29 April - E's adventures

There was a time E's would listen to my stories and say 'Wow'. Sadly now it's the other way round. She's the one with 3 on the go lovers acquired via craigslist plust one recently put back on shelf.

And guess what, she was feeling guilty today for abandoning one lover she's been with for 4 nights (he's in London posh hotel for a week of meetings) to go to another she's been seeing for 2 or is it 3 years whenver he comes to UK also in reasonably posh hotel. This is the one whose wife found out and now unable to ban it from coming to London for work, demands to see phone records, receipts and so on. There are ways round this of course so she's deluded but E finds it a bit off putting to have to ask for separate bills at dinner. Next week she's off on holiday back to USA where old f buddy has already written can they please resume since recently he's been dumped by the latest prey he was chasing - poor J. as an aside I could tell you that at 56/57 he won't be able to retain any recently divorced woman in possession of good settlement, why would she bother?) but on return she hopes to see the actual London based one, a QC. All these men are married so forgive me for holding on to my long held cynism over fidelity and all that crap.

She only fell hard for 1 so far and it had to be the young one, the 29 year old phD 'kid'... but that's probably because he mismanaged it and said romantic things which the others know not to use I(no need to pull wool over anyone's eyes) as they know better at 45 plus of age.

Which way does her path of true love lies I wonder?

28 April 40th b'day ash cloud

Aww, poor A. It's his 40th in a nice restaurant in town with a bunch of friends but his partner is slowly making her way up from South Africa no less. They've charted a small plane which has had to refuel en route but as of b'day dinner they're still somewhere over Spain. Stil, another best friend has spent €500 on a cab from Milan to Geneva to get a train to get another train and so on. Effort has been made and the balloons are up. And we have a cousin of the would be new PM in our midst. Swell evening.

27 April - Fave Author & Good Eaterie

I love Lionel Shriver. You describe the plot of her novels to people and they say 'Why would I want to read that?' (it's depressing or whatever) and my only retort is 'She writes about unpleasant stuff but it's the same as what I think'. I can't go into it as I don't do literary criticism on this blog, but I went to her reading from new novel with fellow fan E. and we loved it. It hasn't got great reviews but I don't care. She was funny on the podium and sharp on her answers to audience. She gets my vote. Current plot is to do with american bloke who saves all his life/sells business in order to retire to Pemba (how topical, Zanzibar, been there done that) and the day he's all set, his wife announces she has terminal cancer. The kind you can't fix. Cue bloke having to get job back at firm he sold in order to get medical insurance and also running down the million he had put aside for change of life. All in order to buy wife a mere 3 extra months' of life. And clearly not good life either, let's call it survival. Call me stone hearted but I told Toph that if case arose, I'd think him selfish for making me ruin my plans for future (which also involve escape to another country) in order to watch him die for a few months longer. And to feel free to act likewise if th one who goes down first is me.

Amazing though how many people out there think this is morally wrong and would do chose the martyr way? Why? They're not even religious so it's not for fear of everlasting hell.

After Ms Shriver, we were treated to impropmptu dinner by E's NYC lover, or rather he was taking her to dinner and extended invite. As we were debating where, we thought of going past Dean St Townhouse where I had tried to book dinner for mid May and found it very booked up. Lo and behold they gave us a table at 9ish and it looked like they had others. Good service, good buzz but I guess I would have enjouyed the place a lot more 20 years ago where I'd have thought I was in the company of some movers and shakers I knew. These lot probably were too but I no longer know any. You know, oh there goes my mate X who produced that film last year and so on. I use the term mate loosely but you know what I mean. As it happened P. had best view of the entrance and the comings and goings but it was all irrelevant to him as he's platform Pete, so called because he works in IT and drinks rum and coke with his dinner rather than wine. Bless. The only man who spent £200 at Roka and that was just on a meal for himself. Yep, that kind of appetite.

So there you have it, if you're in Soho and stuck for some simple/dependable fare, try the Townhouse. They'll have a table despite pretending they're fully booked every night.

23 April - Hugh Grant

I never go to Chelsea. But in meeting Fulham g/friend G. I wait for her at bar in Sloane Sq where I run into Serge the russian with his brazilian friends. How odd. Then she arrives with old paramour who's a bit sozzled (she isn't as she's going to have IVF soon) from a meeting to discuss world cup comedy anthem, look up chenille steele. And then when we're hungry she suggests going to Brinkleys. Last time I was around there we had to duck Prince Harry. This time as we approach Hugh Grant comes out. Doesn't look so hot.

