Diary of Lisa Taylor, reluctantly 42 (and a half)

Or.. 'f.ck me I'm forty.. two.. and a half', though can look 38 on a - not so deluded - good day. Or 'How to reconcile a well experienced mind trapped in a still - but for how long? – youthful body.' Don't have the 30somethings angst/problems, neither have the resigned (?) ageing baby-boomers in safe family territory outlook yet. Here's how I cope, one day all sexy women will get old... but never invisible. © Lisa Taylor 2005/6/7/8/9. Jeez.. so much for the 42 and-a-half delusion

Monday, June 29, 2009

28 June - MJ

Weird. Friend I went to school with a long time ago and who got in touch last month after ten year hiatus, just wrote to say that when she worked next to the Chelsea Drugstore back whenever, the 4 records on rotation were Off the Wall ,The Pretenders, Regatta De Blanc and Exodus. Am sure it was a pleasure to go home and play the Psychedelic Furs.

She says she recently discovered Scream which she loves and loves the video directed by Mark Romanek who also directed Jump by David Bowie which she loves. I reply that I knew Mark Romanek back in the days, probably 8 years before he got his directors' cut of the reported $7m that Scream cost. I tell her that my favourite MJ song after the opening bars of Billy Jean is Earth Song because I just love the sound (it doesn't go anywhere but I just love it), so I go take a look at the video and just start to cry. There you have it. I loved him too. And for my record, I don't know what he did for sex (am buying the he's an alien kind of explanation) but I never wanted to believe he abused anyone.

28 June

When I worry about the healthy functions of my brain, ie. when things go wrong and friends say ‘It’s stress’ I forget that I do probably overload it. Having a magpie approach to my reading, no left behind magazine is safe to chuck till I’ve had a look. So I find myself reading long departed tenant’s old post and their the alumni magazines for example. Spent a while with one on medicine and farmacology from a US university, and bizarrely recognised chunks of its information from things I had already read in general newspapers: things on cancer, things on nutrition, things on research and so on. Do people who put newspapers like Metro together scour the same news agencies that get their info from universities? I also read the magazine of the LSE and again some of the economics, social articles seemed to contain familiar content. Sad case that I am, when I read this stuff I find myself wishing I could attend all these seminars, read all the long versions of the research.

I also came across a magazine on health for management officials/professionals in that field. What a stressed life they lead. Nearly all articles where on how to cope with reviews, redundancies, ill disposed public and other entities who hate you and think you're to blame for, well everything. All the world seems to be against Health Managers, since they have to justify cuts and why they produce endless reports spending a ton on money on management consultants rather than ambulances, and they must be the ones spreading MRSA. You know the score. Once again I thought thank god it never occurred to me to work in social work or health administration or schools or london underground.

Then if that’s not enough for absorbing info I don’t need in my life, I found myself trying to make sense of: numerics, analytic solutions, stuff that makes the mind boggle. Basically I was just checking out what an acquaintance does in case it’s complementary or competitive to what another acquaintance does and since he’s male, she female, I could introduce them and they could … be geeks together. Outside of work they’re anything but , but you know, you have to start somewhere. . He’s head of sales for Europe, so is she. I imagine if you eavesdropped on them you’d think they are talking in Arabic. Sad that I am, I wish I could understand more in-depth what their respective systems do, so for example, if I met his boss I could chat to him. Here’s what his bio says and it’s interesting no?

Xxx spent 19 years at Microsoft during which time he developed Microsoft's common cross-language compiler and runtime technology, the enterprisewide software and architecture strategies for the Office, Back Office and Windows product lines. Dr. xxx's experiences as the chief architect of Office applications and chief architect of languages at Microsoft have been instrumental to xxx as it continues to lead the market in cross-asset analytics.
Dr. xxx earned an AM and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and has a BA in Mathematics from the University of Virginia.

So you know, when I have all of this in my head and I lose my purse, well, no wonder am in a daze. Though, recent success is … getting it right at Bond St after 5 months. Yes, for all this time, despite using the interchange there every day between Central and Jubilee I could never turn into the right direction of the platform and find myself stepping off the train and right in front of the subway to the escalators to the surface. I was invariably already at the opposite end and had to walk 3 mins along the empty track to make it to the exit. This has annoyed me for weeks, needless to say, but any mental note I made every day just got scrambled. Till now. I did it. This coincides with the week after my house move. So it has to be true that the stress of that was contributing massively.

But what if a surgeon moves house? What then? What if instead of not working out spatially in which direction he should be going, he takes left for right when he’s cutting you up? Or are there stress blocking drugs one can take? Only thought of those now… after the event as usual.

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27 June - Bonkers

Well, not the Dizzee Rascal torment of a song, but Mr Ornette Coleman, who I saw last Sunday and forgot to mention. He just is. I won't explain further. You had to be there.

