Ali - Greatest Man on the Box

Muhammad Ali was my childhood hero and one of the reasons behind my lifelong love of television. 

He was the first thing I remember seeing and thinking Wow! The confidence, the physicality, the verbal dexterity. Obviously, I didn’t express it in those terms as a kid, but the huge impact he made on me was the belief that yes, it’s ok to acknowledge when you have a talent – but you have to put in the groundwork to maintain it: only then can you be proud of your success.

   

The thrill of being allowed to watch an Ali fight lived with me from the first second I saw – and heard – him. My parents would put my brother Nigel and me to bed early and, if we agreed to sleep, they promised to wake us up and bring us downstairs in our pyjamas to watch the boxing (they did the same with the Miss World contest, which was also thrilling, but in a different way).

   

It instilled in me a love of the sport, and when I was 13, in secondary school, and Joe Frazier beat Ali in what has been called the “fight of the century”, I was devastated. It was a unanimous decision that handed Frazier the Heavyweight title, and I went to school with a heavy heart that grew heavier when I arrived to see classmate Cerys writing “Well done Frazier” on the blackboard.

   

A couple of years ago, she got in touch via social networking, and I reminded her of how she had hurt me on that famous day. Naturally, she thought I was nuts even for having remembered; but I knew we could never be real friends, even so many decades on.

   

In 2013, I went to see Shane Mosley fight Floyd Mayweather in the MGM in Las Vegas. It was the greatest sporting event I had ever attended – not because of the main attraction (which wasn’t great, despite the hype), but because Ali was there. I didn’t get to meet him, but the cheers with which his name was greeted when the announcer said it (they single out all famous attendees) was a very emotional moment. 

He truly was the greatest, and when I witnessed the appalling way the Mayweather camp treat everyone (the Mosley camp were adorable), I realized that while Mayweather might currently be the world’s greatest boxer, true superstardom is that extra something that he will never have.

   

I wasn’t a very political child, and I’m not a very political adult, but I recall it being a big deal when Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay. My parents were shocked, and I remember it was a big talking point. The sense that he had let people down was palpable; to me, it just seemed glamorous, and I loved him even more for his ability to change his identity.

   

He was not only the first modern athlete but the first TV star, and there has been no one since who made such an impression upon me in the medium that was to become my life. He was a self-publicist with a genius of a talent, unlike today’s reality stars whose only skill is taking their kit off in front of the cameras and behaving like slobs. 

He had a sublime gift that was truly beautiful to watch, and it was heartbreaking to see the 32 years of suffering as Parkinson’s ravaged his once beautiful body.

   

I don’t believe in an afterlife, Ali, but today I wish there was one, because there are oh, so many people there whose lights I’d like you to punch out.

  

Goodbye, my hero. 

You are one person I would love to have met. 

It may be the final bell, but your legend and humanity will live on for many rounds to come.

  

  

   

Non-Preparation for Landing

I’ve always been a leader, not a follower. 

That’s not because I believe I have any great leadership skills; I just don’t trust anyone else to take me to the right destination, either physically or metaphorically. It’s probably the reason I’ve never been married. If you can’t trust someone to walk you down the aisle, it doesn’t bode well for a future with what’s waiting at the altar.

   

People tend to follow me, though. Again, not because I possess any great skill, but because I carry my actions through with such conviction, everyone thinks I must be doing the right thing. That’s how 250 people, following me off a plane, landed up in a dead end in Malaga airport. Incredibly, upon reaching the dead end, they all followed me back the way we had come, as, despite my error, I marched forth once more with Alamo like conviction.

   

I was less lucky when landing at John F Kennedy airport last week, following a Virgin America internal flight from Los Angeles to New York. It’s my third least favourite airport in the world (after Charles de Gaulle and Miami) and I try to fly in and out of Newark, which is more accessible to where I live in New York. 

But JFK was unavoidable on this occasion, and so, being the first to leave the plane (as per usual), I marched off forcefully, my troops (as per usual, again) scurrying up the rear in the belief that I knew where I was going.

   

The last thing I remember before my hysteria was pressing a metal bar on a door and finding myself alone on the other side. My troops had deserted me. I went to carousel six, which is where the announcer had told us to go, but not only were there no people I recognised from my flight, there were no bags.

   

There were, however, lots of officials telling me I had to join a long queue, but then directing me to a tiny queue when I explained I had Global Entry (which enables you to cut all queuing at US airports – it’s a joy). Now the fun really began: I had a Domestic flight ticket but was, inexplicably, in the International Arrivals area, and so wasn’t allowed out. I wasn’t allowed anywhere, in fact. This was it. Groundhog Day: destined to roam the corridors of JFK for all eternity.

