We were three times losers in the PEN quiz, but came a very commendable 18th, so Pedantic Heads were held high and company pride maintained.
I went to a quiz somewhat lower down the scale. To the BBC to see a taping of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, to watch my friend Phill hum intros, none of which I could guess. I'm so unplugged I didn't even know who the other guests were except for one poor simple guy from a boy band, taunted so mercilessly by Simon Amstell, that I wanted to get up out if the audience and smack him. It was so cringingly painful, like the slow boy at school being picked on by the class clever dick. Even the person sitting next to me had his head in his hands, unable to watch.
And why do people think that standing in a line up being ridiculed is a great way to rejuvenate a fading career? The real show takes about three hours to film and the one hit wonders of yesteryear are standing out there under the lights for as long as twenty minutes trying to look impassive while the panelists make derisory remarks about them, just to take a three second bow. If that's funny then I've lost my sense of humour. It's like Bedlam with video clips.
I didn't really want to go to the Green Room afterwards, though the likes of Matthew Wright, apparently the host of a daytime chat show watched by the unemployed, and comedienne Katy Brand, are, as I'm sure you agree, hard to resist.
And yet, somehow I managed.
Phill looked tired. I was exhausted. We passed Paxo in the hall on the way out who also looked knackered. The two greeted each other with the same cordial familiarity I show the man from Viking Office Supplies - believe me, the two of us are great pals. But Jeremy didn't seem to recognise me which is surprising since we are both with the same literary agent. I can only imagine he's kicking himself now, thinking, damn it, was that Marion?
The next day I had a library event in North London at which one of the two other Waddling Duck authors also attending turned out to be the sweet and modest World War II pilot who was nominated for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. I sent him an email:
'I see we're meeting again tomorrow - I promise you I am a lot nicer when not nervous and not drunk.'
'This is good news.' he replied.
I wasn't so sure, especially as the event promised both alcohol and nerves in equal measure, but when I arrived, he was the only person I knew and I clung to his superior literary reputation like an inconsequential limpet, trying desperately to be nice, as women came up and asked him to autograph his hardback. This was a lot cleaner than it sounds. We're talking librarians remember.
I met a lovely woman called Jodi from my local library who wondered if I would be interested in doing an event. Of course I would be, though my real local library is full of unemployed males, many of whom smell of Special Brew and I can't see them being overly interested in a black Notting Hill widow, except for spare change. In fact the library in question does feature in my novel. Oh yes, location, location, location. However, Jodi toils at the turnstile of a library at the posher end of the borough so I live in hope that some sleek book club will consent to read my book. And the fact that I could have driven to Chelsea with my resident's parking permit and met her there rather than trekking to North Bloody London, from my sickbed, high on Lemsip and low on sparkling conversation, is neither here nor there. Well in fact, it's there, at the far end of the Piccadilly line where nobody else but she wanted to meet me.
It was the cocktail party from hell's idea of hell.
'Are you librarians?' I asked a pair of pregnant ladies standing ominously close to a some swinging doors which hit me everytime someone left (there was practically a stampede for the exit), surely winning the prize for most original line at a library convention.
One laughed. 'They don't call us that any more, I'm a branch manager.' she said, exchanging a superior look with her friend. Yep, like that makes you any more interesting, dearie. But then they too swung out the doors and left me.
'I used to be a librarian,' I told another, trying in vain to strike up some camaraderie. The fact that I was 22 in a predominatly male higher educational establishment at the time and treated the place like Club 18-30 with books, wasn't mentioned. Oh well then, it was, I sort of blurted it out - nerves and drink and cold relief remedies... Amy Winehouse's adverse reaction to medication springs to mind. You really shouldn't mix antihistamine with booze.
The woman looked at me over her glasses. She was not amused.
I don't think any of them will be recommending my book to their readers.
I eventually introduced myself to another gushy author who just looked like a librarian, who was twittering on about what she was cooking for her children's supper (Pan MacMillan). 'I should run off home if you've had enough,' her publicist told me. 'Go on, nobody will miss you.'
God these people will go to any lengths to get rid of the competition...
much like my ex-husband who, when I arrived home, sick, coughing, feverish, tired and emotional,
was just on his way out, the last of his clothes packed into bags and boxes, piled up in the hallway.
I went upstairs, closed the doors of his empty wardrobe and got into bed.
Turns out there's some pain that Nurofen doesn't banish.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
The secret life of mothers - the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
I'm working in an office of dancing princesses, who skip off after work to this other world that starts when I stop.
Half the office is at the Cafe Royal where 30 tables of London's (g)literary elite show off their expensive educations and superior knowledge of all things bookish, while the other half get to show off their nominated, but absentee, author at the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize at the Century Club.
But instead of trudging home to undone taxes, the new washing machine (bought after the kids pulled the door off the last one) which is sitting in the middle of the kitchen blocking the sink, a broken dishwasher and assorted unsnapped mousetraps, I get to slip on my leopard skin shoes (by the bus stop on Shaftesbury Avenue) and join them.
I call Pierre who owns the Club to see if he's in the house. He used to own Odeon in Regent's Street when I was a restaurant critic, but alas he's at his other club, Paramount, at the top of Centrepoint. 'But pass by and have a drink, if you like, and bring a friend. I'll leave your name at the door.'
Yep, first find a friend. If my life was a board game I would still be on Go waiting to throw a six. Thank goodness I can take somebody else's turn.
I tag along with Glam Editor who meets someone she knows by the coat check. 'This is mumble, she says as I insert myself between them on the stairs. 'And this is my friend, Marion,' she adds kindly, because it's nicer than saying 'our office manager' which might prompt people to ask what the hell I am doing there.
Normal conversation:
'Where did you say you worked again?'
'Pedantic Press.'
'Oh really (impressed) and are you on the editorial side?'
'Erm, no, I answer the phone, buy lightbulbs, and write the... (they've already wandered off)...blog.'
We are given badges. With our names on. I have my own. It is thrilling. There is no mention of status, or its absence, as a large glass of wine is placed in my hand and speeches begin. Unfortunately - strike two after this morning's William Hill disappointment - our author doesn't win. Instead that honour goes to a man who announces in his acceptance speech (aren't men odd?) that a certain part of his anatomy allegedly looks like a Cornetto, which he then hastily denies. Too late, the image is branded on every woman's mind in conical, but not particularly comical, detail. A roomful of eyes flicker magnetically north, followed by a lot of hurried examination of the bottom of wine glasses with that liquid swirling, mmm, is this Soave? concentration before we all look at each other with wide eyes.
I can't stop wondering which way round the Cornetto is attached.
Mr mumble, is still pinned to the wall between me and Glamorous Editor, being incredibly charming. He has pinned his badge to the bottom of his jumper which dangles at Cornetto height and I can't bring myself to stoop and check either out. He is talking very modestly about the history book he is working on.
'Do you only write non fiction?' I ask hoping for clues to his identity.
'No, I've written four novels and...' he says. I fall off the cliff as he elaborates. Literary parties are not the place to go if you have an easily crushable ego. Mine is a coke can under his heel. Glamorous Editor chooses this moment to announce that I too have written a novel, but by then it's a bit like wearing a training bra in a room full of Page 3 girls. 'You know that it's not going to change your life,' he says with empathy as I fold my arms protectively over my chest.
'I work in publishing.' I say (look I do, I bloody do), 'so, yes I know there's not going to be any big fanfare.'
'I remember when my first novel came out, I kept expecting everything to be different and it was just another day.' It occurs to me that I must have heard of him if he's this prolific but it's a bit late to ask him to better annunciate his name. Is it ruder to just let the four novels float over my head as if they were trays of indifferent canapes as though I'm used to chatting with well-known authors everyday? Come on, when did I ever let a canape go past me?
'What did you say your name was?' I asked.
He repeated it. Quite clearly this time.
'Oh God,' I spluttered into my wine. 'I was talking to you completely naturally, and now I'll have to stop,' He looked puzzled. 'I know all your books. I've read them. I've bought them at airports. And now I'm going to be all overawed and babbling.' (And that would be different - how, exactly?) I wandered away, star-struck to cower inadequately with two of the other dancing princesses.
'A Cornetto?' said one to the other, mystified.
My own editor at Waddling Duck was in the corner with one of the other nominated authors who apparently has been up for all sorts of prizes but not won any. Yet. It's a great novel, set not a million miles away from Ginger Pig farming country. I feel I've been there. Hell, I have been there.
'Bad luck,' I tell him, and he looks embarrassed and a bit fed up. He shrugs: 'It's so awkward being consoled for something you didn't have any expectations of winning in the first place.' I rack my brain (which has become singular since the second glass of wine) for something that doesn't sound consoling and can only come up with a story about an Eartha Kitt album being the one thing I have ever won in my life. When I was nominated for Restaurant Critic of the Year, people didn't even clap because nobody had a clue who I was.
'And your point is?' he seems to say.
My attention is caught by a very pretty girl who suddenly falls over flat on the floor. Even dancing princesses get drunk, apparently. A man rushes over and 'oxters' her to her feet (it happens so frequently in Scotland we even have a verb for it, you see...) An oxter, for those of you interested in the Secret Life of Words is from the Old English oxta or ohstais and means an armpit. The rest should be self-explanatory.
It seemed like an auspicious moment to put my own leopard skin slippers into my bag and dance myself off up to Oxford Street for the long bus ride home. Paramount's panoramic views can wait for another night. I've got art homework to do, a pressing one thousand words to be milked from my marriage break up for the Sunday Times, five thousand words on cows to edit for the cookery book, a washing machine to plumb in, and mice to trap.
I also have a box of Cornettos to throw out of the freezer. Somehow, I've lost my taste for them.
.
Half the office is at the Cafe Royal where 30 tables of London's (g)literary elite show off their expensive educations and superior knowledge of all things bookish, while the other half get to show off their nominated, but absentee, author at the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize at the Century Club.
But instead of trudging home to undone taxes, the new washing machine (bought after the kids pulled the door off the last one) which is sitting in the middle of the kitchen blocking the sink, a broken dishwasher and assorted unsnapped mousetraps, I get to slip on my leopard skin shoes (by the bus stop on Shaftesbury Avenue) and join them.
I call Pierre who owns the Club to see if he's in the house. He used to own Odeon in Regent's Street when I was a restaurant critic, but alas he's at his other club, Paramount, at the top of Centrepoint. 'But pass by and have a drink, if you like, and bring a friend. I'll leave your name at the door.'
Yep, first find a friend. If my life was a board game I would still be on Go waiting to throw a six. Thank goodness I can take somebody else's turn.
