18 March - Chat roulette

Bit late on this one. It took H&M to tell me about it and they seem to enjoy it. So I checked it out and seems another of these things that am happy to watch for a bit on computer at work when I have nothing to do. You find bits of it posted on youtube. As with all these things, they must work when you're not sober and not low in fact the opposite. Or when you're in a group and it all seems so funny ha ha ha. Plus some people probably will see some sex and that is always a draw. Other than that.. I dunno.

Hope M rents one of his fab properties in Shoreditch to my friend C who needs a fashion showroom. Would be perfect place/setting. But terms have to be agreed and a friendly pizza at Pizza East is not enough. In fact I ate something else as I truly don't like their style there.

17 March - Teeth & Flowers

As usual I get an unusual health complaint. Am not going to list previous ones, suffice to say that I don't have many but when I do, am always told it's not that common or at least the way it presents itself. So this time it's the gum disease, affecting only one tooth, a poor little upper molar. Problem first came to light about 6 months ago when the area felt infected and I run to the dentist to get antibiotics. That cleared it but I don't think dentist said it was too awful. As the problem was starting again and I went back, this time he said it's bad. Not sure if toot can be saved. So on to the gum specialist who confirms she can do something which will only give me a 50/50 chance of success or I can remove the tooth and function in any case with remaining molars. Oh and it costs £600 (plus what spent already add another couple of hundreds). Of course removing tooth should cost less but we're always inclined to want to hang on to pieces of us so most likely I'll go ahead. I didn't even think to ask for a price breakdown till I got out. She said he'd last an hour, presumably she's working with one assistant so how come her time costs more than a lawyer? Actually never used a lawyer so god knows. Will have to ponder. As I left, after short conversation with a very boored janitor young guy who is not allowed to watch TV or use a laptop as has to focus on who comes into the building. For a 12 hour shift? I suggested he may want to study and he told me he already has a degree and did an MBA. Wow. And here he is, door person in non descript building housing dental practice among other things.

So I was thinking about how many hare lips or cateracts in third world £800 would sort out. Or more selfishly, how that's a week skiing or a week in Thailand. There is no rhyme or reason to why things cost what they cost in this stupid western world. Though D. in Angolan compound hell (working for a charity) can't go take a bath in a godforsaken 'hotel' because said establishments are there to serve the oil industry and are priced astronomically. So I am assuming that an oil engineer gets paid at least £800 for his day and that's why he accepts to have to go perform his duties in Angolan hell.

Then I got out and as dentist is by Finsbury Circus, I noticed that the great sort of tropical plants that I saw there last November (I had 2 of the same at home and thought if they have planted them outside in London, mine will make it too but alas mine are dead) are no more and in their place beds were being digged up and some already planted with other stuff - don't ask me for names of flora. No idea. Various men clad in bright uniforms were attending. So the thoughts that followed were along the lines of wow they must spend a fortune to keep up this 'garden' and rotate the flowers/plants and chuck what was good for 3 months and then dies in the frosts etc. And all this why exactly when just a bit of nice green grass surrounded by the pretty old trees bordering it would suffice to make it usable by the office workers etc? Why you spending 'my' money like this? Who consults me? Of course nobody does but think of the hundreds of hare lips/glaucomas/hip replacements etc that all this expense would pay for. Who sets what goes where? Why spend all this here when 3 miles south there's hideous housing estates? Clearly stuff there would be vandalised but if you tend to it regularly like you do in Finsbury Circus maybe it would be fine?

And on I go about my daily toil....

14 March - Post wedding

How nice to wake up in stately halls with free standing baths and four poster beds. But the best thing these people had for sure is the views. Out of your window, nothing but grounds with nothing to interrupt your vistas. And it's all yours.
So a stroll is in order to Chatsworth and back. Humongous. Now of course a third of it is devoted to cafe' space and shops etc. Where once were stables and horses. More on this when I have time.

13 March - Wedding

Was grand. Fairy tale will be described including society people freshly out of the Priory. Again, when I have time to process.

12 March - Up north

For the wedding of my year. Nothing else in diary but this one. Will be good and more on it when I have time.

9 March - Women's day

Well, it was yesterday and a very nice talk was organised at my employer with a top flying woman who has in her time run a massive organisation in the UK and now she's a non executive director chez nous. Of course you're encouraged to ask questions afterwars but you can never ask all of them. She seemed to say that when she first started in this world things were easier as a) less structured - but never mind that she has a first class degree from the LSE so she's not short on showing how good her brain is - and b) less PC and she seemed to imply that you have to get to know people in order to get to work the best with them and in the current climate where you can't tease or rub anyone up the wrong way for fear of god knows what reprisals, that's more difficult. I would add that back in her days, she started in 1979, she also had a great decade ahead of lunches from which you didn't have to come back from, and you definitely got to know your client/counterpart or whatever in those situations.