Can I add for the purpose of those Six Degrees things that apart from standing next to his venerable 79 year old frame after the show (I know, just standing next to someone doesn't count, but...) I then exited the venue in the same lift as the gorgeous, tall Imogen Heap and the not so gorgeous but hugely talented, short Flea. He may be a clown on stage with the Chilli Peppers but he does take his jazz bass seriously. He lifted it. Elsewhere who knows who was in attendance but I can tell you that Neneh Cherry's daughter Naima is gorgeous young lady. Then again, her dad is/was super handsome. Wonder what he does now.

And since was in bed watching footage of Glastonbury and spending the usual amount of time hating jo whiley (well Toph dislikes her posing shit much more than I do, what an absolute fake of a woman and too much fun that clearly she hates Zane Lowe so much for taking even a minute of screen time off her ugly face which she diverts attention from by showing leg and great outfit of course, that much she knows) slightly less that ho ho ho jolly lauren laverne, can I just say that I WISH I HAD BEEN THERE FOR THE PRODIGY. It's totally sad when you're over frikking 40 and you cannot face the trek and watch it in bed. I know the prodigy are cartoon johnny rottens but those chords just lift me into uncontrollable movement.

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26 June - Babies & Germs

Blimey, how about this. Colleague D. is on maternity leave. She was on the phone to another one R.. So I asked how goes it etc. Am told D. is shopping all the time for things to do with impending baby and that she was at home ‘ironing baby clothes’. So I said what do you mean ironing new clothes? R says since clothes were in shop, my colleague D would have washed them to make them really clean/sanitised.
Am asking, is this normal? Is this recommended in the books? Can an item I purchase today carry, don’t know, pig flu virus for next 3 months till this new born may wear it? Or is this mad? I’m not talking about sterilising a bottle, but washing new clothes.

I proceed to tell colleague that I buy second hand clothes and most times wear them w/o washing them. She thinks this is extremely yucky. I say that this way my immune system has possibly grown stronger. What with the past sell by date food I eat too, you know, ‘sell by’ is different from ‘consume by’ and different from ‘it’s gone off’. And that in all my travels I’ve never gone down with anything and that’s a fact. Not for me a week of Delhi belly taking a precious week out of 3 of a trip and so on.

Talking of which, a friend was on holiday in Positano with her boyfriend and on second night there he was taking a picture of her at night in the courtyard of their villa, but he stepped over a small wall to get wider angle and the soil beneath his feet gave way and he fell 40ft. He was lucky to land on sandy soil and not on rocks but with leg broken in 3 places and various other bones in his back, he’s been in intensive care first in Salerno and now still awaiting surgery in Naples nearly 3 weeks after the accident (fluid in lungs meant no surgery possible). Then will take at least another week before getting back. Sorry tales of insurers wasting time on checks etc and sorry tales of Neapolitan cab drivers scamming her everyday. But her family is from India so she says she understand the culture of scams on non speaking the lingo tourists. That’s the least of her problems. Puts a few of my strife in perspective….

Thursday, June 25, 2009

25 June - Road rage & Street Life

Not often I find myself at a loose end one luncthime in Notting Hill but on one such hot day, Toph and I are happy to discover that the lunchtime deal at Rosso Pomodoro is indeed a good deal. So we're sat outside, behind us another table for 2 with 2 nice young men.
We have a clear view of the street and the constant ebb and flow of drivers parking on the strip (a silver Bentley with Seal's lookalike and Heidi Klum lookalike crossing the road to Osteria Basilico is the best sighting) and parking attendants patrolling.

This driver starts to park her small BMW in between two cars in front of us and she rear ends a nice Audi. Then she moves forward, and rear ends again. So we're really watching her as she manoeuvres and does it again. At this point the chap beind us gets up, goes to her open window and tells her er... are you not noticing you're hitting the car behind you? He clearly gets short shrift. As she exists her car, the bumped car lady owner arrives so the chap (and us) tells her to check her car.
Bad driver woman, 30 odd, long straight hair, expensive handbag, starts loudly remonstrating that she didn't do anything, just touched it and no damage. That may well be the case, I touch other car bumbers often when I park too, but it's her arrogance that gets on our nerves instantly because the correct form in this scenario is to say 'Very sorry, I apologise, but look, I didn't scratch your car or if I did, let's look'. So we say 'You were about to bump her for the fourth time, that's not the way to park! and if bumpee needs a witness we're here to vouch you did' . So she turns on us and says what kind of witness would a couple of lunchtime drunks be? I take excepion to this since by now we have our bill on the table and it's one Peroni for the boy and one glass of red for me. She goes on being arrongat whilst bumpee takes out pen and paper to write down her registration. Driver then storms off and her words to us are 'While you're at it why don't you call me a Paki as well?'

This is so extrordinary that I have no idea where it came from. Up to that point she just looked middle estern and dark skinned and possibly one of those bitches that uses her £600 handbag to let you know she can buy the cashmere sweater in all the colours she wants in Harrods, but my brain did not offer any other defining features. I pick myself up fast enough to say 'No, Lady, you're just a regular ill-mannered cow' which I'm not sure she's even heard but at least draws a laugh from the 2 other diners.