I tag along with Glam Editor who meets someone she knows by the coat check. 'This is mumble, she says as I insert myself between them on the stairs. 'And this is my friend, Marion,' she adds kindly, because it's nicer than saying 'our office manager' which might prompt people to ask what the hell I am doing there.
Normal conversation:
'Where did you say you worked again?'
'Pedantic Press.'
'Oh really (impressed) and are you on the editorial side?'
'Erm, no, I answer the phone, buy lightbulbs, and write the... (they've already wandered off)...blog.'
We are given badges. With our names on. I have my own. It is thrilling. There is no mention of status, or its absence, as a large glass of wine is placed in my hand and speeches begin. Unfortunately - strike two after this morning's William Hill disappointment - our author doesn't win. Instead that honour goes to a man who announces in his acceptance speech (aren't men odd?) that a certain part of his anatomy allegedly looks like a Cornetto, which he then hastily denies. Too late, the image is branded on every woman's mind in conical, but not particularly comical, detail. A roomful of eyes flicker magnetically north, followed by a lot of hurried examination of the bottom of wine glasses with that liquid swirling, mmm, is this Soave? concentration before we all look at each other with wide eyes.
I can't stop wondering which way round the Cornetto is attached.
Mr mumble, is still pinned to the wall between me and Glamorous Editor, being incredibly charming. He has pinned his badge to the bottom of his jumper which dangles at Cornetto height and I can't bring myself to stoop and check either out. He is talking very modestly about the history book he is working on.
'Do you only write non fiction?' I ask hoping for clues to his identity.
'No, I've written four novels and...' he says. I fall off the cliff as he elaborates. Literary parties are not the place to go if you have an easily crushable ego. Mine is a coke can under his heel. Glamorous Editor chooses this moment to announce that I too have written a novel, but by then it's a bit like wearing a training bra in a room full of Page 3 girls. 'You know that it's not going to change your life,' he says with empathy as I fold my arms protectively over my chest.
'I work in publishing.' I say (look I do, I bloody do), 'so, yes I know there's not going to be any big fanfare.'
'I remember when my first novel came out, I kept expecting everything to be different and it was just another day.' It occurs to me that I must have heard of him if he's this prolific but it's a bit late to ask him to better annunciate his name. Is it ruder to just let the four novels float over my head as if they were trays of indifferent canapes as though I'm used to chatting with well-known authors everyday? Come on, when did I ever let a canape go past me?
'What did you say your name was?' I asked.
He repeated it. Quite clearly this time.
'Oh God,' I spluttered into my wine. 'I was talking to you completely naturally, and now I'll have to stop,' He looked puzzled. 'I know all your books. I've read them. I've bought them at airports. And now I'm going to be all overawed and babbling.' (And that would be different - how, exactly?) I wandered away, star-struck to cower inadequately with two of the other dancing princesses.
'A Cornetto?' said one to the other, mystified.
My own editor at Waddling Duck was in the corner with one of the other nominated authors who apparently has been up for all sorts of prizes but not won any. Yet. It's a great novel, set not a million miles away from Ginger Pig farming country. I feel I've been there. Hell, I have been there.
'Bad luck,' I tell him, and he looks embarrassed and a bit fed up. He shrugs: 'It's so awkward being consoled for something you didn't have any expectations of winning in the first place.' I rack my brain (which has become singular since the second glass of wine) for something that doesn't sound consoling and can only come up with a story about an Eartha Kitt album being the one thing I have ever won in my life. When I was nominated for Restaurant Critic of the Year, people didn't even clap because nobody had a clue who I was.
'And your point is?' he seems to say.
My attention is caught by a very pretty girl who suddenly falls over flat on the floor. Even dancing princesses get drunk, apparently. A man rushes over and 'oxters' her to her feet (it happens so frequently in Scotland we even have a verb for it, you see...) An oxter, for those of you interested in the Secret Life of Words is from the Old English oxta or ohstais and means an armpit. The rest should be self-explanatory.
It seemed like an auspicious moment to put my own leopard skin slippers into my bag and dance myself off up to Oxford Street for the long bus ride home. Paramount's panoramic views can wait for another night. I've got art homework to do, a pressing one thousand words to be milked from my marriage break up for the Sunday Times, five thousand words on cows to edit for the cookery book, a washing machine to plumb in, and mice to trap.
I also have a box of Cornettos to throw out of the freezer. Somehow, I've lost my taste for them.
.
Monday, 24 November 2008
Observed...
The lovely Graham Rawle's studio has been photographed for an article in the Observer Magazine this week. There it is in all its headless doll glory but how could they have lit the model of the Emerald City from above? It looks so beautiful glowing like kryptonite in the far corner of the room while this photograph made it look the way I do in a restaurant.
I was particularly taken by the Getting Your Own Graham Rawle Style Tips at the end of the article. Forget being an artist, lovingly collecting items from car boot sales - if you ever wanted a reclaimed, vintage, shop display unit, now you know where you can pick one up for a mere six hundred smackeroonies. Buy your quirky credentials at the Conran Shop with retro toys! And where do you go if you want a stack of old Beanos and a couple of broken dolls with the soundboxes exposed on their chests forlornly bleating 'Mama'? My attic, perhaps? It's stuffed full of all the casualties of my own offspring's childhood - toy zoos, wooden trains, lego and a thousand tiny cars, none of which they will allow me to throw out. But if a Graham Rawle groupie wants to make me an offer, I could be persuaded...
Though Graham and I are of the same generation, my childhood was obviously a lot more austere than his. Far from being populated by push along dogs, comics and painted wagons with ABC blocks, I had the Scottish version: Everyman classics, my sister's cast off pram (full size) a crib made by the blind (which should tell you something about how attractive it was) a doll's house without any furniture (all my miniature people slept in cast off Embassy Regal packets) and a Sindy with a duffel coat.
Other girls got tarty Barbie with the high heels and the frilly knickers, but no - I got the duffel coat.
But I'm not bitter.
My Sindy never wore pants at all.
Though Graham and I are of the same generation, my childhood was obviously a lot more austere than his. Far from being populated by push along dogs, comics and painted wagons with ABC blocks, I had the Scottish version: Everyman classics, my sister's cast off pram (full size) a crib made by the blind (which should tell you something about how attractive it was) a doll's house without any furniture (all my miniature people slept in cast off Embassy Regal packets) and a Sindy with a duffel coat.
Other girls got tarty Barbie with the high heels and the frilly knickers, but no - I got the duffel coat.
But I'm not bitter.
My Sindy never wore pants at all.
Switched on
When Mr T said he was off to William Hill at lunch time and would need to cancel my annual review meeting, I did think it was a bit shabby of him to be sloping off to the bookies while I was wringing my hands in anxiety about keeping my job for another year. And then I remembered from the congratulatory emails whizzing around the office that he was going to The William Hill prize for best Sports Book of the Year for which John Carlin, author of Playing the Enemy had been most deservedly nominated. Grudgingly, I moved myself into a later slot in his diary, and shall live to fret another day. It is, however, hard to see how the office could manage without me so perhaps I shall survive the cull. Who else would arrange for the annual office clean up? Who keeps us going in anti-bacterial hand soap? What other women is brave enough to enter the dark cavern of the Ubereditor's office and approach his desk without protective clothing?
Why, just this morning the MD of our esteemed company looked up as I approached and his eyes widened in pleasure. 'Amazing,' he crowed. And it's true, I was having a really good hair day, but still, I don't usually get quite such a joyous reception. Our resident Fashionista was equally surprised until he qualified his delight: 'The light bulbs have arrived!' he said, gesturing towards my hands in which I held - yes, you've guessed it, a long Osram Dulux L light fitment.
God, you know you're getting old when men are only electrified by the fact that you've bought a box of ruddy light bulbs.
'He'll be hoping you're going to get on a ladder and screw it in for him,' said Fashionista. This is what it comes down to. Sigh. I met my husband by climbing up and down a stepladder in a library until he asked me to dinner. But then look how that worked out...
Sadly, we didn't win the William Hill Prize, that honour went to former England batsman Marcus Trescothick for his autobiography Coming Back to Me in which he talks about his struggle with depression. Poor thing. I thought cricket was only depressing when you had to watch it.
We have a second and third bite at the cherry this evening. We are sharing a table with Cannongate at the Colman Getty PEN Quiz at the Cafe Royal which promises the winners a fistful of William Hill Betting Vouchers (there's just no getting away from these people - who knew bookies were so literary?) Mr T sent round an email asking if any of us wanted to take a place at the table and a few of our number felt they were confident enough in their general knowledge - or very, very foolish - and volunteered. I was not one of them. I used to be a regular at a quiz held in the bowels of the Atlantic Bar (and there's another coincidence) made up of teams of hacks from various newspapers and hosted by Jeremy Beadle, but that was a no brainer. For a start the team headed up by Jane Goldman, which usually included both David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, always won (though I have no idea what newspaper they were pretending to be from) and then, because we are talking about journalists here, second only to publishers in their fondness for alcohol, everyone was fairly drunk by the second round and didn't really give a damn about accuracy - much like the publications they worked for. I did, however, develop an excellent I'm-thinking-really-hard-and- it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue intent expression which exploded into Eureka - got it! relief when another person chipped in with the right answer. It worked beautifully with a lot of plastered hacks but I don't see it getting past the gimlet-eyed Mr T and his band of merry smartalecs.
At the same time as the quiz, our third chance to win something comes at the reception for The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize which is being held at Century on Shaftsbury Avenue where Aravind is one of the six finalists. With Mr T and the other Chiefs sweating it out in the contest for Brainy Publisher of the Year, this clears the way for the Indians to drink a glass of cava, and Lo, a miracle has occurred: there is a spare invitation.
'Would you like to come? Marion,' asks the holder of the golden ticket. 'Not being rude or anything, but you wouldn't get a chance to go if everyone else wasn't at the PEN Quiz.'
I know, I know, but damn it, I have to cook dinner. And by the time I get home and go back again I will have lost two hours of work, and I have a pile of things waiting to be attended to and an article to write for the Sunday Times Style Section by Wednesday... I just can't see how I could possibly...
'Absolutely, what time, where?' I said, though while everyone else is turning up in feathers, heels and lipstick (except the Ubereditor who doesn't usually bother with the lipstick), I'm going to have to settle for jeans and boots because I don't have time to go home and change.
It'll be Cinderella before the fairy godmother make-over - but hey - I can always just stick a lightbulb in each hand.
