As part of my English degree I had to spend a year in England. I didn’t want to. I was in love with America and should have been studying there (I’ve already told the story of how it didn’t happen). I adored the English language but didn’t find England attractive at all – the weather, the food... Still, I had to go. I didn’t know much about the English or how to behave in their country so I bought a book. It had just come out and was entitled Comment vivre chez les Anglais (I still have it, although the advice given in it doesn’t really apply any more: it’s a wonderful snapshot of the country in the late ’60s). It was an invaluable resource: it told me about the most curious habits of the English and helped me to avoid the worst faux pas. There was also another book, which said that only an Englishman could have penned Alice in Wonderland – something to do with the fog. Anyway, although they both made clear the English were eccentric and had a taste for nonsense, they never hinted they were completely bonkers and had unfair laws.
What about this, then: there is a thing called ‘chancel repair liability’, which is beyond understanding. It’s complex stuff but, basically, it means that if you own a property situated on land belonging to the Church of England you are obliged to pay for the upkeep of the chancel of any church or chapel located on that land, whether or not you are a churchgoer. And the church doesn’t even have to be close to the property. Furthermore – and that is pretty scary – there is no financial limit to this liability.
It’s an outdated leftover from the Reformation, but the House of Lords ruled recently that the chancel repair liability remains enforceable and doesn’t contravene human rights. That’s why a couple, who had challenged it, are currently wondering how they will manage to pay the £250,000 that’s being demanded of them by the Church. Initially, they had been asked to pay £6,000 but, you know, with legal costs…
It’s bad enough living in a listed building, where you can’t hammer a nail in a wall without having to fill in forms in triplicate, but this is preposterous. And how does it not contravene human rights: it places buildings above human beings.
Told you you’d find it hard to believe.
Slapping anyone involved in the Reformation (no, it’s never too late) and the Lords, who don’t actually live on the same planet as you and me!
Monday, 5 March 2007
Thursday, 1 March 2007
Guest Slapper of the Month XIV
She recently won the Silver Award in the Best Perfume Blog category at the 7th Annual Basenotes Awards. Her perfume reviews are legendary. Her taste is immaculate. Her writing is lush and evocative. She is Victoria of Bois de Jasmin and this is her Slap.
Seduce Yourself!
When Helen Gurley Brown became chief editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965 and changed its focus towards enpowering women to express their sexuality, the move was hardly uncontroversial. Yet, I cannot help thinking when I flip through Cosmo that there is nothing empowering in its features. “How to Seduce Him…” “How to Give Him the Greatest Pleasure He Has Ever Known…” “5 Things Men Love…” In fact, Cosmopolitan is only one of many magazines that suffer from the overwhelming emphasis on “how to please your man.” In one article we are given guidelines on how to understand what he wants before he utters the words and in another we are taught how to double guess him. We are encouraged to wear vanilla rich fragrances because they remind him of his mother and grapefruit perfumes because some unsubstantiated study suggests this will help men to perceive us as younger. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with thinking of others and offering a pleasant surprise to our loved ones, but I take issue with women’s magazines when they forget about the woman herself. What about discovering one’s own interests? What about pleasing oneself for a change?
There is a lot talk of feminism, egalitarian values and how far we have gone since the 50s, but at the same time, the rhetoric of guilt and sacrifice surrounding the issues of marriage, motherhood and relationships is strikingly palpable. When we assess the success and failure of the feminist movement in terms other than income, the story becomes even more complicated. As Madeleine Bunting notes in her article Let's talk about sex in The Guardian, “Female rates of depression continue to be twice those of men; rates of adolescent eating disorders and self-harm are on the rise. Women report high levels of stress in managing complicated double shifts - a day in the office sandwiched between the chores of running a home. Women account for a disproportionate number in the sharp increase in those claiming incapacity benefit.”
Although women’s magazines should not be blamed for all of the problems in our society, they seem to perpetuate the self-denial of one’s own desires. Ultimately, the need to assert our point of view seems to be lost, which goes beyond beauty and perfume and influences other facets of our lives and careers. We are bombarded with messages designed to influence what we want to such an extent that after a while it is impossible to separate our own wishes from those of others.
While I slap publications like Cosmo for their failure to truly empower their target audience, I acknowledge that they can provide amusing distraction. Perhaps, in the end, discovering your own pleasures is not a job that any columnist or pundit of the moment can ever do for you.
Seduce Yourself!
When Helen Gurley Brown became chief editor of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1965 and changed its focus towards enpowering women to express their sexuality, the move was hardly uncontroversial. Yet, I cannot help thinking when I flip through Cosmo that there is nothing empowering in its features. “How to Seduce Him…” “How to Give Him the Greatest Pleasure He Has Ever Known…” “5 Things Men Love…” In fact, Cosmopolitan is only one of many magazines that suffer from the overwhelming emphasis on “how to please your man.” In one article we are given guidelines on how to understand what he wants before he utters the words and in another we are taught how to double guess him. We are encouraged to wear vanilla rich fragrances because they remind him of his mother and grapefruit perfumes because some unsubstantiated study suggests this will help men to perceive us as younger. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with thinking of others and offering a pleasant surprise to our loved ones, but I take issue with women’s magazines when they forget about the woman herself. What about discovering one’s own interests? What about pleasing oneself for a change?
There is a lot talk of feminism, egalitarian values and how far we have gone since the 50s, but at the same time, the rhetoric of guilt and sacrifice surrounding the issues of marriage, motherhood and relationships is strikingly palpable. When we assess the success and failure of the feminist movement in terms other than income, the story becomes even more complicated. As Madeleine Bunting notes in her article Let's talk about sex in The Guardian, “Female rates of depression continue to be twice those of men; rates of adolescent eating disorders and self-harm are on the rise. Women report high levels of stress in managing complicated double shifts - a day in the office sandwiched between the chores of running a home. Women account for a disproportionate number in the sharp increase in those claiming incapacity benefit.”
Although women’s magazines should not be blamed for all of the problems in our society, they seem to perpetuate the self-denial of one’s own desires. Ultimately, the need to assert our point of view seems to be lost, which goes beyond beauty and perfume and influences other facets of our lives and careers. We are bombarded with messages designed to influence what we want to such an extent that after a while it is impossible to separate our own wishes from those of others.
While I slap publications like Cosmo for their failure to truly empower their target audience, I acknowledge that they can provide amusing distraction. Perhaps, in the end, discovering your own pleasures is not a job that any columnist or pundit of the moment can ever do for you.
Monday, 26 February 2007
Glad it’s not just happening to me
Helen Mirren (sorry, that Dame thing is too preposterous) has won the Oscar for Best Actress. I’m sure she deserves it: she’s a great actress (not as genuine and versatile as Judi Dench, but very good nonetheless; I’ve seen her in dozens of plays and always liked her). Anyway, last night, as the stars were strutting their stuff on the red carpet, someone wrote, on the message board I belong to, ‘When I am in my 70s I want to look like Mirren!’
She’s only 61, of course. LOL!
It’s the white hair again, isn’t it? Either that or some young women are very stupid. Can't decide which it is.
Slap!
She’s only 61, of course. LOL!
It’s the white hair again, isn’t it? Either that or some young women are very stupid. Can't decide which it is.
Slap!
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Where was I…
… before I got so unsettled and found myself reliving the 1970s, when I was young and beautiful (yeah, right!).
I was in theatre. Nothing much has changed since the 70s in that respect. What has changed, though, is what punters are allowed to do in auditoria these days. Once upon a time all you could do was surreptitiously suck a pastille if you were coughing so much that you were disturbing the actors and the rest of the audience, or, after the interval, carry on enjoying your ice-cream in silence. Now – now! – you’re allowed to drink wine all through the play and asphyxiate the person sitting next to you with the fumes.
Pretentious people who bring in bottles of water and take a sip from time to time are bad enough. Since when – no, really!, since when is it necessary to constantly be drinking? Don’t tell me they’re scared of getting dehydrated in such a short time.
Wine is worse, though. Forget about horrible perfumes (I seem to always get a seat behind someone whose favourite fragrance is some sickly gardenia), the smell of wine is disgusting ‘out of context’. A 20-minute interval is more than long enough to finish up a glass or wine, or two or even three, if you insist on getting sloshed. Of course, the management shouldn’t allow it. When people started taking their drinks into the auditoria, there were accidents so now most theatres supply plastic cups to avoid people getting hurt by broken glass, but they shouldn't encourage this new habit; they should forbid it. Years ago, at the Barbican, I was even stopped from taking my ice-cream into the concert hall. I haven’t been there recently, I bet they allow wine drinking like everywhere else.
