This week saw me at fabulous cocktailerie The East Room for a wine tasting in conjunction with perfumier Miller Harris, of whom I'm a huge fan (those beautiful bottles! The lovely names! The fact that they don't even advertise at all, therefore can never have simpery Keira Knightley trying to flog me their wares!) Seemed like a bit of an odd tie-up, but actually it worked very well. It seemed to work better as the evening went on, largely because I hadn't had much lunch, there wasn't any food on offer (what with it being a wine tasting evening an' all), throwing it away seemed wasteful (a current obsession) and so I got fairly hammered.
High points of the evening - the friend who'd invited me meeting me at Old Street station, having been to Selfridges and annointed herself with a large spritz of rival perfume maven Jo Malone's fabulously saucy Pomegranate Noir. And brandishing a massive, very distinctive bag of said product, which luckily all the Miller Harris staffers were too polite to mention. Then having the MH perfume that I usually wear described by one of their reps as being 'buttoned-up sexy', which elicited a huge laugh from both my friend and I, before we both agreed that it was an entirely accurate description of me. I promptly ordered another bottle, and plotted how to make the specs-and-cardi librarian look the most desirable thing since the Jimmy Choo collection for H&M during 2010.
Friday 20 November 2009
Thursday 19 November 2009
Modern Conundrums
There are, of course, important things going on in the world which I should care about (war, famine, the question of why my windows have sounded as though they're going to get blown in at about 5am every day for the last fortnight), but these are not the things that keep me awake at night. Well, apart from the force 10 gales, if you still count 5am as 'night', but that's a side issue.
No, here are the conundrums that are currently fuddling my wee brain:
1/ Why have all ad execs seemingly decided that Kevin Spacey is the most effective person at convincing us to buy stuff? He's not. I know he's doing Sterling Work for British Theatre and all that (though personally, I haven't seen a single production of his in all the time he's been in charge of the Old Vic), but do none of his clients do a vox pop round their office before signing him up for undoubtedly sky-high fees and ask, 'Do you find Kevin Spacey a tiny bit creepy?'
It's because most of his best performances have been playing creeps. Tremendously convincingly. I'm sure he's a very nice man, but I don't know him, so I'm left with his film performances, which often revolve around him either killing people, wanting to kill people or making you think that he should have been in a film in which he killed people. (He would have been awesome in Con Air, for example). So next time you've got a fairly pricey, upmarket item to shill, please ask another A-lister to do it. I don't approve of George Clooney doing those Nespresso ads (N'Espresso? Nes'Presso? Feels like it needs an idiotic apostrophe in there, to go with their monumentally moronic scripts), but at least I'm not left feeling like he'd come round my house and torture me in six different ways using only dental floss if I don't buy one of the eco-murdering machines.
2/ Why has Gordon Ramsay decided that he's suddenly going to start pronouncing the word restaurant, 'rest'runt'? It annoys me every time I watch The F-Word. As does him ending every sentence with 'yeah?' and that maddening jiggly thing he does when he's introducing the dishes he's demoing in his kitchen. Stop bouncing up and down, Gordon, yeah? You're making me want to twat you over the head with a frying pan just to make you stand still. If you need to burn off some energy, then go and run another marathon or something. Or take your kids to the park. They probably haven't seen you since 2007 and could do with the quality time.
3/ While we're on the subject of cuisine, when did it become mandatory for TV to treat cooking, and specifically being/trying to be a chef, as though it's more hardcore than a six-month tour of Helmand? 'COOKING DOESN'T GET ANY TOUGHER THAN THIS!' bellows over-toothed billiard ball Gregg Wallace on Masterchef, in an effort to distract attention from the fact he has no opinions and merely describes the ingredients of any dish proferred. Contestants get sent off for a day-long tour of duty in some poncey eatery, the aim of which seems to be to break their spirits and reduce them to a puddle of neurotic jus as rapidly as possible.
In one episode, the wannabes weren't allowed to either time what they were cooking or test it in any way other than by squeezing it to judge whether it was rare, medium rare or totally screwed. Which meant that a lot of quails, pigeons and other small bits of fowl were chucked straight in the bin, turning me into the sort of person who gets all huffy in the Daily Mail. I failed to see what any diner was getting out of this approach, other than being horrified by the waste and realising that was what was pushing the cost up, if they'd been allowed to go backstage in the theatre of war of cooking. Perhaps for the next series, Masterchef could combine the two and remake M*A*S*H. Arf.
4/ When did telly become so self-important? The Voice of God pronouncements on X-Factor ('IT'S OLLY MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURS!'), the status of Simon Cowell as more important than Gordon Brown and the cultural implications of Dannii Minogue's hairstyle are now going head to head with I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I saw a trail before the series started, which boldly declared, 'Watch history in the making!' I must've missed the episode where Katie and Peter dismantled the Berlin Wall before tucking into a delicious supper of kangaroo's 'nads and deep fried black widow spiders.
It's a shame, really, that watching most of these shows is a requirement of my job (no, honestly, it is) and thus I feel as though I'm morphing into a member of the baying hordes, throwing verbal cabbages at the screen in recognition of The X-Factor as the modern equivalent of the stocks, unable to offer a meaningful opinion on the current political landscape, but an instant expert on all things singing, dancing, cooking and anything else you can vote on.