Why, just this morning the MD of our esteemed company looked up as I approached and his eyes widened in pleasure. 'Amazing,' he crowed. And it's true, I was having a really good hair day, but still, I don't usually get quite such a joyous reception. Our resident Fashionista was equally surprised until he qualified his delight: 'The light bulbs have arrived!' he said, gesturing towards my hands in which I held - yes, you've guessed it, a long Osram Dulux L light fitment.
God, you know you're getting old when men are only electrified by the fact that you've bought a box of ruddy light bulbs.
'He'll be hoping you're going to get on a ladder and screw it in for him,' said Fashionista. This is what it comes down to. Sigh. I met my husband by climbing up and down a stepladder in a library until he asked me to dinner. But then look how that worked out...
Sadly, we didn't win the William Hill Prize, that honour went to former England batsman Marcus Trescothick for his autobiography Coming Back to Me in which he talks about his struggle with depression. Poor thing. I thought cricket was only depressing when you had to watch it.
We have a second and third bite at the cherry this evening. We are sharing a table with Cannongate at the Colman Getty PEN Quiz at the Cafe Royal which promises the winners a fistful of William Hill Betting Vouchers (there's just no getting away from these people - who knew bookies were so literary?) Mr T sent round an email asking if any of us wanted to take a place at the table and a few of our number felt they were confident enough in their general knowledge - or very, very foolish - and volunteered. I was not one of them. I used to be a regular at a quiz held in the bowels of the Atlantic Bar (and there's another coincidence) made up of teams of hacks from various newspapers and hosted by Jeremy Beadle, but that was a no brainer. For a start the team headed up by Jane Goldman, which usually included both David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, always won (though I have no idea what newspaper they were pretending to be from) and then, because we are talking about journalists here, second only to publishers in their fondness for alcohol, everyone was fairly drunk by the second round and didn't really give a damn about accuracy - much like the publications they worked for. I did, however, develop an excellent I'm-thinking-really-hard-and- it's-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue intent expression which exploded into Eureka - got it! relief when another person chipped in with the right answer. It worked beautifully with a lot of plastered hacks but I don't see it getting past the gimlet-eyed Mr T and his band of merry smartalecs.
At the same time as the quiz, our third chance to win something comes at the reception for The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize which is being held at Century on Shaftsbury Avenue where Aravind is one of the six finalists. With Mr T and the other Chiefs sweating it out in the contest for Brainy Publisher of the Year, this clears the way for the Indians to drink a glass of cava, and Lo, a miracle has occurred: there is a spare invitation.
'Would you like to come? Marion,' asks the holder of the golden ticket. 'Not being rude or anything, but you wouldn't get a chance to go if everyone else wasn't at the PEN Quiz.'
I know, I know, but damn it, I have to cook dinner. And by the time I get home and go back again I will have lost two hours of work, and I have a pile of things waiting to be attended to and an article to write for the Sunday Times Style Section by Wednesday... I just can't see how I could possibly...
'Absolutely, what time, where?' I said, though while everyone else is turning up in feathers, heels and lipstick (except the Ubereditor who doesn't usually bother with the lipstick), I'm going to have to settle for jeans and boots because I don't have time to go home and change.
It'll be Cinderella before the fairy godmother make-over - but hey - I can always just stick a lightbulb in each hand.
Friday, 21 November 2008
Smile, you're not on Candid Camera
I remember a friend who was married to a food writer complaining that since magazines shoot their December issue months ahead, they had already had four Christmases in their house, and it was still only August. I’m suffering for a small case of premature publication myself as because my book is out in February, I’m doing some articles for magazines that are going to press now but which won’t hit the newsstand until next year.
Compared to some of our authors here at Pedantic, however, I’m certainly not gobbling up the column inches like crisps at an office party. So, I was really excited when a magazine I’ve worked for occasionally in the past, got in touch and said they wanted me to write something to tie in with a plug for my book, but there was a catch.
‘You have to be a certain age, and I’m sure you’re not,’ said the editor.
She was being kind. I am. ‘So what do you want me to write about?’ I asked, thinking, so what if I'm old - dosh and a by-line is a win-win situation.
Her reply pinged back: ‘We’re asking some couples to review various sex manuals and write a short piece on how it worked out, and we want you to do the one that recommends not having sex as a means of boosting libido.’
Oh.
Why do you have to be over 49 to do that?
‘And we’ll need a picture of you and your husband.’
Well, this raises (or not as the case may be) a few problems. Though I am, unfortunately, old enough to pass the old crone test, a little hitch would be that I don’t, strictly speaking, have a husband any more since he left home six months ago.
And, though this might go some way to explaining how this sorry state of affairs came to pass, correct me if I’m wrong, but how is not having sex as a means of improving your sex life any different from the normal not having sex because you can’t be bothered?
So I had to decline. But not before laughing heartily at the idea of my very sober academic ex-husband agreeing to have his picture taken for an article about sex manuals. It was almost worth begging him to come back, just to see the expression on his face when I suggested it. Forget saving your marriage, it seemed like an almost perfect way to guarantee a divorce.
‘Well then, what about dating?’ suggested the editor, seamlessly, ‘ February is also the Valentine issue and we’re doing something on blind dates, would you write about that?’
Hackery, thy name is Marion, I agreed immediately and article written, I was summoned for a few days later for a photo shoot.
‘What dress size do you wear?’ asked the editor. I whispered the answer down the phone hoping that my colleagues at Pedantic Press thought it was the age of my teenage daughter who had miraculously become several years younger. I then realised that when I couldn’t fit into any of the clothes I was going to feel really stupid. And Fletzish. But would it matter? It would probably only be a snap. The Times photographer took two shots of my face in my garden and it was over. The Guardian had a sub-editor with a camera in a cupboard. And the last time I had a big byline picture taken I was standing next to a man in a pink suit wearing eyeliner and mascara and lipstick, all of which he had applied himself before leaving the house. Believe me, I could have grown antlers and nobody would have noticed me.
So off I went to a studio in North London to be met by the Picture Editor, a photographer, her assistant, a hair and make-up person, a stylist, a rack of clothes, a row of shoes, lunch, polenta cake and a small child in a turban waving a palm frond – oh well, okay then – a wind machine.
Three hours later I was transformed from office drudge to drag queen at an S&M club, with a row of large bulldog clips clipped to my person (apparently they are used to people minimizing their size and always provide larger clothes) and smiling like I was on day release from the asylum.
Ah the glamorous world of print journalism.
Thank goodness for Photoshop.
Compared to some of our authors here at Pedantic, however, I’m certainly not gobbling up the column inches like crisps at an office party. So, I was really excited when a magazine I’ve worked for occasionally in the past, got in touch and said they wanted me to write something to tie in with a plug for my book, but there was a catch.
‘You have to be a certain age, and I’m sure you’re not,’ said the editor.
She was being kind. I am. ‘So what do you want me to write about?’ I asked, thinking, so what if I'm old - dosh and a by-line is a win-win situation.
Her reply pinged back: ‘We’re asking some couples to review various sex manuals and write a short piece on how it worked out, and we want you to do the one that recommends not having sex as a means of boosting libido.’
Oh.
Why do you have to be over 49 to do that?
‘And we’ll need a picture of you and your husband.’
Well, this raises (or not as the case may be) a few problems. Though I am, unfortunately, old enough to pass the old crone test, a little hitch would be that I don’t, strictly speaking, have a husband any more since he left home six months ago.
And, though this might go some way to explaining how this sorry state of affairs came to pass, correct me if I’m wrong, but how is not having sex as a means of improving your sex life any different from the normal not having sex because you can’t be bothered?
So I had to decline. But not before laughing heartily at the idea of my very sober academic ex-husband agreeing to have his picture taken for an article about sex manuals. It was almost worth begging him to come back, just to see the expression on his face when I suggested it. Forget saving your marriage, it seemed like an almost perfect way to guarantee a divorce.
‘Well then, what about dating?’ suggested the editor, seamlessly, ‘ February is also the Valentine issue and we’re doing something on blind dates, would you write about that?’
Hackery, thy name is Marion, I agreed immediately and article written, I was summoned for a few days later for a photo shoot.
‘What dress size do you wear?’ asked the editor. I whispered the answer down the phone hoping that my colleagues at Pedantic Press thought it was the age of my teenage daughter who had miraculously become several years younger. I then realised that when I couldn’t fit into any of the clothes I was going to feel really stupid. And Fletzish. But would it matter? It would probably only be a snap. The Times photographer took two shots of my face in my garden and it was over. The Guardian had a sub-editor with a camera in a cupboard. And the last time I had a big byline picture taken I was standing next to a man in a pink suit wearing eyeliner and mascara and lipstick, all of which he had applied himself before leaving the house. Believe me, I could have grown antlers and nobody would have noticed me.
So off I went to a studio in North London to be met by the Picture Editor, a photographer, her assistant, a hair and make-up person, a stylist, a rack of clothes, a row of shoes, lunch, polenta cake and a small child in a turban waving a palm frond – oh well, okay then – a wind machine.
Three hours later I was transformed from office drudge to drag queen at an S&M club, with a row of large bulldog clips clipped to my person (apparently they are used to people minimizing their size and always provide larger clothes) and smiling like I was on day release from the asylum.
Ah the glamorous world of print journalism.
Thank goodness for Photoshop.
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
I'm (not) your man
It's hardly surprising that there's a dearth of available single men in their fifties, or that those who do exist look lower down the age scale for a potential suitor, because we women of a similar age are daunting creatures. And god, we're fussy.
While one can live quite happily for years with a monosyllabic husband whose silences, you have convinced yourself, are thoughtful - how on earth do you switch to Mr Garrulous whose last less-than careful owner let him chatter over University Challenge - and then get all the answers wrong - where as your last car, I mean man, made Paxo look like he was a slow boy from the woodwork class? Recent criticisms I have heard from my friends about men they have met include: 'He sends me emails with weblinks in them.' 'He didn't drink.' 'He orders very expensive wine and then I have to split the bill.' 'He puts extra salt on everything he eats.' 'He calls the bathroom "the little boy's room"'. 'He wears an anorak.' 'He signs off his emails: "Cheers''', and 'he lives in Greenwich.' (Okay that last one was me.)
None of these seem like grounds for shunning, but nevertheless, shunned those men have been (well, look, It's an hour and a half's drive from my house to Greenwich without traffic - not gonna happen). All men have their idiosyncrasies and all women nitpick. I could make them into categories for match.com and they'd be a lot more bloody useful than whether they like Korean food, or "enjoy country walks"'.
So, perhaps it's understandable that those who are pairable cling to the first woman who doesn't contradict them when they voice an opinion. However, that shouldn't lull them into a pretty, young, sweetly accommodating sense of security, because no matter how old or how, apparently amenable, the woman is. She also talks.
