So, in true Carrie style, 'I got to thinking...' (when plastered on a bottle of red the other night, obviously - usually I never think of anything much, other than what to have for lunch - please say it's macaroni cheese day in the canteen; what excuse I should afford myself for not going to the gym and whether or not going out with a vampire is a good idea when you work in a bar and he can only go out after dark, thus affording you few opportunities to hang out much together - yes, True Blood is my new guilty pleasure TV).
Back to the point (I'll endeavour not to sprinkle this diatribe with too many tortured metaphors and similes, a la Ms Bradshaw) - my drunken thoughts turned to age. Is it just a number? Maybe it is. Maybe you can define whoever you are and whatever age you're at these days with a blithe shrug. But I think, as a woman, you can't actually. There are a whole set of prejudices that come along with your late 30s if you're female. Look at all the dating sites if you don't believe me. You'll see legions of men approaching 40 with not-very-much-of-their-own-hair left (best not look to see if they have their own teeth), professing to like 'going out as much as they like staying in', declaring that they want to go out/stay in (remember, they really like doing both! Wow, imagine finding someone like that! They sound absolutely unique!) with women who're between 20 and 30. Because presumably they think 20-30 year old women haven't heard the alarming, Big Ben-style ticking of the biological clock and therefore aren't thinking about marriage, babies, commitment and all those other curtailing-of-your-bachelor-lifestyle things. And these women would simply love to go out with a (probably) balding man who's (undoubtedly) lied about his height and has so little imagination that he thinks that declaring that he spends his time oscillating between the twin excitements of going out and staying in qualifies him as having some sort of character or personality.
I've got to question whether they're even telling the truth on this most basic of points. Because I might be going to the wrong bars (it's not beyond the realms of possibility - my usual haunts being the gloriously cheesy Be@1 in Balham, with occasional forays to The Loft in Clapham), but I never meet any men who are over 28 in these places. Really, you'd think there was some sort of age limit enforced by doormen in London bars. Where are all the over-30s blokes? Where do they all hang out? Are they in some men-only bunker, laughing at how they're denying 30+ women an opportunity to meet them? Guffawing at their own bachelor ingenuity? Because they're not out in any kind of 'talking to available women over 30' way that I can ascertain.
I haven't been chatted up by a man over the age of 28 in about the last three years. And the last one who did (41), I've been emailing on an almost daily basis since I met him in January, we've been on three outings which may or may not have qualified as dates (the first one definitely did, the latter two were very vague on that front) and he still hasn't so much as raised an eyebrow at me. And yes, as far as I know, he's single, straight, thinks I'm funny, clever and pretty enough not to get a job as a witch (long story), but is clearly hell bent on being very platonic friends.
Back to the question - is age important? I've got female friends who are in a panic about turning 30 (they're 28). I'd kill to have my 30s again; I never thought of 30 as a terrifying signpost that, once reached, defined you as either 'On the Road to Pastville' or 'Turning Left for Desperate Town' . There wasn't anything, personally or career-wise, that I thought I should have achieved. I certainly didn't feel in any way old until this birthday. This year, I'm properly staring 40 in the face. I've got a year till I'm officially going to be middle aged - if I assume I'll make it to 80. I'm lucky in that I never wanted or felt that I had to get married or have kids (I've always believed I'll get married at 80, in a nursing home, and have 18 blissful months with a man named Harry before he shuffles off this mortal coil - as men die earlier than women - leaving me back with my cat again until I cark it).
So, there's no biological imperative to get anything done, and no social pressure to get hitched. Far from it - lots of my most long-standing female friends are part of the army of long-term singles running to the loo every time it comes to the 'throwing the bouquet' moment at the cavalcade of weddings they have to attend. On their own, because we 'understand that numbers are tight'. Have you met Sarah's boyfriend of three months? Either of you? No, thought not, and yet, there he is, taking up one of the famously hard-won spots at your nuptials. Sometimes a platonic plus one, for much-needed support, would be a very generous gesture to a singleton with no hope whatsoever of copping off at a wedding.
I suddenly feel that if you're a woman and you're 40 (even if you don't look or feel it), it's vastly different going out and being (or saying you're) 35, or 37. You can look 'amazing for your age', or even just a straightforward 'hot' (get drunk, don't divulge your age to 27 year old men, choose bars with dim lighting and 'ironic' 80s soundtracks. They think it's hilarious that you know all the words to 'Don't You Want Me Baby', you think, 'Oh God, that was my early relationships'.) At 40, you spend a lot of time doing the maths. 'I could properly be your Mum', you think, as you're snogging a bloke and debating the pros and cons of taking him home. (Although actually this has already happened to me - three years ago at a party, when I found myself snogging a 20 year old. I told him how old I was, and he professed not to care. I really don't know how Demi Moore does it, mind. I felt like at any moment a reporter from the Daily Mail was going to shop me for being a pervert).
Is it unnecessary to feel a tiny bit desperate when you're at parties with all these 20-somethings (with girls who all seem to be unfeasibly tall, with amazing hair and legs that go on for days, in their teetery heels and with an air of insouciant confidence) and you're hoping someone might fancy you? 'I can pay for a taxi!' you shout into a young man's ear, proving what an independent woman you are (certainly this is the approach to take if you want to conform to the popular stereotype of that predatory female the Cougar). But I'm not a Cougar. God no. My favourite item of clothing is a cardigan. Cougars wouldn't be seen dead in a cardigan. I've got friends who've been on those Cougar websites - they said that all the 20-something men were really handsome, with impeccable manners. But I can't shake the inequality of it. The feeling that they're going to ask you about the 'good old days', when people had to arrange to be somewhere without the aid of a mobile phone and when businesses thought the height of modernity was a smudgy fax. It's like being an artefact on Time Team.
I've come to the conclusion that what I'm after is a 30-something chap unburdened by divorce courts, alimony payments or overly-bacheloric mates, who doesn't think I'm desperate for babies (for which just read 'desperate') or massively inferior to some lithe 25 year old. In short (probably very short - men seem to have shrunk these days on top of everything else), I think I want the 21st century equivalent of Julia Child's husband, Paul, as played by Stanley Tucci in Julie and Julia. Julia Child was, by her own admission, somewhat of a galumpher, being 6' 2", a truly massive woman with, if one's to believe Meryl Streep's performance in the film, and why wouldn't you, she's Meryl frickin' Streep, accents are what she does, a swoopily weird voice and an eccentrically huge personality to match her giant stature.
She got married pretty late for a woman in the 1940s (she was 34) and managed to find a man who clearly adored, supported and indulged her, no matter how loopy she appeared to the rest of the world. When Paul toasted her at one party as 'the butter on my bread' in the film, you could feel a whole cinema-full of women going, 'Ahh'. Perhaps I need to stop making cupcakes and perfect my duck a l'orange after all.