   

What’s a girl to do? Cry. That’s what. And I did. Sobbed. Blubbed. Uncontrollably. I stopped anyone wearing a uniform to try to explain my fate. One female in security was unsympathetic and all but had me deported on the spot. But then there were men. Lovely, lovely men, who were a great deal more understanding. I fell upon their mercy and sobbed some more. 

“My luggage, where’s my luggage?” I wailed, with the kind of escalating enthusiasm one would normally reserve for a lost child.

   

More hunky security and police gathered around, all incredibly solicitous and really, really kind. One had managed to obtain a film of what had happened and showed me. It transpired the fault had not been mine, but that of Virgin America, who, as the evidence clearly showed, had ushered us towards the wrong exit. 

“What I don’t understand,” said Man with Film, pointing to my figure storming purposefully through the door, “is what happened to all these other people behind you.” 

Me neither, mate. Me neither.

   

Now, they all got very excited. They said they would be fining Virgin America. I, too, was now very excited, and, out of gratitude, watched the movie for a third time. But now the concern was how my followers had vanished in the Narnia of JFK.

   

Still crying about my luggage, which, given my history, I was sure had been stolen, I was escorted back to Domestic Arrivals, where my red case stood outside the Virgin America office, a lone surviving soldier at the end of a long battle.

   

So, what have I learned from this?

1.     Stop being a control freak and follow someone who really does know what they are doing.

2.     Men will rescue you if you cry long and hard enough.

3.     Tears don’t work on women.

4.     JFK now beats Charles de Gaulle and Miami as the worst airport in the world.

5.     Doors at airports are closed for a reason.

6.     Virgin America’s trolley service is better than its geographical landing procedure.

7.     There is nothing quite so lonely as an empty carousel.

8.     When the going gets tough, everyone will desert you.

9.     You can always find more tears, when necessary.

10.  I love men. Did I mention that?

Tomorrow, I am flying Virgin Atlantic back to the UK. I’ll be second off the plane.

  

  

    

The Happiness Pause

I watched Brooklyn again last night. It was my favourite film of 2015, not least because I was facing the decision of totally embracing my new life or returning to the comfort of the familiar. 

Like Eilis in Ireland, I had a light-bulb moment in Wales of  “I’d forgotten”, when a small-minded individual made some comments that were a salient reminder of why I’d crossed the Atlantic in the first place.

   

I have a wonderful career in the UK, and fantastic friends and family; but I’ve always sought new experiences, cultures and people. I think it’s what every writer worth their salt does – Scott Fitzgerald, D H Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway. Okay, they ended up dying of alcoholism, TB and suicide, but you can’t have everything. Travel takes it out of you.

   

So, I’ve been four days in my new LA abode and tomorrow I fly back to New York. I’m looking forward to it: a screening on Tuesday with Welsh friends, a party to celebrate the June issue of W42ndSt (the Hell’s Kitchen magazine for which I write a monthly column), and a meet-up with an artist friend over from the UK on Thursday. Plus, I’ll see my beloved sunsets over the Hudson after nearly three weeks away.

   

I’ve been enjoying a break following the sale of my house in Cardiff, and while I won’t be rushing back to Salt Lake City in a hurry, it’s been a much needed relaxing time, laughing with mega clever, funny friends, and sleeping right through the night for the first time in years. 

   

It’s been a time in which I’ve allowed myself to be happy. I use the word “allow” carefully, as the nature of happiness sometimes carries a lot of baggage: guilt, when one sees the extent of suffering in the world; trepidation, because all happiness is at some point countered by its ugly twin, sadness; and also darkness - fear for the future, that one may never re-experience the intensity of joy. 

   

The writer and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire said: 

“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”

So that’s what I’ve been doing. Talking, looking at trees (the purple jacundas are at their most glorious in LA at the moment), walking and playing. 

Yes, playing.

My friends Karl and Richard, who live in LA, treated me to a flight experience – in Karl’s living room. Insisting on strapping me in my seat, they lifted the sofa and shook it for turbulence; upon landing, I was detained by Customs and put in a cell . . . You had to be there, really.

   

It’s fun being a child again. Although I don’t have children (and absolutely no regrets there), I love them: their ability to live in the moment, even though at such an early age the fears that will be their future are present: two girls in New York, throwing their tiny hands to their mouths in horror when they saw a dead bird on the street; a boy in LA recoiling in disgust at some cigarette butts in a sand bin. But also, the abandonment that is the essence of a lack of expectation: a group in the late afternoon Californian sun, throwing a ball, their effortless laughter in a jacunda of calm.