So, the questions you can't ask are 'who did you leave your 3 kids to whilst you were climbing the corporate pole? Cause if you had to go home at 5pm or anytime they were sick or had to attend 3 sets of school plays, there's no way you'd have run company xyz.' But those questions don't get asked. In his intro our ceo says we hire 50/50 gender split at entry level but there's 6% female MD's and in between at the crucial levels from which you spring up eventually to MD there is hardly anyone. Doh! Sherlock. That would be the decade to 15 years that said 50% has to have kids and then decide how to handle re-entry into work. Unless those kids are produced within union with rich guy, you try paying full time nannying and the rest and find that coming back to work is worth it. Hence numbers drop.

I would have to add a pretty reactionary thought, here goes. I think that for making it to the top in any area, you have to really really really want it. Really really really want it means you want it more than you care to be at the school play/or disappoint junior. If you want to make it to the top you have to stick junior in the boarding school from age 7 or 8 and be done with him/her for the next 10 years during which you get to 52, age of this lady, and make your mark/retire to non exec directorship. And that, is that. Men don't cry too many tears at leaving the house if junior has the flu and unless women do the same, they're toast. Same in politics, same in my old world of music/entertainment. And funnily enough you knew who had #1 as the ultimate goal and who was more of a waverer. Sure we need help with work arrangements for childcare but... this is not M&S, this is harder here and you have to make those yourself and not rely on employer to sort out for you.

Another suggestion is to make the bosses of companies 50% women, that way, when another woman says she'd like to move the meeting to a date/time more suitable with the childcare, the other person also being a woman, would understand and move it and not expect woman one to just jump on a plane here there and everywhere. Oh hang on, just thought of a snag. Not all women are mothers so how do we get round that one? Woman #1 with kids says look I can't work through the night and then get the 06.30 flight to be out all day in Madrid and come back landing at 22.00, that simply doesn't work with my life /kids. And woman #2 may say (like any man would), tough, you don't do that, my business goes to someone else.

Solution #3 is to just be reralistic and stop peddling this 'it may not happen in my lifetime but...' and just say to women 'it will never, ever, ever happen, stop trying'. You may think this very fascist on my part but I also watched a programme interviewing many historical giants of feminism theory /politics from Marylin French, Germaine Greer and other US ones and they exuded not a single ounce of success. It's like they tried and tried and tried and as Germaine said there was no revolutions, just a lot of ekeing away at a mountain that still stands there. So forgive me for feeling a bit dejected.

On a personal note, someone after the talk asked me how that made me feel. I said well, superwoman speaker left school not long before me and look where she is today and where I am, sat in the audience with zero power over anything... so there.....

8 March - Oscars & women's day

For some reason am ridiculously pleased that K Bigelow won the Oscar , only the 4th woman nominated blah blah blah but more to the point, she's 57! Looks great/toned etc
Sounds like it was a hellish shoot, with main actor sick for a week and then having to work insidet that suit with the shits poor guy and during ramadan, and then it took 3 years to get a distributor.

Anyway, this mornign I saw a broadsheet paper on the underground hall /floor with large photo of which actor I couldn’t tell. from upside down looked like a Robert Carlyle type but no reason for him to be in paper so who was it? Was in a hurry, coulnd't stop but therein lies the usual reality check. A great big spread and you’re trampled underfoot. So K Bigelow, enjoy the week as it will never be the same feeling again.

3 March - DPW

I get notifications of certain gigs. There's one I want to go to as Saint Jude seem to be gaining plaudits at the 100 Club. I check the website and the pleasant surprise is that the support will be Diesel Park West. You won't know them but I rather liked their brand of West Coast sounding rock which unsuprisingly failed to set the charts alight in 1989. The time was not right for harmonies or maybe it was just that they were not easy on the eye. The singer was sort of sexy depending where you stood but def a boys band not one to trouble knicker throwers. I can't say I know them but I found myself in Marrakesh with them as appendage to a married man involved with them. Which reminds me of the fact that when people are having affairs the whole entourage knows apart from the injured party. I don't think anyone bought the covers story of why I was there and I don't remember us having separate rooms. I went along for a weekend in the sun and to see the Mamounia hotel which I think had already been namechecked by Bryan Ferry or some such.

The funny thing was that myself and married man had been boyf/g/f years before prior to him meeting his wife so we were not doing much damage and in fact I really didn't much like his brand of sex making. I sort of suffered it once in a while for the pleasure of actually spending time with him as he's definitely and entertainig person. So I think of that when I think Cheryl Cole and all the rest. The friends/entourage of the cheater are well aware of who's on the tour coach so to speak.. remember poor Ian Curtis's wife whilst Annick whatever went all over with Joy Division? there you go, if yo saw the movie Control it spelt it out for you super clearly.

Anyway, I intended to go but nobody to go with. I made the mistake of going to a work do early evening and then telling myself I should go home change from boring work clothes and go out again, 100 Club easy enough to reach. AS IF! Other times sure I'd have gone on my own. In fact I knew of at least one person who would be there that I knew, but the will is increasingly lacking these days. The corner into age related can't be arsedness has fully been rounded.

Of course I totally regret missing the gig now.