26 October - X Factor

Have had relatives visiting for a few days, so have had to go out to show them sites and stuff otherwise they'd have gone a bit stir crazy stuck in my home with me. Since have still got impaired mobility post op, a site I took them to was ... Westtfield shopping centre. Yes am ashamed but it is the largest in europe or is it? And they were not up for the V&A Last of the Maharajis exhibition or for Anish Kapoor. Plus they're old and found the Westfield environment sort of safe and I could sit down whilst they wandered. Then there were a reasonable amount of lunches and dinners and friends and family visits which meant that by Saturday evening after a 3 hour round trip to deliver them to Stansted airport, Toph and I were bushed.

And so it was that we were on the sofa with cheeses and salad (no cooking required) and what the heck let's watch X Factor, the rest of the nation does....

As expected I found it of no interest at all. I can sort of see the wheels turning and so can't really fall for any of it. And am not the audience for it either and I cringe too much at the overuse of the same words/sentences. All the endless thanks for the opportunities given to the hopefuls who'll have their life changed for a week or two post show and elimination blah blah.

The surprise was that Toph was engrossed and kept up a running commentary that was frankly irritating. He seemed not to have understood that it's not the one with the best voice who will win and being the best has nothing to with it at all. Nor knowing about music. And that it's for the very old who watch and for the very young who bother to spend money voting. I have no figures but I guess that's what it is.

And sadly even more surprising to me was the fact that he then wanted to watch the Sunday night show. I carried on reading the paper but the intrusion from the show was major. Ok could have gone to anothe room but the one sofa was the one I wanted to be on. So there you have it, my beloved is now officially old because he enjoys such shitty pursuit as to watch/comment on talent shows. Production values my arse, this is a mere step up from some country fair entertainment offering, superior karaoke and so on.

The test will be if he, having realised this is no quick show and will eke out same format till Xmas, will want to watch it next week also. If so, I fear this is one of those relationship defining. It's all very well being a united front against Twitter, but if one of us breaks ranks and starts enjoying x factor or strictly come dancing, the fissure can only go on widening.

Scary.

24 October - le world de bank

Can't go far geographically at the mo, and so it is that lunch is at Daylesford organic in westbourne grove. Have come out in blue velvet trackie bottoms, nice top and totally unrelated green heavy leather burberry bag. And pink leather light coat. So bit of a jam really but since am 'ill' and hair is clean and make up applied, that's all i thought I should bother with. And i have a stick and funny shoes so could have left the mental hopsice with my carer sort of thing.

Unfortunately for me, the place is overrun by ladies who lunch and their prole. To my right some immensely well turned out, model-height brit and an american g/friend. One with hermes kelly bag, couldn't see the other one's bag, both with 2 adorable children each. The women didn't come across as knowing each other too well, and nothing juicy in conversation, in fact, couldn't work out why they bothered except that you gotta eat. Over on the other side an uber posh tall grandma with less good looking daughter and her tiny baby, further on still, other expensive looking people.

I order a vegetable pad thai. What was i thinking. Of course there are no noodles in it and am basically paying a tenner for some shredded carrots and cabbage, though the pad thai side of it must be the chilli which gives it some flavour. ho hum, I tell Toph who's disbelieving of the break in trade description act that I'll have to kid myself that am eating like a supermodel, though am sure one of them would not have had even lemon juice on the veggies but er, nothing at all.

Basically it's not often I think i live amongst aliens but a mere shift of 500 yards from the usual stomping ground of under the westway and golborne road with its moroccan fish lunches of whole seabass and more for 7 quid, is causing me to severely doubt that this location opposite ralph lauren - a shop you never see anyone in, or in smythson for that matter, sorry sam cameron - is the same London i live in. What do these women do ? I mean the ones who don't work or worked long enough to have the banker husband and the beautiful kids? Aren't they utterly bored? I may be institutionalised but not having gone to work for a month is sending me round the twist, but then again i failed to book entire days out to the beauty spa, hairdresser, massage, nails, sort out the nanny and so on. But even if i had tons of money to shop with, what would i buy? you can't just keep going into matches to get one more dress and another and another?

