The smell of hops brings it all back. My childhood.
The excitement of coming to Cardiff with my parents, tempered by the dread of having to spend the day with my hand covering my nose: the sickly sweet smell from Brains brewery being the first sign that we had arrived in the big city from Newport, where we lived.
But I’ve still spent most of my adult life in the city in which I was born (albeit often living in other places at the same time); it has always been home to me and, I suspect, always will be.
Now, I’m back full time for real, and the smell of hops is still here, admittedly not as strong as it was to my young self but still a smell that resurrects the past with ease.
There is plenty that has not changed, and to walk through town is to remember so much and, for the most part, smile with the memories.
My first meal “out” as a child was at The Louis – still there - in St Mary Street. Its green awning with gold lettering (or have I imagined the gold?) is as glamorous as it ever was to me, and I can never walk past it without remembering my Big Day Out.
I had just been to David Morgan, where Mum bought us two coats and told me we had to hide them in the boot of the car so that she could break the news slowly to my dad. She can’t remember why she did that, as he was a placid man and certainly not someone who held the purse strings. She now wonders if she bought them on credit, of which he would have disapproved.
The coats were both cream: Mum’s had a fur (fake, of course) collar and mine was imitation lamb’s wool with brown buttons. It smothered me. It would have taken a week to shear me in order to get to my flesh, but I loved it and had never been so excited about anything as that first grown up coat.
It was rare for the whole family not to attend Mum’s shopping expeditions. Normally, she would park Dad, my brother Nigel and me by the Lancome counter in Howells and disappear for three hours, goodness knows where – other make-up counters, probably - but on this occasion it was just Mum and me. In The Louis, I had chicken chasseur and peas and thought I was the luckiest child in the world.
Howells I remember from my student years. I lasted two days working on the sweet counter, where a woman called Mrs Brown used to corner me between the truffles and the chocolate bars and admonish me for the smallest misdemeanour – breathing, topping the list.
It was the early days of credit cards and I used to dread people handing over their sliver of plastic and my having to negotiate this JCB of a machine, when all they were buying was 4oz of fudge. To escape the torture, I quietly told them to go to David Morgan, where they would find everything they wanted, sweeties included, for a darn sight cheaper. It was always the case, and I was sad to see the poor man’s Howells disappear in one of the many changes to the city.
The Philharmonic is still there, too. When I was a teenager living in Bridgend, I endured my first rugby international post-match drinking there and sampled rum for the first time. Lots of it. Rum that sprayed the fields travelling back to Bridgend, as I hung out of the train window, praying for death. I’ve never even been able to smell rum since without retching.
Wally’s delicatessen in Royal Arcade is now a much bigger and far more upmarket affair (so many lentils now. In my student days, I swear they sold nothing but red ones and white rice) and remains an institution. But the Chapter and Verse bookshop, where I bought the complete set of D.H. Lawrence letters, has gone, another victim of the Waterstone’s conglomerate.
Chapter Arts Centre is in the same place, but unrecognisable after its £3.8m makeover in 2006. It was converted from a school in 1971 and I used to watch Woody Allen films there on Friday nights. Afterwards, alone and depressed (my student days were not happy ones), I would ring the Samaritans from the pay phone on my way out. I never had enough money to get past “Hello”. One night, they didn’t even answer and I went round to their headquarters. They didn’t come to the door, either.
The Sherman, on the other side of town, is also still there. I was less suicidal at this venue but recall only that The Seven Swords of the Samurai seemed to be showing on a loop in the cinema – for four years.
So much has changed in the city. The plethora of cafes and restaurants lends a European air to the centre; the dominating feature is the Millennium Stadium, where once I stood queuing with my towel to get into the Empire Pool; Cardiff Bay is one of many jewels in the city’s crown and, on a hot day, a place buzzing with tourists and locals alike.
Change is good for us, and in Cardiff we are lucky in that the old continues to exist alongside the new – the indoor market, the Angel Hotel and, yes, The Louis. I wonder if the chicken chasseur is still on the menu. I might just pop in and find out.
People keep asking me if I am missing Los Angeles. To be honest, not a bit. I was there for nearly three years, enjoyed it, and had a wide variety of experiences. I even took an ex-landlady to court when she withheld a chunk of my deposit and provided no receipts to indicate on what it had been spent. I won my case and was especially proud, as she was a lawyer. I never got to hear the judge say “Judgment for the plaintiff”, but I can at least say that my horizons have been irrevocably broadened.
I made some good friends who I will miss and, come January, I will probably miss the sun. But as the rain beats down on my window as I write, and the wind howls, beating the trees to complete baldness as the last leaves of autumn fall, I still know that I have come home.
And it feels right.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Travelling Tadpole 11/9/11
So, it’s 7.39am and I’m wondering whether to have another dish of the spaghetti Bolognese I had just under 12 hours ago.
Normally, at this hour, I’m craving pizza – or, rather, I’ve eaten the pizza at 5am and am contemplating having a nap before going to the gym.
I don’t know what time it’s ok to have a glass of wine – 7.39am in LA is, after all, 11.39pm in the UK, which makes it reasonable if I’ve been having a long supper, UK time.
But if I wait until cocktail hour at 6pm in LA, that’s 10am in the UK, which makes it decidedly unacceptable.
When I fly LA to London on a flight that lands in the morning, is it frowned upon to have a champagne breakfast, even though it’s last orders time in LA?
When my afternoon tea of a scone and clotted cream is delivered flying into LA mid afternoon, is it any wonder I want to throw up when it’s only 7am in the UK?