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Choral Tributes
I learned not long ago that the music master at my old school had died. I remember Jack Hindmarsh with huge fondness - he was a massive Father Christmas of a man who used to run the choir at Haileybury. Pretty much everyone at the school was a member of the choir, regardless of singing ability (you didn't have to audition, which helped massively), from the Aled Jones-a-like 13 year olds up to sixth form blokes who were built like outhouses and spent most of the rest of their time beating each other up on rugby pitches. Everyone loved Jack - he always seemed to be smiling, was hugely enthusiastic and encouraging and rehearsals for school concerts constituted some of the few good times I had in my two years there.
Watching the BBC's The Choir made me think how lucky I was to have had such an inspiring person encouraging me to sing - and how many people will never have the chance to experience how amazing it feels to sing with a big gathering of other people, largely because they think, 'It's not for the likes of us'. I'd missed the previous series that Gareth Malone was on (I think it was encouraging dissafected teenaged boys to sing), but having watched the series, I think I might want to see him on TV at least once a week till the end of time.
The series didn't start out looking promising - after his previous efforts, Gareth had predictably received loads of letters asking him to come and help people to start up their own choirs. The one that caught his eye (for which read the producer's, but that's fine) was from a lady vicar called Pam, who was despairing about her run down and depressed-sounding community, South Oxhey. Off went Gareth and the film crew to check it out. It really did look rubbish - empty precinct in the centre of town, nothing much to do, people wandering around looking gloomy. Gareth's idea of starting up a community choir looked, to say the least, like a massive challenge.
Gareth, I think it's fair to say, looks like David Tennant's auburn-haired fifteen year old cousin attending a Harry Potter convention. Slight and posh, he's the kind of man whose jeans will always be indigo and well pressed, and who wears jackets and coats made of proper fibres like wool and tweed. Despite looking like he'd lose a fight to a bantamweight within the first twenty seconds, he's clearly made of stern stuff. He wanted this town to have something to be proud of, and a choir was it.
Off he went round the town, on his own, flyering like a madman and enquiring poshly of everyone he met if they liked to sing. 'No', appeared to be the most popular answer, followed by a look that suggested poor Gareth had taken leave of his senses to even ask. At the appointed hour for the inaugural meeting of the community choir in a hall somewhere in the town, tons of chairs had been optimistically laid out. I was worried twenty people were going to turn up and Gareth was going to cry (I spent most of the subsequent episodes worrying that no-one was going to turn up for things and that Gareth was going to cry; this possibly says more about the things that I've tried to organise in the past than it does about the denizens of South Oxhey. Or Gareth.) Something like 175 people turned up. 'Christ!' I shouted at the telly, 'that's fucking amazing!' Gareth looked stunned. Most people looked like they weren't entirely sure why they were there, but heck, they might get on the telly, and then they needn't bother coming back next week.
Gareth got them all singing a pop song. They seemed to like it. They still thought he was a posh nutter, but most of them were smiling shyly. I got a bit teary when recently widowed, and obviously cripplingly lonely, Fred said it was the best night he'd had for ages and he'd met some nice people. Gareth said he wanted them all to do a gig in the precinct, to involve the whole community in what they were doing. Predictably, there was a lot of muttering about how no-one would turn up and it would all fail dismally. But the brilliant thing was that nearly all of them turned up for rehearsal the next week - and kept on going. Fired up by a minor success in the precinct ('Nothing like this has ever happened in South Oxhey before!', which was to become a sort of motto for the show), Gareth unleashed his next plan: singing something classical, tricky, without any accompaniment, over six minutes long - and in Latin. More muttering (what is it about the British that makes them automatically assume they a/ can't do things and b/ if they try, it'll be shit, even when they've just been successful at something?), but Gareth was away. 'If I didn't think you could do it, I wouldn't have suggested it', he insisted. They had a few weeks and then they were going to do a proper concert - and in the meantime they were going to do their homework.
This involved Gareth going house to house with a portable keyboard and not only teaching people to sing, but giving them a few Latin lessons at the same time. Needless to say, they managed to pull it off and rebuilt their community in the process. New friendships had been established; single mothers had got closer to their daughters and felt that there was something in South Oxhey for them; Fred the lonely widower met a foxy lady who'd lost her husband and they went ballroom dancing - the whole thing had me reduced to messy floods of tears every week. It was bloody lovely. Gareth got a choir of school kids together. He managed to get Matty, a local boxer who dropped out of the choir after the first rehearsal, to gather together a group of burly blokes to come to the pub. He really, really wanted them to sing. They all look nonplussed, despite the fact I bet they'd all sing for 90 minutes solid if they went to a football match. They clearly thought it was gay. But somehow soon they were singing Oasis, and by the end of the episode they'd gone round a load of local pubs singing, and were fully signed up members of the Gareth Appreciation Society.
The final episode involved Gareth getting the choir a recording gig at Abbey Road and then organsing a festival - at which he'd bring the choir, the kids' choir and Matty's burly blokes together for a massive sing song. Now that was bloody incredible. Defying cynicism and the belief that loads of towns must have that 'nothing good ever happens here', they pulled it off - everyone, I suspect, having gone from trying hard because they wanted to please Gareth because he said he believed in them, to trying and working hard because they finally believed in themselves and they really wanted it to be bloody great.
What I found myself wondering when I was watching this was, in a community, do you need an outsider to inspire you and bring you together? Because if they were the same as you, why should you believe them - who the hell do they reckon they are to think that they can lead you? It made me sad that there must be loads of people trying to get local initiatives off the ground, which would have exactly this effect of bringing people together and making them feel positive about where they live (the old notion of 'civic pride', if you will) and failing because of our default setting of grumbling, whingeing gloom.
And then I thought, 'this is lovely, but what happens when Gareth goes back home? What are they going to do then? The choir will fall apart and they'll go back to how they were'. The council said they'd put in a choir master for a bit. But the choir didn't want that, they wanted Gareth - he knew them, he knew what they could do, and more important, they knew him. No one would be as good as him. A hundred and fifty people signed a petition to ask him to stay on - which finally reduced Gareth to tears. And he did decide to stay on. They're very lucky to have him and I think the BBC should start a cloning programme so that every major town can have a Gareth. Screw watching X-Factor, we should all be in a church hall, putting together a jazzy version of Walking on Sunshine - Britain would be a much better place.
Watching the BBC's The Choir made me think how lucky I was to have had such an inspiring person encouraging me to sing - and how many people will never have the chance to experience how amazing it feels to sing with a big gathering of other people, largely because they think, 'It's not for the likes of us'. I'd missed the previous series that Gareth Malone was on (I think it was encouraging dissafected teenaged boys to sing), but having watched the series, I think I might want to see him on TV at least once a week till the end of time.
The series didn't start out looking promising - after his previous efforts, Gareth had predictably received loads of letters asking him to come and help people to start up their own choirs. The one that caught his eye (for which read the producer's, but that's fine) was from a lady vicar called Pam, who was despairing about her run down and depressed-sounding community, South Oxhey. Off went Gareth and the film crew to check it out. It really did look rubbish - empty precinct in the centre of town, nothing much to do, people wandering around looking gloomy. Gareth's idea of starting up a community choir looked, to say the least, like a massive challenge.