I turn to Toph who's also shocked at the accusation and wondering how all this could have turned into a fight. I feel super sorry for her and whatever she's endured in the past by way of racism, but I also take it as a warning that people like her may use the racial card to their advantage if they want to. Had there been nobody else on that strip (well before this point the restaurant manager was also following the drama) , it would have been her word against ours.

It occurs to me with the usual time lapse on timing, that a better response would have been 'Really? You're a Paki? I thought you came from Sweden or Planet Bitch?' No, that's not funny either. Am sure there are comedy repartees I could find on the net to store up for this kind of event in future.

24 June - Art Again

We're on the street eating something and millionaire ex TV person now visual artist ex colleague of Toph goes past and stops for a hello. Upon enquiring about what he's up to, he says he's off to Venice with his work. So Toph asks 'For the Biennale?' and GF says yes.
I'm thinking surely not, it's G&G who are the UK entry (or was that two years ago? and it's Tracey Emin now) but certainl ynot GF. I'll check later but Biennale my arse, maybe he's exhibiting in Venice DURING Biennale, but why give the impression you’re part of it? It's a major distinction he should make.

Toph comments he bought his way in perhaps and that’s what happens if you’re heir to a supermarket fortune and then become a visual artist? I say, you're right, and why resent nepotism or what money can buy you if you have some to use? After all for all I know Mr top Dentist in the whole of Dulwich is probably busy making it easy for his son to become the next top dentist. Toph and I (and a large proportion of our friends) have got to stop resenting the fact we didn't have anyone to pick up the phone for us at crucial times and say 'Give my boy a job will ya? I'll pay you back the favour or here's a wad of money just don't tell him that's the reason he's getting the job or his pride will be hurt'.

Later that evening we're in Hoxton for an art show that's been sold to us thus 'You must come, something something Schnabel, and Kate Moss will be there and all manner of gossip pages model fodder'. Who's the artist I asked... 'can't remember' was the reply. But since it's an opportunity to catch up with Shoreditch friends since we can extend the invitation, we're going.
Upon arrival it all makes sense. It's not Julian Schnabel anything, but it's his son, Vito who's presenting/representing this young New Yorker who paints and makes sculptures of the scatological humorous variety and sells from between £3 to £25k. Which is not unreasonable. Turns out he's the son of a famous NY art critic. But I still can't remember his name. I like some of them, mini scenes a la Lachapelle, full of details and irony but the 12 year old son of a friend finds the turd ones funnier. But of course.

No Kate Moss that I can see but maybe she came and went since that paparazzo something Young is on hand with his camera. But there's Alice Dellal and her brother. Oh wait, it says here that the gallery is owned by their millionaire property developer dad. So no wonder it's well attended and there's that guy who runs the Royal Academy these days.
So it's a classic example of something that in Italy goes under the following category 'They make it and they eat it'. Meaning the whole shebang is self supporting from within a very close circle of people. I wonder how my friend I asked along, curator of shows where art sells for £100, feels about all this, since w/o being able to phone magazines etc and mentioning the list of names that will draw any attention to you (schnabel/moss/dellal in London or Schnabel/Wintour/Keef Richards' daughters in NYC, who's going to come to your show? and if the press don't record it, it's like it neve happened? and if your name doesn't link to other names, why buy you?

Later on I do go and check the Biennale site extensively for traces of our millionaire visual artist and I find none. It was ... exhausting, since I started going off on tangents to see who the entry was for Japan, for Croatia and so on. In our limited 16 hour lives one can only really go into one subject or two. Brain/time not enough to cross over many. I simply have to give up spending time on Art since I'll never really care enough. And cinema. I just have more than a passing knowledge in the field of music and that's that.

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21 June - Arcadia & Theatre

Went to see Arcadia. Fizzy script, great acting, all very clever, lots of cultural references and so on. Enjoyed it but even at the time was thinking, 'I won't remember much of this in six months'. In fact was convinced had already seen it but since last time it played Rufus Sewell was in the cast and I would remember seeing him, well I hadn't.

So was thinking about how most entertainment is truly just for the moment. It doesn't change your life, and how little is 'left over’ after the experience. Is art just entertainment in the here and now? After all, does thinking about your favourite Caravaggio painting help you if you’re hassled or depressed or sacked or bereaved? Methinks not. Yes, art may put things in perspective, and give some solace, but so would someone else’s experience. I mean, if xxx happens to you, good or bad, do you go back to thinking about the situation in a play or movie or novel that helps you deal with it? In fact I don't think I've ever stood there thinking about something that happened to me that it was just like the plot in an Antonioni movie or a section of dialogue in a novel I read. It doesn’t have to be contained in that medium, it's more likely that I will remember a story told by a friend and about events that had happened to ‘real’ people. Funny that, since most plots are taken from real life and jumbled up a bit.
Maybe only music escapes this. But a photograph? No. My mind when idle does not go back to the memory of a photo or of a play unless am thinking about who was with me when I saw the play or photo. And it's all incidental unless it was directly after the play that I took such and such a decision. In fact I can think of only one example: after coming out of the first time I saw 'Three Colurs Blue' by K., I left the married lover.