I suppose I should have been grateful, that night, that my neighbour wasn’t also munching sweets or peanuts, like the one who recently nearly spoiled a wonderful performance of Antony and Cleopatra for me. In the first half, it was Maltesers rolling around in their box and, in the second, it was the smell of wine. What next? Three-course meals?
Slap!
I was in theatre. Nothing much has changed since the 70s in that respect. What has changed, though, is what punters are allowed to do in auditoria these days. Once upon a time all you could do was surreptitiously suck a pastille if you were coughing so much that you were disturbing the actors and the rest of the audience, or, after the interval, carry on enjoying your ice-cream in silence. Now – now! – you’re allowed to drink wine all through the play and asphyxiate the person sitting next to you with the fumes.
Pretentious people who bring in bottles of water and take a sip from time to time are bad enough. Since when – no, really!, since when is it necessary to constantly be drinking? Don’t tell me they’re scared of getting dehydrated in such a short time.
Wine is worse, though. Forget about horrible perfumes (I seem to always get a seat behind someone whose favourite fragrance is some sickly gardenia), the smell of wine is disgusting ‘out of context’. A 20-minute interval is more than long enough to finish up a glass or wine, or two or even three, if you insist on getting sloshed. Of course, the management shouldn’t allow it. When people started taking their drinks into the auditoria, there were accidents so now most theatres supply plastic cups to avoid people getting hurt by broken glass, but they shouldn't encourage this new habit; they should forbid it. Years ago, at the Barbican, I was even stopped from taking my ice-cream into the concert hall. I haven’t been there recently, I bet they allow wine drinking like everywhere else.
I suppose I should have been grateful, that night, that my neighbour wasn’t also munching sweets or peanuts, like the one who recently nearly spoiled a wonderful performance of Antony and Cleopatra for me. In the first half, it was Maltesers rolling around in their box and, in the second, it was the smell of wine. What next? Three-course meals?
Slap!
Saturday, 17 February 2007
Tomorrow night...
... I have a deadline.
After that, normal service should resume.
In the meantime, hover your mouse on a link, any link, on this page. Go on! :-)
After that, normal service should resume.
In the meantime, hover your mouse on a link, any link, on this page. Go on! :-)
Thursday, 1 February 2007
Guest Slapper of the Month XIII
Guests are a godsend when one is very busy. Not in real life, of course: they get in the way – especially if you work from home – and you have to entertain them, but as a blogger... You give them a deadline and they produce a piece of writing, which you just have to post on your own blog. Marvellous! So here, for your delight, is L. of Urban Chick. She used to live in London, where she was literate, witty and the devoted mother of two kiddies she calls Chicklets (isn't that cute?). I once thought we might one day bump into each other in the capital (I’m always bumping into people) but she's recently decamped to Edinburgh, where she's being no less literate and witty (and, I hope, no less devoted to her children), and that possibility has unfortunately become more remote. Never mind, I can still visit her on the Net, and so can you. Enjoy!
It's an established fact that, beyond a certain point, wealth does not make you any happier.
I forget the figure most recently quoted in the media, but I remember it being a surprisingly paltry sum in income terms.
And I couldn't agree more. Commercialism, with very few exceptions, leads only to misery and wasted time.
You know how it goes...
You buy a new white good. Perhaps you do so after taking time out to research which model is best/most reliable (an hour online). It fails to arrive within the timescale stated, so you chase the manufacturer or retailer (an hour and a half on the phone, during which you encounter some appalling customer service that leaves you mentally penning emails to consumer rights bodies and media outlets when you should be sleeping). The product arrives and it is slightly damaged but not to the extent that it won't function, but you fret and stress and complain to your friends nonetheless (many hours). You eventually decide that, given the considerable sum you paid for it, you want a replacement, so you investigate how to go about this (more hours spent online or on the phone to 'jobsworth', scripted call centre operators). You make arrangements to return the product or have it collected 'at your convenience' (you're getting the picture now, right?).
So this lovely, shiny new thing which was supposed to transform your toast-making abilities/TV-programme-recording capacity/life has cost you precious hours of tedious activity, infuriating interactions with faceless service providers and stress.
You therefore resolve to lead a life free from unnecessary acquisition and you take time painstakingly to establish just what is and isn't necessary to live a good life (no excessively packaged foods, fewer clothes, no more purposeless ambles around indoor shopping centres and so on). And yet, with frightening ease, you find yourself slipping back onto the path of least resistance.
You find yourself being sucked in by those ubiquitous 'buy one, get one free' or 'three for the price of two' offers. No matter that the product was not something you particularly needed or that it's likely to go off before you get round to opening it. Heck, if the second one is half price, why not?
You become convinced that you need a newer version of a product you already own. A faster computer. A new car. A more aesthetically pleasing ironing board cover. The one you have is perfectly functional but there seems to be a good case for upgrading/renewing/replacing. (To hell with landfill and the environment!)
You give in to well-meaning relatives who regularly deluge your children with toys at birthdays and Christmastime, even though you've tried (subtly) to remind them how much more imaginative children's play is when they have to improvise with bits and bobs from around the house.
So I'm slapping the people who continue to believe that acquisition leads to happiness. But I'm slapping myself for being so weak in the face of this knowledge and giving in to the commercial imperative. (Hey, who can resist a little self-flagellation now and again?)
It's an established fact that, beyond a certain point, wealth does not make you any happier.
I forget the figure most recently quoted in the media, but I remember it being a surprisingly paltry sum in income terms.
And I couldn't agree more. Commercialism, with very few exceptions, leads only to misery and wasted time.
You know how it goes...
You buy a new white good. Perhaps you do so after taking time out to research which model is best/most reliable (an hour online). It fails to arrive within the timescale stated, so you chase the manufacturer or retailer (an hour and a half on the phone, during which you encounter some appalling customer service that leaves you mentally penning emails to consumer rights bodies and media outlets when you should be sleeping). The product arrives and it is slightly damaged but not to the extent that it won't function, but you fret and stress and complain to your friends nonetheless (many hours). You eventually decide that, given the considerable sum you paid for it, you want a replacement, so you investigate how to go about this (more hours spent online or on the phone to 'jobsworth', scripted call centre operators). You make arrangements to return the product or have it collected 'at your convenience' (you're getting the picture now, right?).
So this lovely, shiny new thing which was supposed to transform your toast-making abilities/TV-programme-recording capacity/life has cost you precious hours of tedious activity, infuriating interactions with faceless service providers and stress.
You therefore resolve to lead a life free from unnecessary acquisition and you take time painstakingly to establish just what is and isn't necessary to live a good life (no excessively packaged foods, fewer clothes, no more purposeless ambles around indoor shopping centres and so on). And yet, with frightening ease, you find yourself slipping back onto the path of least resistance.
You find yourself being sucked in by those ubiquitous 'buy one, get one free' or 'three for the price of two' offers. No matter that the product was not something you particularly needed or that it's likely to go off before you get round to opening it. Heck, if the second one is half price, why not?
You become convinced that you need a newer version of a product you already own. A faster computer. A new car. A more aesthetically pleasing ironing board cover. The one you have is perfectly functional but there seems to be a good case for upgrading/renewing/replacing. (To hell with landfill and the environment!)
You give in to well-meaning relatives who regularly deluge your children with toys at birthdays and Christmastime, even though you've tried (subtly) to remind them how much more imaginative children's play is when they have to improvise with bits and bobs from around the house.
So I'm slapping the people who continue to believe that acquisition leads to happiness. But I'm slapping myself for being so weak in the face of this knowledge and giving in to the commercial imperative. (Hey, who can resist a little self-flagellation now and again?)
Sunday, 28 January 2007
Bear with me...
...while I consider making this VIB (Very Important Blog) open to invited readers only. LOL!
Hang on, what was it Groucho Marx said about clubs again?
Hang on, what was it Groucho Marx said about clubs again?
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
A bunch of gripes
I’m still working on the guide to Provence I started updating back in November (see Being rude in an email is... being rude). No, it doesn’t take several months to do that job: I got delayed.
Anyway, after writing to all those tourist offices and plundering the brochures they sent me for information, I have to phone millions of people – from hotels to museums to night-clubs to candied fruit factories... It’s not rocket science, as they say, but it’s time-consuming, tiring for the voice, and sometimes trying as well.
There are the hotel/B&B owners who let their tiny kids answer the phone to potential customers. I’m not one of them but I might be and, in an indirect way, I represent them. Does a tiny child know how much the hotel charges for a double room in the summer? No, they don’t, and therefore should not pick up the receiver when the phone rings. When I hear a little voice go, ‘Hullo!’, followed by a giggle, my heart sinks. My calls are not refunded by my employers and I know that I’m now going to have to persuade the tiny child to go and fetch their mummy or daddy so the ADULTS can have a meaningful conversation – hours later! I always feel like removing those places from the guide. I don’t, of course, but it’s very tempting.
