31 May - And again

Les Paul or Gibson or Fender, that is the question.
Went to a guitar cum art cum charideee launch at the Les Paul showroom and then to a sort of sons of Smashing Pumpkins gig - they're called Silversun Surfers, good for a few songs and then a bit too pompous sounding and blah blah blah. tbc .... or maybe not if it turns out I bore even myself with this post.

Tomorrow it's June. Like am telling you something new. Maybe I can pay tribute to a few friends born in this lovely month, not that they read this blog thank god.

Or I can grapple with whether to go to Paris or not. Invited for long w/end by old friend who's doing some work with Grace Jones and Jean Paul Goude's son. He's gorgeous, I'm curious. But old friend would not be so charmingly offering to take me to the best new trendy brasseries, bars and clubs if I came with the BF, whose existance he's aware of but never mentions and neither do I. There's no intention on either part to resurrect some very old dalliance but the dymanic would not be the same with BF there. This is going to be a hard one, or the fact that the cheapest Eurostar I can find in June is £250 which is frankly not worth it. See? have already checked fares. How bad am I? And not even started on airlines....
tbc.

30 May - Still Nothing, but Hay

Wonder if the sun is shining at the Hay Festival this week. So glad I wasn't going when it started last w/end and the weather was so against it. But even if the sun is shining, the grounds will be soaked and ugly instead of pretty and uhm, well, just looking at the programme this year made me queasy. There's so much on, I would suffer from the stress of choosing the right event to go to and without trusty old P. who gets me backstage without a hitch, then why go as a regular punter. Somehow can't see it. It was just the ticket to be sat across Jane Fonda on a low sofa and able to gaze into her face and checking her clothes very carefully. She knows what colours to wear. These people are always much more minute than you think. Tiny in fact. I didn't say anything as I was only thinking of work outs I did when she made them famous er.. 30 years ago, don't think she needed the reminder. Or go to a party with... oh I must stop name dropping, who cares about Zadie Smith or Louis de Bernieres. They're just people.

28 May - Rain & Dance

Another less than shiny post as am still trying to fathom something interesting to pass on given that the long w/end contained as highlights:
a 70th birthday lunch and subsequent afternoon spent indoors with a family, an evening watching a dvd of a movie I'd already seen (Casino Royale),
a day indoors reading /tidying up and an evening watching the Julian Temple film on Joe Strummer, unexpectedly better than er... expected, given that I dislike JT immensely for reasons I cannot explain (we've never met, nor have friends in common),
another birthday dim sum lunch and an afternoon getting reasonably soaked in Trafalgar Sq waiting for Miriam Makeba to perform (hats off to the mc's who tried so hard to keep us there and to the south african guy in a stupid hat who started a move and pretty soon had half the audience doing formation dancing to some hit that I am at a loss to name) an evening under a duvet reading a good hundred pages for a change and having dinner cooked and served by beloved. Uh, there was some pretty hot sex on the friday night, but not for remaining 76 hours which is kinda strange and perhaps that's why I can't summon the energy to extrapolate some worthy comments from such mundane happenings. I should have gone to see G. performing a top comedy set at Turnmills but at 8pm on the bank holiday monday it suddenly seemed a bridge too far and I used the phone to catch up with the other friends who should have come with. I could have also made more of an effort to go to a recording of Jools Holland's show as had two friend there but again... Sunday slow motion took over.
So, food eaten, good. Company, ok. Weather, cold and generally shite. Next!

26 May - Alive

Given the title of previous post left incomplete, you could have thought am dead as a result of trying everything. Actuall no, but the weather is not helping and even upbeat, energetic, optimists just ... slow down sometime. Bear with me.

25 May - Try it all!

tbc

22 May - Crazy Robert

'I wish I could count Robert Downey Jr as one of my friends' I say wistfully emailing a friend my impressions of Zodiac the movie … Quick as a flash DJ replies that he once worked with Neil Jordan who had Robert in one of his less successful films and thus my six degrees sort of … is there! Robert, in just 3 easy steps you can get to me! I could just sit somewhere at your feet whilst you learn a part as essentially all I would want to do is to listen to your voice which for some reason really appeals to me. Oh and I could also watch you pace up and down as your walk for some reason also really appeals to me. Oh and you could occasionally shoot me one of those quizzical, sardonic looks you do so well and sort of mean you could make friends with anyone in any bar and stay out all night and never ever get boring or bored.

I wonder if Sarah Jessica Parker can bear to go to see him in any of his movies? Her old amour fou which she finally swapped for the frankly boring/clean looking Matthew Broderick.
Must drive her nuts that RDJ has finally sorted out his head, is no longer an addict and has a lovely kid to boot like she has…. Always like that with some amour fous. They’re intolerable and impossible when they are with you and totally don’t want the same things you want and then bam, off they go to just rein it all in like they’re so happy to be reformed. I’ll never work that one out.

