New York State of Mind - for Emma Freud and Richard Curtis 1/9/15 (or 9/1/15 as they say here)

Dear Emma, Richard and family. Welcome to New York! I am sure that everyone will be full of good advice here as to what you should do, where you should go etc., so I thought I would chip in with a few useful pointers, too. UK’s loss in NYC’s gain!

1.     Don’t “Rush to the Macy’s sale”. There will be another one in 30 seconds. Every day. For 365 days. And 366 in a Leap Year.

2.     Don’t go to Macy’s. If you don’t break your neck rushing to the Macy’s sale, sure as hell you will do so rushing for the elevators. That one woman with three hatboxes you watched in old movies has been replaced by 20 overweight women with strollers.

3.     Say stroller, not pushchair.

4.     Don’t even think of asking for a European wine outside of a smart hotel. There is only one. Pinot Grigio.

5.     Allow an extra 40 minutes for every restaurant experience you will be sending back the corked Pinot Grigio and debating with management holding it up to the light saying they can’t see any cork in it.

6.     Fear not for the “blizzard” everyone is already warning you about that will allegedly arrive in January. It won’t. It’s a flurry.

7.     Every man is gay. Keep Richard locked up at all times.

8.     Shop online at Peapod. Don’t do Fresh Direct, which is way more expensive. Don’t shop at Food Emporium unless you want to spend the next three days crying. And starving.

9.     Don’t attempt irony. I cannot stress this enough.

10.  Every 4^th drink is free. If it’s not, move on.

11.  Avoid Irish bars. People in them are even marginally less funny than they are in Dublin on a Saturday night. “You’re gonna laugh at this” means you won’t.

12.  Learn how to talk about sport in bars. Here are some useful phrases - all to be spoken in a VERY LOUD VOICE while (preferably) throwing a chair: F*****g moron! ISIS c**t! Tom is innocent! Yay, the Heat, maaaaan! No f*****g way ISIS c**t! etc. etc.

13.  There is no such thing as a free hot dog. They may tell you that in Rudy’s dive bar, but you will still be paying the price several days on. Trust me.

14.  Don’t snog anyone in Rudy’s dive bar. Especially after 3am. And especially if they have consumed a free hot dog. And REALLY trust me on that.

15.  Do not interpret the lit-up pedestrian icon at every junction as a signal that it is safe to cross the road. It isn’t. It is an incentive to every driver to accelerate and try to kill you.

16.  Customer service is second to none. Buy everything. Use it. When you are bored with it, take it back and say you want them to exchange it. They will. You won’t have three birthdays while arguing your case at the Marks and Spencer Returns desk.

17.  Don’t trust the Bed, Bath and Beyond 20% off coupons. You will find that most things are at least 25% less on Amazon.

18.  If you fall into the Bed, Bath and Beyond 20% off coupons trap, remember you can always take everything back (see 16).

19.  Don’t fly American Airlines. Ever. Life is too short. Unlike their waiting times, while they try to fix mechanical faults.

20.  Don’t watch FOX news. It is not good for your blood pressure.

21.  Do watch Suits (hot lawyers), The Good Wife (more hot lawyers), Law and Order: SVU (hot lawyers and cops with a mutilated body every episode), Mistresses (best garbage on TV), How to Get Away with Murder (or How to Get Away with Stretching a Weak Premise to its Limit), Chasing Life (the sometimes upside of cancer).

22.  Don’t give your phone number to anyone after 4am. You really will get a call the following morning from a stranger whose opening gambit will be: “Hi, we met on the subway last night.”  Some of us have learnt the hard way.

23.  Join Chelsea Piers. It is by far the best gym/sports venue in the city. Don’t opt for the “Are you happy to go circular?” in the pool. It is really a Jaws remake.

24.  The answer to anyone asking “D’you want to join me in a shot?” should always be NO. Shots are the Devil’s work.

25.  You will never bump into Jimmy Fallon. Be content with breathing the same air. Anything else is delusion.

26.  Central Park is full of mosquitoes and thousands of people who run or cycle in the opposite direction from the one in which you are traveling.

27.  Never spell with two LLs where one will do.

28.  They love Brits here. And I mean really love us. If in doubt, put on your best Downton Abbey accent. You will get everything for free.

29.  Address everyone as “Sir” or “Madam”, especially cab drivers. Over politeness goes a long way here – unless it is interpreted wrongly, in which case you will be stabbed.

30.  ENJOY! You are embarking on a great adventure that you will love! The UK’s loss is New York’s gain *sings Star Spangled Banner while saluting*. Oh yes, I forgot. Learn the damned words to that.

A Guardian Angel Speaks - Never Trust A Man With Wings, Part II 19/8//15

Dear Padre

You cannot imagine my delight when, out of nowhere, a flashing box popped up on my computer screen telling me that I had missed a message from my guardian angel. How had this happened? Not since I had been informed by a dating agency that “Bill the fireman is down the road and waiting for your call” had I been this excited (he wasn’t, on both counts). 

An angel, no less! What could he/she want with me? I'm not a virgin, I'm too old to bear children, and I don’t need an interpreter for my visions, so why would a winged creature from the celestial heavens be descending upon my weary shoulders?