And I don't imagine for a second that all these people lunching here today give a toss about the planet and what the owners of this shop believe in - since they display all their nice mottoes and mission statements etc etc about sustainable this and organic that. I don't want to come across all hippy save the world and i don't lack spondulis either, but what i just spent a tenner on is a total insult to people who have nothing to eat. I ate ten quid's worth of grass. Out of choice. I feel sick somehow. Toph who doesn't have these thoughts since he's never felt so sorry for the world, suggests moving on to nearby Ottolenghi for coffee and cake. I decline. I feel like places like that full of smarmy city assholes should just have their windows smashed in. Clearly am not feeling well, really not feeling well if displays of obscene consumption trouble me this much and let's not talk about the other nearby shop just selling you expensive chocolates, and never let me go near harrods ever again. So Toph has to make do with an apple crumble in daylesford. He searches for the apples in it and finds some. Still, apples in the uk are 20 a pound so what's the mark up on a quarter of apple and some crumble at a fiver or was it six quid? why is this allowed?

15

12 October = friends

on the evidence of the many friends who've turned up to visit and wash dishes/help /make food etc, am not at the level of sad old person who dies and nobody finds out for a month. given the toph is around also, i should say am touched by the assiduity of friends checking in on me. to the point that i've wished i could be just left alone with a book (no day time tv for me, can't hack it, seems to be hotwired in my head that i only switch tv on when work is over even when there is no work). how ungrateful can i be i wonder?

9 October = not bored but boring

Well, I did wake up from the anaesthetic which was my main worry and I have no pain so couldn't have gone better. In fact because am not in pain I have already sort of overdone it by walking around too much. Back to bed it is then.

Toph elated as thought he'd have to deal wiht a misereable girlfriend writhing in pain and generally being a pain TV of Shakira doing her she wolf thing, thinks darn why am I not twenty something and able to belly dance and hang upside down from a cage? and in reaction to said frustration, grab the boy and practice a different kind of writhing.

Only a few pages of the Bolano book read, that's the convalescence mission, all 900 of '2666' of them as it' s amazing but not engaging on ploot or characters, it's major showmanship of bizarre introspection of various too well educated people but hardly a page turner, so... back to reading the sunday papers from cover to cover and the freebies and all the rest. Turns out I have finally discovered why Toph is done with the papers so fast and wants to bin them whilst I hang on to them forever, well, he skims them! I keep saying things like, did you read this bit where so and so says blah. and he says no. because he only skimmed the article. ah well. am going to dispense with capital letters btw on these next few posts as have to use a laptop that has some buttons placed in annoying places so that every time i press the shift key i seem to instead hit the one that moves your cursor a page up and it's driving me nuts.

It's nice to have friends calling and visiting but i feel like a broken boring record talking them through my post surgery and it's not that interesting unless you get your own same problem. and the drugs were not that good in the sense that i wasn't out for long enough to come in and out of morphine induced semi consciousness so i had no benefit from that...

on the other hand my friend L was in ny with a famous writer and they went for dinner with jude law after his hamlet. but no gossip there, they probably only talked of ... art.

God this blog is going downhill fast, i have hit the nothing to say phase of my life. oh but
i've been offered a job i think, going to work for some foreign billionaires. that will yeld a few stories i hope except that they made their money on pipes. yes, sadly it's not mr diageo or mr louis vuitton moet hennessy. but i'll find out more soon.

30 September - 48 hour week

Can't say am not beeing looked after properly. the hospital room is on a newly refurbished floor and the ensuite bathroom is large and out of the box so it all seems very nice hotel to me. the nurse engages me in conversation about Murakami book which is on my bedside table. an early onne, first twenty pages not that engaging and so don't think i'll bother. the drugs worked fine and since surgery was realtively short did not wake up too discombobulated and know my name etc.



Shame the injected local anaesthetic is doing his job and so don't need those morphine based painkillers all friends were wishing on me. darn.