21 May - Troy vs Tiga

Compare and contrast: you go to a club night on Saturday with T. someone who you know won’t really enjoy it…you arrive an hour too early for the start of the set of the DJ you’re really there to see but that you don’t know, you’ve come on the hot recommendation of a friend. I mean you’ve gone to a movie, driven slowly and got there at 12 o/c but the organisers have billed him at 1.30am as it’s in their interest of course to keep the audience there as long as possible and using the bar. This means you’re killing time till 1.30am not really enjoying much, the venue is slowly filling up and everyone seems a bit dour but primarily you’re not having fun because you’re with someone who finds this not an improvement on his Hacienda days in the mid 80’s. And clearly these are not because he’s not his 20 year old self. So you leave at 2am having deemed the evening boring, though you’ve noticed that even in that short space of time, the DJ was actually building his set up and would no doubt have hit his peak by 3am. Though Troy plays minimal house so your friend’s criticism that there are no songs is a bit like accusing Shostakovich of the same thing and he doesn’t write tunes either.

The following Monday you arrive an hour into the set of the DJ you really want to see. You bypass the queue of people outside who will not make it inside ever as it’s full. Tiga hasn’t played in London for months and though it’s a school night he’s obviously worth going out at 9.30 for. You walk in and your ears are bleeding straight away and the room is low ceiling and the kids are jumping. You go straight to the thick of it and gaze at your beloved DJ. Ok, he’s nothing to gaze at, short and wearing a baseball cap, looking like an 18 year old despite the fact he’s a dad, and not making eye contact – that would be bad. Gone are the days of Norman Cook excitedly smiling at his adoring crowd (well with all that vodka and orange under the decks and sometimes Zoe ball stroking his leg and the rest he had something to smile about, but it was just his stile to punch the air and Tiga is a bit more serious than that). At some point he drops some of his own tunes which you know well and even the chorus of some Depeche Mode old hit (Everything counts in large amounts) and D is so overjoyed at finally witnessing the DJ in action (she’s a fellow fan) that the glass of red wine (her own) which ends up splattered all over her white shirt merely raises a shrug of I don’t care. She carries on dancing happily, perhaps it’s also because of the married man sex she’s been having, this morning in fact. The grateful sex of someone who says he hasn’t come with his wife for four years. Not sure how much I believe but I do sometimes get the tales of woe some of the BF’s men friends tell him and clearly there are lots of unions where there is no conjugation, just a roof. We leave before midnight having had the same total club time as the Saturday but an experience that we will refer to for days. Which begs the question, does your companion significantly affect the amount of fun you can have?

Troy by contrast did a harder thing… minimal house. There are no vocals, there are no melodies, you cannot hang your journey onto anything recognisable and that’s why he’d take longer to draw you in with no easy crowd pleasers to throw your way. Would he eventually have been satisfying? Now I’ll never know. But I blame the ‘failure’ of Saturday on the high ceilings and the lighting (too bright) and the fact that I shared T’s beer at Troy whilst at Tiga I don’t know if my vodka was actually a triple- as I still felt it when I parked the car outside my home. Was Tiga’s the equivalent of having overloaded your ‘date’ with expectations and getting to orgasm all by yourself? I may put this all to the test in a week’s time as will go to top electro night out with D, but may also bring T along. Whose enthusiasm or lack of will affect me the most?

20 May - Lingerie & Hard ons

Splendid, have to share. ‘If you said you paid £80 for that I’d have believed you’ says the B/F a propos a Pucci/Versace design inspired slip which was purchased at Primark for a grand total of £4. As I suspected, men can’t tell quality (in this case flimsy Lycra), but are mesmerised by cut and colour. I feel like a Jamaican hummingbird in this slip, so dazzling is the palette, but it clearly works. Worn two nights in a row it’s got me the most tiger like sex he’s given me in oh a few weeks. I’m going to test the slip by wearing it a whole week of nights with him and if it generates pavolvian reflexes, I shall guard it with my life, pack it for every trip and generally recommend it to anyone who has bedroom problems.
But wait, no, will any girl in same slip turn his head? I must go back and buy them all so no one in London can have that effect. And also, does that mean he can get away with no more ludicrously decadent lingerie gifts? That can’t be right. Darn, it was a mistake to reveal the provenance of my new love arrow.

19 May - French & Elections

It has to be said that your life doesn’t change that much usually, not unless you make it to prime minister of a country which when you look at it, is not out of the realms of anyone to achieve. Clearly I have not set my sights on that and so my life will not change to that degree.

