Mother's Day and Furry Children

Today is Mother’s Day in the States. As I didn’t have the many reminders that the card shops thrust upon you nearer the time, since Mother’s Day in England is in March, I’m worried I didn’t post my card in time, so I will ring my mother in the States as well. I’m just waiting for her to return to her home, as she spent the weekend with her own mother in Pennsylvania, and is now miles above the east coast on a quick flight south.

It’s not the happiest Mother’s Day for her. One of her children is in London, and the other one, who could normally be depended upon to drive the four hours to her home and take her out to brunch or dinner, is away and in mourning. Sadly, yesterday he had to put down his absolutely adorable, most beloved Golden Retriever, who has been like a child to him and his wife for 10 years. Dear Dutch even took part in their wedding.

Like most Golden Retrievers, he seemed to wear a constant smile on his face and absolutely embrace life, bursting with enthusiasm and adoration for his owners. Unfortunately, he was recently found to have cancer and went downhill quickly. I know my brother and his wife are utterly devastated in a way that people who aren’t true pet lovers can never understand; it is like losing a close member of your immediate family for whom you’ve been entirely responsible as a full-time carer. The void left where all that love and energy so recently existed is massive and deeply painful. I went through such a death of a beloved furry one a few years ago and dread the day when my miraculous survive-all but very frail 18-year-old Persian can no longer surprise me and the vets with his amazing staying power. It’s an awful loss, particularly painful when so many people around you consider your sorrow to be a silly indulgence for little more than a possession.

But I didn’t mean to focus on that sorrowful situation, although my brother and his wife are definitely in my thoughts, and bless dear Dutch, may he rest in peace now.

It is a coincidence that the Mother’s Day card I sent my mother—well, a regular card that I turned into a Mother’s Day card, as after all, she usually likes the ones with dirty jokes that are embarrassing to buy, so she’s hardly a traditionalist---has an animal/offspring theme. She and I both seem to prefer animals to children, at least in our own homes. The Paw Play greeting card produced by QuittingHollywood.com pictured cute cats and a dog on the front, with the words:-

“Dogs and cats are better than kids because they eat less, don’t ask for money…and if they get pregnant, you can sell their children.”

Lansbury in London On Stage---A Missed Treasure!

As a Londoner, I try to take advantage of many of the wonderful cultural things on offer, particularly the one-off opportunities, such as seeing the triple bill some years ago of Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, or seeing Simon and Garfunkel in Hyde Park, or even the Chinese Terracotta Army in the British Museum’s First Emperor exhibition.

Unfortunately, I had to forgo such an opportunity on Sunday, which is a treat I know I would have enjoyed. Having grown up a huge fan of Broadway tunes and worshipping at the shrines of musical gods like Ethel Merman, I always loved the song Bosom Buddies from Mame, where Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur sang a pally-catty duet. When I was much younger, I would have seen these two women as the star of Murder, She Wrote and The Golden Girls (and Maude), respectively, but I was aware that both had big stage careers in the past and I was familiar with the young, then newly discovered Angela Lansbury in my favourite version of (George Cukor’s) Gaslight, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She also played the original Mrs Lovett in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the role recently recreated on screen by Helena Bonham-Carter, for which Lansbury won one of her four Tonys.

So I was thrilled to hear rumours that she would be performing on the London stage for the first time in about 30 years in an event called Jerry Herman’s Broadway at the London Palladium on 4 May. Even before her presence had been officially confirmed, I had my mouse hovering over the final click to book a prohibitively expensive seat (I couldn’t think of anyone else who would be remotely interested in attending such an event with me), but then I checked and found my trains would not be running owing to engineering works. Certainly, I could have made the significant effort to get there and back somehow, although it’s hard enough getting back from town at night after shows when the trains are running, but I dawdled too long and missed my chance.

The concert, for which I’ve found no reviews, was in the end presented by Lansbury and celebrated the career of Broadway composer Jerry Herman, with “a host of stars” performing his songs from his musicals, which included Hello Dolly!, Mame and La Cage Aux Folles. The proceeds went to HIV and AIDS charity Crusaid. Herman himself has been suffering from AIDS for about ten years, so it was particularly great news that he would be in attendance.

The only appearance by Lansbury promoting the show beforehand that I came across was on Channel 4’s Paul O’Grady Show, of all things. As that’s on too early for commuters, I recorded it on DVD, but like most things I record, I haven’t watched it and will probably lose it in a stack of unlabeled DVDs soon. But I did see the end, and despite looking a bit tighter around the face (from age, not surgery, I’m pleased to say), Angela Lansbury looked just the same as Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, radiant as always even though she’s now 82! And she’s still working.

