Elvis died from constipation; but then I suspect that anyone who spends most of their waking life in trousers that tight is always going to be a bit constrained in the bowel department.
Still, it gives a whole new meaning to All Shook Up - or would have done, had the man received treatment that he was apparently too proud to have.
It was reported this week that the singer’s official doctor has revealed that Elvis’s colon was twice as long and twice as wide as it should have been, and that a four to five month old stool was found in it at the autopsy.
If only I had been armed with this information last week, when I visited Las Vegas. How many more friendships could I have formed, in the city that celebrates the singer on every street corner?
“Do you know Elvis’s stools caused him to have “accidents” on stage?” I could have asked, as I watched fellow diners’ enormous mouths descend on burgers as big as buses?
“Don’t you realise the trouble you’re storing up for your stools?”
I could have entertained them at length about the real reason for Elvis’s weight gain: namely, that his gut couldn’t digest and dispense with all the muck he was feeding his body.
I could have told them of my own problems in the irritable bowel department and my experience of colonic irrigation that was filmed for a TV show, and the pronouncement that I had “stubborn stools". Oh, yes; how very different my Vegas trip could have been.
But instead, I find myself writing up an entirely different set of experiences as I return to the oasis of calm that is Los Angeles.
Now, there can’t be many times in the history of print that this combination of words have appeared in the same sentence; but returning to the city after a week in the chaos and often sheer hell that is Vegas, I feel a calm that is not a far remove from rigor mortis.
I had never been to Vegas and, despite being a fan of boxing, had only ever seen televised fights. So, on the encouragement of a friend, who assured me that the Floyd Mayweather/Sugar Shane Mosley welterweight confrontation was going to be huge, I secured a ticket and booked six nights at the Bellagio, famous for the dancing fountains that separate the hotel from its lake. I had only ever seen them on the TV show Las Vegas, a drama that portrays casino life as one long endless arena of glamour and intrigue, and thought I was in for a classy experience.
I was therefore spectacularly unprepared for the reality: the miles of slot machines, and the awful racket as the likes of Lobster Marina and Kitty Glitter flashed their lights with the promise of riches that never seemed to materialise. The endless rows of isolated, sad looking individuals, exercising a single arm as they pushed coins into slots or built turrets of chips (in many cases, castles) on numbers at the roulette wheel; the smoking that is allowed on the casino floor. God, yes; the dreadful, disgusting smoke.
Shell-shocked, I spent the first night in my room, only to be woken at dawn by the couple next door having the mother of almighty rows: so bad, in fact, that four security people came to check on the wellbeing of the screaming woman. Her take on things was that the argument had come about because hotel staff had been too noisy in the corridor – a logic that escaped the security people, and also me, by then in my dressing gown, also in the corridor, for fear of missing a slice of the action.
Just when I thought that life couldn’t get any worse, there was breakfast: a cafeteria style room reminiscent of a cheap holiday camp, crammed with screaming kids, and, in my section, presided over by a waitress for whom the notion of having two tea-bags was proving even more of an uphill task than if she had gone to Ceylon and picked the necessary leaves with her teeth.
The tea-bag issue is something of an issue for me the world over. In Paris hotels, where they have heard only of Liptons, I have to ask for at least a box of the stuff if I am to stand a chance of my finished cup appearing even slightly off white.
In LA hotels, they think all the British drink is Earl Grey, which I loathe. If and when you manage to get served English breakfast tea, it arrives with honey and lemon. The operation to explain the reason for, and finally get your milk, is so tortuous and long, that by the time it arrives, the tea has to go back because it is stone cold.
When you can’t even acquire tea-bag number two and are told that the tea will be strong enough with one, Oliver Twist’s “Please, sir, Can I have some more?” starts to look like a gastronomic walk in the park.
Now my bowels were really irritable, along with the rest of me. Had I not been looking forward to the boxing on the Saturday, and had I not also agreed to be a witness at a friend’s wedding in the Little White Chapel, I would have been out of the city quicker than an Elvis stool at a colonic convention.
Instead, I phoned the concierge service that comes courtesy of my all-singing, all-dancing black Amex Centurion card, and spoke again to the wonderfully efficient and charming Hayden, who had arranged my whole trip.
Hayden quickly got me moved to another hotel in the Amex programme, the Mandarin Oriental, and I packed up and moved out of the Bellagio – although not before I had used the $100 voucher for lunch that came with the Bellagio package.
That was a lot of food for one in the Olives restaurant, I can tell you (all of these deals are for two people), and with oysters, steak and cheese, I still managed to spend only around $60.
If I wasn’t yet looking like Elvis, my innards were a getting a pretty good idea of what it might be like to feel like him.
Love Me Tender? Not until I’ve spent an hour in the rest room.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ashes to Ashes 3/19/2010
My brother and his girlfriend, both teachers, are stranded in Beverly Hills.
Originally due to fly back to the UK last Thursday, they now find themselves, along with thousands of others, unable to take to the ash-laden skies because of the volcano in Iceland.
They are booked to fly again this Thursday, but with another ash cloud apparently heading towards southern Britain, even that journey is under threat.
They acknowledge that there are worse places to be stuck, and Air New Zealand, together with the exceptionally kind and efficient people who operate the concierge service that goes with my Centurion Black Amex (oh, how I am glad I decided to go for it), have kept their stress levels to a minimum.
I have friends currently in transit with BA in similar positions, but they have not been so lucky. Their travel insurance does not cover them for an “act of God”, and they have basically been shown a hotel room, which they have to pay for, and left to fend for themselves (BA – Bugger All, in other words).
I can’t see the airline ever recovering the kudos it once had; in response to the horror stories I have catalogued in this blog and in newspapers, so far only one person has contacted me with something positive to say about them.