To her friends.
Example: Last night in a staid, middle-aged bistro off Kensington Gore waiting for a night of nostalgic, melancholic bliss with Leonard Cohen which I unfortunately have to share with the rest of the Albert Hall. Sitting beside me is my recently single friend, Eva. She is fiddling with her cutlery looking awkward, as well she might.
Do you remember the Woody Allen Film, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask? Well, this just about sums up Eva, except that she's not afraid.
I, on the other hand - at which she is looking very intently - am terrified. Based on her last question she seems to be expecting some sort of demonstration. I clench my fist and she sits up attentively, and I hurriedly sit on it instead. For too many seconds it appears she thinks that this is part of the show-and-tell and I can see the cogs turning in her confused brain until I shake my head.
I reach for the wine bottle to replenish my glass.
She sits up and gets out a mental notepad.
'No No, NO.' I say, taking a large gulp of wine as panic runs through my head like a naked guest in a burning hotel.
She's still looking at me expectantly.
'I'm not an expert,' I protest.
'But you did write that column,' she insists.
'Yes but I looked it all up on the internet.'
A little light bulb seems to go off behind her eyes. 'Ah, I didn't think about that,' she said. ' What should I type into Google?' She moves a little closer to me, to catch the answer mumbled into my risotto which is a little too tart for my taste (speaking of which...)
'Do you think anyone is listening?' she whispers, rather late in the day, as she glances at the table next to us where there's an old, red faced man with white facial hair but not a lot on his head and his slim, soft blonde daughter.
No, I don't think they can hear us.'
'How can you be sure?' Now, after half an hour of Ask Me I'm Anne Summers - suddenly - she's shy.
'Because if they were listening they'd be a lot quieter.'
I'm wondering what has prompted this sudden thirst for carnal knowledge but I daren't ask. I already know far, far too much about the man she is currently seeing. Things that make you go blind just thinking about them which I shall, continually, the next time I sit across the dinner table from him. Thank goodness it's time to wander up to the Albert Hall.
Half an hour later, Leonard Cohen is kneeling at my feet, albeit a mile away. His voice sounds like an underground explosion, his hand is cupped around the microphone, his cheeks are folded across his face like they've been in a drawer for a while, his eyes are closed. 'I'm your man', he sings.
There's a collective swoon across the auditorium, then the lights come up at the interval. In the row in front of us the old guy from the restaurant is running his hands over his daughter's back in a way that is not paternal. Sugar and daddy spring to mind. Next to me sits a chap with a flax of dyed black hair, wearing a leather jacket several sizes too big for Pavarotti. who smells strongly of stale cigarette smoke and has a cyst on his nose large enough to wear its own hat. He asks me if I'm enjoying myself.
I am. Or I was.
He tells me this is his fifth Cohen concert and that the previous night he had been seated in a private box next next to Crimewatch's Nick Ross.
Probably no coincidence I'm thinking. He was probably apprehended for a hold-up somewhere. And then he looks into the middle distance above my head and starts to list the Cohen memorabilia he has acquired over recent weeks until, mercifully, Eva interrupts:
'He's so good looking for his age,' she sighs. 'I mean he's 74 - I'd still sleep with him. '
Not that much of an endorsement, Eva given your recent history. And anyway, so would most of the audience, including Zaphod Beeblebrox here.
'Men age so much better than women,' she adds.
'I disagree,' says another of our party. I went to a college reunion the other week and the women looked fabulous while the men were all a bit thrown together - crushed, crumpled, tired.' (This is a friend who recently paid a grand to a dating agency but never has enough time to go out on the dates.) 'The women had thrown a lot of cash at their appearance ,whereas the men looked as though they'd just sort of shambled up. Men get a lot harder as they get older... '
'Yeah,' says Eva, ruefully, '...except in anyway that's useful.'
'Oh by the way,' she asks, ' That Alain de Botton School of Life thing, they're having a lecture on Seduction. Do you want to come?'
'Ah...I think I'll pass.' I said.
While one can live quite happily for years with a monosyllabic husband whose silences, you have convinced yourself, are thoughtful - how on earth do you switch to Mr Garrulous whose last less-than careful owner let him chatter over University Challenge - and then get all the answers wrong - where as your last car, I mean man, made Paxo look like he was a slow boy from the woodwork class? Recent criticisms I have heard from my friends about men they have met include: 'He sends me emails with weblinks in them.' 'He didn't drink.' 'He orders very expensive wine and then I have to split the bill.' 'He puts extra salt on everything he eats.' 'He calls the bathroom "the little boy's room"'. 'He wears an anorak.' 'He signs off his emails: "Cheers''', and 'he lives in Greenwich.' (Okay that last one was me.)
None of these seem like grounds for shunning, but nevertheless, shunned those men have been (well, look, It's an hour and a half's drive from my house to Greenwich without traffic - not gonna happen). All men have their idiosyncrasies and all women nitpick. I could make them into categories for match.com and they'd be a lot more bloody useful than whether they like Korean food, or "enjoy country walks"'.
So, perhaps it's understandable that those who are pairable cling to the first woman who doesn't contradict them when they voice an opinion. However, that shouldn't lull them into a pretty, young, sweetly accommodating sense of security, because no matter how old or how, apparently amenable, the woman is. She also talks.
To her friends.
Example: Last night in a staid, middle-aged bistro off Kensington Gore waiting for a night of nostalgic, melancholic bliss with Leonard Cohen which I unfortunately have to share with the rest of the Albert Hall. Sitting beside me is my recently single friend, Eva. She is fiddling with her cutlery looking awkward, as well she might.
Do you remember the Woody Allen Film, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask? Well, this just about sums up Eva, except that she's not afraid.
I, on the other hand - at which she is looking very intently - am terrified. Based on her last question she seems to be expecting some sort of demonstration. I clench my fist and she sits up attentively, and I hurriedly sit on it instead. For too many seconds it appears she thinks that this is part of the show-and-tell and I can see the cogs turning in her confused brain until I shake my head.
I reach for the wine bottle to replenish my glass.
She sits up and gets out a mental notepad.
'No No, NO.' I say, taking a large gulp of wine as panic runs through my head like a naked guest in a burning hotel.
She's still looking at me expectantly.
'I'm not an expert,' I protest.
'But you did write that column,' she insists.
'Yes but I looked it all up on the internet.'
A little light bulb seems to go off behind her eyes. 'Ah, I didn't think about that,' she said. ' What should I type into Google?' She moves a little closer to me, to catch the answer mumbled into my risotto which is a little too tart for my taste (speaking of which...)
'Do you think anyone is listening?' she whispers, rather late in the day, as she glances at the table next to us where there's an old, red faced man with white facial hair but not a lot on his head and his slim, soft blonde daughter.
No, I don't think they can hear us.'
'How can you be sure?' Now, after half an hour of Ask Me I'm Anne Summers - suddenly - she's shy.
'Because if they were listening they'd be a lot quieter.'
I'm wondering what has prompted this sudden thirst for carnal knowledge but I daren't ask. I already know far, far too much about the man she is currently seeing. Things that make you go blind just thinking about them which I shall, continually, the next time I sit across the dinner table from him. Thank goodness it's time to wander up to the Albert Hall.
Half an hour later, Leonard Cohen is kneeling at my feet, albeit a mile away. His voice sounds like an underground explosion, his hand is cupped around the microphone, his cheeks are folded across his face like they've been in a drawer for a while, his eyes are closed. 'I'm your man', he sings.
There's a collective swoon across the auditorium, then the lights come up at the interval. In the row in front of us the old guy from the restaurant is running his hands over his daughter's back in a way that is not paternal. Sugar and daddy spring to mind. Next to me sits a chap with a flax of dyed black hair, wearing a leather jacket several sizes too big for Pavarotti. who smells strongly of stale cigarette smoke and has a cyst on his nose large enough to wear its own hat. He asks me if I'm enjoying myself.
I am. Or I was.
He tells me this is his fifth Cohen concert and that the previous night he had been seated in a private box next next to Crimewatch's Nick Ross.
Probably no coincidence I'm thinking. He was probably apprehended for a hold-up somewhere. And then he looks into the middle distance above my head and starts to list the Cohen memorabilia he has acquired over recent weeks until, mercifully, Eva interrupts:
'He's so good looking for his age,' she sighs. 'I mean he's 74 - I'd still sleep with him. '
Not that much of an endorsement, Eva given your recent history. And anyway, so would most of the audience, including Zaphod Beeblebrox here.
'Men age so much better than women,' she adds.
'I disagree,' says another of our party. I went to a college reunion the other week and the women looked fabulous while the men were all a bit thrown together - crushed, crumpled, tired.' (This is a friend who recently paid a grand to a dating agency but never has enough time to go out on the dates.) 'The women had thrown a lot of cash at their appearance ,whereas the men looked as though they'd just sort of shambled up. Men get a lot harder as they get older... '
'Yeah,' says Eva, ruefully, '...except in anyway that's useful.'
'Oh by the way,' she asks, ' That Alain de Botton School of Life thing, they're having a lecture on Seduction. Do you want to come?'
'Ah...I think I'll pass.' I said.
Monday, 17 November 2008
Table dancing
3 for 2! My editor at Waddling Duck just rang with the news that I have made it onto the 3 for 2 table at Waterstone's. I'm ecstatic. I'm going to have a sticker! It's really happening.
'They'll probably slap it right over your name, though,' says one of the Pedants, helpfully - I think, but since nobody can pronounce my name surely that can only be a good thing.
I call a friend to enthuse: 'Guess what! '
'What?' (She's not very enthusiastic.)
'I got a 3 for 2.'
'So what did you buy?'
'No, I didn't buy anything, it's for my book. It's going to be on the table at Waterstone's .'
'What book? Is it out?' (A friend, did I say?)
'No, not till February.'
'And it's already doing badly?'
'No - I just told you, it isn't even out yet.' (Defensively, as ego deflates like old Hallowe'en party balloon still hanging from the kitchen ceiling at Christmas.)
'I thought they only slung the books that weren't doing well on those tables, you know to get rid of the slow ones.'(Heart on table, knife through it.)
'Actually, no, it's very hard to get a sticker. It's a really, really good thing.' (It is, isn't it?)
'Well if you say so.' (I hate this person.)
'It is, look, when you go into a bookshop, where do you go to find a book?'
'I don't. Buy books, I mean. Hardly ever go into a bookshop. I use Amazon.' (I really hate this person.)
'But when you do...?'
(Reluctantly) '...I go to the tables.'
'You see! And so there I'll be, 3 for 2!'
'But I always get annoyed when I see that because I don't want 3 for 2, I just want one.'