Morgon Falconer got to interview this British-born actress (whose mother was an actress called Moyna MacGill—a surname used in Murder, She Wrote for relatives of Jessica Fletcher, including an actress cousin in London—and whose grandfather was former leader of the Labour Party George Lansbury) for the Times recently, and the article, cleverly titled “Life After Murder” is worth a read.

Coincidentally, the Biography Channel has been showing a programme on her this week, and certainly Lansbury has had a troubled life, with her first husband, who she married when she was 19 and he was 35, turning out to be bisexual; fire destroying her house; her children struggling with drugs in the past; and various tragic losses of loved ones. But it all seems to have made her quite a formidable woman, and she is still going strong. I only wish she would return for another performance so I could grasp the cherished opportunity that I so foolishly missed last weekend!

Meanwhile, after dreaming for so many years of what it would be like to witness Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur performing the great Bosom Buddies on stage, I get the next best thing: a clip on YouTube of the two reprising their roles for an appearance much later, which I recommend viewing. (YouTube also includes a clip from the film where Bea Arthur reprises her role, but Lucille Ball takes Lansbury’s part, most unfortunately.) Ain’t YouTube grand.

A Dull Boy Lost in Magazine Clutter

I’ve been a failure as a blogger and must rectify that and many other things. I seem to have become a lifeless person, a female dull boy. I have a place full of fun things to do and play with, projects to delve into, a head full of things to write, but I just don’t have a spare second to do anything, no me time. Is this because I have 30 children? No, thank God. That’s the mystery; apart from an elderly and infirm furball I’m caring for, I only have myself to look after, and I seem to be doing an awful job.

Basically, I spend every waking moment either doing work for my job or struggling under the weight of the burden that I need to get work done, and I don’t have the sort of job that should require that. I used to thrive on being a workaholic but now I’m exhausted by it and left longing for some free time. I even once considered calling in sick just so I could carry on working uninterrupted on professional stuff that day and not feel such a failure turning up at work having not finished what I needed to have completed overnight. But I’m not the sort to call in sick when I’m not sick; I barely call in sick when I am.

Never mind the stress and the fact that sleeping most nights now means nodding off accidentally on the sofa with my laptop in my lap, and waking at ungodly hours in a panic and continuing to work in a sleepy drug-liked state. The novels in my head aren’t getting written, the concerts and plays and art shows I used to take in regularly are being ignored, friends and even their e-mails are long neglected, so I really need to get my life together.

I recently realised that I don’t even read books anymore, despite being a voracious reader as a youngster and now living in what could easily be mistaken for a Borders warehouse, or more of an HMV warehouse these days, with most of the many DVDs I’ve ordered over the past year remaining unwrapped, and the newer of the disturbing number of CDs standing silent. Wouldn’t it be great to take a year off, work on fun life projects and watch movies, play music, read and write, without the stress of work demands and commuting? What gets me through the reality is focusing on the ‘fact’ that I will win the lottery on Wednesday, or when that doesn’t happen, then on Friday, or on Saturday. If I didn’t count on that, I wouldn’t be able to cope with work right now. I don’t always buy a lottery ticket, but that only marginally reduces my chances of winning. I’m no fool, I know it won’t happen, and I’m not the extravagant sort who would buy helicopters and party hard with my winnings anyway. I’d contribute to the list of charities I’ve compiled for such an occasion, help my struggling family members and any friends (or strangers who touch me—definitely not literally) who need help, and possibly get a property in town (if I win billions and can thus afford central London property) so I can get out to the concerts, art galleries and theatre more easily. Principally, I’d give up work for a couple years, write down the novels in my head and work on other projects, and then get another, less stressful occupation of some sort.

In the meantime, I am surrounded by clutter that I never have time to tackle, but I always manage to add to it with enormous ease. The laundry is done regularly but then folded on enormous ever-increasing piles on chairs in the bedroom. I haven’t vacuumed for an age as it’s not a priority when I have a work deadline in the morning and I’m not expecting company, and my cat and I can cope just fine with our hair covering the carpeting. I’m not very domesticated anyway.

I do seem to have some sort of crazed inability to stop bringing magazines into the house as though they’re stray cats in need of a loving home. I don’t have the time to read the ones I subscribe to, but get very excited with their arrival, although I then just flick through and fold up the corners of pages that I hope to come back to one day when I find time for a proper read. I subscribe to loads: Time Out, Radio Times, Word, Mojo, Uncut, Q (have been meaning to cancel that one for a few years), PC Advisor, DVD Review, InStyle (to prove I’m female), and some membership magazines such as the RSPCA. I'm thrilled when they appear but barely have a chance to look at their covers to judge them.