I have also suggested that trapped passengers vent their annoyance by doing what Billy Connolly’s advocate character Steve Myers did in the 2001 Australian movie, The Man Who Sued God.
When his insurance firm won’t pay up after his fishing boat is destroyed by a so-called “act of God”, Myers files a claim against God, naming church officials as representatives of God, and thereby the respondents.
If they admit the destruction of the boat was an Act of God, they have to compensate Myers; if they deny it, they will be denying God’s existence. It’s a story that would run and run in the courts.
There have been more positive stories from people dealing with Air New Zealand and Virgin, my two favourite carriers. Thierry, who manages the Air New Zealand executive lounge at Los Angeles airport, could not have been more helpful, keeping us up to date with daily reports. Air New Zealand’s cabin crew are just as impressive onboard, as are Virgin’s: cheerful, always helpful staff, who get paid a fraction of BA employees’ wages and receive none of the perks.
I know that the issues between management and staff at BA are more complex than most passengers really know, but who, in their right mind, would risk flying anywhere with them now. A pair of home-made wings would be more reliable.
But back to my brother and his girlfriend. They have enjoyed doing all the touristy things that LA has to offer.
They went to San Diego to watch Shamu, the whale from Free Willy, leap about in the water (it’s something of an irony that the film about freeing the poor devil now sees him incarcerated in Seaworld, splashing kids – still, at least he’s nowhere near a volcano).
They’ve been to Hollywood and Universal Studios, three of the surrounding beaches, and numerous bars and restaurants.
They’ve met friends and lunatics, experienced the faultless Beverly Hills service, and barbecued on the roof terrace of my apartment block.
They’ve mingled with celebrities, sat in the audience at American Idol, visited Simon Cowell in his trailer, and have learned a great deal about Ukrainian history in conversation with taxi drivers.
They also heard, by means of an introduction at a private party, four words that I never expected to hear in the same sentence: “Jaci Stephen, Gore Vidal.”
By now, they would have been back in Clacton where they live and work. They are both concerned about missing the start of term and their pupils’ forthcoming exams, but still, there really are worse places to be trapped than Beverly Hills (even if my brother is pining for a pint of real ale in his local).
It’s the launch of Brit Week tomorrow night, which is rather apt, given how many Brits are trapped here. The annual festival celebrates British contributions to LA, and it goes on for about three weeks (a very loose interpretation of “week”, therefore). The number of Brits establishing themselves here also seems to be growing – actors, presenters, agents – and despite everyone telling me that the allure of La La Land would quickly wear off, it hasn’t yet.
True, it doesn’t have the cultural range of London or New York, but there is an incredible, positive energy that is generated by its being an industry-focused place, in which everyone feels that anything is possible.
Who cares if some of that self-belief is delusional; people are willing to get up, get out, and have a go.
And if that ash cloud moves any further south, expect to see my brother and his girlfriend marking registers in Beverly Hills High in the autumn term.
Originally due to fly back to the UK last Thursday, they now find themselves, along with thousands of others, unable to take to the ash-laden skies because of the volcano in Iceland.
They are booked to fly again this Thursday, but with another ash cloud apparently heading towards southern Britain, even that journey is under threat.
They acknowledge that there are worse places to be stuck, and Air New Zealand, together with the exceptionally kind and efficient people who operate the concierge service that goes with my Centurion Black Amex (oh, how I am glad I decided to go for it), have kept their stress levels to a minimum.
I have friends currently in transit with BA in similar positions, but they have not been so lucky. Their travel insurance does not cover them for an “act of God”, and they have basically been shown a hotel room, which they have to pay for, and left to fend for themselves (BA – Bugger All, in other words).
I can’t see the airline ever recovering the kudos it once had; in response to the horror stories I have catalogued in this blog and in newspapers, so far only one person has contacted me with something positive to say about them.
I have also suggested that trapped passengers vent their annoyance by doing what Billy Connolly’s advocate character Steve Myers did in the 2001 Australian movie, The Man Who Sued God.
When his insurance firm won’t pay up after his fishing boat is destroyed by a so-called “act of God”, Myers files a claim against God, naming church officials as representatives of God, and thereby the respondents.
If they admit the destruction of the boat was an Act of God, they have to compensate Myers; if they deny it, they will be denying God’s existence. It’s a story that would run and run in the courts.
There have been more positive stories from people dealing with Air New Zealand and Virgin, my two favourite carriers. Thierry, who manages the Air New Zealand executive lounge at Los Angeles airport, could not have been more helpful, keeping us up to date with daily reports. Air New Zealand’s cabin crew are just as impressive onboard, as are Virgin’s: cheerful, always helpful staff, who get paid a fraction of BA employees’ wages and receive none of the perks.
I know that the issues between management and staff at BA are more complex than most passengers really know, but who, in their right mind, would risk flying anywhere with them now. A pair of home-made wings would be more reliable.
But back to my brother and his girlfriend. They have enjoyed doing all the touristy things that LA has to offer.
They went to San Diego to watch Shamu, the whale from Free Willy, leap about in the water (it’s something of an irony that the film about freeing the poor devil now sees him incarcerated in Seaworld, splashing kids – still, at least he’s nowhere near a volcano).
They’ve been to Hollywood and Universal Studios, three of the surrounding beaches, and numerous bars and restaurants.
They’ve met friends and lunatics, experienced the faultless Beverly Hills service, and barbecued on the roof terrace of my apartment block.
They’ve mingled with celebrities, sat in the audience at American Idol, visited Simon Cowell in his trailer, and have learned a great deal about Ukrainian history in conversation with taxi drivers.