   

So, I replied, and you kindly sent me the name of my guardian angel  - Sehaliah, the “45^th Kabbalah Angel”, dealing with “Virtues”, and a member of the “Angelical Choir”. You took no time at all in talking with him (I had rightly guessed it was a him, given that I could see the moral lecturing path he appeared to want to take) and I have been fascinated to read the details of your very lengthy chat. 

I can only think that it must have been a slow day for you both, given the volume of your reply, and I am sure my life is about to change for the better as a result of your communications. Quite why Sehaliah couldn’t have come directly to me and cut out the middle man (i.e. you) is anybody’s guess, though I suspect it has something to do with the credit card I will be asked for if I wish to keep asking for angel assistance.

   

You say that you “strongly” felt the need to see changes in my life. Have we ever met? I don’t think so, but I admire the depth of your commitment following the “celestial confirmation of the problem which worries you right now” (er, which one? There are so many). I specially like your going on to tell me that the changes in my life will occur within the next three weeks.

   

Now, about my running mate. You inform me that “Sehaliah is the Angel who embodies faithfulness” and the “Angel of pure souls”. Quite why you asked him about Love, Money and Good Luck over the next 30 days only you know, but I like his answers.

   

I specially like the bit about the windfall that is coming my way, probably on September 9^th. Apparently, it’s a “lot of money” that will leave me “speechless” (to be honest, any money at all would leave me speechless these days; times are tough), and it’s going to appear “as if by magic”. Love and success are on their way, too. Great. So far, so good. “But there is one condition . . . ” Oh, dear, here we go. 

I wonder if the Angel Gabriel did the same thing with Mary: “Here’s the good news . . . you’re going to have a baby and you won’t even have to have sex with the destitute carpenter . . . But there’s a condition. There’s no room at the Marriott, your kid is the Son of God, and you’ll have to watch him die on a cross.” Conditions. There are always conditions.

   

And this, you say, is mine: there is an “adverse karma” that is the source of all my difficulties. It’s built up from all my past lives and I’ve been paying a “Karmic Debt” that is not even of my own making! Yes, that’s right! Other bastards in my other lives have hijacked my brilliance, success and luck, and drained me of all the good things. People can be so mean. 

But now, it seems, I have paid back that debt (tell me about it!) and, as a result, have acquired a “Hyper-Beneficial Angelical Karma” that is about to turn things around.

   

However, nothing's that easy. It seems I need “The Divine Angelical Ritual of Release from past lives” in order for this to happen. Based on ancient magical rites written down in an old Angelical book of spells, you tell me that you are the only one who can perform it for me, Padre.

   

Much as I like the idea of being released “once and for all from this negative force” you claim is ruining my life (I want a list of all those past life reprobates; I’ll start targeting their descendants and see how they like their karma being hijacked), I’m suspicious that you are willing to perform it for free, especially when I visit your “Angel Boutique” and see the prices you charge once my initial free consultation is over.   

You’ve also gone a bit scary, to be honest, and I don’t think angels or their accomplices are supposed to be that. You say that if I don’t reply immediately, you will be “forced” to offer the “Archangels’ Seal of Supreme Salvation” to someone else who finds themselves in a difficult situation. How spiteful is that! Can’t I just mull it over for a few days?

   

It is, therefore, with regret, that owing to the threatening tone of your final paragraphs, I must decline your kind offer to sort out my karmic debt. However, if you or Sehaliah could see your way to paying off my real debt at the bank, I would be extremely grateful. 

   

In this expectation, I look forward to September 9^th, when you will hopefully be sending me a vast sum of money that will sort out and secure my future once and for all. 

   

Thank you again for the speedy response from you and your feathered friend. 

   

Jaci

PS Is the cheque in the celestial post?

   

Never Trust A Man With Wings - Part I 18/8/15

Far be it for me to poke fun at anyone else’s ideas or beliefs.

If you are certain that fairies live at the bottom of your garden, ghosts lurk in your closets, UFOs skim our skies, or whatever god you worship runs your life, that’s up to you.

I haven’t got to accept it and I will always demand an empirical argument to support whatever dodgy case I think you are putting forward; but it’s everyone’s right to live in the fantasy world they choose to inhabit.

Personally, I don’t swallow any of it, because every single one of these “beliefs’ (which is all they are, at best) has built into it one single thing: the need to believe in something “other” that services the one basic human fear: we are all going to die. Any inkling that there may be something beyond the grave is what people cling to in that fear: a desperate hope that it might not all have been for nothing.

  

To be honest, I’m too wrapped up in what’s happening in this life to be worrying about another one. I don’t want to go now, but if I did, it would be in the knowledge that I have lived a better life than most people could ever hope to do. Despite money worries (and who doesn’t have those), I’ve been fairly lucky with my health and am surrounded by the most wonderful family and friends. Every day I try to learn something new – about the world, people, ideas – and every day I count my blessings rather than dwell on the negative. It’s not always easy, but looking for goodness becomes a habit if you work hard enough at it.