Though there are short cuts like marrying someone who will be prime minister and achieve the same result with a lot less aggro. Or maybe there is more. Look at Mme France this week, I mean she'd left him and then came back to help his campaign but god knows what she did it for, love or money. Anyway, I liked the detail I read in the paper of Chirac having a private moment with Sarkozy when he had to hand over the country’s nuclear codes behind closed doors. What if he decided to play some senile trick and give him the wrong chffres? I mean, he’ll be dead before he knows if his little practical joke worked and so would we, lot closer than WMD in Bagdhad, but what a joke heh? All this to say that I recently (and I mean a couple of years back) worked for/with someone who had regular meetings with Sarkozy’s brother in France. I wonder if this counts for anything in my six degrees stats? (the without sex version).

18 May - Opera sluts & Gay abandon

I meet a friend at lunchtime. A few weeks ago he’d introduced me to a new friend of his, a continental opera singer who’s moved to London so as to travel with more ease between the cities that book her. It was at dinner and she was very open about what hotbed of activities of the sexual kind the world of classical and opera and orchestras is. Everyone it seems is busy shagging everyone else and they all find it hard to form long lasting relationships given the moving around the profession requires. A friend butts in to say his conductor neighbour married one of his violinists but that was after much experimenting with other cellists and pianists and so on.
I ask after her and my friend says she’s a total slut. Then corrects himself and says 'she’s like a gay man'. And he speaks as one who's just told me he's having so much sex and upon asking how does he meet the guys looks at me like am asking obvious stupid questions, they're just everywhere aren' t they? So that’s ok then. Toph at the dinner had said he didn’t find opera gilr attractive, something about her ample size more than anything and sopranos are not often tiny are they? But… nevertheless his eyes followed her around the room on a few occasions and as they were sat opposite each other god knows if their knees collided and so on. Which is why I have not copied him on her address yet despite the fact she and I are neighbours and there's much talk of dinner soon. But that’s not really enough to stop anything as I well know. I just have to hope the orchestra members are plenty enough for her… But where is Toph? Let’s call him now! Doing a spot of gardening he says...

17 May - Jeans & Arse

I don’t do jeans… by which I mean that I haven’t bought a pair since I was 13 and lusted after a specific pair of Wranglers. Well, they couldn’t have been Levi’s because that’s what everyone around me wanted and I had to be different. Nothing changed here. Subsequent use has been rare, don’t wear them on holiday, don’t wear them to clubs, don’t wear them at w/ends and there’s no nasty picture of me with stone washed denim ha ha ha or ripped denim more ha ha ha or skinny ones. I do have inherited a few pairs over the years though and am safe in the belief that my specimen defy changing fashions. Can’t go wrong with a pair of darker denim, no weird bottom Helmut Langs can you? And I hate prominent logos or even small ones so that’s a bit limiting. They get worn when I absolutely must not appear to be too different and for example arrive at cute picnic (a splendid opportunity to wear something pretty whilst posing on a lawn if you ask me), but all present mothers clearly think that Sunday is just another get stuff out of the washing machine, change nappies day and there they are, all in jeans and just about not crappy t-shirt.

However, am in the market for sprucing up Toph’s jeans -well what he has does not display his pert bottom to my liking, hate baggy - and now I understand all the fuss about brands and finding the one one likes or has a good fit for you and therefore is worth stupid money. Toph is not even involved in the search, as far as he’s concerned his two favourite pairs are fine by him, but I hanker about a different shade of denim and a different weight to the fabric, only I never seem to see it. Though am certain I will know they’re the ones when I see them if that makes sense. I look at jeans displayed say in Gap (got to start wide with the search) and just looking at them hanging there I want to turn out of the shop. Hideous, all of them. I have a feeling that the ones I want may be found in places like D&G but he’d abhor them, Toph is not David Beckham (tk god!). Or maybe Prada do some understated ones? J would know but the problem then becomes footwear, you don’t wear Prada jeans with trainers no no no and Toph hates stylish shoes. … As to people who are obsessed and declare they have dozens of pairs. I simply don’t understand. The search is keeping me nicely preoccupied and I distract myself with it when am avoiding buying for myself.

16 May - A Face & Memory

I get an update email about a website I belong to and visit from time to time. They’ll soon feature an interview with an old designer boyfriend of mine. He’s a guru these days, has been for 20 years since I still have the K Hamnett t-shirt from those glorious days of ‘Stay alive in ‘85’ Yeeks, back then I though it would be a fantastic job to work for her publicist, Lynne Franks gosh, I may have had to join the chanting west London posse and their ‘every house should have one altars’ at which they prayed Nyom Renge Kyo (see? Can’t even write it properly) for money, that being the greedy 80’s and it was ok. Ultimately I never applied, I kind of knew they’d find out in my dark heart that I thought PR was for morons.
But I digress as usual. I wonder if I should offer my services as the interviewer (that's how we met in the first place) and appear to venerable designer as a blast from the past and ask provocative questions like ‘How come the V&A do retrospectives of Kylie’s clothes but not of your innovative and frankly hard to decipher work? And do you think I should forgive you for forcing me to read black type on purple?’ Uhm, clearly am not qualified to be in his presence. And I don’t remember the size of his cock which is saying something. Did I have a mind blowing good time? It’s all wiped out by the years. Mind you the interview has already taken place, I'll just have to wait and read it.