Thai curry is nice, place is heaving with people whose world is sort of not mine. Funny how it's only a few miles down the road from me, but we never cross. G wants a drink by now as she's feeling rebellious and frankly a bit resentful that the alcohol ban only applies to her and not to hubby who is training hard for triathlon and then going on the piss after sessions. She's sports widow! Barred from horseriding too which she enjoys a lot. The poor mite.

22 April - Angolan Skirt

My friend S. whose younger boyfriend has put many oceans between and moved to Australia last year, though relationship is still on, claims she's horny so has to exercise every day. The woman co-owns a gym but prefers to go to Home House for her work outs since she's fallen out with someone at her hq. And so it is that M and I go meet her afterwards for a drink. It's a slow and cold evening, not many people there in the variety of rooms. As my girls are smokers it is decided we go sit in the den by the garden. Also empty when we take place. As the current fags near their end, who do I see walking towards us but unaware of us? The ex from 7/8 years ago with his current girl. Without looking he makes a beeline for the sofa next to ours, not the one along from ours but the one sharing our coffee table so to speak. Lucky for me I have x amount of seconds longer to compose my face whilst he only spots me as he sits down. Register M who he also knows. He says hello, we say hello but promptly get up to go inside.

Of all the bars in this town.. as they say. Not seen him for a couple of years at least since M's funeral service up in Kensal Green and it so happens that today I was not at work and therefore wearing something one can wear only once in a while. A few weeks back D, angola queen, came back and brought me a ludicrously bright leather skirt made of patches of multicoloured patchwork in red/orange/pink hues. In other words a scream of a skirt. I teamed it with biker boots and black top but you certainly don't pass unnoticed in it. My g/friends didn't remark on it but ex would have sooooo noticed. He is Mr sober Gucci if he can. Abhors hippy stuff. So do I!! but felt had to give the gift an airing. Oh the shame of it.

Except that a quick look at his g/friend face revealed what I thought first time had seen her. She maybe ten years younger than me and closer to him in height (I was a midget with him), but seriously ugly by comparison. There is a god.

12th April - Diva & Rufus

As sent on the hoof to a friend.

Ps. R. and I thought Rufus’ s opera a crashing bore of a plot and no tunes, not a single one you could come out and hum. Very disappointing. I’ll wait to read reviews. 9 for effort and singers sang and acted well (male lead not that powerful at all) but the plot was repetitive, I mean really, they went back at least 4 times to what was supposed to be the magic duet and was ... not. Only 4 characters and 1 set and truly no arias! Boy george/Graham Norton in the audience and Rufus himself taking a bow. Bless. Don't give up the day job. Not like me to shuffle in my chair that much. The end was very drawn out too. You thought it was the end and no, wait, one more song that was not memorable apart from a line for La Marsellaise. Oh what fun he must have had naming his diva 'Madame Saint Laurent' . Get it? Could have been Madame LaCroix.

9th April - Runaways

Cruising Youtube for vids of Runaways/Joan Jett since the teenagers in Italy have asked me for clothes and since they're still wearing college kids circa Twilight outfits, I thought I'd look at forthcoming trends and buy 'forward' accordingly. As the movie on how Joan met Cherie has just come out in USA and features same Twilight actress, I think we can be sure girlies will shift style to that of the movie. Imagine my surprise to realise that aside from stage outfits, the clothes are the same still ie. converse, skinny jeans and logoed t-shirts and plaid shirts.... Mmmhhh. I was thinking more rock n roll kate moss on a night out with a few added silver /leather accessories.

However, skinny latex sort of leggins are featured too so thank you american apparel, you'll provide said trews. Absolutely shocking to me is to watch the faces of Joan & co and see how terrifyingly young they were, 15/16/17 and on tour in Japan! singing Cherry Bomb and wearing make up like David Bowie. awwww... There are some montages of photos and in some it's like it's me and my friend A.(used to holiday together every summer in her parents mountain home where we were the trendiest kids - together with some other townies - vs the locals who smelt of cow and cow milk and butter made in the huts on side of mountains) who had covered our sneakers in slogans (cue horrified mothers 'you ruined your shoes' ) and tried to tear t-shirts in various punk ways... Ok I don't have kids otherwise I'd know that this is what any teenager does, including dying their hair pink and orange as sported by the 17 year old am buying clothes for.

However I do remember not really getting into the Runaways as it was a bit crap, compared to my David Bowie so er.. I remember Suzy Quattro more.. Joan or Suzy? Who knows, both still around and looking hot.