Yes, the long haul flying is finally getting to me. I’ve managed it for three years and, when I first moved here and was staying put for up to three months at a time, it never bothered me.
But in recent months I’ve been returning to the UK every few weeks, and I really don’t know where I am waking up each day. Back in Europe, I have also been visiting Paris and Spain, and the first ten minutes of every morning after I’ve been travelling are now spent in a panic as I find myself in another strange bed, reaching out for a water glass that turns out to be a telephone, and something I realise only when it is halfway down my throat.
It could be worse, I suppose. At least I’m not reaching out to a man and trying to make telephone calls from his chest. Or his handset.
As I have said before, I never used to be much of a traveller, so it’s still all relatively new to me; hence the tiredness, I suspect.
The longest journeys I took when I was a child were to:-
(1) Rumney village to my Auntie Cynth’s for Sunday tea.
(2) Weston Super Mare.
(3) Belgium, where my parents were so appalled by the shabbiness of the room, they contemplated driving straight back to the ferry. It was only my tears at the thought of having my first trip abroad so cruelly halted that I believe stopped them.
And let’s not forget:-
(4) Pwllheli, when my mother insisted on stopping at every single gift shop between Bridgend and North Wales (I swear I had three birthdays in the time it took us to get there).
And:-
(5) Cornwall, where, for some reason, at the height of summer, my parents thought it much more exciting not to book any accommodation in advance. “NO VACANCIES” is a sign that brings me out in a sweat even to this day.
So, I’m not sure where my recent new-found love of travel has its origins; but I do know that, for the moment, I’ve had enough of it.
I loved returning to my house in Cardiff for my birthday, different trees shedding pellets of autumn on my driveway. One friend wanted to sweep the pieces of autumnal debris away; I insisted that they stay, loving the reminder of seasons after such a long spell in the monotonous, albeit mostly glorious sunshine of California.
My rhododendron bush was flowering in the back garden – five months early, a sign of the warm weather I have missed (when, bizarrely, California was enjoying a less warm spell).
I opened my sweater drawer and put on my red cashmere for the first time in three years.
My mum and her dog came to stay.
I saw so many friends, in London, Paris, Spain and Cardiff.
I went to the 21st and 18th birthdays of my friends’ children and loved talking with young people, embarking on their adult lives, so full of hope and promise.
I bought food in a market in Paris and remembered how great things could taste outside the blandness of California, where a tomato could be a pomegranate for all the difference in taste.
I woke to exquisite sunrises in Spain and felt thrilled once more to be so close to the variety of truly glorious European cities.
There is a wonderful Alice Munro (the Canadian genius – and it’s not often you hear those two words in the same sentence) who wrote a story about some children, trying to re-locate tadpoles from one part of a pond to another. They successfully managed it, only to return in the morning to find that all the creatures had returned to the place from whence they came.
I still love travelling and am fortunate to have seen so many great spectacles in so many different countries.
But sometimes tiredness alone makes you just want to be a tadpole again – and eat pizza at the time it was meant to be eaten.
Eight pm. In front of the telly. At home. In my sweater.
Normally, at this hour, I’m craving pizza – or, rather, I’ve eaten the pizza at 5am and am contemplating having a nap before going to the gym.
I don’t know what time it’s ok to have a glass of wine – 7.39am in LA is, after all, 11.39pm in the UK, which makes it reasonable if I’ve been having a long supper, UK time.
But if I wait until cocktail hour at 6pm in LA, that’s 10am in the UK, which makes it decidedly unacceptable.
When I fly LA to London on a flight that lands in the morning, is it frowned upon to have a champagne breakfast, even though it’s last orders time in LA?
When my afternoon tea of a scone and clotted cream is delivered flying into LA mid afternoon, is it any wonder I want to throw up when it’s only 7am in the UK?
Yes, the long haul flying is finally getting to me. I’ve managed it for three years and, when I first moved here and was staying put for up to three months at a time, it never bothered me.
But in recent months I’ve been returning to the UK every few weeks, and I really don’t know where I am waking up each day. Back in Europe, I have also been visiting Paris and Spain, and the first ten minutes of every morning after I’ve been travelling are now spent in a panic as I find myself in another strange bed, reaching out for a water glass that turns out to be a telephone, and something I realise only when it is halfway down my throat.
It could be worse, I suppose. At least I’m not reaching out to a man and trying to make telephone calls from his chest. Or his handset.
As I have said before, I never used to be much of a traveller, so it’s still all relatively new to me; hence the tiredness, I suspect.
The longest journeys I took when I was a child were to:-
(1) Rumney village to my Auntie Cynth’s for Sunday tea.
(2) Weston Super Mare.
(3) Belgium, where my parents were so appalled by the shabbiness of the room, they contemplated driving straight back to the ferry. It was only my tears at the thought of having my first trip abroad so cruelly halted that I believe stopped them.
And let’s not forget:-
(4) Pwllheli, when my mother insisted on stopping at every single gift shop between Bridgend and North Wales (I swear I had three birthdays in the time it took us to get there).
And:-
(5) Cornwall, where, for some reason, at the height of summer, my parents thought it much more exciting not to book any accommodation in advance. “NO VACANCIES” is a sign that brings me out in a sweat even to this day.
So, I’m not sure where my recent new-found love of travel has its origins; but I do know that, for the moment, I’ve had enough of it.
I loved returning to my house in Cardiff for my birthday, different trees shedding pellets of autumn on my driveway. One friend wanted to sweep the pieces of autumnal debris away; I insisted that they stay, loving the reminder of seasons after such a long spell in the monotonous, albeit mostly glorious sunshine of California.