  

I am, nevertheless, fascinated by the idea of beliefs of any sort because they are the offspring of brain function. We use but a tiny part of that mighty organ, as we know, and will never get to know its full potential or capacity in any of our lifetimes. It governs not only our thoughts but every cell in our bodies and is as fragile as it is strong.

  

In my effort to be fair to people with views other than my own, I am therefore going to explore some things that are totally alien to me. And I’m going to start with angels.

  

I grew up with angels through Sunday School. They were the humans in my Children’s Bible who dressed in white, had long hair and beards and a pair of wings sprouting from their shoulder blades. They were prone to turn up at the most inopportune moments, invariably telling women that they were going to bear children.

“You’re a virgin? Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m an angel; I can do anything.” And so it came to pass . . . And the rest is history.

My brother was named Nigel because I had wanted a baby brother called Angel, and Nigel was the closest my parents could get. I’m not sure he has ever forgiven me.

Then there was Angel Clare in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. What a wuss he turned out to be, dumping her when he discovered she was not a virgin.

  

I started writing this blog because I was waiting to hear the name of my angel. I didn’t request to have one at all, but while I was filling in the answers to a quiz (more work avoidance), a flashing advert appeared telling me that I had missed a message from my assigned guardian. 

Angels aren't just for virgins - or Christmas - it seems.

Padre, the “Messenger of the Angels” (grey haired man with beard, no wings), confirmed my e-mail address and told me to keep an eye on my inbox, which I did for half an hour while I awaited the revelation of my angel’s name.

  

I started to worry about the name. What if my guardian angel was called Bob? I don’t know why, I just didn’t want a Bob. That was the name of someone you go to the pub with, not someone you want flapping their wings around you of an evening when you’re trying to eat your curry and watch Law and Order: SVU.

I quite fancied the idea of having a French angel – I’ve always liked the name Célange. Yes, that would be a very nice name for an angel.

  

Finally, it came through: Sehaliah. What? I can’t even pronounce it. He or she is apparently the “45^th Kabbalah Angel” . . . Oh, hang on a minute, it’s a recruitment agency for Kabbalah? He/she belongs to “Virtues”, and the Angelical Choir. Oh, yeah. That’s right up my bloody street. Not only will Angel Boy be telling me that I can't drink or have sex (I decided he was definitely a man the way he was already coming down on me on the moral front), he’ll be bringing along his goddamn mates to sing to me about it.

  

I was also dubious about the red wax seal on the scroll informing me of my new companion. What did the “D” stand for? Devil? Dummy? No, it turned out to be the “D” in the middle of PADRE, the messenger par excellence, who will allegedly, within a few hours, be giving my reading for free, before asking me to sign up to the Angelical Choir with my credit card.

  

I tell you: those virgins and their feathered friends had it easy.

  

  

   

Cilla Black - RIP 2/8/15

I have never been a fan of summer. 

As a child, I felt an inherent sadness in all things associated with that time: the smell of freshly cut grass, the tide going out at the end of a day at the seaside, brushing the last of the sand from between my toes. 

My grandfather died in June, and I recall the visits to the hospital and the starkness of the greenery at Cefn Mably hospital that felt like a mockery of the shadows surrounding his bedside. I remember the darkness of his bedroom at the Old Globe pub he ran with my grandmother in Rogerstone; the sticky ring of a half drunk Lucozade bottle the only small light on his bedside table.

   

We are now in August, and I am thinking that I spent most of this July in tears. I saw two friends lose their sons in tragic circumstances and I cannot begin to imagine their pain. This morning, I woke to the news that TV legend Cilla Black has died, and I am in tears again.

   

I know that none of these people are close family members, but as I wrote in my last blog, we have, and should value, our ability to empathise with others. Stripped of all material possessions, we are basically the same: humans with common emotions, the most important being the capacity to love.

   

I met Cilla when I started out as a TV critic in the mid-Eighties. She was the presenter of Blind Date, and my visit to a recording was the first time I had ever visited a set. I was absurdly excited. Her energy and ability to light up a room were breathtaking. She was funny, smart, and had the audience in the palm of her hand from the outset.

   

She died in her villa in Marbella, which was where I last saw her. We had a mutual friend in Andy Anderson, an astonishingly talented singer who performed in local bars and who also, sadly, died a few months back. Cilla had gathered a group together, and we sat in her garden, Andy singing on his guitar, drinking Cilla’s champagne from the bar in her living room. She was a very generous host and the evening was, as others had been before, full of laughter.

   

It nearly wasn’t. She had swallowed one of the larger hors d’ouevres and it had become stuck in her throat. Fortunately, paramedics were not required.

   

It was impossible to find a taxi by the time the party ended, and Cilla kindly offered to let me stay over in “Cliff’s room” (Cliff Richard was a very close friend). I joked that I would always be able to say that I had slept in Cliff’s bed. She adored him and I know that they spent many great times together. She was also passionately loyal to him during the allegations that surfaced about his private life.

   

She was loyal to all her friends. She was especially fond of Paul O’Grady, to whom she had become close after he wrote to her following Bobby’s death. Paul is as exhilarating off screen as he is on, and one of the most naturally funny people I have ever met. It’s not hard to see why she would have embraced his company.