   

I love laughter. Despite a difficult few years, I have never stopped laughing. I am blessed to have so many really funny friends, from all walks of life. To quote Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick: “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”

   

No, none of us know what is coming; if we did, we’d probably jump off the nearest bridge to save ourselves the trouble of facing it. But we are resilient beings. We have words to help us make sense of life; we have empathy in our souls; and we have each other.

   

And so, moving on: thank you to everyone who has seen me through and given me such support in oh, so many ways. I might be hit by a bus this afternoon (I’ll try not to be), but at the moment I’m living for the laughter – the pause of happiness. 

Just don’t make me watch The Revenant again.  

  

Out of the Woods

I cannot think of a more lonely way to end one’s life than surrender to the sea. 

The news of writer Sally Brampton’s suicide last week is heartbreaking at so many levels, but those last steps are the most horrible even to contemplate.

   

My friend Angharad chose the same method: sitting on a rock on a freezing January night on Penarth seafront, waiting for the waves to swallow her. The image still haunts me.

   

I have suffered from depression, as many have, but at this point am in a very good place. It’s been an incredibly tough seven years financially (which I’ve written about), but still nothing that pushed me to the point of wanting to end it all; because if there is one thing that now frightens me more than life continuing, it’s the thought of it ending. It’s rushing by so quickly, I can’t bear the thought of all the things and people I will never get to see or meet. I suspect that’s how the myth of everlasting life came about.

   

I remember when my friend Jonathan committed suicide many years ago, I wept the most when I listened to Mozart’s Requiem shortly after. The knowledge that he would never again experience it filled me with sorrow; ever after, when I reached rock bottom, the grain of hope that was the absence of Mozart pulled me through.

   

Yes, I know it’s not that simple, and that depression is the Monster in the House (to use Blake Snyder’s film term) that is always lurking. But it’s why I try to store up the good in order to prepare me for the bad.

   

I am no longer a religious person, but I still love the teachings of Jesus – be good to one another, damnit! How hard can that be? I especially love the parables – apart from the one about the Rich Fool.

   

So, in summary: the rich fool’s idea is to store up as much grain as he can in his barn, and eat, drink and be merry for evermore. God’s having none of it. His reasoning is that the man may die tonight and everyone else will benefit from that which he was saving for himself (Tip of the day: Never turn to God on the subject of material possessions; he’s never going to approve of that new iPad).

   

There is, nevertheless, a nice metaphor in there on the subject of storing things up. Despite the Seven Year Bitch, as I call it, I didn’t die (always a bonus) and was still able to enjoy so much through friends and travel: the emotional grain you store up that will be the resource to get you through the next emotional famine.

   

My life changed completely three weeks ago when, after four years, my house in Cardiff finally sold. I won’t pretend that it wasn’t emotionally difficult, and many tears were shed. Was I doing the right thing? Why was I parting with the thing I had worked so hard to get? What’s life all about anyway?

   

But on Wednesday, I take the keys to my new Los Angeles apartment. I lived in the city for six years and, when I moved to New York two years ago, held on to the dream of being bi-coastal. New York is wonderful April to June, but a monster November to February; Los Angeles is great all year round, but there are only six months of the year that it is humanly possibly to listen to actors and directors pontificate about meetings and jobs they will never get.

  

I’ve lived in two places most of my adult life: London, Cardiff, Bath, Paris, Marbella – and, at one point, in four of them at the same time. I have no idea why. I suspect I have a very low boredom threshold that applies to people, as well as places: bring me an act, or you’re gone. It doesn’t have to be an all singing, all dancing act, but you have to bring something to the table: even silence (actually, especially silence, if I’m the act).

   

I’ve just enjoyed one of the best weeks of my life – debt free, great people, laughter so hearty the people at the next table thought I was having a stroke – and if it all went tomorrow, I’ve still had a better life than most people in the world. Most of the time, I don't know how anyone can bear not to be me. Now that's happiness.

   

The support from people, and especially those in social networking during these difficult times, has been phenomenal; I really would not have survived without it: family, friends, strangers. To quote Hebrews: my cup runneth over. Truly (some of it’s okay, this Bible lark).

   

While the phrase “You’re so lucky” has been bandied about (and I know it’s not in a malicious way), luck really has very little to do with it. The people who have seen me struggle for so long will know that my current existence has come at a price, both financial and emotional.

   

There will doubtless be new obstacles and pressures ahead but, as the genius Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke said: 

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”

   

Where there’s breath, there’s hope. 

And Mozart.