My rhododendron bush was flowering in the back garden – five months early, a sign of the warm weather I have missed (when, bizarrely, California was enjoying a less warm spell).
I opened my sweater drawer and put on my red cashmere for the first time in three years.
My mum and her dog came to stay.
I saw so many friends, in London, Paris, Spain and Cardiff.
I went to the 21st and 18th birthdays of my friends’ children and loved talking with young people, embarking on their adult lives, so full of hope and promise.
I bought food in a market in Paris and remembered how great things could taste outside the blandness of California, where a tomato could be a pomegranate for all the difference in taste.
I woke to exquisite sunrises in Spain and felt thrilled once more to be so close to the variety of truly glorious European cities.
There is a wonderful Alice Munro (the Canadian genius – and it’s not often you hear those two words in the same sentence) who wrote a story about some children, trying to re-locate tadpoles from one part of a pond to another. They successfully managed it, only to return in the morning to find that all the creatures had returned to the place from whence they came.
I still love travelling and am fortunate to have seen so many great spectacles in so many different countries.
But sometimes tiredness alone makes you just want to be a tadpole again – and eat pizza at the time it was meant to be eaten.
Eight pm. In front of the telly. At home. In my sweater.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Happy Birthday To Me 11/5/11
Today is my birthday.
I’ve had a lot of them, so I now know what to expect.
It’s very different from what I could expect over four decades ago. Then, my party guests would arrive not only with a present but a box of fire-works, which my father would set off in our garden after the sausage rolls and party games (which I had to, and did, win).
During the gunpowder part of the proceedings, I was the child hiding under the table in the dining room. I wanted everyone to go home so that I could play with my presents.
I also hated fire-works. I still do. When it’s the main noise that greets you on your first day in the world, it’s hardly surprising. I’ve never really understood the appeal of standing around in the cold, eyes streaming standing next to a roaring bonfire, watching a pretend man being roasted alive and having your ears invaded by loud bangs.
Decades on, the friends I once invited to parties usually cannot come to mine now because they are going to their own children’s bonfire events (and that’s what they are now: events. Unless you can reproduce The Towering Inferno on your lawn, it seems you are nothing these days). The most I can hope for is friends who are divorced and it is their year to do Christmas with their children, which frees them up for Bonfire Night. For ME. To every cloud and all that.
The last few years have been ruined by the All Blacks playing Wales in autumn internationals. Three years ago, I sat at a table I had booked for 20 in the Indo Cymru in Canton in Cardiff, with just five people: one was my mother, two my brother and his girlfriend, and another couple I suspect I might have hired off the street. I choked through tears on my Biriyani.
I remember my big birthdays very clearly. On my 18th, I had a hairdo that could have competed with the Taj Mahal as one of the world’s great free-standing structures. I had a turquoise top and trousers that has been in fashion at least five times since.
On my 21st, I was dressed in a long brown crimplene frock. My grandmother came for tea but I remember the day mostly for the hysteria in our house trying to keep Emma the menstruating poodle off the sofa and away from my grandmother’s nice suit.
I have had three birthdays that I recall as being the happiest days of my life. The first was my ninth and I had been given a gorgeous cream plastic tea-set decorated with brown flowers. As usual, I couldn’t wait for my friends to leave so that I could get it out of the box and play with it.
My 40th, in Soho House, the central London private members’ club, was extraordinary. Surrounded by colleagues and friends, I had never felt more loved. My brother had tracked down Ricky Valance, who sang the number one hit Tell Laura I Love Her. I was a big fan of his, not for that song, but Movin’ Away, which I used to sing into a hairbrush in front of a mirror in my youth. Ricky had recorded a message, which my brother played to the room; I also had a framed signed photo.
My mother also threw a family party for me near her home in Bristol and that, too, moved me to tears.
I wanted to celebrate the last day of my 40s with people I admired. I visited Simon Cowell in his smart London office and, in the evening, went to the theatre and shared a glass of champagne with Kenneth Branagh in his dressing room after the show.
I had three 50th birthdays: one, for close friends in the Bleeding Heart restaurant in London. Most people there had been at my 30th, too (apart from my therapist – if you haven’t had one by 50, you are so not of the NOW), and I felt blessed to have acquired – and kept – so many wonderful friends.
The second was at my Cardiff home, where I cooked for 70 and brought together many new friends with older ones who had known me since childhood.
The third was in Paris with friends I had made during my decade in France, and there were also new ones from the Paris/Welsh society. The last departing guest was lifted away, unconscious, by the pompiers, who were not happy, shouting that it was not their job to take away drunks of an evening. Ha! You want to be in Cardiff on a Friday night, I called back – or would have done, had my French been better and I did not harbour a fear of being beheaded.
I love birthdays. With each passing year, I am reminded that everything changes – and, yes, some things stay the same, and that is no bad thing, either. If I go tonight, I have still had a better life than most people in the world, let alone the country.
Age is not something that should frighten us, and the passing of days is not something we should mourn. Time is an ongoing period of learning: we have our successes and we have our failures. But we pass our wisdom – and our regrets – to others, who hopefully learn a little from both.
For me, it is the true meaning of everlasting life. Today, I celebrate it.
And, if you see me, you can celebrate it with me too.
Triples all round!
I’ve had a lot of them, so I now know what to expect.
It’s very different from what I could expect over four decades ago. Then, my party guests would arrive not only with a present but a box of fire-works, which my father would set off in our garden after the sausage rolls and party games (which I had to, and did, win).