   

On the last night I saw her, we talked for a couple of hours after everyone left, and she was, as always, wonderful company. She was both interesting and interested, and she gave me sound advice about decisions I was trying to make. Her love for her husband, Bobby, who died in 1999, was always central to her life, and she spoke of him often, as she did her children, especially her son Robert, who became her manager.

   

I confess to feeling completely in awe of the woman whose music I grew up with, and whose shows were (and still are) the best that Saturday night entertainment had to offer. She was the top of her tree in two of the most difficult industries in the world to conquer – especially for women. She set the bar high for everyone who followed, and she was tough and ambitious, as the recent ITV three-parter, Cilla, showed.

   

Sheridan Smith delivered an extraordinary performance as the young woman from a working class Liverpool background who made it to the top of the charts. I am glad Cilla got to see it.

   

My friends’ sons were in their late twenties when they died; Cilla was 72 – which, by today’s standards, is still young. Had she been 100, I would still feel sad. She was a part of my history and also of TV history.

   

I like to think of her knocking on the pearly gates with the words “Surprise, surprise, it’s Cilla ’ere.”

    

  

  

   

Only Connect 31/7/15

Time goes slowly for the traveller. 

Every hour brings new places, people, experiences. Then, you return to your familiar surroundings, often a changed person, and find that you slot right back in as if you had never been away. Are you the same person – only different?

    

I’ve been away a lot over the past month – four countries in two weeks, at one point – and I haven’t enjoyed it that much, apart from a great week in Los Angeles, possibly my favourite city on Earth. I missed my sunrises and sunsets over the Hudson in New York; the fabulous welcoming staff at Mr Biggs, my local bar in Hell’s Kitchen; Suits and Mistresses on the telly. I always take a couple of days off upon my return to slob around on the sofa, catching up on my shows with a bowl of pasta and glass of Rioja before rejoining the human race. It’s the part of jetlag I adore: the best excuse not to have to sit at one’s desk.

    

The reasons for my lack of enthusiasm during this trip are various, and I’ll write about that in another blog. Today, however, all I can think of is my friend Lyn, who has had the devastating ordeal of waiting for her son’s body to arrive from Thailand, where he was killed in a road accident last week.

    

I have no children and cannot begin to imagine the pain of parents who lose them. My mother’s sister, Auntie Barbara, and my Uncle Brian lost their beloved daughter, Sarah, my cousin, and their never-ending pain is heart-wrenching to witness. It’s a clichéd phrase, but as Lyn wrote to me this week, the clichés are what come automatically; I wonder if, drained of everything, we rely on them to keep us going: a linguistic backbone when all else fails to compute.

    

A couple of weeks back, the writer Julie Burchill wrote about her son Jack, who committed suicide, aged 29. Although no longer with Jack’s father, Cosmo Landesman, it was clear they came together in grief; Julie wrote that she was unable to bear the pain of the funeral, but she reprinted and praised Cosmo’s breathtakingly poignant tribute to their son.

    

She also had the guts to reprint a piece she wrote many years ago in which she appeared to be unsympathetic to the victims of suicide. Easily the bravest (and probably the best and most influential) writer of her generation, she made important philosophical points that still hold true, even when revisiting them in the light of Jack’s death.

    

One Facebook “friend” admonished me for empathising, but it is clear that the social networking community provided Julie and Cosmo with immense support during this devastating time. It’s not the first time I have “unfriended” someone who has mistaken my empathy for a declaration of what they perceive to be my own misery. 

I am far from being an unhappy person, irrespective of whatever happens in my life, but I am affected by world events, personal tragedies, the minutiae of the pain a human being is forced to endure; and, after that, the incredible strength they are able to muster to pull through. If someone is incapable of empathy, then I don’t want that person as my friend anyway.

    

Lyn is someone I have come to know through Facebook. We share a mutual friend, Phillip Arran, a wonderful actor and amazingly kind, warm and hilarious man, who I met when I judged him in a talent show called Presenters 15 years ago. Phil has been working on cruise ships and he put me in touch with Lyn, who is a mega talented writer and musical performer and someone who I hope to work with. In recent months, she has been writing on Facebook about different shows she has been giving onboard, and the joy she gets from her job has been exhilarating to witness.

    

And then this. 

Her beloved son, Ross, who went back to Thailand to hand in his notice and change direction in his life, as he had done before. I never met him, but everything I am reading and hearing makes it clear that he is someone who lived life to the full and gave much laughter and love to everyone he met.

   

I am not a hijacker of grief, but, as with Julie’s loss, this has affected me deeply. I know it does not compare to what Lyn, Ross’s brother Scott, and his father, Alex, are going through; nor Ross’s many friends. But the comfort of strangers cannot be underestimated: people who, through social networking, reveal what it is simply to be human.

    

We have the capacity, and the need, to share; it’s in our DNA. 

As E M Forster said in Howards End: Only connect. 

It is our greatest gift to each other.

    

It’s a cliché, but my heart aches for you, Lyn. 

Rest in peace, dear Ross.