Then there are the museum officials who don’t know where the museum they’re working in is situated. ‘Could you confirm your address, please: is this correct.....?’ ‘Erm... hey, Nicole, what’s the address here?’ I sometimes say, ‘How did you get there this morning?’
And then there are the museum officials – sometimes they’re the same ones – who don’t know what their opening hours are. ‘Hey, Claudette, when are we open?’ I have to resist asking, ‘How did you know what time to get to work this morning?’
Anyway, after writing to all those tourist offices and plundering the brochures they sent me for information, I have to phone millions of people – from hotels to museums to night-clubs to candied fruit factories... It’s not rocket science, as they say, but it’s time-consuming, tiring for the voice, and sometimes trying as well.
There are the hotel/B&B owners who let their tiny kids answer the phone to potential customers. I’m not one of them but I might be and, in an indirect way, I represent them. Does a tiny child know how much the hotel charges for a double room in the summer? No, they don’t, and therefore should not pick up the receiver when the phone rings. When I hear a little voice go, ‘Hullo!’, followed by a giggle, my heart sinks. My calls are not refunded by my employers and I know that I’m now going to have to persuade the tiny child to go and fetch their mummy or daddy so the ADULTS can have a meaningful conversation – hours later! I always feel like removing those places from the guide. I don’t, of course, but it’s very tempting.
Then there are the museum officials who don’t know where the museum they’re working in is situated. ‘Could you confirm your address, please: is this correct.....?’ ‘Erm... hey, Nicole, what’s the address here?’ I sometimes say, ‘How did you get there this morning?’
And then there are the museum officials – sometimes they’re the same ones – who don’t know what their opening hours are. ‘Hey, Claudette, when are we open?’ I have to resist asking, ‘How did you know what time to get to work this morning?’
Not to mention the restaurateurs who don’t know how much their menus cost.
And no one in France knows the difference between a website and an email address!
Ah, the joys of dealing with strangers on the phone!
Slap!
Wednesday, 17 January 2007
I've been tagged
I do sometimes say 'yes' to things and Red-Queen of She'll be feverish after so much thinking is responsible for what follows. All complaints should be addressed to her.
4 jobs I've had:
Translator/archivist in the Department of Neurophysiology at the Faculty of Science in Nice
My first real job, while I was still at college; I spent a wonderful two years there; I’m still friends with my bosses, 35 years later.
Technical Interpreter with the RSC and the National Theatre
On several tours to French-speaking countries. Lighting technicians are wonderful people – well, most of them.
Dispensary assistant at Penhaligon’s
Not as glamorous as you might think; in fact, not glamorous at all.
Production editor at Mills & Boon/Harlequin
Go on, laugh!
4 movies I'd watch over and over:
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade, or Marat/Sade
That film, directed by Peter Brook, changed the course of my life – literally. At the time of its release, people joked, ‘I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve read the title!’ LOL!
The Remains of the Day
The whole film is unbearably moving, but I love one scene more than any other: the one where Anthony Hopkins is reading a book, which he refuses to let Emma Thompson see, and she very slowly prises it out of his hands. Ah!
Schindler’s List
Because, again, it’s unbearably moving, and also life-affirming, and Liam Neeson is superb in it.
The Bridges of Madison County
I gather it’s a rotten book, but if you haven’t seen Meryl Streep in this you don’t know what really great acting is: her body language is incredible. And the end is unbearably moving (is it me or is this getting repetitive? LOL!)
Are you sure I can’t mention Pretty Woman or The Draughtsman’s Contract or The Rocky Horror Picture Show? What about Dolores Claiborne and Casque d’Or? No? Oh, all right, then.
4 places I've lived, apart from where I live now:
Paris
Nice
Stratford-upon-Avon
Notting Hill Gate
I know it’s in London, but I haven’t lived anywhere else.
4 TV shows I love:
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Law and Order, er, the ordinary one…
Oh, ok, start again:
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Because I have a crush on Goren (we’re not intimate enough for me to call him Bobby. Bobby? He’s not a Bobby!) and I want to twist my body the way he does.
CSI: the real thing
Because I have a crush on Grissom. Being French, I can do his moue better than anyone else.
CSI: Miami
Because I have a crush on Horatio and I too want to talk to people while standing sideways.
CSI: New York
Because I have a crush on Stella’s hair. I’ve tried to have a crush on Mac but I can’t. Gary Sinise? No can do.
Oh, what about The West Wing, and Imagine and The South Bank Show (two wonderful arts programmes)? Sorry, can’t mention them.
4 places I've been on holiday:
Venice
Two days
New York
Four and a half days
Edinburgh
Three weeks (in two separate batches, as it were).
Israel
Probably three or four months – over a period of 15 years .
4 websites I visit daily:
Yahoo! France – Actualités
The only bit of French I get to read these days.
MakeUpAlley
I meet my mates there for a chat.
My friends’ blogs
Lots of them. Bloglines periodically pops up and goes: 376 pages to read!
The Telegraph online
Stupid paper (blech!) but great fashion and beauty section.
4 favorite foods:
Chocolate
Preferably with hazelnut (I have a passion for gianduja).
Oysters
Raw with a tiny drop of lemon juice (can’t have vinegar or shallots these days).
Artichokes
Self-explanatory: they are wonderful.
Saucisson sec
I haven’t had any for twelve years and will never again be able to eat it.
4 places I'd rather be right now:
That’s easy
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
4 books I enjoy re-reading:
The Conference of the Birds (The Story of Peter Brook in Africa) by John Heilpern
Peter Brook has had a huge influence on my life (see Marat/Sade) and this is such an inspiring book.
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
It’s about loss and love and survival, and the writing is out of this world.
Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
It makes me scream with laughter. So true.
Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
My favourite of all his novels. So true too.
And then, of course, there’s French literature… Colette, Maupassant, Marguerite Yourcenar…
4 CDs that never leave my rotation:
Leonard Cohen (anything by)
Joan Baez (anything by)
Milva
Singing Brecht.
Esther Ofarim (anything by)
I haven’t listened to any of the above for a while: must finish converting all my old LPs/cassettes to mp3 files – time-consuming is not the word.
It’s only taken me four hours to write this. Who has four hours to spare? Who shall I tag?
Oh, botheration: all the people I was thinking of have already been tagged by other people, so I’m afraid the whole thing stops here or, if you want to take part, please do. Let us know in the Comments and we'll all go and read what you wrote.
4 jobs I've had:
Translator/archivist in the Department of Neurophysiology at the Faculty of Science in Nice
My first real job, while I was still at college; I spent a wonderful two years there; I’m still friends with my bosses, 35 years later.
Technical Interpreter with the RSC and the National Theatre
On several tours to French-speaking countries. Lighting technicians are wonderful people – well, most of them.
Dispensary assistant at Penhaligon’s
Not as glamorous as you might think; in fact, not glamorous at all.
Production editor at Mills & Boon/Harlequin
Go on, laugh!
4 movies I'd watch over and over:
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade, or Marat/Sade
That film, directed by Peter Brook, changed the course of my life – literally. At the time of its release, people joked, ‘I haven’t seen the film, but I’ve read the title!’ LOL!
The Remains of the Day
The whole film is unbearably moving, but I love one scene more than any other: the one where Anthony Hopkins is reading a book, which he refuses to let Emma Thompson see, and she very slowly prises it out of his hands. Ah!
Schindler’s List
Because, again, it’s unbearably moving, and also life-affirming, and Liam Neeson is superb in it.
The Bridges of Madison County
I gather it’s a rotten book, but if you haven’t seen Meryl Streep in this you don’t know what really great acting is: her body language is incredible. And the end is unbearably moving (is it me or is this getting repetitive? LOL!)
Are you sure I can’t mention Pretty Woman or The Draughtsman’s Contract or The Rocky Horror Picture Show? What about Dolores Claiborne and Casque d’Or? No? Oh, all right, then.
4 places I've lived, apart from where I live now:
Paris
Nice
Stratford-upon-Avon
Notting Hill Gate
I know it’s in London, but I haven’t lived anywhere else.
4 TV shows I love:
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
Law and Order, er, the ordinary one…
Oh, ok, start again:
Law and Order: Criminal Intent
Because I have a crush on Goren (we’re not intimate enough for me to call him Bobby. Bobby? He’s not a Bobby!) and I want to twist my body the way he does.
CSI: the real thing
Because I have a crush on Grissom. Being French, I can do his moue better than anyone else.
CSI: Miami
Because I have a crush on Horatio and I too want to talk to people while standing sideways.