During the gunpowder part of the proceedings, I was the child hiding under the table in the dining room. I wanted everyone to go home so that I could play with my presents.
I also hated fire-works. I still do. When it’s the main noise that greets you on your first day in the world, it’s hardly surprising. I’ve never really understood the appeal of standing around in the cold, eyes streaming standing next to a roaring bonfire, watching a pretend man being roasted alive and having your ears invaded by loud bangs.
Decades on, the friends I once invited to parties usually cannot come to mine now because they are going to their own children’s bonfire events (and that’s what they are now: events. Unless you can reproduce The Towering Inferno on your lawn, it seems you are nothing these days). The most I can hope for is friends who are divorced and it is their year to do Christmas with their children, which frees them up for Bonfire Night. For ME. To every cloud and all that.
The last few years have been ruined by the All Blacks playing Wales in autumn internationals. Three years ago, I sat at a table I had booked for 20 in the Indo Cymru in Canton in Cardiff, with just five people: one was my mother, two my brother and his girlfriend, and another couple I suspect I might have hired off the street. I choked through tears on my Biriyani.
I remember my big birthdays very clearly. On my 18th, I had a hairdo that could have competed with the Taj Mahal as one of the world’s great free-standing structures. I had a turquoise top and trousers that has been in fashion at least five times since.
On my 21st, I was dressed in a long brown crimplene frock. My grandmother came for tea but I remember the day mostly for the hysteria in our house trying to keep Emma the menstruating poodle off the sofa and away from my grandmother’s nice suit.
I have had three birthdays that I recall as being the happiest days of my life. The first was my ninth and I had been given a gorgeous cream plastic tea-set decorated with brown flowers. As usual, I couldn’t wait for my friends to leave so that I could get it out of the box and play with it.
My 40th, in Soho House, the central London private members’ club, was extraordinary. Surrounded by colleagues and friends, I had never felt more loved. My brother had tracked down Ricky Valance, who sang the number one hit Tell Laura I Love Her. I was a big fan of his, not for that song, but Movin’ Away, which I used to sing into a hairbrush in front of a mirror in my youth. Ricky had recorded a message, which my brother played to the room; I also had a framed signed photo.
My mother also threw a family party for me near her home in Bristol and that, too, moved me to tears.
I wanted to celebrate the last day of my 40s with people I admired. I visited Simon Cowell in his smart London office and, in the evening, went to the theatre and shared a glass of champagne with Kenneth Branagh in his dressing room after the show.
I had three 50th birthdays: one, for close friends in the Bleeding Heart restaurant in London. Most people there had been at my 30th, too (apart from my therapist – if you haven’t had one by 50, you are so not of the NOW), and I felt blessed to have acquired – and kept – so many wonderful friends.
The second was at my Cardiff home, where I cooked for 70 and brought together many new friends with older ones who had known me since childhood.
The third was in Paris with friends I had made during my decade in France, and there were also new ones from the Paris/Welsh society. The last departing guest was lifted away, unconscious, by the pompiers, who were not happy, shouting that it was not their job to take away drunks of an evening. Ha! You want to be in Cardiff on a Friday night, I called back – or would have done, had my French been better and I did not harbour a fear of being beheaded.
I love birthdays. With each passing year, I am reminded that everything changes – and, yes, some things stay the same, and that is no bad thing, either. If I go tonight, I have still had a better life than most people in the world, let alone the country.
Age is not something that should frighten us, and the passing of days is not something we should mourn. Time is an ongoing period of learning: we have our successes and we have our failures. But we pass our wisdom – and our regrets – to others, who hopefully learn a little from both.
For me, it is the true meaning of everlasting life. Today, I celebrate it.
And, if you see me, you can celebrate it with me too.
Triples all round!
Saturday, October 29, 2011
La La Means I Love You - Sometimes 10/29/11
Travel while you’ve got your health.
It was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I have ever been given.
At the time, I was taking a cruise around the Mediterranean, writing a travel piece for the Daily Mail and enjoying the delights of Monaco, Malta, Sicily, Rome, Corfu – amongst others.
Don’t ask me in which order; Geography was never my strong point (in fact, a Geography lesson was one of just three times I was told off throughout my entire school career – for sneezing. Mrs Price went so ballistic, you’d think I’d pulled out a weapon and gunned down half the class. Teachers didn’t mess around in Bridgend).
I had flown just a handful of times on short trips during the preceding ten years; mostly, my travel was confined to the Eurostar, as I was renting an apartment in Paris, where I subsequently lived for six and a half years.
On the cruise, I met two very well-travelled American women from Washington, and it was Lisa, who has since become a close friend, who made the comment about appreciating travel while your body was still able to keep up with your mind’s intentions.
I was, of course, lucky to be travelling with Cunard, on a luxury liner where I ate the best food I have ever tasted – anywhere. The outstanding service in the Princess Grill (the higher end of the price range) put the normally poor service we receive on land in the UK, to shame.
Waking to sunrise in Monaco’s port moved me to tears (as did the prices, but that’s another story). So did the Sicilian coastline.
Rome was an enormous thrill (it was good to return, having visited only once previously for a rugby international, when I missed the entire city, returning to the UK and declaing that there was “nothing there”).
Malta was an unexpected pleasure.
And as for Corfu – I could have disembarked and spent the rest of my life there.
In the three years since the cruise, there has never been a month when I have not been flying off to another destination. I left Paris in 2008 and, for the past two and a half years, have been renting an apartment in Los Angeles.
