You can't replace old friends

Two years ago today, Simone – a very good friend of mine – died, of a pulmonary embolism caused by the Tamoxifen she was taking after having breast cancer, which had itself been caused most probably by years and years of unsupervised HRT.

The other day, when I went to the Vive la France! exhibition, it wasn’t just to collect brochures for my work, it was also to exorcise it: that’s where I saw Simone for the last time – 12 days before her death.

We’d known each other for exactly 30 years: we’d met in 1974, in Stratford-upon-Avon, where we both lived. She worked as a seamstress in the RSC costume department and was married to one of the most famous theatre designers of the time (he’d met her in France 18 years earlier and brought her back to England). She was separated from him, but it didn’t stop her colleagues from giving her a hard time. She felt isolated and we became friends immediately (although she was quite a lot older than me). We saw each other all the time over the next few months.

I returned to France at the end of the year, but kept in touch with Simone regularly. I stayed with her several times during the holidays. She stayed with me in Paris. Then, in the mid-’80s, she went a bit mad – her behaviour became very erratic. They put it down to the menopause and she was given HRT and everything went back to normal.

We lost touch in the ’90s, when I fell ill and stopped going to Stratford so often, but we still corresponded and talked on the phone from time to time.

In her 2003 Christmas card she told me she’d had breast cancer but she was ok. A couple of weeks later she announced she would be coming down to London to attend the Vive la France! exhibition and could she see me there, since the hall was very close to my house? As it happened, I was, like this year, updating a guide and would be going to the exhibition myself, so we arranged to meet. She sounded full of beans and I was very excited at the prospect of seeing her again after such a long time.

She was very late on the day and I nearly gave up, but just as I was preparing to move away from our meeting point, she appeared and we fell into each other’s arms. She’d been waiting in the wrong place, after going around the exhibition and seemingly buying every French product on offer. I remarked on the heavy bags she was carrying and how she should be careful not to overdo it. We had a very good time over a drink at the buvette, but after an hour I had to take my leave: the exhibition was closing soon and I still hadn’t got the brochures I needed. I took a few pictures and we parted, promising to keep in touch and see each other more often.

Two weeks later, I received a phone call from her son. The funeral had already taken place.

I want to slap her GP for repeating her prescription for HRT without giving her a thorough examination at regular intervals and for not warning her of the dangers of taking hormones for 20 years. As for Tamoxifen, the risk of developing blood clots is very small and it must have been balanced against the risk of a recurrence of the cancer. But by then it was already too late.

Plus ça change…

Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day in this country and, guess what!, the leaders of the Muslim community will not take part in the official commemoration that is to take place today.

This is what they say, “The reason the MCB has called for a more inclusive 'Genocide Memorial Day' is because across the globe – not just among Muslims – there is a widespread view that we in the West practise double standards and devalue the lives of non-Westerners. In the MCB's view, the subtext of the Holocaust Memorial Day would thus be better served and help make the cry 'Never Again' real for all people who suffer, even now.”

As it says on its official website, Holocaust Memorial Day wasn’t just created to commemorate the extermination of six million Jews, it also aims to:

Restate the continuing need for vigilance in light of the troubling repetition
of human tragedies in the world today.

Reflect on recent atrocities that raise similar issues.

Etc. etc.

(click here for the complete list)

So the Muslim Council of Britain's reason for not attending doesn’t wash – not with me, anyway. The reason is very simply antisemitism.

It's spreading and cleverly disguised as anti-Zionism. But it’s the same old thing.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has already described the Holocaust as a ‘myth’ and called for Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’. His wish was recently granted – at least for a few hours. At the annual UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, a map of the Middle East was displayed in the room: Israel (which is a UN member) was nowhere to be seen. Now, who else produced maps where other countries were renamed and Jews non-existent? Oh yes, Hitler!

And, then, there's Abu Hamza, who's been spouting the most virulent antisemitic venom for years. Now that he is on trial (not before time), everyone has been able to realize how loathsome that man is. He doesn’t call for all ‘Isra-ilis’ to be killed; he clearly says ‘Jews’.

The mask is off. Some of us have never been fooled.

Slap!

Addendum:
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem offered his services to Hitler.
The Nazis had a base in Lebanon.
There was a pro-Nazi party in Iraq.
Nasser was a Nazi sympathizer.
And so it goes on…

Mimosa R.I.P.

I have on my desk a small bunch of mimosa. The tiny yellow powder puffs are all shrivelled because they’ve been with me since Friday afternoon and they didn’t have a drink of water for several hours. I’m not intentionally cruel to flowers: I was at the Vive la France! exhibition and I got those few sprigs right at the start of my visit. By the way, how can the organizers of that event justify the £16 entrance fee? For a few stands selling expensive French products; a few others selling crappy non-French crafts; a cookery demonstration by Jean-Christophe Novelli and a fashion show (that’s the best thing, actually, but I managed to miss it). In previous years, I have been able to taste some rather nice liqueurs and cocktails and wine jellies, but not any more: all I had this time was one cashew nut and one very thin slice of wild-boar saucisson – in that order. Luckily, I didn’t have to pay to get in because I pretended to be someone else. I don’t make a habit of that either, but I needed to go to the exhibition in order to collect brochures from the Provence-Côte d’Azur tourist offices (I’m currently updating a guide to that region) so I took the identity of the managing editor of the publishing house that’s employing me. There was a slightly hairy moment when they couldn’t find her/my name on the list and they asked me to fill in a form so they could give me a complimentary ticket and create a badge for me. I wonder whether they noticed, later, that the name I wrote down wasn’t quite spelt the same as the one on the business card I handed them and that the email address was a bit different too. Ssshhhh!