They also heard, by means of an introduction at a private party, four words that I never expected to hear in the same sentence: “Jaci Stephen, Gore Vidal.”
By now, they would have been back in Clacton where they live and work. They are both concerned about missing the start of term and their pupils’ forthcoming exams, but still, there really are worse places to be trapped than Beverly Hills (even if my brother is pining for a pint of real ale in his local).
It’s the launch of Brit Week tomorrow night, which is rather apt, given how many Brits are trapped here. The annual festival celebrates British contributions to LA, and it goes on for about three weeks (a very loose interpretation of “week”, therefore). The number of Brits establishing themselves here also seems to be growing – actors, presenters, agents – and despite everyone telling me that the allure of La La Land would quickly wear off, it hasn’t yet.
True, it doesn’t have the cultural range of London or New York, but there is an incredible, positive energy that is generated by its being an industry-focused place, in which everyone feels that anything is possible.
Who cares if some of that self-belief is delusional; people are willing to get up, get out, and have a go.
And if that ash cloud moves any further south, expect to see my brother and his girlfriend marking registers in Beverly Hills High in the autumn term.
Monday, April 12, 2010
To Pad Or Not To Pad, That Is The Question 4/12/10
Now, I know it for sure, and I can stop practising writing my surname as “Cowell”.
Despite the fact that becoming the first Mrs Cowell would have solved all my financial problems, plus those of every living relative and a couple of dozen friends to boot, I know that it is over. The dream.
Because I have, quite simply, seen That Ring. Yes, it’s for real. Having been invited onto the set of American Idol this week, I can confirm that there really is a future Mrs Cowell waiting in the wings.
I know, because I have seen the diamond evidence, and it is very firmly on the hand of the beautiful, very slim and very charming Mezhgan Hussainy. My mission to get Simon interested in short Welsh birds has ended in failure.
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Fifteen years, to be precise.
Now, let’s get back to That Ring. The stone alone is bigger than my en suite bathroom. I could park my car on it and there would still be room for a small music festival. Having recently lost the diamond tennis bracelet I worked 30 years to be able to afford, I was a breath away from grabbing the nearest knife and taking Mezhgan’s finger home in my bag; but I resisted.
Good luck to them both, although I will be the one singing It Should Have Been Me at the reception.
I was at the show because my brother and his girlfriend were visiting and, as my first house guests here, I wanted to show them as good a time as possible. They were thrilled to be invited into Simon’s trailer (if That Ring is the size of my bathroom, the trailer is my entire house), and the show was terrific.
I saw more of LA during my guests’ visit than I have managed in the past year. Normally, I have to be excavated out of the Golden Triangle of Beverly Hills, but my brother was keen to explore.
One friend drove us all to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and then up into the hills of Palos Verdes. I took them to Soho House LA, Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard – all on the bus. They set off for San Diego and Seaworld on their own; enjoyable and cost-efficient as I find the buses, the idea of sitting in one for six hours in a day is about as appealing to me as a day trip to Guantanemo Bay.
One highlight of their trip was getting to see the iPad in advance of its UK launch.
To Pad or not to Pad – for those of us in love with all Apple products, it’s the question that has been occupying us for some weeks. When I spot an iPad across a crowded dining room, I approach with stealth, like David Attenborough coming upon a new and rare species, hoping to get just the merest glimpse before the owner snatches it meanly away.
Stephen Fry has written a wonderful piece about the iPad in the current issue of Time magazine, and after bumping into him in LA, I learned more about the product than I had from the hopeless assistant in Fashion Island’s store in Newport Beach (“It’s like a big iPhone,” he said – and that was it).
Stephen posted the opening of his iPad on You Tube, and his “Oooh” as the final layer of wrapping falls, is as glorious as the squeals of a four year old, finally winning Pass the Parcel at a birthday party, after a week of bullying at school. It’s a lovely “Suits you, sir!” moment, and Apple should use it in their advertising.
Stephen reckons that we relate to Apple’s products as we do to animals or humans, and I’m totally with him on that; it explains the Apple cemetery that I have in my attic, as I am unable to throw away even completely clapped out computers and phones.
But I’m still torn, in a way that I wasn’t when trying to decide whether to go to Seaworld, but I know that I will weaken. I’ve now spotted three iPads in LA, and they are undoubtedly jewels that single out the men from the boys in town (I have yet to see a woman with one, so that may end up being reason enough to indulge).
I am not a big shopper normally, but Apple draws me in with an alacrity that Versace or Armani never quite manage.
I don’t need the iPad; I’m not sure that I think it will offer any more than my MacBook Air currently does.
Oh, but how I want one. Nothing says more about your Hollywood status at the moment than wandering into a restaurant or bar and opening up your new best friend. Forget the boob job and tummy tuck, girls; it’s the iPad that has the real pulling power. I’m going to call mine Simon.
Despite the fact that becoming the first Mrs Cowell would have solved all my financial problems, plus those of every living relative and a couple of dozen friends to boot, I know that it is over. The dream.
Because I have, quite simply, seen That Ring. Yes, it’s for real. Having been invited onto the set of American Idol this week, I can confirm that there really is a future Mrs Cowell waiting in the wings.
I know, because I have seen the diamond evidence, and it is very firmly on the hand of the beautiful, very slim and very charming Mezhgan Hussainy. My mission to get Simon interested in short Welsh birds has ended in failure.
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Fifteen years, to be precise.
Now, let’s get back to That Ring. The stone alone is bigger than my en suite bathroom. I could park my car on it and there would still be room for a small music festival. Having recently lost the diamond tennis bracelet I worked 30 years to be able to afford, I was a breath away from grabbing the nearest knife and taking Mezhgan’s finger home in my bag; but I resisted.
Good luck to them both, although I will be the one singing It Should Have Been Me at the reception.
