30 July - Assaggi & Cows

We go to Assaggi, because we’ve never checked it before and someone I trust rates it better than Locatelli and Zafferano. It may well be better but the décor is a bit of a let down, it sort of looks like they did this room up 12 years ago when they opened and then, left it. Not only that, the ‘paintings’ on the walls are large frames of … Block colours, you know a blue panel, a grey panel, a green panel. I don’t know… They’re simply awful. If you want unobtrusive, then leave the walls bare. The tables don’t have tablecloths, which is fine by me, but then maybe change the tables when the grain gets blackened in the joints from cleaning them etc. Oh and get more attractive staff??? And lighting?

Yes I know it’s all about the food here but the food is great but not sublime. You can get this in various places in Italy and they don’t have a Michelin star. I appreciate it simply looks like a nice local restaurant and the way the staff greet the various diners, they must all be regulars. Maybe if you live nearby (sample house just sold by Harry Enfield for £12 million ) then £13 for a pasta and £20 for a seabass is fine (standard prices) but spending £70 each on simple food and a glass or two of wine at dinner is still a lot. The house wine was excellent, Sardinian. I ate at Sardo (the first one near Warren St) not long ago and it was similar food only not so feted a restaurant. Anyway, I will not bore you with exactly what we ate. I hate that and have some friends of the kind who will describe meals in detail. It always astonishes me that they remember them weeks after they’ve come back from holidays etc. I think jeez, you have space in your head for retaining that? Or do you have a secret notebook where you jot down the menus? Why? I prefer to remember the sex I’ve had after rather than the way the pudding tasted.

Anyway, amongst the American TV execs, Jewish lawyers & families, some Arab princes and their gals, a large table of Italians with shaggy football hair, four ladies who lunch (and dinner) and another couple or two,. were Samanth Morton with baby and an unattractive bearded boyfriend (in fact there was so little to give indication he was a boyfriend I thought at first he may be a male nanny) with Ian Holm and a younger woman/wife. Nothing to report except that SM is very ample indeed which is odd as she never looked that way in movies. And she’s always badly dressed. Even in a pretty frock and matching shoes, it was the wrong frock if you see what I mean.

We wondered if they may be in a forthcoming movie together and out bonding before filming? A spot of googling later reveals that, she’s practically family as she’s engaged and has a kid with one of Holm’s sons and the boyfriend is a video director I’ve never heard of ….. I feel bad because it also says that Samantha’s had a heart attack following having the ceiling in her bedroom fall on her a while back and breaking her legs. So er.. she’s done well to recover and have a kid in January so never mind not shedding the baby fat yet. The other surprising news is that the wife with Ian Holm is his 5th and she’s a former artist model. How do you manage that? Not bad for Bilbo Baggins (and King Lear).

We then went to the Cow for a drink and liked it much better there.

25 April - Two Halves & Better than one

I have a confession to make. I've momentarily lost my mojo. So I drafted lots of blogposts and never got roudn to finishing them. It is now th 16 of May so if I leave it any longer you'll think this blog is dormant. So am going to publish all the drafts w/o much tidying up. Apologies for bad grammar/spelling and convoluted thought processes. They will be just time pegs. Here goes.

Top nights out for me have always been nights of two halves or three parters, just like old plays. Perhaps I have already bored you somewhere with the night I went to see Metallica at Earls Court, then I zoomed off to see the Prodigy at Brixton as they were on very later, and got back to Beach Blanket Babylon in time to enjoy the Metallica after show. I may be confusing nights but I think at the Prodigy I was with my friend PW who I was or had been having an on/off thing with and we kept licking each other's face in between kicking it. Or maybe it wasn't that night? I was recently post split with the married man. Or even not recently, think it took a full two years to recover or maybe it was one of those three months' hiatus where you think you've shaken off the addiction and can get it on with someone else but just to be safe you do it with an old friend? PW didn't know about the married man. Darn, where were blogs when you needed them. I can't remember shit. Was it 1995?