Anyway, I am passionate about mimosa: it’s beautiful; it has the most gorgeous scent and it reminds me of Nice. Anyone who has only sniffed fragrances purporting to smell of mimosa has no idea how wonderful it is. (The only one that’s close to the real thing is the home fragrance by Diptyque. I smelled it in SpaceNK a while ago and for an instant I didn't know where I was. Trust me; it's the only one.)

I live in Central London. (How do I know that? Taxi drivers agree to take me home if I hail one late at night. That’s the test.) You know what the weather is like in London most of the time. Yes? What’s the likelihood of a mimosa tree growing in Shepherds Bush? Nil, I would have said a few years ago. Wrong! There used to be a beautiful mimosa tree in someone’s front garden, in a side street, between here and Hammersmith. I’ve lived in this area for over ten years, but I only discovered it three years ago. So, around this time – when it’s still dark and horrible, I used to go and stand underneath that tree practically every day, and inhale the wonderful scent. I also used to talk to it – it was so lovely.

And then, last year, in April, I think, it was cut down. I couldn’t believe my eyes. One day I’d been walking down to Hammersmith and had automatically looked towards the house as I always did (I don't any more: there's nothing to see). It wasn’t there. I thought I’d made a mistake. I checked the name of the street again and again. I got closer and stood outside the house. Stunned. I felt I’d lost a friend.

That tree was a real delight. I miss it terribly. I’m slapping the people who cut it down. I don’t care why they did it. (It’s quite possible they had a good reason for doing it, but I don’t care.) I doubt they even knew what sort of tree it was and what a treasure they had.

Slap!

Vade retro, eBay!

I went to the theatre last night. No, I’m not going to slap the RSC again although they deserve it for lying to me: a couple of years ago, they assured me personally that they would find a London home that would afford the audience comfortable seating. Oh, yes? So why did I spend over an hour last night with my little legs dangling (I’m short, but not a midget – am I allowed to say that, I wonder), desperately trying to find a way to watch the play without constantly being aware of how painful my body was becoming? Luckily, there was an empty seat in the front row and, ah bliss!, my feet finally made contact with the floor and I watched the rest of the play in comfort. On returning home, I discovered to my horror that I was going back to that same theatre twice in February and would be sitting in exactly the same seat (it was supposed to be very good, damn it!). I will have to bring some kind of footrest next time or wear huge platform shoes.

No, I’m not slapping the RSC today; I can’t guarantee I won’t do it again at a later date, though.

Late last night, after cursing the RSC, I found an email from eBay informing me that my credit card was expiring soon. “Yes, I know,” I answered. But eBay had brought itself to my attention so I thought I might have a look to see if I could get a new FP (no, I won’t tell you what it is!). I am not a regular eBay trawler. I have ‘one’ sale under my belt: last summer I sold a perfectly good handbag for not very much money (but, then, it wasn’t a very expensive handbag in the first place). I was beside myself with delight. My gain was Oxfam’s loss, of course. I know that charity shops have complained that they’re getting fewer donations these days (I thought I was keeping their shops open all by myself), but I also know they’ve got in on the act and making more money that way, so I don’t feel so guilty about depriving them of that handbag. As for buying, I managed to get two items in the past few months. The funny thing about it was that I used a sniping service (free trial) and got very excited when the machine placed the ‘one and only’ bid three seconds before the end of each auction.

I’ve been to a couple of ‘real’ auctions in the past. Years ago, when I was still at school in Nice. I was mad about Art Nouveau and, luckily for me, no one else appreciated it at the time, so I got what I bid for. It was very exciting, but even then I knew instinctively it had nothing to do with ‘winning’ and everything to do with being prepared to fork out more money for the item than anyone else in the room. My father loved auctions: he used to buy bails of haberdashery stuff for his business (when he was still making raincoats himself). Buttons, sewing material, etc., from factories that had gone bust. As a little girl, I used to be given anything that he couldn’t use, like masses of skeins of soie floche, for instance (no idea what that is in English, but it’s beautiful) or literally kilos of those tiny tiny beads that cost so much in the shops these days. Auctions were synonymous with ‘fun’. And they still are for millions of people. For my part, I’ve grown up and become a cautious, frugal adult, so the word has acquired an element of danger, and, since I’m not a natural gambler, I don’t relish it at all.

I went through pages and pages of listings last night. Isn’t eBay the most wonderful time-wasting device? This time I used two snipers and set them to place bids two seconds from each other. It looks like I will be bidding against myself and I’m curious to see exactly what happens in such a case. However, since I’m not prepared to pay a lot of money for that particular FP (it’s driving you crazy, isn’t it?), I will probably be outbid long before the end of the auction.