Later on I was saying just these thoughts to the women at the bookclub and it seems I'm in a minority of one. They all seem to remember vividly books they read, plays they saw and one in particular was waxing lyrical about about what an out of world experience she had when she saw Delaguarda (acrobatics/dance) at the Roundhouse a few years back. I said I was there too (not with her) and now that she jogged my memory, it had been an incredibly 'new' show, but to go from that to making it a defining art moment.. I'd say no. Another had just been to see 'Hamlet' with Jude Law and thought the plot was really relevant to her or more relevant now she's 50 than it was when she saw it last 20 years ago. I had to confess I saw it at least once, with Ralph Fiennes or was that Daniel Day or did that get cancelled and have no desire to see it again and on top of that have real trouble recalling the plot. There's a mad girl Ophelia, there's the ghost of the dead father. There's a mother and possible incest? But ... beyond that.... Though I sort of recognise the classics when they get borrowed for modern films/books.

Any comments?

Friday, June 19, 2009

19 June - Photos & $$$

Leafing through catalogue on photography auction. Feeling bad on crowded train when some Mapplethorpe or H Newton or Saudeck appear on the page. Ah the nudity!That's actually not so bad but it's when you hit a page with a YOUNG nude that you worry.

As ever it’s strange to try work out why this photo/this photographer sells for £30k and that one for £2k. Or how times change. Right now, 20 odd years after their time, I wouldn’t care to have a Mapplethorpe photo of Lisa Lyon. Why would I? Why would you unless you were buying it as a commodity to sell on.

And there’s the added minefield of some of these are print #6 in an edition of 10 or print #20 in an edition of 200. What’s worth more, how do they work it out, mathematically like betting? Or is some other equation at work? And if you were a millionaire in love with a print would you then seek out to buy all other ones in circulation so that you’re the only one with IT and thus your only one also gains in value? Would you destroy the others to inflate the value of yours? And so long as the negative was not destroyed and you can still get more prints, photos will never achieve the same prices as a one off painting? But where does that leave audio visual installations? Does anyone buy some video art to watch at home? And once the end product is a 20p DVD, how do you give the work itself a value?

And why can David LaChapelle sell a print of a cover he did for Vogue (Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow). Did the magazine not pay for that commission? Ok the copyright is with the photographer but can he make money ad infinitum out of something he didn’t fund in the first place? And if that’s the case why can’t a musician make all the money out of the sale of his record after deducting what the record company spent on it and made, say in the first year of its release? Though why artists have to pay 50% or so commssion to galleries escapes me. It's way too much for what they do . Why why why? See, if you’re 4 years old you ask why why whywhy about the clouds in the sky and so on, but if you’re old you’re still asking why why why.

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Thursday, June 18, 2009

18 June - Sharks & Tunas

Am not happy. All these years of not eating meat and now you take away from me my staple diet of tuna and cod. What am I supposed to do? It’s not my fault, it’s the sushi and sashimi marketing worldwide that’s depleting the stocks. There are people now eating sushi in Italy just because it’s trendy but they actually don’t like it and have to make an effort. This may just be confined to Milan so maybe it’s not that particular country who’s putting the tuna in danger, though come to think of it they always ate it tartare.

I just don’t know how to give it up. Am no Linda Mccartney… can I carry on with the swordfish? There’s only so much mackerel a girl can eat, I’m not that hot on salmon and prawns just don’t taste of anything at all and sea bass is not offered in take away meals. I often eat just the veg part of a meal, I never think of steak and … but of ‘and’ and… steak (well not steak obviously). Often my lunch is the cabbage, the French beans, the zucchini, the lentils and .. nothing more, but some days a tuna steak is just divine. I hesitated for 30 seconds in front of the chef and then thought sod it, let 20 year olds stop eating tuna to save it. They may not have acquired the taste for it yet so they can give it up and eat moules instead. I can’t.

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17 June - Travel & Not happy

The other day after a series of unfortuante events, as I like to borrow, I found myself alighting in Stratford on the DLR only to then have to get on the Central line back into London. It was illumintating to see a landscape that may as well have been the moon for all I care. The station seemed modern and busy but I wouldn't have wanted to get out. I think they make satellite boroughs too close to cities. There should be no banlieu, but clear demarcation zones left empty between a town and another. This is not London I thought, it never will be and pity all these people who have to live here. I repeat, it might as well have been the moon.

This longwinded journey out to journey back in was pleasang enought thoug. I have no problems with transport if I can sit down and read. I have no problems with work in general, necessary evil, when I get to it I don't dislike it but I dislike getting to and from it. I cry for every single hour I lost that way. I'd rather be Proust and sit /read/eat/sleep in bed than constantly having to move inside the bowels of the underground.