  

  

  

The Price of Love 16/7/15

From penultimate section of my book Broke: A Life of Small Change

40-50

THE PRICE OF LOVE

Why do women spend money on men? Why do they give them money they haven’t a hope in hell’s chance of getting back?

   

Take Alan, my Hungarian, Australian, Jewish dentist. We met when I was lying on my back (obviously) and he was doing x-rays for my new porcelain veneers. I’d gone in only for a check-up, but as he offered a special price of £500 for the cosmetic surgery and I fancied him, I readily agreed.

   

On our first date, we went for a pizza in Soho. It was the only thing he ever paid for.

   

Alan was recently separated and had two young sons, who lived with his ex. A month into our relationship, I spent £200 on an electronic chess set for his birthday. He loved his chess, but he specially liked his new toy; so much so, that he had far less time for me, as he was too busy playing with it.

   

Then I financed a trip for us to take his kids to see Sooty, who was shooting on location in Chiswick Park, where I was to be granted a one on one interview with the famous glove puppet. As this was the first time I would be meeting the boys, I bought a lovely white linen suit, which, on the beautiful sunny day in question, made me look rather glamorous.

   

The four of us arrived at the park at 8am, when the photographer suggested that I get the photos out of the way before filming began. So, over I went to Matthew Corbett (who was Sooty’s owner until 1998), who was chatting to Sooty in a black box in his hand.

   

I had my notebook out and was engaging with the puppet (absurdly excited to meet him at long last), when Matthew started to talk about the weather.

  

“It’s such a hot day, isn’t it? Sooty thinks it’s a hot day, Sooty’s very hot, Sooty thinks Jaci looks really, really hot . . . “ (I thought I was looking rather hot myself that day). “What’s that, Sooty . . . You think she needs cooling down?”

   

Sooty’s paw reached into the box, pulled out his familiar water pistol and squirted me all over my face. Round and round and round. My perfectly blow dried hair was drenched. The exquisite make-up I had spent two hours doing that morning was ruined; black mascara dripped onto my white suit. I wanted to cry. The small group of children who had gathered to watch thought it hilarious. 

“Isn’t Sooty a funny bear!” I squealed, while thinking: “I’m going to rip your sodding head off, you stupid piece of inanimate fluff.”

   

The dentist finished with me shortly after that. One day, he said: “I’m falling for you in a big way.” The next morning he woke up with a facial rash and said we were over.

   

Alan was positively on the poverty line of my generosity compared to Dick (yes, let’s call him Dick). I met him at the 1999 Bafta Awards, where he had won a craft/technical award and gave what was possibly the worst, incompetent, rambling speech in the history of the Awards; in fact, any awards. Ever.

   

I was living in something like my tenth Soho apartment in as many years, even though most of the pine had now migrated to Bath, where I moved after my Dad died to be nearer Mum. Having made a loss of £8k on my Belsize Park flat, I did very well in Bath, catching the market at the right time to purchase a six bedroom detached house for £250,000. It was on for £275,000 and I had set my limit at £225,000, but it was the only house I have ever owned that I felt I couldn’t live without.

   

Conversation among my friends had taken a dramatic turn. Having spent our twenties bemoaning the lack of potential partners on the market (although men never seemed to have a problem finding women as women did men), by our late thirties we spoke of little but the property market: how we had bought at the bottom and sold at the top, moved quickly to accumulate more equity, bought a second property as an investment, bought overseas because the euro was strong and we needed a place to escape the British weather. We were high on the seemingly easy means of getting rich quickly and couldn’t wait to tell our stories, forever engaged in a property one-upmanship that seemed the only real barometer of our success.

   

By comparison, Dick had very little. Divorced, he had a small house in Kent and was struggling to keep his business afloat. I quickly discovered that he had very expensive tastes but no money to satisfy them  - or so he said. At this point, I had the Bath house, the London rental, and had, yet again, rented a place in Cardiff, all financed by several jobs in print and on TV. I felt sorry for him and met up with him every day in Soho near his office, and gave him emotional support by treating him to drinks and lavish lunches, not only for him but for the increasing number of friends he started to bring along. 

One lunch in Signor Zilli’s in Brewer Street cost me £650. Dick even ordered a bottle of Bollinger (on my tab) to send over to some attractive women sitting at another table.

  

Then he asked if he could borrow money as he needed to keep his French bank account in credit. I remember crossing Oxford Street to go to my bank and feeling sick, as I would have to go overdrawn in my UK account to help him out. But I did it anyway. Five months down the line, I was already in excess of three grand down. 

In addition to meals and the free loan, I took him to Paris and the south of France, and pretty much kept him in a manner to which he had never become accustomed. In retrospect, the high living was really only a smokescreen to hide the reality. 

I had hit 40 and thought I was in the last chance saloon of love. 

“He’s not funny, interesting, or articulate. He’s boring, overweight, and he’s got ginger hair. He’s mean; he keeps me waiting for hours. He’s raiding my bank account, and the sex is awful,” I told my friend Simon. 

“Then dump him,” he said. 

“But he’s 34 and single,” I wailed.

Simon: “But it doesn’t mean he’s the right 34 and single.”