Gareth, I think it's fair to say, looks like David Tennant's auburn-haired fifteen year old cousin attending a Harry Potter convention. Slight and posh, he's the kind of man whose jeans will always be indigo and well pressed, and who wears jackets and coats made of proper fibres like wool and tweed. Despite looking like he'd lose a fight to a bantamweight within the first twenty seconds, he's clearly made of stern stuff. He wanted this town to have something to be proud of, and a choir was it.
Off he went round the town, on his own, flyering like a madman and enquiring poshly of everyone he met if they liked to sing. 'No', appeared to be the most popular answer, followed by a look that suggested poor Gareth had taken leave of his senses to even ask. At the appointed hour for the inaugural meeting of the community choir in a hall somewhere in the town, tons of chairs had been optimistically laid out. I was worried twenty people were going to turn up and Gareth was going to cry (I spent most of the subsequent episodes worrying that no-one was going to turn up for things and that Gareth was going to cry; this possibly says more about the things that I've tried to organise in the past than it does about the denizens of South Oxhey. Or Gareth.) Something like 175 people turned up. 'Christ!' I shouted at the telly, 'that's fucking amazing!' Gareth looked stunned. Most people looked like they weren't entirely sure why they were there, but heck, they might get on the telly, and then they needn't bother coming back next week.
Gareth got them all singing a pop song. They seemed to like it. They still thought he was a posh nutter, but most of them were smiling shyly. I got a bit teary when recently widowed, and obviously cripplingly lonely, Fred said it was the best night he'd had for ages and he'd met some nice people. Gareth said he wanted them all to do a gig in the precinct, to involve the whole community in what they were doing. Predictably, there was a lot of muttering about how no-one would turn up and it would all fail dismally. But the brilliant thing was that nearly all of them turned up for rehearsal the next week - and kept on going. Fired up by a minor success in the precinct ('Nothing like this has ever happened in South Oxhey before!', which was to become a sort of motto for the show), Gareth unleashed his next plan: singing something classical, tricky, without any accompaniment, over six minutes long - and in Latin. More muttering (what is it about the British that makes them automatically assume they a/ can't do things and b/ if they try, it'll be shit, even when they've just been successful at something?), but Gareth was away. 'If I didn't think you could do it, I wouldn't have suggested it', he insisted. They had a few weeks and then they were going to do a proper concert - and in the meantime they were going to do their homework.
This involved Gareth going house to house with a portable keyboard and not only teaching people to sing, but giving them a few Latin lessons at the same time. Needless to say, they managed to pull it off and rebuilt their community in the process. New friendships had been established; single mothers had got closer to their daughters and felt that there was something in South Oxhey for them; Fred the lonely widower met a foxy lady who'd lost her husband and they went ballroom dancing - the whole thing had me reduced to messy floods of tears every week. It was bloody lovely. Gareth got a choir of school kids together. He managed to get Matty, a local boxer who dropped out of the choir after the first rehearsal, to gather together a group of burly blokes to come to the pub. He really, really wanted them to sing. They all look nonplussed, despite the fact I bet they'd all sing for 90 minutes solid if they went to a football match. They clearly thought it was gay. But somehow soon they were singing Oasis, and by the end of the episode they'd gone round a load of local pubs singing, and were fully signed up members of the Gareth Appreciation Society.
The final episode involved Gareth getting the choir a recording gig at Abbey Road and then organsing a festival - at which he'd bring the choir, the kids' choir and Matty's burly blokes together for a massive sing song. Now that was bloody incredible. Defying cynicism and the belief that loads of towns must have that 'nothing good ever happens here', they pulled it off - everyone, I suspect, having gone from trying hard because they wanted to please Gareth because he said he believed in them, to trying and working hard because they finally believed in themselves and they really wanted it to be bloody great.
What I found myself wondering when I was watching this was, in a community, do you need an outsider to inspire you and bring you together? Because if they were the same as you, why should you believe them - who the hell do they reckon they are to think that they can lead you? It made me sad that there must be loads of people trying to get local initiatives off the ground, which would have exactly this effect of bringing people together and making them feel positive about where they live (the old notion of 'civic pride', if you will) and failing because of our default setting of grumbling, whingeing gloom.
And then I thought, 'this is lovely, but what happens when Gareth goes back home? What are they going to do then? The choir will fall apart and they'll go back to how they were'. The council said they'd put in a choir master for a bit. But the choir didn't want that, they wanted Gareth - he knew them, he knew what they could do, and more important, they knew him. No one would be as good as him. A hundred and fifty people signed a petition to ask him to stay on - which finally reduced Gareth to tears. And he did decide to stay on. They're very lucky to have him and I think the BBC should start a cloning programme so that every major town can have a Gareth. Screw watching X-Factor, we should all be in a church hall, putting together a jazzy version of Walking on Sunshine - Britain would be a much better place.
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Momentous Occasion No. 2
I found my first grey hair. GAAAAAAAAAAAAH. Despite the fact I've been dyeing my hair ever since I left home, a grey hair has battled its way through. And not just one! I found two! So there it is, I'm now definitively old. This is horrible. Now I shall have to start bleating, 'But will it cover my little bit of grey?' every time I go to Boots for hair dye, like Davina's neurotic, unseen telephone mum on the Garnier ads. And someone with fewer grey hairs than me will have to laugh in a jolly, patronising way, and go, 'Yes, of course it will!' whilst swishing their shiny YOUNG hair at me. People from Garnier are paid to do that in Boots, it's just I've never seen them before. They only appear when you go grey.
Momentous Occasion No. 1
So, various momentous things have been happening at Purple Towers recently (sadly, this does not include me having built a time machine, travelled backwards and made a much better, wittier and more impressionful impression on David Mitchell at the book launch. Can't have everything). But the first is of a romantic nature.
It was a night much like any other. I and my friend were haring off on the Tube to go to a book event in Wood Green. Neither of us had ever been to Wood Green before (it won't surprise you to find out that it's neither green nor wooded) and were not well served by our Google Map. First of all, we headed downhill from the tube station towards a shopping centre. After 10 minutes' speed-walking, we looked at our Google Map. 'Curses!' we shouted, 'we've gone the WRONG WAY'. We set off back up the hill at quite a lick, chuntering at our bad judgement. After a fifteen minute walk which had landed us in the middle of a council estate, we decided that even though the bookshop address was 'Unit 1', which seemed to denote an industrial estate, it wasn't very likely to be here. Various locals looked a bit, well, muggery wouldn't be too outrageous a word to use. Especially when we asked them in Idiot Posh Girl voices if they knew where the book shop was. When we got as far as the police station, we thought we might do the sensible thing, and phone up the book shop to ask them where they were located. They had no idea where we were, but merrily said we should've gone down hill from the tube station.