  

  

A Right Royal Letdown at Regal

I haven’t seen any dancing in the streets with the news that rice and legumes are now acceptable foodstuffs to eat during Passover. None of my Jewish friends are breaking out in an excited sweat and rushing for the red lentil stew.

   

Despite being an atheist, I am totally respectful of anyone’s faith and some observances that are attached to it (by no means all); but anything that tells me what I can put into my stomach, and when, is never going to get my religious vote. I have friends who give up things they really enjoy for Lent, and they go through hell. In fact, hell would be a walk in the park compared to what they go through when giving up alcohol for Jesus. 

Now, excuse me for being picky, but I’m pretty sure Jesus had wine at the Last Supper, which would have taken place during this period, so quite why Christians decided that going teetotal would absolve them of their sins is anybody’s guess.

   

This week, I had my own little contretemps with an establishment trying to dictate the contents of my stomach when I went to see my friend's movie. I've followed her from the moment she had the idea, through the writing, and now to the screen. I could not have been more excited had I been collecting my own Oscar. Then the cinema blew it.

   

Over a year ago, when Regal cinemas decided to start serving alcohol, they announced that profits had rocketed. Good for them. I’m pretty sure that wine is better for you than Coca Cola (just ask Jesus), so it seemed as if Regal had moved into the 21^st century.

   

But, I discovered, it’s not that simple. When I went up to the counter at their Battery Park establishment, I was second in line, but it took a good five minutes for the person in front of me to be served. She had ID, was donned with a wristband, which was then marked by the server, and, out of earshot, I could conclude only that the woman was a VIP.

   

Not so. When I asked for two beers, I was told I was allowed just one, even though I was buying for my friend, who was already in the cinema. Next, I had to produce my passport (luckily, I carry it with me at all times, as we Brits are not required to carry ID cards). My bottle of Stella was poured into a plastic cup, but before it was handed over, I had to have a wristband, on which I noticed two circles.

   

“What are those for?” I innocently asked. 

“That one is for your first, and that one for your second drink,” I was advised, as a condemnatory big black X was placed in the first.

   

“So people can buy just two drinks a night?”

   

“Yes, but you can come back tomorrow and have another two.” Geez. Thanks.

   

I asked if it was because the cinema is almost next door to the World Trade Center and these were extra security measures, but was informed that no, Regal has a strict two-drink-per-person policy when it comes to alcohol. How old do I look? Seven?

   

I’ve never once thought about having alcohol in the cinema. I don’t drink sugary drinks and hate the smell, not to mention the noise of popcorn; I go to the cinema to watch a movie. But on a hot day and feeling thirsty, I really fancied a beer. When I was told I was allowed only two, I wanted three. Of course.

   

When I went back for my second drink (you'll find out why shortly), I had to go through the whole ID rigmarole yet again, even though my wristband was clearly evidence that my ID had already been monitored.

   

In Britain, we would call this kind of policy-making part of the “nanny state” that dictates to adults how they should behave in situations in which the government claims to know better. While I know that over-imbibing of alcohol causes all sorts of problems, personally, professionally and socially, I have never, in over 50 years of cinema going, seen one person drunk and misbehaving. I’ve seen loads of kids, high on sugar from soft drinks, misbehaving, but never adults.

   

You can’t have it both ways, Regal. If you’re going to serve alcohol, serve it; but don’t hold up queues with people who are in a hurry to take their seats, by policing everyone with ID and wristbands and holding them to ransom by zealous alcohol monitors.

   

It would be easier just not to serve alcohol at all. I’m pretty sure most people can go 90 or so minutes without having to take a drink (although not if watching The Revenant; even two vineyards were not enough to get me through that hell); heck, I’ve been known to go months. And for people who can’t, I’m pretty certain they’ll just smuggle it in – because, and here’s another thing, Regal: $13 for a plastic glass of really shitty wine? 

You’re taking the piss, as well as serving it.

   

But of course, it’s all about profit and, having found a lucrative hole in the market, the cinema chain is exploiting it. Their “rules” are merely a way of justifying to themselves that they are acting responsibly. They’re not. Alcohol, candy, Coke . . . the cinema is an artery waiting to burst.

   

So you can keep your wristbands and your circles and your overpriced drinks, as I’m happy to go to an alcohol free establishment in which I can buy my bottled water and take my seat without feeling like a criminal.

   

And, while we’re at it, here’s another thing. How about you spend some of those profits on lighting up your stairs better, so that by the time I reach my seat I haven’t lost three quarters of my Stella en route and have to return for my second circle?

   

If Hugh Glass thought he had life tough wrestling that grizzly bear in The Revenant, he should try negotiating with Regal for two Stellas. 