I was at the show because my brother and his girlfriend were visiting and, as my first house guests here, I wanted to show them as good a time as possible. They were thrilled to be invited into Simon’s trailer (if That Ring is the size of my bathroom, the trailer is my entire house), and the show was terrific.
I saw more of LA during my guests’ visit than I have managed in the past year. Normally, I have to be excavated out of the Golden Triangle of Beverly Hills, but my brother was keen to explore.
One friend drove us all to Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and then up into the hills of Palos Verdes. I took them to Soho House LA, Santa Monica, Hollywood Boulevard – all on the bus. They set off for San Diego and Seaworld on their own; enjoyable and cost-efficient as I find the buses, the idea of sitting in one for six hours in a day is about as appealing to me as a day trip to Guantanemo Bay.
One highlight of their trip was getting to see the iPad in advance of its UK launch.
To Pad or not to Pad – for those of us in love with all Apple products, it’s the question that has been occupying us for some weeks. When I spot an iPad across a crowded dining room, I approach with stealth, like David Attenborough coming upon a new and rare species, hoping to get just the merest glimpse before the owner snatches it meanly away.
Stephen Fry has written a wonderful piece about the iPad in the current issue of Time magazine, and after bumping into him in LA, I learned more about the product than I had from the hopeless assistant in Fashion Island’s store in Newport Beach (“It’s like a big iPhone,” he said – and that was it).
Stephen posted the opening of his iPad on You Tube, and his “Oooh” as the final layer of wrapping falls, is as glorious as the squeals of a four year old, finally winning Pass the Parcel at a birthday party, after a week of bullying at school. It’s a lovely “Suits you, sir!” moment, and Apple should use it in their advertising.
Stephen reckons that we relate to Apple’s products as we do to animals or humans, and I’m totally with him on that; it explains the Apple cemetery that I have in my attic, as I am unable to throw away even completely clapped out computers and phones.
But I’m still torn, in a way that I wasn’t when trying to decide whether to go to Seaworld, but I know that I will weaken. I’ve now spotted three iPads in LA, and they are undoubtedly jewels that single out the men from the boys in town (I have yet to see a woman with one, so that may end up being reason enough to indulge).
I am not a big shopper normally, but Apple draws me in with an alacrity that Versace or Armani never quite manage.
I don’t need the iPad; I’m not sure that I think it will offer any more than my MacBook Air currently does.
Oh, but how I want one. Nothing says more about your Hollywood status at the moment than wandering into a restaurant or bar and opening up your new best friend. Forget the boob job and tummy tuck, girls; it’s the iPad that has the real pulling power. I’m going to call mine Simon.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Death Wish In Soho House 4/6/10
My visiting friends had been warned. It was Earthquake Preparedness Month.
They asked me about the posters and, now that I’ve been here a year, I was able to tell them exactly what the heralding of the great event entailed.
Having learned from my experience during my first earthquake last May, this time round I had heeded the advice of the Pioneer hardware shop that first put my preparedness kit together and gave me advice.
I sleep with money and a torch by the side of my bed, and a lot of bottled water in the apartment. I know to run to a door-frame or under my dining table when disaster strikes.
My friends were impressed.
Or would have been, had we not been 14 floors up in Soho House’s new members only club, when Mexico’s 7.2 earthquake struck on Sunday afternoon.
The new Soho House venue is spectacular, as all of Nick Jones’s ventures are. When I briefly returned to the UK a couple of weeks ago, I stayed at the London Club’s new hotel in Dean Street, where the pillows are so spectacular, you need crampons and a compass just to make it into bed.
If I had picked up anyone en route, I wouldn’t have known, as I wouldn’t have been able to find them among the Himalayan linen.
Soho House LA is a mixture of modernity and old Hollywood, and has quickly become everyone’s favourite place. I have been a member of the London Club since day one; I had my 40th birthday party there, and I adore the new place even more. So, with 360 degree views over the city, and the best roast dinner I have had in years, I was quite content when the light fittings started to shake.
Shortly followed by the room.
It was only when I saw the fish clinging with their gills for dear life in the restaurant’s lake that I really started to panic.
The whole scene appeared to pause in freeze-frame. I hadn’t ordered flying fish for dessert, but one looked suspiciously close to landing on my plate.
These were the people I was going to die with.
I thought that the man on the next table, who had brought his brand new Apple iPad to lunch, would never get to use it (although it would be the first thing I was going to steal when the walls started to crumble). Gone.
We would never again see the beautiful Ally, who had welcomed us, or the immaculately turned out Phil, who had served us (I want to employ whoever does the Club’s laundry to do mine). Gone.
The cocktail glasses, apparently modelled on Marie Antoinette’s breasts, would be nothing but shards among the rubble. Gone.
OH, YEGODS! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
The eerie silence lasted for about a minute, but felt like ten. Then, when the shaking stopped, and we realised that the earth had moved but not caved in, a strange thing happened. People started to chat to complete strangers, almost deliriously, relieved that we were all okay.
Or, I wondered, maybe we were not, and we had already gone to the afterlife. I wouldn’t have minded, to be honest. With its open roof, imported olive trees that canopy the restaurant, and great food, if Soho House was Sixth Sense II, I wasn’t going to be complaining.
There were worse places I could have died. Rite-Aid, for a start. I wouldn’t want them to find me among the hundreds of products in the Feminine Hygiene aisle that have so fascinated me since I came here (by the way, the TV commercials say that Refresh beats the others hands down, ladies, and I concur).
Or I could have been in Sports Club LA, where they would have found me like an inflated lobster as I tried to keep up with Victoria Beckham on the next treadmill.
Or in Century City’s AMC cinema, with the Buffalo Burger and fries down my front.