I guess my taste was always divergent. On the one side there was him, NB with his jazz style early album sleeve designs (the magazine design and typeface invention was just budding then) and he was ugly, and on the other side I adored the clean, classical and futuristic design of what I can only presume was an arch enemy of his, PS who was extremely handsome it seemed to me, debonair and cool in black polo neck, Actually he probably didn’t wear one but I only saw him in the flesh very few times and well, wonder who plays him in ‘Control?’. He was a good few years older than NB, was probably stepping out with some gorgeous blonde. Oh my god, it’s all coming back, he was! Some singer in some echo beach singer, Martha oh the horror he was so cool and the song so naff. In the end my budding romance was crushed by an answering machine (now, isn’t that funny, if you’d just asked me I’d have said they didn’t yet exist in ’84 but he had one… Did I? I wonder. Probably, I mean I had a pager too! So, one day after a couple of days of not hearing from him (he’d moved into new flat, I stupidly gifted him some gorgeous bed linen as what he had in the large but bit squat like flat in Stokey was not up to my Egyptian cotton standards – clearly a ‘I plan to spend all my nights here’ mistake) I rang his house and the message on the answer-phone was not the usual ‘Leave a message’ but a more heartfelt, ‘Fway, I need to talk to you, please tell me where you are’ or words to that effect. My dream of love was crushed. Who was this Fway that he sounded desperate to locate? A dark goddess/model/dancer/sales assistant? What about us? Hadn’t I been left solely in charge of his mum and sister as some triumphant launch/exhibition of his magazine only a weekend before? Had I said something wrong? Had I flirted with his assistant at the magazine (who’s since gone on to Vogue or Tatler but back then was a bit lumpy and I was only trying to be nice? ) I honestly cannot remember what ensued or what explanation was given, suffice to say that in an effort to bash any pain on the head, I walked into a travel agent with dreams of grand gestures and asked for a flight to wherever. Given my limited budget back then… can’t even remember what job I had, I was given the option of Greece or Portugal and chose the latter as the flying time was shorter. What I failed to grasp was that I was being sold an ‘18-30 holiday’. This turned out to be ghastly and full of not the London glittering people I was used to mix with. My time frame was wrong as well, it was in May ie. not really that warm and it was in the infant day of the Algarve so all around me was construction work and I couldn’t leave any earlier than the week booked. Oh how I suffered, did I even have more than 2 novels to read? Or was my entertainment watching the northern girl basting her breasts every day with butter or some such and turning an infernal shade of red? Or studiously avoiding the games the rep set up? God knows how come designer deity and I managed to only run into each other at a gig at defunct Blue Note a good six or seven years ago and didn’t exchange numbers though curiosity was killing me. Who is Fway? I wanted to ask? Was she worth it and do you too now have kids with stupid spellings for names?

15 May - George Michael & Tedium

A friend was possibly and reluctantly going to film a documentary on George Michael, till his interview with the sorry excuse for a production company that was going to commission this was cancelled because a) there’s no time or b) the broadcaster has changed their mind or c) they’ve realised that there’s nothing new to say when even a South Bank Show a few months ago struggled to tell us anything new apart from the fact that GM is a very happy and unrepentant dope smoker. Yes I did watch it, in that sort of smell your own s hit form of disbelief. Actually what the production company said was that they hadn’t really thought it through properly yet. Because of course thinking about it before calling in directors is the wrong way round these days. Uhm, well, it wouldn’t be ready in time for GM’s gig at new Wembley so a bit irrelevant in any case.

My friend is not upset, he, correctly thinks that accepting to do GM today may well lead to doing Phil Collins for VH1 would be next and these are just PR fluff pieces which cannot be exposing anything new. I suggest that from now on when a subject doesn’t offer much opportunity for dramatic storytelling, we should create some. In GM’s case my plot was ‘you go film the interview, then leave a window open, I organise a burglary during which GM’s prized art collection is stolen (has he got one? I have to presume so) and he cannot go to the police and tell them what happened as he was asleep in a dope stupor (once again) when it happened and you just happen to turn up the following day for the official interview and he's kicking and screaming'. Or we start with filming the entering of the premises and him asleep and so on, a bit like when Courtney Love starts a sentence she can’t finish whilst in the studio and promptly falls flat on her face and snores. Can’t remember who filmed it or what it was for. Hardly riveting TV but at least it made me laugh.

