24 May - the old people's homes view

An old friend in mid fifties writes and amongst other things says that she's finally managed to shake off the the thing about conditioning to get goals that we all get brainwashed into and so is beginning to enjoy life w/o feeling like a loser for having not achieved this and that.

Praise unconventional views and behavious is what I say. If only.

I have an unconventional views re the care of elderly which I think we westerners should re-locate to places like india or thailand or where it would be cheap. Whenever I express somethign along these lines, having thught about it and not understanding why we have to sell what the old people managed to accumulate in life and what we have in order to front thousands of pounds in nursing homes etc, people think I'm being selfish and heartless. But hear me out.

If we're taking the old person away from his /her home anyway, and the old person is by that point not terribly mobile and if the other guests/inmates whatever you want to call them , are also from the same broadl speaking neck of the woods, why does it make it any different if the home is in the outskirts of their original town or across the UK or near a hill station in India? Have you been to a hill station in India? It looks like the Cotswolds, sort of.

The people I shock with this view tell me 'oh but they'll die in India in the heat' . No they won't, they'll be in their airconditioned home and in fact have a better time if they can walk out when the seasons are sunny. 'They'll find the fact they're with foreigners bewildering' . No they won't, name me an older person in your family now who doesn't have a foreign carer? They fall silent thinking about the Easter European, Philipino, African, Caribbean carers they deal with. Most (though not all) of these foreign carers have nothing in common with (culturally or educationally) with the patients and what matters then is only that care should be administered with humanity. But do you, age 79 need to talk about Tolstoy with person spooning you food or washing your bottom? it's too late for all that. Ask a 79 year old.

As for interaction, if they're well/functioning/sentient enough to watch TV/read a book they'll watch Sky /local product they know, if they're gaga, well they're gaga and it doesn't matter if it's Thai song and dance. 'What about not being able to visit?' say my questioners. Again, if they're sentient, let's set them up with Skype, if they don't know who you are due to dementia then you walking into the room instead of another local volunteer /visitor makes no change whatsoever. Of course you want to see them, so make the trip once in a while, using the money you have retained from their property/your property, instead of spending £2k plus a month in care in the UK. But if you try and separate the religious/cultural conditioning you have endured from the reality, you'll find that my solution is not a bad one.

I don't want my parents cash but neither do I think it' s a great use of it to see it used pretty fast and furiously by average homecare or nice home care. I'd rather they were comfortable somewhere cheaper and use the rest for the living, children, grandchildren, other children.

People think I'm a monster when I propose this, I can tell by the silence. I end up saying 'look by the time it's our turn we may be sent to underground colonies for geriatrics on Mars. Get over it.'

Debate.....

3 October - The Wrong club

On a recent night I went to a charity quiz with some friends and then onto the Embassy for a night a friend, RP, was organising there and featuring another friend, G.

I arrived though having missed quite a bit of the action as they told me the guestlist closed at 11.30 and so I arrived then, thinking it would start then! But met her man J again and had a chat also with a very hunky friend of his Richard, who was grumpy though as you could tell he hated just being there on his own waiting for J to leave . I told him to chat to gorgeous N (friend of G) as I knew he didn’t want to be stuck with me and he said ‘If she’d wanted me to sit/talk with her, she’d have made it known’ and I though ‘oh dear, grumpy!!!’ . Then spoke to N who said she thought he was boring. See ? it’s all a matter of where you are in life (N is 30) and she likes younger guys (she’s just started dating a 27 year old who chatted her up at Fabric... sigh!) and skinny , whereas this guy was a 40 year old, tall rugby style man working for an arms company and I'd have been all ears.. Ah well. I left with her at 1 am… some other people there I knew and good at doing introductions but it’s a strange thing.. you find yourself being introduced to Rebecca, Dominick, Annabel and so on and you just think ‘Er.. I don’t know what to say to you’. And they don’t’ either .. so you move on, stand there on your own till your host rescues you again. I can’t be bothered anymore, it wouldn't lead to anything but a fruitless search of commong ground.

Anyway, the evening was notable for the first concrete real sign that my brain is missing beats now. I drove and parked by The Embassy in New Bond St, only for the Embassy not to be there. I walked around the block puzzling before asking a security guard who directed me to Savile Row. And the penny dropped. I was horrified. I had basically driven and parked where the Embassy was back in the 80's when I was there pretty often. This would not be that strange if I also hadn't been to the new location in Saville Row over a dozen times in the last 2 years. So I knew both bits of information but my brain only gave me the information from 15/20 years ago.

This is akin to those old people who go home after the pub and suddenly turn up at the home they lived in with their mum 70 years prior to the home they now shared with thei equally dementia prone old wife.

Worried? moi??????

I told D. all this and we're now starting to refer to these kind of things as 'OLP' old ladies problems as we don't want anyone to read of all this in our emails. Tragic doesn't beging to explain how this makes me feel.