Yes, there were definitely worse places to die than Soho House.
We quickly learned that the earthquake had registered as 6.9; then it was up to 7.2. Our new best friends thought that for dramatic purpose, we would tell everyone back in Britain that it was 11.3.
We also learned that the building that houses the Club is on wheels, which apparently make it earthquake-proof. This worried me even more, as I had visions of us free-waying our way down the Hollywood Hills into unsuspecting Big Mac diners, who had not been so fortunate as to have just enjoyed the dining experience that we had.
The whole event has made me reassess my plans for Earthquake Preparedness Month. If you’re five miles away, what use is a torch sitting in the drawer of your bedside cabinet?
Now, I am going to carry my EPM kit around with me, and it will consist of just two things: my Soho House membership card and a corkscrew.
Because, at the first hint of another rumble on the news, I’m going to be out of my place quicker than Marie Antoinette’s breasts in her boudoir, and over to Soho House.
And when the fish start to fly, I just want to be drunk as a skunk before they find me among the rubble, with a goldfish up my nose.
They asked me about the posters and, now that I’ve been here a year, I was able to tell them exactly what the heralding of the great event entailed.
Having learned from my experience during my first earthquake last May, this time round I had heeded the advice of the Pioneer hardware shop that first put my preparedness kit together and gave me advice.
I sleep with money and a torch by the side of my bed, and a lot of bottled water in the apartment. I know to run to a door-frame or under my dining table when disaster strikes.
My friends were impressed.
Or would have been, had we not been 14 floors up in Soho House’s new members only club, when Mexico’s 7.2 earthquake struck on Sunday afternoon.
The new Soho House venue is spectacular, as all of Nick Jones’s ventures are. When I briefly returned to the UK a couple of weeks ago, I stayed at the London Club’s new hotel in Dean Street, where the pillows are so spectacular, you need crampons and a compass just to make it into bed.
If I had picked up anyone en route, I wouldn’t have known, as I wouldn’t have been able to find them among the Himalayan linen.
Soho House LA is a mixture of modernity and old Hollywood, and has quickly become everyone’s favourite place. I have been a member of the London Club since day one; I had my 40th birthday party there, and I adore the new place even more. So, with 360 degree views over the city, and the best roast dinner I have had in years, I was quite content when the light fittings started to shake.
Shortly followed by the room.
It was only when I saw the fish clinging with their gills for dear life in the restaurant’s lake that I really started to panic.
The whole scene appeared to pause in freeze-frame. I hadn’t ordered flying fish for dessert, but one looked suspiciously close to landing on my plate.
These were the people I was going to die with.
I thought that the man on the next table, who had brought his brand new Apple iPad to lunch, would never get to use it (although it would be the first thing I was going to steal when the walls started to crumble). Gone.
We would never again see the beautiful Ally, who had welcomed us, or the immaculately turned out Phil, who had served us (I want to employ whoever does the Club’s laundry to do mine). Gone.
The cocktail glasses, apparently modelled on Marie Antoinette’s breasts, would be nothing but shards among the rubble. Gone.
OH, YEGODS! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!
The eerie silence lasted for about a minute, but felt like ten. Then, when the shaking stopped, and we realised that the earth had moved but not caved in, a strange thing happened. People started to chat to complete strangers, almost deliriously, relieved that we were all okay.
Or, I wondered, maybe we were not, and we had already gone to the afterlife. I wouldn’t have minded, to be honest. With its open roof, imported olive trees that canopy the restaurant, and great food, if Soho House was Sixth Sense II, I wasn’t going to be complaining.
There were worse places I could have died. Rite-Aid, for a start. I wouldn’t want them to find me among the hundreds of products in the Feminine Hygiene aisle that have so fascinated me since I came here (by the way, the TV commercials say that Refresh beats the others hands down, ladies, and I concur).
Or I could have been in Sports Club LA, where they would have found me like an inflated lobster as I tried to keep up with Victoria Beckham on the next treadmill.
Or in Century City’s AMC cinema, with the Buffalo Burger and fries down my front.
Yes, there were definitely worse places to die than Soho House.
We quickly learned that the earthquake had registered as 6.9; then it was up to 7.2. Our new best friends thought that for dramatic purpose, we would tell everyone back in Britain that it was 11.3.
We also learned that the building that houses the Club is on wheels, which apparently make it earthquake-proof. This worried me even more, as I had visions of us free-waying our way down the Hollywood Hills into unsuspecting Big Mac diners, who had not been so fortunate as to have just enjoyed the dining experience that we had.
The whole event has made me reassess my plans for Earthquake Preparedness Month. If you’re five miles away, what use is a torch sitting in the drawer of your bedside cabinet?
Now, I am going to carry my EPM kit around with me, and it will consist of just two things: my Soho House membership card and a corkscrew.
Because, at the first hint of another rumble on the news, I’m going to be out of my place quicker than Marie Antoinette’s breasts in her boudoir, and over to Soho House.
And when the fish start to fly, I just want to be drunk as a skunk before they find me among the rubble, with a goldfish up my nose.
A Sherpa Is Not Just For Everest, He's For Life 4/6/10
Finally, I know the kind of man I want.
A Sherpa.
He doesn’t have to talk to me or sleep with me; in fact, I am happy to walk three steps behind him – just so long as he is carrying my bags.
After deciding not to take the multiple amounts of medication given to me by doctors for my bad back, I spoke to an osteopath, who put the problem down to the immense bag carrying I have been doing on my Transatlantic travels – usually two cases that come up to my elbows, a back-pack, camera-case and equipment, and a handbag as big as a moose.
