. ‘I don’t use them words so I don’t care how they’re written’. You’d think she had some tongue twister in mind but they were discussing a simple one such as… ‘despite’. You’d think fk was asked to write down ‘silhouette’ or ‘curmudgeon’. The meaning of which she didn’t know. Come to think of it I’m not sure of the second one myself.

Anne is also experiencing her first instances of the ‘You can’t go out in that? You’ll be freezing’ or ‘You simply must eat fruit/stop drinking 2lt of cola a day’ etc. but not to the extreme of parents. Let’s face it, some battles will never be won and she’s still unsure of how to fight them. This is jumping in at the teenager end of growing up and having missed out plenty of child rearing development. Can’t be more different than inheriting your divorced partner’s kids you’d think, except that those know their parents love them and feel loved by them? Whilst fk had had the life of a parcel at pass the parcel. She’s not a happy child.
On the anecdote front, not many to report but The Police came on TV music channel singing ‘Don’t stand So Close to Me’ and Anne said quite carelessly ‘Who are they?’ So much for Sting’s enduring sex appeal across the decades. He’s a nobody as far as she’s concerned. She also thought that the mini disc came before tapes because her logic said that, well yes, tapes are still around whilst mini discs are not, hence they must be a format predating the cassette.

24 March - Courting & MP3s

Wonders of modern etiquette: Gemma is nearing the end of a comedy course up in Camden. Wonder if this has anything to do with the way she’s approaching life, everything is a sketch after all, but….she told me she didn’t know how to get rid of the boyfriend; she’s tried before, he’s unshakeable, the type who says ‘You don’t know what you’re saying/you’re upset/deranged/you don’t really mean to leave me’. So she wanted to write him a letter/email and not hear back from him with ‘Give me one more chance, let’s go away, let’s buy you something from Horrids’. Only she couldn’t really be arsed to work out how to put things, as, after all it’s always the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ line that you have to give instead of the plain truth. In this case, ‘You’re short, you’re not attractive AND you’re boring, though I have a penchant for Irish accents’. So she surfed the net and did a cut and paste ‘Dear John’ letter with very thoughtful paragraphs taken here and there. She also said in her every so considerate email she was going to be abroad and not reachable for weeks, on a safari or something.
At the same time, she was excited to receive from a new admirer, an mp3 containing a courting ballad the boy had composed especially for her. Titled ‘I Can’t Believe I’ve met an Angel’ or similar. How sweet. I suggested she checks if said song is not cobbled together with cut and paste melodies and lyrics from other existing efforts appearing on myspace.com or other home of unrelased material or even a James Blunt top line.

22 March - Tongue & Marrieds

My friend Issy had an incredible sex session at a central London hotel recently. She had to knock a drink or two down to get over the shock of seeing him at the bar in his casual clothing, but she knows the guy pretty well from years of infrequent get-togethers of ex students of a certain university. The flirting had obviously been there sort of all along over the years, but am not sure why passion now could no longer be restrained. I mean, he did tell her he has no sex with the wife but that’s old and cliched’ though no less true in many cases. A previous lunch had ended up with teenage-like shenanigans in Soho square and here the plan was hatched for the afternoon session. Mr Tongue (as he’s been code-named to me) did also overcome Issy’s long standing fear of lifts (hope he can work on the going underground one that also restricts her movements or rather, makes her take soooo long to cross town). Turns out that by the time they’d downed their second or third drink at the bar and he headed for the lifts and she realised their room was on the sixth floor, she just couldn’t make him take the stairs and finally ascended in the enclosed space. And … survived. I felt a twitch of jealousy ‘How come you never went in a lift with me’ sort of thing… (we used to work together for a few years on the 5th floor of a company) but I wonder if the promise of passion would cure another friend who can’t /won’t fly. Must suggest.
Issy didn’t give me too many details – am always keen to learn something new - but seemed very satisfied when she texted from the bus home. Seems my friends are getting my life and I’m getting… good stuff but not illicit, go for broke sex. Issy is my legend this week. More aptly Mr Tongue is also a legend as he’s over 50 like her other recent adventures and it seems that life bodes well if this landmark birthday doesn’t shrink their prowess.
Slowly but surely most of my g/friends have had the long or short liaison with the married man. ‘s probably ok now they are all 40 somethings, but am still smarting over being judged a bad person back in the days when I had mine. Ok so it lasted much longer than most and was most exquisitely painful, but I kept pointing out that it tends to be an unwelcome aberration in one’s own relationship history and not the norm. Just because I had a married man didn’t mean I wanted any other ‘marrieds’, and so please relax, your partners are safe. It’s not a predatorial thing, shit happens and I fell for that one. Extra hard. And he always was… extra hard that is. The hard that then takes ten years to get to a rapprochement of sorts. Which was short lived a couple of Summers back. It had to be, a hug and the scent of his skin was enough to feel the swoon coming on again. RIP status was finally achieved. Gosh, he’s 50 himself now and also a bad dresser. The moment I get wistful, another friend reminds me of a certain outfit very a' la Kevin from Dexy’s Midnight Runners he used to wear, you know, the bleached out dungarees with neckerchief and Converse (my all time ‘hate them’ shoes) and that quickly snaps me out of any reverie. But I wonder. No, he’s not Mr Tongue. I think Issy and that one bond over a mutual love of Californian rock. We were more NIN.