7th April - Modern vs Old

I remember a friend has bought me at ticket to go see a play at some point in July but am at home and that information is in the Outlook at work. So I have to call her to check as am about to book something else and it's sod's law I'll pick the same day. She tells me. All fine. I usually print current and next 2 weeks of Outlook and stick in my bag but further ahead than that... no.
I have a Blackberry from work and I routinely forget it contains the same Outlook diary that I am used on seeing on the PC. I never check that at all. Rely on paper.

Then I tell an acquaintance that if he wants to come by the house to view some designer items a friend wants to sell second hand, pls come. He asks can I not send him pictures of said items. I say no, old Nokia held together by not so pretty elastic band now as keep forgetting to go buy new fascia and though it takes photos they're crap and plus I don't have leads to download etc. He says You don't have an iphone? Girl like you?
I say no, sorry and don't want one either.

I tell friend of theatre ticket of the call/no iphone and she said if you'd asked me what am doing in July, I'd have to dig out of bag the pages of A4 containing my diary/plans. She has a more modern phone than I have but uses only for calls/text. Doesn't listen to music on it. Nada. Pays her £12 a month and that's that. She is 4 years younger than me.

This gets me thinking about the boxes I still harbour containing the heart of various filofaxes throughout the 80's and some 90's and schedule/diarys form when I was 13 onwards. Yes, they exist in those boxes too. The 13 to 19 ones are more like scrapbooks with conversations written withe friends on next desks at school back and forth and with photos stuck on, cuttings and so on, lyrics of songs painstakingly copied etc. Pretty much what you would use your iphone for at a basic level ie w/o the 27,000 apps available. Why did I cart all those around for so long? Because I thought my life was important, was going to be more important and someone would need to (a biographer?) establish exact chronology of when I was where, with whom and so on. For years I kept tickets to shows attended and some receipts of memorable meals/purchases. I did see a docu on TS Eliot and his widow has these wonderful scrapbooks of stuff that is a souvenir of where they went/what they saw etc.

My life now must matter a lot less to me or am not so delusional anymore. The past ten years are on Outlooks of various firms therefore not retrievable. For a while I'd print the year in months not days/weeks but then I stopped. Recently I have delved into boxes of business cards (the rolodexes went years ago) and chucked 80%. Cards on which I'd written notes of why I had met this person etc. The rule became if I don't or barely remember who you were, your card is going. I thought I'd keep them as a memory jog but nothing gets jogged apart from 'oh this is from when I went to LA in the mid 90s or to Tokyo or wherever'. I had kept cards from cafes' or bookshops or shops I had meant to go back to. When the internet didn't exist this would have been the only way to trace these places....

I chucked a ton of photos too. Same principle 'Who are you?' I aked when gazing at a ton of now strangers in the background of shots with some central characters I still know or don't know but care to keep a record of. All bad photos went too. Am lighter but should make a date to do this once a year.

There's cassettes too. And wouldn't you know it happened ... I found one with the last ansaphone messages of major married lover. His and mine and my comments I'd record on the machine after listening to his messages. Roughly speaking ML 'Hi, it's me, it's 1am, am driving home, want to talk to you, miss you blah blah' . Me, upon playing message 'Ha!, like you really care, driving home to your wife you forgot to add'. Etc etc. This qualifies as major memento as dated '95 and my voice sounds like a stranger. The only place with a cassette player is Toph's car, and that's where I happily went down this particular memory lane. Until...

Until I tried to extract said cassette and it is STUCK. FUCK! Tried and tried and no chance. So I called him and told him. Luckily had wound it back to beginning and I used to record over music cassettes of course and this one starts with some very unappealing dance music so am confident Toph who hasn't played a cassette in his car for years and years, will not be tempted or if he does will stop it after 20 seconds. Phew. Then I'll probably have to pay £££ next time car is serviced to have the stereo taken apart to retrieve. Why? well, because I am sentimental that's why. I want that tape back so I can do a Bridget Jones, get a glass of wine and play it once in a while and rile at it. Though has to be noted that upon listening I kept thinking 'I truly cannot remember how I felt at the time'. It's obvious it was the most tragic thing in my life this ending a 4/5 year relationship, the major /defining one or second one but ... aside from the overall remembering, there is no way to access that pain ever again I think. Which is a good thing until you consider it must also mean that something inside has gone dead since then. Maybe I need an actor's workshop to be given the tools to go back but er.. why?