But uh no, yeah, hardly a bright idea. Not one of my best. Scrap that. Can’t go to prison for George Michael, that would be very stupid. Maybe we should film GM having Sunday lunch with the Greek family? (he’s going back to being as ugly and fat as his cousins who are probably taxi drivers and I defy any straight or gay person to fancy him if we dress him up as greek fisherman) and dancing along to folk tunes and spending the week in his tracksuit… Ok, I’m still not getting anywhere with this. It’s official, nobody should ever make a programme on him again.

14 May - Depression & Happy pills

Walking around solves so many problems. Not that I had any, but 48 hours in Lisbon saw me covering miles and not thinking about any downer thought for a second. Apart from 'There's nothing to buy in this town? How is that possible? I haven't come here to get someting from Zara...' So it’s not really big news reading in the papers that people here get over-prescribed antidepressants (or demand them and the sick and tired doctors just dish them out) when in fact, DOH, sending a few people to do some work on a farm or getting them out of the house for along walk seems to work out well in Holland or some other country and reduce the numbers of depressives. Of course they could have plenty of sex instead which banishes many a negative thought/self esteem problem but wanting sex is an apparent contradiction when you’re depressed and you can’t be forced to have it, (though am sure there's some anti depression clinic in Holland where that's part of the cure), whereas you can be forced to go for a walk in exchange for your next prescription of happy pills. As a matter of fact, I'm probably paying for some of your pills, so get on a bike ye who complain of darkness and no end in sight. Unless you've been recently bereaved, I have very little sympathy.

As an example they interview this woman who says she went to the doctor because she was depressed (ie in her case she was actually worn out) by working a 13 hour day, it doesn’t say which kind of job. She gets the pills and then changes job to another 13 hour day type scenario, which if you add in travel time etc, must have left her time to go home and sleep and start the whole sorry thing all over again. I’m sure she was depressed or … just very, very tired and sick of living because her job was robbing her of any pleasure in life? Why is it all so f king obvious?
Someone gave me a book called How to Be Free. Whilst I don’t think I’ll subscribe to many of the writer’s suggestions (can’t see me playing the ukulele or joining into singsongs for a start… or moving to the country), he, and a bunch of other writers of current non fictional stuff seem to advocate the same basic things like not watching TV and not reading the papers. These totally have nothing much too say most of the time. When there’s no news there’s ten days of missing three year old in the Algarve. Sure a personal tragedy to her family, but you know, hardly news, call me cold hearted and all that. Shit happens. It will be hard to kick the papers, but it has to be done. Though it all plays into getting old and caring less – although it should be more, and for some it is, hence my director of communications quitting next week to go spend a year with a charity working with children in Mexico (she’s 48or 49). So there are those kind of exodus/es to more meaningful ways to ‘do something’ balanced by a lot of ‘couldn’t care less, let’s hide in cottage in the country’. Which is easy, though making your own compost isn’t, nor is weeding. The problem is how to handle ‘couldn’t care less’ whilst living in the city. Guess in the country you have to make an effort to go purchase a newspaper whereas here they are abandoned on the underground and you just pick them up. I can see am rambling so shall stop.

13 May - Lisbon & Airports

Am rapidly becoming a convert to ‘No to air travel’. And not out of due care to the environment. I mean, I know only last week was complaining about having too much free time in London during a bank holiday w/end with no specific plans, but travelling for a w/end is silly. Yes it was lovely in Lisbon, sunnier than here and overall a perfect tonic with all the walking up and down hills involved and sampling of food and wine, but…
I started the journey on Friday by leaving work at 3pm and walked through the hotel door at 10pm (and Portugal is not an hour ahead so there’s 7 hours there), an hour of this was an excruciatingly slow queue at Lisbon passport control. The 2 official guys policing my queue took an average of 3 mins per person processed. They literally were keying in passport numbers into their machines for each passenger of the several hundreds stretching in front of them. They took 5 mins with me, couldn't find my perfectly recent barcoded passport details anywhere on their system.
The return was worse, the sight at Luton was tears inducing. Again, too few people at control though eventually these were more cheerfully waving us through or they’d have a riot on their hands (there were two dedicated officers for non EU passport holders of which there were only about a dozen Asian ones but no. they couldn’t suddenly start processing EU passport holders. I know because we asked. Apparently you have to complain to the home office, nothing to do with the airport in question. Maybe it is a covert way to make us stop using fuel/polluting the atmosphere? Is Prince Charles behind this fiendish way to tackle the problem?
So again, leave hotel at 7.30, walk through own front door at 1.30am. It’s just a total pain in the neck. I shall now refrain from travel for another 6 to 8 weeks at least. Oh no, shit have to go to Tuscany in late June. Darn. After that, I’ll try to stay put till December. Will that be possible? What with several invites to friends scattered across Europe and some birthdays and anniversaries that could be best celebrated in Prague or Paris or Moscow or Copenhagen or Stockholm or…Tough choice ahead. I know caravanning is still being pushed as trendy, started last year in fact, but that's still unpalatable to me.

