30 November - Facts stranger than fiction

You know how many times you read of situations in novels and you think 'yeah right, that's so forced, that would never happen, too much of a coincidence' etc? And it's really in the way it's written whether it seems plausible or not because life is full of weird stuff. Like the following.

A while back my friend L. told me about her friend M. who was having a baby after having met some young/er guy in India. She'd gone out there to meet with her boyfriend but that had ended and a one or two off shags had resulted in pregnancy which she was elated about because she was.... 48! Now you'd say great, but chances are foetus will be damaged and so it was. Baby was going to be born with Down's syndrome and no father around (woman was getting council flat only about 2 days before the birth) but apparently she's very spiritual and this was a blessing etc. Now I won't enter into any debate about this but let's just say I'm with Minette Marrin on this, and India Knight can say what she wants. Clearly you can make whatever decision you like about spending the next however many years of your life (and committing your family and society to do the same) in order to cope with a disabled child, but I just think that's what abortion was made possible for. Save everyone the misery. If the baby is born with Downs' or other disability, of course you will take care of him but if they tell you at scan stage that it's deformed or other then you know? Why?

Anyway... this baby was born and ... he was still born. Yoga woman being very spiritual, has taken this in her stride too. It wasn't meant to be. So far the story is not that strange except that her best friend, the week after, died the day after giving birth to a beautiful baby girl in Goa. Friend is western but lived there workng as a masseuse, with her partner. Now what are the chances of that. One lives and loses child, one dies and child lives. And you're friends. But if you took it as the starting poing for a plot it may seem plain odd.

29 November - Green eyed

It never ceases to amaze me how territorial I can be. I wouldn't say jealous. I simply try to get rid of the competition as soon as I spot any. The thing is that I do it w/o even considering that the competition may not have any designs on my BF since he's old let's face it, and increasingly looking it (so am I, so am I) and not rich and she, may be 25, pretty as anything and full of the joys of pursuing whatever career she has in mind and not really going to go for old bloke.

But... we had an invite to a new bar opening in Shoreditch courtesy of JR. As I had to wait and meet some other friends and bring them over to the bar/club, I arrived approximately 45 mins after Toph to find him deep in conversation with young (did I say young?) and attractive black girl. Bless, he did introduce me but just as my name and not the essential qualifier 'girlfriend'. I went to the bar and it took me a while to get all a drink but all the while I was watching him and he talked and talked or she talked and talked. When I gave him his drink he told me she's a writer and went back to talking to her. Now, he may be old and attractive only to me but his job means he could still be useful to young nubile writer so I instantly spotted the interest there. Or maybe I just remembered how back in the days I'd have talked to anyone I thought could be helpful in my career pursuits. Now I don't of course as I don't have a career, those days are gone.
So I talked to my friends and still Toph was talking to her so there was no other option. I interrupted him, dragged him a step away and said in no uncertain terms 'Pay me some attention'. Bless, he then found a way to say 'my girlfriend blah blah ' and call me an over reacting old hag but I did see the look on young nubile instantly shifting to register the information. And not too long later she went off to talk to someone else.

Of course Toph was all triumphant later having got a rise out of me and I was left to consider that I flirt with anyone at any occasion I find myself in but can't take it when it's done to me. Awwww... this is pathetic! We're not teenagers or young people so why act like this?

27 November - Mumbai

There's me learning Hindi and there's this war being waged across the city. But I heard a few idian people on the radio saying already 'life goes on, we have to go to work, we have to go out'. And only in India would you see general public watching it unfold on the streets when there's still cross fire, fires, and bombs going off. I mean, you'd just go home and stay in right?

But that's how they are. That's why I love them. Totally generalising and patronising of course but somewhere along the line they're my people.