'And I only read non fiction.'
I give up. Somehow I don't think that my book was ever going to bought by this person. I only hope she isn't representative of my 3 and 1/2 friends . I'm going to be lucky to be the make-up the numbers book - the third you pick up after half an hour reading the back of all the others. I know that feeling. I am that person. I love the 3 for 2 and I do chose a book by its cover. I'm averse to anything with a cartoon handbag, don't much like the heroine to be Scottish (competition) or Irish (look - some people can't tell the difference) and am particularly fond of the whole dock stretching out into a calm blue expanse of water, sand dunes, high reeds, New England seascape, lake in Maine, Seattle, outer banks, 'Mary-Lou/Taylor/Alice is a woman with a secret in her past' sort of thing.
And, dear God, isn't the world of fiction simply flooded with secrets not-so-buried in the past? Are there really that many ruddy secrets? Who can keep their mouth shut that long? I am the mother who told her children there was no Santa before they'd even worked it out for themselves.
My book, of course is nothing like that. No sea. No dock. No North Carolina shore. And the heroine? Running from a secret in her past?
Positively sprinting, darling.
'They'll probably slap it right over your name, though,' says one of the Pedants, helpfully - I think, but since nobody can pronounce my name surely that can only be a good thing.
I call a friend to enthuse: 'Guess what! '
'What?' (She's not very enthusiastic.)
'I got a 3 for 2.'
'So what did you buy?'
'No, I didn't buy anything, it's for my book. It's going to be on the table at Waterstone's .'
'What book? Is it out?' (A friend, did I say?)
'No, not till February.'
'And it's already doing badly?'
'No - I just told you, it isn't even out yet.' (Defensively, as ego deflates like old Hallowe'en party balloon still hanging from the kitchen ceiling at Christmas.)
'I thought they only slung the books that weren't doing well on those tables, you know to get rid of the slow ones.'(Heart on table, knife through it.)
'Actually, no, it's very hard to get a sticker. It's a really, really good thing.' (It is, isn't it?)
'Well if you say so.' (I hate this person.)
'It is, look, when you go into a bookshop, where do you go to find a book?'
'I don't. Buy books, I mean. Hardly ever go into a bookshop. I use Amazon.' (I really hate this person.)
'But when you do...?'
(Reluctantly) '...I go to the tables.'
'You see! And so there I'll be, 3 for 2!'
'But I always get annoyed when I see that because I don't want 3 for 2, I just want one.'
'And I only read non fiction.'
I give up. Somehow I don't think that my book was ever going to bought by this person. I only hope she isn't representative of my 3 and 1/2 friends . I'm going to be lucky to be the make-up the numbers book - the third you pick up after half an hour reading the back of all the others. I know that feeling. I am that person. I love the 3 for 2 and I do chose a book by its cover. I'm averse to anything with a cartoon handbag, don't much like the heroine to be Scottish (competition) or Irish (look - some people can't tell the difference) and am particularly fond of the whole dock stretching out into a calm blue expanse of water, sand dunes, high reeds, New England seascape, lake in Maine, Seattle, outer banks, 'Mary-Lou/Taylor/Alice is a woman with a secret in her past' sort of thing.
And, dear God, isn't the world of fiction simply flooded with secrets not-so-buried in the past? Are there really that many ruddy secrets? Who can keep their mouth shut that long? I am the mother who told her children there was no Santa before they'd even worked it out for themselves.
My book, of course is nothing like that. No sea. No dock. No North Carolina shore. And the heroine? Running from a secret in her past?
Positively sprinting, darling.
It's that time of year again - the pre-Christmas rush of party invitations, or in my case the pre-Christmas foot-dragging dawdle.
Perhaps not totally unsurprisingly - gold-edged stiffies, or indeed even stiffies that have not been gilded attractively around the edges, are always in short supply in my house. Every day I open Mr T's invitations to events as diverse as The Rugby International and The Sunday Times Book Page Party, and my only thrill is recording them in his diary. At home, it's no better. My mantlepiece contains only the month-old invitation to a friend's gallery opening which consisted of me, the four artists who were exhibiting, their children, a few blood relatives, three gallery staff and maybe ten potential customers of whom two just happened to be passing and saw the wine glasses set out on a tray by the door. And all except the passers by were women. It was a sparkling occasion.
This year, however, my social life threatens to dwindle to new microscopic lows as once mutual friends take sides in the marriage break-up and then decide that to perfectly fair, they should probably invite neither of us. I can deal with that. It's much worse having to speak to the people who ring up and then have to be told that there is no longer a Mr with the Mrs on the front of the envelope. This is particularly difficult when some of those people are his first cousins or, as was the case up until only a few months ago, his sister. I'm thinking of putting it as a recorded message on the telephone.
Of course, everyone is embarrassed and as a kindness I should probably say nothing and then just turn up without him. This is what I usually did even when we were married, so what's the difference?
But then the phone rings. It's a friend that I haven't seen since I was part of a couple.
'I know it's very short notice,' she gushes before I've even said hello, 'But do you want to come to dinner tonight? We have a single man.'
I was driving along the embankment at the time, and I almost crashed the car.
'A single man!' (Forget that we haven't spoken in months and she suddenly calls out of the blue because she needs a spare woman.)
'Yes, Palestinian, though - sorry - but rich. Can you come?'
'I can't.'
'Go on, he's quite handsome,' she said, grudgingly, though I've seen the man she married and I'm not sure our tastes are similar.
'I really can't, I'm on my way out.'
'Where.'
'Herbie Hancock.'
'Oh I didn't know you were seeing someone already.'
'I'm not, I'm just going to a concert at the South Bank.'
'Is he nice?'
'Who?'
'The man - what did you say his name was - Herbie?'
'No, I'm going to see him. He's a jazz musician.'
'Really, how interesting, how on earth did you meet him?'
I gave up.
And then I arrived at the bar at the NFT to discover that instead of another thrilling night with three divorced women and a small speck of a man on a distant stage, Eva had brought along a man she met on the internet who came up to my waist and had such a strong handshake that I couldn't wiggle my fingers for the next hour. That would have been fine if the other divorcee hadn't remembered half way through the concert that she hated jazz and left. This is how I found myself sitting at the end of a row on my own next to a spare seat while Eva and her internet date sat on the other side.
Around me everyone was stroking their imaginary beards and looking thoughtful. Damn it - fifty quid to be a gooseberry when I could have been in North London having dinner with a spare man! And of course the hostess will never, ever ask me again because now she thinks I'm dating a small, black, sixty-eight year-old, musical genius called Herbie Hancock.
I wonder if he's busy on the 13th of December - my friend is having another gallery opening.
Perhaps not totally unsurprisingly - gold-edged stiffies, or indeed even stiffies that have not been gilded attractively around the edges, are always in short supply in my house. Every day I open Mr T's invitations to events as diverse as The Rugby International and The Sunday Times Book Page Party, and my only thrill is recording them in his diary. At home, it's no better. My mantlepiece contains only the month-old invitation to a friend's gallery opening which consisted of me, the four artists who were exhibiting, their children, a few blood relatives, three gallery staff and maybe ten potential customers of whom two just happened to be passing and saw the wine glasses set out on a tray by the door. And all except the passers by were women. It was a sparkling occasion.
This year, however, my social life threatens to dwindle to new microscopic lows as once mutual friends take sides in the marriage break-up and then decide that to perfectly fair, they should probably invite neither of us. I can deal with that. It's much worse having to speak to the people who ring up and then have to be told that there is no longer a Mr with the Mrs on the front of the envelope. This is particularly difficult when some of those people are his first cousins or, as was the case up until only a few months ago, his sister. I'm thinking of putting it as a recorded message on the telephone.
Of course, everyone is embarrassed and as a kindness I should probably say nothing and then just turn up without him. This is what I usually did even when we were married, so what's the difference?
But then the phone rings. It's a friend that I haven't seen since I was part of a couple.
'I know it's very short notice,' she gushes before I've even said hello, 'But do you want to come to dinner tonight? We have a single man.'
I was driving along the embankment at the time, and I almost crashed the car.
'A single man!' (Forget that we haven't spoken in months and she suddenly calls out of the blue because she needs a spare woman.)
'Yes, Palestinian, though - sorry - but rich. Can you come?'
'I can't.'
'Go on, he's quite handsome,' she said, grudgingly, though I've seen the man she married and I'm not sure our tastes are similar.
'I really can't, I'm on my way out.'
'Where.'
'Herbie Hancock.'
'Oh I didn't know you were seeing someone already.'
'I'm not, I'm just going to a concert at the South Bank.'
'Is he nice?'
'Who?'
'The man - what did you say his name was - Herbie?'
'No, I'm going to see him. He's a jazz musician.'
'Really, how interesting, how on earth did you meet him?'
I gave up.
And then I arrived at the bar at the NFT to discover that instead of another thrilling night with three divorced women and a small speck of a man on a distant stage, Eva had brought along a man she met on the internet who came up to my waist and had such a strong handshake that I couldn't wiggle my fingers for the next hour. That would have been fine if the other divorcee hadn't remembered half way through the concert that she hated jazz and left. This is how I found myself sitting at the end of a row on my own next to a spare seat while Eva and her internet date sat on the other side.
Around me everyone was stroking their imaginary beards and looking thoughtful. Damn it - fifty quid to be a gooseberry when I could have been in North London having dinner with a spare man! And of course the hostess will never, ever ask me again because now she thinks I'm dating a small, black, sixty-eight year-old, musical genius called Herbie Hancock.
I wonder if he's busy on the 13th of December - my friend is having another gallery opening.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Hunger
I can't eat. This is something I would not normally complain about, but all I want to do is eat. It's just that I can't.
Over the last few days my entire culinary world has been turned upside down:
A British Rail bacon sandwich on the way up to visit the Ginger Pig Poultry Farm? Not happening.
A chicken fajita wrap from the sandwich bar on the corner? Can't face it.
A walk round the supermarket whose shelves are simply heaving with products from ready meals to neatly packed sausages, all in a row in the chill cabinet? Walk on by.
Instead I peer at the vacuum packed meats examining the flesh. I check the steaks for bruising and the lamb chops for red pin pricks - both signs of a stressed animal (I must look as though I have the measles) - and even though I find neither, I still return the packages to the shelf.