Down hill we went, again, cursing some more. Fucking Google Maps. I mean really, the point of a MAP, Google, is to have the names of the streets on it, so you can tell where you're ruddy well going. Not, as you seem to want to do, you room full of lazy wankpots, to put some of the names on and leave the rest as some sort of exciting, cartographic game, wherein you fill in the names as you pass them. It turned out that we'd done our U-turn at almost exactly where the book shop was. If we'd been on the right side of the street and the book shop's sign had been right by the entrance to said street, we'd have been there first time round. 'Yes, we're late', we thought, 'and a bit puffed out and sweaty, but we can probably sneak in at the back. No one will be any the wiser'. Hmm, not to be on that front either. We had to tap surrepticiously on the shop's door to be granted entry. At which point we realised that the audience for the book event consisted of three people. Two of whom worked in the shop. Ah. Still, two's company, three's a crowd, eh? We sat down and put our listening faces on. And our 'yes, I'll volunteer!' faces on too, as the author, Richard, was demonstrating how con jobs work, as that's what his very excellent book, Conman, is all about.
Luckily, we are chums of Richard's, so the whole thing wasn't too awkward. Well, it wasn't too awkward for us, I'm not sure how Richard felt about it. Especially when I managed to reveal at the end that I also knew the other audience member. I'd been telling my sister, the film producer, that she should option Richard's book, and that coming along to the event would be the ideal way to get a flavour of it. She'd phoned earlier that afternoon, saying that she was going to be inconvenienced by meetings, but would send an emissary called Jamie along in her stead. When a question from Richard elicited the information that the young man sitting next to us worked in films, I thought it likely that this was Jamie. For some reason, he seemed somewhat surprised when I revealed who I was. Perhaps he was method acting 'being an unknown punter at a book event' and didn't like having his cover blown. I don't know. Anyway, The Book Shop Boys (the more literary side project of The Pet Shop Boys) made us all exceptionally welcome, and we had an impromtu lock-in. Much wine was drunk, and fun times were had, taking the piss out of some of the shop's offerings, including a tome entitled 'Why Men Love Bitches' (From Doormat to Dreamgirl - A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship).
The book shop had to shut. 'More booze!' we cried, racing off to the nearest tube station with one of the BSBs in tow. As it was quite late, we settled on Finsbury Park, as that was Jamie's manor, and he could find us a nice hostelry. We sat down with a variety of pints, glasses of wine, and a selection of crisps (referred to as 'bar salad' by my friend, which is genius and everyone must start referring to it as that). We engaged in more banter. We were all getting along terrifically well. 'I'm so glad I came out tonight!' I thought, as Richard and I got stuck into a very un-PC conversation about the Marchioness disaster (there'd been an article about it in the Observer). We were being quite vitriolic about bankers and 'beautiful people' (I know, I know, it's not their fault they had a lot of money and were trendy - it was properly horrific. I am a bad person.) I stopped, probably to have a bit of a laugh about my own awfulness. Then, and this is the momentous bit, the BSB looked me dead in the eye from across the table and solemly declared, 'I love you'. Not, 'Ha ha, I think I love you!' or 'Oh, did you write that book on why men love bitches, because, seemingly, I love you?' No. A proper, no messing about, 'I love you'.
The table descended into shouty turmoil. 'What? Why do you love me?' I shrieked. 'What did she say? WHAT DID SHE SAY?' demanded my friend. ('What did you say?' she asked me. 'I've no idea!', I replied.) Jamie was hooting with laughter. It'd been quite an odd evening for him already and this was upping the ante quite considerably. The BSB remained mute (with adoration? Or confusion that he'd said it out loud? It was hard to tell). He wouldn't give up his secrets.
'It's a bit of a shame', I thought, 'that the first man ever to say this to me is so catatonically drunk that he's just literally fallen off his chair.'
It was a night much like any other. I and my friend were haring off on the Tube to go to a book event in Wood Green. Neither of us had ever been to Wood Green before (it won't surprise you to find out that it's neither green nor wooded) and were not well served by our Google Map. First of all, we headed downhill from the tube station towards a shopping centre. After 10 minutes' speed-walking, we looked at our Google Map. 'Curses!' we shouted, 'we've gone the WRONG WAY'. We set off back up the hill at quite a lick, chuntering at our bad judgement. After a fifteen minute walk which had landed us in the middle of a council estate, we decided that even though the bookshop address was 'Unit 1', which seemed to denote an industrial estate, it wasn't very likely to be here. Various locals looked a bit, well, muggery wouldn't be too outrageous a word to use. Especially when we asked them in Idiot Posh Girl voices if they knew where the book shop was. When we got as far as the police station, we thought we might do the sensible thing, and phone up the book shop to ask them where they were located. They had no idea where we were, but merrily said we should've gone down hill from the tube station.
Down hill we went, again, cursing some more. Fucking Google Maps. I mean really, the point of a MAP, Google, is to have the names of the streets on it, so you can tell where you're ruddy well going. Not, as you seem to want to do, you room full of lazy wankpots, to put some of the names on and leave the rest as some sort of exciting, cartographic game, wherein you fill in the names as you pass them. It turned out that we'd done our U-turn at almost exactly where the book shop was. If we'd been on the right side of the street and the book shop's sign had been right by the entrance to said street, we'd have been there first time round. 'Yes, we're late', we thought, 'and a bit puffed out and sweaty, but we can probably sneak in at the back. No one will be any the wiser'. Hmm, not to be on that front either. We had to tap surrepticiously on the shop's door to be granted entry. At which point we realised that the audience for the book event consisted of three people. Two of whom worked in the shop. Ah. Still, two's company, three's a crowd, eh? We sat down and put our listening faces on. And our 'yes, I'll volunteer!' faces on too, as the author, Richard, was demonstrating how con jobs work, as that's what his very excellent book, Conman, is all about.
Luckily, we are chums of Richard's, so the whole thing wasn't too awkward. Well, it wasn't too awkward for us, I'm not sure how Richard felt about it. Especially when I managed to reveal at the end that I also knew the other audience member. I'd been telling my sister, the film producer, that she should option Richard's book, and that coming along to the event would be the ideal way to get a flavour of it. She'd phoned earlier that afternoon, saying that she was going to be inconvenienced by meetings, but would send an emissary called Jamie along in her stead. When a question from Richard elicited the information that the young man sitting next to us worked in films, I thought it likely that this was Jamie. For some reason, he seemed somewhat surprised when I revealed who I was. Perhaps he was method acting 'being an unknown punter at a book event' and didn't like having his cover blown. I don't know. Anyway, The Book Shop Boys (the more literary side project of The Pet Shop Boys) made us all exceptionally welcome, and we had an impromtu lock-in. Much wine was drunk, and fun times were had, taking the piss out of some of the shop's offerings, including a tome entitled 'Why Men Love Bitches' (From Doormat to Dreamgirl - A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship).