20 March - Voltaire & Beckett

The lover is reading Geoff Dyer ‘Yoga for…’ and having a much needed laugh. I’ve also converted him to Green Wing’s firs series, so perhaps his zest for life is slowly returning. Serotonin levels increased by moi have sadly not improved his outlook on life by the 100%, 360 degrees needed. Amazingly sex is not the cure for all, for ... er all. Or maybe we're not doing it enough. In fact we're not but for a depressed person the current level of activity is probably equivalent to lifting a big rock up a mountain? I can't identify as being luckily immune to depression or clarifying slightly, when it approaches, I'm quick to go have it zapped off by any means possible. This often includes spending money. Justifiably in this case.
He has however not yet read my preferred-method book for instant cheerfulness, ie Candide by Voltaire. Superior in my view to Mr Dyer who is after all stretching a few observations over and over again. If you can get past the olde language, Candide has the advantage of a little more profundity I guess.
I think he should read Candide and have dutifully provided a classic Penguin copy. Also because this is Samuel Beckett’s month and lover wants to go see a play or two. Am all for it, but need the uplifting stuff first, much as I know to eat a bit of cheese or order chips (always available even in the finest establishments) before I down a satisfying champagne cocktail or two. Otherwise, it’s only trouble you’re inviting and Beckett is a whole heap if your life is not a happy one to begin with. Is Voltaire a suitable antidote to Beckett? Discuss.

17 March - Shoes & Showers

It’s a small world we know that I can think of many examples, one of my favourites being lifting up my head from deep inside a 2 ft tall menu in a very posh restaurant in San Francisco about twenty years ago during my first visit, only to shriek in disbelief. The waiter poised to take our order was the son of a neighbour, himself a restaurateur, back in my home town. Joe is approx. a year or two older than me. I knew he had left home but fancy ending up as client and waiter on the other side of the world. I think by this chance encounter we’d already slept together a couple of years previously. Must have been one of those youth things that leave no particular memory as clearly we’d not kept in touch…
Two examples this week: I invite a girlfriend along to a forthcoming shoes and champagne party at a friend’s house. This is to introduce the line designed by a new Manolo Blahnik (or so we would like to believe) who the host has met recently at a wedding. The friend I email does fashion PR and she replies immediately that she’s approached the very same designer at Fashion Week to offer her services as he does everything inhouse and that’s going to be impossible to continue and they had a positive meeting , she hopes he’ll agree to her fees etc. So… I will talk her up a storm at the shoes and champagne party and hopefully they’ll work together and my little comments will be the clinching cherry of the deal.
So to now… I get a text from Damian (reasonably good mate, though we only meet for skiing trips or city holidays around music festivals, last year we were together in Barcelona for Sonar last June), then Summer bbq’s, the odd brunch on a Sunday etc. He asks what’s my email address, and instantly sends me an email asking to guess where he is. I name the odd Himalayan peak. Turns out he’s in my building, for six months on some project. Not only that, but he’s one floor below and sat in similar location as mine. Joy as the lift opens and we do a little dance in the hall. Not often I can paw a human being in work environment. Not even my gay mate Justin. Can you believe it? I never go out of my way to make friends at work, in fact the opposite, 18 months here and not a social outing one to one with any colleagues. Too risky for you know, avoiding them later when they want to tell you all about their lives, listen to their problems and you think, ‘Go get a blog instead’. But Damian? That’s different. He looks so good in his office garb and so neat. I only know the holiday/week end slacker dude. He only knows the relaxed in Barcelona version of me. He’s so sexy too. So the first thing I say is ‘Fantastic, office sex finally on the menu. Find a room’. Ok, he’s not meant to take this seriously at all and in fact does not act on the suggestion. Only his third day here, so yes, best to be careful. I leave him having merely explained where he can park his bicycle in underground garage. No idea where the showers are. Ooohh showers… cubicle.. mmmhh… good hiding possibilities there…