I can’t stand Snotting Hill celebrities with kids in top fee paying schools who BLEAT about how difficult their state school/private school choice was to make. Oh, and how much their social conscience hurts them.
I feel their pain - in my ass. Can you hear me Stella McCartney ?
On the gallop at the moment, but I have to share something I heard yesterday.
A woman who ordered two packs of pantyliners in her weekly on-line grocery shop got a note with her delivery apologising that they were currently out of stock. BUT they had been replaced with a similar item to minmise any inconvenience.
She got two packs of bamboo barbeque skewers instead.
I am in the Top Ten ! Not of the Top of the Pops variety - SHAME because I’d look memorable in a pair of gold Kylie hot pants – but the top ten of the 2010 Pitch Up competiton.
The top ten (did I mention I am in there?) in the contest get to pitch their unique TV idea to a panel of big cheese industry professionals, hope I’m not there as the crackers .
I can’t tell you what I am pitching about because it’s secret until the night, but I can tell you the event is held at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Piccadilly which gives me a big what to wear pain in the ass.
I used to go to BAFTA every night. Every night for three years and I wore the same thing; black waistcoat, black skirt, black tie,white shirt. That was when I was a student and worked behind the bar. Well, I worked when I wasn’t too starstruck to pour wine and wasn’t standing and staring instead.
I have another issue which could impact on my enjoyment of the night. My hormone steeped hair has grown a vertical Tuft. It’s curly and clips doorframes when I pass through. There isn’t a product in creation that will keep this seven inch column of hair flat to my head , I know this becauseI have spent all I have in Trade Secrets trying to find one. At my request my husband hid the scissors this morning so I don’t cave in to the urge to lop it off - but this afternoon it is so erect that I am considering sawing it off with the bread knife.
My friend has a teenage son Adam who describes his life as ‘party central’. He’s recently finished his A2′s and goes to bed when the rest of the world is getting up. Beer not blood runs through his veins. Until yesterday he got away with everything and anything by employing a wink and a cheeky smile – but now he is in trouble and will be there for some time to come…..
One night last week Adam went to a night club ten miles away from home. He danced, he drank, he laughed and after closing time ended up asleep in a bush without any money for a cab home. Using his mobile he called home, at 4.15am, and asked to be picked up.
Trouble was he was seeing double and didn’t call home. By mistake he called Doreen, the neighbour. Her number was put into Adam’s phone by his mum a couple of years ago for lost key/locked out after school episodes, of which there have been many.
Believing there must be a very good emergency style reason for Adam to be calling her and not his parents in the middle of the night Doreen climbed out of bed, got dressed and into her car to go and pick him up. She says she noticed that as she drove away all seemed to be well next door. The house was quiet and their car was parked on their front drive.
When she found Adam he was worse for wear and not at all chatty. He did say ”Cheers!” when she pulled up and replied “Cool” when Doreen asked if everything at home was OK.
When the Neighbour of the Year got home it was so close to getting up time she didn’t bother going back to bed and went straight to work. Several times over the next few days she saw her neighbours over the garden fence and in the street. They smiled and waved but no-one said thank you or explained why she had been cabbing their drunken son in the early hours. Doreen, 62, said she felt a little tired and a lot peeved.
Then, yesterday after her late night wake up call Doreen found her mortified, red faced neighbours on her doorstep bearing a huge bunch of flowers. Because an hour earlier their son had asked, “How come you sent Doreen to pick me up the other night?”
Yesterday ay Wimbledon I discovered another good reason to be a vegetarian. Sitting on Centre Court in searing sunlight without any shade I now know what a chicken in a hot oven would feel like. I know that makes limited sense because the roasting chicken would already be dead, but my brains got sunburnt yesterday so cut me some slack…..
I tried to stay cool and wore a big floppy hat but it wilted in the heat and the brim ended up blocking my view and chafing my chin so I had to take it off.
Highlights were that my bag of jumbo sized chocolate buttons oozed into chocolate sauce within minutes of sitting down and made a very good hot dip for the Coconut Mushrooms – see previous post. Also that we were ‘buggied’ from our car parking space to the entrance which made me laugh out loud all the way for no particular reason, and that was before I suffered heatstroke.
Federer, Murray and the divine red-knickered Serena Williams didn’t even break sweat as they thundered about Centre Court. But I, sat down, was paddling in it within thirty minutes. And I can confirm that perspiration-heavy wet linen (as worn by the row of Camilla lookie likies behind me) smells of green beans cooking even when very posh and previously fragrant people wear it. Make up melts, too, I found mascara streaks and strawberry kiss lipstick marks on my hands, forearms and cleveage when I peeled my clothes off last night.
The stewards politely requested that anyone who was going to faint because of the heat gave them plenty of prior warning before keeling over, and my sister’s nose got kissed too hard by a sunbeam which is why today she is sporting a Wimbledon blister with pride. It’s like a mini tennis ball and a reminder of our perfect day.