In 3 days i see various nurses and there it is, article about the 48 hour week demanded by EU officials means a patient gets passed between 3 or 4 shifts in 24 hours. here it seems to be every 12 but still, it appears that much can go wrong in a chain of chinese whispers between doctors and nurses being handed over notes. my own little example of this is that every time new nurse comes to take my blood pressure. often as it happens as would be indication of something going very wrong, said n urse starts to worry when they see my level super low at 87 on occasions and i have to explain it's always been like this miss, that's why i could never really smoke spliffs because i'd faint and i could never get the 'benefits' of coke as it barely raised me to super vibey levels. But imagine i would not be that awake to say so myself, in fact on being take to xray day after surgery, i was wheeled around a bit too fast in my wheechair and on arrival i was about to faint, said so, they lay me down and hey presto, well ten mins later, i revived. funny also that bloke who was wheeling me around seemed to have no authority to lay me down and since there was no one in the empty xray room, he could have easily stretched me there but no, he had to wait for the right person who took forever to get to me etc etc. Returning me to my room they stretchered me which by then was not really that necessary but they were following some other rules.

all's well etc but i guess my advice, and i like giving some always, is that if you're having something done, something maybe more serious than bunions removal, you should aim to have your own personal rep there with you at most times, family or friend, to sort of read your notes and argue/explain your case as required. then again maybe on nhs you're not allowed to loiter in the corridors/rooms at all hours as you were in my lovely princess grace marylebone hospital.

mmh, what else? basically we're all different and all that scary stuff i read on internet or was told by old relatives, has not manifested and i seem to be having an easy time of it so far. so i'll be super careful in crossing the road on my slow feet for a while. would be said if i went under a car no?

29 September - Surgery & not cosmetic

Am off tomorrow for a while for surgery and post surgery, nothing life threatening, nothing cosmetic but has to be done - bunions of course , can you believe my punishment, when i get better I may have to wear horrid ugg style boots or the like since it takes a full 6 months to really get back to proper shoes and not feel pain/swollen extremities. But contrary to popular opinion not due to high heels wearing but .. genetic. Mother and grandmother never had high heels though mother in fifties must have worn pointy tight shoes and know a 23 year old who needs them done and she's one of those 5'11" girls who never wear heels so as not to tower over midget men which abound. So either this lackadaisical current approach to blog will continue or given the enforced rest I'll go back and fill all the gaps including last week's 30th anniversary of V&A and all that, the recent attendance to an 80th b'day, last Sunday on the shore roof with only Sanjay from Eastenders as famous person spotted (and why did his name came to me so quicly when in fact on arrival at guest list of showcase for new band managed by old Bros's manager (his name? gone? but he's very fat and his boyfreind is called Brad. I have never met Brad but i remember his name instead of the actual guy I met) I said to the receptionist I was the plus one of A. and she asked me for A's surname and I had one of the usual blanks.. for so many minutes that she was eventually able to find the surname on her list for me. And I know A. very well.

And various other bits and bobs of life which are all memory loss related these days. Like L. sending her boyfriend over to collect my spare keys so she can come make me cups of tea when i'll be laid off and I gave said boyfriend back the saw I'd previously borrowed, chatted about this and that to him but totally never remembered to give him the keys he'd come over to get. His excuse for not asking for them was that he was mildly drunk from the pub. Other instance was Toph's phone ringing with his bro in law's name on display and he saying 'wonder why he's calling me' and me realising just there and then that I had never posted a week earlier some docs that Toph had asked me to scan/email to bro in law and then post. I agreed, (I had to witness them so I knew it was important to send them) stuffed them in my bag on way to work and then promptly never got a reminder sent by my own brain that I was meant to do anything else. Result, potential holding back of a deal going through blah blah blah.

Anyway, gotta go as too much to tie up before impending non communication. See ya. Oh and if I don't wake up, er.. well, shit happens. I had fun anyway.

18 September - Teeth & Bob Marley

Amazing in what level of bad mood an infected gum can have you spin. Or rather, day 5 of one which you had lanced and thought what with the antibiotics (word came to mind immediately this time) and some painkiller, it should have been well defated. But no. Still we bravely go to support friends and their book launches and so I find myself at a Bob Marley biography launch where every old journalist or PR guy I knew 30 years ago has made the trip, and suddently or not so suddenly even the ones I may have fancied back in the days don't look so hot at all. Plus they're all sort of poor. Including producers who worked with major bands. If those bands don't keep selling and your royalties don't come in or nobody else approaches you because you're yesterday's news or you can't really spend days and nights in a studio anymore since you have family etc, you turn to.... music for films/ads etc. They all say that. And some have to wait tillt hey spot a friend to have a drink bought for them. It's at time like these that I don't mind having had a steady job that pays all of my bills and drinks too.
Still, my friend JH was very happy to spot dave swindells in the crowd as he used to be for years mr club review for TO and god knows what he does now, I didn't stay around to ask. If he still goes to clubs I wouldn't know what they are.

