25 Feb - Random ones

Joys of internet # 756. Lots of friends asking if I watch Mad Men . Answer no, have no time for a series. But thanks to youtube have watched enough to 'get it'. Especially loved a posting that in 3 minutes sums up series 1 & 2. What a feat of concisiveness!

I hate series, they overstay their welcome. Occasionally I catch sight of ten mins of Desperate Housewives or Heroes or Lost and wonder about the sad folk who stick by these shows which become a con, a trick, a waste of your time since they meander implausibly. I know implausible is actually how life can be sometimes but episode after episode of 'unrealism' gets on my nerves. Sorry enough.


I'm a recycler since year dot so by washing the plastic containers before putting in recycle paper bin after a dinner party where lots of food came in nice trays that went straight in the oven or contained vegetables or puddings and so on, am astounded at the mountain of plastic thus created. I have no objection to Mumbai/Daravi slum style rummaging to sort out plastics into more usable recycling. If I had space to keep just my own in a barn or something and sell at the end of one year I'd make money and I'm one of a family of 2 who buy 80% fresh and cook from scratch. The amount generated by those with ready dinners 5 nights a week and so on must be horrifying.

24 February - Artists & Architects & Guides

These late nights at galleries are great though arriving before 6pm at the Tate Modern only to find out they close for a while till they reopen at 6.30pm is a shock in the cold wind. Repair nearby to wait for R. who amongst other things tells me of her mate who was organising yet again a major event (am not talking Baftas but similar) and has decided this is her last one. The stress has got to her, being a producer is no fun, there comes a point when hearing the same demands, having to pacify the same egos and battle till last minute (presenter with unsigned contract 24 hours before show anyone?) is no longer a pleasant adrenaline fuelling 'I did this' sort of feeling but just sheer hell. We sit there thinking, we’d never do a job like that (again and not that we ever did it to that level but we 'get it'). I guess HT is over 45 and has stuck it so long due to being main breadwinner at home. That’s another one of those moments where not having kids to worry about turns out to be a massive advantage. You don't have to do it for them. This is good news for another friend of mine who has been wanting to bite that show's cherry for a few years but found her path blocked by the incumbent so there you go. I love it when I go out and hear of something that benefits someone else I know. My gossip rules!

We do van Doonesburg (heh? still can't spell it right) and play that game where you don't know which one is his, which one is Mondrian's but you instantly know the better of the two and, no surprise, it's the Mondrian. It just is. So maybe there's the lesson, the best one wins. Should really have read reviews before not after an exhib., good old Brian Sewelld explained it quite well when I finally read his review a few days after. Had saved the one about Arshile Gorky too but we simply didn't have the energy for him on same night. I must go back. What a tragic life he had, no wonder his paintings are so... sad on the whole.

Then R takes me walking around the City as she's my budding tour guide, and shwos me the glass column under Millenium bridge, the Millenium Measure. Have walked past it many times and all I ever thought was nothing really, I didn't take any notice, seemed a tall sort of cigarette butts type container but turns out to have all this wonderul info inscribed on the sides. The R tells me more stuff about just this small little corner of the City. I tell her she's turning into a trainspotter. She says couple of guys in her class are, the ones who as other hobby know everyting about helicopters for example - there's a guy there who likes her. She's not interested but proof that at 58 it can still happen. And she won't get Alzheimer at this rate as she's still packing info into her mind. Go girl.

The other nice news re. a friend is that J. had to borrow a tie (C. at Burberry sent him a care package /bike) and go buy a shirt to wear at fabulous event where he was photographed towering next to I.M. Pei!!! who's like, 92 and it was for a celebration of his life/work - J. did some composite film to sum up the architect's projects built and some remained on paper only. How inspiring. The amount of people I've told and they were blank on who I.M. Pei is , and when I said you know, only remaining living one together with Oscar Niedermeyer and they were blank again and I said to Toph 'why' and he said 'darling only you know everything' . And well, I do. There.