But back to the present… Lovely D. takes me to the press launch of Organic/good food show at Earls Court (see, there was a reason why I thought about the Metallica show, same venue) and we happily wander about sampling stuff and waiting for the dancing sheep show. You will remember they performed at a Sony Walkman launch and I was not impressed. Once again the dancing sheep fail to dance according to my standards but I nearly buy the wool just shorn on stage by the Ozzie owner of the dancing sheep (or is he Welsh? I get confused by accents). It's an acution and I get beaten at £40... Imagine my surprise later when we speak to owner and he says he sells the wool for something like £1.50 a kilo plus a shearing fee of the same and that the entire sheep he just made bald would yield just a kilo or thereabouts. All that wool for £3. Now you know how much they make on those silly sheep's wool rugs you find everywhere... Anyway, he's married and clearly not interested in D. so we wander off to the area where Giorgio Locatelli is doing a food demonstration. Asparagus risotto and asparagus hand made ravioli. He can handle both at same time.

Blimey! He's a rock god! He's cut his hair and he's still massively ugly in a sort of Cyclops way but he's ultra sexy. He's taller than I thought and underneath the whites he's wearing some top dark jeans. He talks like an Italian just off the boat but he's 'got' the stage. His sidekick (Enrico? Luca? Stefano? what was his name?) is ten years younger and taller and all around perfectly god made man material. He'd be the Ulysses of the situation. I'm mesmerised. Suddenly I care for ravioli.

When he finishes, the small crowd descends like vultures to taste the finished goods. I hang back and because everyone is so well brought up that they'd only use the spoons or forks provided for one morsel.. I grab with my hands the last raviolo which nobody had an implement for. It is divine of course but, and don't think I don't know I'm coming across as arrongant, if I doused my ravioli in as much butter as Mr Locatelli, they'd taste divine too. Never do I cook with such amount of ... fat. So it feels like I'm taking drugs basically.

But time to go, cross town to the South Bank where 2Many Djs/Soulwax (one and the same in case you don't know) and Tiga await.
I arrive and fail to locate my friend I. who's invited me. Her phone is not delivering my text messages I'll discover later. But am having a good time watching the daisylowes (my new name for the peaches/pixie generation). I spot an incongrous figure, a very talll, white haired man and keep thinking 'I know you!' But can't recall who he is. Eventually a familiar figure steps up next to him. It's my friend P. ! What is she doing here????? So I descend on her. She was next door at a Pere Ubu gig and was told by a friend to wander over. She's full of enthusiasm for the Soulwax film that's just been premiered (fab title, 'Part of the Weekend Never Dies' - I missed it) and the tall man is revealed as ex head of MTV Europoe. But of course... He's on his tod and not very talkative so we abandon him when my friend I. passes by and I grab her.

She looks good! Last time we met she was pregnant and now child is a year and a half!). She's bucking the trend, so refreshing, you see someone after a year and half and they’ve not gone to seed, in fact they look great. She's running she tells me. That's fab. We go backstage where I discover Mr Soulwax senior (father of the two bros) is, in his own country of Belgium, the equivalent of a John Peel and more well known than the offsprings. Ahhhhh. Then I talk to some manager of Massive who may or may not help with tix for the already sold out Meltdown gigs and to various other people but manage to miss the smalll and perfectly formed Tiga who I. says I should marry. Well, yes, but what would Toph say? Enough drink is drunk and we leave. She's got an early Eurostar to catch. The Soulwax boys will be in Ibiza in the summer, for shows, and they have rented a house. Could this be the year I finally make it to my holy land?

The following night it's another night of two halves. The first spent at the utterly lovely celebration of a friend's parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, held in said friend's house, which is large enough to host over a hundred people and caterers. Of course we're invited to offer a little respite from the wrinklies (the only people yonger than us are the grandchildren!) but what fine wrinklies they're! Various writers and broadcasters: Ms Bainbridge, Mr Palin, Mr Mount and that guy who was Mrs Tatcher's press officer and just wrote an hilarious book on that experience (well, the excerpts were surreal and funny, Mrs T. treating her stuff as a mum occasionally) and Lord Bragg - am I just full of myself or did he give me an approving once over??? I rather like his full head of hair.