24 November - Chav's Choice

I have lost my solitary (well I have one team member of the 'we hate Uggs' band but we're not organised enough to start a movement) battle against Ugg boots. It seems their new shops were besieged by buyers. I still find it hard not to grimace when I come across an Ugg wearing person, whether I know her or not. I grimace, I kid you not, it's a pavlovian response.
It's bad enough that zillions of credit challenged teenagers have been wearing the knock offs from neu look and the likes but now their older sisters are thronging to buy the real thing, especially as you can find the real ones at low prices on market stalls here and there.

I was mulling this over and then it hit me that as usual the curve for a brand to get established is between 2 to 3 years. In the sense that when the first people to wear them did, they were some music industry/fashion trendssetters bringing them back from their travels and a mere couple of xmas later they're on many lists.
Then I thought that much as a brand owner may be ecstatic to make the fast buck, he may well also worry when his product is embraced across various strata.
I don't have to fight the Uggs, becasue the fact they've become Chav's Choice will see to their disappearance. I give them till the summer and next Autumn I won't see any more though the bastards are offering new designs and bags to match and probably hats. yeah, go the way of burberry check. Burberry seem to have almost completely eliminated!

I realised I tagged this post 'shoes' but they're slippers really...

21 November - West

I wouldn't give a damn to be honest but friends have a shop in Westfield so at some point I had promised I'd go and cast my eye as shopper and report back on what I thought. So we drove in on Sunday at 4.30pm and said we'd do an hour.
In fact an hour was plenty, half of it is not open yet, you know, the much touted designer village section for example or the cinema etc.
It was like being in an airport. In that sense it was good, there was space. The various cafes seemed to be doing excellent trade. I know the footfall has alraedy reached 2m but how many bought, I wouldn't know. I have no desire for larger versions of shops I already know and don't much care for. I fail to be excited by a twice or three times the size of an Oasis for example as there's just twice the same stuff.
There were several shops from other countries so that was a novelty but again, I had no desire to go in, tough bless they'd have hugged you if you did, those poor sales assistants baking under the lights and with no one much to serve. It's a long day when you're twenty something and you have to work on a sunday on a shift till 9.3opm or 10pm.
Give me Harvey Nicks any time, just big enough not to get tired walking around, tough the big malls clearly bank on you getting tired and thirsty and all that.
Parking was easy, but so it was/is at Canary Wharf and who wans to go there...

20 November - Cupid, knows nothing

So remember I was trying to get tall and handsome not quite forty or just forty docu direcor MA. together with thirtysomething successfull writer M. but they didn't really take to each otehr? Ok, so I thought he would still be good for other women I know only ... my lovely friend L. said she had a few as well, and to get him down to the pub quiz in west london where she'd bring her friend H. also a writer but not published yet, although she suspected H. was having a scene with handsome grey haired posh and very literary TB who is however, poor (as evidenced by the fact he wears stylish dandysh suits and other but they could seriously do with a dry clean and I know all about holdihng back on drycleaing bills and in fact am about to try the revuolutionary new sachets of chemicals that you can put in your tumbledrier together with item of clothing in a supplied plastic sealed bag and voila' for 80p or so you home dry clean a few itmes). Yes, there is a good 20% of boring and thrifty housewife in my psyche. I never did coupons or sainsbury or boots cards to save points but I'll use cheap and wonderful white vinegar to clean everything for example, instead of stupid array of mr muscles and so on.

Now, this being London, the person I met handsome M. via, is of course TB. The two were having coffee one saturday after a night on the tiles in Shoreditch where they said one can find lots of young women up for it (there are young women in west london and chalk farm where the two reside but these women are not up for it unless you're a banker or at least own a bmw and my two 40 somethings are resolutely of the 'arty' crowd variety.

So, there we are, L. and I wanting to match writer H. with handsome MA, when in fact H. is on and off shagging MA's friend TB! Stone me. It was obvious when TB arrived at the pub quiz and MA of course had already met his intended match H. and had to of course not even think about it ....