Take this morning. There was a guy in a suit on tube listening to annoying stuff 3" from my head. Then another comes in, older type, grey hair, suit, listening to 150mph heavy metal, I can’t make out any vocals , it’s just the relentless guitar wang wang want that I hear. I wonder how he gets into work does he need a sort of ‘kill kill kill/sell /sell/sell attitude’? Or is he a maintenance guy? (in some work environments everyone has to don a suit believe it or not). I can’t move as it’s a packed train, I want to start a conversation at one stop ‘Hi, I notice your headphones are Sennhisers, they’re meant to be really good, how much do they cost? And if he says a lot, I’ll say, but you’ve been conned monsieur, they leak sound all over the place, it is the most monstrous heavy metal...you moron'. But I don't dare of course. Am not afraid to take him on, but I know my eengleesh crowds, they'd side with him simply because I have disturbed his space. I have visions of one day being killed by a mob on a bus because I was the one who said 'Do take the fucking step forward that woudl fill that space over there I can see would fit 3 of us small girls and let several more people on, instead of hanging on to your position and blocking like mad simply because you're getting off 7 stops from now you asshole'. Yes, one day I will say it and I will die. But I want you all to start a campaign and get me at least a commemorative plaque on the spot where it happened. We can go choose it now, maybe by Elgin Crescent.

People will ask (well no they don't since this is all in my head and nobody knows) why do I want to go and live in overcrowed Delhi or Mumbai where the flesh pressing would be extreme. But they don't understand. It's not the flesh pressing that annoys me. In fact I find beauty in the ability that the subcontinent dwellers have to fill any available space with not inconsiderable grace. They bend as one with the crowd. Space is found, filled and then released to the next person. It's rigidity and territorialness that I can't abide. When I walk in a crowd it's like a ballet, I'm fluid and fast and I don't bang into you. But the plodders in a straight line are the opposite, putting up themselves as obstacles, unable to see the empty paving stone that they should step on. I have no problem with Bangkok, only wtih Covent Garden or something... Oh I mustn't go down this route. Why accelerate madness. I'll go think of something else.

16 June - Moby

It's too funny. A friend takes me to see Moby and by way of conversation I tell her I read an interview where the artist laments that he has these conflicting images in the press: in the UK they think he's a boring lentil eating hippy and in USA they think/write he's a hedonistic drug taking, alcohol imbibing party guy who dances on tables and which is it?
She says don't you know he's the biggest shagger and he actually pays for it and has two hotel rooms one for partying and one for sleeping?
What? I ask, turning to watch his distinctly unsexy bod/clothes on stage in this first appearance of his tour to support new album. She goes on with more including his latest girlfriend who upon being asked what does she do replied she's a creative dancer. Er... does that mean lapdancer? Again, I wonder. She says he's also a total control freak which in the days of zillions of formats/bundles and so on makes for a very busy man but then he probably lives with a laptop in his hands and is one of those in constant communication at all hours of day or night.

He's very engaging with his on stage self deprecating banter which is nice for a guy who has accidentally sold millions of records and is the sole beneficiary of all this fortune (apart from clearing samples or not as case may be), but he's totally not mr attractive which well, then makes sense if you pay for it. Though you probably pay for it also because you don't want any strings, and why not, it's simpler that way. Like the new songs... but he should not really sing. Dreadful voice and delivery. The two female singers are much better.

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15 June - Books & Musings

Am reading a book I like very much. This blog never really does reviews but it should reveal something of its writer’s tastes occasionally. So in the last few months, we’ve liked very much Netherland by Joseph O’Connor , we didn’t like Sense and Sensibility because we’ve encountered versions of its plot so many times, and neither was it that original when Ms Austen used it. We didn’t lucky the Japanese thriller because the writing was just not good enough and the characters not memorable, we’re going to like White Tiger when we mange to go past page 60, we liked the latest Lionel Shriver though super crap title, The Post Birthday World (what??) and we like enormously the Elegance of the Hedgehog (a French bestseller) because it’s just too funny and full of little allusions to all sort of arts and it’s fun to spot them or .. wonder ‘must come back to this one, don’t know what she’s talking about' moments.
And because she’s obsessed by language we love her even more. Must remember never to say can you please bring this to the drycleaner when the correct verb is take to , but then again I don’t think I naturally say bring this to the drycleaner. No, conscience clear. I say ‘take to’.

And because if I had ever found a plot way to link my thoughts that were going into my unwritten novel ‘The Architecture of Modern Living’, (don’t even think about nicking my title, I have notes from 2000 on this and can prove it’s mine mine mine) I’d have ended up covering similar ground to the Hedgehog. Yes indeed, my kind of musings.