The book shop had to shut. 'More booze!' we cried, racing off to the nearest tube station with one of the BSBs in tow. As it was quite late, we settled on Finsbury Park, as that was Jamie's manor, and he could find us a nice hostelry. We sat down with a variety of pints, glasses of wine, and a selection of crisps (referred to as 'bar salad' by my friend, which is genius and everyone must start referring to it as that). We engaged in more banter. We were all getting along terrifically well. 'I'm so glad I came out tonight!' I thought, as Richard and I got stuck into a very un-PC conversation about the Marchioness disaster (there'd been an article about it in the Observer). We were being quite vitriolic about bankers and 'beautiful people' (I know, I know, it's not their fault they had a lot of money and were trendy - it was properly horrific. I am a bad person.) I stopped, probably to have a bit of a laugh about my own awfulness. Then, and this is the momentous bit, the BSB looked me dead in the eye from across the table and solemly declared, 'I love you'. Not, 'Ha ha, I think I love you!' or 'Oh, did you write that book on why men love bitches, because, seemingly, I love you?' No. A proper, no messing about, 'I love you'.
The table descended into shouty turmoil. 'What? Why do you love me?' I shrieked. 'What did she say? WHAT DID SHE SAY?' demanded my friend. ('What did you say?' she asked me. 'I've no idea!', I replied.) Jamie was hooting with laughter. It'd been quite an odd evening for him already and this was upping the ante quite considerably. The BSB remained mute (with adoration? Or confusion that he'd said it out loud? It was hard to tell). He wouldn't give up his secrets.
'It's a bit of a shame', I thought, 'that the first man ever to say this to me is so catatonically drunk that he's just literally fallen off his chair.'
Monday, 17 August 2009
My weekend, or at least my Saturday, was a bit like that episode of Sex and the City when the unlikely quartet of friends hoofs off to the suburbs to see a friend who's had a baby. And are surrounded by Other Women With Babies. And there's a bit where someone puts a baby on a sofa next to Samantha, who merrily lets it slide off the sofa and clunk onto the floor. I spent years feeling like Samantha in this respect (certainly not in any other respect - imagine having that much sex, it'd be exhausting). I was totally phobic about babies - and they felt the same way about me. People would always be thrusting babies at me, assuming that because I'm female, and don't have any of my own, I'm desperate to 'have a cuddle'. The option was to take hold of the baby or let it drop on the floor (I found the latter didn't go down very well), so I'd grab it under the armpits, at which point the baby would scream its head off and I'd hand it back.
People refused to believe me when I said I was phobic about them (what if their neck snaps and their head falls off?), didn't like children and didn't want any. I don't know why people find this so hard to believe. Babies are boring. They are noise machines who also dispense noxious fluids. I'm sure it's lovely if you've had one, and congrats on that (current newspaper articles would seem to suggest that it's a miracle if you're over 35 and you've managed to successfully procreate), but it'd be great if I didn't have to interact with them till they can speak. I make an honorable exception for Sonny, the baby from the barge trip, who was a delight. A smiley little fellow, he was easily amused by A/ rocking about in his baby chair and kicking his legs like a footballer with epilepsy - I found I could rock the chair with my foot, whilst also reading the paper, which was a good start; B/ having faces made at him, or waving; C/ burbling any old nonsense at him in a googly voice. I monitored his mood by keeping a careful eye on the angle of his eyebrows: up or level was fine, but if they started to dip down in the middle, urgent action had to be taken - really intense faces and some manic burbling, or an appeal to his mum to come and fix him.
Saturday's selection of babies held no such joys - after a morning of unsuccessful burbling with one friend's baby, I moved onto a barbecue at which there was a selection of ankle biters. One baby bore an alarming resemblance to the baby in Trainspotting, that crawls across the ceiling when Renton is hallucinating. It had a disconcertingly massive head. It wasn't a good look. I tried to rescue it as it crawled through a selection of nuts, bolts, screws and washers that were lying around on the floor as various guests tried to actually assemble the barbecue in the sitting room. 'Don't want you swallowing any of those!' I thought (babies bring out my inner Disaster Monitor) and picked him up. He screamed like a malfunctioning car alarm. I hastily put him down. Luckily his mother appeared, and reassured me that he was 'a complete mummy's boy' and would scream if anyone went near him other than her, which, for the next two hours, proved to be irritatingly and ear-shatteringly true. I left suburbia later that night thanking God I could rush back to the city and my lovely, silent flat.
Sunday's children were much better. A few of us convened in a pub garden to belatedly celebrate my sister's birthday, as she's back from France for the weekend. Sonny was there - someone else was holding him, so I just had to tickle his feet. I was then ambushed by a pair of twins, who must've been about two and a half and appeared from nowhere. They were blonde and cherubic little boys, who offered me a shard of plastic that looked like part of a disposable fork, and an empty raisin box. I'll confess, I'm shameful when it comes to children: if they're pretty, cute and chatty, I like them. (Repeated exposure to children now most of my friends have them has mellowed me). Despite, or maybe because of, the fact that as a child I was chronically shy and looked like a bag of potatoes, I can't get along with the unchatty, lumpy ones. This is mainly because I've discovered that with small children, the key to engaging with them is just to ask them loads of questions. You start off with the easy stuff, like what's your name, and how old are you, and then you just ask them what they're doing, or how their toy works, or if their teddy has a name, and what their teddy likes doing. And then you carry on till one of you gets bored (it's generally them - they come to the conclusion that you're an idiot who doesn't know anything).
The boys decided the buttons on my cardigan needed sewing on with the plastic shard. Good start! I tried sewing on the buttons on one of their T-shirts (one was sporting a T-shirt with a campervan on it, the other some sort of skull with writing; at two and a half, they were more fashionable than I've ever been). The other one got a bit upset that he didn't have any buttons to sew on. 'Life's not all about buttons, kid', I told him. He looked bemused, and offered me a cigarette butt from the ground. I declined his kind gift, at which point his brother offered me one as well. I distracted them by giving them packets of sugar. Not a great gift, but then they had only given me a broken piece of plastic, a very small empty cardboard box, and two fag butts. I then caught sight of a drain with a perforated cast iron cover over it, ideal for posting leaves and other detritus down. Their father came by just as I was suggesting that they find things to offer to 'the drain god'. 'The drain god?!' he asked. 'Yes, the drain god', I replied, not to be deterred, making a scary face and going 'RAAAAR' at one of the boys. 'RAAAR' the boy replied, hitting me in the face. I realised I didn't really have anywhere else to go with that. It was starting to get a bit complex. Luckily at that point they decided they had urgent business elsewhere and ran off, possibly to converse with people who weren't going to make up complicated theological systems located in London's sewage networks.
Their mum wheeled them round in a double buggy to say goodbye when they left and I was kind of sad to see them go. Sometimes it's easier to talk to a two and a half year old and a lot more fun. After all, it's not every man who's going to go along with you when you suggest making sacrifices to underground deities you've randomly made up, more's the pity.
People refused to believe me when I said I was phobic about them (what if their neck snaps and their head falls off?), didn't like children and didn't want any. I don't know why people find this so hard to believe. Babies are boring. They are noise machines who also dispense noxious fluids. I'm sure it's lovely if you've had one, and congrats on that (current newspaper articles would seem to suggest that it's a miracle if you're over 35 and you've managed to successfully procreate), but it'd be great if I didn't have to interact with them till they can speak. I make an honorable exception for Sonny, the baby from the barge trip, who was a delight. A smiley little fellow, he was easily amused by A/ rocking about in his baby chair and kicking his legs like a footballer with epilepsy - I found I could rock the chair with my foot, whilst also reading the paper, which was a good start; B/ having faces made at him, or waving; C/ burbling any old nonsense at him in a googly voice. I monitored his mood by keeping a careful eye on the angle of his eyebrows: up or level was fine, but if they started to dip down in the middle, urgent action had to be taken - really intense faces and some manic burbling, or an appeal to his mum to come and fix him.