I had always been someone who made sweeping generalisations about “all Americans” and wanted to dispel the prejudices that had been instilled through having been born and raised on our small island.
Having now travelled around the States and met a lot of Americans, I can confidently say that it is only “most” Americans who are uneducated, rude, uninteresting and uninterested, and hogs at a trough when it comes to bargain breakfasts in Las Vegas (actually, when it comes to that last one, I’m going to stick to the “all Americans” observation).
I have loved the energy in LA: the work ethic that permeates the whole city.
I enjoyed the craziness of Vegas (and saw Mayweather beat Mosley – live sweat, blood, and the thwack of leather on bare flesh: you can’t beat it), even though on my second visit I decided that even a second night was too much.
I burned off calories enjoying walking the hills of San Francisco (almost as much as I enjoyed the walk to the tarmac to leave the place).
A few months back, I was fortunate to be offered another cruise, this time on Crystal, around the Mexican Riviera – the R word being as far removed from its French counterpart as it is possible to be.
The poverty in Mexico broke my heart, but I like to think that I contributed to the local economy with my collection of hats, jewellery, bags and henna tattoos purchased on the beach.
How quickly “Look, piss off! I don’t want any of your tat!” turns into: “Where can I buy an extra couple of cases to take all this stuff home?”
Now, I am returning to Europe. I miss it. Despite my new-found love of travelling, the European in me misses home. Long haul travelling is also exhausting, and when I found myself returning from LA every three weeks on 12 hour flights, I thought that it was probably a sign that home was beckoning.
Last week, I was in six countries in as many days – New Zealand, the US, Wales, England, France and Spain.
My trip to Paris reminded me of the beauty of what I have always called my favourite city on Earth. London reminded me of the past I built up, both personally and professionally, over 28 years of living in the capital.
I am writing this from the apartment I bought in Puerto Banus, just outside Marbella, six years ago, looking out at 180 degree view of the Mediterranean in 27 degree sunshine – at the end of October, for heaven’s sake. On days like this, Spain reminds me that its south coast weather is as good as any I experienced in LA – and without the unhealthy smog.
Although my rugby World Cup trip to New Zealand instilled the country in my mind as a place to which I will never return unless under arrest, I am glad to have gone.
And finally, returning to Wales reminded me of the fact that no matter where you go in the world, your first love is for family and friends.
I have no doubt I will keep travelling – while I’ve got my health.
And there’s also one very important thing I’ve learned that would be the travel advice I would pass on to anyone, just as Lisa passed her wisdom on to me.
Not every holiday has to end with a lease.
It was one of the most valuable pieces of advice I have ever been given.
At the time, I was taking a cruise around the Mediterranean, writing a travel piece for the Daily Mail and enjoying the delights of Monaco, Malta, Sicily, Rome, Corfu – amongst others.
Don’t ask me in which order; Geography was never my strong point (in fact, a Geography lesson was one of just three times I was told off throughout my entire school career – for sneezing. Mrs Price went so ballistic, you’d think I’d pulled out a weapon and gunned down half the class. Teachers didn’t mess around in Bridgend).
I had flown just a handful of times on short trips during the preceding ten years; mostly, my travel was confined to the Eurostar, as I was renting an apartment in Paris, where I subsequently lived for six and a half years.
On the cruise, I met two very well-travelled American women from Washington, and it was Lisa, who has since become a close friend, who made the comment about appreciating travel while your body was still able to keep up with your mind’s intentions.
I was, of course, lucky to be travelling with Cunard, on a luxury liner where I ate the best food I have ever tasted – anywhere. The outstanding service in the Princess Grill (the higher end of the price range) put the normally poor service we receive on land in the UK, to shame.
Waking to sunrise in Monaco’s port moved me to tears (as did the prices, but that’s another story). So did the Sicilian coastline.
Rome was an enormous thrill (it was good to return, having visited only once previously for a rugby international, when I missed the entire city, returning to the UK and declaing that there was “nothing there”).
Malta was an unexpected pleasure.
And as for Corfu – I could have disembarked and spent the rest of my life there.
In the three years since the cruise, there has never been a month when I have not been flying off to another destination. I left Paris in 2008 and, for the past two and a half years, have been renting an apartment in Los Angeles.
I had always been someone who made sweeping generalisations about “all Americans” and wanted to dispel the prejudices that had been instilled through having been born and raised on our small island.
Having now travelled around the States and met a lot of Americans, I can confidently say that it is only “most” Americans who are uneducated, rude, uninteresting and uninterested, and hogs at a trough when it comes to bargain breakfasts in Las Vegas (actually, when it comes to that last one, I’m going to stick to the “all Americans” observation).
I have loved the energy in LA: the work ethic that permeates the whole city.
I enjoyed the craziness of Vegas (and saw Mayweather beat Mosley – live sweat, blood, and the thwack of leather on bare flesh: you can’t beat it), even though on my second visit I decided that even a second night was too much.
I burned off calories enjoying walking the hills of San Francisco (almost as much as I enjoyed the walk to the tarmac to leave the place).
A few months back, I was fortunate to be offered another cruise, this time on Crystal, around the Mexican Riviera – the R word being as far removed from its French counterpart as it is possible to be.
The poverty in Mexico broke my heart, but I like to think that I contributed to the local economy with my collection of hats, jewellery, bags and henna tattoos purchased on the beach.
How quickly “Look, piss off! I don’t want any of your tat!” turns into: “Where can I buy an extra couple of cases to take all this stuff home?”