I’m slapping eBay for reminding me that it existed and for fooling people into thinking they’ve ‘won’ stuff. I’m also slapping those people who get so carried away that they practically bankrupt themselves. The expression ‘winning an auction’ should be banned from the vocabulary. Slap!

Update: FP was for Fountain Pen! As I expected, I was outbid. This is what someone else... won... no, paid a lot more than me for.

Up-update: the pen turned out to be a fake. I've had a narrow escape.

Tête à claques VI

This one’s easy: George Galloway has been asking to be slapped for ages (I have a feeling he would enjoy it too). How do you become a figure of fun when you’re an MP? There are lots of ways - most of them involve sex, but George has done it in a different way, although he’s about as funny as a tinpot tyrant from a banana republic. You know the type. I don’t want to compare him to more scary bogeymen like Hitler or Mussolini, but if they sometimes looked preposterous so does he.

The way he’s done it is by taking part in Celebrity Big Brother (I slapped my beloved Germaine Greer for doing the same thing last year; what is it with those people?) and he's regaled viewers with his antics for the past week or so. It would be pathetic and rather funny if it didn’t cost money to the taxpayer: he’s being paid to do a job, but he’s not at his post and has already missed several important votes in Parliament. His long-suffering constituents and fellow MPs have now circulated a petition demanding for him to leave the House (the Big Brother House, that is, not the House of Commons, although….). It’s sad and it’s somehow typical of a certain kind of British politician. Who can take them seriously these days?

I don’t suppose his name will ring a bell with my US readers: George doesn’t export well. Saddam has heard of him, though. They used to be pals. They met at least twice in the past and George made a point of telling us that there was nothing wrong with Saddam; he was a good guy. Now, who am I to criticize someone’s choice of friends and think what you will about the war, but no one can seriously deny that Saddam was a despot, who ordered the deaths of thousands of his fellow countrymen. That’s when George stops being funny and joins the ranks of ‘dangerous’ apologists.

As Joyce Grenfell might have said, “George, don’t do that!”

Update: It's hilarious. The winner of the Slap of the Year award has commented on the performance of the current Tête à claques in Celebrity Big Brother. Ken Livingstone said, “I have occasionally got involved in media events that were not as ennobling as I would have hoped, but I have never done anything as spectacularly stupid as this.”

The words ‘kettle’ and ‘pot’ come to mind. And we live in hope, Ken.

Where did you say it was?

“You cut my dog’s balls off, you cut my balls off!” said a man last night on It’s Me or the Dog (I don’t have a dog, but that programme makes me laugh so much… and I’m always wondering whether I can pick up some tip I could try on my cat – some hope, eh?) He was the owner of a cute bulldog who terrorized one of his sons (the man’s, not the dog’s) and humped everyone constantly. Non-stop. He even tried (the dog, not the man) to mate with the presenter (a lovely, stern dog dominatrix) and the sound recordist (is that a word?) on camera, in front of millions of viewers, the shameless mutt. The solution for such macho behaviour was castration – obviously. The dog tamer explained that it was cruel for the poor beast to be pumped full of testosterone all the time with no way of releasing his sex drive. but the owner wouldn’t hear of it. No way!

How interesting! (It’s also preposterous and laughable, but that goes without saying so I won’t say it.) So, if I understand correctly, that man’s virility resides in his dog’s testicles. (He’s not the only man to have said that kind of nonsense on that programme, by the way.) Hmmm… let me see: I had my pussycat spayed a few years ago; I love my cat and sometimes identify with her, but I didn’t feel as if my uterus and ovaries had been removed. Why is that? Because… my femaleness was not in my cat’s reproductive organs. It wasn’t even in my own breasts, which were cut off a while ago. (My cat also had ‘multiple’ mastectomies when she was a kitten. Mine was just a ‘double’ – sounds like I’m ordering a drink, doesn’t it? “Make mine a double, please, surgeon!”, although the Cromwell Hospital did try to charge me – and my insurance company – for three breasts. Hey, I’m weird, but not that weird.) I know that some women feel less feminine when they’ve had a hysterectomy, for instance, but at least they’re talking about the loss of their own organs not that of their hamster’s or parrot’s.

I cannot quite understand that man’s reasoning (so what else is new?). It’s long been suspected, though, that men see their pets – and their cars – as extensions of their manhood, hasn’t it? What better proof does one need?

Slapping those morons who would rather jeopardize their marriages (the man’s wife was very pissed off) than do the right thing for their pets!

Me, my goat and women

Do you know what gets my goat? Well, you do know what gets my goat: I tell you more or less twice a week. No, but do you know what really gets my goat? It’s women who define themselves (or are defined by other people) in relation to someone else. Newspapers write, ‘A 75-year-old grandmother blah blah blah…’ Why can’t they say, ‘A 75-year-old woman blah blah blah…’ If the fact that she’s got grandchildren has nothing to do with the matter in hand, why mention it? Why can’t she just be this human being who’s done something or to whom something’s been done? When was the last time you read the same kind of thing about a man?