There is no time to distil what I jot down on this blog. Most of the time it’s barely edited thoughts. I realise by reading the Hedgehog book that if one had the time, all those thoughts you come up with, could be really worth expanding on. If you expanded for days on end you’d become a philosopher. So the reason why most of us are not philosophers is not because we don’t have the mental capacity for this but because we don’t spend the time mulling it over. There you go, have absolved myself from being trivial and superficial. I just don’t have the time to become profound. I don’t have the necessary room of my own and annuity as well spotted by Ms Virginia Wolf. Glad the Hedgehog writer is a woman. Usually it’s men who have become philosophers as the only ones afforded the time sat on the stele and pondering whilst stroking beard. Think about it. from up there greek guy could easily piss and carry on. Women can't do that. What about Buddha? Would people have brought food and drink to a woman reclining under a tree rather than attempt to rape her whilst she sleep/ponders unprotected? You know, I sleep with men, doesn't mean I can for a second absolve the advantages they've had over women for thousands of years!

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14 June -Power & Jets

My best buy of the year is undoubtedly the super powerful jet wash which although small, packs an incredible punch. It cleans everything and served also to prove that occasionally you still need a man since I was complaining the fact that nothing much was coming out of it (compared to the more expensive and larger model that Ben had lent me previously) and Toph said 'Try switching the power on first'. I hate that.

Happy hours are spent blasting off the paving stones in my front garden and the concrete of the entrance path, all whilst trying to avoid dousing any passers by of which there are many since the theatre for all this action is right by a crossroads and traffic lights. At some point I have to stop because I think I may bring the whole side of the street crashing down since with the dirt I've probably removed some alien type of ancient slime that was glueing together my property.


I love it so much that I want to offer my services to all and sundry in the neighbourhood, keep noticing dirty steps, front entrances etc which could benefit from my new appliance. However am sure would need insurance and all sorts of health and safety to practice on behalf of others and since the jet is so strong it takes paint off if you hold it to same spot too long, I could do some serious damage and then have to pay for it. In fact when an American sounding man approaches to ask me if I work for the management company of the building (since am covered in dirt that has ricocheted against me from my soaked trousers to my baseball cap - yes I have one such item borrowed from a bloke just for this type of work) I'm ready to proffer my charges. Turns out he's locked out and wants to know if I know how entry key pads work. Er. No,I don't. There goes my £50 for an hour's work.

Would however be best to take the Quentin Crips approach of not disturbing any dust or dirt settled. Since once you start.. you notice that the outside of your house by the street is crap, but you can only reach as high as yourself (getting a ladder is not a good idea since well, it isn’t ) and if you were to sponge-wash the outside walls, where do you stop? Just below the windows of the flat above yours? I can see why people want houses so they’re more in control of the entire area but.. .I now seem to get annoyed at dirty pavements nearby. At bins, at rubbish bags left just there. This is not normal. I should not be obsessed by dirt. But then again once I saw in Vietnam, people clearing out vast tracts of rubbish and stuff by the side of their few highways. I was told that they do this civic service kind of thing monthly (coerced of course, not really volunteering) but I'd welcome it here. What's the point of me cleaning around where I live if a few gusts of wind blow next door's shit back my way?

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11 June - Wire & Hanging up

Toph had bought the complete set of the Wire because he kept reading this is the best series ever, even better than the Sopranos (oh no it isn’t). So we watched 3 ep. in one go and are surprised by the accolades. Toph keeps saying it’s really slow and I say yes, that’s why people like it, it’s counter to all that fast stuff, plus I think Prison Break was slow (though can’t say as never watched more than 1ep.), the Sopranos had long contemplative bits but yes, these are stretched further still. The following evening we try ep .4, still don’t like it but there’s satisfaction in getting to know the characters and watching for what the makers are trying to achieve. So of course it is surprising when the following evening Toph says shall we try ep. 5?

What?? You’re getting drawn in whether you want or not I tell him. Sort of reluctantly we’re up to ep. 8. Though am tempted to look at the remaining 5 ep. titles as they give you a clue in the title right? We’re suspecting bent cops in the pay of the crims. That much is clear but the chief bent cop suspect would be too easy to identify of course so we must work out what else is going to happen. Is this the right way to watch series or should you abandon second guessing as it may all be Twin Peaks in the end ie shit (in terms of plot?)

A quick look at the official site reveals just that; series one will leave us with chief crim not caught. HA! I knew it. A quick read of next 4 series’ outlines reveals they’ll follow various other characters in other directions (and prob. still don’t get chief crim and I’ll find it all very unsatisfying so am not going to bother. As they say in the show ‘Am not feeling it’ (if I was in any doubt about where this all ‘Are you feeling me’ shit has come from, well, now I know. Such a shame that they all start off well (Lost, Heroes, 24) and then it gets stretched too thin to hold the attention of an older person. Back to books it is.

Though cutting lose at series 5 is probably not too long? I think the natural end would be series 3 for most, but I can see the networks leaning on the producers/writers to exploit the cash cow just a little bit further still and everyone has new cars to buy, houses to renovate and it’s easy to say yes but then scramble around for plot. If you go on long enough, say to series 12, you can rehash previous plots endlessly (they must do that in all those other things like casualty, the bill , ER etc) and nobody much cares? It’s like life which repeats itself and so does the life of your friends so expecting something new from TV is a bit much perhaps. Ultimately maybe people just watch for the characters/actor but that Dominic West doesn’t do it for me and none of the others either…. Nah, me and the Wire didn’t last long. Like watching paint dry...

