Dear Rowley,
I do love 48-hours in bed, don’t you? It was the Wimbledon Men’s Final on Sunday and my friend Patricia and I decided to make a day of it. She ordered a dozen oysters and two lobsters and drove up to Bloomsbury Towers with them in a cool bag. I was feeling peaky but improved markedly after half a dozen of the zinc infusers and a couple of glasses of Prosecco. We had our first fishy feast then retired upstairs to watch the final on the day bed. Entirely comfortable in Patricia’s company. She is honest, she is easy to be around and we really rather like each other’s company.
Anyway, as you know Andy lost but lost no face or honour. He was beaten by the best male tennis player of all time. When he cried in the post-match interview I think Britain fell in like with Andy Murray. I also changed my opinion about Dame Judy Murray. I’ve never seen mother’s pride like that on such raw display. She’s a hard woman but I suspect she is a good one.
I didn’t feel to clever when Patricia left and she suggested I buy a quart of Old Famous Grouse and sink a hot toddie to get me to sleep.This I did and slept the sleep of the just. I felt a little better this morning and went for my usual sauna, steam and swim. But then I decided to call it, go to Sainsbury’s for provisions and bunker down in bed. When buying another quart of the old bird, I said to Shirley on check-out that it was medicinal. ‘Really?’ says she. ‘Give me a nip then’. Shirley goes to India for a month in January. She says it is a tonic.I told Shirley I was going to bed with Silk first series box set.
Apropos the camp Greco-Roman health spa in Bloomsbury this morning, I think we can be reassured that Jubolympic fever has hit Bloomsbury. The streets are awash with foreigners with dodgy accents and even dodgier haircuts who have no manners, no spacial awareness and no sense of direction. When I normally pitch up at the Grange Hotel, the back entrance is deserted. This morning it was littered with men in bad suits wearing name badges around their necks waiting for cars to take them to the Olympic village.
Of course Russell Square being the media hub means we are also ablaze with athletes. On Saturday I was going for my usual paper run in the morning and happened to see two big strapping lads – one black and one Indochine – hand in hand stoating down Southampton Row if you please like a living Bennetton advertisement with the caption The Acceptable Face of Homosexuality. If this is what we’ve got to look forward to for the rest of the month, I might retire to bed like Stephen Tennant for the next two months with cases of Prosecco and an ostrich feather fan.
Always talking about myself darling and never asking how you? Happy I hope and at peace. I am always looking for peace (or is that piece?) but rarely find it. But in the words of Kay Thompson, I do find a whole lot of joy, a whole lot of work and a whole lot of tra-la-la. It’s been a week for tears me not excepted. It was incredible to see Madonna break down on the Italian leg of her tour while singing Like A Virgin. Maybe someone told her backstage that the box office was down. Only kidding.
I have been tough on Madonna of late not least for flashing scrawny old tit on stage. Nobody wants it. However, with a little time to spare I have been YouTubing Madonna’s MDNA tour footage and the lady is like a gypsy on fire. She is magnificent even if some of the costume choices are erratic. Nobody looks good in a cheerleader costume over 15. Only a man of the cloth looks good in priest’s attire. However, she’s rocking it out and showing the way for the rest of us as to how it is physically and mentally possible to grow old very, very disgracefully.
My crying jag started this week when I had an evening listening to the Legendary Liza, caterwhaulling and wheeping buckets as I attempted to match her note for note on songs that mean something to me and make sense of life. We all owe a huge debt to composers. Whatever emotion we feel, they orchestrate it. There is always a song as I once said to someone I don’t recall.
On the subject of Silk, I have not seen as fine an assembly cast performance in decades. I don’t know who I’m more in love with: Maxine Peak, Rupert Penry-Jones or Billy the clerk of chambers. The scripts are magnificent and the execution simply superb. Mind you, I’ve had a few noggings of Grouse, honey and lemon and it’s before noon. But needs must when the devil is at your elbow and your sinuses are enraged. I think I need to call Dr B. I have telly on Wednesday and don’t think I will make it. But I always make it up to you as Madonna would say. I always do.