What am I? A 57-year-old cat owner? I am that, but I wouldn’t define myself as such.

But some women are their worst enemies in that respect. They undervalue themselves and their achievements. Either that or, when they haven’t achieved much (or so they think), they boast about their spouses’ accomplishments in ridiculous terms. Not long ago, I heard a woman say – with no hint of irony – something like, “My genius hubby thinks that…” and there followed some incredibly banal remark. I wonder how many times a day that particular ‘hubby’ tells his wife he’s a genius and could be a member of Mensa if he wanted to (that is, if he wanted to associate with right-wing extremists).

My goat is especially got when the ‘little’ woman says, “I’m computer illiterate. I’ll have to ask my fiancé [aaaargh!] how to switch on the computer.” I only exaggerate a tiny bit. (I also know I’ve touched on that subject in the past, but, oh, how it annoys me!). Since when is it ok to admit to being illiterate in anything? Lady, if you’re computer illiterate, please learn how to use that now-indispensable machine and stop relying on a man for anything that doesn’t require sheer brawn. You have a brain – presumably. Use it! And remember that, on average, women live a lot longer than men and therefore you might suddenly find yourself lumbered with all sorts of things you can’t do (actually, learning how to put up shelves is quite useful too, and the same applies to the few men who survive their women and who can’t boil an egg or use the washing machine).

Slap, slap, slap! Slapping all the women who behave as if the term homo sapiens doesn't apply to them.

Slap of the Year

I’ve just spent two days trying to install my printer onto my laptop because my PC is really on the blink this time so there were a few contenders to the title, including my bathroom and other pesky people/artefacts/organisations, but the winner, the one that really took the biscuit this past year is... Our Ken... Our Mayor... Ken Livingstone!

To think that I helped elect him to that post! I’m not allowed to vote in the ‘big’ elections with the adults since I’m not a British subject (there are no citizens in this country because of Queenie), but they let me put a tick in front of that man’s name and he became Mayor of London and I could kick myself.

Ken Livingstone used to be the head of the GLC (Greater London Council) when Thatcher was Prime Minister. At the time there was a smear campaign against him; he was nicknamed Red Ken because of his left-wing excesses, as perceived by the Conservatives, but when Labour got in we all voted for Ken to be our spokesman and defend us against Central Government. He seemed to be the right man for the job.

Alas, we hadn’t yet realized the size of his ego. Everything he’s done has been to his own advancement and Londoners blame him for making their lives a misery, mostly because of the Congestion Charge and the preposterous increase in public transport fares.

It’s all very paradoxical: the Congestion Charge was created to:
1) relieve… erm… congestion in the streets of London
2) discourage commuters from driving into the city
3) encourage people to use public transport
4) provide funds to improve public transport

It didn't really had much effect, except maybe upsetting the owners of businesses situated within the Congestion Charge zone, so Ken decided to enlarge the zone. He held a referendum about it and the overwhelming response was a resounding ‘No’. Did he listen to the people he’s supposed to represent? Of course not.

Tube and bus fares have also increased just now – by the most incredible percentage. What will this do? It will encourage people to start using their cars again. Go figure!

If that weren’t enough, Ken is also a kind of loose cannon in his public life. Power has gone to his head and he’s lost touch with how a representative of the people is supposed to behave. Last year he compared Oliver Finegold, an Evening Standard journalist, to a concentration camp guard after being told he was Jewish. He has so far stubbornly refused to apologize.

But, then, he had previously embraced Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian theologian who advocates the murder of homosexuals and Israeli civilians, and beating-up women. Just the kind of man you’d want to be publicly associated with!

I’m telling you, I could kick myself, but in the meantime I’m slapping Ken Livingstone with all my might. SLAP!

Update: I've just read that Ken recently declared, “I am pleased to be able to host the lighting of the Menorah at City Hall. Hanukkah is an important period in the Jewish calendar commemorating the Jewish struggle for religious freedom. In recognition of this, I intend this to be an annual event at City Hall. I would like to wish London’s Jewish communities a very happy Hanukkah.”

A hypocrite - on top of everything else. As we say in French, Il a tout pour plaire.

My hand is itching... but...

Happy New Year to you all!

No slap today

I know. Try not to be too disappointed. It’s still the season of goodwill (still!) and I’m taking part in a hit parade (that dates me, doesn’t it?) of the best perfumes and beauty products of the past year. Well, I’m not in the running. You know what I mean. Not so easy peasy as I thought when I foolishly agreed to do it. I don’t try everything that comes out and I’m not sure I even tried ten perfumes/cosmetics in the past twelve months, let alone liked them.

Best of 2005

Cèdre by Serge Lutens
I don’t know how well it went down in France, but this hasn’t been a great success in the US, among my pals at MakeupAlley anyway. The fools! LOL!

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. It doesn’t have much cedar either, in spite of its name – it’s not Black Cashmere, for instance, but too much cedar can be boring – like in Black Cashmere, for instance. It’s just a soft and complex mix of flowers and spices. I would wear it if I weren’t wedded to Fleurs d’Oranger, which is the best of last year, this year, every year. I’m the faithful kind.

