14th December - Bang Tao and Surin Beaches

Just made a beeline for the first shop I saw which could have had something I liked. Indeed. Since it is positioned by the foot of two of the most exclusive hotels here, The Chedi and the Amanpuri, it stands to reason that it would sell the kind of clobber that looks amazing on yer Kate Moss. Sheer sheer silk in muted colours and cut Ghost stylee to hug slinky figures. Guess very cheap by london prices, on the 100/150/200 quid mark but I don't happen to have that to spend right now, or rather, am about to board a plane back to zero degrees Western world so the little silky dresses and camisoles would have to stay put for a few more months, hardly worth it. But at times like these wish was carefree millionairess who would practically buy the shop and give away one or two of each to the girlfriends under size 10. Mmmhhh. not many of those.

And why is it that on the last gorgeous day at top hotel nearby, slighly less swish and exclusive as it's not hugging the top of the promontory that straddles both beaches but is in the valley so to speak, that thoughts have to turn to offices and drudgery life therein. I mean, when I get back tomorrow morning, I kid you not, I will have to deal with office Xmas cards. Yes, those, the most useless use of paper/trees and ink ever. Companies send millions, Royal Mail makes their money in expensive stamps and all for what? Toss in the bin a few days later. Insincere greetings if ever there were some. Clients, like... they care? Anyway... back to palm trees, butterflies and incredible flora which I so wish was growing freely in my garden. Another sign I am now officially very old. I constantly look at flowers, buds, leaves. I may have to expand my vocabulary since it never contained much to describe green stuff. Deep sigh...

4th December - I Love Airports

Because I've never had a sad experience in one. Though in general I like departures more than arrivals. You just know nobody is going to bother you for hours once you're on a plane and if you can snuggle up close to boyf. who's doing the same, then it's grand. Goes in a flash. Just remember to ask not to be sat anywhere near the toilets. I can take crying babies and restless kids but not the toilets.
So, back to Thailand after 9 years, almost 10. Wonder what effect it will all have on me this time. Same same but different? Or very different more likely. I didn't have a care in the world then, since by the time I reached Thailand I had already had nearly 3 months to get comfortable with just me. Nepal, India and Sri Lanka saw to that.

26 November - A Serious Man

Funny what you take away from movies you see. This new Cohen brothers one is rich in authentic detail and of course did make me laugh or feel smug in instant recognition of Jefferson Airplane songs or Santana's Abraxas (no, am not that old, it's just tha that at 13 I was hanging with much older boys who liked their hippy music and dreamt of living in California.)

Primarily the movie made me angry. Did I mention I'm angry all the time, yes? It made me angry at religion because following the rituals of the family in the movie, which are jewish, made me think of the catholic ones I grew up with which were equally bonkers and useless. The actual traditions is what i'm talking about. Learning hebrew to recite some bonkers ritual at a barmitzvah not being dissimilar to learning stuff i've thankfully forgotten in order to take your first holy communion or confirmation. who comes up with this shit and why do people fall in line and impose it on their kids? Clearly up until the 60s and 70's it was super hard to not follow what your parents wanted you to follow and god knows in some religions even now you can'ou t avoid being beaten up if you don't conform but why does anyone really abide by the stupid and complicated rituals, to prove what? And it happens pretty much everywhere , whether you have to walk 20 times round a giant stupa anti clockwise or have to genuflect at such and such a point in the service you're attending and so on. I feel like a rebellious teenager but i really have a major downer on rituals. Believe and say some prayers, fair enought but having to wear this robe or that sack on your head is just mad.

The one totally funny thing is that when the serious man of the title goes to see the rabbis he gets the same sort of 'answers' that he'd get if he went to a priest, or a guru or to a counsellor which of course is your lay 20th century subsitute. Any problem you care to bring does not have a solution. If you're able to let it stew a bit , it will sort of resolve itself one way or another and not necessarily because of your intervention and ... in time you'll LEARN TO LIVE WITH IT. And it may just seem less burdersome. That was definitely worth exposing by seeing our 'hero' receive no help whatsoever. At least the rabbis didn't charge for their time. Oh and the movie ends with a phone call from his doctor who wants him to go see him to discuss the results of his xrays which can only be you know, you're going to die. ha ha ha. yeah, funny, as I told you.

24 November - Cerebral ictus

So, I'm angry all the time that I have no time due to work stress. Or one person at said work stress to be more precise. And so it is that I get a call from a good friend to inform me of the death 2 days prior of another friend, though one I have not been in touch with or met in the last 3 years at least due to just not having enough time. Well, it's not like he's been in touch either so am not feeling that guilty on that side. I remember though seeing his name /pic on another friend's FB and hovered over whether to contact or not and then decided best not to.