CSI: New York
Because I have a crush on Stella’s hair. I’ve tried to have a crush on Mac but I can’t. Gary Sinise? No can do.
Oh, what about The West Wing, and Imagine and The South Bank Show (two wonderful arts programmes)? Sorry, can’t mention them.
4 places I've been on holiday:
Venice
Two days
New York
Four and a half days
Edinburgh
Three weeks (in two separate batches, as it were).
Israel
Probably three or four months – over a period of 15 years .
4 websites I visit daily:
Yahoo! France – Actualités
The only bit of French I get to read these days.
MakeUpAlley
I meet my mates there for a chat.
My friends’ blogs
Lots of them. Bloglines periodically pops up and goes: 376 pages to read!
The Telegraph online
Stupid paper (blech!) but great fashion and beauty section.
4 favorite foods:
Chocolate
Preferably with hazelnut (I have a passion for gianduja).
Oysters
Raw with a tiny drop of lemon juice (can’t have vinegar or shallots these days).
Artichokes
Self-explanatory: they are wonderful.
Saucisson sec
I haven’t had any for twelve years and will never again be able to eat it.
4 places I'd rather be right now:
That’s easy
Nice
Nice
Nice
Nice
4 books I enjoy re-reading:
The Conference of the Birds (The Story of Peter Brook in Africa) by John Heilpern
Peter Brook has had a huge influence on my life (see Marat/Sade) and this is such an inspiring book.
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
It’s about loss and love and survival, and the writing is out of this world.
Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
It makes me scream with laughter. So true.
Howard’s End by E.M. Forster
My favourite of all his novels. So true too.
And then, of course, there’s French literature… Colette, Maupassant, Marguerite Yourcenar…
4 CDs that never leave my rotation:
Leonard Cohen (anything by)
Joan Baez (anything by)
Milva
Singing Brecht.
Esther Ofarim (anything by)
I haven’t listened to any of the above for a while: must finish converting all my old LPs/cassettes to mp3 files – time-consuming is not the word.
It’s only taken me four hours to write this. Who has four hours to spare? Who shall I tag?
Oh, botheration: all the people I was thinking of have already been tagged by other people, so I’m afraid the whole thing stops here or, if you want to take part, please do. Let us know in the Comments and we'll all go and read what you wrote.
Addendum: Apparently, today, Monday 22 January is officially the most depressing day of the year. Sheila Hancock was asked on Front Row what she did to cheer herself up on a miserable Monday; she said she watched The Producers, and she mentioned the ‘blue blanket’ scene, in which Zero Mostel tries to prise Gene Wilder's security blanket out of his hands and the latter gets absolutely hysterical. It occurred to me that this was the comic equivalent of that scene in The Remains of the Day. It is also my favourite scene in The Producers. I must have a thing about people prising things out of other people's hands.
Friday, 12 January 2007
Busy busy busy
Too busy to get annoyed?
Not quite.
I have no problem saying ‘no’ to things. Anything. I don’t want it; I say ‘no’ to it. It works, usually. Usually, but not always...
Say you go to Specsavers for an eye exam. Well, your last glasses came from there and they keep saying on the telly, ‘You should have gone to Specsavers!’, so why should you go anywhere else, really? You get a wonderful, diligent, thorough ophthalmologist (recommended by your partner, actually) and you come out of the room happy and ready to order new lenses. What happens next, do you think?
A very authoritative sales assistant, whom I took to be the manageress of the place, led me to a wall covered with designer spectacle frames costing an arm and a leg. I was stunned for a moment: it had not even occurred to me that I might be expected to buy new frames. Why should I? The ones I have are great. I bought them in Paris, a few years ago: they are modern, very light, inconspicuous, and they suit me (as much as any glasses can). It’s new lenses I wanted. So, for the first time that evening, I asked how much it would cost for me to use my own. The smile on the woman’s face just faded away. You can understand her dismay: this person who, a minute ago, looked like she might buy two lots of frames and lenses (I was given a prescription for reading glasses too and meant to order them later), now seemed unwilling to. She said they would have to charge me for the privilege and mumbled something about a 25 per cent discount on new frames, but I wasn’t interested. I asked again... and again... and again... and again...
Finally noticing my reticence (LOL!), she led me to another wall – the ‘cheap’ one, full of non-designer frames, just costing an arm. She handed me a couple of those (more or less the same as mine), which I tried on briefly while repeating my question, ‘How much would it cost for me to use my own frames, please?’ We stood there in silence for a few long minutes. I was getting more and more stressed by the situation. I didn’t quite know how to get out of it since she refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. Finally, a man who had been standing a few paces from us and who had been witnessing the scene produced a quote – for new frames plus lenses. The amount made me laugh out loud. That’s when she finally got the message.
I came out shaking with anger and frustration. But it wasn’t the end of my ordeal.
Later that evening, I realized I should have asked for ultra-light lenses, like the ones I already had and was used to. So eager had that woman been to sell me new frames she hadn’t told me about all the lens options. I called Specsavers the next day, thinking they couldn’t possibly have made the lenses yet, but I was told it was too late: they had been ordered and nothing could be done. That was the last straw: I lost my cool and shouted down the phone at the woman and also, later, at the manager (who turned out to be the guy with the quote). He explained that in view of my prescription and since the lense would be quite thin he wouldn’t have recommended ultra-light lenses anyway.
It reassured for a little while, but the whole thing was still bothering me: for the next few years, every time I put on my glasses, I would be reminded of the way I’d felt standing there, not being able to get through to that overbearing sales assistant. I couldn’t take it so I returned to the shop the next morning – with my partner for support – and demanded to be given (for an extra £30, of course) the lenses I wanted. I was dressed up and wearing my ‘frightening’ lipstick, but I didn’t expect them to cave in and agree so readily. The manager chucked the wrong lenses (they hadn’t lied about their having been ordered already) in the bin and requested new ultra-light ones.
In the meantime, the woman had become all meek and mild. Could it be she’d got a bollocking for making a customer so mad? I hope so. She never denied not taking me through the different options, but she said she hadn’t mentioned ultra-light lenses because they were more expensive and, since I’d said I didn’t want to buy new frames, she’d thought, you know, I wouldn’t want to spend more money on lenses either. (Yeah, right!) I explained that for me glasses weren’t a fashion accessory that had to be changed each season and about waste and about wanting to spend money only on things that mattered and lenses being what mattered, etc. etc. She and the manager seemed to understand – at last.
The other day, when I went to collect my – nice and light – glasses (‘Yes, they fit very well, thank you. No, they don’t pinch, thanks. I’ve been wearing these frames for the past six years.’), the woman was all over me. She asked me several times if everything was all right. I wish she hadn’t. Ugh! I came out of the shop shaking again. From having to interact with someone I found unbearable; someone who’d given me so much aggro and stress; someone I’d never wanted to talk to again in my life.
With a bit of luck, I won’t have to.
Slap!
Not quite.
I have no problem saying ‘no’ to things. Anything. I don’t want it; I say ‘no’ to it. It works, usually. Usually, but not always...
Say you go to Specsavers for an eye exam. Well, your last glasses came from there and they keep saying on the telly, ‘You should have gone to Specsavers!’, so why should you go anywhere else, really? You get a wonderful, diligent, thorough ophthalmologist (recommended by your partner, actually) and you come out of the room happy and ready to order new lenses. What happens next, do you think?
A very authoritative sales assistant, whom I took to be the manageress of the place, led me to a wall covered with designer spectacle frames costing an arm and a leg. I was stunned for a moment: it had not even occurred to me that I might be expected to buy new frames. Why should I? The ones I have are great. I bought them in Paris, a few years ago: they are modern, very light, inconspicuous, and they suit me (as much as any glasses can). It’s new lenses I wanted. So, for the first time that evening, I asked how much it would cost for me to use my own. The smile on the woman’s face just faded away. You can understand her dismay: this person who, a minute ago, looked like she might buy two lots of frames and lenses (I was given a prescription for reading glasses too and meant to order them later), now seemed unwilling to. She said they would have to charge me for the privilege and mumbled something about a 25 per cent discount on new frames, but I wasn’t interested. I asked again... and again... and again... and again...
Finally noticing my reticence (LOL!), she led me to another wall – the ‘cheap’ one, full of non-designer frames, just costing an arm. She handed me a couple of those (more or less the same as mine), which I tried on briefly while repeating my question, ‘How much would it cost for me to use my own frames, please?’ We stood there in silence for a few long minutes. I was getting more and more stressed by the situation. I didn’t quite know how to get out of it since she refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. Finally, a man who had been standing a few paces from us and who had been witnessing the scene produced a quote – for new frames plus lenses. The amount made me laugh out loud. That’s when she finally got the message.