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

9 June - Gigs & Try

Ex neighbour is in a band. Never managed to see it/him so now that they're conveniently performing in Kilburn I go... Since am good with gig etiquette we arrive in time to watch most of the support. Think they're called The Nation. Then we watch the awfully named Brian Jacket Letdown who are very er.. odd (good no doubt but how to sell them, who woudl buy it I don't know) and then this girl called Rose something.

Toph and I are doing a little race to name the influences we spot in the music cause we're old. We come up with Joy Division, Prefab Sprout, Genesis with Peter Gabriel, Supertramp, Martha & the Muffins, and many more. This is across the 3 bands but the BJL probably account for 20 since they are eclectic. At some point Toph turns to Cecile (another neighbour of the one in the band and says 'This one is very Genesis'. She looks blank. She's 30. What did we expect. It's all dust eventually even for the lamb who lied down on Broadway.. What the F was all that about?

The Rose girl is sort of happy power girlie pop and whilst not my thing, am surprised at how confident she is, how they play well and have a great sound and generally seem very proficient. Bad name though, not the Rose but the McDougal or Mcgowan. Why bother and not make up a nice band name. Then I go on the net and check it all out (that's my only tip for remembering anything, if you constantly google anyone you come across, some of the info will go in, then you can surprise people at parties by regurgitating their CV back at them. Never fails to flatter) and am glad to say that my musical instincts are pretty darn good still. Said Rose was one of the 3 Pipettes. Never my thing either, that infections 60s pop but the decent success and number of gigs played by that combo neatly explain her professionalis in the small confines of the Luminaire. She knows who she is.

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Friday, June 05, 2009

5th June - Once a child

Always a child I guess. Yesterday I bought some Swarovski components to add/change some necklace I've already made. These days instead of buying yet more u/wear (my default impulse /immediate satisfaction buy - my friend C. says for her it's towels and you'll find most women operate within this narrow field) I have switched to buying crystals, pendants etc which I just add to chains and constantly change the look of my necklaces. Am never w/o one or rings. Bracelets and earrings are changed less frequently. It's all very innocuous and inexpensive. I can't fiddle with small eylets and stuff so everyhing just gets threaded on a silver or gold chain depending on silver or gold mood.

Then had to go to Ikea to view some wardrobes. Sad when everything else seems just not right (given budget) and you have to capitulate to the mighty Ikea. I absolutely hate the idea of having one of their wardrobes same as half the country so am still dithering. However, despite the mantra, am only here to look at wardrobe, I don't need anything else, at 10pm closing time I was standing in line to pay for my small other purchases. One was a frying pan in an oval shape, never seen one before, useful for fish I thought. The other was a couple of pink small storage boxes which I will use instead of wrapping for a gift to two year old child am seeing on Sunday. But to be perfectly honest the child is the excuse to buy a pink box in faux leather finish which having not existed in my days, I just had to have now. Were I furnishing my Barbie corner, well, this box is just perfect. So there you have it, the lure of baby pink is still drawing me at 40something. Uncanny this very tight wiring. Though not every woman will have it. On the way back from Ikea which seems to zonk you out even if you were only in its bowels for 1 hour max, we had to stop for a drink having spied a full, buzzy pavement outside a trendy bar in a West London street. The crowd was not that exciting close up. It included a bunch of young women busy rolling up own cigarettes and sporting various piercings or what I call pseudo Greenham Common attire. I guess none of them would pick up a pink storage box in Ikea. Each to their own. I would be the perfect Bluemarine poster girl, sometimes with some Mugler/Montana thrown in, other times a bit of Dior or a bit of Cavalli. So the feminine/sexy imprint is very strong. Can't help it. Hope it doesn't look stupid at 60.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

4 June - Control & Babies

Sometimes women are a pain. I realised this once again recently when I noticed that I seem to be issuing lots of instructions (or orders) to the boyf. When it comes to the builders... well, a never ending stream. However, the actual instructions are not many. But the volume becomes large because you have to tell them every single request/instruction REPEATEDLY. And by the third time it's no longer a request, it's a demand. So, you see, we're not guilty. It's their fault.

However, I feel better already since hearing the following. Some friends were visiting friends with a newish baby. As they were there towards bath time/bed time, they followed newish dad to the baby's bedroom and he was selecting a pjiam for said child out of a collectin of new items, when his wife's voice came through the baby intercom in the room demanding what was he putting on the baby and upon hearing his reply/description of the item, he was instructed 'No, not that one, put the xyz one on him'.

Well, you know... there's nothing much you can do wrong in dressing your few months old baby with either this one or that one so I take it that I'm not that much of a control freak. Then again I think we're both lucky me and the lady in question since we've chosen partners who are not likely to get too annoyed about it, they comply when others would take this kind of meddling as the starting point for a big row....