His experience was small beer by comparison.

   

The Price of Freedom

The noose has gone.

I’m waking up without a mortgage. 

For the first time in 30 years, I’m waking up without a mortgage. The relief is enormous. It’s also sad, because I don’t have a house, which was what I believed was my prize possession for many years of hard work. But my blood pressure, which had rocketed to a dangerous 156/106 is down to 120/82. I have gone from a six bedroom house in Cardiff to a one bedroom apartment in New York. I could not be happier. 

   

Before Christmas last year, I was rushed to A & E (well, I say rushed - the ambulance took three hours to get to me) with a non-stop nose bleed. I had returned from the US for Christmas to spend time in Bristol with my mother, who was due to undergo radiotherapy following a recurrence (although not secondary, thank goodness) of breast cancer. I’ve spent every Christmas with Mum, bar one, ever since my Dad died in 1990, and it really is no chore. I love seeing her and her dog Maddie, and despite the hassle that Christmas brings, it’s still a magical time of year for me. 

   

But this one began with my spending two days in hospital with what turned out to be stress-related hypertension; I literally had burst a blood vessel. You can lose a lot of blood in 48 hours - more than I even thought I had in me - and, as this was my first ever hospital stay, I was frightened.

   

I nevertheless made some important decisions while lying there, the main one being that even if I had to take a big hit on my house, which had been on the market for four years, I would do it. The mortgage and bills had been a drain since 2009, when I lost my lucrative job as TV critic on the Mail on Sunday. While I still had my Soapwatch column in Weekend magazine on the Daily Mail, I had been living comfortably on two salaries that were now reduced to one. 

   

I could have - probably should have - stayed in the house until it was sold, and after two years spending much of my time in LA, I returned to Cardiff with the intention of doing just that. However, a burglary in the middle of the night while I was watching TV in my living room, freaked me out, and I barely spent a night in the house after that. I returned to LA from where, two years ago, I moved to New York. 

Yes, I know that people will say that I incurred an unnecessary expense in doing that, but I’ve always been a risk taker, and I operate better in the US than I do in the UK. The latter is still my base and my legal home, but as an older woman, New York offers a lifestyle that is non-ageist, fun, and packed with more activities and people than one could ever hope to experience and encounter in one lifetime. 

   

The only thing that has prevented me from enjoying it as much as I might have has been the lack of money - some weeks, no money for food or even toilet paper. Yes, that bad. But I held on, avoided bankruptcy, and now, hopefully, the Seven Year Bitch as I’ve taken to calling it is at an end.

   

I didn’t have the exhilaration I thought I would, though. Yes, selling the house was a relief; clearing debts an even greater one. But last night, I was in tears. We invest so much in bricks and mortar; we build our nests around us; our stuff accumulates over many years and gives us pleasure, excitement, even a sense of worth as we find ourselves able to afford bigger and better.

   

The meaninglessness of that stuff became apparent when I tried to sell so much of it. I had to throw away most of my books - in the ease of the Kindle world, nobody wants the printed page anymore; I couldn’t even give the things away. The same with my old TVs and speaker systems - all of them great quality, Panasonic and Sony, but too big now for the world of the slimline electronic revolution. 

   

Clothes went to charity shops, furniture to friends and the new occupants; jewellery and old video cameras (who needs to carry a brick around when an iPhone does the job better?) had to be binned. 

   

The things I wanted to keep have gone into storage, and, as I have been living more simply for some time, I doubt I will miss any of them. As I look around my apartment, I have the basics - bed, desk, sofa, one bookcase (I know - how quaint; you never know, they might make a comeback), cooking equipment and utensils, and, of course, my beloved Apple desktop and laptop. I look out over the Hudson to New Jersey and, in a few hours, will watch the sun set over the river and marvel, as I always do, at the beauty of nature.

   

The sun is bright today, and it’s finally getting warmer. I’m going to walk to Central Park and feel the spring air as if for the first time, without the chaos of sums that don’t add up tearing around my brain as they have done for so many years. 

I will look up at the sky, which in this city is the purest blue punctured only by the glorious buildings that send the eye always reaching upwards. 

I’m going to have lunch out and not worry about whether that second glass of wine is a luxury I can ill afford. 

   

Most of all, I’m going to think about the family, friends and even complete strangers, whose friendship, love and support, both emotional and practical, has been central to my survival; because all the stuff in the world cannot compensate for the essence of humanity that makes people care for one another and reach out to those in need.

   

Becoming mortgage free was a practical solution to what had become an insurmountable problem. 

The enormous debt I owe to the people around me is something I can never hope to repay.