I came out shaking with anger and frustration. But it wasn’t the end of my ordeal.
Later that evening, I realized I should have asked for ultra-light lenses, like the ones I already had and was used to. So eager had that woman been to sell me new frames she hadn’t told me about all the lens options. I called Specsavers the next day, thinking they couldn’t possibly have made the lenses yet, but I was told it was too late: they had been ordered and nothing could be done. That was the last straw: I lost my cool and shouted down the phone at the woman and also, later, at the manager (who turned out to be the guy with the quote). He explained that in view of my prescription and since the lense would be quite thin he wouldn’t have recommended ultra-light lenses anyway.
It reassured for a little while, but the whole thing was still bothering me: for the next few years, every time I put on my glasses, I would be reminded of the way I’d felt standing there, not being able to get through to that overbearing sales assistant. I couldn’t take it so I returned to the shop the next morning – with my partner for support – and demanded to be given (for an extra £30, of course) the lenses I wanted. I was dressed up and wearing my ‘frightening’ lipstick, but I didn’t expect them to cave in and agree so readily. The manager chucked the wrong lenses (they hadn’t lied about their having been ordered already) in the bin and requested new ultra-light ones.
In the meantime, the woman had become all meek and mild. Could it be she’d got a bollocking for making a customer so mad? I hope so. She never denied not taking me through the different options, but she said she hadn’t mentioned ultra-light lenses because they were more expensive and, since I’d said I didn’t want to buy new frames, she’d thought, you know, I wouldn’t want to spend more money on lenses either. (Yeah, right!) I explained that for me glasses weren’t a fashion accessory that had to be changed each season and about waste and about wanting to spend money only on things that mattered and lenses being what mattered, etc. etc. She and the manager seemed to understand – at last.
The other day, when I went to collect my – nice and light – glasses (‘Yes, they fit very well, thank you. No, they don’t pinch, thanks. I’ve been wearing these frames for the past six years.’), the woman was all over me. She asked me several times if everything was all right. I wish she hadn’t. Ugh! I came out of the shop shaking again. From having to interact with someone I found unbearable; someone who’d given me so much aggro and stress; someone I’d never wanted to talk to again in my life.
With a bit of luck, I won’t have to.
Slap!
Tuesday, 2 January 2007
Guest Slapper of the Month XII
Robin of Now Smell This is without a doubt the unsung hero* of the perfume-blog world. I don’t share all of her tastes in perfume, but I always enjoy reading her thoughts, and respect her opinion because it’s never fanciful or perverse. If I were an influential magazine editor or book publisher I would snap her up in a jiffy. Of course, that would probably mean she’d be too busy to carry on delighting us with news, reviews and all manner of insights on a daily basis. I used to flit about all over the Internet in an attempt to keep myself informed; her wonderfully clear and user-friendly blog is now my first port of call. If you haven’t discovered it yet, you have a treat in store.
Previous guest-slappers have tackled such weighty issues as access to health care, littering and excessive violence in video games, and I considered following in that vein by taking on some meaningful topic like World Peace or the No Child Left Behind Act. But the holidays have left me more than usually drained of any ability to think Big Thoughts, so I am going to stick with my usual frivolity and give a resounding slap to every snooty salesperson I’ve encountered in the past year while engaged in my habitual frivolous pastime: shopping for perfume.
I shop for perfume a lot. I am not a good customer, since I rarely buy anything – I just do my part to drain the testers, and I try to cadge free samples. So I sympathize with the salespeople who have come to recognize me at my local mall, and sigh when they see me coming. They know I am a waste of time, and this slap isn’t for them.
But pray tell, what exactly is it about standing behind a glass counter all day selling perfume that seems to engender such a massive feeling of superiority over your fellow man? When I was much, much younger than I am now, I rather thought that the saleswomen (they used to be all women) in the beauty area had the right to be snooty. After all, they led Glamorous Lives and possessed all sorts of arcane knowledge, such as how to do a smoky eye without looking like a raccoon and how to choose the right lip liner to blend with your lipstick. Now that I am older, it is increasingly obvious that selling perfume or eyeshadow in a department store isn’t really the glamorous job I imagined it to be when I was 13, and that in fact, many of them do look like raccoons, and that the percentage of women behind beauty counters with teased hair is alarmingly higher than it is in the population at large.
But I digress. To get back to my point, many salespeople are just downright unpleasant. They stand behind the counter chatting to other salespeople instead of offering assistance. Sometimes, they are even chatting openly, and snidely, about other customers. Ouch! If you interrupt politely to ask a question, they look at you like you might be something the cat dragged in (and I find this is especially true if you aren’t wearing lipstick and carrying the latest bag from Prada). Or they offer assistance, and when you make it clear you don’t need any, they hover over you and keep offering to spray your arm with the latest Britney Spears fragrance. But most of all, they just act superior. They seem to assume that everyone they encounter is clueless about how to choose a perfume, and they seem to take a special joy in making sure that the process of shopping for one is anything but fun.
If they do engage you in conversation and you appear at all knowledgeable, they look at you suspiciously and ask if you work for a perfume company. More than once, I’ve been basically accused of being some sort of industry spy simply because I was aware of upcoming fragrance releases that were supposedly “top secret”. Perhaps there are industry spies in the perfume field – I wouldn’t know – but if there are, I can only assume that they have better methods of keeping an eye on the competition than scoping out the perfume counter at suburban Macys.
Obviously, not all salespeople are snooty, and they aren’t always snooty at the places where you’d think they would be. Paradoxically, I’ve had nothing but wonderful experiences at the swank flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store in New York, and generally unpleasant experiences at Saks stores in suburban malls. At Macys, a mid-tier chain where you might expect to find a less uppity attitude than you would at a high end store like Neiman Marcus, they are almost uniformly supercilious and extraordinarily stingy about samples; at my local Neiman Marcus, they are unfailingly helpful and pleasant. Both of the Nordstrom stores I shop at regularly are great. Sephora, where they will make you a sample of any fragrance in stock, is one of my favorite stores: the salespeople aren’t at all knowledgeable, but they are friendly and kind. Now if only they would make a Sephora store for grownups without the loud music and the masses of giggling pre-teen customers blocking the aisles, but that is a subject for another slap…
Previous guest-slappers have tackled such weighty issues as access to health care, littering and excessive violence in video games, and I considered following in that vein by taking on some meaningful topic like World Peace or the No Child Left Behind Act. But the holidays have left me more than usually drained of any ability to think Big Thoughts, so I am going to stick with my usual frivolity and give a resounding slap to every snooty salesperson I’ve encountered in the past year while engaged in my habitual frivolous pastime: shopping for perfume.
I shop for perfume a lot. I am not a good customer, since I rarely buy anything – I just do my part to drain the testers, and I try to cadge free samples. So I sympathize with the salespeople who have come to recognize me at my local mall, and sigh when they see me coming. They know I am a waste of time, and this slap isn’t for them.
But pray tell, what exactly is it about standing behind a glass counter all day selling perfume that seems to engender such a massive feeling of superiority over your fellow man? When I was much, much younger than I am now, I rather thought that the saleswomen (they used to be all women) in the beauty area had the right to be snooty. After all, they led Glamorous Lives and possessed all sorts of arcane knowledge, such as how to do a smoky eye without looking like a raccoon and how to choose the right lip liner to blend with your lipstick. Now that I am older, it is increasingly obvious that selling perfume or eyeshadow in a department store isn’t really the glamorous job I imagined it to be when I was 13, and that in fact, many of them do look like raccoons, and that the percentage of women behind beauty counters with teased hair is alarmingly higher than it is in the population at large.
But I digress. To get back to my point, many salespeople are just downright unpleasant. They stand behind the counter chatting to other salespeople instead of offering assistance. Sometimes, they are even chatting openly, and snidely, about other customers. Ouch! If you interrupt politely to ask a question, they look at you like you might be something the cat dragged in (and I find this is especially true if you aren’t wearing lipstick and carrying the latest bag from Prada). Or they offer assistance, and when you make it clear you don’t need any, they hover over you and keep offering to spray your arm with the latest Britney Spears fragrance. But most of all, they just act superior. They seem to assume that everyone they encounter is clueless about how to choose a perfume, and they seem to take a special joy in making sure that the process of shopping for one is anything but fun.
If they do engage you in conversation and you appear at all knowledgeable, they look at you suspiciously and ask if you work for a perfume company. More than once, I’ve been basically accused of being some sort of industry spy simply because I was aware of upcoming fragrance releases that were supposedly “top secret”. Perhaps there are industry spies in the perfume field – I wouldn’t know – but if there are, I can only assume that they have better methods of keeping an eye on the competition than scoping out the perfume counter at suburban Macys.