I've stopped short of actually voting thus far, but I can't help feeling it's only a matter of time. At which point it's probably a good idea to apply for the last series of Big Brother and become a poacher-turned-gamekeeper Z-list celeb myself - complete with lucrative book deal, spin-off series about opening up a pet shop in Chelsea and the obligatory News of the World spread about how I've had a romp with Russell Brand. Which at least sounds more glamorous than a phone interview with Woman and Home, which was what a colleague was trying to persuade me to do yesterday. Woman and Home? I'm still raging against the dying of the light by listening to Radio 1 and reading Heat - please don't tell me I'm now the target market for Woman and bloody Home. Bugger Big Brother, it might have to be Simon and his 'Overs' that I throw myself at next year...
No, here are the conundrums that are currently fuddling my wee brain:
1/ Why have all ad execs seemingly decided that Kevin Spacey is the most effective person at convincing us to buy stuff? He's not. I know he's doing Sterling Work for British Theatre and all that (though personally, I haven't seen a single production of his in all the time he's been in charge of the Old Vic), but do none of his clients do a vox pop round their office before signing him up for undoubtedly sky-high fees and ask, 'Do you find Kevin Spacey a tiny bit creepy?'
It's because most of his best performances have been playing creeps. Tremendously convincingly. I'm sure he's a very nice man, but I don't know him, so I'm left with his film performances, which often revolve around him either killing people, wanting to kill people or making you think that he should have been in a film in which he killed people. (He would have been awesome in Con Air, for example). So next time you've got a fairly pricey, upmarket item to shill, please ask another A-lister to do it. I don't approve of George Clooney doing those Nespresso ads (N'Espresso? Nes'Presso? Feels like it needs an idiotic apostrophe in there, to go with their monumentally moronic scripts), but at least I'm not left feeling like he'd come round my house and torture me in six different ways using only dental floss if I don't buy one of the eco-murdering machines.
2/ Why has Gordon Ramsay decided that he's suddenly going to start pronouncing the word restaurant, 'rest'runt'? It annoys me every time I watch The F-Word. As does him ending every sentence with 'yeah?' and that maddening jiggly thing he does when he's introducing the dishes he's demoing in his kitchen. Stop bouncing up and down, Gordon, yeah? You're making me want to twat you over the head with a frying pan just to make you stand still. If you need to burn off some energy, then go and run another marathon or something. Or take your kids to the park. They probably haven't seen you since 2007 and could do with the quality time.
3/ While we're on the subject of cuisine, when did it become mandatory for TV to treat cooking, and specifically being/trying to be a chef, as though it's more hardcore than a six-month tour of Helmand? 'COOKING DOESN'T GET ANY TOUGHER THAN THIS!' bellows over-toothed billiard ball Gregg Wallace on Masterchef, in an effort to distract attention from the fact he has no opinions and merely describes the ingredients of any dish proferred. Contestants get sent off for a day-long tour of duty in some poncey eatery, the aim of which seems to be to break their spirits and reduce them to a puddle of neurotic jus as rapidly as possible.
In one episode, the wannabes weren't allowed to either time what they were cooking or test it in any way other than by squeezing it to judge whether it was rare, medium rare or totally screwed. Which meant that a lot of quails, pigeons and other small bits of fowl were chucked straight in the bin, turning me into the sort of person who gets all huffy in the Daily Mail. I failed to see what any diner was getting out of this approach, other than being horrified by the waste and realising that was what was pushing the cost up, if they'd been allowed to go backstage in the theatre of war of cooking. Perhaps for the next series, Masterchef could combine the two and remake M*A*S*H. Arf.
4/ When did telly become so self-important? The Voice of God pronouncements on X-Factor ('IT'S OLLY MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURS!'), the status of Simon Cowell as more important than Gordon Brown and the cultural implications of Dannii Minogue's hairstyle are now going head to head with I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. I saw a trail before the series started, which boldly declared, 'Watch history in the making!' I must've missed the episode where Katie and Peter dismantled the Berlin Wall before tucking into a delicious supper of kangaroo's 'nads and deep fried black widow spiders.
It's a shame, really, that watching most of these shows is a requirement of my job (no, honestly, it is) and thus I feel as though I'm morphing into a member of the baying hordes, throwing verbal cabbages at the screen in recognition of The X-Factor as the modern equivalent of the stocks, unable to offer a meaningful opinion on the current political landscape, but an instant expert on all things singing, dancing, cooking and anything else you can vote on.
I've stopped short of actually voting thus far, but I can't help feeling it's only a matter of time. At which point it's probably a good idea to apply for the last series of Big Brother and become a poacher-turned-gamekeeper Z-list celeb myself - complete with lucrative book deal, spin-off series about opening up a pet shop in Chelsea and the obligatory News of the World spread about how I've had a romp with Russell Brand. Which at least sounds more glamorous than a phone interview with Woman and Home, which was what a colleague was trying to persuade me to do yesterday. Woman and Home? I'm still raging against the dying of the light by listening to Radio 1 and reading Heat - please don't tell me I'm now the target market for Woman and bloody Home. Bugger Big Brother, it might have to be Simon and his 'Overs' that I throw myself at next year...
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