So with all these unloved litters of magazines at home, why did I go to Smith's yesterday and bring home the Sunday Times (haven’t read Saturday’s yet), the Independent, Acoustic magazine (well, it had homeboy James Taylor on the cover), Record Collector, Private Eye, Spectator, Scientific American Mind, PC Pro, Personal Computer World, and Writing magazine? What is wrong with me?

Incidentally, I can’t recall ever actually having read a Writing magazine. I buy them because I’m drawn to the promises on the cover. ‘Win over a top agent’. ‘Get your novel published with a big advance’. ‘Turn your ideas into hard cash.’ Never mind that I’ve not had time to write down the ideas in my head, which would take many months to thrash out properly. I’m sucked into these sentiments, buy the magazine, never open it, but never feel I can throw it away. It’s the same way that I buy fitness DVDs, sit them on the coffee table, and when I find I’ve not lost weight for some reason, I order another fitness DVD….although no doubt if I actually watched the first one or actually did the exercises it guided me through, I would have a chance of getting into shape.

This crazy compulsive magazine hoarding means that I have a scarily massive stack of magazines and newspapers in my home, but I can’t just throw them all in the recycle bin. First, because that would make the recycling lorry tip over and crash. Second, because that would be throwing an absolute fortune in the bin, if you figure that, say, the PC magazines are usually about £5 a shot and I have a bazillion of them (so, to save you doing the maths, that would equal £5 bazillion). Third, when I try to speed-plough through them the night before the recycling is collected, I am always thrown by how enormously enjoyable they are, so interesting, full of recommendations to make me healthier, make my computers run better, make me discover some music that will change my life….So the gigantic towering, wide wall of magazines remains. Pretty soon I will become W H Smiths, and they will become an empty shop unit save a few lad mags loitering on their shelves.

Consequently, one of my big fears now is that, if I were ever to go missing (God forbid) and the police came into my flat to search for clues, I can see the press reporting that I was some sort of crazy lady who collects rubbish, when really, I was just about to clear it out….Honest, if I could just have a day off work where I’m not doing work, then I’d get through at least part of the magazine tower, clear the stacks of bills and post that need attention on the coffee table, find somewhere in my bursting wardrobes to put away the clean laundry alps in my bedroom, and start living slightly more like a human again. No doubt, after a few months, the police would find that I actually had been in my flat all along, not kidnapped, but perhaps buried under an awful lot of Stuff. Stuff that I was going to get to sorting soon, honest…..or have my maid clear after I win the lottery tomorrow. It could happen. Yes, it could; it will have to!

Anyway, I fully acknowledge that I need to get my act together and write down the millions of things I have in my head and on my (recently stolen) USB drive, and stop stockpiling ideas like I pile up magazines. I must work through them all and be less of a ‘dull boy’ and a more frequent, briefer and better blogger. Maybe there’s a self-help DVD, a Dummies Guide or magazine I can get that will show me how to accomplish that…...

Graceless Gracenote Entries

Having upgraded my MP3 player and finding myself with twice as much space than before, I’ve recently spent way too much time loading up the more obscure albums and compilations that didn’t make the ‘first cut’ of my previous player, which still had a significant capacity. As time went on and my compulsive CD buying continued, I had to prune more and more songs from the Creative Zen so that I could fit in the new albums, and I ended up being much more satisfied with the outcome, as the continued random shuffle regularly touched upon more prized songs, rather than so many would-be B-sides and easily forgettable tunes that I’d not heard for years, often with good reason. A bright and booming random playlist frequently lifted my spirits, even more so than when I created my own playlist, which is odd as I have for so many decades made myself and friends mixed tapes, then mixed minidiscs then mixed CDs, where the order of the songs was crucial to the overall effect.

At the end of my time with my Zen, it contained about 30GB worth of favourite songs, as I had removed the less interesting ones and most of the dross. I marvelled at how, when I first bought it, I had thought to myself that 30GB was a huge amount of space so I loaded up any old CD, and the whole CD, rather than selecting only my favourite tracks. I would even add things like The Best of Gilbert and Sullivan, when I’m not even that big a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, and umpteen classical compilations even if they contained 10 minute symphonies that I usually found too dull and syrupy and would have no interest in or patience for whilst out and about.