Obviously, not all salespeople are snooty, and they aren’t always snooty at the places where you’d think they would be. Paradoxically, I’ve had nothing but wonderful experiences at the swank flagship Saks Fifth Avenue store in New York, and generally unpleasant experiences at Saks stores in suburban malls. At Macys, a mid-tier chain where you might expect to find a less uppity attitude than you would at a high end store like Neiman Marcus, they are almost uniformly supercilious and extraordinarily stingy about samples; at my local Neiman Marcus, they are unfailingly helpful and pleasant. Both of the Nordstrom stores I shop at regularly are great. Sephora, where they will make you a sample of any fragrance in stock, is one of my favorite stores: the salespeople aren’t at all knowledgeable, but they are friendly and kind. Now if only they would make a Sephora store for grownups without the loud music and the masses of giggling pre-teen customers blocking the aisles, but that is a subject for another slap…
* Someone must have heard me: her blog is currently mentioned in the January issue of Lucky magazine. Congratulations, R!
Monday, 1 January 2007
Friday, 29 December 2006
A nice break from slapping
Ok, I’m supposed to list the beauty products I’ve most enjoyed using over the last twelve months. I’m so the wrong person for this kind of thing: I hardly ever buy new stuff; in fact, I now buy fewer things than I used to before I joined MakeupAlley. Somehow talking about perfume all the time keeps me satiated and with no desire to ‘own’ anything much. Also, as far as make-up is concerned, I don’t get so much pleasure out of testing new products because, when you’re 58, it’s not much fun testing weird and wonderful eye shadows on crêpey eyelids (you should have seen what I wore in the ‘60s) and seeing the – usually – awful result. Still I haven’t stopped using cosmetics altogether, so here goes…
Lip Balm by Durance en Provence
Last year, I ended my list of favourite products by saying that I had just received a tube of lip balm that was so good that I would probably rave about it this year. I was right: it turned out to be just as emollient as my staple, Rêve de Miel Lip Balm by Nuxe, and even a little more practical since it’s in one of those applicator tubes, you know, with a slanted end pierced with a tiny hole through which the balm comes out and can be spread on to one’s lips. So no contamination of the rest of the product. It tastes of honey, which is what the Nuxe one should taste of since it’s got the word ‘honey’ in its name but which for some reason tastes of grapefruit (search me!). I love and use both equally these days. The search for the perfect lip salve is definitely over.
Cream Blusher by Estée Lauder
I’m really cheating here: I’ve used this particular blusher for the past ten years and I don’t mean I’ve bought it again and again; I mean the same one. You see, selecting and buying a blusher has never excited me (as far as I’m concerned it’s a little more fun than choosing a mascara but not much) so I was chuffed when I finally found the right one. For years I’d worn all sorts of shades, mostly recommended by silly sales assistants in department stores. Some very eccentric ones that didn’t suit me at all: I am a ‘blue/red’, yet at different periods of my life I was advised to use brick reds, browns, oranges, stupid shades like that. Also, since I’m not a pale blonde with a peaches-and-cream complexion I don’t blush in ‘pastel’ and pale pink blushers do nothing for me. After years of buying then chucking out blushers that clashed with my complexion rather than enhanced it, I read somewhere that everyone blushes more or less the same: dark blood-red. At last, something that made sense! The advice probably came from Leslie Kenton, who used to write in Harpers & Queen and who, unlike other beauty editors, had a lot of common sense. (For example, when I was still battling with oily skin, I read in her column that ‘only grease removes grease’: it was a revelation. I remembered how, when I was a child, my mother always used butter to remove the black greasy stains left on my legs by my bicycle’s chain. So I threw away all the astringents I owned and started using an oil to remove my make-up, and my skin improved immediately.) Anyway, back to the blusher quest, I looked for a burgundy-coloured blusher and found it: it was part of a limited range that was launched when the film Evita was released. It was perfect. In all those years, I’ve never had the urge to change and there’s still an awful lot left. I can’t tell you the exact name of the shade because I got rid of the original compact a while ago and it now sits in a small Muji palette. Sorry, I’m not much help here. However, there must be some other similar blushers around.
I do have another blusher, which I use lightly on my eyes, under my eyebrows. It’s Lancôme Pommette in Fuchsia. It’s also discontinued, but I know you can still get it on eBay. It was meant for cheeks and eyes and was featured in a magazine a few years ago. They said it was a scary shade (they weren’t kidding) but that once on the skin it just made it ‘glow’. How could anyone resist? I looked for it on what was at the time a very skinny Lancôme website: it was still mentioned as being available but in fact wasn’t. I was so disappointed that I wrote to Lancôme asking why it still appeared on their website. A nice woman apologized and said she would try to track it down for me. A few days later, a small package arrived: it was the blusher, and it was a gift. That was such a nice gesture! I would like to publicly thank that generous Lancôme employee, who went to extra mile to satisfy a potential customer. It doesn’t happen very often.
Tubéreuse Criminelle by Serge Lutens
It’s so funny: the first perfume I mentioned last year in Best of 2005 was Cèdre, and this is what I wrote, ‘For me it was love at first sniff. It reconciled me with tuberose, which until then had made me gag. I was even tempted to retest Tubéreuse Criminelle, also by the Divine Serge and his acolyte Chris Sheldrake, and found I did like it after all. Cèdre doesn’t have the mentholated opening of Tubéreuse Criminelle, which is a bonus really since you get to the “nice” notes that much quicker.’ Well, I tried Tubéreuse Criminelle again and again and again and it grew on me so much that I recently bought a bottle of it – directly from the Salons du Palais-Royal (it seems I only travel to Paris in order to buy perfume: the last time, four years ago, I bought a bottle of Fleurs d’Oranger, which I have worn since and which I still love). Poor Cèdre was just a go-between, a means of connecting with tuberose; it was left behind as, in the end, I found it a little too ‘perfumey’, a little too ‘pleasant’. Tubéreuse Criminelle doesn’t make me go, ‘Aaaaah!’and fall into a rapture when I apply it, like Fleurs d’Oranger, but it intrigues and delights me nevertheless. I’m still slightly puzzled when I become aware of it on me: ‘Is this me?’ The top notes are strange and harsh; I think they smell of kerosene. That’s actually the bit I like best now.
Bons Baisers de Paris Lip Stain Pen by Bourjois
I have this friend in Nice. She used to be my boss, back in 1971-73. She’s a lovely woman. She regularly sends me stuff from France (the Durance lip balm, for instance) and sometimes – very rarely – I ask her for something specific. I saw an ad for this product in a magazine and it created a ‘lemming’ – as we say in our business. LOL!, which was soon fulfilled. It’s a delightful product. I have it in Raspberry (the colour of most of my few lipsticks; the one that suits me best, I believe). It glides on the lips and creates a very natural look, with no thickness. Unlike other lip stains I’ve tried it’s very easy to apply, thanks to the felt tip, but like all other lip stains it’s quite drying so needs to be used sparingly or under a clear gloss or, in my case, a lip balm. Ta da! It sticks to the lips like a limpet, thus colouring them for hours and hours. It does remove the pleasure of reapplying lipstick, though, but, hey, you can’t have it both ways.
Frankincense Nourishing Cream by Neal’s Yard
For a while now I’ve been trying to avoid using products that contain nasty stuff like petrochemicals and preservatives (they’re the parabens you see mentioned in lists of ingredients): it’s better for me and it restricts my choice – there are too many products out there and I very often feel overwhelmed by their number so I like the fact that I can ignore masses of them. Therefore, after using some very high-tech Avon creams (they have the best researchers, you know; they produced one of the first and best AHA creams on the market), I went back to a moisturiser I had bought several years ago, when readers of YOU Magazine voted it ‘Best moisturiser ever’. I believed the hype and bought a jar of it. They weren’t lying: it was great then and still is. It’s for mature skins and therefore quite thick, but it goes in easily (anyway, massaging cream into the skin is enjoyable, I think) and it does the trick: it’s soothing and plumping and, as it says on the jar, nourishing. It’s Neal’s Yard’s star product and it deserves to be.
Crema Fluida per il Corpo con Zucchero di Canna by Angel’s Spa
This is another TK Maxx find. As I said last year, our local branch is wonderful for lovely sweaters (although this year there were only big knits and I get engoncée – look it up – in those, so I didn’t buy any), but quite hopeless for toiletries and fragrances. They have nothing for weeks and then suddenly they will have a shelf-ful of bottles of stuff you’ve never seen anywhere else before. This Rich Body Lotion with Raw Sugar (I think it sounds better in Italian, don’t you?) is good enough to drink. I don’t know why I was attracted to this one in particular – I don’t like sweet smells usually: they had other flavours, oops, scents: cinnamon, ylang-ylang, mint and something else, but I kept going back to that comforting scent of sugar. I didn’t buy it straight away – I didn’t need a body lotion, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind so in the end I caved in (I told myself it was a bargain, which it was, and it had no parabens, which it doesn’t). I mostly use it as a hand lotion, last thing at night, in the hope that it will induce sweet dreams. And it sometimes does.
