“Need” and “Would Like”

I am, it would be fair to say, a stickler for manners. I can’t stand it when people are (unintentionally) rude, or (my bête noire) when children have bad manners. I think this is why other parents (usually one’s whose offspring are dancing round some poor, unfortunate houseguest, as they wave a finger recently extracted from their anus, chanting “Smell it! Smell it!” as the parent makes a weak gesture towards “Charlotte not wanting to play that kind of game”) tend to have conversations with Wife and me where they use phrases such as “We do admire your discipline”, but their eyes detect the darting fear of people who suspect that they are in the company of maniacs.

Anyway, that is a mere introduction to my main point, which is the astounding rudeness of Huge Breasted Yet Irritating Account Director. She was sitting with three of her team in the cheerless cafe at work (think airport terminal, Bucharest, 1976) as I walked past, and she raised her hand, clicked her fingers and said “This is what I need from you…”

Seeing me walking towards her, she perhaps thought that she was in for a bit of obsequious interest and enthusiastic consideration from me. She doesn’t know me. What she actually got was (verbatim) as follows:-

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you’re talking to, but let me tell you that what you “need” from me and what you stand any chance of getting from me are two radically different things – and you stand a substantially better chance of both if you don’t click your fucking fingers at me!”

My point was not that I have done my job – with some success – for fifteen years, nor that I was older or considerably more senior than Huge Breasted Yet Irritating Account Director, my point was that I wouldn’t – and one shouldn’t – talk to ANYONE like that: not a new Account Executive, not a cleaner, not your boss: it’s dehumanising, offensive and grotesque. And that is why I took huge delight in putting her in her place in front of the people whom she was trying to impress – because if they get the feeling that that sort of behaviour is anything other than repellent, then that’s another blow against good.

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The Wrong Side Of The Bed

I love the saying “I got out of the wrong side of the bed”: it’s one of those phrases that has an almost cartoon-like quality, the suggestion that the sort of day one will have is arbitrary (but inevitable) in its direction, and all that it hinges on is which side of the bed one swung one’s legs out of: the premise that underpinned the ghastly “Sliding Doors” – the film that launched a thousand ill-considered haircuts…

Wife used the phrase yesterday to explain why she was in a filthy mood, but she used it with a smile on her face, and an utter realisation that she had no logical reason to be so furious.

I had spent the previous day in an absolutely foul mood, but that was entirely based on my ludicrous decision to slap tables, down red wine and demand Puccini until 2.30am. Nevertheless, to various people who were unfortunate enough to come across my path that morning (specifically Account Manager About Whom I Have Changed My Mind, who is in danger of a significant name-change, perhaps to “Account Manager Who Wants to Watch Her Fucking Step”), they might have wondered about my bedside exit strategy, because I was a little BEAST for the entire day. When I got home and Wife (who, let us not forget had had no more sleep, though rather less red wine than me, and was thus also exhausted) that I had to lug boxes out of the cellar and the attics in my diminished state, I came very close to bursting into tears. Or setting fire to something.

Wife dealt with her quandary rather more straightforwardly: she got into bed and shouted for me to perform every menial task she could thing of, including the memorable (and slap-worthy) “Could you turn my light on?” and “Could you change the DVD disc, please?”, but also stretching to issues of tea-preparation and delivery, and pedicure. All this served to interrupt the brilliant “Who Do You Think You Are?” on TV, featuring Boris Johnson who is as magnetically fascinating on TV as he is repellent in his political views, although I did like his book on the Roman Empire.

Concerned readers will be pleased to hear that Wife has risen from her bed this morning a paragon of loveliness and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

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I, Ben Kingsley

Although, apparently that should be “Sir Ben Kingsley”, as the pompous twat insists on being addressed… But that’s beside the point, the point is that last night, I turned INTO Ben Kingsley; not the lovable, stick-carrying incarnation of Gandhi, but the maniacal, expletive-shouting lunatic who makes such a worrying impression in “Sexy Beast”.

Good Friend in PR is here, you see – and after drinks in a bar, we went back to the friend’s house where he is currently billeted. And we drank, and we drank, and we drank – until 2.30am. On a Monday. This makes me a twat on any number of levels: most excitingly, on the level of a man who has to go to work the next day and doing anything other than sob, but I managed to supplement it with a couple of quite interesting versions of twattishness:-

1. The twat who compares everything (unfavourably) to Shakespeare – the fact that everyone is used to this makes it no easier for anyone to tolerate.
2. The twat who demands total iPod control and is not above ordering music in if it is missing (last night’s choice: “E Lucevan Le Stelle”, previous offences include Nina Simone and Kathryn Williams).
3. The twat who slaps the table repeatedly, shouting “No! No! No!” like an unfortunate combination of the above mentioned theatrical knight and Amy Winehouse’s refrain in “Rehab”, as he shouts over everyone who’s trying to get a fucking word in.
4. The twat who gets back to his Wife, who is understandably nervous as it’s 2.30 in the morning on a Monday, and her husband was “popping out for a couple of drinks”, not shouting his head off until the early hours of the morning, arming himself with a horrifying hangover.