'Is it because you're writing a book about meat? ' A friend asked, imagining that I had grown squeamish all of a sudden because of the brutality of the butcher's block. This would be a fair guess given that last Thursday I walked through a field with mud the colour of toffee coming well over my ankles while around me milled a flock of snow white honking geese doing skittish comedy waddling with outstretched wings like fat men trying to balance themselves, and another swarming flock of dark bronze turkeys, screeching like fishwives - all of which were going to end up head down in a plastic funnel before getting the chop, just in time for Christmas. But no, I did the whole tour of the farm, fighting my way through the turkeys and the geese who surveyed each other warily like the Jets and the Sharks from their own corner of the field, visiting everything from the 3 day old chicks under sun lamps thinking that life is just one long spa treatment with tanning beds, to the abattoir where 41 days later they are hung and drawn (but not quartered) without feeling anything but twinge of nostalgia for all those fairy tales I read as a child about the little Goose Girl. It's not at all off-putting. It's proper farming. The birds seem to be doing what birds do and look well cared for, and if you plan to eat poultry this is definitely the kind of poultry you should be eating. The Ginger Pig Farm is an equally qualm free enterprise and would put no omnivore off his or her Sunday Roast. On the contrary, it's the other farming practices that have turned me against eating meat.
Where does the chicken in your Club Sandwich come from? What about the bacon in a BLT? Has it ever stood in a field in its life? Does the beef in your pie come from Botswana? Or Brazil? How long has it been in that vacuum pack? What part of the animal are you eating? And don't even get me started on sausages...
But modern life has become so much about convenience and I'm as guilty as the next person of picking up a loin of pork in a hermetically sealed package without asking or caring where it came from beyond aisle 10 of the supermarket, or cutting up a chicken breast for a stir fry without caring that it wasn't free range. Knowing now that it might have come from China has taken the edge of my appetite. I'm also Scottish - our whole cuisine (and yes, I use the term loosely) is based on mince... What can I cook now that the only minced meat I ever intend to eat will have to have been ground in my own kitchen? That takes time. I don't have time. I have a microwave. But after spending hours with a tape recorder talking about beef I'll never be able to buy another box of ravioli with meat stuffing without shuddering and wondering what's inside it.
And yes, I can and do (on occasion) make my own pasta and stuff it with my own ragout - but I am not an Italian housewife from the 1950s. I'm a woman who eats crispbread because it doesn't get mouldy as quickly as bread. The main reason I eat meat is because I don't have to think about it and it feeds a lot of people. Every night I have to provide a meal for 4 adults. One hates meat but has no moral objection to it so will happily eat the roast potatoes cooked in the fat, one won't eat pork, another won't eat anything on any given day that she has contentedly eaten on the previous one. So, I want certainties. You bung a leg of lamb in the oven, surround it with vegetables and go off and leave it for an hour and a half, come back and instantly you're mama Walton, slapping the big dish on the table - listen, you can hear that Bisto tune playing in my head. But now the lamb is in a vacuum pack from one of those countries that allows sheep to wear lipstick and it may very well not have come from a happy lamb.
I could, of course, shop responsibly and buy all my meat from a proper organic producer but frankly, I can't afford to - not unless I choose the cheap cuts and they, like everything else in my house, including me, need time and attention that is in short supply. The local farmers' market is fantastic, but it's only on once a week and I need something now. Right now!
So I'm hungry. There's nothing I can buy to eat with my vegetables except cheese: until I start to think too hard about the horrors of dairy farming which puts me off my cheddar. So, I shop for an hour and leave the supermarket with a trolley full of healthy green stuff, pulses, tofu, and a huge bottle of vodka.
I might not be able to have a cheap hamburger, but I can still get plastered.
Over the last few days my entire culinary world has been turned upside down:
A British Rail bacon sandwich on the way up to visit the Ginger Pig Poultry Farm? Not happening.
A chicken fajita wrap from the sandwich bar on the corner? Can't face it.
A walk round the supermarket whose shelves are simply heaving with products from ready meals to neatly packed sausages, all in a row in the chill cabinet? Walk on by.
Instead I peer at the vacuum packed meats examining the flesh. I check the steaks for bruising and the lamb chops for red pin pricks - both signs of a stressed animal (I must look as though I have the measles) - and even though I find neither, I still return the packages to the shelf.
'Is it because you're writing a book about meat? ' A friend asked, imagining that I had grown squeamish all of a sudden because of the brutality of the butcher's block. This would be a fair guess given that last Thursday I walked through a field with mud the colour of toffee coming well over my ankles while around me milled a flock of snow white honking geese doing skittish comedy waddling with outstretched wings like fat men trying to balance themselves, and another swarming flock of dark bronze turkeys, screeching like fishwives - all of which were going to end up head down in a plastic funnel before getting the chop, just in time for Christmas. But no, I did the whole tour of the farm, fighting my way through the turkeys and the geese who surveyed each other warily like the Jets and the Sharks from their own corner of the field, visiting everything from the 3 day old chicks under sun lamps thinking that life is just one long spa treatment with tanning beds, to the abattoir where 41 days later they are hung and drawn (but not quartered) without feeling anything but twinge of nostalgia for all those fairy tales I read as a child about the little Goose Girl. It's not at all off-putting. It's proper farming. The birds seem to be doing what birds do and look well cared for, and if you plan to eat poultry this is definitely the kind of poultry you should be eating. The Ginger Pig Farm is an equally qualm free enterprise and would put no omnivore off his or her Sunday Roast. On the contrary, it's the other farming practices that have turned me against eating meat.
Where does the chicken in your Club Sandwich come from? What about the bacon in a BLT? Has it ever stood in a field in its life? Does the beef in your pie come from Botswana? Or Brazil? How long has it been in that vacuum pack? What part of the animal are you eating? And don't even get me started on sausages...
But modern life has become so much about convenience and I'm as guilty as the next person of picking up a loin of pork in a hermetically sealed package without asking or caring where it came from beyond aisle 10 of the supermarket, or cutting up a chicken breast for a stir fry without caring that it wasn't free range. Knowing now that it might have come from China has taken the edge of my appetite. I'm also Scottish - our whole cuisine (and yes, I use the term loosely) is based on mince... What can I cook now that the only minced meat I ever intend to eat will have to have been ground in my own kitchen? That takes time. I don't have time. I have a microwave. But after spending hours with a tape recorder talking about beef I'll never be able to buy another box of ravioli with meat stuffing without shuddering and wondering what's inside it.
And yes, I can and do (on occasion) make my own pasta and stuff it with my own ragout - but I am not an Italian housewife from the 1950s. I'm a woman who eats crispbread because it doesn't get mouldy as quickly as bread. The main reason I eat meat is because I don't have to think about it and it feeds a lot of people. Every night I have to provide a meal for 4 adults. One hates meat but has no moral objection to it so will happily eat the roast potatoes cooked in the fat, one won't eat pork, another won't eat anything on any given day that she has contentedly eaten on the previous one. So, I want certainties. You bung a leg of lamb in the oven, surround it with vegetables and go off and leave it for an hour and a half, come back and instantly you're mama Walton, slapping the big dish on the table - listen, you can hear that Bisto tune playing in my head. But now the lamb is in a vacuum pack from one of those countries that allows sheep to wear lipstick and it may very well not have come from a happy lamb.
I could, of course, shop responsibly and buy all my meat from a proper organic producer but frankly, I can't afford to - not unless I choose the cheap cuts and they, like everything else in my house, including me, need time and attention that is in short supply. The local farmers' market is fantastic, but it's only on once a week and I need something now. Right now!
So I'm hungry. There's nothing I can buy to eat with my vegetables except cheese: until I start to think too hard about the horrors of dairy farming which puts me off my cheddar. So, I shop for an hour and leave the supermarket with a trolley full of healthy green stuff, pulses, tofu, and a huge bottle of vodka.
I might not be able to have a cheap hamburger, but I can still get plastered.
Saturday, 8 November 2008
sub-text
One of our authors was in town and going out to have lunch with Mr T on Friday. I booked the restaurant and confirmed the lunch by email, and then had his novel sitting on my desk for a week, waiting for him to sign it for me. But then I spent the morning packing White Tigers into a box in another office, followed by a meeting for the Ginger Pig, and when I looked at my watch it was five past one and the author had been and gone.
Damn it. This author lives in France, goodness knows when I would get the chance to see him again.
I wondered - for all of about point five of a second - if I could accidentally wander round to Cigala in Lamb's Conduit Street, and be uncool enough to be just passing with - oh look what I have here, what a coincidence - a copy of the book in my hand, and then sat down wearily at my desk. The first time Mr T took me out to lunch many years ago, in a land of restaurant critic popularity far, far and FT away, it was to Cigala. The last time it was to ASK pizza. I wasn't going anywhere.
Sigh.
I sat at my desk forlornly running through the upcoming weekend: dinner with glamorous friend Sarah in the evening which I would be cooking in my less than glamorous kitchen, then work: Ginger Pig. Ginger Pig. Ginger Pig. And just for a change, on Sunday, Ginger Pig. I supposed I could hang at the office on long enough to see whether Mr T brought him back after lunch and get the book signed then. I decided to text him and ask if this was likely.
I'm not gifted with the art of text. For a start I can't see. My kids always know when the message is from me simply because it's garbled and incomprehensible. I'm slow and clumsy and think it's the worst medium for communication in the world for all but the most cursory of messages when a telephone call would be too intrusive. People who would be embarrassed to call you and say they were canceling an appointment at the last minute think nothing of sending you a text. Friends have been dumped by text. It's the medium of the hurried, cowardly and rude.
Recently a friend sent a message asking when I was free to meet her. (Well I use the term friend loosely. Since I lost a husband she seems to be afraid divorce it's catching and hasn't been in touch except by the scintillatingly non-emotive and very occasional text to ask me how I am. Really. How do you *ing think I am? And how much do you really care if all you can do is text me twice in five months? Not that I'm bitter or anything...) After I had found my glasses, dropped the phone, pressed several wrong buttons and sent a blank message back, I read that she wanted me to arrange a meeting and offer her alternative dates. By text? Dear God, I'd rather sort out the Palestinians and the Israelis. By the time I had tapped that lot out I would be 106. So, I asked her to call me instead. She didn't. She had been in touch - her duty was done without once hearing my voice.
So frankly, I try to avoid texting whenever possible. This is particularly important to remember when drunk. However, in the middle of the day at the office, inebriation (for me at least) wasn't a problem, so I took a deep breath and picked up the phone, squinted, and tapped out the letters very, very slowly and painstakingly.
I scrolled down and picked out T from my address book, and pressed send, then waited for around ten minutes to see if he would answer .
He didn't.
So, I left.
Twenty minutes later I was slumped sadly at the top of the No 7 bus when the phone chirruped.