Saturday's selection of babies held no such joys - after a morning of unsuccessful burbling with one friend's baby, I moved onto a barbecue at which there was a selection of ankle biters. One baby bore an alarming resemblance to the baby in Trainspotting, that crawls across the ceiling when Renton is hallucinating. It had a disconcertingly massive head. It wasn't a good look. I tried to rescue it as it crawled through a selection of nuts, bolts, screws and washers that were lying around on the floor as various guests tried to actually assemble the barbecue in the sitting room. 'Don't want you swallowing any of those!' I thought (babies bring out my inner Disaster Monitor) and picked him up. He screamed like a malfunctioning car alarm. I hastily put him down. Luckily his mother appeared, and reassured me that he was 'a complete mummy's boy' and would scream if anyone went near him other than her, which, for the next two hours, proved to be irritatingly and ear-shatteringly true. I left suburbia later that night thanking God I could rush back to the city and my lovely, silent flat.
Sunday's children were much better. A few of us convened in a pub garden to belatedly celebrate my sister's birthday, as she's back from France for the weekend. Sonny was there - someone else was holding him, so I just had to tickle his feet. I was then ambushed by a pair of twins, who must've been about two and a half and appeared from nowhere. They were blonde and cherubic little boys, who offered me a shard of plastic that looked like part of a disposable fork, and an empty raisin box. I'll confess, I'm shameful when it comes to children: if they're pretty, cute and chatty, I like them. (Repeated exposure to children now most of my friends have them has mellowed me). Despite, or maybe because of, the fact that as a child I was chronically shy and looked like a bag of potatoes, I can't get along with the unchatty, lumpy ones. This is mainly because I've discovered that with small children, the key to engaging with them is just to ask them loads of questions. You start off with the easy stuff, like what's your name, and how old are you, and then you just ask them what they're doing, or how their toy works, or if their teddy has a name, and what their teddy likes doing. And then you carry on till one of you gets bored (it's generally them - they come to the conclusion that you're an idiot who doesn't know anything).
The boys decided the buttons on my cardigan needed sewing on with the plastic shard. Good start! I tried sewing on the buttons on one of their T-shirts (one was sporting a T-shirt with a campervan on it, the other some sort of skull with writing; at two and a half, they were more fashionable than I've ever been). The other one got a bit upset that he didn't have any buttons to sew on. 'Life's not all about buttons, kid', I told him. He looked bemused, and offered me a cigarette butt from the ground. I declined his kind gift, at which point his brother offered me one as well. I distracted them by giving them packets of sugar. Not a great gift, but then they had only given me a broken piece of plastic, a very small empty cardboard box, and two fag butts. I then caught sight of a drain with a perforated cast iron cover over it, ideal for posting leaves and other detritus down. Their father came by just as I was suggesting that they find things to offer to 'the drain god'. 'The drain god?!' he asked. 'Yes, the drain god', I replied, not to be deterred, making a scary face and going 'RAAAAR' at one of the boys. 'RAAAR' the boy replied, hitting me in the face. I realised I didn't really have anywhere else to go with that. It was starting to get a bit complex. Luckily at that point they decided they had urgent business elsewhere and ran off, possibly to converse with people who weren't going to make up complicated theological systems located in London's sewage networks.
Their mum wheeled them round in a double buggy to say goodbye when they left and I was kind of sad to see them go. Sometimes it's easier to talk to a two and a half year old and a lot more fun. After all, it's not every man who's going to go along with you when you suggest making sacrifices to underground deities you've randomly made up, more's the pity.
Neptune, whom Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge, informs me is the God of Water (my classical education's not up to much), has been attacking me repeatedly lately, despite me offering myself to him and his aqueous minions on the barge the other week (almost literally). Not only did the watery deity choose to shut off my shower just when I should've been sprucing up in order to try to snag myself a husband, but he also decided to hit me where it really hurts by breaking my loo.
A day and a night without water you can just about cope with (although when I found there was still no water when I returned, having failed to alter my spinster status, after my evening at the book launch, I was, I confess, reduced to tears of frustration and impotent rage). But a broken loo is really annoying, because it means you have to call out a plumber. Unless it's merely blocked, in which case you can try improvising a plunger with a deconstructed wire coathanger, which is what I once did when I was at uni. The other three girls I lived with squealed with horror, but I saved us the call out charge just by refusing to be totally squeamish, and was feted accordingly.
I suppose I could've dismantled my concealed cistern (turns out that the cistern is in no way as fancy as this suggests - it's just a normal cistern, but with the top taken off it, and a box built round it) and seen if I could fix the loo's flush system myself. But would I know what I was looking for? No, I would not. And of course I don't know any handy men who might know what was wrong with it, and how to fix it without paying £85, either. So, after a tip off from my colleagues that Rated People was the place to find a good plumber, I posted a request and sat back to wait for a Rated Person to contact me. This seemed a better option than phoning any of the frankly rubbish selection of personnel who've done things to my flat so far. (I have to put a cup under the pipework for the shower, as it's still leaking, despite two sets of builders/plumbers telling me it's fixed. The second lot jammed the bath panel back on, probably without even trying to fix the problem thinking that, what, all the water would just flood straight through the floorboards into the flat below, and I'd never find out till I suddenly crashed through the ceiling whilst mid-ablutions, like something out of a Benny Hill sketch?)
By some sort of miracle, having posted the ad on a Friday afternoon, on Saturday morning a man called Dave phoned me to see if he could come over right away (well, after he'd eaten a bacon sarnie his wife had made him - this insight into his domestic arrangements automatically made me like him) to price up the job. Within the hour, there he was, ready to quote. And he could come round on Friday afternoon. I sent a prayer of thanks to the interweb, and resigned myself to chucking buckets of water down the loo for a week. It's not that much of a hardship, but it makes you appreciate sanitation when you can effortlessly flush a loo. In these recessionary times, one should be pleased with any free pleasures, no matter how seemingly small.
Friday afternoon saw Dave arrive, fresh from a job in Blackheath. 'I've just had the most amazing 24 hours of my life', he announced as he tried to connect a fiddly pipe to my gas meter, to ensure I didn't have any leaks. (I'd taken the opportunity of getting him to connect my hob, which has been sitting there, unconnected and gathering dust because ANOTHER BLOODY BUILDER NEGLECTED TO DO WHAT HE SAID HE'D DO AND THEN DISAPPEARED for... well, let's say it's been a significant amount of time). 'Blimey', I thought, 'that's quite a claim'. 'Why, what's happened?' I asked. 'Well', he replied, 'I've got a daughter that I haven't seen since she was eight. And now she's 30. I've been looking for her for years. And I found her last night on Facebook. And I'm going to see her tonight!' Bloody hell! Imagine that! And they say the internet's no good for anything except porn! I somehow felt he should be telling everyone else in his family, and all of his friends, rather than me, a random stranger whose loo he was about to fix.