That’s about it, really. Oh, hang on, there are some cute Bourjois mini make-up things sitting on a shelf over there: a tiny lip gloss that’s supposed to hang from your mobile phone (does it matter that I don’t use lip gloss and my phone is so old I can’t hang anything from it?) and some cute eye shadows. I just couldn’t resist getting them in Paris, a couple of weeks ago. They look lovely. That’s a good enough reason for having them, I think.
Enough blah blah from me, go and check out what my pals recommend. Here’s a list of who’s taking part in the fun today:
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
Don’t you just hate it…
...when you get an email from HMV saying you can download a free song of your choice (not some rubbish they’re trying to promote) from their website with this code – DLX06 (go on, you try it) – and you put on the laptop especially, because you have all your music on it since the old PC’s disc drive is kaput and you log on to the HMV website and enter the code and IT’S NOT RECOGNIZED?
Slap! (I had to get that off my chest: enough with this goodwill nonsense.)
Slap! (I had to get that off my chest: enough with this goodwill nonsense.)
Sunday, 24 December 2006
Friday, 22 December 2006
Guess where I was!
Before I left London, last Friday, one of my commenters wished me ‘a weekend without slaps’. Ha! The gods were reading my blog that day.
Our trip started very badly: when my partner and I turned up at our local underground station to get to Waterloo, we were stopped at the gates by a guard who told us the Central Line wasn’t running. I have to admit that panic ensued – we only had two and a half hours to get there, after all. No, I’m kidding; we did have plenty of time but the night before I had joked that in my experience the journey from Shepherds Bush to Waterloo had never taken longer than 45 minutes so why were we allowing so much time. Again, the gods were listening. Lots of shouting and cursing and tears (well, maybe not tears, but, you know), lots of running around like demented fleas; lots of wild trundling of uncool suitcases on wheels (I lost a very nice shiny padlock in the scramble); lots of arm waving in an attempt to hail engaged, heartless cabs, and finally, as we were running in the direction of the other Shepherds Bush station, the one on the Metropolitan Line, the line where trains amble along at a snail’s pace, a line that might or might not have taken us eventually to Waterloo, we spotted a black cab that had just dropped someone off at the BBC studios, down the road. It was at a standstill at the traffic lights and was going nowhere that particular instant but we ran towards it as if it was going to suddenly take off vertically like a helicopter and escape our grasp. We could have kissed the driver. It was a miracle. If you’ve ever tried to hail a cab on a Friday afternoon in London, when a major tube line isn’t working, you’ll know what I mean. So, my First Slap goes to London Underground for the stress they caused us even before we’d left the city.
Onboard the Eurostar, we were sitting in those stupid facing seats that should be reserved for chamber-music quartets or families and never allocated to strangers. The American woman next to me was one of the most inconsiderate people I’ve had the misfortune to travel with: at one point I couldn’t see my partner, who was sitting in front of me, because I had a Guardian double spread before my eyes – and I wasn’t the one reading it! My Second Slap goes to her.
My Third Slap I’m awarding to the drunk who insulted me, and several other women, in French and English (he was surprisingly fluent in both languages), after I’d jumped to the rescue of the young Japanese woman (complete with cello and mute mother – she only spoke Japanese, I expect) he was pestering, while we were queuing for a taxi at the Gare du Nord. He became very offensive and for some reason attacked my hair – luckily, only verbally. Apparently, since I have white hair, I’m going to die soon so I should shut up. Nice! Finally, a young woman, who was even more bothered by him than I was, left her place in the queue (that showed how incensed she was: no one in their right mind would ever do that) and went to get the police. By then the man had gone. In the meantime, my partner and I had made a few friends in the queue, and chatting away with them made the next ten hours seem like minutes.
From then on, lots of mishaps, near misses, bag panics, scarf panics (whatever you do, never ever offer to carry someone else’s plastic bag in case they shoved their scarf into it when they boarded a bus, instead of putting it in their handbag as usual: you will save them the stress and humiliation of running after the bus they’ve just alighted from, shouting, ‘My scarf, my scarf, I left my – expensive, but reduced in TK Maxx, beautiful merino wool – scarf on the bus!’ only for them to find it in above-mentioned plastic bag after kind bus driver looks for it in vain and shrugs in very French manner), glove panics (N.B. Paris in December is cold, take pair of warm gloves: will save you having to hurriedly buy non-needed – because already three pairs at home – gloves in nearest Monoprix, when your ‘little hand is frozen’). Also, at your hotel, when you go down to breakfast on your last day, after you’ve exhorted your partner not to leave anything valuable in the room, do not place your handbag on the floor by your chair and go back up to your room, after drinking your first cup of tea (made with a redbush tea sachet you brought all the way from London because you don’t drink real tea or coffee), holding only your key and the croissant you intend to eat a bit later: your heart will stop beating completely when you realize, an hour later, just as you’re packing the last few things in your still uncool suitcase, that you are sans handbag, credit cards, passport, ticket, etc. You will have to fly down four flights of stairs, shrieking, ‘I left my handbag downstairs! I left my handbag downstairs! No, I’m not all right!’ (This last exclamation to the maid who’s cleaning one of the rooms and who’s just asked, ‘Ça va?’ as you’re zooming down the stairs.) Your heart will restart only when the hotel manager hands you your bag, which he retrieved from under the table an hour earlier but didn’t think to return to you as soon as. I guess my Fourth Slap goes to me – and him.
Last but not least, the Fifth Slap has to be awarded to a brasserie called Relais Paris Opéra (Rue Auber; make a note of it) for charging 9,40€ – that’s over £6.00 for a large (ok, a very large) coke. And £3.50 for a very small goat cheese with nothing else on the plate (you look for a few salad leaves, a couple of French fries, nope, nothing). It lies in wait for people who’ve been traipsing all over Paris in the cold and the rain and who are ready to drop and then it pounces. Stay away from it. You have been warned.
I suppose the rain deserves to be slapped too. It appeared on Saturday morning and didn’t let up all day. Everything takes twice as long in the rain and battling with dripping umbrellas is not my idea of fun. An English friend of mine, who, I discovered later, was in Paris just for the day, was even more unlucky than we were. At least Sunday was dry.
End of Slaps. Let the Hugs begin!
The Christmas lights on the Champs-Elysées and elsewhere were absolutely lovely. The Eiffel Tower was soooo pretty, all glittery and twinkly. Tea at Angelina’s with my best friend and her 22-year-old daughter, whom I last saw when she was three days old, was delightful. Everyone we came across was very very nice: young waitresses, who, here in London would plonk stuff in front of you with a snarl, were charming and smiley, and café owners let us (well, me mostly) use their loos with a cheerful, ‘Mais, bien sûr, Madame!’ even though I never drank anything (I mention them because I became acquainted with an awful lot of those loos: my IBS flared up like crazy from day one – thanks to all the stress, as detailed above). It’s a myth that Parisian shopkeepers, etc. are sulky and unpleasant: for sulky and unpleasant you have to come to London.
At the Bazar de l’Hôtel-de-Ville (BHV to its friends) – the Parisian John Lewis, a most underrated department store that stocks practical items as well as objets de luxe, I found, at last, great zip-up nylon bags where my delicate sweaters will be protected from those pesky moths that have infested all our drawers. The BHV was crowded but, unlike the other Grands Magasins, it didn't make you lose the will to live.
And then there was the First Floor at the Salons du Palais-Royal (this will mean something to my Frag Board friends, everyone else will just have to remain puzzled), and being welcomed like a VIP there. Finally, the Ladurée cart, inside one of the entrances of the Printemps, and the two macaroons (one each) we managed to savour in a terrible draught, right under these lights. They were scrumptious.
End of Hugs. Resume Slaps.
The journey back was the most peaceful, restful, pleasant I’ve ever had on the Eurostar: it was very late and everyone was exhausted so not in the mood to chat or be noisy some other way. We got a cab pretty quickly and arrived back at our building to discover that the heating had broken down that day. That was Sunday night; this has been one of the coldest weeks yet (flights, etc. have been cancelled because of the freezing fog); the heating has only just been repaired. Life goes on…
Friday, 15 December 2006
Happy Hanukkah!