So you would think that I would heed my own warning, having lived through that and having to recover from my initial blind bloat of MP3s, and only load up a carefully chosen selection to my iPod—-YES, I caved in and (bitterly) got an iPod, which I will go into another time, but it offered more than twice as much space and the imperfect 60GB Creative Zen was no longer available. But no, I’ve found that I’ve just spent a week loading up a tonne of CDs that have held so little interest for me over the years that I had to look up my (admittedly anal) rating of and comments on each song when I first played it, which I scarily keep in indexed books. I’ve again recklessly added all sorts of obscure classical music collections including Flemish Romantic Horn Concertos and loads of free CDs with Classic FM magazine, I’ve added albums full of big bands and CDs of singer/actors like Doris Day and Danny Kaye, and have worryingly considered adding that Noel Coward CD I bought years ago after some nostalgia trip but never even unwrapped. (The latter thought was sparked by a review of the new West End stage version of Brief Encounter mentioning that they play A Room with a View at the end.)

There are artists I liked once in their day but haven’t recently, such as Lou Dalgliesh, and some whose albums were given to me by friends long ago but I just didn’t really ‘get’ them, like Eleanor Shanley, Robyn Hitchcock and Paul Kelly. I’ve added them in case I liked them more than I remembered, giving them a chance a resurgence, and maybe when I’m sitting on a train some time, one of their songs will come up and I’ll be bewitched by it. It’s like having my own radio station where all of the 10,000 songs that might be played have been pre-selected by me, but there is still plenty of room for discovery amongst them, as well as a smile raised when the most loved favourites rear their beloved heads. Or maybe I’ll want to delete the less loved ones, and then I’ll miss the fact that the Zen would let you do such pruning instantly whilst out and about, whereas the vastly less flexible iPod would make me remember which song I want to remove and do so when I’m next on the PC that contains my iTunes directory, and frankly, there’s little chance that I would even remember by then that I’d wanted to delete anything.

But those are rambling musings, and now for a rambling rant. Gracenote, the CD track identification service used by iTunes and other software to gather the information on the audio tracks…. I fully acknowledge that this is a blessing, as all we have to do is insert our CD—even some obscure collection of Lithuanian Disco classics played on the fipple flute that you bought in the Woolworth’s bargain bin in 1987, which you can’t imagine anyone else owns—and suddenly all the information you need comes up automatically. iTunes has accessed the Gracenote database, and in theory, everything you need to know is there—the name of each tune, the performer, the composer, and the album name. It is a blissful change from the days when I had to enter the title and artist on the minidisc by rotating a dial to painfully select each individual letter at an excruciatingly slow speed. Even when I invested in a package that would hook my minidisc and stereo up to my PC in the early days and enable me to type the titles in, that still was a lot more work than the simplicity offered by Gracenote. In theory, I shouldn’t have to do anything as some other owner of the CD in question has already gone to the trouble of typing in all the information and adding it to the database.

But why can’t they do it properly? Okay, I accept that I’m a terrible pedant. I get annoyed by typos—which we all make, it’s just a shame that they’re in the now official version that pops up for everyone—and the shortcuts. I don’t want it to say '10 Pole Tudor', making me go back to change everything to ‘Tenpole’-—and I usually try to race the downloader and get it fixed before each song is added to my collection. I don’t want every single track on one album to say ‘Beatles’ so I have to go back and add the ‘The’, or remove it from ‘The Counting Crows’. I can’t cope with someone having put the artist throughout a whole album in the form of ‘Hewerdine, Boo’ when all the other albums display the first name first. But mostly, classical music is a nightmare. I am so completely grateful to the poor souls who painstakingly entered every bit of the many, many details—the aria name, the key it is in, the catalogue number, in which act it appears in which opera, which tenor backed by which orchestra conducted by which conductor performed it, sometimes even including the acute é’s and so forth so everything looks perfect.

But most of the souls have even less patience than I and have, for some reason, entered the artist, that is the performer, as being ‘Beethoven' or ‘Puccini’, which is intensely irritating, particularly when they have also entered the composer’s name in the song title section (eg “Puccini: O Mio Babino Caro”) and in the composer’s section, so I cannot understand their thinking. I also hate the cop-outs who put ‘unclassifiable’ as the genre description of albums; I can understand having loyalty to an artist who might claim to be so, but what if you want to listen to a particular genre one day and that artist is hidden away as ‘unclassifiable’?