'Yeah,' he continued, 'I'm feeling a bit all over the place' (good to tell me this, just as he was about to start messing about with gas pipes). 'I've only ever cried four times in my life - once when my mum and dad died, once when my dog died and last night.' People reveal odd stuff to you sometimes, don't they? I kind of wanted to ask loads of questions, but it all felt too personal, so I left it, other than wishing him the best of luck when he left to go off and meet her. He said that she'd been looking for him too, which made me hopeful that the outcome would be positive and that she hadn't thought he'd just abandoned her, didn't care and that she never wanted to see him again. He disappeared in a flurry of winks, and told me he'd come back soon to fix my shower. For free.
Ha! In your face, Neptune.
A day and a night without water you can just about cope with (although when I found there was still no water when I returned, having failed to alter my spinster status, after my evening at the book launch, I was, I confess, reduced to tears of frustration and impotent rage). But a broken loo is really annoying, because it means you have to call out a plumber. Unless it's merely blocked, in which case you can try improvising a plunger with a deconstructed wire coathanger, which is what I once did when I was at uni. The other three girls I lived with squealed with horror, but I saved us the call out charge just by refusing to be totally squeamish, and was feted accordingly.
I suppose I could've dismantled my concealed cistern (turns out that the cistern is in no way as fancy as this suggests - it's just a normal cistern, but with the top taken off it, and a box built round it) and seen if I could fix the loo's flush system myself. But would I know what I was looking for? No, I would not. And of course I don't know any handy men who might know what was wrong with it, and how to fix it without paying £85, either. So, after a tip off from my colleagues that Rated People was the place to find a good plumber, I posted a request and sat back to wait for a Rated Person to contact me. This seemed a better option than phoning any of the frankly rubbish selection of personnel who've done things to my flat so far. (I have to put a cup under the pipework for the shower, as it's still leaking, despite two sets of builders/plumbers telling me it's fixed. The second lot jammed the bath panel back on, probably without even trying to fix the problem thinking that, what, all the water would just flood straight through the floorboards into the flat below, and I'd never find out till I suddenly crashed through the ceiling whilst mid-ablutions, like something out of a Benny Hill sketch?)
By some sort of miracle, having posted the ad on a Friday afternoon, on Saturday morning a man called Dave phoned me to see if he could come over right away (well, after he'd eaten a bacon sarnie his wife had made him - this insight into his domestic arrangements automatically made me like him) to price up the job. Within the hour, there he was, ready to quote. And he could come round on Friday afternoon. I sent a prayer of thanks to the interweb, and resigned myself to chucking buckets of water down the loo for a week. It's not that much of a hardship, but it makes you appreciate sanitation when you can effortlessly flush a loo. In these recessionary times, one should be pleased with any free pleasures, no matter how seemingly small.
Friday afternoon saw Dave arrive, fresh from a job in Blackheath. 'I've just had the most amazing 24 hours of my life', he announced as he tried to connect a fiddly pipe to my gas meter, to ensure I didn't have any leaks. (I'd taken the opportunity of getting him to connect my hob, which has been sitting there, unconnected and gathering dust because ANOTHER BLOODY BUILDER NEGLECTED TO DO WHAT HE SAID HE'D DO AND THEN DISAPPEARED for... well, let's say it's been a significant amount of time). 'Blimey', I thought, 'that's quite a claim'. 'Why, what's happened?' I asked. 'Well', he replied, 'I've got a daughter that I haven't seen since she was eight. And now she's 30. I've been looking for her for years. And I found her last night on Facebook. And I'm going to see her tonight!' Bloody hell! Imagine that! And they say the internet's no good for anything except porn! I somehow felt he should be telling everyone else in his family, and all of his friends, rather than me, a random stranger whose loo he was about to fix.
'Yeah,' he continued, 'I'm feeling a bit all over the place' (good to tell me this, just as he was about to start messing about with gas pipes). 'I've only ever cried four times in my life - once when my mum and dad died, once when my dog died and last night.' People reveal odd stuff to you sometimes, don't they? I kind of wanted to ask loads of questions, but it all felt too personal, so I left it, other than wishing him the best of luck when he left to go off and meet her. He said that she'd been looking for him too, which made me hopeful that the outcome would be positive and that she hadn't thought he'd just abandoned her, didn't care and that she never wanted to see him again. He disappeared in a flurry of winks, and told me he'd come back soon to fix my shower. For free.
Ha! In your face, Neptune.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Not such a Homeric Odyssey after all...
Well, well, well - clearly I'm going to have to start believing in The Secret, or somesuch, because no sooner have I asked the Universe to deliver me David Mitchell, than the Universe... delivers me David Mitchell. I forwarded my friend Mary the Caitlin Moran article about what an uphill battle it is being a single girl about town when you're in your 30s. 'I met David Mitchell, for he is the flatmate of Robbie, who was at the drinks on Thursday [Mary had a birthday do in a pub, which I went to last week]. DM is a lot of fun – he should totally be your husband!', she replied. WHAT? How is that possible? That I am so few degrees of separation from D. Mitchell Esq? Extraordinary. She then went on to say that Robbie was having a book launch on Thursday, which DM was bound to be at, so did I want to go?
Much twittering (no, not that kind) in the office and discussion about whether this was 'stalky' or not. It was decided not. (Of course.) Perfectly reasonable that I should turn up to a launch party, be introduced by a mutual friend and then get on famously with the object of my affections. As long as I didn't get drunk and accidentally tell him I'd written a number of blogs about him, all would be fine.
The day, however, did not start auspiciously. I got up, thinking that I would spend some time crafting both hair and make-up in order to Look My Best (see Rule 3.4 of Being Single). I wandered casually into the bathroom and put on the shower. Splutter. Cough. Distinct lack of water. Eh? I tried the sink. Nada. The kitchen sink? Drier than the Kalahari. Oh God, what manner of fuckery was this? Had our water supply been shut off for some reason and no-one had told me? Were the Bachelor Gods smiting me in advance for the temerity I was showing in gate-crashing a party specifically to try to talk to one of their subjects? Gah. I unleashed some choice swearwords, and prepared to hit the gym for the first time in many months. Just to use the showers, mind.
I arrived at work to a barrage of questions: was I going to change my shoes before the party (yes, although God knows, men never notice your shoes unless they're gay); what was my opening line going to be (umm, 'They're not really going to close down The Observer, are they? It's the only decent Sunday paper available!' would probably go down OK? Topical and could segue into 'I really love your column!', etc); was I going to try to snog him (no! NO. God, no - how quickly would that make him totally head for the hills? Also, being that drunk would be a very bad idea indeed and would doubtless result in me falling over and taking half the rest of the bar with me, given the slightly perilous heels I was planning on wearing. Not a good first impression.)