19 February - Ten years after

It's the name of a band but it's also the amount of time elapses since I did a course with a bunch of nice people who meet once a year at most but always seem such a pleasure to chat to.
Conversation was definitely better than my risotto. I have to stop cooking for myself and learn to cook for others, in other words, a risottow will only ever be perfect if I drown it in butter. I cannot bring myself to put enough salt/butter/oil on stuff so it never tastes like it does in restaurants. Funnily enough, what came out best was what I bought in Waitrose ready to go in the oven... Sigh....

Anway, Toph most impressed that T. is 67 and not gay. He's very slim, dresses in tight blight t-shirts and black jeans and exercises like mad. I tell Toph one main reason is that he left his first family for a much younger woman and has a daughter who's only entered her teens now. In other words, he tries to keep up. Toph most enthused, wants to age same way. I commend it. Salt and butter remain off the menu.

14 February - E&O lunch

A small fortune later .... lunch with S & D and lovely Toph back from Ghanaiana adventures was declared a success. We said no to Valentine menu. In fact am horrified that all restaurants seem duty bound to buy into that shit at this time of the year. Really... Mr Ricker, repent. Friend who spent the Sunday in Clacton (don't ask) said all the restaurants there also decked out in red with balloons etc but no punters. No romance in Clacton? Or all sorted from night out on Saturday? I'll never know.

13 February - Surprise 40th

Went to a surprise 40th for an HR guy at Gucci's. I didn't know him and 4 other people I was with didn't know him either (we were tagging along with one official friend of this guy), so yes very surprise to him and to us (I was roped along after an early dinner). Distinct shaky voices when feted boy arrived and who had gathered as instructed before 9.30pm wathershed, all intoned the happy birthday song, as when it came to the name it was a garble. His name is R. I know that now, he's Brazilian and his other friends were extravagant 7ft tall trannies in all their finery and an almost naked go go dancer man also 7ft tall in heels who was the oddest thing to watch on a podium as did all the pole dancer moves a woman does but when you see a man moving like that, it's just odd. The entrance had been decked out with cinema size projection of R.'s face in tasteful b/w and sort of model pose. We, the guests, were all photographed too at the entrance. I got the distinct impression that civilians these days want to live like the models/actors/showbiz people they see in magazines and this was his chance to be transformed into his own icon. Well, his organisers friends thought he deserved the BRITS entrance red carpet style at least.

We had lady with us who owns or runs the textile factories in Como from where all the top designers buy their fabrics. She's 60 and modern but pointed out the scene in Como is not like here and not even in Milan would they have a 90 % gay guests party so dressed up (venue was extravagant space you hire for parties. Very not all taken up by us so it sort of felt the 100 people there were lost in space for 500. Or did he have 400 friends who didn't come? I asked Como lady if they show all the fabrics to all the designers or if there's a pecking order and Versace rings and says 'keep the best one for me' or ?? She said it's first come first served and who places the order first. She said they all ransack the archives though of course her company designs new patterns all the time too. But the archives. there you go, nothing new but re-workings of this and that from the fifties, sixties and so on.

We also had an Italian actress A. with us who's in London to lean English as according to her own legend she lost the part that went to Marion Cotillard in Nine (and also a part in James Bond) becuase of lack of English. mmmmmhhhh... I watched her on youtube following day and her output so far not really in the Marion Cotillard bracket. No , no, no, that woman is one serious amazing actress. Though James Bond different story. Anyway, actress was bored as no men there paying her any attention. Too funny. Tried to talk to her to keep her company, but clearly I didn't figure in her plans for the evening and she didn't engage. Everytime the girlfriend she was with went to the loo (and she was gone a long time) this one sat there and never thought of asking me any questions. Well, yo bitch, good luck with London, but you looked over 35 to me so, not really in line for that much any more you know? She looked sort of Penelope Cruz style so that alone may have not got her the part. Wife/Mistress looking-likey? One had to look less man-eater and this one had that look indeed whereas Cotillard can do the put upon wifey a lot better. But what do I know, that's what make up and acting training are there for...