Climat by Lancôme
My own personal fairy godmother sent me a whole bottle of this ‘60s perfume, recently relaunched by Lancôme. Everything about it is beautiful: the bottle is the epitome of chic; the juice is a lovely green; the scent is classic, fizzy (it’s the aldehydes); it lingers nicely. It’s ‘old-fashioned’ in the best possible way (please, no jokes about ‘old-lady’ perfumes!); it’s elegant. “Just what a perfume should be like,” said my partner about it. Yep!

Parfum Sacré by Caron
I’d always thought Caron and I didn’t agree. I was wrong. I think I'd dismissed the whole line because I’d only smelled Fleurs de Rocaille and Nocturnes and hadn’t liked them. Then, a couple of years ago, I received a small decant of Parfum Sacré from an American pal and became rather besotted with it. I kept it on my desk and sniffed it constantly. This year I decided to take the plunge: I bought a bottle of PS from a delightful French eBay seller – one of those bottles with small glass knobs dotted about and a big gold top: very baroque, just right.

I’m so bad at describing perfume (I’m on MakeupAlley on sufferance, you know)! I can never detect all the notes like my friends the real perfumistas. Parfum Sacré is peppery, incensey, powdery, flowery… I’m running out of adjectives ending in ‘y’… it’s warm, soft, comforting… and I adore it.

Divinora Cupidon Lip Pencil by Guerlain
I’m cheating a lil’ bit here: I discovered it late last year, but it’s so good… It’s a shiny, pale, flesh-coloured pencil that restores what I found out yesterday is called the ‘milk line’ in English: that whitish line one has along one’s lips when one is young – it disappears with age, as lips themselves vanish (where do they go?). Line your Cupid’s bow with it and your lips look instantly younger and plumper. Better than collagen injections and surtout less painful.

Correcteur d’Hydratation pour le Visage (remember, light ‘a’ not ‘â’) by Samuel Par
I found this wonderful face oil on the shelves of my local TK Maxx, which is invaluable for clothes and accessories, etc. but pathetic for perfumes and cosmetics… except that time. I would never have bought it full price but it was drastically reduced for some reason and I grabbed it, because Samuel Par is a great skincare brand. This is a light oil, packed full of delicious-smelling essential oils: lavender, savory, geranium, sage and red thyme. Can you imagine the gorgeous smell? I use it before going to bed. It’s beyond scrumptious.

Lotion nettoyante pour peaux intolérantes by Avène
I developed some kind of allergy to one of my skincare products a few months ago and decided to change my routine – starting with my cleanser. Boots sells the Avène range, which contains spring water from the spa of the same name (the French love spas). The whole range is meant for ‘sensitive and irritated skin’ and this cleanser is different from anything I’ve used before. It’s a light, creamy gel that removes make-up and grime in one fell swoop and doesn’t require the use of a toner. I’m sticking with it.

Rosé Granati Soothing Hand Lotion by Molton Brown
I was bequeathed a sample of it (don’t worry the giver is not dead: I just like the word ‘bequeath’) and that was it: search no more; thou hast found thy hand lotion hg (‘holy grail’ for the ignorant among you). It smells delicate; goes in beautifully (although, when I want to massage my nails while watching the telly, I use an oily cream that takes an age to go in) and it makes your hand soft soft soft. The best.

Rêve de Miel Lip Balm by Nuxe
Years and years ago, when N. Kinnaird, the founder of SpaceNK, was on the lookout for original, preferably foreign cosmetics and skincare products, I wrote to her and told her about that brand, which was on sale in the parapharmacie departments of supermarkets in France. I remembered it from my childhood and I knew it was good quality. I never heard from her (she later asserted she’d never received my letter), but within six months Nuxe was on the shelves of the original SpaceNK shop in Covent Garden (it was soooo small!). Do you believe in coincidences? Anyway, I think SpaceNK do not stock Nuxe any longer, now that the products are sold in Boots (a snob, moi?). The only Nuxe thing I use is the lip balm: it does not contain petrochemicals; it tastes of grapefruit and honey, and lasts forever (careful, it does go off: no preservatives, you see). I apply it at night and, in the morning, my lips are as smooth as … (the words ‘baby’ and ‘bottom’ come to mind, but …) Although, yesterday, I received a small tube of Lip Balm by Durance en Provence from a French friend. It's also almost all natural and tastes lightly of honey. My lips, this morning, were as smooth as... so maybe next year, when we do this again, I will have another product to rave about.

There you are! How many is that? Seven. Sorry. Can’t think of anything else. For more recommendations, please visit the perfume mavens listed below (better cut up your credit card now).

Update: I’d like to add a wish for 2006 – a heartfelt wish: I want lip-glosses and shiny, glittery lipsticks to go back to where they came from. I want a return to creamy – or matt – proper lipsticks. Gooey, sticky doesn’t do it for me!