Some of it is personal preference, of course; I prefer to put ‘(Live)’ at the end of song titles so I can distinguish the live version from the studio recording, particularly when iTunes coughs up a list of duplicates. I also prefer to mention performers who make a significant contribution to a piece. For instance, it might be Colin Reid’s album and him playing guitar (wonderfully) on Never Going Back Again, but it would surely be silly not to mention Eddi Reader at all when she is providing lead vocals, as you might otherwise come to wonder who you are listening to (were it someone with a less distinctive voice), but the Gracenote contributors often omit the significant additional artists, even though there is also a section for ‘album artist’. I would prefer to put the song’s artist as ‘Colin Read & Eddi Reader’ if not Colin ‘featuring Eddi Reader.’

Clearly, my insane rant here is driven by the fact that I have spent too much time adding too many albums at once, necessitating quite a lot of amendments in my iTunes catalogue. Tackling a listing for a classical CD can be utterly exhausting. I’m sure normal people don’t bat an eyelid about this and are thinking I need to get a life, which is true, I know. But if anyone out there is the first to enter a CD’s details into the database, and that may well be true if you eagerly rip open your copy of Word magazine (or fellow pedants can point out my hypocrisy here as they’ve changed the name to The Word, but I can’t bring myself to adapt to that as it just makes me think of Terry Christian) and you load up that issue’s excellent free compilation CD, please have some respect for the anal among us who need the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, or at least the songs spelled correctly and the performers to be given due credit. Though no doubt by tomorrow, I’ll have recovered from this ordeal and remembered that it’s of serious little importance, and I’ll want to ask for your forgiveness for my scary whingeing….Perhaps listening to some music for a while will calm me down. I’ll go put on my favourite album of Mozart performing ABBA’s greatest hits.

Diana Inquiry--Rewriting History & Subpoenaing Secrets

I am not following the Diana, Princess of Wales, inquest closely because I, unlike Mohammed Fayed, understand that even famous people can die in car crashes (see James Dean, Harry Chapin, Eddie Cochran, Albert Camus, Margaret Mitchell, Jayne Mansfield, Isadora Duncan, General George S Patton, Jackson Pollock, Bessie Smith,, Lisa Lopes, to name a few). Indeed, there is even a precedent for extremely famous princesses who are much admired icons to die in a car crash (see Princess Grace of Monaco aka Grace Kelly). I also understand that, when someone is not wearing a seatbelt AND they are in a speeding car AND the driver is known to drive recklessly AND he is drunk, the risk of death is, unfortunately, fairly high, even without your former father-in-law plotting your death, particularly when it was not he who chose to put you in that position.

However, disinterested as I am, two things occurred to me when reading the paper about the testimony of her butler, Paul Burrell. And these are not profound thoughts to offer great insight that will "solve the case." No, they are just observations and a hope that I never find myself in a similar situation as he is in now (not that that is a vote of sympathy; it is not.)

One thought is that an awful thing about this whole process is that a portrait could be painted of you after your death by people who may be mistaken or may just want to make pronouncements about you for various reasons—to make it look for their own benefit like they were closer to you than they really were, or to ‘set the record straight’, but rather than straight, set it however they choose. And whatever happens, you are not there to contradict them, to clarify the real situation or the reasons you really did things. Your whole history, your personality and true principles and thoughts could be rewritten by people who did not know you at all, merely hoped to or claim to have done or only saw one small part of you, perhaps from a distance. How horrid and unfair and, in some cases, irreversible.

For instance, Burrell can continue to tell the world that he had enormous influence over the princess, which I don’t fully buy but care too little about to tax my life with it. I can accept he might have suggested what dress she wear occasionally and that, as she suffered from depression at times, she might accept support from him of the "don’t worry, your Royal Highness, you look great and it will be all right" type of thing you would not normally accept from a servant. Maybe there was more; I clearly wouldn’t know nor do I intend to read his books to research the argument. But he can decide, in this case, to make it clear to the world, because he claims this closeness and inside knowledge, that she absolutely had no interest in Dodi Fayed other than to make her ex jealous, that she would never have been serious about him, not in such a short time and whilst on the rebound. I expect that’s true, but my point is that Burrell might not know for sure but decided to make that a formal proclamation as someone close to the driver’s seat (not Henri Paul’s seat, fortunately for Burrell), so it looks like fact. So can her other friends, all the people who dislike Mohamed Al Fayed and resent the fact that her life is being picked through like this at his insistence. (In much the same way, really, that Al Fayed has seized upon the fact that Dodi bought a ring right before the accident, but why is that a big deal? It doesn't mean she'd have accepted him; it seems likely she would have said "no".) In fact, someone who barely knew her could convince enough people that he or she did before dispensing fascinating "facts" about this stranger, or some close friend who fell out with her at the end could tell the court all about Diana's love for rolling on a bed of dill pickles smothered in Marmite and how she used to beat her pet goldfish when no one was around.