We'd also invited my friend GB who has a g/friend of a few months but L. thinks she's wrong for him and wants to shop him around. Unfortuntately apart from H. no other women turned up for our team. At the very end a young woman came to speak to L. and told her she thought MA was handsome but we didn't get a vibe off him towards this young woman.

I'd give up wouldn't you?

18 November - Dorothy Parker

Sometimes I think I am Ms Parker but perhaps my witty ways will only be appreciated in restrospect. I am quite proud of the following for example but it seems to have resulted in a friend ceasing communication as of a few days ago when I wrote it in an email.
The background. Male, 38, in love with woman, 34? who has a boyfriend of 18 years and who despite protestations of wanting something different, simply can't make the break. 'It's complicated' she says. Yeah, right, of course it is. In the meantime she's having her cake and eating it whilst hosting my friend several nights a week and then banishing him when her fiancee' comes to visit some weekends (they're both continental and she's here on a work placement till Xmas).
My friend has taken to describing his situation as a 'French farce'. So, I thought it would be ok to ask, after the boyfriend had just been to visit and had departed again:'How is your romance with G. going? or should I say the timeshare with N.? (N. being the longterm first owner of G's heart).

Tell me? Was I wrong? I mean, I may have prickled too back in the days I had a long term affair but if anyone had called my all consuming romance which I thought was so hot and not tawdry at all, a 'Timeshare' with his lovely wife, then maybe I'd have wised up sooner.

Ah well, this gets me out of being consulted for any advice which suits me fine. I dislike G. despite her jollyness when we've met. And he's an idiot so there.

17 November - Maxim

You know, friends are those people you can 'not' see for ten years but it hardly matters. Am out with one such person who's good friends with an erstwhile female friend who dropped me in approximately 1996 and so, sort of lost sight of him too.

I tell him I was recently cataloguing my old magazines for the purpose of selling/getting rid of. He bemoans the fact that living in 500sqm, he has had to give up similar collections though for some reasons he's still hanging on to his Q collection. Anyway, I tell him that I found a Blitz with no cover and pages missing and upon reading the index page it appears that pages 21-24 were an article on Boy George. He bursts out laughing and says 'Christina!' (another good friend from back in 1984!). Yes, he's spot on. More laughter. I guess that friends are precious because only they know.

Another friend who's been living abroad now for seven years, tells me that there isn't a day going by where she wants to tell me something or other but doesn't because we don't communicate in such a frequent fashion and without the regular catching up we would have had in London going out or staying in, what she wants to tell me gets forgotten. But she claim it only has value or even exists if she tells me as nobody else where she is, including husband, was 'here' when it happened and with 'those people' it happened with. So sometimes she thinks up a memory and then it's like nothing ever took place as it cannot be made real (again) by me laughing at the story involving us and so and so. Ok, this above is a bit tortuous but you should get my meaning.

I sort of said that give it ten more years and I definitely won't even know who she is...

11 November - Once a teen

So, am out with 3 friends visiting.. 2 from Mexico, 1 from Rome. The link is that the one from Rome was the boyfriend for 7 years of one of the two from Mexico who have now been a couple for 8 years.

We're having a quick dinner after I pick them up at the theatre where they've just seen Hairspray. Liked it but ... too long. Amongst other things I start to mention is the existensialist crisis of the twelve year old whose life will forever be changed by reading Twilight (maybe in a couple of years she can start on the Anne Rice Lestat ones). I have just got past the line 'story of this girl Bella who falls in love with a vampyre' and M. (age 49!) shots back 'Twilight'.

I'm flabbergasted. I thought I could claim some sort of prize for knowing about teenage obsessions when not currently the mother of one. But no, 49 year old gay friend also childess and male to boot, knows all about it. In fact he saw the movie at a recent film festival in Rome.
There you go. We're cutting edge. Always thought so in my own limitless universe of media information.