• An Alabaster Brow


• Beauty Addict


• Blogdorf Goodman


• Bois de Jasmin


• Brain Trapped in Girl's Body


• c'est chic


• Crazy Jay Blue


• The Great She Elephant


• Hrmph


• Koneko's *Mostly* Beauty Diary


• Legerdenez


• Make a Mental Note


• Monkey Posh


• Mother Hen's Place


• my life my words my mind


• no one knows why the wolf laughs


• Now Smell This


• ¡Ombligo!


• Peppermint Patty


• Perfume-Smellin' Things


• Scentzilla!


• She'll be feverish after so much thinking


• Victoria's Own

Many thanks to K of Scentzilla! for the beautiful logo above, and to A of Blogdorf Goodman and R of Now Smell This for organizing the whole fun thing!

Ok, truce over!

All year I look forward to what the TV schedulers have planned for us over Christmas and the New Year. Programmes are usually very exciting, with lots of film premieres and specially commissioned comedies and dramas.

Not this year!

It’s been absolutely dismal so far: nothing but repeats repeats repeats. Films one has seen so many times one can quote huge chunks of dialogue from; old comedies that weren’t even funny the first time round. Nothing, but nothing worth staying home for.

A few years ago I sent the Christmas TV listings to a friend of mine in Paris, who’s a real movie buff. I think there were something like 25 new films being shown over the period. She was suitably impressed and from then on always believed me when I assured her we had the best TV in the world.

I suspect we owe this new state of affairs to the advent of satellite and digital TV. We who rely solely on the five terrestrial channels for our entertainment are left high and dry. We only get the dregs. Subscribing to those new channels is getting more tempting by the day, but I know that too much choice can also be disheartening. (Actually, I’ve just looked at what was on offer on those channels and it wasn’t that good either.)

I adore films, but rarely go to the cinema. I used to go all the time when I lived in France, but got out of the habit when I moved to London: smoking was still allowed at the time and I found it unbearable to watch films through a haze and come out reeking of cigarette. Also, London cinemas didn't show the wide range of films I was accustomed to being able to watch. These days I’m usually in no hurry to see the new releases and until now I hadn’t felt the need to rent out films since I knew that more or less everything that had come out in the previous two years was bound to be shown at some point over the holidays.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much: the wonderful BBC adaptation of Bleak House ended just last week and we’ve been able to see several recent films in the past few months, but this is the time I want to see them, not earlier in the year.

I’m slapping the TV schedulers! Very hard! Slap!!!!

The first candle has been lit

Happy Hannukah!

“Grrr!” “Ssshhhh!”

This grumpy old woman has been told she could not be grumpy just now (she wishes she could stop being ‘old’ so easily) so today she will use someone else's cynical words:

“Do not pick up other people's rubbish. It looks a bit obsessive/eccentric... We are suspicious of people who do good things for no reason. Anyone who departs from the principle of overt self-interest is simply weird.” (Lynne Truss in Talk to the Hand)

Let's hope there are lots of ‘weird’ people in the world!

Merry Christmas to All!

Skincare for the careless

You can always tell when an ad isn’t meant for you. There’s one at the moment for some product from the Nivea Visage (visage, not visâge, btw: light, cheerful ‘a’, not dark, ominous ‘â’) range where a woman says, in one of those raucous voices, “You’ve had a juicy past and the future looks even brighter.”

The word ‘juicy’ makes me uneasy. They’re obviously addressing ladettes. Are they saying that Nivea Visage will repair any damage done to the skin by endless drinks and fags so do carry on with your unhealthy lifestyle, dears? Or are they advocating promiscuity? (If there is such a thing as promiscuity these days.)

I’m not sure I understand the meaning of that ad. As I get older the number of those ads increases and so does my puzzlement.

I feel I should slap Nivea for delivering an ambiguous, potentially dangerous message and for making me feel so out of touch with what’s going on. Slap!

Interlude

I moved stuff around my flat yesterday and overdid it a little bit - I'm exhausted right now - so I thought I'd offer you some entertainment.

Here are two short video clips I took the other day - with my tiny digital camera (hadn't realized I could do that before: I've only had it for a couple of years so what do you expect?). If you don't have broadband, don't bother: they'll take about 20 minutes to download - each - and you'll lose the will to live. But if you do - and it works, you will feel as if you're in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, which is exactly where I was when I took them (strange or what?).

London at Christmas

Have fun!

Ye Olde England

My mother never understood it. None of my French friends understands it. I myself don’t understand it (in the sense that I don’t understand how it can still exist).

What is it that’s so puzzling?

The leasehold system, of course. That legacy of feudal England. So quaint, so ridiculous, so unfair!

I’ve owned my flat for over 10 years, but if I lived another 70 years I would have to hand it back to the landlord – the holder of the freehold, the owner of the land on which my block of flats is standing – and I would find myself homeless at the age of 127.

How preposterous is that? When I buy something I can normally assume it belongs to me – for good. Can’t I?

The leasehold system in London (it’s mostly Londoners who are affected by it) means that, although you may have forked out hundreds of thousands of pounds, you only own your flat for a limited period of time, decided in advance. You have to be aware of it at the time of purchase. If two identical flats are on the market, the one with the longer lease is usually the more expensive and certainly the more desirable: mortgage lenders don’t offer loans on flats with short leases and cash buyers don’t want to purchase them either. When the number of years left on a lease gets dangerously low and the flat becomes practically impossible to sell, you can have the lease extended, but, of course, you have to pay the landlord (again!!!) quite large sums of money for the privilege.