10 May - Snogs & Knickers

A friend tells me he got a call from a friend of his whilst on an airport stopover. Funny how we all do it, catch up with friends when we're stuck in the departure lounge. Anyway, T. takes a long time to dish the excitement of his last week end chez some rich friend in the country. Apparently he had a threesome with his girlfriend and another girl guest. I find it hard to believe about this gentleman and quiz my friend on the nature of this threesome and eventually my friend seems of the opinion that they were talking snogs and possibly some sucking and licking but nothing major. I tell my friend that this surely doesn't count as it's a bit schoolkids fooling around. He looks at me quizzically when I say there is a question he should have asked which is 'Were you all totally naked or did you keep your pants on?' Surely, by definition, if you've kept much of your clothing on you can't have caroused for that long or that deep? I wonder if the two ladies participants would describe their minor flirtation as a threesome. Men... self aggrandissing as usual. I tell my friend I can't wait to see T's girlfriend again and see how we get on next. He blushes. He doesn't know am only teasing.

9 May - Property Shows & Boils

I never watch TV or hardly, that’s why it’s never covered here. But there’s that one night a month that you think I’ll put it on in the background whilst am cooking and then your bf arrives and he clearly hasn’t anything new or exciting to say – well we can’t be bright all the time - so suddenly focuses on the prog at hand whilst you’re dishing up and thinking ‘heh? Why does he give a s hit about property developing in Brighton or the Welsh border?’ He seems enthralled. This hour is followed by Grand Designs which is another hour of no drama, though the presenter tries hard to create some by inferring that the project at hand seems doomed and he’d never have undertaken it. I stay with it but past the 30 minute mark am seriously bored but we decide to stick it to the end and it’s predictable un revelatory denouement. Nothing remarkable happens. These two people have spent seven years instead of two or three renovating a castle, they spent 1m instead of 2/300k, they looked bushed but happy, they now have squillions of square footage just for the two of them (they look 60 odd) and you have to wonder not was it worth it. It clearly is a nice place to live in, but was it worth you watching 2 hours of this. At so called prime time 8 till 10pm. The BF says it’s for shattered couples who may have just put the kids to bed and dream of moving, starting a new life or just making an easy £100k here or there profit (beats playing the stock market probably). I still don’t think it’s worth my while. And I proclaim that I hate exposed beams, so there, Toph knows now to get me a converted farm building in Devon or in Tuscany. Kind of hate all that stone too.

But clearly have nothing better to do on a Thursday night. Am totally regretting not getting drunk and debauched every night of the week for my entire twenties and thirties. You will not hear me complaining about the youth of today (apart from slaggy-ness – I insist there are ways to be debauched whilst wearing decent clothes and underwear and having manners). They should absolutely kill themselves staying up all night if what then awaits in your 40s is evenings in front of this (well produced) cheap dross. Considering that in the frequent ad breaks I had to see that chef who swears a few too many times and am not keen to find myself sucked into watching his excuse of a show complete with gobby Janet SP…now, remind me to next watch TV in July. That’s probably a good gap to make me forget the horror.

6 May - Bebel & Beige

I must be getting old.
Am chasing music around myspace and get to Bebel Gilberto (I have a friend who has a lot of ‘soft’ jazzy connections, I blame her). I listen with a lot of prejudice and the first 3 tracks are standard no surprises there, she does what she does and it’s all a bit too mild and inoffensive for me. The 4th is not that different but I like it enough to play it on repeat a few times as am doing some mind numbing work thing.
I am horrified. Though the poor woman is not dissimilar from some pap like Air – which occasionally find their way into my earphones. What next? Fondly missing the Brand New Heavies or some such aural beige? Oh how I hated all that…but I was young then. Zero tolerance for soothing shit. Never even bought much into Café’ del Mar compilations past #1 in the way past its sell by date series. Maybe when you get to be really old you won't even notice?

5 May - Three Days Off

A long w/end… We give it a try, not going anywhere that is and one day is perfectly fine, we go exploring in Marylebone which is dangerously close to Oxford St and a wrong turning takes me to Primark so finally now I know what it all means, pile ‘em high etc. Once again the sight of the immense queue despite 14 tills stocked by giggling youngsters, sees me abandoning the 3 items I wanted to get. Spend 40 mins of my time to spend £12… not worth it, have more pressing things to do. Guess this can only be done by coming with six girlfriends and then leaving one to draw the short straw and purchase for all whilst the other five go sup cocktails nearby…