10 November 08 - Twilight, Breakind Dawn and so on

Have missed a few days of posting but they're all in the works ie. half written and dates will be populated later on. In the meantime, am fresh from being 'auntie' with the mostest as usual. The 12 year old and the 16 year old adore me because I'm not family, they see me once every few months and I don't live in their usual environment. For those reasons they think I'm impossibly beautiful if not glamorous and incredibly intelligent. This leads to the odd cringing moment when flattery is being heaped on me at the expense of their mother, my good friend who's 6 months younger than me and pretty hot herself but not close because... she's their mother.

I, of course, bask in the compliments but avoid doing or saying much to make me more interesting but for the 12 year old especially I'm some sort of super hero. And, well, I am. Check this out. We're in the car to the restaurant and she tells me she's been reading this amazing series of books which are clearly more rewarding than Harry Potter ever was and where the protagonist, Bella, has fallen in love with a vampyre, Edward. I say a few things about the books and her eyes widen to impossible size and she screams excited 'Have you read them!!!???'. I confess that I haven't but have read an interview with Stephanie Meyer, the writer and retained enough about the trilogy. Am a hero! She wants to lend them to me and I have to nicely decline saying that I will never find the time to read 500 then 600, then 700 pages but how about I go over the next day and she reads me some excerpts. Agreed.

She tells me she's had a deep depression recently (she's TWELVE) brought on by the novels and the realisation that her life will never be as interesting as Bella's adventures. I point out that Bella meets her vampyre (they marry, she's pregnant but will it be the son of Edward or of a worse evil?? such classic drama, Rosemary's baby and so on) in smalltown USville and so there's hope. She says no... My heart leaps, I knew this child was one I liked, she always had more spirit than her 16 year old sister who's very beautiful and 1 year into a relationship with a regular local boy, but not as bright. The 12 year old will escape the confines of her priviledge but limited (geographically at least) life.

The next day I make her tell me in English the plot of the novels so far and with a little struggle, she's game. I feed her the verbs and the words she doesn't know and she's much better at this second language (she's also doing French) than I could ever expect. Better still, she's written her own short novel, twenty chapters which mum can't see but I will be sent, about a girl who falls in love with ... a star.

Sixteen year old joins us and says she nearly split up from boyfriend because her life will never be as interesting as Bella! But that she's going to see the movie of Twilight out soon with him and hopes he'll understand where she's coming from. I have no heart to tell her that he probably won't, because boys, I don't think, don't feel those early passions as much as they're portrayed to do in books and movies.

We go to the computer and spend twenty minutes watching all the trailers for Twilight. My oh my! I get back to Lisa age 12 or 13 as well. The actor/Edward is stunningly perfect for his part. I'd become an instant follower if I was back to...then. Think I felt the same about Alain Delon, but can't be sure. I tell the girls I'll go see the movie too. The way they describe the kisses in the book ... ahhh there's so much longing to try (12 year old, sister is well versed in the pleasure derived).

Twelve year old then tells me about another book with 'host' in the title. I ask 'is it about people who are possessed by another spirit/entity?' Eyes wide again 'How do YOU know??'. I reply I made a guess given the title. She tells me I'm a genius. Gosh, I could get used to this. I never want to leave. And I get a soft toy pink piglet to take with me. She may be desperate to kiss a boy but she is only twelve and the collection of soft toys is still well populated on the shelves of her bedroom. Big sis now has her own grown up room but twelve year old has a double bed and they still sleep together 'to talk' at night. Sweet.

Sixteen year old tells me she wants to go to Los Angeles/NY to study to be an actress eventually but she has problems with her English lessons, she gets blocked by anxiety when speaking and gets more and more nervous and fluffs it despite knowing it. I recommend she pretends to be an actress already playing a student who has to give oral exams. Concentrating on playing the part, may take her mind off the actual answers, which, not mediated, will just spill out right. She also thinks I'm genius.