My main worry was that I was going to get introduced to him, throw a glass of wine down his front and then turn into the female equivalent of Hugh Grant, swear profusely, blush madly and then tell him I’d written a blog about him, then run away crying. Leaving him thinking, ‘Who’s that mental girl? I’m glad I never have to see her again’.
So, with not a small amount of trepidation, I set off, fully frocked-and-heeled up, into yet another monsoon of biblical proportions. I had an umbrella, but had foolishly not brought a jacket. Curse these British 'summers'! Mary and I managed to get to the party without looking too much like drowned rats. The venue was very packed and very noisy. We established ourselves at the bar, and got introduced to two blokes by the author’s extremely enthusiastic agent. One of them immediately did a runner. The other took a shine to Mary, which was unfortunate, as he looked like the kind of man you wouldn't even want to share a bus stop with, let alone a drink (still wearing what can only be described as ‘a windcheater’, despite the fact that the bar was about 100 degrees; sweaty; comb-over hair; dodgy specs) and was one of those men who invades your personal space, then bores you to a slow death. We eventually shook him off. We drank several drinks, whilst keeping an eager eye out for DM. Eventually, we had news that he was at the other end of the bar. We were off!
We stationed ourselves carefully within his eyeline, and waited for him to come within range, much like a pair of hungry lionesses eyeing up a baby antelope. Finally, he was on his own! ‘GO!’ I shouted at Mary, who sprung into action, tapping him on the arm and engaging him in conversation. She was a pro. After much advice from all my friends to 'be yourself', and even 'be your wonderful, beautiful self' from my old flatmate (aww!), I sadly decided that the self that I would present was in fact my 18 year-old one: gauche, smiling like a simpleton and not really saying anything. It’s kind of difficult when the bar is so loud that most of the conversation involves one person saying, ‘What? Sorry?’, you repeat yourself three times and then the situation is reversed.
So, on the strength of this encounter, I won’t be marrying David Mitchell. He seems perfectly nice, and was quite smiley (although his look of abject horror when I asked for a glass of water when he offered me a drink led me to think that strategic teetotalism wasn't perhaps my wisest move after all), but Mary was finding it hard work trying to keep a conversation going with him, despite the fact that she's brilliantly funny, very cool and incredibly pretty. So he’s either not good at parties, not good with people he doesn’t really know, or just not good at conversation full stop. Oh well, I achieved my aim of speaking to him, rather than hiding in a corner and repeatedly wibbling, 'Oh God, I can't', so on that front it was a success. But equally, I'm rather sad that my Odyssey has ended so quickly, and with a somewhat damp squib-ish result (and with me having a total personality failure). On the plus side, if it's that easy to get the Universe to deliver celebrity men to your door, who can I target next? Suggestions on the back of a Peep Show script.
Much twittering (no, not that kind) in the office and discussion about whether this was 'stalky' or not. It was decided not. (Of course.) Perfectly reasonable that I should turn up to a launch party, be introduced by a mutual friend and then get on famously with the object of my affections. As long as I didn't get drunk and accidentally tell him I'd written a number of blogs about him, all would be fine.
The day, however, did not start auspiciously. I got up, thinking that I would spend some time crafting both hair and make-up in order to Look My Best (see Rule 3.4 of Being Single). I wandered casually into the bathroom and put on the shower. Splutter. Cough. Distinct lack of water. Eh? I tried the sink. Nada. The kitchen sink? Drier than the Kalahari. Oh God, what manner of fuckery was this? Had our water supply been shut off for some reason and no-one had told me? Were the Bachelor Gods smiting me in advance for the temerity I was showing in gate-crashing a party specifically to try to talk to one of their subjects? Gah. I unleashed some choice swearwords, and prepared to hit the gym for the first time in many months. Just to use the showers, mind.
I arrived at work to a barrage of questions: was I going to change my shoes before the party (yes, although God knows, men never notice your shoes unless they're gay); what was my opening line going to be (umm, 'They're not really going to close down The Observer, are they? It's the only decent Sunday paper available!' would probably go down OK? Topical and could segue into 'I really love your column!', etc); was I going to try to snog him (no! NO. God, no - how quickly would that make him totally head for the hills? Also, being that drunk would be a very bad idea indeed and would doubtless result in me falling over and taking half the rest of the bar with me, given the slightly perilous heels I was planning on wearing. Not a good first impression.)
My main worry was that I was going to get introduced to him, throw a glass of wine down his front and then turn into the female equivalent of Hugh Grant, swear profusely, blush madly and then tell him I’d written a blog about him, then run away crying. Leaving him thinking, ‘Who’s that mental girl? I’m glad I never have to see her again’.
So, with not a small amount of trepidation, I set off, fully frocked-and-heeled up, into yet another monsoon of biblical proportions. I had an umbrella, but had foolishly not brought a jacket. Curse these British 'summers'! Mary and I managed to get to the party without looking too much like drowned rats. The venue was very packed and very noisy. We established ourselves at the bar, and got introduced to two blokes by the author’s extremely enthusiastic agent. One of them immediately did a runner. The other took a shine to Mary, which was unfortunate, as he looked like the kind of man you wouldn't even want to share a bus stop with, let alone a drink (still wearing what can only be described as ‘a windcheater’, despite the fact that the bar was about 100 degrees; sweaty; comb-over hair; dodgy specs) and was one of those men who invades your personal space, then bores you to a slow death. We eventually shook him off. We drank several drinks, whilst keeping an eager eye out for DM. Eventually, we had news that he was at the other end of the bar. We were off!
We stationed ourselves carefully within his eyeline, and waited for him to come within range, much like a pair of hungry lionesses eyeing up a baby antelope. Finally, he was on his own! ‘GO!’ I shouted at Mary, who sprung into action, tapping him on the arm and engaging him in conversation. She was a pro. After much advice from all my friends to 'be yourself', and even 'be your wonderful, beautiful self' from my old flatmate (aww!), I sadly decided that the self that I would present was in fact my 18 year-old one: gauche, smiling like a simpleton and not really saying anything. It’s kind of difficult when the bar is so loud that most of the conversation involves one person saying, ‘What? Sorry?’, you repeat yourself three times and then the situation is reversed.
So, on the strength of this encounter, I won’t be marrying David Mitchell. He seems perfectly nice, and was quite smiley (although his look of abject horror when I asked for a glass of water when he offered me a drink led me to think that strategic teetotalism wasn't perhaps my wisest move after all), but Mary was finding it hard work trying to keep a conversation going with him, despite the fact that she's brilliantly funny, very cool and incredibly pretty. So he’s either not good at parties, not good with people he doesn’t really know, or just not good at conversation full stop. Oh well, I achieved my aim of speaking to him, rather than hiding in a corner and repeatedly wibbling, 'Oh God, I can't', so on that front it was a success. But equally, I'm rather sad that my Odyssey has ended so quickly, and with a somewhat damp squib-ish result (and with me having a total personality failure). On the plus side, if it's that easy to get the Universe to deliver celebrity men to your door, who can I target next? Suggestions on the back of a Peep Show script.
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