One of the cases is generally stuffed with dozens of books, and on one trip, before my back went, I managed to re-locate my entire collection of Italian, Spanish and French language learning sections of my new US home library, back to the UK.
Quite why I thought I was going to learn three languages on my ten-day break is a mystery.
If I had a Sherpa, he could also carry back and forth the Russian language learning section, which I bought when I recently decided to read Tolstoy in the original, too (I got as far as “Zavoot Jaci”, plus one obscene word, which is apparently the same in Polish).
Each decade brings about a big difference in the kind of man a girl wants, and travel has a lot to do with it. Between the ages of one and ten, she looks for The Protector, who will walk her to school and carry her satchel.
Eleven to 20: Protector turned Welcome Predator, who will start by carrying her satchel, but only with the aim of whipping her off to a quiet secluded spot when he acquires his driving licence at 17.
From 21 to 30, it’s The Wooer, who whisks her off to Paris and makes her cry (or was that just me?).
Thirty to 40, she wants The Provider: someone with a job, security and a bit of money, who will pay for a second home abroad.
If she’s still on her own at this time, or has dumped, or been dumped by, any of the ones she has acquired from the previous decade, from 40 to 50 she will simply start looking for The Available.
And if she hasn’t pulled post 50, all she wants is The Sherpa. Trust me: I’m there.
I have done more travelling since hitting 50 than I managed in the previous five decades, and having spent 25 years swearing I would never cross the Atlantic again, after visits in New York and LA in my twenties, now I can’t wait for the 11 hour journey, during which my mobile won’t ring, I can watch a couple of films, read a book, enjoy a decent meal and generally live a very comfortable life – albeit a mini-one.
And whether I travel with Air New Zealand or Virgin (forget BA; I’ll probably be able to buy a plane with my unused BA points, the way things are going), I know that I can rely on both to get me to my destination on time a darn sight more than I can rely on the First Great Western Railway to do the same between Paddington and Cardiff, when I hit the UK.
But the bags. The bags. Oh, how I need a bloke to help me with the bags. It’s the only thing missing now. At this age, I’m really easy maintenance otherwise.
Although my sexual desire has increased a hundredfold, post menopause, I’m really EPCM (Easy Post-Coital Management). Forget all that after-sex cuddling and kissing (and, heaven forbid for men, talking), that I wanted years ago, now I want him out by midnight so that I can watch the back to back CSI episodes from what feels like a hundred US cities.
Actually, I don’t even want him to hang around that long, and now I think I think that if I meet any halfway decent men, I’m going to have to establish some sort of shift system for my new lifestyle.
As I’m generally working by about 5.30am (and up at four, if I need to catch people in the UK before lunchtime), early mornings are out. Then, when I’ve managed a few hours work, it’s over to the gym and back at the apartment to watch Judge Alex over lunch.
It’s work again in the afternoon (there are so many more hours in the day over there – weird!), until two episodes of Two and a Half Men at seven; major dramas nine till 11, then late-night Chelsea Handler and Letterman, before CSI starts all over again.
So, basically, any man I meet has a brief window of opportunity between eight and 9pm – without food, and he’d better be quick about whatever it is he wants to do. Actually, on past experience, I’m now thinking that even an hour may be too long.
Like I said. Easy maintenance.
When I was back in the UK last week, nearly everyone asked me: “Have you got a man in LA?” I found it faintly irritating. It was never my top priority anyway, and it’s certainly not what I came here for. It’s not even on my radar.
And unless James Spader, David Letterman and Judge Alex are going to come up with an idea for how a foursome might work between us, that is unlikely to change.
But I’ll make an exception for a Sherpa.
My only worry is whether there will be time between the specified minutes for him to pack the travelling homes that have become my luggage.
A Sherpa.
He doesn’t have to talk to me or sleep with me; in fact, I am happy to walk three steps behind him – just so long as he is carrying my bags.
After deciding not to take the multiple amounts of medication given to me by doctors for my bad back, I spoke to an osteopath, who put the problem down to the immense bag carrying I have been doing on my Transatlantic travels – usually two cases that come up to my elbows, a back-pack, camera-case and equipment, and a handbag as big as a moose.
One of the cases is generally stuffed with dozens of books, and on one trip, before my back went, I managed to re-locate my entire collection of Italian, Spanish and French language learning sections of my new US home library, back to the UK.
Quite why I thought I was going to learn three languages on my ten-day break is a mystery.
If I had a Sherpa, he could also carry back and forth the Russian language learning section, which I bought when I recently decided to read Tolstoy in the original, too (I got as far as “Zavoot Jaci”, plus one obscene word, which is apparently the same in Polish).
Each decade brings about a big difference in the kind of man a girl wants, and travel has a lot to do with it. Between the ages of one and ten, she looks for The Protector, who will walk her to school and carry her satchel.
Eleven to 20: Protector turned Welcome Predator, who will start by carrying her satchel, but only with the aim of whipping her off to a quiet secluded spot when he acquires his driving licence at 17.
From 21 to 30, it’s The Wooer, who whisks her off to Paris and makes her cry (or was that just me?).
Thirty to 40, she wants The Provider: someone with a job, security and a bit of money, who will pay for a second home abroad.
If she’s still on her own at this time, or has dumped, or been dumped by, any of the ones she has acquired from the previous decade, from 40 to 50 she will simply start looking for The Available.
And if she hasn’t pulled post 50, all she wants is The Sherpa. Trust me: I’m there.
I have done more travelling since hitting 50 than I managed in the previous five decades, and having spent 25 years swearing I would never cross the Atlantic again, after visits in New York and LA in my twenties, now I can’t wait for the 11 hour journey, during which my mobile won’t ring, I can watch a couple of films, read a book, enjoy a decent meal and generally live a very comfortable life – albeit a mini-one.