Then I left and went to join a girlfriend's hen night drinks. Except that it was all very classy in Soho with Mohitos and ... men! Yes, the were allowed. I left before the drug taking that would have helped stay awake. I do love flitting about. One party is never enough. Bring them on.

But it's not surprising that the following day I just play the same soothing music I played for years of after parties: William Orbit, Strange Cargo. Cod clubby classical but won't let you down.

20 December - Cuban Ballerina & Mahiki

I’m sure it would be different if I were AA Gill, but to be fair to the Wolsley, I eat there 2 or 3 times a year so they don’t have to bend backwards to please me. They say they cannot do a table for 7, their maximum is 6, and that’s what I booked a month ago but now the composition of my party has changed. We’re either 5 or 7. Darn, so we say to the late duo addition that we can’t have them and they make plans accordingly. Toph and J are not bothered as S. was going to bring his Cuban ballerina girlfriend along (whom we’ve never met) and we’re not expecting much from a dancer.

When we eventually meet her, the boys are entranced. What had not been made clear to us was that she’s not a Cuban girl who dances and who he may have met in a bar (yes shame on us/me for my patronising attitude and yes I now that in Cuba they have excellent educations) but she is in fact a principal with the Cuban Ballet, you now, the one funded by …… er, that woman, and the one where V. has been dancing with Carlos Acosta, here at Sadlers Wells a few months ago. Darn I knew I should have gone…. The proud S gets us to watch some films of her dancing Swan Lake or Giselle and doing extraordinary things with the 32 fouettes and of course we’re now sorry they’re not coming for dinner. She’s more interesting than me that’s for sure, daughter of an ambassador and so on, constantly dealing with dance defections and not really getting paid a western salary for her commitment.

So it’s infuriating when just outside the house, I get a text from D. who is crying off the evening cause she’s at home ordering pizza with her sons. I have a bad exchange on the phone with her (though I’ll have to forgive her of course) and our little party of 4 (the fourth is gay M.) still has a nice conversation and then we go to Mahiki just because we’ve never been and we need to see what all the tacky fuss is all about. More of that later.

The moment we sit down at the Wolsley Toph tells us that 5 mins before we’d arrived at S.'s house (Toph was already there and Cuban ballerina was out getting chocolate or something) S. had told him he’s expecting a child from an editor in NY (where he lives) who he’s had a one off with. Well, I don’t believe in one offs but if that’s what he says… But ballerina doesn’t know yet. It suddenly seems awful to know all that display of love and affection and mutual admiration is parallel to ... this. (for all I know she may have a scene with one of her co stars so you know, I don’t know her) but uh ho… All I can say is that S. is sort of a drama king and he’s upper class so perhaps these things are easily accepted in his milieu? ‘Hi Honey, you know how much I love you??? But am having a kid with someone else, would that be ok?’ Call me old fashioned.

But back to Mahiki. They let us in probably because it’s early and there isn’t much business over the holidays, after all, all the little toffs must be off to Barbados or Mustique with their parents. And Wills and Henry in Scotland perhaps. The boys are pretending they’re only coming in because I insist but two hours later I have to force them to leave. The music is as shite as predicted (think wedding with birthday party) and the people are frankly disappointing – maybe they’ve also been let in because it’s quiet, b'day groups young asians, eurotrash or lookalikes, generally young, a few couples, skanky girls – and that includes several working girls (thais? korans?) who are very much trying to get some business and don't spot that M. is the gayest man in the village. But still it’s fun for a short time. So, been there, done that and you don’t need to be tempted. And Ps the Wolsley was disappointing this time, the food seemed very unispired, or maybe we should have drunk more expensive wine.

24 October - Nobu & Willesden

This must be another one of those signs of getting old that I’m fond of pointing out to you. I was really looking forward to dinner at Nobu as for some reason had not gone there before and the reviews have always been excellent. I can’t fault the food at all, it was worth every penny and the staff were very knowledgeable and helpful, they did sound as if they’d tried every dish and had their faves. And when the light bulb died above our table, they moved us to another at the oppsite corner of the room and so we had a mini adventure, changing scenery, waiters and all that. However the room is not far off from an upmarket cafeteria, the noise pretty loud (blame it on low ceilings) and the clientele a little short on glamour given that they all looked like bankers and blondes to me. Seeing Gwynnie or Madge would not have significantly altered by evening either. So… being that the company was the delectable BF who I had already sampled aplenty the night before and that we had dinner out fatigue from previous days' outings, we were cautious with the alcohol…so we were done in 2 hours.

