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

Friday, August 14, 2009

14 August - Cambodiaaaahhh

My friend D. has finally arrived in Siem Reap for her training month care of a landmine charity who will then send her on to Angola. Enjoy is all I can say. She was so apprehensive before going and I was trying to describe the temples and the life there and saying you'll be blown away.

Which is what happens to the locals since they are prepared to buy at reduced cost land that's still infested with landmines in the hope that when it gets cleared they'll have a nice field /paddy field. Thing is, before that happens, they're likely to lose a member of their family or three. Very sad.

On the down side, she has to wear a uniform and they're all made for men and they have to adapt one to her now lardy fat ass. On the plus side, she has a nice house with a maid who leaves her food for the evening and is being squired around by very attractive ex army style alpha males. And since she won't be drinking gallons of wine as she was doing in London for the past year, she'll get healthy again and drop the lard ass in a month. And on 2 of her leaving drinks/dinners last week she had the pleasure of meeting, thanks to other friends who know these people... Christopher Ecclestone, David Schwimmer and Barbara Windsor. She was pretty impressed with Babs.

Just be careful out there my friend.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

12 August - Old & Websites

its's that time of the year where there's nothing much to do and am up to date with the document that contains all my passwords and log ins and PIN's etc and also the self-explanatory one called 'Where things are'. Since am all for making it easier to deal with the mountain of admin one would encounter, should I die tomorrow. If it didn't cost lots to do a power of attorney, I'd do one now, but I imagine I may have to change it to another name/friend at some point so not worth the expense. I have a friend who is the ideal person for this task, she's a lawyer. But since she's in year 2 of dealing with the mess left by her father's death, also a lawyer, I don't thin she'd want to be burdened with my shit. The thing is that her father died in his 80's and after a ten year decline due to Parkinson and so on so you'd think evertything would be ship shape but no, not at all. And it all takes mountains of time and you end up having to give money away to the taxman etc.

So there you go, me being organised and having more than one property and family in other country, means I try to at least make the task of unlocking passwords here and there an easy one. But...if my unofficial executors use my passwords, will they be treated as fraudsters I wonder? There's nothing banks surely like better than holding on to unclaimed money. Or do they give it to charity after ten years of it languishing in an account for example. I doubt it.

However, all this exercise has achieved is proving how many passwords one has. Since every bloody thing seems to require one. So I set myself the challenge of at least re-accessing everything I once signed up for. All those websites that I just wanted to see how they work but I don't need. What's facebox for example (not facebook), or desingersarewankers? And so on.

But even during a slow week this is equal to wanting to kill yourself. And I don't even have half of the technical baggage many younger people have, you know passworded phones, music devices, other applications. It's simply too much.. stuff. I want the desert island, the cave, the remote himalayan mountain top.

11 August - Morrissey & Tequila & Art

So we go to the Mandarin Oriental bar for a not so great margarita (don't mess with the formula I say, this one has some fruit juice in it that does nothing for it) and I refuse the small table by the door that we're offered, opting for a sofa at the back which is under a drip from the airconditioning.

My friend remarks that in summer in London, nobody would make any money around town if it wasn't for all the arab citizens escaping their 50 degrees in the cooler alleys of knightsbridge. Indeed the clientele is all middle eastern but I wonder, if a hotel becomes popular or gets adopted by one group of people who hate another, does that other group (jewish in this case) find it comfortable to sit in the same bar/restaurant? I just... wonder.

As we exit, I notice that Morrissey is sat on a sofa with some business looking people and directly next to the little table I refuse. Darn. Could have eavesdropped or said come stai since he's conversant with Italian and roman boyfriends. Oh and could have asked so which guy is G Clooney bonking in Italy. Surely Morrissey would know? It's all very well my fashion friend's gay mate in Las Vegas saying he has proof but until I see the photos....