12 January - 80's & Raffles

Cut and paste from email to friend.
So I managed to get my friend C. to agree to go to Raffles for rusty/sullivan’s club.
She was asking before we got there who do you know and I said I don’t know anyone really, it’s not like Rusty is my friend but hey... We get to the door and she, C. goes ‘Hello!!!’ and very happily to 2 women at the door. one doing the door, black June, she was always doing doors, and the other one someone called R., very tall, who was Visage’s manager?? They talked about a mutual friend that C. has lost numbers for and who moved to Sydney. Alan something? George Michael’s stylist?????? Who also styled for Armani? Flurry of chat as C. used to work at D&G and others as the person who lends clothes to celebs (she has a few funny stories about what their bodies really look like away from photoshopped photo shoots) and then she worked for a PR company for clubs like Chinawhite and others but she was not in London in early 80's.

So we walk in to the music of simple minds, then japan, visage, durans, you name it (Rusty’s set). Pretty empty club (was 11pm) but very pretty, lit squares on the dance floor so felt like being on TOTP. A few familiar faces but not that I could name. Except for one, Gary Crowley, who was prob there on his tod and so decided I was his best friend for the evening, lots of hugging me, dancing with us, calling me by name (I cannot ever remember having a conversation with him but we know some same people, his ex of many years worked where I worked and is mate of my friend R, but this woman J. never even says hi to me when we see each other in places these days as it’s pointless as we never went beyond nodding to each other).

So we danced and I told GC when ‘Last night a dj saved my life’ came on, that it was on his Capital radio show that I first heard the song. He loved it, made it the hit it became. Also told him how nice it was to see he could still fit in the same trousers of 30 years ago , he’s not put on weight unlike lots of others. Told me he has a daughter now and various other bits of personal info.

Sullivan’s set was a bit more recent but only just, started with deelite, then kid creole, then let’s dance by bowie that kind of stuff, and rebel rebel. Think I pissed him off, as , egged on by GC, I went to ask for human league and eurythmics and he told me he didn’t’ have them or that that was rusty’s set. Rusty didn’t seem to even nod to me – so few people there, so really didn’t register . Only one woman dressed sort of 80’s style and she was our age. Rest dressed as of today. Few younger people but think there because the club Is their usual hangout anyway, and some very old men, like 60’s. locals…. Bought a vodka tonic, £12. So really not sure what I would drink if there if my 20 year old self on 20 year old salary of 1982 had gone there and stayed longer than the hour/hour and a half I stayed.
Will go again, if can bring more mates so as to have my little possee. Was one other guy there I knew of , but not friend, though GC introduced, he’s MJ who owns that record label called Wall of Sound , very successful (les Rhythms Digitales, Royskopp, some Sigur Ros). GC said he’ a big electro/80’s fan., my mate M. knows him well. Turns out MJ has gone and signed the human league recently. Just because the poor sods are jealous that younger musicians make money out of the 80's sounds revival but they don't. Well am sure they get royalties but maybe not enough.

I asked GC where’s your mate Paolo Hewitt? Where’s your mate Paul Simper? But he said don’t go out much. I guess many live not central London any more .. As for work, he does a couple of shows on radio london, and ‘this and that’. I don’t think they earn much those djs .. Sullivan writes for local free west london magazine I get through letter box .It’s one thing to have royalties from old records (there’s a Best of Visage coming out I kid you not) but otherwise, they never had proper jobs so not easy. And not as lucky as your mates Stuart Matthewman and Paul Dennan still coining it from Sade’s co-writes.

Ps. Was freezing as waiting for night bus to go home. I sort of remembered I have money and could get cab from Kings rd to home quite easily but you know, was in ‘am 21 mode’. Only at 21 would have had possee boarding the bus with me. Miss those days.

11 February - Boys in ghana

Toph says that in Ghana they celebrate Valentine as a sort of free for all carnival and it's the one time of the year when you can go up to a total stranger and say 'How about it?' and that the beach will be littered with condoms day after and the government has a campaign going to educate the public that it's about Love not Sex.
Blimey! Who'd have thought? Just as well he flys back at midnight on the Saturday 13 so no chance to go frolic with strangers. Must check youtube and see if anyone has Ghanaian valentine uploads. This I have to see.