The next day I was exchanging emails about it and saying that I was just as happy with the trusted Asakusa in mornington crescent despite the fact that I hate the swiss hut/pub décor and the atrocious carpet. The formidable M. replied saying I should try this place on Willesden Green which is the best Japanese in North London according to her (we wouldn’t know of any Japanese south of the river of course, we only visit once a year if there’s a gig at the Academy). So, you’re asking, where’s the sign of ageing in that. It is within my thinking that yes, I’d like to try said Jap in Willesden Green (I can’t pretend I don’t know where it is being that various friends have crept up north of the Harrow Road over the years, but I certainly don’t visit willingly).

This thought was sustained by the other thought, if it’s just me and the BF and all we care ultimately is about the food and I can still wear a pretty frock in that manor should I want to (after all, nobody as much as turned a head when I wore it at Nobu), then it’s ok. We can go to Willesden Green. This is basically on the slippery road to having drinks in the local bar, eating locally and basically finding the West End too much of a stretch. This is what OLD people do. I refuse. So on principle, unless I’m discussing selling my movie script to Robert Redford and he specifically requests we eat at Sushi Say, I shall never go. That won’t keep any lines from adding themselves to my face but my soul will stay at age … er… 42 and a half.

Ps a further email exhange revealed that one of my oldest Japanese friends is a neighbour of one of the Nobu chefs (I think they have about 20 on the go on any one night) and so I could 'think' even older and just go round hers for dinner and eating what he's prepared and passed on to her.

17 August - Various

So, this always happens. I don't know how other bloggers do it, I think they blog every evening about the day's events or every morning about yesterday's events. I don't seem to manage any of these two protocols because ... I'm hardly ever home doing nothing in the evening so that's out of the window. I come in... I go to bed. Clearly awake for a while longer but... not typing. And in the morning life takes over (in the form of 'Shit, why do I always fall for sex in the morning and look I'm late for work). Later in the day I jot down a few lines about what I may want to blog about eventually and the later becomes... a week and I haven't expanded. And I don't use computers at the week end.

But in case anyone is on this page regularly and sees a blank space where a week should be, here's what I will eventually 'cover' in a retro-active sort of way:

Fruitstock (again) - maybe I'll ditch this, was a couple of weekends ago.
ok am now writing this two weeks later just to experiment with what it would all be like with distance and would I care for hal of what i do/did. Furitstock was pleasant as sun was hot that day. We sat with friend and child who had missed going on holiday with wife and two other siblings as eldest child was not updated on parents passport. Much money wasted later in rebooking flights meant they got to go to the Med. on the same day we then wandered to.. below

The East London '1 2 3 4' festival and Har Mar Superstar 'Ladies! I'm single! Who wants to fuck me' rally call
this was probably a bridge to far to do in one day and without a car having decided to give Ken support and using London transport which on a rare sunny day meant half the tube drivers had called in sick so it took forever. We got there and it was ugly. By which I mean I can share the sentiments of sean mcclusky in bringing a small festival to a parched and ugly field off the Commercial Road but it felt just wrong and the music was nothing special. I enjoyed looking at the kids who totally remind me of people/us I used to know 25 years ago or so. Everyone is a version of someone I knew, the Art school kid, the skinny punk, the 50's retro girl, the I wish I was in the Factory girls and boys (both Warhol and Manchester) but the game pales after a while. We did get to meet some friends and we did get to walk back to Kings Cross via the canalside with Toph having to admit some backstreets of Islington/Angel are not bad. But it then took forever to get on Hamm/City line and we must have been tired as got on Circle line instead, missed a stop ended up having to find a cab and basically called Ken a C unt several times. Well me, T doesn't use the word.