Not bad work for an afternoon! Especially if you consider I recommended she does study law first before acting school as that requires a lot of memorising too that will be good later for scripts. Mum would thank me. I'm a responsible non-auntie!

8 November 08 - Property

Could be a pundit on the market. Have taken to checking prices of property sold over the past 8 years and it's quite a satisfying game to find the same flat or house in xx street sold in 2000, then 2003 (not much difference in price) then 2005, still not much difference, and then the massive spike of 06/07. Prices are going down but I'm bying and I want to buy at 2005 levels. Only vendors still seem to be in some delusional cloud and hanging on to 06 prices, 07 are a distant dream. In such fashion I found the house of an ex lover, who bought it last year in October for £1.3m from someone who in January of same year ie. 07, had paid £690k for it. Now, he may well added rooms, a swimming pool, a garage for all I know but boy, did he make a killing in 9 months! Why don't I have any seed money to speculate in such fashion? What a game. My ex who bought at £1.3m has no intention of moving, getting married next year and is extra loaded anyway but isn't that just.. funny.

My lender seems to downgrade my property price by £20k every ten days or so for the purpose of getting a loan against it. Makes me mad. It's totally one of the 'computer says no' type situations. They just use the postcode, no visuals or visits required. This in turns causes me some problems as to how to find the remaining money I need since nobody wants to take into account for example my cunning plan of getting a friend to pay me a grand a month for a consultancy fee/job for a year. Only permanent job remuneration counts these days. Where is the bradford and bingley when you need it.

The inner stress caused by my constant monitoring of prices, and the calculations I seem to endlessly make, are sending me spinning. For example, if I get loaned 200k and don't use it immediately for purchase, I wanted to know from my bank how much they would pay me in interest for the deposit for a month. Simple no? Ah, no. The call centre guy can only tell me the percentages but cannot work out the actual amounts. For that I have to go to the branch. Isn't it funny though that when I opened that deposit account they promised 6% gross and now am being told i'd get max 4%. Since when do they get to make all these changes willy nilly? BASTARDS.

I need to go sit in a tent in the desert to stop thinking about all this shit which is frankly too boring to be part of my life. I want just sex and rock 'n' roll (Tiga not coming to the End on 4 December soon enough) and travel. That's why I work. Not to worry about Kensington prices still holding up when north london is crashing. Shame I refuse to go live in some huge house in Lewisham as those are going for a song or £300k to be precise. But let me go see what their prices were in 2004!

God I am utterly boring myself... Someone stop me! or give me £100k interest free for a couple of years. That's not asking much.

5 November 08 - Financials Smanshials

It has to be funny when you're sitting across from a mortgage advisor at your lender/branch and she phones head office to clarify something and gets mired in repeating what she's asking and not getting the answer she's seeking. And at the end of ten mins of to and fro she gives you an answer that doesn't really inspire confidence. She pulls a few faces as if to say what you're thinking ie 'They don't know shit!'.

Later on she suggests that you call the head office yourself and you think 'you must be joking'.

If you exponentially project this level of incompetence you begin to understand why it's all gone so horribly wrong out there. I always want to ask these people 'What qualifies you to do the maths in this job? How much better than I am are you? I'd expect anyone dealing with financial services at consumer level to be able to show me the maths and make me understand them, not just punch a few formulas into their calculators or on screen and show me the result and voila'. I bloody well want to know what a difference of .25% over twenty more years of a loan makes to my pocket you morons.

But... we're at the mercy of the banks. Any other avenues of borrowing except your own family /cash are sure to be worse though it doesn't stop scores of people borrowing from money lenders.... Ok things not so bad for me, but find can't make choices until I understand all implications and those never seem to be exhausted, you can pay less here but then they get you there or viceversa and it's just going to get you to the point where you say 'ok , this one'. But borrowing 400k is not like buying a pair of shoes, is it now?

1 November - tbc

Sometimes I save a date to fill it in when I have time and then I totally don't remember what I wanted to write in it and it's.... gone.