9 February - Brange & Yusuf

Brangelian/Jenn boring stuff in papers all the time about splitting up/dividing the fortunes, the kids etc. But if I tell you that in the Beatles vs Rolling Stones I was RS, then you know where I stand on this one. Sympathy for the devil. Always. So go Angelina.

Then I need to write about the bruises from the lock up. And about Young Yic/My Name is Yusuf play … that Toph hated…. ‘frigid’ in fact according to him. Too much going out? My friend L. never goes anywhere but local. Sometimes I try and imagine how much time you save if you limit your life to 2 square miles (she also works on a radius of 15 mins from her house).

er.. will continue tbc.

8 February - Hima films

A happy week of little festival in its first year. And wouldn't you know it, one of the organisers happens to work same place as me. What's the chance of that? Two of us wannabe free spirits marooned in same corporate land of lies. But I go to the films on my own, better that way. Like indulging in secret pleasure. I watch 'Kagbeni'. Oh, how I cry when I see those mountains. Automatic tears as in when I hear 'E lucean le stelle' from Tosca. Go figure what tap those two things open. So, Himalayas, w/o question happiest time of my life. It's filmed in/near Mustang, which wasn't open to foreigners when I went up there (Annapurna side) but they go to Marpha, they talk about Jomsom down the road, they cross the Kaligandaki river. Harsh harsh life in wind and sun (and snow of course but you never film at that time of the year, too complicated. I ask the director (who's a TV director first and foremost) if he knows of my friend there, also in TV, KC who I've lost contact with. He says yes and I leave clutching business card that will get me reconnected again. Then I go see 'Riding Solo to the Top of the World' and that's even better, many long shots of so much empty space and sky that you ... space out. The director, who filmed it 6 years previously is trying to convey just how his soul expanded when he went there. He ends up almost looking silly, like on drugs but I get it. Same happened to me and I didn't do it on my own as he did, nor spent a week with the itinerant tribe. Am delighted that the basic language they communicate in is Hindi and I get the odd word here and there. I'll be fine too once I get my basic level up one notch. Then I buy the DVD as A. in Holland will just be thrilled to get it (she rides motorbikes so extra meaningful to her. Then I find on the net the travel blog and photos of an american who was on those mountains practically at the same time as us ten years ago. We didn't have digital cameras nor proper ones so have few photos. He has uploaded /scanned his and they could be ours as we saw exactly what he saw at that same time of the year. He rates Everest side higher for the views (in fact on Annapurna side you're always walking at high level but never that close to the peaks so they're far away in the distance, whereas on steeper Everest side the mountains are just behind you).
Am dismayed however to hear that there are now roads up Annapurna side to a certain level. Delighted for the locals not to have to lug their massive loads up and down either on their backs or on mules but... dismayed because it will never be the same as when was inaccessible. But of course patronising of western tourist like me to want to keep it undiscovered (not that it was when we went, the trail was well busy) but you know what I mean, back to The Beach sort of wishful paradise only I know feeling.

6 February - Clothes

So, only the other day was I reading a story in The Standard on clothes that are destroyed when the end of the sales comes and they have not been found a home. Something along the lines of the Gap slashing them and binning them and someone from some cashmere brand saying he works hard to keep the brand exclusive and so demands that his stockist destroy stock rather than mark down too much and if stockists don't comply he won't sell to them again. And something about the fact that when we're tourists we don't want to get to parts of the world where poor people live and find them wearing designer labels so unsold merchandise cannot be sent off to the other side of the world. So far, so ... makes sense. And presume when it's not brands it's even easier to just rag the unsold stock (i personally think half of what primark sell is actually made of plastic so am sure can be recicled to become picnic paper plates etc).