Now, I am returning to Europe. I miss it. Despite my new-found love of travelling, the European in me misses home. Long haul travelling is also exhausting, and when I found myself returning from LA every three weeks on 12 hour flights, I thought that it was probably a sign that home was beckoning.
Last week, I was in six countries in as many days – New Zealand, the US, Wales, England, France and Spain.
My trip to Paris reminded me of the beauty of what I have always called my favourite city on Earth. London reminded me of the past I built up, both personally and professionally, over 28 years of living in the capital.
I am writing this from the apartment I bought in Puerto Banus, just outside Marbella, six years ago, looking out at 180 degree view of the Mediterranean in 27 degree sunshine – at the end of October, for heaven’s sake. On days like this, Spain reminds me that its south coast weather is as good as any I experienced in LA – and without the unhealthy smog.
Although my rugby World Cup trip to New Zealand instilled the country in my mind as a place to which I will never return unless under arrest, I am glad to have gone.
And finally, returning to Wales reminded me of the fact that no matter where you go in the world, your first love is for family and friends.
I have no doubt I will keep travelling – while I’ve got my health.
And there’s also one very important thing I’ve learned that would be the travel advice I would pass on to anyone, just as Lisa passed her wisdom on to me.
Not every holiday has to end with a lease.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Life, Death and a Bit on the Side
Check out my other blog: Life, Death and a Bit on the Side at http://jacistephen.blogspot.com
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Ashton vs Charlie: There's A New Trunk On The Block 9/20/11
Why would anyone subject themselves to a bunch of showbiz (mostly) B listers abusing them not only in front of a studio audience but viewers at home?
The “celebrity roast” is bear pit television in LA. A celebrity – invariably one who has a dubious moral record – sits in a chair, while the “roast master” introduces the other celebrities, who in turn get up to deliver a comic monologue denouncing the star’s shortcomings.
For the less practised, the struggle to read an autocue full of jokes that have been written for them is embarrassing to watch; other performers display genius both in terms of material and presentation.
Last night, Comedy Central aired the Charlie Sheen Roast, just an hour after Charlie’s replacement, Ashton Kutcher, made his debut on Two and a Half Men, from which Charlie was sacked.
Kutcher’s entrance was in wet clothes, from which he quickly excavated himself and bared all – alas, this was hidden from the viewers sitting at home, but we nevertheless learned in the storyline that he is allegedly hung like an elephant.
Or maybe that’s just his character.
Anyway, CBS will have been rubbing their own trunks with glee when the viewing figures came in – 28 million.
The roast made less easy viewing. The brilliant Seth MacFarlane was roast master and was a good sport about taking jokes against himself too, even though they were pretty lame ones referring to the possibility that he might be gay but unwilling to come out of the closet. Who cares.
Mike Tyson delivered his speech with enormous energy and charm and looked in danger of expiring with the hilarity of the whole night, especially jokes in relation to his facial tattoo. Jeffrey Ross was the fantastic old pro he always is, even though a little bizarrely dressed as Colonel Gadhafi, and William Shatner was the star we know him to be.
And then there were some other people of whom I had never heard – which seemed to be the case for Charlie and Seth, too.
There were some very funny jokes, with many references to Charlie’s drug and alcohol problems and his psychological meltdown that followed his sacking from TAAHM. This was as sad as it was amusing, with the star later admitting that he hadn’t realised how screwed up he was until that night.
His own speech was a polished masterpiece and also rather moving, in the obvious realisation that here is a man who has been through hell and come through. Probably.
What left a far less pleasant taste in the mouth were the references to the women Charlie has physically abused, and quite why people were able to laugh so loudly at the idea of bleeding women cowering in corners and having things violently thrown at them is beyond me.
The bigger mystery was why one of them – ex-wife Brooke Mueller – was sitting in the audience, laughing uproariously along with everyone else.
But then I remembered that I recently made a “joke” on Facebook about the UK show, Red or Black, when the first winner of £1million was revealed to have served time for beating up his ex-girlfriend. Would the show now be called Black or Blue, I questioned. Most people thought it hilarious, but there were a couple of voices of dissension.
Was my comment any less offensive than the ones I felt uncomfortable with last night?
I think there’s a difference. My comment was a linguistic joke making fun of the show’s title in the light of their having failed to do their research properly; the Sheen event seemed to carry the message that if you’re a big enough and rich enough celebrity, you can do what the hell you like, including beating up women, and everyone will love you even more for it.
I enjoy the roasts, although can’t for the life of me think why anyone would subject themselves to the experience. Maybe it’s a way of drawing a line under the past: a way of saying “That was then, this is now” – and moving on, having learned valuable lessons.
Sheen was brilliant in TAAHM and he will go on to do other great work; I also hope that he has beaten his demons and emerged a stronger and nicer person.
But Kutcher will do well as his replacement. You know that phrase people say when nobody’s talking about “the elephant in the room”?
With Kutcher’s naked debut, now they’re talking ONLY about the elephant in the room.
The “celebrity roast” is bear pit television in LA. A celebrity – invariably one who has a dubious moral record – sits in a chair, while the “roast master” introduces the other celebrities, who in turn get up to deliver a comic monologue denouncing the star’s shortcomings.
For the less practised, the struggle to read an autocue full of jokes that have been written for them is embarrassing to watch; other performers display genius both in terms of material and presentation.
Last night, Comedy Central aired the Charlie Sheen Roast, just an hour after Charlie’s replacement, Ashton Kutcher, made his debut on Two and a Half Men, from which Charlie was sacked.