Anyway after fixing bikes, cleaning the car, organising a not so well attended picnic (rather think the weather frightened them off rather than own popularity waning), a visit to the playground with some friends’ kids, two movies, a long tour and reading stop over at Waterstones, brunch in Chiswick (only celeb in town or our ‘caff’ Natasha Kaplinsky… I don’t know who she is but Toph has a fondness for newsreaders, must be the little boy inside him from back in the days when an authoritative female voice on TV seemed the height of sexyness and points her out to me across the eggs Florentine), the papers, a poker tournament and half of AM Homes’ new novel digested, one exercise class (I do mine on the Saturday, but cry off the Monday one – unheard of, I ‘throw away’ a paid for class as am within 24 cancellation), a fruitless wait for a drink that doesn’t happen with a friend I should know better – she always lets me down, when will I learn etc - and yes, a long w/end in London is way too long. Felt a bit like being trapped in a Rohmer film (ah forgot in my desperation, I ill advisedly watched Le Rayon Vert, surely avoid French auteurs during le longue fin de semain). Plus we got a parking fine dished out undeservedly. We thought we were smart not going away, but 80% of our friends had left town and it just wasn’t that much fun, plus the weather turned. To be honest I could sleep for 76 hours bar food foraging and sex, but Toph spends enough free time during the week that the days of rest were superfluous to him and I went along with his rhythm. Another one at the end of the month… better be prepared to fly or drive.

4 May - Horses & Penis

We went to see Equus. Liked the setting, was totally unenthralled by the story/plot. For some reason had no interest in finding out why the boy blinded the horses, had sort of correctly assumed he was traumatised by something and underdeveloped in maturity and other areas so er... I just didn't get into it. And clearly the whole Harry Potter thing has left me untouched so there was no added bonus in him playing the part. Toph was having the 'That's Jenny Agutter' moment but I never saw that movie, The Railway Children, so never had a crush on her in the first place.
Dinner at Y. was much better. With... tbc

3 May - Le petit chevalier

Poor Lord Browne. Just goes to show you can have pretty darn good judgement in business and shit for brains in your personal life. I mean, from which angle did it ever not look like it was going to end in tears if you pick as your boyfriend a male escort over thirty years your junior? Mmhh, let’s see… happy ever after? Tick. In your dreams. I gather the split up was not amicable and Lord Browne probably thought he was more powerful than he actually is. But I guess if you feel you’re being blackmailed you refuse to pay. However, am puzzled by the lover saying he was asking for cash because otherwise he was going to be homeless and starving. Heh? Gringo, you’re 27, you went to college… and you worked as an escort, now what’s the obstacle about going back to that nice position that netted you a Lord for four years? In fact, your bookings could cost a hundred times the amount given the cachet of dating Lord Brown’s ex… plus there’s Big Brother and a number of other TV shows you could have applied for. Or maybe Elton could have taken you in? Or Mandy could have helped. Sorry don’t get it… you’re hardly a non English speaking refugee running away from imprisonment and torture… But serves Mr Browne right… Pick someone your own size people, this dating thing prince and the pauper style is pretty pathetic.

On another note… P. rings, she’s going to a fundraiser with FF Coppola cooking for the assorted charitable bods who have forked out $100 a head to attend. Am jealous, shame I can’t fly to San Fran for the night…

2 May - Mothers & Daugthers

What is it that brings out the worst in women about their mothers? Am out with a g/friend and after 3 glasses of wine the subject of her largely estranged mother’s impending 70th crops up. This is fraught for various reasons and mainly because one other sibling seems to have organised a lavish party without any consultation with the other two but would like a hefty and equal share of costs thank you very much. Cue… lots of arguing. The mother has a terminal illness though there is no precise date for er, you know, her dying. I ask my friend is she’s at peace with the fact that that may happen before their eventual reconciliation.

She says she’s fine with that and will not spend time berating herself after the ashes are scattered and this leads her to tell me a story, just one, of why she hates her mother. It’s nothing gruesome but a great example of mother totally failing her. I find myself sympathising and though I don’t have such hard feelings towards mine, the fact that she’s never apologised (despite requests) for various incidents that have left a pretty strong mark/impression on myself and my sister for example, means that there isn’t an abundance of affection on my part. Or rather, she’s my mother, she’s tried her best, but she was never going to be a friend, she
fucked up there and though I can see her logic and the background to why she acted that way, well, it still not excusable when an adult should know better than a child/teenager.
However, in magazines and movies you’re constantly coming face to face with various women citing their mums as their heroes and friends. We find this very doubtful given the sample of all our other girlfriends, 90% don’t have any time for their mothers. Could it be that 90% of my girlfriends are childless and possibly until you have kids of your own you don’t understand the hell that it was for your mother to actually cover that role? (actually the one who started the conversation has kids so maybe my argument doesn’t hold and I can think of a few more friends who are mothers come to think of it).
The 10% who seem to be friends with their mothers are women in whose family there has been some tragedy, ie. mother was widowed early or divorced and so the daughter had to become some form of more adult support to the grieving parent? Or in a couple of occasions that also spring to mind, the daughter is still some the kind of person who likes the infantilising aspect of calling her mother ‘mummy’ and being treated like a child, having various small crises smoothed over by the baking of a pie or a shoppig trip. I don’t know… iI wonder.. But there wouldn’t be any mother and daughter Daily Mail spreads for me and mine….