3 June - Luxury Inflatable Beds

Don't ask. But for reasons I won't go into, I have to sleep on an inflatable bed for a few days. It's borrowed from a friend who hardly ever used it and said it was a luxury one. In fact it blows up to resemble a proper bed complete of 'mattress' on top of those wooden boxes/supports, and has its own cotton valance. Weird. Of course you make plenty of noice moving about on it, so the jetlag giving Toph superhuman powers at 1am means that we end up making so much air escape from the valve that by morning (since we're exhausted and not willing to deal with re-inflating though it's easy enough) we're drowing inside the folds. It's kind of funny in some trailer trash sort of Vegas way.

It all reminds me of a water bed I once slept on courtesy of an 80's new romantic who had a black and gold sort of mini palace experience inside his Earl's Court flat. See, I can't recall his name or his minor hit. But he was properly narcissistic and the bed linen was black satin sheets. Now, between the water bed motion and the slipping sheets, I don't recall having such a great time. Think it was a case of all setting and no content. I do remember it was a walk of shame sort of morning though and having to walk out in last night skimpy clothes only to realise I was in Earl's Court after all and between what they saw at the Colherne or other gay bar, well, I was not that noticeable. See just there what happened? The name of one of the local pubs just got in there conjured up easily (must have gone it once if I did) but can't remember the name of the bed fellow. If I did I could at least google him and see what he did since. I can picture perfectly the sleeve of his albumand his moody profile (funnily enough he had a Tiga haircut before Tiga) but name.... no no no. Not a chance. Of course I do have the vinyl, of course I do, but in storage...

1 June - Young is as Young does

So there I am occasionally considering that what I sometimes wear is a tad too young for me, though of course am not ever mutton dressed as lamb. No way.

But it would appear that to my loverboy I am even younger than I make out. He's returned from LA with not one but two short dresses (the kind that can be worn over jeans) as favoured by the stars he tells me. The stars seen sporting said dresses on the brochure he kindly brought back to illustrate are: Lindsay Lohan, Micha Barton, the Olsen sisters... Mmmhh.. These people are half my age? But if that's how he sees me in his lover's mind's eye, that's fine by me.

According to him the shop caught his eye, he went in and describe his g/friend as a sort of SJP with larger tits, and owner promptly drew these two items from the rails. Uncharacteristically he went for black for one of them (didn't have the heart to tell him SJP never wears black, it's a TV thing) and a lovely shade of grey for the other. It seems to have taken him over 3 years to finally get the 'I don't do prints'/I don't do ethnic' edict I constantly drop in conversations. Granted, I then confuse him from time to time in wearing prints, but not often. I'd make exceptions for some Versace or Missoni colour mixes but would never, say, wear those hideous short floral dresses Balenciaga was doing last year.

What can I say, it's hot out there so I just relfect on frothy stuff. Assuming you don't want my take on MP expenses etc.

Monday, June 01, 2009

30 May - Pete & Kate

It just occurred to me that my current relationship has already outlived Peter Andre' and Katie Price (if we are to believe that the divorce is for real and not in order to sell a second wedding spread to Hello magazine later on when they iron out their differenes). Isn't that something?


But that's boring. Of course I don't ignore my boyf for the sake of spending hours on a horse, though, if I could ride and had access to such beautiful animals as she has (think her horse she carted off to USA was 500k, don't ask me how I know, a friend knows that dressage instructor KP is meant to be soft on) who knows how long I'd be out cantering.

Of more interest to me is what and when things happen in life. J. tells me about his sister who was a virgin till she turned 39! I have never met her and have no time to delve into the why's , I mmediately think that since J. is uber handsome, maybe sister is not bad looking either but hta really doesn't mean anything since it's not on bad looks alone that one would be consigned to never meeting a man. Anyway, he says that this status quo was changed a year or so ago when she started dating on the internet and since than has been shagging incessantly, to make up for lost time so to speak. I ask if she meets these guys in the casuals but he says no, it's mainly in the regular WLTM and then things evolve not into relationships but encounters. I say I have a relative who could benefit from similar outcome but she lives in a tiny town whereas J's sister has access to hot Spanish guys in Seville no less. Must get her to tell me some stories when she's next in London. Maybe only having her brother as an example, she's going for the straight version of the gay life which seems (sexually) simpler. Boy sees boy he likes, their eyes meet, the chemistry says 'go' and they shag, then they go.

I could contrast this with G.'s ice maiden 'I have to be in Love in order to have sex' stance, which just makes me think 'Girl you don't know what you're missing'. (see previous entry on ... ?). I don't know why but have always been deeply suspicious of people that don't seem to value their own physical side. I think there's something wrong with that, but I then admire the ascetic St. Francis or Milarepa etc. Then again, wait a moment, wasn't St. Francis at least a pretty dissolute young man till he decided to leave it all behind? By which I mean at least he had given it a good go. G. sounds scared of sex having only been with the same man since she was a teenager. All very well if she enjoyed that but doesn't sound like she does so why not try something else? Am sure the boyf is....

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