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The Past Is A Foreign Country…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDMbyr4pxw

I mean: “What?”

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New York’s Never Been Better

This is Acclaimed Photographer Friend’s view of the weather in New York at the moment. Wife and I are off there next weekend, and so were keen to understand just how relevant the mutterings of “100% humidity” proved to be – and it sounds like we’re going to be in for the kind of weather that we have been craving (and missing) in London this summer.

We’re both very excited: there are friends and family in New York (most particularly, Sister, who returns there today after a five week stay over here with Nephew) and the dollar is still weak enough (though strengthening slowly) to leave Wife with sleepless nights about the amount of shopping that it’s going to be possible to cram into the 200 hours that we are there for.

We’re back in The London – which is equidistant from everyone that we want to see, and opposite MoMA (which somehow, I always think I want to visit, and am, somehow always disappointed by) – but which (most splendidly) has suites instead of rooms, and so there is room for Nephew to come and run around, and for Wife to do catwalk style parading in whatever new wares she has purchased that day.

I find it such an exciting city to visit, no matter how many times I go back, when we drive in from the airport and see that clustered skyline of buildings jockeying for position, I get a feeling in my stomach comparable to the one when the lights go down in a theatre… I can’t wait.

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Have I Told You About The Menstrual Blood?

Last night, purely by coincidence, I bumped into PA to Famously Unpleasant Chairman and we went for a drink.

It was always viewed as evidence of her professionalism (and, let’s be honest masochism) that she had worked with this man for eight years in a number of different agencies: but it was also widely assumed that whatever job she went to next would be the equivalent of a full body, deep tissue massage.

This was not the case. Her next boss used to refer to her two PAs as “Cunt” (yes, you read that right – and she was a woman), and was pretty uninhibited about demanding 24 hour attention (and, apparently, the ability to see the future and to mind-read): but it wasn’t until PA to Famously Unpleasant Chairman turned to me and spoke the words “Have I told you about the menstrual blood?” that the full horror of the situation struck me.

It seems that this woman had an office that made Miranda Priest’s office in “The Devil Wears Prada” look like a dingy hole: there was a Bill Amberg ostrich leather desk (in lavender, if that helps you build a picture, or (less likely) identify this noisome bitch) and toning (though, as it was cream, not matching) chair.

One morning, the cry went up: “Cunt”

The two women turned to each other: “Do you suppose that’s me, or you?” asked my friend – but it was the other woman who walked into the office.

“Clean that up!” was the instruction and this villainess pointed to the seat of her cream leather chair, where a smear of blood was apparent.

The PA went outside, ashen-faced, to consult with my friend: “There’s blood on her chair”.

“Has she cut herself?”

“It’s menstrual blood. She wants us to clean it off.”

“I’m sorry: not for anything in the world.”

I don’t doubt the truth of this story for one second – although those of you lucky enough never to have worked in an advertising agency might. The sums of money that one is dealing with, the lifestyle that becomes (too quickly, in some cases) second nature – and the throngs of people who will “Do your bidding” are all dangerous incitements to this kind of lunacy – and if you’re a certain type of American (and therefore more susceptible than most to believing that anything fake is real), then it’s very easy to get to a point where you end up saying the sort of things to which the only fitting response is a slap around the face with the sole of a shoe.

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American Diva Planning Friend Comes Up Trumps

Below is American Diva Friend’s “build” on the Golf Umbrellas’ issue – one that has preoccupied me much of late. I think she has done VERY WELL:-

Golf umbrellas spring forth from New York City.

Where no one actually plays golf.

(Too much walking around).

NYC (and all of America, for that matter) is the land of big fat selfish pigs who actually need a very large piece of rubberized plastic the size of a very large card table to cover their fat asses as they sprint between their Yukon Troubadour Caravan and the food shop or restaurant or hot dog vendor they’re trying to reach.

For more food.

These same people are also what I call LOUD TALKERS.

They take double strollers into tiny food shops on Saturdays around 11am to shout at their children inane things like “I LIKE how you are listening, Brittney” and “Good SITTING, Justin” to let The World know they are parenting and spending quality time with their children.

Beware the small food shop on a rainy Saturday when LOUD TALKERS meet golf umbrellas.

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Landing Cafe Vagina in AMET

Exciting news on Cafe Vagina: it looks like the franchise could go global, and that more and more regions are crying out for the unique perspective on vaginally-themed coffee and refreshments that Cafe Vagina offers to today’s jaded consumer.