Evening was notable because I found myself around a table where everyone had had a much shittier year than mine. One divorcing and having to endure ex husband about to become new father with new squeeze, one whose ex husband (much loved at the time when we were young and working together) had died the previous month two days after an operation to his pancreas. He was awake the following day and she saw him but by the time she went back the next day with their 19 year old son, he'd suffered a heart attack and died. This was an absolutely stunning (at 25 at least) man who was well below 50. Then there was the widow of a much loved though super cranky top publicist who died a few months ago of cancer and then they told me about an ex colleague who died two weeks ago of a brain hemorrage and she also was younger than me. I didn't know whether I should burst into tears there and then since it was all very doom and gloom. Then tk god C. arrived ( not seen her in 15 years but clapped eyes on her a month or so ago at another do) with her toyboy in tow. Ten years younger, relationship been going for 4 weesk and were super kissy kissy. So there's hope but truly... had to forget about the bad tooth.
I know am rambling on this post but be patient.

16 September - Memory & Dyslexias

Well, I haven't forgotten I have a blog though one day I fully expect to wonder about that too. But.. despite filling in drafts of various things concerning me, there's an element of stress in my life that coincides with work related issues and health stuff and, well, another leak in the new house which is still not sorted to my liking and it makes it just too tiring to muster the energy to write something that's not down/dour/skeptic etc.
Right now I seem to be quietly worried about my short memory just not throwing up names of things/people and also mixing them up. Examples are along the lines of wanting to say 'Please move that chair out of my way' and the sentence that comes out is 'Please move that table out of my way, I mean the chair' . This means my brain is instantly aware that it's used the wrong word but ... what if it then doesn't? Other examples are telling someone at work 'John now can't come to the meeting in Paris' and person replies 'John?' and only then I realise I meant say 'Christian'. And so on.

Today I nearly got annoyed with some guy at jessops because, after jabbing my finger at the machine for half an hour in order to print pictures from sicilian holiday and the receipt telling me to pay £20 odd, I went in search of employee who in answer to my 'how much are your prints if you print more than 100, it used to be 7p?', said, 'yes, it's 7pm but you chose the larger format so it's 14p each'. I said no, I chose the smaller format, 5" by 7". He looks at me and says no, the smaller format is 4" by 6". And I still didn't get it. To me 4" by 6" was larger than 5" by 7". This was simpy a numbers dyslexia in my mind. Thank god I didn't get too annoyed and he sweetly said I'llc charge you at the smaller format charge and still give you the larger format prints and I nearly replied but I don't want/like 6" x 4"!. But can see now clearly when old people say resolutely one thing and no arguing will persuade them they got it wrong. But am not old enough for all of this to happen now. Hence the .. getting worried.

Or maybe it's my gum infection and the ... the... I was about to write antidepressants but that's not it, don't take them and it's the wrong word! What I want to say is the.. the.. (30 seconds later i still don't have the word... the , you know those things they give you to fight infections and you can't drink alcohol whilst on the course. What the fuck are they called. This is driving me insane, forgetting everyday words, it's just not on.

Left this for a few minutes and the word has not come to me yet. It may be an hour before it appears. If there's someone like Toph around I can ask him but you can't go asking colleagues 'what do you call that thing, that thing , you know' or you sound demented.

This is now ten mins later and the word still hadn't come so I broke down and asked a colleague. And the answer is... antibiotics. Obviously. She very sweetly said it's not age but speaking several languages. Mmmmh, I do but it's not that. And I can't blame too many drugs 'cause I hardly did.

7 September - Blog is still alive

and back from holiday ... and other ... stuff.
will write soon maybe even tomorrow so long as I get some energy. Short supply the moment one hits work and admin for own life and others...