23 May - Shoes & Grannies

This post is inspired by a Belgian uber rocking mama. I thought she was cool when I met her, then I thought she was even cooler when she told me she'd found some lovely second hand clothes one morning in her hometown, but by the time she'd pushed her toddler's stroller 5km (yes 5km) along a road to visit her sister, she discovered that one of the boots she's bought, the one lovely low slung flat tan pirate boots with tassels she'd alwasy wanted and never bought... was missing. Having paid 2€ for them... she'd lost 1€ but she was in love with them already.

I asked why she didn't go back along the road for it but she quite rightly said she was tired that day and the little one was hungry. She did contemplate putting up signs in shops nearby ... The next day though she was still mourning it, so she actually pestered and pressured her sister into going INTO the Louis Vuitton + Hermes store to ask if they hadn’t found her old trashy old boot as her car was initially parked right there. They treated her like a dog of course.

Then I discovered that uber rocking mama's mum holds clues to her pedigree. When I asked why couldn't granny babysit whilst we go to Ibiza for a long w/end, I was told that she was busy that w/end.
'Granny is probably jumping out of an aeroplane or rock climbing or something… No seriously; after she walked the pilgrimage) on her own 3 years ago from France to Santiago de Compostella in Spain ( 6 weeks), she is now volunteering in one of the refuges en route and that is from August, 1 – August, 21. She loves her grandson of course and is always asking to babysit but she also has a Life with capital L. She has more guts and adventure in her bones than any of us. She just went mountain biking for 5 days near the Mosel in Germany and is literally getting on a plane in 30minutes to go explore Prague. We (the kids) have to beg her each time to please please not hitchhike anymore. And we remind her she was born 1945 and that she should act a LITTLE bit like her age…

So you see, she was my cool idol. Until I spoke to my friend R. who at the w/end was taking her 90 years old aunt to a shopping trip in Brent Cross as she's still mobile and likes to go out. Auntie said there was a song she heard on the radio and wanted to get. After a little bit of description and humming, R. worked out that auntie liked Adele's tune. So off they went to HMV to purchase the album.

Can that be topped? Sure it would have been more amazing if she'd asked to buy the new Marilyn Manson but still....

Way to go.

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.

24 March - Future Sailors... Electronic castaways

This plan of not going abroad for Easter seemed like a good one. In fact it was. It’s quite relaxing not to have to traipse to an airport and spend half a day getting somewhere that we’re only visiting because we can, because a plane goes there. It would have been even better to totally stay at home instead of averaging the same half day to get to the North to see some relatives - 5.30 hours to do 200miles is Indian railways territory in my book. And they’re slow, but at least there’s someone on hand to sell you a cup of chai and peanuts. But we did sleep in till 11am for 3 days which has got to be savoured. What we did was not a lot… a drive to the coast, some food in a picturesque town, cheese and wine later in a posh country inn, some window shopping, the Anthony Gormley statues on the beach/in the sea, some uncontroversial conversation with the older relatives, took in a gallery, there was talk of a show. All in all a good exercise in practicing the pensioner lifestyle which awaits us.

Clubbing in town was mentioned, but was deferred and in fact altogether swapped for cocktails at 6pm in a bar with a view. However… it was a step too far to actually watch the 9pm main drama of the weekend on ITV or was it another channel? Ie. The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. The first book of the series was given to me a few years back by the wife of a friend. She’d enjoyed it, she thought I would. How wrong can you be? But I forgive her, she means well.

I threw it away before vomiting at page 20 odd. Too quaint, too unremarkably written and mostly irrelevant to any cell of my body. But I thought I could handle the TV version. I did, just. But it left no trace, good actors, great camera work… nice to see a few fat Africans not dying of famine or hacked to death, but apart from that… I can picture being a pensioner but not watching pensioner TV.

Subsequently I made Toph do a few hours of the Mighty Boosh (he’s a virgin) and by episode 3 he was getting it. Now I’m no longer alone in chuckling at Milky Joe (my favourite episode is the castaways one) and at least on the way back we could break into song…. ‘Future Sailors… we’re future sailors, electronic castaways, digital stowaways, sidewalk seadogs…’ Right up my street, Vince should pay Visage’s heating bills at the very least. Then we watched some mild porn (whatever is free is a bit ropey) and had some fun… but I still missed going clubbing. Never happens these days… though I had a kind invitation on Thursday but predictably felt too tired to primp and go out at 11pm…

24 November - Forgetfulness & Cars

These are officially worrisome times. I cannot tell you all the other various things I forgot this week (because I forgot them) but... when they end up costing you money, you sort of wish there was a quick pill to take to re-connect the failing synapses.

Last saturday afternoon I parked my car near where the BF lives, in a resident's bay, making the usual mental note that it will have to be moved by Sunday evening or Monday morning before 8.30am to its usual spot for which she has a proper parking permit.