My particular block of flats is run by a firm of managing agents: we pay service charges to cover staff salaries, maintenance, heating, etc. The accounts are audited once a year and no one really argues about how the money is spent. A few years ago residents of blocks of flats acquired the right to buy the freeholds and manage themselves (if the required number of people agreed), but being at the mercy of other owner-occupiers, who may or may not care whether the building they live in is kept in good nick, is a frightening thought. Luckily, others feel like me and would resist any such move. It’s bad enough trying to get things done through an official body; I can’t think how we would fare if, for instance, people living on the upper floors had to beg the ones living on the ground floor to pay for repairs to the lift. The latter might say, “We never take the lift; we couldn’t care less if it never works again.” (I’m on the second floor and I hardly ever take the lift, but I know we all have to contribute.)

Best case scenario:
1) you know your lease will outlive you
2) you have no intention of ever moving
3) you have no heirs and don’t care what happens to your property after your death

What gets me is that we have to pay the landlord ‘ground rent’. ‘Ground’ rent!!! I don’t live on the ‘ground’ floor; why do I have pay that person for the use of his ‘ground’? Furthermore, not all the residents pay the same amount: how can the ‘ground’ be worth a different amount of money if you live on a different floor? There are over 100 flats in my building and the landlord gets ground rent from each of them – that’s a nice tidy sum for absolutely nothing. On top of that, it goes up every 25 years: in 2001, my share went from £100 to £200 a year, i.e. a 100 per cent increase. I was livid.

The whole thing makes me mad anyway so I’m slapping whoever let that feudal system carry on into the 21st century. It's not on. Slap!

Ugh! Get off my face!

Ok, now that I’ve got Christmas out of my system I can gripe about something else. Phew!

I tried to remove my make-up last night (I’m a good girl, I am: I try to always cleanse my face before going to bed, although, you know, leftover eye make-up is really nice in the morning – you look good without ‘obvious’ help, but, no, I don’t do it deliberately) and I ended up with bits of white tissue all over my face, like a man who’s nicked himself shaving. Blech!

Kleenex has always been the Rolls Royce of tissue – the brand name didn't replace the generic name for nothing. But not any more it isn’t. I use the Ultra Soft ones. They’ve changed the look of the box and I spent a little time searching for that familiar blue box in the supermarket – it's now pale grey with drawings of hands and other parts of the body, but, ok, not much hardship there. However they’ve also reduced the size of the tissues – drastically. They’re now tiny. Still, they’re big enough for most tasks.

But but but they don’t work as make-up removing tools: they stick to the face instead of absorbing the cleansing milk or cream and gliding over the skin. They break up and disintegrate straightaway and you’re left with damp mush in your hands and bits of fluff here and there. It’s disgusting.

They’re not good for blowing one's nose either. The same unpleasant thing happens – only worse. Nasty.

The blurb on the back of the box reads: “Kleenex Ultra Soft tissues are simply a pleasure to touch. Specially soft, they feel lovely against your skin. Kleenex Ultra Soft tissue, the difference is in the touch.” Don’t make me laugh! (And, by the way, shouldn’t it be ‘especially’?)

I’ve already slapped manufacturers and other companies for cheating consumers by offering them products or services that are below par after getting them hooked with good stuff, but usually it’s done over several months or even years. In the case of Kleenex it seems to have happened overnight: the last time I bought a box of those tissues – just a little while ago – they were absolutely fine. Back to scritchy-scratchy ‘big’ and ‘strong’ own-brand tissues, I expect. Oh well, I won’t have to exfoliate any more.

Slapping their un-cleansed corporate face!

More money than sense

Apparently, people spend an average of £137 on each of their children at Christmas (still harping on it, sorry). That is a huge amount, isn’t it?, even if you only have the requisite 2.4 children (don't bother to fish out the calculator; I've done the sums for you: it's £328.80). And I believe it’s the poorest people, those who can’t afford it, can’t manage to pay the mortgage or the rent, are already in debt who spend the most on Christmas presents for their kids.

Why is that?

Hype? Peer pressure? Children nagging their parents for the latest toys and gadgets? G-d forbid a child should go back to the playground after the holidays without the desirable play station or mp3 player or whatever! What are parents to do? After all, they do want to stay at least on speaking terms with their children. Ok, I’ll slap the companies making those ‘indispensable’ artefacts. Slap!

Hang on, though, isn’t there something else going on here? Could it be that parents lavish money on their kids because they feel guilty for not ‘being there’ for them? Aren’t they trying to buy their love? I’ll slap the parents too, I think. Slap!

Tête à claques V

I’ve never met my previous Têtes à claques, but I knew Rupert Everett when he was a young boy. These photos were taken in Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1977: Rupert was 18.

He was tall and thin as a beanpole (an asperge in French – we’re a little more refined in our choice of vegetables). He was gangly, not quite coordinated; he could be bitchy and waspish, but also very very cute.