I’m off…
…somewhere. Just for the weekend, but, since I haven’t really been anywhere – apart from around the corner – for four years, it’s a BIG deal for me. All will be revealed on my return.
I wish I could remove the moderation so my two readers could leave comments freely, but they would soon be joined by all those people who try to leave messages about all sorts of ridiculous things (I have an Inbox full of them) so comments will have to wait until Monday.
Had I seen it before, I would have bought this portable and minimalist menorah to take with me on my trip. LOL! It’s called Hanukit and was designed by Reddish Studio. It can be found here.
Wednesday, 13 December 2006
An obscene amount of money
No, I’m not being Richard Gere in Pretty Woman (wasn’t that a great scene, by the way?) nor is it the sum of money I’m going to spend this Christmas, I’m referring to the bonus the boss of Goldman Sachs got this year.
Fifty million pounds sterling (£50m). As a bonus!
I can’t get my head round this figure. It makes me feel nauseous.
Years ago, when I worked in publishing, we all used to get a bonus with our last salary of the year (the company was very successful): mine was usually just about enough to pay for a bottle of perfume or something like that, but it was still a nice little extra. My boss's bonus was always much more substantial. One year, she opened the small brown envelope that contained her salary slip and exclaimed, ‘Oh goody, I can book my trip to Tibet now!’
Fifty million pounds is obscene, though.
Slap!
Fifty million pounds sterling (£50m). As a bonus!
I can’t get my head round this figure. It makes me feel nauseous.
Years ago, when I worked in publishing, we all used to get a bonus with our last salary of the year (the company was very successful): mine was usually just about enough to pay for a bottle of perfume or something like that, but it was still a nice little extra. My boss's bonus was always much more substantial. One year, she opened the small brown envelope that contained her salary slip and exclaimed, ‘Oh goody, I can book my trip to Tibet now!’
Fifty million pounds is obscene, though.
Slap!
Thursday, 7 December 2006
Er, thanks for caring... I suppose
The phone rings. I pick up the receiver and hear a computerized voice saying, ‘Hullo! This is an important message for Miss X [my name badly mispronounced – this isn’t starting very well…] from Y [the name of a bank that doesn’t like to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or anything at all, in fact, usually, and certainly never calls me in the evening]. We have noticed suspicious activity on your credit card. Please contact us at this number as soon as possible: 0845, etc. etc.’ I go, ‘Don’t be so silly, you fraudulent people you!’ And put the phone down.
The next day, the same message is left on my answerphone. Ok, I can’t ignore it again; I need to tell my bank that someone is calling their customers, panicking them and asking them to call them back. Obviously, if they do they will be confirming that they are who those fraudsters think they are and will be ripped off somehow.
Except that it was my bank calling me.
They should have asked me to call the number I’m used to calling the rare times I feel like a chat with them, not a different – and, to me, suspicious – one.
It’s slightly creepy, isn’t it? There are people out there who are sitting in front of computer screens and scrutinizing our purchases. ‘Oh, look, she bought something for 32p in TK Maxx the other day. Wonder what it is.’
Slap!
The next day, the same message is left on my answerphone. Ok, I can’t ignore it again; I need to tell my bank that someone is calling their customers, panicking them and asking them to call them back. Obviously, if they do they will be confirming that they are who those fraudsters think they are and will be ripped off somehow.
Except that it was my bank calling me.
‘What fraudulent activity? I’ve just checked on the Net; there’s nothing unusual there.’Hey, don’t get me wrong: I’m delighted they’re looking after me and my peanuts so well, but leaving scary messages on answerphones is not on. We keep getting told not to believe anything; not to click on links in emails, for instance, in case they’re ‘phishing’ emails so I said to the nosy man, ‘Who in their right mind is going to call a number they’ve never heard of before, these days? That number isn’t mentioned anywhere in your literature.’ ‘It’s on the back of your credit card.’ I checked: it wasn’t.
‘Well, the day before yesterday you spent £1.28 in Tesco, instead of your usual £1.23. And yesterday you spent 59p in Superdrug; you never buy anything in Superdrug.’
‘So?’
They should have asked me to call the number I’m used to calling the rare times I feel like a chat with them, not a different – and, to me, suspicious – one.
It’s slightly creepy, isn’t it? There are people out there who are sitting in front of computer screens and scrutinizing our purchases. ‘Oh, look, she bought something for 32p in TK Maxx the other day. Wonder what it is.’
Slap!
Friday, 1 December 2006
Guest Slapper of the Month XI
We, in the Blogosphere, are all in awe of TLP of Tan Lucy Pez: there is no one who is more quirky, more touching, more humorous. No one makes me hoot with laughter the way she does. No one. Here she is in serious mode, though. She can do that too. That TLP! (Sorry, couldn’t resist it. LOL!)
Only the rich can buy health care in America.
The only problem with delivering a SLAP! is narrowing my focus down to one slap. There are a lot of people/groups that I would happily slap. But the one SLAP that I decided on is so obviously over the top, that I just had to go with it. Nope, not anything to do with O.J. Simpson. Anything to do with him is a waste of a good tirade or a slap.
I’m slapping the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center in California. This hospital dumped hospital patients on Skid Row in L.A. These sick folks were indigent of course. And they were taken to Skid Row by ambulance. That’s right. They were sick enough to be taken by ambulance, and then dumped with no one to care for them.
According to National Public Radio (NPR), the 50 square blocks of Skid Row are home to more than 10,000 people with no where else to go. It has many shelters, social service agencies -- as well as convicted sex offenders and just about any illegal drug you can think of. It’s a horrible, crime-plagued area.
In other words, it's no place for someone who's still sick enough to be transported in an ambulance. But on a recent Sunday, Los Angeles police captured video and still photos of five patients from this single hospital being dumped in this unsafe and unclean area.
When the police interviewed a couple of ambulance drivers they found out that the drop-offs were not a fluke. It was a plan to rid the hospital of indigents. This plan had been in use for some time.
But wait! It turns out that other hospitals in the L.A. area are doing this too!
The hospital staff at Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital called a cab and paid the driver to take older woman with dementia to skid row and drop her off, according to a Los Angeles Times story reporting on “the first criminal prosecution of a medical center accused of ‘dumping’ patients on skid row.” Earlier this year the 63-year-old patient, Carol Ann Reyes, was videotaped leaving in the taxi from Kaiser Bellflower hospital in LA. She was taken away in her hospital gown and socks, and she was found wandering skid row streets. Reyes had never lived on skid row and was unfamiliar with the area. She was a homeless person, so she was dumped.
The bigger, perhaps better, slap would be to the people of the United States. We don’t have health care for everyone, and as a group we don’t care about our homeless. But I never thought that we would come to this. SLAP!
Only the rich can buy health care in America.
The only problem with delivering a SLAP! is narrowing my focus down to one slap. There are a lot of people/groups that I would happily slap. But the one SLAP that I decided on is so obviously over the top, that I just had to go with it. Nope, not anything to do with O.J. Simpson. Anything to do with him is a waste of a good tirade or a slap.
I’m slapping the Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center in California. This hospital dumped hospital patients on Skid Row in L.A. These sick folks were indigent of course. And they were taken to Skid Row by ambulance. That’s right. They were sick enough to be taken by ambulance, and then dumped with no one to care for them.
According to National Public Radio (NPR), the 50 square blocks of Skid Row are home to more than 10,000 people with no where else to go. It has many shelters, social service agencies -- as well as convicted sex offenders and just about any illegal drug you can think of. It’s a horrible, crime-plagued area.
In other words, it's no place for someone who's still sick enough to be transported in an ambulance. But on a recent Sunday, Los Angeles police captured video and still photos of five patients from this single hospital being dumped in this unsafe and unclean area.
When the police interviewed a couple of ambulance drivers they found out that the drop-offs were not a fluke. It was a plan to rid the hospital of indigents. This plan had been in use for some time.
But wait! It turns out that other hospitals in the L.A. area are doing this too!
The hospital staff at Kaiser Permanente’s Bellflower hospital called a cab and paid the driver to take older woman with dementia to skid row and drop her off, according to a Los Angeles Times story reporting on “the first criminal prosecution of a medical center accused of ‘dumping’ patients on skid row.” Earlier this year the 63-year-old patient, Carol Ann Reyes, was videotaped leaving in the taxi from Kaiser Bellflower hospital in LA. She was taken away in her hospital gown and socks, and she was found wandering skid row streets. Reyes had never lived on skid row and was unfamiliar with the area. She was a homeless person, so she was dumped.
The bigger, perhaps better, slap would be to the people of the United States. We don’t have health care for everyone, and as a group we don’t care about our homeless. But I never thought that we would come to this. SLAP!
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