Then am in the market where I stop often enough to buy wool jumpers from the guy who sells them at a fiver for 2. I often walk away with six or eight. Allegedly most are bought as gifts for the teenage daughers of my mates/relatives but when I get home and model for Toph he invariably says that looks good on me and I should keep it. Especially when it looks like something for a 13 year old. Clearly in his eyes my age spans decades. This time we chat as he clocks that I've picked the Ralph Lauren out of the Next bunch etc. FYI I don't pick for the label but the designs I like, whilst also assuming that if was sold in a RL shop, it may well also be a better quality yarn than the Dorothy Perkins selection. He tells me he sometimes has to pay £70 for the stall so am calculating how many jumpers he has to sell (he also sells cashmere at a fiver or tenner, and other stuff) plus I don't know his margins. He buys in bulk from somewhere where recently he's being squeezed out by Bulgarians or Romanians who buy in such large bulk to sell in own country in actual shops that he is missing on some good stock. Just then a woman picks a 'woolly' dress that is sold by him at £7 and in the rest of the market at £9/10, though am sure you can barter down to a fiver. I say I don't understand why the dress is so ubiquitous and he says it was once worn by Sienna Miller and the foreigners sort of like it and... it costs him 27p. Yep for dress sold for £7. That's what I call a margin suddenly. Ten of those and the stall is paid costing him £2.70. Not bad for standing here on a drizzle day.

He's sort of worried now he's made his life sound too easy so he adds that for one day at the market he has to do a lot of driving here and there to sort out merchandise and when it snowed last month he couldn't get to his supplier nor come do the market and suddenly was in penury and considering that old adage of 'I have to get a proper job'. He's also launched a lable of recycled kiddie clothes called 'usedtobe'. I really like it. Tell him he can apply that name to almost anything he'll recycle and how lucky to have bought the domain name.

But this puts paid to my future plan of selling back to him all that I've accumulated from his stall. My entire wool jumper/cardigan/tanktop/vest collection probably cost him a tenner if that...

I go off wandering and suddenly am pricing everything I see very differently. See those haibands with feathers or netting or plastic beads stuck on them and sold by the oriental stalls. They want £10/12 for one but they must be 50p. Or the guy with all the FrenchConnection cotton items? He sells them for £3 but perhaps also pays 30p for each. The gusy with the Clarins beauty products for £3/£6? Job lot entire stall stock for £200? max? Truly, try go tell that to the Luis Vuitton women... Handbag for £1500, made for a hundred if that... Mind boggles. If you start devaluing everything this way you would hardly shop... Result?

5 February - Sibelius

Am listening to various versions of the same piece of classical on youtube. It’s bizarre but I don’t have an ear for this. When one version directed by conductor x ends, and I switch to same track conducted by other conductor with totally different orchestra, it’s like I hear it for the first time. There is no memory that I know this piece. Even if it’s Sybelius's 5th and have heard it many times both on youtube and live, with some of the best orchestras. Some play it faster or slower and some versions were recorded 20 years before another other one and still I can't store it in my memory. Even if I play them side by side.

I mean, I think it should work that if I hear a mix of a Lady Gaga track by original producer and then someone else, I hear the tune and the changes, or at least some of them, and the song remains the same, but in classical’s case it’s like it’s a new ‘song’ altogether. I love reading the comments under youtube vids by people who know their classical, and some are musicians themselves, as they debate back and forth about the merits of this vs that. I remain excluded from this club. Maybe it's because it's not a song, it's a bigger, more complicated thing and my brain just isn't wired to get it.

Toph explains that Sibelius symphonies were written at the end of the cycle for that genre so the genre was almost a spent force, no wonder the 4th seems to meander quite a bit and the 5th despite having a memorable hook, only uses it so briefly that you hardly retain it. Was he trying to trick us? leave us wanting? and why can't a modern composer revisit it, re-shape it a bit and close the circle so to speak. We're at the RFH, the conductor is a well known Swede, Toph is waiting for the hook he likes.

Parvo wonders where the audience of the future will come from since all are old in the audience (and white) but surely this has probably been a question for last 50 years anyway… audience is always old. You get to 40 and you think 'Ok classical, that will do me, I'over grime and drum and bass and dubstep'. And for next 40 years you go, especially as you can get cheap tix, bus is free, you bring a sandwich and you can fall asleep. Surely it’s perfect? And as you also hit 50 and suddenly want to buy tickets for horticultural shows, the two things are self-perpetrating and won't disappear especially if still super funded by public purse. As for the musicians, maybe there aren't that many young people wanting to take up the tuba, but since if you get a place in LSO you probably keep it for next 50 years, then you only need one new tuba person twice a century and you're ok.