Prince's gig
What can I say, I was lucky to go on a good night when he did a long show as opposed to night some friends went to where he shaved off 40 mins off the set I saw. It all felt to short in any case, could have gone on and on and yes, right now there's an element of pantomime. Possibly having to use the stage in such a way that disperses energy with the band in a semi pit and he didn't do the splits because perhaps he's not so supple anymore. Plus when you play in the round the sound is never that good but no gripes. My friend R. had gone to see Babs Streisand a few weeks before and that was a total con what with her not being on stage for long sections left in the hands of the young tenors/singers she had drafted in. It's good to singalong. Cheers you up even if you can't sing and I can't. A puzzle though... Everywhere we looked there were families of obese people. The row in front of us had mum, dad, and two daughters. His neck was as big as my leg. It was... bizarre. Again a white affair. Prince is not cutting edge.


D.'s Sunday lunch and Brick lane mini bar crawl
this was good. TV friend of Toph with terrace in modern block in Brick Lane. Lovely food and enough people there I already knew to make it nice and informal. Plus met three new ones and ended up on a mini bar crawl till late. Nothing of much interest can have been said as I can't remember it and only remember the name of the woman, B. , not of the guys but at the time it was relaxing enough.

A. and Richard Branson
am now not supposed to write about this.. but it's to do with work not anything more interesting. Just a good gig a friend of a friend got. And we're jealous.

The Proms
Lovely Mahler and some lieders sung by amazing German baritone. Was only able to stay for first half but totally think places like that where you have to be more silent than a tibetan monk are a modern form of enforced meditation. You close your eyes and you're off. Majorly old people though... and not full on the night Paarvo Jarvi was conducting.

The K. /Candace Bushell/ James Purefoy/private club empire owner/Ibiza thing

Roka dinner and Boujis night
young friend's birthday dinner. Mega expensive at Roka but good, shame Natalie Portman not there on our night. Got to talk to the wanna be suave SD who has written his own Wikipedia entry and makes himself sound totally mega interesting. There's a good dose of self-aggrandising involved, it's the way he tells it. You see Emmy nominated producer and in the context of it you think Emmy winner but it turns out he was part of the production team for a series of which some progs were Emmy nominated. Anyway, if you don't do your own PR then who doees. He was dining with young architect g/friend but not the one who may be mother of his kids shortly. We had a strange exchange about my BF but I'm rather pleased with my repartee. He said something about maybe I need to tie the BF to a chair and get the strap on out. I looked at him and said 'S. , stop projecting... but if you want me to come round...'. He didn't blush though.
We then went on to Boujis were we had a table booked but they kept us waiting outside in a queue long enough to see who else was going in there and we thought 'Is this the clientele? Oh no, young arab princes and assorted Chelsea wannabees, no, no, no !' So we taxied back home still tasting the lovely black cod and other delicacies served at Roka. B'day girl had no stamina anyway, was half asleep on boyfriend's shoulder when I was still up for a dance.

J. (the champagne king) and the CIA woman in Arizona

The Pigalle night
was fab, with Michel from Prince's band doing a fantastic job of whipping up a frenzy of excitement and musicians outdoing each other. But there was a better night to come of which.. later. Luca who plays guitar for Natasha Bedingfield is a dish though...

The Lucky voice night
Against my better judgement I followed 7 other women to this and acquitted myself ok with covering Bjork covering It's Oh So Quiet! Shhhh, Shhhhh. Yes, that and the Supremes, they're easy. However, saying no to alcohol when pisshead friend no. 1 keeps wanting to make everyone drink is very hard. Oh and the louder the volume, the more you raise your voice, the sooner you get hoarse and so on. I passed on original other choices such as Hong Kong Garden by the Banshees as the lyrics seemed very crap. And nobody would have known Talking Heads in my group so I'd have been weird.