On Monday night I return to the BF's house after a party in town and notice on his floor a bright yellow note usually associated with car clamping. 'Oh darling, you've been clamped !?!' I say as I enter the living room a bit tipsy from my do. 'Not me, you' he replies. 'Me???.... ' as I start to say it and trail off, the penny drops. I had totally forgot my car parked in forbidden spot. As in, not once in over 48 hours had my usually reliable mental notes dropped by my consciousness to warn me 'Remember to move the car'. Not at all. A £130 quid later with clamp removed and stil having to wake up at the crack of dawn to move the car (couldn't do it there and then as still... drunk) I have to consider this must the beginning of the end of super organised me as I know me. The brain is aging, the rot is settling in. Things will be forgotten. My younger sibling regularly leaves her car keys in the car door for hours at a time so you could say it runs in the family or that it's even worse that it should hit her so young (ish).

Ah, just remembered one of the other things... I had forgotten. I had sort of hidden my credit cards somewhere (well, I try to stick to only using one at a time and keep the others safe) and went looking for them because the current one had a temporary block on it. Too long a story but my provider deemed a train ticket bought on a European site a suspicious transaction. All £25 of it... And the other cards were not in the usual place. So I went to my other flat. Not there. So I panicked but didn't cancel them. A few days later they turned up falling out of a building society book that was temporarily and wrongly kept in a drawer at work. Oh joy, but I must stress that this was incidental. I wasn't even looking for the building society passbook, I was probably looking for a lipstick. Jason Bourne.... clearly I couldn't have handled his life for 5 seconds. Am still worried about old age. The territory where your son comes down in the morning from his bedroom (he's visiting 92year old mother), finds all the fire hobs burning, says 'Mother what are you doing!!!' when he eventually finds her sitting calmly on the sofa and she says it wasn't her who did it but him! At which point do I investigate which nursing home I wish to be retired to ???

21 April - Advice & The older bird

At friend’s b’day dinner am sat at the end of the table with two of his beloved inner circle from age 4 (or thereabouts friends). Think they’re 37.
We hear an hilarious tale concerning J being set up for a date with a fashion PR and of his misuse of telephones and voicemails redolent of John Favreau in ‘Swingers’. I think it's totally sweet how he's allowing us to poke fun at him. Condiering that in his job he's a master of the universe type guy, this is doubly enjoyable. After which there’s more talk of dating. We hear of J (again) and his pursuit of a classy Nordic bird who won’t sleep with him but leads him on and on and on. I cut the crap by telling him that considering he’s very, very rich, this particular posh totty is playing the classic game of ‘you don’t get anything till you marry me’ type thing. And I advise he should wear the double condom when the time comes to consummate before he finds himself providing credit card for all those beauty treatments she’ll buy with his money. Cynical? Moi? Never.
B, married for ten years to university g/friend of several years, and father of two children, asks the guys ‘But do you really want a relationship or are you happy about having many girlfriends? I ask because I have no understanding of what your life may be like, having been with just my wife’ (I swear to god he blushed as he said it which was immensely likeable).
The boys hum and err and say they’ve not really resolve that one ‘everyone wants to be with somebody type thing’. B says it’s not a question of finding the girl and then deciding but more of being with a girl and the decision finds you. Mmmhhh the 3 of us seem dubious and … jealous.
D mentions he recently brought a male friend, who he thought would be a catch to a party, and all his female friends did not go for him citing ‘He’s too old (41) and set in his ways’. I put my hand up and also volunteered Toph as an example of ‘Too set in his/our ways’. From there I went on to advise dating much older women, well, early forties, if they wanted top unattached s ex and to specifically find out if said women should still be fertile because if they were not and so not looking for unwitting sperm donor, they would have a great… summer.

I get on some kind of hobby horse about the fact that if you get past 40 and have a decent job and no kids to factor into your life, then the need to attach yourself to a man, sort of decreases. You don’t really mind going to other people’s weddings or christenings. You accept there must be a reason you didn’t put yourself in that position and get on with your life. But I could see had gone too far in stripping the bride bare. Women are not supposed to be so… not romantic about s ex. God, I can see I’m unbearable on 3 glasses of red. Preaching and patronising to boot. Thank god B chose this moment to ask A and D about their recent Brokeback mountain style walk in the Peak District. I gleaned that this country is great in terms of landscape but a terrible let down as outside of London ‘There’s no decent food/restaurants’.

In the meantime my beloved is trying to make conversation with another inner circle friend. He works for a top political TV programme so you’d hope he has opinions and anectdotes and stuff but he’s had a bad day and is a bit monosyllabic and prone to make declarations about having been a sex addict and an alcoholic but without going into too many details (he’ s now married happily since a few months back). I can see my man trying his best but I put his mind at rest by saying ‘Look at the amount of wine we’re drinking, M. is probably just staring at the bottle willing himself to stick by the AA rules and not reach for a consolation drink after his bad day'. In other words, it's not you, it's him and shame you're on the other side of the table and I can't rub your back.
Can you believe it? I know everything! How can I possibly cope with not being a Top Dog in some job considering how I have an answer for everything? I am about to hang my head in shame when D. gives me a big hug 'goodbye' and pays me some well chosen compliment. Maybe I was useful after all....