Outside the entrance a strange sight awaits... a shiny and totally silver as in steel pan silver Ferrari. We stop and look and a guy says 'wanna a drive?' dangling the keys and I say 'it's not your car, whose is it?' . He says he doesn't know, an saudi arabian guest. But of course. God, can you imagine? Maybe he lives in London or maybe he had it shipped for the month of August. In any case... why do I think it's the height of tacky and he doesn't? I'll never know why tastes differ so much. A friend is doing a docu on domestic art, art on the walls of regular people and they all have the pebbles or the jetty from Ikea. Nobody I know has them or would have them, but is this because they come from Ikea or because we don't like them? I try to get Toph to committ to either the pebbles or the jetty and he says the jetty. I take the pebbles, if I really really had to. But I doubt besides choosing/buying these things, if one then at home spends anytime actually looking at them, or they become just like the paint on the wall. Invisible.

The show presenter comes down on these things really hard but when the director goes to her house she has photographs of her 3 dogs on the wall. And like, that's more tasteful/unique/real art? My arse, it's not of course so who does she think she is? And besides art we like is not art we want at home. I like G&G for example but would never take one of their garish paintings home. Ever. So ho hum, discuss.

Monday, August 10, 2009

8 Aug - Vyner St art

Monsoon London! Love it, when it rains these days it buckets! Shame one still has to use the tube (closed stations) or try to find a cab in Bethnal Green to go to the late night art thing on a first Thursday of the month in vyner st and cab and me can't see names of streets in the sheets of rain.

I arrive late and miss meeting famous comedian with TV shows etc that my friend is filming with. All the galleries visitors are the usual daisy lowes and henry hollands, in other words I have no idea if anyone who look older is probably a curator or art dealer. Not much time to look at anything. A drink at a show (where I surprise a 23 year old we're chatting to by saying that I did go on an arty tour of graffiti once with Banksy and gasp, I saw what he looks like! He's impressed) and then we're off back West at that great place on ken church st where you can load a c/card style thingie with money and then deduct from it the cost of a glass or a shot of expensive wine. This is where we belong.

4 August - George & Elisabetta

Well, a friend writes from Milan and asks when will I visit again, I say prob never though would love to be on Lake Como in the summer, very nice indeed. She says her mum (who lives there) saw George and Elisabetta with Cindy Crawford and hubby in the street. Aahhh, must have been a dream of good lookingness. I say something about George and betty being his beard of the year and she says yes, local gay mate says what goes on in the villa is a lot of cross-stitching. Must be Italian lingo for not having sex.

My friend's further theory is that betty is paid for by mr berlusconi to hang with George and get photographed thereby offering some escape from his own scrutiny by paparazzi. That may well be so, though betty is getting lots of free publicity worldwide when before she was but a national tv presenter best known for love affair with some footballer (in Italy tv presenter and footballer is the only coupling allowed to either).

Anyway, hasn't George's latest dropped girlfriend, the LA cocktail waitress, said in an interview that he's no great shakes in the sack? My theory is that he does girls but only a little, just so that it all looks regular that way. But... who's the boyfriend????

2 August -Blancmange

Swell. We go to a party in Clacton which takes ages to find though it's just there by Hackney's Mare st and I love my friend's house, never been before, triple height ceilings, just gorgeous.

It's a bit sparse as a party because it's raining and probably a barbecue didn't seem a great idea to many prospective guests, but ... we're here and happy to meet friends of our friend who we don't yet know.

Unexpected pleasure for me is meeting neil arthur!!! I knew he's a very good mate of J but had not factored in he'd come. He's just as nice and friendly as he was 30 years ago when Living on the Ceiling was in my head a lot since I worked with them. And I fancied him a lot. Funny to see how his life is. Wife is not here but lovely daugther is and they live out of town and he has a studio but I have no idea what music he makes. I also now think he's far too tall for me. Wouldn't ahve lasted long at all. But just... sweet.
Also present is MA who I had once introduced to M (after I first met him) thinking they'd get along and I can see now more and more why they'd never would have. He's a basket case. Upon an innocent enquiry about schools (where he went as a teenager) he mentions blah. Toph asks how did you find it and he replies they left him largely alone as he used to self cut and had a can of coke on his windowsill with his congealed blood. Er, yeah.. sure.