FR. and the Thai woman plus B. the current g/friend of a few years - imminent mormon style relationship arrangement

The Chinawhite night
After the missed night at Boujis I had to take birthday girl somewhere and she enjoyed Chinawhite which had not changed since I last went there five years ago or so. If anything it was all BB wannabees which makes you want to puke. And as usual only guys with 'tables' (ie. guaranteed spend on expensive bottles) and all the girls vieying for a chance to join them or not. Some guys can buy all the champagne you like and still you wouldn't go there. Feminism never happened. Or girls spend their cash on handbags and not on securing a private table. Don't know. This reminds me that when I went there five years ago, maybe it was longer than five, I met this guy who didn't seem that attractive to start with but grew on me and when I went back with him, as you do, had one of those nights where you throw all the furniture around in the pursuit of more and more sex. He was great. However by 'date' no. 3 he had turned into a self-gratifying male who didn't spend much time on me so it ended quite amicably and I still remember his name, LG.

IVF

A.' s rape

More tales from the beauty and fashion world

Summer sex
It's great when you don't sleep under covers and come back from late night bathroom visit to see the sated and happy shape of your lover asleep, looking angelic and not snoring. Bliss.

See my predicatment? It's all too much. Too many late nights and in case anyone ever wonders if am making them up and if all of the above happened in one week (minus the two 'old events'), I'm well known for fitting in more than one event per evening. Other people find it exhausting but not me. I maintain that if you don't get drunk (alcohol depletes your energies like nothing else I know) you can keep going. But for example a friend who I invited to a drink on Saturday if she's free, replied to say it was going to be one of her busiest days of the year with 5 parties to go to, 2 in the day time and 3 in the evening. Instead of saying 'That's just mad!', I was thinking of how much it would cost to hire a driver for the day and have him ferry me from one event to the other without spending time and stress on London Transport. In fact, that's what she should definitely consider.

Uh ho, I feel better for seeing in black and white what I will have to tackle. There is of course a suggestion I never follow, whch is to just do a short paragraph instead of a long one. Concise is not a word anyone would apply to me. Or just not bother? Don't all agree at once.

11 April - Cabbage & Cooking

How delightful a night’s in on one’s own is! I can eat anything I like and for me that can often be just a bunch of vegetables, steamed or friend in some spices. Tonight it’s a whole bag of chopped greens with nothing else but the onion they’re friend with. Try and give that to a guy, he’d be horrified. Nothing to do with diets, sometimes it’s just like the sorbet mid-way through a wedding feast, I need to give the taste buds a rest. As I cook with no added salt and don’t eat much pre-packaged food (the salt and sugar content would make me gag) I’m ok just tasting stuff as it is. Granted, the bit of onion or garlic is necessary, alas I’ve never been an ayurvedic convert for that reason, can’t give those two Med staples up.

I’ve just worked out what the tags on blogs are useful for. They are not for readers to search for topics but to remind yourself if you’re getting repetitive and covering the same ground as have a déjà vu of boring you on this subject before, only that was before I started using tags so can’t search for the entry, and life’s too short to overhaul whole blog. So to make up for being boring I’ll expand in another direction. Pru Leith would disapprove of my 'just eating greens' phases. She was in a w/end supplement talking about her love of food. It started in France for her. Can’t say I have it. Then again my friends are a mixed bunch: some turn out perfect potatos dauphinoise from scratch (granted, not difficult but I can’t be arsed) and some don’t even have a single saucepan in their houses. I went to Pru Leiths’ school once and I (contributed to) make a souffle’. The school was a nice space but I never understood the appeal of a souffle’. It’s pretty baby food but so what? Oh and we made crackling duck. Unfortunately seeing how much oil (and butter? Can’t remember) it was soaked in or generally goes into top restaurant style food, made me instantly reject the notion that I should learn more of these recipies. I am the same with puddings. Can eat them, but making them at home is a disaster. If it says 'a bag of sugar', I stop right there. I couldn’t eat them. And believe me I have curves, I just don’t want to go on to become Dawn French. Or even Jennifer Saunders.
I worked with/next to Pru’s husband once and I decided then that they’re not all bad these Tory peers, they have lovely manners. I meant to look up what Lord WW did wrong during Thatcher’s years but I never found the time and the way in which he said Good Morning had me forgive him. By now he had to contend with being a meet and greet kind of guy, one of those positions where you get a fat salary for your ability to pick up the phone to various people at the top and have them take the call. But he’d lost Mrs T…..