Burrell's comments about Dodi Al Fayed are, frankly, probably accurate, and certainly make more sense than anything Mohamed Al Fayed had come out with. Mohamed was probably just so thrilled when Diana started seeing Dodi, Dad Al Fayed finally saw his chance to be someone in England at last, to get the citizenship he had so craved, to be accepted in the slot in society that he’d thought buying Harrod’s would allow him to fill. Suddenly, this chance, this burgeoning potential hope, was dashed, on top of which he lost his son, and that never makes sense to a parent, so paranoia and bitterness can creep in. When you lose a loved one, you look for a reason for the tragic event but there generally isn’t a reason. We all die; when and how it happens doesn’t always make sense.

The other principal thought I had was how utterly horrible and seemingly wrong it is that your very private journals, something that in most cases you expected would always be guarded from human eyes other than your own at least until your death, and for that reason where you wrote your most private and often darkest thoughts, can be subpoenaed by a court and made public, even when you have committed no crime. I don’t just mean Diana’s but Burrell’s. The same with private letters to you from close friends (or employers you call close friends), which you should be entitled to save forever in the privacy of your home, but in this case, and if you hide either the letters or your journals, you are in contempt of court, or forced to be dishonest under oath by denying their existence or saying you are unsure where they are.

The alternative seems to be to burn them all upon that person’s death, as Diana’s mother apparently began doing in terms of Diana’s private papers, but that seems so very wrong and it is so final. But she must have been protecting her daughter from all this—or herself, who knows. Really, what right do we have to see the private papers and letters of this woman or, for that matter, her butler? I understand that we are trying to piece things together and these are parts of the puzzle. But I would be mortified if asked to disclose my personal papers or journals, and I barely have any and I certainly have much less to worry about. This struggle for some sort of justice seems in this way to go against the laws of natural justice.

Though maybe, in the current climate of blogging and Facebook where people put their thoughts (and foolishly, their personal contact details) out there for anyone to see, and sharing personal photos and videos online, and where we have too many reality shows where we watch caged humans every second of the day and night for several weeks, and we (well, not I) rush to buy the bazillion weekly magazines there are to show you photos of celebrities stepping out of cars and shops and bikinis (the latter no doubt through a mega-zoom lens unless it’s someone like Courtney Love), no one much minds about secrets anymore, and maybe privacy is passé. Hence the encouragement for the paparazzi, who chased the Princess into the tunnel for some dull shot through a speeding car's window of her beside her new boyfriend, no doubt with their faces covered, a photo that should have been worth very little.

I guess it’s not trendy to want to live quietly in the shadows of the corner of the room anymore. But I’ve never been trendy.

Dazzle!

If you’re near the South Bank in London this week, or if you are looking for an unusual gift of jewellery, it would be worth popping into the Dazzle exhibition at the National Theatre, but you must hurry as it ends on Saturday, 12 January. I believe it will open in Glasgow in April.

I meant to go last year but missed it, but yesterday managed to get there at lunchtime and found my mother’s birthday present, an interesting bracelet made by Alena Asenbryl from Manchester, who uses textiles, plastics and mixed metals for her creations. According to the brochure, director Tim Burton has apparently commissioned her to do work for him—lucky Helena Bonham-Carter. Timely link, in a way, as his film Sweeney Todd opens at Leicester Square today.

The artistic creations—more than 3,000 works for sale by 76 designers--are worth viewing even if you have no intention of buying anything, and there is no entry fee. The exhibition is a rather small, quiet affair, but not the least bit intimidating. I pictured some large trade fair set-up with the artists eyeballing you as you nervously glanced over or guiltily walked past their goods, but it consists of several glass cases on the first floor of the National Theatre in the Olivier Foyer in a peaceful, uncrowded atmosphere. As I went on a weekday afternoon, there were few others there but the woman minding ‘the shop’ was not intrusive and instead just very bubbly, enthusiastic and helpful when I did make my purchase. I had the bonus of listening to the actors and frequent laughter through the walls of the matinee of Much Ado About Nothing starring Simon Russell Beale (is this man never out of work?) and Zoe Wanamaker.

There were several items available for just under £30, quite a few temptations for around £50-60, and the most interesting necklaces cost over £100. The materials used vary, there are a few more precious gems but mostly they consist of metal, textiles, magnets and even fish skin. The bracelet I chose had a matching necklace and earrings that were far beyond what I intended to spend, but also a bit too OTT artsy to picture on my mother’s head, so I felt less guilty breaking up the set. I had found several different things that I almost bought, although admittedly a few of the earrings I nearly chose had me worried that, although they were clearly impressive unique specimens of art by true talent, she might not realise when opening the box that they weren’t something I picked up from Accessorize, and I wanted to ensure she could tell it was special (but in most cases, that was obvious). I’ll send her the brochure as well, to help….

