So nothing to do but wait.
And wait.
In the lounge waiting with me is a family with luggage piled higher than a Wendy's stack of pancakes, the cherry on the top a Louis Vuitton vanity case. The dad has on a big, once white polo shirt and has tattoos up both forearms. There’s a baby pink juicy handbag strung with dangling soft animals sitting on the chair next to him which I assume is for the little 12 year old girl, until the mother arrives, dyed blonde, face like a sour plum just turning into prune wearing jewelled jeans, jewelled watch and a visible thong who lifts it up and walks off with it. She’s about as juicy as a strip of rubber.
Then a blind man sits down next to me. I think he’s blind. Maybe he’s just wearing dark glasses and carrying a stick. He's certainly staring at my chest rather closely through the tinted shades.
I'm recovering from a busy week. My friend Audrey came to London for a whirlwind visit of restaurants and theatre visits, which all had to be packed in before this trip: The Halkin, Petrus, Speed the Plough with Kevin Spacey, dinner at the Ivy where I’m sure Prince Harry was a mere two tables away – or maybe it was just another Ginger boy – I mean they can't ALL be royal. Audrey recognised Joan Didion the writer who lives up the block from her sitting opposite us. At work we are promoting one of our books called An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, leaving the book lying around London with a postcard on it, tied with Ribbon, saying, please read my book.
I left one in the Old Vic and one in the Ivy.
Not that there are many people living an ordinary life at the Ivy.
I wasn't having that much of an ordinary life myself. I followed Audrey from restaurant to Spa where I had this treatment called sound therapy where you lie in the dark with earphones on and a bean bag on your eyes and listen to ambient music and think of Brian Eno (or is that just me), but at the same time the bed vibrates in synch with the music and makes you think of Brian Eno (ditto) - a bit like when there’s really heavy base and you feel it reverberate in your chest. It was wonderful apart from the fact that I longed to fall asleep and was afraid to incase I fell prey to embarrasing doggy snores. The rich, darling, don't snore - they merely exhale.
Loudly.
This was followed by God of Carnage and The Wolsely, and more copies of the book left artfully placed on banquettes.
I wasn't having that much of an ordinary life myself. I followed Audrey from restaurant to Spa where I had this treatment called sound therapy where you lie in the dark with earphones on and a bean bag on your eyes and listen to ambient music and think of Brian Eno (or is that just me), but at the same time the bed vibrates in synch with the music and makes you think of Brian Eno (ditto) - a bit like when there’s really heavy base and you feel it reverberate in your chest. It was wonderful apart from the fact that I longed to fall asleep and was afraid to incase I fell prey to embarrasing doggy snores. The rich, darling, don't snore - they merely exhale.
Loudly.
This was followed by God of Carnage and The Wolsely, and more copies of the book left artfully placed on banquettes.
And now, once the photographer arrives and sweeps me off to our secluded foodie hotel in the heart of Fife, more eating awaits me.
Sigh.
It is my duty to my country...