Kutcher’s entrance was in wet clothes, from which he quickly excavated himself and bared all – alas, this was hidden from the viewers sitting at home, but we nevertheless learned in the storyline that he is allegedly hung like an elephant.
Or maybe that’s just his character.
Anyway, CBS will have been rubbing their own trunks with glee when the viewing figures came in – 28 million.
The roast made less easy viewing. The brilliant Seth MacFarlane was roast master and was a good sport about taking jokes against himself too, even though they were pretty lame ones referring to the possibility that he might be gay but unwilling to come out of the closet. Who cares.
Mike Tyson delivered his speech with enormous energy and charm and looked in danger of expiring with the hilarity of the whole night, especially jokes in relation to his facial tattoo. Jeffrey Ross was the fantastic old pro he always is, even though a little bizarrely dressed as Colonel Gadhafi, and William Shatner was the star we know him to be.
And then there were some other people of whom I had never heard – which seemed to be the case for Charlie and Seth, too.
There were some very funny jokes, with many references to Charlie’s drug and alcohol problems and his psychological meltdown that followed his sacking from TAAHM. This was as sad as it was amusing, with the star later admitting that he hadn’t realised how screwed up he was until that night.
His own speech was a polished masterpiece and also rather moving, in the obvious realisation that here is a man who has been through hell and come through. Probably.
What left a far less pleasant taste in the mouth were the references to the women Charlie has physically abused, and quite why people were able to laugh so loudly at the idea of bleeding women cowering in corners and having things violently thrown at them is beyond me.
The bigger mystery was why one of them – ex-wife Brooke Mueller – was sitting in the audience, laughing uproariously along with everyone else.
But then I remembered that I recently made a “joke” on Facebook about the UK show, Red or Black, when the first winner of £1million was revealed to have served time for beating up his ex-girlfriend. Would the show now be called Black or Blue, I questioned. Most people thought it hilarious, but there were a couple of voices of dissension.
Was my comment any less offensive than the ones I felt uncomfortable with last night?
I think there’s a difference. My comment was a linguistic joke making fun of the show’s title in the light of their having failed to do their research properly; the Sheen event seemed to carry the message that if you’re a big enough and rich enough celebrity, you can do what the hell you like, including beating up women, and everyone will love you even more for it.
I enjoy the roasts, although can’t for the life of me think why anyone would subject themselves to the experience. Maybe it’s a way of drawing a line under the past: a way of saying “That was then, this is now” – and moving on, having learned valuable lessons.
Sheen was brilliant in TAAHM and he will go on to do other great work; I also hope that he has beaten his demons and emerged a stronger and nicer person.
But Kutcher will do well as his replacement. You know that phrase people say when nobody’s talking about “the elephant in the room”?
With Kutcher’s naked debut, now they’re talking ONLY about the elephant in the room.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Branson: Best Dick In The World 9/3/11
Everyone recommended melatonin to conquer jet-lag.
Unfortunately, I was so jet-lagged, I told everyone I had taken methadone, which isn’t the same thing at all, and I then had to make a lot of frantic phone-calls to explain that I was not coming off heroin, nor, indeed, had ever been on it.
Anyway, back to the melatonin. I read up a bit about it and gleaned that the only negative was that it made you dream. As my dreams are very vivid anyway, especially in relation to a couple of people in LA (weapons of mass personal destruction feature strongly in those), I couldn’t see the harm, and so downed one before my long haul flight back to the UK.
It wasn’t good. I dreamed I had killed someone and was heading for Death Row quicker than you could say “Last meal curry and chips”.
I also dreamed that a policeman found a gun just as Prince Charles was about to do a walkabout, and threw the weapon into a bush shortly before HRH’s arrival. I wasn’t happy about this lapse in security but luckily woke up before taking the officer to task.
I was flying Air New Zealand but have decided to transfer my allegiance back to Virgin Atlantic; I just can’t take the stress of the ANZ points. With Virgin, you accumulate points and then use them for a guaranteed upgrade. On ANZ, with the “complimentary upgrade” you acquire with points, you often don’t know until the minute before boarding whether you have it or not.
It can be all the difference between sitting for ten hours next to that fat bloke with BO standing next to you in the queue or having your own pod and hibernating for the entire flight.
There’s also the Virgin lounge at Heathrow, which is like a holiday in itself, even though it’s not quite as good as it used to be. To avoid the possibility of the masseurs’ getting repetitive strain injury, they now pummel you with a wheat bag, which, quite frankly, is like being hit with a bag of Tesco shopping, although probably not as effective. The wine isn’t as good, either, although given that they change it often, that hardly matters.
On board, Virgin Business has a bar, which serves as a terrific networking venue; and the in-flight entertainment surpasses ANZ, whose content is not only much older, but comes to you via sets of headphones that enable you to hear everything that people in adjoining seats are listening to.
At least ANZ allows you to watch stuff until the last minute, though; the last hour of the Virgin flight is hell – the Branson clan advertising various charitable endeavours (I admire their altruism, but not when I’m knackered; please change it to the beginning of the flight), followed by the worst music ever composed, which is what you really don’t need after ten hours in the air.
Neither airline comes up to scratch on the food: a Virgin dining plate is so small, it could pass for an eye patch; and although ANZ boasts three great chefs, whose menus are fine, the food is ruined by being laden with way too much butter and so much salt you can’t help wondering if Lot’s wife has jumped into the pan along with the meat.