1 May - The Life of Others

Went to see the movie with D. who is from one of those countries (Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc). Great film, you don’t need my review. We come out and she says ‘That’s how my life was’. I say ‘No, it was never as bad where you grew up as it was in East Germany’. (hell, like I lived there? But that's one of the nice advantages of dealing with Eastern Europeans, they're not that sensitive and meet your comments head on instead of merely taking silent umbrage). She acknowledges this – we’ve previously spoken about the black market for food and the having to forcibly study Russian etc - but she never said that the same culture of spying and grassing on each other was rife. Well actually it was and from before the Russians, when her elders didn't oppose the nazis sending the Jews to Aushwitz ...

She tells me it’s just recently been discovered (and widely publicised that) her paternal grandfather, quite well known in the art world had been an informer for 20 years. This has rocked the family, but granddad is dead so cannot be offering any explanation on why he gave away all his friends to the authorities. So now her surname is notorious and she’s not happy about it. She’s married so her kids don’t carry that surname but still, back home they don’t register her English surname, they know who she is. I say maybe grandad wasn’t so bad, maybe he tried to give relatively harmless info but she must know more than she’s telling me, she’s practically livid. Apparently her government now wants everyone who was an informer to sign some kind of confession to apologise, but what good could that do? It would only lead to retribution on the heads of relatives of the ‘baddies’ and the whole cycle keeps in place.
The conversation turns to who we’d be grassing on, and how many secrets we know. I maintain that it’s all so… pointless, nobody can resist torture, and then you just get killed in any case. Weak, moi? Do it to Julia is my motto. But we can’t seem to stay on this track. We hope it’s hypothetical but hey, the Wall only came down in ’89.

The conversation that we switch to is even less to my liking. She wants to leave her husband and this time she sounds serious. She’s put up with a lot over 15 years or so - endearing as he is, he’s also useless under very many headings and I’d have killed him long ago as what’s the point of living with a genius for example if the genius is always distracted and never, ever takes out the trash? But why now I want to know? But I come out with the answer by myself immediately, ‘Girl you turned 40 only six months back. It’s your little watershed year, but don’t throw it away, please, please don’t. Leave the kids at home alone, tell him he has to look after them, go take a month in Thailand, kick your shoes, do the usual detox/retox, hell take up yoga and meditation, that universal panacea for urbanites on the edge (my favourite would be potato picking in some poor country), have the affair with the fitness instructor or someone else 15 years younger than you, come back and pick another job, but don’t throw it all away….’
Me, I’ve left the watershed year behind a while back. I did a combination of the above and plenty more and for much longer, but I conveniently had no husband to chuck. However, I’m convinced that I could set up in business holding it together for people who’ve come to the end of their tether at 40. I wonder how he’s doing or if he knows it’s going to hit him, this probable tragedy that could also be a rebirth of some kind. After all I never believe that forever is fore more than a few years at a time. Maybe I could fly to LA?

29 April - On Chesil Beach

Last Friday’s ES Magazine trumpeted on its cover ‘The 50 most successful couples’. I snatched it off the hands of a friend as he arrived for the w/end at his lovely cottage by Chesil Beach. BF and I were already there since earlier in the afternoon, having been greeted and supplied with tea and cake after a four hour drive by his partner. So I open the mag and read through… What a load of W A N K
Quite apart from that, they describe Alisdair Wills as ‘founder of Wallpaper’. Well I happen to be spending the w/end with a person who was closely involved in launching said magazine and who can confirm that AD had nothing to do with its inception. I guess it’s not AD’s fault, he probably does not claim any such thing on his bio/press release, maybe it’s just magazines making it up to make him more interesting in view of the fact that nobody much knew who he was before he married Stella McC and nobody much would know who she is if she weren’t Paul’s daughter. Oh come on! Would anyone recognise a Stella outfit out of a pile? I mean Stella post her ex Chloe more talented designer friend. No, didn’t think so, absolutely no distinctive features.
Anyway, back to our host for the w/e who couldn’t be more charming. tbc

28 April - Zits & Sunspots

The returning period zit is beginning to seriously irritate me. My face was a spot free zone for so many years. Lucky teens were enjoyed with hardly any recourse to the Clerasil, and have been spared since then, bar the odd one appearing once a month. Only, these days the lonely period spot appears and stays for two weeks on average. It then takes a very long time to fade and in fact never really appears to have faded. Add to this the creeping in of sun related brown spots and suddenly I have to worry about my skin. Not ideal as I’ve largely never had to use any concealer and all those laser resurfacing treatments work best on English rose complexions rather than olive skinned ones (have done my research).