Champagne Dreams, Beer Money 14/7/15

Extract from my book, Broke - A Life of Small Change

CHAMPAGNE DREAMS

“Think champagne and you’ll drink champagne; think beer and you’ll drink beer.” 

That’s what my mother told me. So I blame her for my champagne expenditure on a beer income. 

Nowhere did the advice prove more lethal than in Puerto Banus, just outside Marbella in southern Spain, where I had just bought an apartment. Sunkissed Villas might not have paid me, but I had fallen in love with that part of the Spanish coast. Although I had moved out of my beloved Paris apartment, my finances were stretched as I had purchased a much bigger house in Cardiff, but I figured that with two salaries from two newspapers, I could afford it.

   

It was the summer of 2006, and, holidaying with my friend Elizabeth in Puerto Banus, I hooked up with top businessman and Dragons’ Den TV star Theo Paphitis and his family, who had become friends. 

   

Not only did Theo have an apartment close by, he was buying a boat that was going to be moored almost right below my terrace. I calculated that I would pretty much be able to get from there to Theo’s deck in a short hop, skip and jump. Then Theo decided to buy boat number two, which was even bigger than boat number one. He signed the deal with the boatyard representative over a pizza at Picasso’s in the port, and I was impressed with Theo’s negotiating skills, which quickly made me see why he was very, very rich, and I was comparatively very, very poor. Alas, my admiration did not extend to my developing the foresight to see that I was about to become a great deal poorer.

   

Elizabeth and I took up Theo’s invitation to join him on the boat, and as we left the port behind and took to the waves of the Mediterranean, I started to feel a tincy bit rich myself. With the wind in my hair, I was enjoying a millionaire lifestyle and it wasn’t costing me a penny. When we said our goodbyes at the end of the trip, Elizabeth and I decided to celebrate our new lifestyle over supper.

   

That’s when it happened.

   

I didn’t even want to go on a shopping spree. Walking along the port, I happily passed Dolce and Gabbana with barely a glance; likewise, Versace and Jean Paul Gauthier.

   

Then I saw IT.

   

Love at first sight. I had never believed it existed, but here it was, in the window of Chloe: an exquisite, Sixties style, cream, silk shift dress laden with glittering discs, beads and baubles that caught the sun, drawing me uncontrollably towards it. Simple, yet beautiful, the shiny silver and gold reminding me of my ballroom dancing youth and the 10,000 sequins my mother sewed on my dress prior to my partner and I becoming Old Tyme juvenile champions at Butlin’s Minehead. Suddenly, I was Lulu, Sandie Shaw and Cilla Black, all rolled into one.

   

I doubted they had it in my size, but upon entering the shop and enquiring, the assistant Claudia headed for the dummy in the window quicker than you could say Boom Bang-a-Bang. When I saw the price tag of 10,722 euros, I decided that it should stay in the window. Too late. Claudia had it whipped off the dummy and onto me in less time than it takes a dragon in the Den to say the series’ catchphrase: “I’m out.” Which is what I should have been. Outa there. Would have been, had it not been for the drink.

   

They gave me a glass of champagne; it was what all the designer dress shops in the port did for potential customers/suckers. My glass was being topped up when I emerged from the dressing room in the Chloe dress. I thought I looked stunning in it. I thought I looked better than the model wearing it in the film at the Chloe fashion show that Claudia showed me on the computer. 

Gushing about my beauty, Claudia informed me that there were only six of these dresses in the world. That was what sealed the deal. I felt like a million dollars, which suddenly made 10,722 euros seem like a bargain. It made the cost of the shoes that I had to buy go with the dress look like cheapskate Primark. Then there was the bag, which cost almost as much as the shoes. I owned butter dishes that were bigger than the bag. But I whipped out my exclusive black French credit card and, while Claudia waited for her machine to devour it, I secretly prayed for the computer to say no.

   

Not a chance. I left the shop carrying my designer frock, bag and shoes and kept telling myself I was really, really pleased with my purchase. After another drink, I had convinced myself. In fact, I was delirious with excitement.

   

The next thing I remember was waking up: Oh, my God: WHAT HAVE I DONE? I wasn’t Theo! He acquired his riches by buying up flailing companies and turning their fortunes around. He had just sold La Senza for £100 million, which was a lot of Marie dresses (9,326, to be precise), but my bank balance was showing that I could barely afford a bead.

  

Why didn’t you stop me? I asked Elizabeth. I can’t afford it! I have no money! I’ve just bought a new house and wouldn’t pay three grand for fitted bookcases that I needed and now I’m out buying a curtain with beads on that will be soaked in red wine within three minutes of my wearing it! Oh, God, what am I going to do!

   

Depression set in. And I don’t mean just a bit down. I mean black, terrible, suicidal despair. The only words that came to mind were Conrad’s from Heart of Darkness: The horror, the horror. Now I knew what he meant. I felt physically sick. The dress had to go back. The problem was whether they would take it. I spent the morning on the net, reading up about statutory rights and credit card rules and regulations. In the UK, I noted, there was a five-day cooling off period following a credit card transaction, but was that for online purchases or in-store, and would it apply to other European countries? I rang my cousin Simon, who had lived in Switzerland for 15 years and would probably know about European trading laws. He said to be sure that this was what I wanted: what if Chloe accepted the dress as a returned item and then I wanted it back again and had to tell them that the deal was back on?