I was informed that salt is a good preservative, which I know of course; but when dehydration is one of the key discomforts about flying, surely the last thing you need is something that is going to exacerbate the problem.
So I remain very loyal to Mr Branson, who, all things considered, delivers the better product. He also has amazingly loyal and efficient staff, who respond to complaints and enquiries with efficiency and kindness. He also provides me with a credit card that enables me to acquire so many points, I am fast on the way to owning one of the aircraft.
I was really upset that his home burned down on Necker Island and wondered whether I could give him some points to help the rebuild, but figured I need them more than he does. In terms of flying, he pretty much gets it right, and ANZ’s new super dooper planes with white leather still don’t make up for the fact that the reception staff at the Star Alliance lounge used by ANZ at Heathrow are about as friendly as the Gestapo with a hangover.
They really need to learn from the ever fantastic Thierry at the ANZ lounge in LA. Great man, shame about the meagre offerings at the buffet, including a butternut squash soup that I mistook for the contents of the lavatory.
I still can’t quite believe that after ten years of refusing to fly anywhere, I am spending so much time in the air. It’s rather a good metaphor for where my life has been, but finally, this week, I finished my book – writing, not reading, that is. It’s been a long time in the making – over 20 years, to be precise, owing to the many incarnations it has endured along the way.
I didn’t feel any sense of achievement, which I suppose comes only if somebody agrees to publish the damned thing; but at least it’s done.
Maybe Mr Branson would like to buy it for people to read on his planes.
Trust me: it’s a lot better than the racket you’ll hear coming in to land.
Unfortunately, I was so jet-lagged, I told everyone I had taken methadone, which isn’t the same thing at all, and I then had to make a lot of frantic phone-calls to explain that I was not coming off heroin, nor, indeed, had ever been on it.
Anyway, back to the melatonin. I read up a bit about it and gleaned that the only negative was that it made you dream. As my dreams are very vivid anyway, especially in relation to a couple of people in LA (weapons of mass personal destruction feature strongly in those), I couldn’t see the harm, and so downed one before my long haul flight back to the UK.
It wasn’t good. I dreamed I had killed someone and was heading for Death Row quicker than you could say “Last meal curry and chips”.
I also dreamed that a policeman found a gun just as Prince Charles was about to do a walkabout, and threw the weapon into a bush shortly before HRH’s arrival. I wasn’t happy about this lapse in security but luckily woke up before taking the officer to task.
I was flying Air New Zealand but have decided to transfer my allegiance back to Virgin Atlantic; I just can’t take the stress of the ANZ points. With Virgin, you accumulate points and then use them for a guaranteed upgrade. On ANZ, with the “complimentary upgrade” you acquire with points, you often don’t know until the minute before boarding whether you have it or not.
It can be all the difference between sitting for ten hours next to that fat bloke with BO standing next to you in the queue or having your own pod and hibernating for the entire flight.
There’s also the Virgin lounge at Heathrow, which is like a holiday in itself, even though it’s not quite as good as it used to be. To avoid the possibility of the masseurs’ getting repetitive strain injury, they now pummel you with a wheat bag, which, quite frankly, is like being hit with a bag of Tesco shopping, although probably not as effective. The wine isn’t as good, either, although given that they change it often, that hardly matters.
On board, Virgin Business has a bar, which serves as a terrific networking venue; and the in-flight entertainment surpasses ANZ, whose content is not only much older, but comes to you via sets of headphones that enable you to hear everything that people in adjoining seats are listening to.
At least ANZ allows you to watch stuff until the last minute, though; the last hour of the Virgin flight is hell – the Branson clan advertising various charitable endeavours (I admire their altruism, but not when I’m knackered; please change it to the beginning of the flight), followed by the worst music ever composed, which is what you really don’t need after ten hours in the air.
Neither airline comes up to scratch on the food: a Virgin dining plate is so small, it could pass for an eye patch; and although ANZ boasts three great chefs, whose menus are fine, the food is ruined by being laden with way too much butter and so much salt you can’t help wondering if Lot’s wife has jumped into the pan along with the meat.
I was informed that salt is a good preservative, which I know of course; but when dehydration is one of the key discomforts about flying, surely the last thing you need is something that is going to exacerbate the problem.
So I remain very loyal to Mr Branson, who, all things considered, delivers the better product. He also has amazingly loyal and efficient staff, who respond to complaints and enquiries with efficiency and kindness. He also provides me with a credit card that enables me to acquire so many points, I am fast on the way to owning one of the aircraft.
I was really upset that his home burned down on Necker Island and wondered whether I could give him some points to help the rebuild, but figured I need them more than he does. In terms of flying, he pretty much gets it right, and ANZ’s new super dooper planes with white leather still don’t make up for the fact that the reception staff at the Star Alliance lounge used by ANZ at Heathrow are about as friendly as the Gestapo with a hangover.
They really need to learn from the ever fantastic Thierry at the ANZ lounge in LA. Great man, shame about the meagre offerings at the buffet, including a butternut squash soup that I mistook for the contents of the lavatory.
I still can’t quite believe that after ten years of refusing to fly anywhere, I am spending so much time in the air. It’s rather a good metaphor for where my life has been, but finally, this week, I finished my book – writing, not reading, that is. It’s been a long time in the making – over 20 years, to be precise, owing to the many incarnations it has endured along the way.
I didn’t feel any sense of achievement, which I suppose comes only if somebody agrees to publish the damned thing; but at least it’s done.
Maybe Mr Branson would like to buy it for people to read on his planes.
Trust me: it’s a lot better than the racket you’ll hear coming in to land.
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