And whether I travel with Air New Zealand or Virgin (forget BA; I’ll probably be able to buy a plane with my unused BA points, the way things are going), I know that I can rely on both to get me to my destination on time a darn sight more than I can rely on the First Great Western Railway to do the same between Paddington and Cardiff, when I hit the UK.
But the bags. The bags. Oh, how I need a bloke to help me with the bags. It’s the only thing missing now. At this age, I’m really easy maintenance otherwise.
Although my sexual desire has increased a hundredfold, post menopause, I’m really EPCM (Easy Post-Coital Management). Forget all that after-sex cuddling and kissing (and, heaven forbid for men, talking), that I wanted years ago, now I want him out by midnight so that I can watch the back to back CSI episodes from what feels like a hundred US cities.
Actually, I don’t even want him to hang around that long, and now I think I think that if I meet any halfway decent men, I’m going to have to establish some sort of shift system for my new lifestyle.
As I’m generally working by about 5.30am (and up at four, if I need to catch people in the UK before lunchtime), early mornings are out. Then, when I’ve managed a few hours work, it’s over to the gym and back at the apartment to watch Judge Alex over lunch.
It’s work again in the afternoon (there are so many more hours in the day over there – weird!), until two episodes of Two and a Half Men at seven; major dramas nine till 11, then late-night Chelsea Handler and Letterman, before CSI starts all over again.
So, basically, any man I meet has a brief window of opportunity between eight and 9pm – without food, and he’d better be quick about whatever it is he wants to do. Actually, on past experience, I’m now thinking that even an hour may be too long.
Like I said. Easy maintenance.
When I was back in the UK last week, nearly everyone asked me: “Have you got a man in LA?” I found it faintly irritating. It was never my top priority anyway, and it’s certainly not what I came here for. It’s not even on my radar.
And unless James Spader, David Letterman and Judge Alex are going to come up with an idea for how a foursome might work between us, that is unlikely to change.
But I’ll make an exception for a Sherpa.
My only worry is whether there will be time between the specified minutes for him to pack the travelling homes that have become my luggage.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Better Half Of Two And A Half Men 3/29/10
It’s been hard for me to reconcile what appear to be Charlie Sheen’s auditions for The Shining II in real life, with the truly extraordinary actor.
I watched him in Wall Street again the other day, and it is a performance of incredible range and talent for such a young man.
Every night, I watch double episodes of the sitcom Two and A Half Men, whether I am in the UK or the US; I can pretty much recite them all by heart now, but Sheen still makes me laugh out loud every time, just as the brilliant Jon Cryer (who won an Emmy as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series this year – so, so deserved) makes me both laugh and cry, as his character lurks often pitifully in his seemingly more successful brother’s shadow.
The character Charlie (played by Sheen) is the drinking, fun-loving, sex-craved one; Alan (Cryer – his character often lives up to the actor’s surname), the divorced one, has been living in Charlie's Malibu beachside home since his marriage broke up, and appears to have very little going for him.
He has virtually no luck with women, gets a hangover if he so much as breathes the same air as a Budweiser, and has the greater moral conscience.
But he is much nicer to his mother than Charlie is, and tries to keep his own food-obsessed son Jake on the straight and narrow, as the boy is passed from mother to father and back again, with several pizzas and buckets of fries acting as the middle men.
But why, in many US comedy shows, are there so many women have absolutely no, or certainly very well hidden, redeeming qualities? Lilith (Cheers, Frasier); Ros and the unseen Maris (Frasier); housekeeper Berta (Conchata Perrell), Alan’s ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle), and the brothers’ mother Evelyn (Holland Taylor) in Two and a Half Men?
True, many of Charlie’s women have some nice qualities, but these fly-by-nights are generally out of the door quicker than Charlie can say . . . Well: “Don’t slam the door on your way out.” Fiancée Chelsea was a very rare exception; it is the three monstrous women who dominate the female part of the show.
In the UK, it is generally the females of sitcoms who set the moral barometer; they are the ones to whom the other generally hopeless characters (usually men) turn to, in order to find clues as to how they could, or should, be running their lives.
In the US, you wouldn’t look to any of the above-named women for directions to the bathroom, let alone your life path; you know they would only point you to the cellar, lock you in and throw away the key.
So who sets the moral barometer in Two and A Half Men?
It’s Alan’s son, Jake, played by Angus T. Jones, who was just a month off his 10th birthday when CBS first aired the show in September 2003 – and it is this character who ultimately defines the show as the most moral comedy on television.
That’s right: Two and A Half Men is the most moral comedy show on US television. And that is the real key to its enormous success as a family comedy.
It has the most promiscuous sex, the most heartless and cruel women, the rudest (though most daring and riotous) jokes, and yet, at its heart, a very moral tale: two grown men, seemingly at odds, little realising that what binds them is not only their relation to each other by blood, but the thing for which they are both searching, albeit in very different ways. Namely: how do you find the right person to love?
It's a primal journey, common to most people, of both sexes, the world over. It's just that Charlie gets his end away more often en route - as it were.
But Jake is the touchstone to which they both keep returning. Jake's curious questioning of life and sexuality is governed by Charlie; the importance of having a conscience is monitored by Alan.
But in both men essentially (and in Charlie's case, unconsciously) competing for control of the youngster, the men constantly have to reassesss their behaviour and lifetyle while in his presence: the young spectre at the grown-ups' feast.
In reality, Jake is saner than both his father and uncle (and certainly saner than his mother). He is the calm voice of reason, questioning both men’s behaviour, as he grows up surrounded by people who don’t know how to love because they were not, quite simply, loved by their mother.