   

I took the dress back to the shop, trembling with terror. I couldn’t stop shaking. Then I started crying, telling them that I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Leo, who had plied me with the champagne the day before, looked crestfallen. Danielle, the manager, said she could probably offer a credit note, but that Chloe's policy was a non-refundable one. I cried some more, spouted some things about credit card law, and Claudia said she would call the Paris main office to see what she could do.

   

In the meantime, I called the credit card company and, having used my euro French card, spoke to a very nice man called Jean Luc, who sounded thrilled to be talking to a lunatic who had 11,000 euros to throw around on frocks.

   

He rang back to say that the shop was under no obligation to refund my money and that French credit law was different from that in the UK; Claudia rang back to say that Spanish credit law was not the same as in France or the UK. I felt like the United Kingdom entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, as neighbouring states closed ranks and ganged up to award us nul points.

   

I was again offered a credit note but worked out that I would be dead by the time I found enough things that I liked to cover the cost. I rang Theo to ask his advice. “Find a rich husband before the IOU comes in,” he said. So I texted Theo’s co-panellist Peter Jones, but he never texted back, and I wasn’t sure whether his divorce would come through by the time the bailiffs came to take away my new bookcases (I had decided I was going to have them, after all: they suddenly seemed a snip compared to the dress).

   

I pondered throwing the dress into the Med and claiming on the credit card insurance. One friend thought I could try to claw some of the money back by doing a game show, the climax of which would be a studio audience having to decide “Take the credit!” or “Take the dress!” Another friend told me to wear it in a dodgy part of south London, where it would be ripped off my back within seconds and then I could claim on the insurance genuinely. I decided that the best thing to do would be to write about it and exploit it, until I earned enough to cover the cost. 

One article would be tracking down the other five people in the world who owned the thing. I thought I might contact Okay! Magazine and throw a party for the dress, at which stars of stage and screen would be queuing up, eager to touch the hemline of my garment in the hope of its greatness rubbing off on them. Or a competition to name it, the proceeds from which would go to paying off my credit card bill, or posting my bail when I was thrown into the debtors’ prison. And when I was done with it, I could sell it to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

   

It was my mother’s reaction I dreaded the most, but she was quite philosophical. She told me how, when she was newly married, she and Dad went out to buy a fridge and made the mistake of stopping off at a hostelry for a sherry or two and came back with a stereo system the size of a coffin. Other reactions to my purchase varied from the “How shallow” to the “How stupid”, to the “Good on you” (Simon Cowell said “We’ve all done it”, but I felt that doing it in his income bracket wasn’t quite the same thing). 

My own vacillated between all three, breaking out into a cold sweat of “Please God, don’t let it be true” one minute, to “What’s done is done” the next. When I published an article about my purchase, news of my insanity quickly spread. I started to get calls from people enquiring not after my health, but after the dress. It was as if they had struck up a relationship with the thing, and I pondered writing a regular column about my own feelings towards it, like those women do who are always banging on about their latest marriage or divorce. I was stuck with it so decided to show it off at a big charity ball at the five-star Puento Romano hotel in Marbella.

   

I prepared for it as I would a first date. Legs and underarms shaved, hair cut and coloured, new Clinique make-up, expensive tights – nothing was too much trouble for the great work of art (it didn’t seem so expensive when looked at in that light) I had purchased. When the moment came to put the dress on, I held my breath. I had to. The bloody thing got stuck. I kid you not. Every bead and bauble tangled with another and I was wandering around my apartment trying to find my way to the mirror by radar. It took me half an hour to manoeuvre my way back out of it, by which time hair and make-up both needed re-doing. I finally managed to get my top half into the dress, but then the bottom became tangled in my 25 euro tights, a rip-off that had to become literally that, when the beads massacred them, too. I made it to the ball feeling like Cinderella a minute before midnight and with my dress already looking like hers did a minute after.

   

“Your hem’s come down,” was one guest’s first reaction, before calling for safety pins. We went to the rest room to begin the reconstruction, and I decided to use the toilet while I was there. Another big mistake. I had to call for help when, in pulling down my pants, the beads became all tangled again. Doubled over, with my chest hooked to my thighs, after I relieved myself I had to ask a woman to pull my pants back up. Then began the long process of untangling again.

   

I returned to the ball, where I was afraid to eat a morsel or drink a drop, for fear of causing any more damage. The jewels and beads were falling like sweat every time I moved. Surely this wasn’t right. You couldn’t sell someone a dress for seven and a half grand and have it fall apart on its first outing.

   

I returned to Chloe the next day, where the best I was offered was a repair job. “But it’s unwearable!” I shrieked, only to be told that this was “not a practical dress” and, as haute couture (it wasn’t; they clearly did not even know the meaning of the phrase), was not meant to be worn to parties. Besides, Kylie Minogue had no trouble wearing hers, they said. “She can afford to throw it away after wearing it once!” I yelled. But they had sold “lots of this dress” and no one else had brought it back. “Eh? What do you mean, lots? I thought there were only six in the world!”