3 February - The wrong biscuits

Every day a boring colleague stops by my area and bores me to tears with what she ate or didn't eat because of her allergies/speical diet and so on. She also asks every day if I want a cup of green tea - only beverage she can have - and every day I decline specifically saying I don't like green tea. SO WTF do you ask me every day - I'd like to scream but I don't. Every day she catches sight of what I eat and enquires if that' s really all I eat and yes, I confirm I can eat salad or vegetables w/o dressing and that I throw all sort of things into it, like fruit. She says she can't do it. I say I gather and I don't give a flying f. about that. Actually no, I don't say it, I just think it, I do have to work with these people. There's another one who describes what she eats and how she cooks it to her mother on the phone within my earshot but I can block that out.

Anywayhere's my tip for the day if you want to avoid getting fat and then coming to moan about it at my desk. When you're sort of hankering for some sugar/cake, buy stuff you dont' like so you won't eat it. I went out recently on a M&S trip to get some dinner. As it was 4pm I thought 'oooh, I fancy something sweet' So I bought their cheap milk teacackes £1.19 for 16 or is it 8. Ate one. Was simply awful. Gave some away. They're in a drawer and at the rate of one a week, in approx 4 small bites, they last a couple of minutes each, they won't do me any harm , 75 cal, but fill a quick gap and require no second chaser, unlike say, a Krispy Kreme which you know, you could easily eat a second one.

2 February - Jerusalem & Gems

There he is, on a stage, being absolutely mega wonderful. Imagine like seeing Brando do Streecar on a stage (did he ever or only in movie?). The script, cast, direction help, but it's Mark Rylance's show. Am sat in 4th row for a change, Toph having decided that I'm not safe to buy theatre tix ever again, since I go for the cheap seats and after that time watching the top of Kenneth Branahgh's head in some Chekhov he sad no way.

So, I can see/hear everything super well. And am left to feel so sorry that the snow didn't snow harder a couple weeks back. Bascially S. was in London over from Vienna. She was due to return on such and such a sunday and said I hope the flight will leave, if not I'm going to this party at this actor's house, do you know him, Mark Rylance? Do I know Mark Rylance??? No, unfortunately I only know 'of' Mark Rylance, so I had to explain why he's so revered. She, living in Vienna is hardly au fait with London theatrealand. But more to the point, why she going to his house? Wouldn't you know, her London based brother used to date actor's stepdaughter and voila', three-degrees. I beg her to take me with and she says yes, will ask, but only of course if she's not flying off back to Austria. Which is exactly what happens and I never meet him and thus cannot go backstage after to prostrate on floor and declare I'm not worthy.


And talking of small world linked to S. How about this story. So, she's in London and as we're going nearby to visit J. who wants to show us his refurbished, de-gayfied house. I ask him if she can come along. He says yes. We walk in, she loves it/him. We admire the shelves, the state of the art sound system connected to every room and so on. In the living room she admires one large painting and says 'I know that room (in the painting), it's my upstairs neighbour in Venice, G.' And so it is, J. confirms was in Venice a few years ago, got to meet his painter, went to his studio and bought said painting of views on Giudecca. S. tell him she often has coffee in that room.

At some point I ask if J. has seen the ex B. the one who works in opera. He says she's coming to London soon and will meet up, things are friendly again sort of, after the final split. A few moments later S. says, 'Since you're talking opera, I wonder if you may know my good friend T. opera singer?' J. nearly spits his tea and so do we. This being the man J. sprinted B. from and very badly so. I'm horrified, I feel as if I've introduced a spy, an enemy into J's abode. I cry 'I didn't know you knew T'!' She says, yes you do, I was telling you about him only earlier.' 'Yes sure, you talked about a T. in Vienna, w/o the 'he's an opera singer' I'd have never made the connection. Turns out she has never met B. only heard of her and so the name means nothing to her. We sit there for a while in silence, wondering if there's any more coincidences to floor J. with. Then we leave. Oh dear... That was early January. Not heard from J. since.