Oh! Despite my reluctance to send texts I do like getting them providing they are not from Orange telling me that I can get a two for one cinema ticket on Wednesdays (rub it in, why don't you - where do I find the second person Orange?) or that I'm eligible for 'lucky numbers' so I can call all those friends I don't have at a lower rate. I live in perpetual hope that it's someone I really want to hear from. Even the Italian, now firmly in the past tense, occasionally sends me a message to see if we can meet. (So far we can't.) I reached for the phone. It was from Mr T and said:
What on earth did he mean by all the question marks - what possible ambiguity could there be in the message I sent him?
And then, before I could answer, the phone sang again and as I read the second message, which I will not reproduce here I was flooded (bright red) by a horrible realisation. I know two Mr Ts, and only one of them is in the contacts on my phone.
And it isn't the one I work for.
Had the mix up been the other way round I would have been very much more embarrassed, and only one of the reasons why I should only be allowed to operate a small hand-held devise even when sober. Another reason would be how the second Mr T managed to get into my address book in the first place.
But that story is for another day.
Damn it. This author lives in France, goodness knows when I would get the chance to see him again.
I wondered - for all of about point five of a second - if I could accidentally wander round to Cigala in Lamb's Conduit Street, and be uncool enough to be just passing with - oh look what I have here, what a coincidence - a copy of the book in my hand, and then sat down wearily at my desk. The first time Mr T took me out to lunch many years ago, in a land of restaurant critic popularity far, far and FT away, it was to Cigala. The last time it was to ASK pizza. I wasn't going anywhere.
Sigh.
I sat at my desk forlornly running through the upcoming weekend: dinner with glamorous friend Sarah in the evening which I would be cooking in my less than glamorous kitchen, then work: Ginger Pig. Ginger Pig. Ginger Pig. And just for a change, on Sunday, Ginger Pig. I supposed I could hang at the office on long enough to see whether Mr T brought him back after lunch and get the book signed then. I decided to text him and ask if this was likely.
I'm not gifted with the art of text. For a start I can't see. My kids always know when the message is from me simply because it's garbled and incomprehensible. I'm slow and clumsy and think it's the worst medium for communication in the world for all but the most cursory of messages when a telephone call would be too intrusive. People who would be embarrassed to call you and say they were canceling an appointment at the last minute think nothing of sending you a text. Friends have been dumped by text. It's the medium of the hurried, cowardly and rude.
Recently a friend sent a message asking when I was free to meet her. (Well I use the term friend loosely. Since I lost a husband she seems to be afraid divorce it's catching and hasn't been in touch except by the scintillatingly non-emotive and very occasional text to ask me how I am. Really. How do you *ing think I am? And how much do you really care if all you can do is text me twice in five months? Not that I'm bitter or anything...) After I had found my glasses, dropped the phone, pressed several wrong buttons and sent a blank message back, I read that she wanted me to arrange a meeting and offer her alternative dates. By text? Dear God, I'd rather sort out the Palestinians and the Israelis. By the time I had tapped that lot out I would be 106. So, I asked her to call me instead. She didn't. She had been in touch - her duty was done without once hearing my voice.
So frankly, I try to avoid texting whenever possible. This is particularly important to remember when drunk. However, in the middle of the day at the office, inebriation (for me at least) wasn't a problem, so I took a deep breath and picked up the phone, squinted, and tapped out the letters very, very slowly and painstakingly.
Are you bringing author
back to office. He so foot (damn that predictive text)
forget to get my book
signed, x (we're very affectionate at Pedantic Press)
I scrolled down and picked out T from my address book, and pressed send, then waited for around ten minutes to see if he would answer .
He didn't.
So, I left.
Twenty minutes later I was slumped sadly at the top of the No 7 bus when the phone chirruped.
Oh! Despite my reluctance to send texts I do like getting them providing they are not from Orange telling me that I can get a two for one cinema ticket on Wednesdays (rub it in, why don't you - where do I find the second person Orange?) or that I'm eligible for 'lucky numbers' so I can call all those friends I don't have at a lower rate. I live in perpetual hope that it's someone I really want to hear from. Even the Italian, now firmly in the past tense, occasionally sends me a message to see if we can meet. (So far we can't.) I reached for the phone. It was from Mr T and said:
? ? ? T x
What on earth did he mean by all the question marks - what possible ambiguity could there be in the message I sent him?
And then, before I could answer, the phone sang again and as I read the second message, which I will not reproduce here I was flooded (bright red) by a horrible realisation. I know two Mr Ts, and only one of them is in the contacts on my phone.
And it isn't the one I work for.
Had the mix up been the other way round I would have been very much more embarrassed, and only one of the reasons why I should only be allowed to operate a small hand-held devise even when sober. Another reason would be how the second Mr T managed to get into my address book in the first place.
But that story is for another day.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
The last cut is the deepest
I'm in early Pig with delivery of the first phase of my manuscript for the Cookery Book in a couple of weeks' time. Suddenly all my notes look like jigsaw pieces from the wrong puzzle and I rapidly need to find some edges. A good place to beef up the framework seemed to be the Ginger Pig shop in Moxon Street so I thought I would trot along, meet some of the staff and pick their bones...
I fear there's going to be a lot of meat puns.
And also, apparently, an awful lot of men.
I've done a great many evening classes in my time: Italian, Salsa, Life Drawing, Cooking, Etching, Wine Tasting; Psychology - the whole gamut middle class pursuits and I can tell you from experience that adult education is a great place to meet men if you like women.
Men I have met at evening classes:
Italian? One pervert looking for a reserve mistress to the mistress and a widow called Brian.
Life Drawing? Naked man on a plinth with piercings you don't want to think about and one sexually ambiguous painter.
Cooking, Etching, Wine Tasting? Sexually ambiguous painter (carried forward from above) and many, many bores..
Salsa? Short, very short or gay men, bridegrooms (of which the last two categories have the advantage in that they use deodorant). Phil from Brentford who does ballroom on Mondays, and my friend Andrew, who I took with me, so doesn't really count. Thing in common: they all sweat.
Psychology: come one...do you really need to ask?
Women I have met at evening classes: Concert violinist, Turkish journalist, Slow food campaigner, Ceramicist, Graphic Designer, Human Rights Lawyer, Divorce Lawyer (very, very useful), Weapon Designer (ditto), Conference Organiser, Banker, Caroline Waldegrave and Pru Leith (we're not friends but we still met), Australian Dentist, Architect, many brides (they do the salsa so they can dance at their weddings) and one sexually ambiguous painter (I'm not sure quite which category s/he comes into).
So that brings me back to the Ginger Pig. It turns out a butcher's shop is a great place to meet men.
Who would have thought it?
Nevertheless, in the evening, the shop is full of them. Tall men. Young men. Silver foxes. Some even have hair. All are wearing white coats and interested expressions which makes them look a little like the guys on toothpaste ads who are trying to convince you they are scientists, or as though they might be about to sell you cosmetics on the Clinique counter in Selfridges. But no - they are here to learn the gentle art of butchery on the course run by the two Ginger Pig butchers, three times a week.
Just what you want - a man who knows how to handle a hacksaw and a cleaver and can cut you up into freezer joints before you've even been properly introduced. Not a category I've seen on Match.com.
Yet.
Though surely only a matter of time? Especially when you see how many of them come from City Banks... Just what you do after a hard day's credit crunching... cut up a carcass.
I look around the room for wedding rings as Perry (from the Marylebone shop) deftly cuts up a lamb, addressing the assembled throng with the confidence of a chat show host, to the soft lulling hum of bones being sawn, and Borat (from the branch in Hackney, and known locally, so I'm told by members of the staff, as the Slovenian Sex God) shows me his own, totally ring-free hands.
'But you're too young,' I say as he twirls his filleting knife and slots it back into his holster (okay, I made that up, but it wouldn't have surprised me.'
'Oh 'e likes 'em really really pretty and gorgeous and slim,' said one of the female members of staff (who until that moment I was beginning to think of as a friend) and possibly, she seemed to be implying, not old enough to be his mother.
A man would need to have a cleaver in his hands to chop his way into my house through my three, ever-present, non-sleeping, disapproving teenagers, so it's academic that he's only 12 and I'm 76. Instead, I have to content myself with a glass of wine (red of course) and quiet contemplation of the scarred butcher's block on which a sheep is slowly becoming legs, breast and best end.
'So what do we call this,' Perry asks the assembled (creepily concentrated and silent) group of men standing around him in their lab coats paying rapt attention to the saw going through the spine then snapping off. He slams down an indeterminate hunk of bones with a resounding thump.
'Scrag end,' says someone, helpfully.
Yep.
Precisely.
I fear there's going to be a lot of meat puns.
And also, apparently, an awful lot of men.
I've done a great many evening classes in my time: Italian, Salsa, Life Drawing, Cooking, Etching, Wine Tasting; Psychology - the whole gamut middle class pursuits and I can tell you from experience that adult education is a great place to meet men if you like women.
Men I have met at evening classes:
Italian? One pervert looking for a reserve mistress to the mistress and a widow called Brian.
Life Drawing? Naked man on a plinth with piercings you don't want to think about and one sexually ambiguous painter.
Cooking, Etching, Wine Tasting? Sexually ambiguous painter (carried forward from above) and many, many bores..
Salsa? Short, very short or gay men, bridegrooms (of which the last two categories have the advantage in that they use deodorant). Phil from Brentford who does ballroom on Mondays, and my friend Andrew, who I took with me, so doesn't really count. Thing in common: they all sweat.
Psychology: come one...do you really need to ask?
Women I have met at evening classes: Concert violinist, Turkish journalist, Slow food campaigner, Ceramicist, Graphic Designer, Human Rights Lawyer, Divorce Lawyer (very, very useful), Weapon Designer (ditto), Conference Organiser, Banker, Caroline Waldegrave and Pru Leith (we're not friends but we still met), Australian Dentist, Architect, many brides (they do the salsa so they can dance at their weddings) and one sexually ambiguous painter (I'm not sure quite which category s/he comes into).
So that brings me back to the Ginger Pig. It turns out a butcher's shop is a great place to meet men.
Who would have thought it?
Nevertheless, in the evening, the shop is full of them. Tall men. Young men. Silver foxes. Some even have hair. All are wearing white coats and interested expressions which makes them look a little like the guys on toothpaste ads who are trying to convince you they are scientists, or as though they might be about to sell you cosmetics on the Clinique counter in Selfridges. But no - they are here to learn the gentle art of butchery on the course run by the two Ginger Pig butchers, three times a week.
Just what you want - a man who knows how to handle a hacksaw and a cleaver and can cut you up into freezer joints before you've even been properly introduced. Not a category I've seen on Match.com.
Yet.