If you are not fond of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets, there are numerous impressive cufflinks, including asymmetrical ones, as well as some little boxes, small wall hangings, mirrors, vases and embroidered images….all sorts of things to grab your interest. Everything is available to take away with you, which then kind of diminishes the exhibition for those who follow--it is good the National Gallery doesn't operate the same policy--but there is plenty to keep them enthralled.

This is no Victoria & Albert Museum day trip that will have you gasping at the wonder of it, but it’s worth stopping by to have a look or even consider a purchase, particularly if you have any gift to buy in the coming year….then you can stroll by the river afterwards, take in one of the many things to do on the South Bank, wander through the NT bookshop or nearby Foyle’s, or eat at nearby Wagamamas.

But go soon or you’ll miss the fine opportunity. It’s open Monday through Saturday, 9.30am to 11pm. Visit the website. (The photos on this page are of works by, from top to bottom, Alenda Asenbryl, Elizabeth Bone, Gail Klevan and Julie Allison.)

On the way back, I passed comedian Tony Hawks jogging down Cheapside with a blonde woman who reminded me of the actress in Elling, which I meant to report on some time ago, along with a million other topics in my head….and I hope to find more time soon!

Fox Caught Cat Napping

As an animal lover, I was surprised and enormously cheered to find a lovely fox curled up asleep in the middle of my urban garden at lunchtime on Saturday…and unfortunately, this delight led to a bit of embarrassment on the train this morning. I didn’t accidentally take the fox to work with me—nothing like that.

On Saturday, I had just come back from the vets (got all my shots!) and felt somewhat shaken from the journey there at the hands of a truly psycho minicab driver, so it was a diverting surprise to see my new furry friend honouring my neglected--nay ignored-- garden with its snoozy presence. Anyone who read my first posting about how a pigeon’s nest outside my window lifted my spirits for a month can imagine I might get positively feverish at the sight of a fox so near for so long. Usually, they are just fleeting glimpses of scarlet in the moonlight, dodging the bullying neighbourhood cats as they search for food often in atrocious conditions, nights I would have hoped they’d stay huddled safe in their den somewhere, but I suppose they must go out in horrid weather as they can’t ring Domino’s for delivery.

Here in broad daylight, in the middle of a small square shabby garden that was long ago concreted over and just barely decorated with errant vines straying from the neighbours’ garden with no respect for the boundary, and on the other side of the fence, with numerous noisy Christmas shoppers chatting and slamming car doors just a few feet away in the car park so near the main shopping centre in town….lay a snoozing fox, rather exposed.

It seemed so surprising that I started to worry that the fox must be injured and could crawl no further so stopped where it landed. Fortunately its chest was rising and falling with comforting regularity, and surely any broken limbs would not manage to curl into such a tight red ball. I also feared that it might be disturbed and run into the path of danger, and I hoped it would at least sleep ‘til dark, which would be in a few hours at 3.30pm.

So I kept an eye on him, took a few photos from a distance as I did not dare go down into the garden for fear of terrifying him. I eventually got out my old-fashioned camcorder and filmed him, and just as the sky grew a bit darker, he picked up his head, looked back (coincidentally in my direction) revealing his gorgeous fox face and wonderful ebony ears, had a bit of a chew on his probably mangy skin, and gave his ear a scratch with a back foot as a dog would. He was lovely, and he seemed to be well.

He then hit nature’s snooze button and curled up for another brief visit to noddytown, then after a bit lifted his head, stood and straightened out by lunging forward then backward, stretching his legs. He raised his head to assess the situation but didn’t look at all surprised about where he was so it must have been a conscious choice to nap there. After a bit, he moved to the edge of my garden to the path that led to the front, cautiously gazed down it and seemed to decide that direction was unsafe, thought he’d go through the small picket fence to my neighbour’s garden and cutely tried to put his big furry head through the fence only to find—fortunately before it got stuck—that it was way too big to fit. So he looked up and leapt over the fence, ran through my neighbour’s garden and disappeared….though he would have had a lot of concrete and pavement to cross before he got anywhere remotely secluded.