Jake is loved by everyone, which automatically gives him the moral high ground. His security in being wanted by mother, father and, jokingly reluctantly, by Uncle Charlie, enables him to look with bemusement and wonder at the people denied what has always been given to him freely and unconditionally.
He’s a young child of divorced parents (which helps); he has crushes – on girls and older women; he loves telly; and we’ve seen him grow from pre-pubescent into handsome, funny and smart young man – without his incurring, or our ever having had to see, all the problems that this transformation usually entails in real life.
Oh, yes; and he’s always been very cute – and Jones is a damned fine young actor, as both the pre- and post-pubescent Jake glaringly reveal.
After Sheen’s recent spell in rehab, recordings for the new series were put on hold, but filming resumed two weeks ago.
I really can’t wait for it to come around again. My guess would be that it will now be Jake who starts competing with his Uncle Charlie for the same girls, which will bring Charlie’s insecurities to the fore.
That’s Charlie the character, not Charlie from The Shining II, by the way.
I’m not suggesting you swop your Bible for DVDs just yet, but there are a lot of moral lessons to be learned in Two and A Half Men, where love really does conquer all.
Even if it is often Jake’s love for whatever he’s thinking about putting in his belly next.
I watched him in Wall Street again the other day, and it is a performance of incredible range and talent for such a young man.
Every night, I watch double episodes of the sitcom Two and A Half Men, whether I am in the UK or the US; I can pretty much recite them all by heart now, but Sheen still makes me laugh out loud every time, just as the brilliant Jon Cryer (who won an Emmy as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series this year – so, so deserved) makes me both laugh and cry, as his character lurks often pitifully in his seemingly more successful brother’s shadow.
The character Charlie (played by Sheen) is the drinking, fun-loving, sex-craved one; Alan (Cryer – his character often lives up to the actor’s surname), the divorced one, has been living in Charlie's Malibu beachside home since his marriage broke up, and appears to have very little going for him.
He has virtually no luck with women, gets a hangover if he so much as breathes the same air as a Budweiser, and has the greater moral conscience.
But he is much nicer to his mother than Charlie is, and tries to keep his own food-obsessed son Jake on the straight and narrow, as the boy is passed from mother to father and back again, with several pizzas and buckets of fries acting as the middle men.
But why, in many US comedy shows, are there so many women have absolutely no, or certainly very well hidden, redeeming qualities? Lilith (Cheers, Frasier); Ros and the unseen Maris (Frasier); housekeeper Berta (Conchata Perrell), Alan’s ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle), and the brothers’ mother Evelyn (Holland Taylor) in Two and a Half Men?
True, many of Charlie’s women have some nice qualities, but these fly-by-nights are generally out of the door quicker than Charlie can say . . . Well: “Don’t slam the door on your way out.” Fiancée Chelsea was a very rare exception; it is the three monstrous women who dominate the female part of the show.
In the UK, it is generally the females of sitcoms who set the moral barometer; they are the ones to whom the other generally hopeless characters (usually men) turn to, in order to find clues as to how they could, or should, be running their lives.
In the US, you wouldn’t look to any of the above-named women for directions to the bathroom, let alone your life path; you know they would only point you to the cellar, lock you in and throw away the key.
So who sets the moral barometer in Two and A Half Men?
It’s Alan’s son, Jake, played by Angus T. Jones, who was just a month off his 10th birthday when CBS first aired the show in September 2003 – and it is this character who ultimately defines the show as the most moral comedy on television.
That’s right: Two and A Half Men is the most moral comedy show on US television. And that is the real key to its enormous success as a family comedy.
It has the most promiscuous sex, the most heartless and cruel women, the rudest (though most daring and riotous) jokes, and yet, at its heart, a very moral tale: two grown men, seemingly at odds, little realising that what binds them is not only their relation to each other by blood, but the thing for which they are both searching, albeit in very different ways. Namely: how do you find the right person to love?
It's a primal journey, common to most people, of both sexes, the world over. It's just that Charlie gets his end away more often en route - as it were.
But Jake is the touchstone to which they both keep returning. Jake's curious questioning of life and sexuality is governed by Charlie; the importance of having a conscience is monitored by Alan.
But in both men essentially (and in Charlie's case, unconsciously) competing for control of the youngster, the men constantly have to reassesss their behaviour and lifetyle while in his presence: the young spectre at the grown-ups' feast.
In reality, Jake is saner than both his father and uncle (and certainly saner than his mother). He is the calm voice of reason, questioning both men’s behaviour, as he grows up surrounded by people who don’t know how to love because they were not, quite simply, loved by their mother.
Jake is loved by everyone, which automatically gives him the moral high ground. His security in being wanted by mother, father and, jokingly reluctantly, by Uncle Charlie, enables him to look with bemusement and wonder at the people denied what has always been given to him freely and unconditionally.
He’s a young child of divorced parents (which helps); he has crushes – on girls and older women; he loves telly; and we’ve seen him grow from pre-pubescent into handsome, funny and smart young man – without his incurring, or our ever having had to see, all the problems that this transformation usually entails in real life.
Oh, yes; and he’s always been very cute – and Jones is a damned fine young actor, as both the pre- and post-pubescent Jake glaringly reveal.
After Sheen’s recent spell in rehab, recordings for the new series were put on hold, but filming resumed two weeks ago.
I really can’t wait for it to come around again. My guess would be that it will now be Jake who starts competing with his Uncle Charlie for the same girls, which will bring Charlie’s insecurities to the fore.
That’s Charlie the character, not Charlie from The Shining II, by the way.
I’m not suggesting you swop your Bible for DVDs just yet, but there are a lot of moral lessons to be learned in Two and A Half Men, where love really does conquer all.
Even if it is often Jake’s love for whatever he’s thinking about putting in his belly next.
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