Though surely only a matter of time? Especially when you see how many of them come from City Banks... Just what you do after a hard day's credit crunching... cut up a carcass.
I look around the room for wedding rings as Perry (from the Marylebone shop) deftly cuts up a lamb, addressing the assembled throng with the confidence of a chat show host, to the soft lulling hum of bones being sawn, and Borat (from the branch in Hackney, and known locally, so I'm told by members of the staff, as the Slovenian Sex God) shows me his own, totally ring-free hands.
'But you're too young,' I say as he twirls his filleting knife and slots it back into his holster (okay, I made that up, but it wouldn't have surprised me.'
'Oh 'e likes 'em really really pretty and gorgeous and slim,' said one of the female members of staff (who until that moment I was beginning to think of as a friend) and possibly, she seemed to be implying, not old enough to be his mother.
A man would need to have a cleaver in his hands to chop his way into my house through my three, ever-present, non-sleeping, disapproving teenagers, so it's academic that he's only 12 and I'm 76. Instead, I have to content myself with a glass of wine (red of course) and quiet contemplation of the scarred butcher's block on which a sheep is slowly becoming legs, breast and best end.
'So what do we call this,' Perry asks the assembled (creepily concentrated and silent) group of men standing around him in their lab coats paying rapt attention to the saw going through the spine then snapping off. He slams down an indeterminate hunk of bones with a resounding thump.
'Scrag end,' says someone, helpfully.
Yep.
Precisely.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
From Fran at the New York Office
We're walking down the street at 1.30am. Ahead someone is shouting 'give me an O, give me a B' and rippling down the street goes the cry O B A M A... Cyclists are whooping, motorists are beeping, and everyone else is stumbling home gripping each other, tired, hoarse, and happy.
We arrived at Amy's apartment for the first results, clutching our election bingo forms (courtesy of the Guardian), pens poised, ready to tick off the states as they're called and add up the electoral college votes aiming for the magic number: 270. By 7.30 the projections are already starting to come in - we mark off one fat lady in McCain's column, 3 in Obama's. I need a drink.
By the time we head to a bar it's 9.30 and the columns are filling up - Obama's line is looking healthy, the bigger numbers are with him, but I'm still feeling hugely superstitious - I keep knocking on wood, or in the absence of wood, my head. I'm aware that this looks a bit bonkers, but I can't stop myself. We get in line for the bar, there are huge crowds of Brooklyn hipsters outside - it's one in, one out -- 'let me put it this way' says the doorman 'if you were inside with a drink watching the results on a big screen, would you leave?'. Okay, we get his point, but we're here now and it's amazing to be surrounded by all these people, so we do what Brits do best. We queue.
As we near the door we can hear screams from inside. 'WHAT??? ' 'Nooo'.... 'WHAT...' 'Can you believe it?' 'WHAT!' Bloody hell, this is frustrating. WHAT has happened? Then it starts getting passed down. He's won Ohio. Holy crap, even I know this is big. About a minute later a girl shouts 'hey guys my sister just said he's got Ohio'. Everyone looks at her. Err, alright love - we heard already.
We consider starting a Chinese whisper about Texas...
Once inside and onto the 4th vodka (drinks here are kind of like electoral college votes - they have an arbitrary relationship to the volume of spirits they actually contain) we start to acclimatise. We're in the 'back room', which is a big as Brixton Academy. Your favourite band is playing. All your friends are here. But everyone is staring at the biggest TV you've ever seen. As we get closer to the 'top of the hour' people start counting down with the clock and it goes eerily quiet. Colours flash on screen and numbers appear. Boos, cheers, cheers, boos, screams, hand clapping and dancing. I'm still nervous. I knock my head ('Fan, do you have tourette's?)
New Mexico for Obama. Wow.
The polls are closing in the West. I think we're reaching 11pm though I'm losing track. The countdown starts and they're going to announce Virginia, or Florida perhaps, but then it comes on the screen. They are calling it for Obama. He is the next president of the United States. So soon? I thought we were going to be here 'til 5 in the morning but no, people are yelling, jumping up and down, punching the air. We are hugging each other and kissing strangers. Amy throws her drink over everyone, forgetting that vodka doesn't have the same effervescent quality as champagne. 'Signed, sealed, delivered' comes blasting out of the huge speakers and we're all dancing. 'I don't know this song,' says my American Boy, Chris, as I try to whirl him around. I think he's worse than the girl outside.
As McCain comes out to concede the crowd again is quiet. A couple of people boo but generally we are respectful, clapping - some even commenting that if this is how he'd conducted himself during the race, he may have stood a better chance. Palin gets a big boo, and no respect - from the crowd gathered here, anyway.
And then it's time for Him - and you know the rest.
written by Frances Owen, Publicity Manager currently on sabbatical at Grove/Atlantic New York
Sunday, 2 November 2008
Maya Fiennes. Kundalini Yoga Workshop.
Sixty middle aged women in various stages of preservation from good to very good, and one from Pedantic Press.
Me.
Originally six of us had planned to attend the workshop since we are soon to publish Maya's book, but only two of the young bendies made it in the end, and I roped in my friend Nel for solidarity.
Naturally we sat at the back.
I’ve done Yoga before. It’s the exercise of choice for anyone who isn’t otherwise athletic. But Maya’s Yoga for Life isn’t quite like anything I’ve done before. Instead of inelegant postures, holding positions for a long time, and lots of deep breathing imagining yourself putting roots down into the earth – obviously a dawdle for me given my gravitational affinity with the ground, Kundalini Yoga, on first acquaintance anyway, involves fast, concentrated breathing, simple rapid and repetitive movements and lots of singing and chanting.
Easy, I thought when we began. A billion breaths later I was hyperventilating and the inside of my nose felt like I had been snorting chlorine in a swimming pool. Who knew breathing was so hard?
This was a de-stress class. Ideal for many of we Pedants; especially designed even. As the class progressed and after I had, in Maya’s words, ‘broken through the pain barrier,’ pushing my palms out to the side a million and a half times, it got easier and the breathing began to feel energising.
And I couldn't feel my fingers, my shoulders or indeed anything much above the waist, which obviously helped, especially when we began rolling around the floor from side to side like hippos.
Then suddenly my friend Nel put her hands over her eyes. Poor thing, it’s getting too much for her. I reached across to pat her back consolingly. I thought she was weeping at first, and then I saw her shoulders shake and realised she was indeed crying, but with laughter.
'I’m sorry,' she gasped, I just can’t help it. I can’t stop looking at the man with the giant harp – a series of steel wires strung the length of the room, which was of concert hall proportions, which he was stroking earnestly making the room reverberate to Eastern music while sixty loud London women sang 'Harr', like fairly aggressive pirates as they stared fixedly at the space between the outstretched thumb and fingers of their right hands.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Nel is quite deaf and couldn’t hear any of the instructions that Maya was issuing prettily from a sound system far, far away, so she really didn't have a clue what she was doing.
Next we sang and chanted five words over and over interspersed with the chorus “I bow to you, again and again.’ At which Nel took issue. She bows to nobody. She can bow to nobody – too much belly fat.
Then we rested, breathing gently.
And the harpists mobile phone went off to the tune of Woody Woodpecker.
I didn't even dare glance at Nel. But being deaf, she hadn't heard it. She was still laughing though.
'Do you want to get a drink?' I asked one of the bendies as we left the workshop.
'Marion, that was supposed to be all about cleansing your system and strengthening your kidneys!' she said sternly. 'And anyway, I can't. I'm on a detox.'
'Okay then,' I mumbled, much chastened as Nel skipped off like a newborn lamb to go and sign up for a yoga holiday, bought a yoga mat, a yoga seat, and some incense.
'I tell you what though, let's go outside and get some fresh air.' said the Bendy. 'I could really do with a fag.'
Me.
Originally six of us had planned to attend the workshop since we are soon to publish Maya's book, but only two of the young bendies made it in the end, and I roped in my friend Nel for solidarity.
Naturally we sat at the back.
I’ve done Yoga before. It’s the exercise of choice for anyone who isn’t otherwise athletic. But Maya’s Yoga for Life isn’t quite like anything I’ve done before. Instead of inelegant postures, holding positions for a long time, and lots of deep breathing imagining yourself putting roots down into the earth – obviously a dawdle for me given my gravitational affinity with the ground, Kundalini Yoga, on first acquaintance anyway, involves fast, concentrated breathing, simple rapid and repetitive movements and lots of singing and chanting.
Easy, I thought when we began. A billion breaths later I was hyperventilating and the inside of my nose felt like I had been snorting chlorine in a swimming pool. Who knew breathing was so hard?
This was a de-stress class. Ideal for many of we Pedants; especially designed even. As the class progressed and after I had, in Maya’s words, ‘broken through the pain barrier,’ pushing my palms out to the side a million and a half times, it got easier and the breathing began to feel energising.
And I couldn't feel my fingers, my shoulders or indeed anything much above the waist, which obviously helped, especially when we began rolling around the floor from side to side like hippos.
Then suddenly my friend Nel put her hands over her eyes. Poor thing, it’s getting too much for her. I reached across to pat her back consolingly. I thought she was weeping at first, and then I saw her shoulders shake and realised she was indeed crying, but with laughter.
'I’m sorry,' she gasped, I just can’t help it. I can’t stop looking at the man with the giant harp – a series of steel wires strung the length of the room, which was of concert hall proportions, which he was stroking earnestly making the room reverberate to Eastern music while sixty loud London women sang 'Harr', like fairly aggressive pirates as they stared fixedly at the space between the outstretched thumb and fingers of their right hands.
It wasn’t helped by the fact that Nel is quite deaf and couldn’t hear any of the instructions that Maya was issuing prettily from a sound system far, far away, so she really didn't have a clue what she was doing.
Next we sang and chanted five words over and over interspersed with the chorus “I bow to you, again and again.’ At which Nel took issue. She bows to nobody. She can bow to nobody – too much belly fat.
Then we rested, breathing gently.
And the harpists mobile phone went off to the tune of Woody Woodpecker.
I didn't even dare glance at Nel. But being deaf, she hadn't heard it. She was still laughing though.
'Do you want to get a drink?' I asked one of the bendies as we left the workshop.
'Marion, that was supposed to be all about cleansing your system and strengthening your kidneys!' she said sternly. 'And anyway, I can't. I'm on a detox.'
'Okay then,' I mumbled, much chastened as Nel skipped off like a newborn lamb to go and sign up for a yoga holiday, bought a yoga mat, a yoga seat, and some incense.
'I tell you what though, let's go outside and get some fresh air.' said the Bendy. 'I could really do with a fag.'
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