Pleased to get some footage of such cuteness unravelling before my eyes, I transferred it to my computer that night and left it (and a few other clips) burning onto a DVD whilst I slept. In the morning, eager to see how it turned out, I grabbed the newly burned DVD to watch on my laptop on the train. Comfortably seated on a busy train carriage, having put my MP3 player headphones in my ears, I turned on the laptop and carefully checked that the sound was, as always, muted so the DVD would not be heard by everyone in the carriage. The DVD would contain no fox noises (which I’ve often thought to sound a bit like someone slowly strangling or crushing a screeching bird of prey—horrible in the night) as I had filmed through a closed window. What it did contain, I’m ashamed to admit, was a running commentary from yours truly that comes naturally when I see cute animals. It’s scary; I talk out loud and in a thoroughly shameful goopy voice.

So I watched the DVD on the crowded Christmas Eve train, and lots of people looked over at me and my laptop, which often happens; I think it’s rude and surprising that people are so unaccustomed to seeing someone use a laptop on the train that they stare. When the fox footage ended, the DVD moved straight to a slideshow I’d done of photos of my father throughout his life to Warren Zevon’s Keep Me in Your Heart. Such a fitting tune, but I did not expect to hear it absolutely blasting out of my laptop today on the train. It took me a moment to realise I was the one to blame for the powerful noise, as my ears were otherwise engaged listening to music, remember. I ripped out my headphones to confirm, with great alarm, that my laptop volume was not muted after all and in fact was horribly loud. The speaker volume was set to mute, yes, but apparently the DVD-playing software overrode that setting. I immediately shut down the software and opened the DVD-tray in a panic to stop the noise that everyone in the busy train carriage was hearing.

To my horror, it dawned on me that I’d just unwittingly treated said carriage full of people to about 15 minutes of the soundtrack of the fox footage. They would have heard a constant chorus of “Awwww, bless it! Look at the cuteness! Look at da fuzzy wuzzy ears! What adorableness! Please, please let it be okay! Awww, look at the fluffiness of da tail! It’s skitching its little ear, soooo sweeeet!” in an ultra-goopy voice of which I am not proud. I also seem to recall near the end as the fox made its getaway that I uttered an extremely rare-for-me expletive when I tried to film and photograph the fox at the same time and dropped one of the cameras. So that, after all the fuzzy goopy silly ‘adorableness’ constant narration, would have been blasted around my train carriage without my realising. For about 15 minutes. So maybe, just maybe, that was why everyone was staring at me! Including the many, many children on the train who must have been coming to London for some pantomime treats.

Oh dear. I just hope that those people are people who ride the train in only on Christmas Eve so I will never see them again. I’m sure that will be the case, if I wish really hard on the Christmas star I see tonight….

I've Tried Ringing You....

Typically, my best intentions to say lots have been scuppered by work commitments, but I should improve soon. For now, I thought I'd pass on part of an e-mail that nearly amused me from good ol' Virgin Media, formerly ntl, now "the UK's first quadplay provider" of digital TV , broadband, phone and mobile services. You would think that would mean they knew a bit about communications.

My Virgin landline phone service has been out for over a week now(!), which has been fun in the run up to Christmas. I first reported the fault by e-mail because the fault is that my phone line doesn't work. I realise that's a complicated concept, the fact that I can't use the phone when the phone is dead. Virgin's eventual response started, "I'm just writing in reply to an email you've sent us regarding the loss of your telephone service. I've tried ringing you for a chat about this but can't seem to get hold of you."

Aren't they sweet, if not very quick to grasp these technical matters. The message ended by asking me to telephone a number to make an appointment for a technician.

Yes, I know I could borrow a neighbour's phone, but in London many of us wouldn't impose on people we generally only nod to when we pass in the street, and working in London means my close friends are spread around the home counties and not easily accessible, nor would I want to run up someone's bill ringing Virgin's call centre on the other side of the world. And my old-fashioned love of a peaceful life with no desire for people to be able to reach me anywhere at any time means I only have a pay-as-you-go mobile (usually switched off) that needs topping up and could never afford to spend an hour listening to a recorded message of someone saying how much she values my call and that they're very busy but please hold.

When I finally got to my office, I was able to make the appointment only after said call centre spent an age (once I reached a human) politely trying to suggest the fault was mine until I swore on my great-aunt's grave and promised to hand over my first born if I were wrong, which I wasn't. So now my week of feeling like I was in one of those old horror films where the phone line to the house is cut before the scary villian breaks in....is over. And I feel free and safe again.

Virgin's reaction, though friendly in their e-mail, opens a whole world of possibilities in customer service. Perhaps next we'll come across a motor insurer that refuses to honour your claim that your car was totalled when it flipped over a cliff and burst into flames....unless you drive it into their garage to be examined. Perhaps that's happened to you.....