Now of course I feel immensely sorry that I didn't as my chance of talking to him has gone forever. He died at 48 of an anaeurysm. He was in his patisserie which he run with his father, the 83 year old widower with whom my friend had baked all the cakes that ever marked any occasion in our group of friends at home. Not too many of mine since I don't live in that town since forever but the cake for my 40th was duly made by him. M. has eaten many more than I have, her b'days, her wedding, her daughters b'days, the anniversaries and so on. Needless to say the father is super distraught and wails why not me, since his life had pretty much run a longer course. There is no why.

P. and I were born on the same day in different years. Back when we were much much younger, there was a 'could we/would we' thing going on occasionally, which me being me, I decided to explore at... 39 one visit, when I was bored. Ahem. Realising that for P. it was a more laden, important occasion, I swiftly made my feelings known. Though, i accepted a lovely necklace which I went on to lose a couple of years later. It would have never worked due to totally different lives and expectations and the fact that I don't really indulge in .. cakes. Or spliffs which he really liked and /or listening to anyone play the drums which he did. or that fact that he lived at home though he had his own quarters and was doing so primarily out of extreme affection for his widwoer father, to keep him company so to speak. Or having a below average sized penis which he had. See, now that he's dead, if we're to believe religious myth, he can read my thoughts and know that that was the primary reason. Am not ashamed to think it, he did find a g/friend in recent years who was probably never concerned with such a thing.

No, what I'm more ashamed of, is the fact that when I received the news I was in the middle of the usual busy stressful day and had just a small window to shed a few tears and talk about what happened, call my family who hadn't been informed yet, they knew him well too and then go back to .. whatever it was. Of course am going to think about him often as and when but already the remarkable thing is that i don't have that many memories of him. The ones that come to mind are few and the same repeating and they're not that salient. We really don't mean a lot to anyone but the closest closest people.

22 November - Blogs Bleed

I read the other day that if you don't blog everyday, readers turn off. This blog doesn't have many readers and never went far in self promoting so I trust nobody is turning off in droves as they were never there in the first place. But who are the people who have time to read blogs really? Even now I still keep press cuttings when there's an article that rounds up a few and tells me they're good to read but I don't seem to have time to do so.

At some point I had an easy job and time to read at work. I now have the same job but no time to read at work or write. Won't bore you with the explanation but it's almost like having to deal with a time consuming sleepless child, albeit 9 to 5 only or 9 to 6 but it makes my mind go blank. It may also be a combination of hormonal changes due to age or body dealing with recent surgery but the time I could write at home in the evenings, I seem to have other things to do. Like going out etc. That used to provide a good source of reflections but now they just take place in my head only. So this blog is sort of bleedig to death right now, which is sad for me but since have also taken to replying to girlfriends' emails with 'Can't write now, too busy' , you get the picture.

This means also that I'm angry all the time about ... lack of time or being surrounded by crap at home due to builders not yet having completed my 'outbuildings' where all the crap can be safely stored away from view. A messy environment makes for a messy mind probably. I think I must also be angry when I sleep as I wake up tired too or just not wanting to go into work. Why does anyone have to work for so many years, why can't there be a 3 month on, 3 months off sort of arrangement? Yet when I was convalescing for a month I frittered the time away too. Well 2 out of the 4 weeks were truly 'off sick' so tiredness was body healing itself probably so I can't beat myself much about that.

On a recent session with the physiotherapist we were talking about travel costs. He said that with two kids to pay for at adult prices when it comes to flights etc. his days of roaming across the world are over so his advice was do all your travelling before you have kids. I would go even further and say do all your travels, all your creative stuff before you turn 40 as after that you're simply not in possession of enough energy or get up and go to do it. A funny thing about the physio. He's dealing with my feet, which I present to him clean from that morning shower but fresh not as they come out of flat furry boots, which am obliged to wear for now. He manipulates my feet and absentmindedly touches his face, nose, cheeks etc very often. And I think yeww, that's my feet. I have also noticed that he has so many clients that the moment one exits his room, he welcomes the next in, me or the one after me. I never see him going to wash his hands and he has nothing in the room to do so, those gels that work w/o water. So er... if he were manipulating some fat guy's groin before seeing me, that's what I'd get on my feet. Twice now have run into an erstwhile minor celeb on my way in or out. But she may not mind ever if she knew as she was on of those nobodys who have spent time in a 'celeb' jungle and so may have eaten spiders, and lain with serpents for all I know. Though I think slithery animals are sort of clean by definition?

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.