I am Wimbledonnning on Monday and spent some time today doing a dry run of getting out the front door on time. I hate to miss a minute of my favourite day of the year so I like to think ahead. Almost all is as it should be – my Coconut Mushrooms (refridgerated because of the warm weather) are squidgy without being soggy, my binoculars (for picking apart whoever is in the Royal Box) are polished and my wet wipes are…..wet.
My new shoes are the only problem. They are natty navy coloured suede peeptoe wedges with ankle straps. Quite Betty Boo I think and they definitely make my feet look young.
The only problem is I can’t put them on alone because the buckles are too far to the side of the shoe and my eyesight (poor) and general dexterity (poorer) won’t allow me to twist, bend and do them up blind with one hand. The Suede straps are thick and the part of the buckles they tuck under is very thin and the operation requires precision, double joints or another pair of hands to get them in nicely.
Trouble is on Monday morning I will be alone in the house bar the dog. He’s smart but paws and buckles don’t mix.
So I’ve decided to employ human help getting the shoes buckled up on Sunday night, and then sleep in them. I was never a Girl Guide but, golly brown owls, I would have been excellent at the ‘be prepared stuff’ wouldn’t I?
NHS Outpatients. 3.15pm. The clinic nurse is asleep on her chair which is about six feet from her reception desk. Her head is resting on the wall under a handwritten sign that reads ’Good Morning – Welcome to No-Name Hospital.’
I didn’t wake her up. The telephone ringing did . She opened her eyes and stared at it, and tutted loudly. I was stood at the reception desk, within arm’s reach of the ‘phone, waiting to book in. “Shall I answer it?” I ask. She tutted again and shook her head and began to travel by chair towards the phone.
Finally she got there and answered it, but didn’t speak. For a looooong time she listened and then droned “Pardon?” I heard an agitated sounding voice on the other end of the line. “Pardon?” she repeated and then, clearly beyond bored, she hung up the receiver. Another giant tut.
I tell her my name and my medical notes are fished out from a pile. Still using her chair to move around Flinstone Yabadabadoo style( but in slow motion) she crosses the room and places my folder on a stainless steel trolley outside a consulting room. She nods me to the waiting area, indicating I should sit there.
Three people came after me and she tuttted some more, and chair travelled to lay their notes on top of mine.
I had to ask. She was back against the wall with her eyes closed and I woke her with the question, “Do the Doctors take the notes from the top or the bottom of that pile over there on the trolley?”
“Top.” Then she shut her eyes again. So I went and justice-shuffled the notes into time of arrival order. The other people sat waiting and watching but didn’t challenge me, or try and stack them back the way they were. That was a relief because I didn’t want a scuffle.
As I left after seeing the Doctor I bid Nurse Narcolepsy a cheery good morning. But she was alseep and didn’t hear me. And the ‘phone was ringing again.
Last night I was on BBC Radio 5 Live defending a man’s right to wear pyjamas. Guy Ritchie is apparently guilty of a crime against good taste because he was photographed on his doorstep in jim jams earlier this week. He was waving off his gorgeous new girlfriend at the time. She is umpteen years younger than he is. A Nicole/Papa/pyjama moment.
The poor guy could be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after nine years with Mad-Donna. My guess is that she wears an animal print leotard, fishnets and stilettos in bed. She’s so super toned that Guy probably bruised himself every time he made contact with her on their marital mattress. I bet jimmie jams were banned in Mad-Donna Mansions and post divorce he could hardly wait to jump into a pair and hang loose.
Guy was wearing a Cary Grant style Stripey pair, by the way, not My Little Pony or Cupcake print ones and no teddy bears were harmed in the wearing of his jimmies. Even Mockney Film Directors are entitled to chillax and snuggle down at home, aren’t they?
And it’s not the pj’s, it’s what’s underneath that counts. Hands up who would turn down George Clooney in pyjamas?
Just back from the Royal Academy Summer Show in London this evening. It was a special free invite that my sister had given me, even though her ticket said not tranferable. What can I say? We’re rebels.
I think it was a showing organised by the Orthapaedic Society ( if there is such a thing) because everyone in the room seemed to have the same neck complaint going on. Their right ear was fused to their right shoulder. Or maybe that is the correct way to view art?
As well as having a crooked neck the other essential was being able to talk loud and posh whilst gargling Pimms. I overheard two linen clad women discussing the prominently displayed Tracey Emin scrawl, a piece of work that in my ignorant opinion wasn’t even graffitti standard. They described it as ’potent’ and ‘polemic’ and the ‘threshold to purgatory’. I had ‘p’ words for it too – poncey and puerile - but then I am a self confessed Philistina and was wearing Polyester so I didn’t chip in.
I loved the model of King Kong made from wire coat hangers. It has inspired me to create something to submit for next year’s show. I’m am going to make an elephant, perhaps even a herd of elephants, installation out of all the single socks in my house. I am going to call it ‘An Elephantine Spasm in Socks’ or ‘Sock Safari’ or………I’ve got a whole year to think about it.