Any franchise is going to have difficulty in flexing its core offering to suit the pressing business and cultural needs of a local market, and Cafe Vagina is no exception: but Best Friend and I have been in deep conference about bringing the unique taste of Cafe Vagina to the Africa, Middle East and Turkey region – and we think they’re ready for it.

I’ll keep you updated: visuals should be coming in soon, along with a number of names for the vagina-themed pastries and muffins.

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Murderous Thoughts – and a Proposal

It’s mid August: the height of Summer, and here I am in this great country which (uniquely) has a cycle called “The Season” – outdoor events from The Chelsea Flower Show to Wimbledon, Henley and Ascot whereat the great and the good gather (and from which Jordan is refused entry – not, it transpires for being “the wrong sort of person”, but more prosaically for “not having a ticket, Madam”). It follows, therefore, that it is pissing with rain.

And this brings me to my main theme: “What sort of death is most fitting to people who walk down narrow city pavements carrying golf umbrellas?” Golf umbrellas: the clue is in the name, you fucks! Show me someone who carries a golf umbrella in town, and I will show you someone whose mantra and essence is “Fuck everyone else.” They are designed for the unpopulated terrain of the golf course, commodious enough for you to take a golf swing under. They are not meant to be carried through the streets of London by the nouveaux riches, prodding and pranging the elderly, the considerate and the regularly umbrella’ed with impunity as you stride off to your job (normally in an Estate Agency, whose hideous branding bedecks your nylon nightmare).

They make me SO angry – and so I’ve been thinking of just punishment for those who wield them.

I am uninterested in the hasty dispatch. I am thinking more of the flawless but imaginative logic that one finds in Greek mythology (Prometheus, Sisyphus, Circe – that kind of vibe) and the hairier corners of Jacobean Tragedy, where the punishment is a fabulous fit with, but development of, the crime. Any suggestions would be truly welcome – but here are my initial suggestions:-

1. Force the condemned to hold a cartwheel over their heads, full size and weight, with them everywhere that they go, for six months.
2. Pursue the condemned down a series of narrow streets (Venice, perhaps) with a wide, spiky edged boulder, held at eye level. If they panic or hesitate, even for an instant, they get pranged, ideally blinded. This should be followed with an airy “Sorry”, apparently directed into a mobile ‘phone.
3. Force the condemned to wear a suit, emblazoned with the legend: “Proud to work in a second-rate estate agency/brokerage/solicitors.”
4. Brand the condemned on the forehead with an umbrella-shaped device, containing the single word “Selfish”.
5. Force the condemned to stand in the middle of a six lane motorway, dancing and dodging the ongoing traffic, which is characterised by cars whose passenger side windows are wound down, and out of which lean accomplished marksmen, wielding golf umbrella (perhaps branded “Justice!”) which are whacked at their fat heads.

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Catching Crabs

Wife and I have been indulging in a little bit too much Marple, Wodehouse etc. That’s the only explanation for why the entire family went to Church this morning, dressed as though we had stepped from the pages of a novel wherein exhortations to “Stop being such an utter beast!”, and “I say, why don’t we take the motor over to Old Man Cholmondeley’s place – there are bound to be blackberries?” are de rigeur, and met with enthusiastic, appropriate responses, rather than dazed incredulity. Dressing (unintentionally) like extras from “Brief Encounter” is one thing, but we seem also to be immersed in the need to recreate our childhoods with our own children (and whilst neither Wife nor I was a child in the 1940s, we both had very traditional, English up-bringings).

So it was that as soon as I had finished having my hair cut (by a man who seemed to have modelled himself on the great vocal stylist, Peter Andre, with the wise addition of a haircut that payed subtle homage to the childhood phenomenon “My Little Pony”), I went over to Chiswick House Park, where the children and Wife were blackberrying. This is in advance of their going to a cottage by the sea next week where they have been promised that they will be taught how to catch crabs (the crustaceans, rather than pubic lice), and further to a week spent in Cornwall where the tone was more than a little “Famous Five”, with explorations of coves and beaches, cow milking and roaring wood fires.

I think there is something in the current, voguish proclamation that people are seeking the security of an earlier, more innocent time. It’s hardly surprising when the news is full of tales of knife-wielding hoodies and the unstoppable slide into economic oblivion that we look to those pastiches of an unremembered, but fondly imagined time when everything seemed simpler and more certain. But, there is also (personally speaking) an entirely personal aspect to this: I enjoyed my childhood – it was absolutely perfect. I felt loved, supported and lucky for as long as I can remember – and I want to try and ensure that my children feel the same way. Is it lack of imagination, or is it “best practice” to think that by repeating the experiences that I had (and being read the books that I was read, being taught the principles that I was taught – and telling them with every waking breath that I love them) that they will feel the same way when they are my age?

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