4th April - Tits & Ass

I'm getting some spare cash later on this month. Well, if I start to go through my list of what I need to spend this month (buildings insurance, repaving the front terrace and making it watertight for cellars underneath, and a long list of other similarly unexcting stuff and oh, buying dinner for 20 people in a moderately expensive place - I owe a few favours) I'd end up with no spare but let's just say that there will be some. I want to have my tits inflated back to me circa age 25. I actually don't think they can give me that many doses of macrolane of whatever the injectable liquid is called but that's what I would like. Cost.. approx 2k I think and the effect will slowly diminish and ebb away in the space of a few months but I'd just like to have one summer with tits up to where they should be on my torso and that' s not too much to ask for. Toph says no. Likes the boobs as they are, thinks they'll feel hard at the touch and be generally weird. I explained this is nothing like implants so there will be no hardness, at least from what I read.

So what would you do? Throw away 2k just to please yourself and possibly displease him or bank on the fact that at fait accompli he'll love them? After all he thinks I'm superskinny and look great in my jeans when I wear such things, but we all know the reason is that I removed the saddlebags I'd been carrying all my previous life. Thus the size 8 sort of drops off me as the fat saddles are no longer there to catch the falling trousers if you see what I mean. Actually am exaggerating. They stay up as I left the ass as it was and it's not an oriental flat ass. So what would you do? As previoulsy explained I weigh up the money vs what kind of holiday it could buy and 2k buys a lot. Then again for second - or is it third? - year running, I've not gone skiing so think how much that's saved me?

3rd April -Rowers & Millionaires

Sometimes when I read those pages usually at the end of a supplement where a well known or famous person is describing their day or their w/end I think some sound like that's what the person actually really does on average (Toph loves his FT supplement How to Spend It' so am reading about the woman who started Miller Harris candles and other nick nacks and her w/end sounds pretty reasonable and true to what it must be like. Other times you read these things and you know it's written for effect, to promote brand journalist. So in same magazine or i think so - read too many, you have Tyler Brulee telling you that at Easter time he drives with friends down from Switzerland into Italy, stops at Villa d'Este hotel in Como and then goes and does some seasonalbe expensive clothes shopping and buys oh darling , part of his fortchoming summer wardrobe. Poser! but then in his business that's what he's selling and new clients will book him for that. on same magazine some totally pretentions guy who lives in Beijing tells you he has handmade bags/suits/shoes, can't remember which, that cost £4,500. so presumablye he's self aggrandissing to get clients who will think well if he, the hired hand, can afford that, he'll find me the hand made bag/suit/shoes that cost £15,000. I'm the client so I can pay more. And i will goddammit. In fact if you ask £10,00o for that, I'll pay £15,000. Cause I can. Remember that funny .. guy Harry Enfield, with that sketch about notting hill trustafarians who go to his shop which is called 'I saw you coming'? well, that...

So am in the car telling Toph that it would be one thing me writing what I do every weekend (chores, more chores, bit of reading, eating, sleeping in, seeing a friend or two or going off to some other country, seeing some friend or relative - pretty much what you all do I guess. Or i could chose to describe one extraordinary day and give the reader the impression this is the norm and you'd all think 'My oh my, what an interesting life LT leads' and you'd come book me (I'd be a consultant in something , what else?) based on what I name drop. So I would describe today when I went to watch the Oxford-Cambridge boat race (first time I give time to this sport but you should think I do this every year) from the roof top of an amazing house with one of the largest gardens in London and a view of the river just before they get to finish line) , a house previoulsy occupied by a famous clothes designe son of a famous household shopkeeper. This in the company of a high profile and TV friendly black MP, a TV friendly human rights campainger who's shorter than me and a bit juvenile (though she had said she never drinks and she had had 3 short bloody marys and I had one and yes it made you very chatty, the dautgher of a millionaire philantropist, a friend of Bonio, a right hand person to Bill Gates who has the presence of a young Clinton, his wife who I think said had worked for Bill, a few people who recently flew on the Google private plane (yes there is one or in fact several) to a fund raising thingie in Nairobi and one person who sat all evening next to Christy Turlington (at his own request). There could/should have also been a guy who recentl paid top dollar at an auction to kiss Kate Moss.

There were also several other people of lesser standing and some I never got to find out what they do but they drove off in a Maserati so that tells you something. There were some small children who, given the background and the fact that they probably bounce on the knees of presidents and prime ministers will grow up to be.. oh I don't know, stoner dropouts? Then there was me and Toph.... er.... yes. 's true.

TBContinued as I'll have to start by describing the interior which was exquisite and my idea of uncluttered silky dove blue grey silk all over and ..... find a way to report conversatons w/o giving too much away or I'll never be invited back will I?

1 April - acid pains

There's a few posts to come from mid March onwards but have to flesh out the notes. This is just to say not gone off radar yet, just under the weather for various reasons. All will be well.