Festive Season Sanity Challenges:
1/ Trying to get Mariah Carey's 'All I Want for Christmas is Yooooooooo-oo-oo (Baby)' off the permanent loop in my brain from 1st December onwards.
2/ Trying not to explode with rage when a schoolchum that I haven't seen more often than about 6 times in the last 20 years insists on still sending me her annual Christmas card. This doesn't even feature 'To Alex' at the top, and contains nothing other than whatever pre-printed greeting came on the card, and a list of her family's names.
I now know that she's had a son since she sent me this maddening waste of time and money last year, but only because there's a new name on the listing. What. Is. The. Point? Much as I think the dreadful annual catch up round robins, detailing every trivial fact of family life over the last year, are the work of solipsistic maniacs, at least they're making the effort. To have no message at all, not even 'hope to see you next year', or 'hope you're well' just makes a mockery of the idea that you're 'keeping in touch via Christmas cards'. I almost feel like crossing out their names, adding mine in and sending it back to her. Through my office post room, so it doesn't even have a proper stamp on it.
3/ Going shopping down Oxford Street on the Saturday in December when they've pedestrianised the whole thing. I was nearly reduced to rocking in a corner in John Lewis, whispering, 'The horror, the horror' like a Christmas Kurtz after one particularly traumatic queueing incident. The only bright spot was seeing a whole bunch of Chinese people dressed in Santa outfits (no idea why) and knowing I've got a long weekend off so I didn't have to blitz the whole thing in one day. How on earth the 95% of men who do all their shopping on Christmas Eve manage without having a breakdown is anyone's guess. Why they'd do it more than once is surely a subject for our nation's top boffins.
4/ Coping with the idea that you must see all your friends before Christmas. What's wrong with a get together in January? January is a hopelessly dull month. No-one has any money, (this year we're being paid on the 18th December. The 18th! How long is January going to feel, when we don't get paid till the 26th!)
I'm a firm believer in keeping most of my friends entirely separate, an idea fostered when I first moved to London and only knew three people, so had to eke out social occasions in a very miserly fashion. I combine this with a strict regime of telly watching at home on my own (at the moment, nothing gets in the way of me watching Spooks and True Blood on a Wednesday. I don't have any sort of recording device - heck, I hardly even have a TV - so 'appointment to view' it must remain). This idea that my diary must suddenly be rammed with social gatherings for the entirety of December causes me to develop near-agoraphobia and engenders a strong desire to spend as much of the weekend as possible under the duvet, with the electric blanket on, surrounded by books, magazines and newspapers with only the occasional foray outside for a cup of coffee and some bacon for a bacon sarnie.
I love my friends, I'd just rather see most of them in January, when I'm no longer straining under the weight of sausage rolls, mince pies and far too much chocolate and slurring my way through my fourth glass of mulled wine. And there's nothing on the telly. So don't be offended if I refuse an invite - I'll actually be much better company after Christmas. And really, no Christmas cards. I gave up sending them years ago, under a cloak of 'eco-friendliness' (aka 'chronic idleness'), so I'll be more than happy with an email. Or a text. Or just the idea that if we're friends, then we know that we both wish for a very happy Christmas for each other.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
Scent of a Woman
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.
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.
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...
Thursday, 29 October 2009
Age Before Beauty
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.
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.
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.'
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