I first saw him in Stratford in 1976; he used to hang around the theatre day and night and , as I was on holiday, I used to hang around the theatre day and night. That year the RSC had decided to transform the theatre into a replica of Shakespeare's Globe and there were seats at the back of the stage. This young man was annoying me a lot by pacing up and down at the back of the seating area; I kept wondering why he was allowed to disturb the paying public in that way. Then, one morning I saw him with Ian McKellen outside my B&B. They looked very ‘friendly’ with each other. That was ten years before Sir Ian came out of the closet; he was a matinee idol rather than a gay icon and female fans used to mob him at the Stage Door (one of them even threw herself into the Avon to attract his attention). Anyway, who was courting whom, I couldn’t possibly say.

The following year I bumped into Rupert again in London: he was working as an usher at the Warehouse (the RSC’s studio theatre) and already charming his way to fame. He recognized me and we started chatting. We met up a couple of weeks later in Stratford: we were both attending the Shakespeare Summer School and we had great fun together. He was always on the lookout for mischief and together we behaved outrageously (one night we were even thrown out of a very respectable Chinese restaurant). He returned to London at the end of the week and we didn’t see each other again for another year.

Then, one afternoon, in Paris, I got a phone call from him, “Please come and bail me out. I’ve crossed the Channel without a passport. I’m at the Hôtel Meurice, on the Rue de Rivoli. I'm hungry. I've got no money. I'm going back tonight. I don't know what's going to happen.” By chance another actor friend was staying with me. He knew Rupert too, by sight. He was extremely amused and agreed to go with me to rescue him. We found him lounging on a sofa in the beautiful lobby of that most luxurious of hotels, writing a letter with a pen and a pad lent to him by one of the commissioners. He stood up languidly to greet us and, on the way out, offered to return the writing implements, but the commissioner told him to keep them with a huge smile – totally under his spell. We took Rupert to Angelina (a very posh tearoom) next door and plied him with tea and cakes. We had a whale of a time. Later, he borrowed money from us (“Rupert, you still owe it!”) to pay for the fare to Gare du Nord, and he left as nonchalantly as he had appeared. No doubt he charmed passport control too, later that evening.

In 1981 I went to see him in Another Country, at the Greenwich Theatre (before the show transferred to the West End). He was the same old Rupert. He entertained me with stories of the other actors in the play (one of whom was Kenneth Branagh). That was the beginning of his rise and rise to stardom.

I’ve seen him a couple of times since then, but not recently and if I had I probably wouldn’t have recognized him. He’s had plastic surgery: a brow and eye lift, and cheek implants, they say. He doesn’t look like himself any longer.

Rupert, I’m slapping you for spoiling your good looks – even more than a few wrinkles would have.

The worship of Mammon

Some years ago a romantic comedy changed the face of a whole area of London. Notting Hill triggered the gentrification of Notting Hill Gate (by the way, there’s no such thing as Notting Hill). I lived in that once-bohemian neighbourhood for 16 years. At the time it was known for its antique shops: they were everywhere (Portobello Road, Ledbury Road and Westbourne Grove especially were lined with them). I once took a cab from the West End; when I told him where I wanted to go, the driver said, “Oh, I know that road [it was a very tiny one]: there’s an antique shop on the corner.” We both hooted with laughter.

I went there this afternoon and some of those antique shops – as well as other businesses – have been replaced by branches of famous designer stores or chichi boutiques and art galleries. Westbourne Grove is still a mixture of high- and low-end retailers, though. There is an extraordinarily luxurious jeweller’s – its frontage is so grand! – next to the Oxfam Shop where I used to take my unwanted belongings. A few landmarks are still in place: the small post office that I used to visit every other day to mail my translations, before the advent of the email, is still there next to Tom’s delicatessen, which was an old-fashioned beauty parlour when I first settled in the area, in 1979 (it was one of those apparently jinxed shops, until Terence Conran’s son turned it into a successful café and posh grocer’s). The road gets steadily grottier as one approaches Queensway, although an expensive Italian traiteur has taken over the Pakistani grocer’s where I used to be welcomed like a long-lost friend on the rare occasions I went there to buy a loaf of bread.

I try to stay away as much as I can because it hurts: I could have made a killing and retired early, had I sold my flat in 1996 instead of 1995. Every time I go to the area I discover new weird things, some less pleasant than others. Today I came across a church that was renovated fairly recently: it's still a church (albeit an ultra modern one), but part of it houses a boutique and an art gallery, and I think there are flats on the upper floors. The last time I’d walked past it I hadn’t noticed how outrageous that was – perhaps because it had been in daylight: I hadn’t suddenly come upon the incongruous spectacle of a church building with brightly lit shop windows on one side. It seems to embody all that is wrong about that area now.

A little while ago I discovered that the nearest synagogue (in Brook Green) had been turned into a Chinese temple. I can just about accept that – although it saddens me, but the transformation of a place of worship into a shop I find truly shocking.

Notting Hill Gate has lost its soul.

A slap to the makers of that film – their influence has been an evil one.