   

My depression following the day of purchase had turned to hysteria and anger. I shouted. I screamed. I sobbed. I employed a French lawyer. Finally, they agreed to give me a credit note. 

   

Getting my designer dress might have given me a few hours’ pleasure, but only when it was in the bag. Never was it more true to say that all that glisters is not gold. My Chloe dress may have come with a gold price-tag, but frankly it wasn’t worth its weight in tissue paper.

OTHER THINGS I LIKE TO BUY

1. Saxophone. £1200. Reasoning:- 

   a) I used to play the recorder and clarinet and fancied something bigger.

   b) I thought I would look cool, like Lisa Simpson. 

   c) I had half an hour before my train was due to leave and decided it was fate’s way of telling me to go to the music store.

   Times played: every day for three weeks. Twice in subsequent 15 years. 

   Tunes learned: first line of Italian love song, Arrivederci Roma. 

2. Upright Clavinova. £3500. Reasoning:-

   a) Went out to buy £60 keyboard as aid to singing Arrivederci Roma. Seemed silly not to stretch to whole keyboard.

   b) Seemed even sillier, having stretched finances to purchase whole keyboard, not to stretch to in-built hard drive, complete with 66 instruments.

   c) Delivery was free with Clavinovas, but not keyboards.

   Times played: 8 hours a day for 1 week. Never, during subsequent 15 years.

   Recordings made on hard drive: 4, by pianist friend.

   Tunes learned: I Dreamed a Dream, miming fingers to friend’s recording.

3. Spanish apartment. 595,000 euros. Deposit placed on credit card: 7000 euros. Reasoning:-

   a) It would be cheaper to buy an apartment than pay for a 5 star Spanish hotel every week for the next 55 years.

   b) There are very good flights from Cardiff to Malaga, and I had a Priority Pass to the VIP lounge at each end.

   c) You can never go wrong with property.

   Times visited: 8 times during the first six months, quickly reduced to three times a year.

   Lessons learned: property is a dud investment when the market crashes and the pound goes into freefall against the euro. And they stop flights from Cardiff to Malaga.

4. Diamond tennis bracelet. 11,000 euros. Reasoning:

   a) Turkish fortune-teller told me I was going to come into a lot of money.

   b) Turkish fortune-teller told me I would spend a lot of money before due inheritance arrived.

   c) I deserved to buy myself something special for my 50th birthday.

   Times worn: constantly, apart from day lost in waste paper basket and, subsequently, stolen.

   Lessons learned: don’t believe everything you read in the stars, and wait until your birthday comes around or you will ruin your mother’s surprise gift of a tennis bracelet.

5. Ballantyne’s Christmas wine selection. £2200. Reasoning:- 

   a) It would be rude not to buy a case of everything tried at the store’s festive tasting.

   b) I saved £100 by buying in bulk.

   c) 50 people might drop by unannounced on Christmas Eve.

   Number of bottles consumed between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day: 10.

   New Year’s Resolution: drink 12 boxes of wine in garage to make room for car currently on driveway.

6. Paris rental apartment. 12,000 euros – one month’s deposit, one month’s rent. 36,000 euros – 6 months’ bank bond required by landlord. Reasoning:-

   a) The bank offered me a £40,000 overdraft.

   b) I had lived in Paris in another life.

   c) The central heating was making a funny humming noise in my Cardiff house.

   Time spent in apartment: 7 months.

   Time spent trying to claw back money from French bank and utilities companies: terminal.

7. Squash racket, balls, headband, skirt, top, 12 lessons. £700 of student grant. Reasoning:-

   a) Went to buy badminton racket, but everything was reduced in the squash section.

   b) The mature student selling the equipment and lessons was very attractive.

   c) I kept losing at badminton.

   Lessons taken: 1, following short-lived relationship with squash teacher.

   Squash games played in 30 years: 4.

8. Alfa Romeo. £4000. Reasoning:- 

   a) I hadn’t owned a car in 25 years.

   b) I was contemplating giving up drinking and would finally be sober enough to get behind the wheel.

   c) The sellers were moving to Dubai and it was a bargain.

   Number of miles driven in 2 years: 327.

   Number of times battery charged owing to lack of use: 14.

9. Artist. £6000. Reasoning:-

   a) His workshop had been destroyed in a fire.

   b) I would see a return on my investment when the Tate Modern held his exhibition.

   c) I was making a valuable contribution to the arts.

   Time spent waiting to see artist’s new workshop: 7 years, and counting.

   Time spent regretting stupidity: daily.

10. Los Angeles. £100,000+. Reasoning:-

    a) I was nearly 50 and had never lived in the States.

    b) If I sat looking at the Hollywood sign long enough, that Oscar would be in my hand.

    c) It was where I belonged. That’s what the man running the writing course said. The man with whom I was completely obsessed.

    Time spent in Los Angeles: six years.

    Additional unforeseen costs of Los Angeles: additional rental, to stay on to sue ex-landlord over non-refunded deposit; trip to New Zealand for the rugby World Cup; flights home every three weeks owing to homesickness.