Life classes continue

There was a bit of confusion at the old mortuary a couple of weeks ago; Dora double-booked Chumpy and a large amphibious man to model for the life class - I asked them to pose as though they were both in an everyday environment, chatting to each other in the pub or watching telly and was surprised how unlikely it looked - much more realistic for them to be emulating classical statues or acrobats.

I told Dora that I'd been in Switzerland with David Attenborough and showed her my photographs, she was well impressed then said - you look like a television presenter so I expect he felt comfortable around you

I was in Switzerland last week

the Man is making a film about ants in the forest - I went out to spend his birthday with him.

Sir David Attenborough was there too, narrating the story  (I had been to this same place with him about 12 years ago and tell that story here) - it's always interesting to see how other people react to him. The head waiter at the hotel played a series of jokes,  actually it was the same joke over and over again where he pretended not to have any of the food that was ordered or to have run out of wine. SDA accepted this punishment with good humour but  clearly wasn't enjoying the joke as much as the waiter - it must be really hard being a National Treasure

My new tooth was screwed in last week

I keep needing to remember that there is no big black gap and I can readjust my smile  


I'm sad about Leonard but can't bear to try and decide on a favourite song to post - so here's a speech  

me and Karl Lagerfeld

the day I met David Bowie's sort-of-landlady a man had taken my navy jacket leaving me with his black blazer*.  

[for the full story follow this link and if you're reading on a mobile device I think this blog works better if you can see the web version]

My reefer jacket was a good fit and was an everything jacket, it worked with my skirts and trousers and meant that while I'm in london I can survive with that jacket and the rest of my wardrobe in a small holdall.

The big black blazer makes me look as though I'm two little boys standing on each other's shoulders in their fathers coat - which isn't the look I'm going for.

I searched the charity shops to find a replacement and after a couple of days settled on a black-and-orange baseball jacket which is great for when I'm feeling a bit varsity but not when I'm concerned about mutton-and-lamb issues and certainly not if I'm trying to look like a grown-up.

Yesterday on my quotidien charity-shop trawl/quest for a neat navy jacket I came across a neat black coat, the sort of thing Karl Lagerfeld wears. I tried it on and looked just like a pale version of Karl Lagerfeld then I looked at the label and it said 'Karl Lagerfeld'


it's black and it doesn't go with my skirt, or any of my clothes except jeans and I'll have to go out and buy a different sort of jeans that work better with this coat but it's Karl Lagerfeld and I'm surprised by how nice it feels so I keep it on and pay for it at the same time as a lady buying a crochet pot holder - she made an impressed face and said

nice

and I said

Karl Lagerfeld

* I asked the bus company to help trace the man and effect an exchange but that hasn't worked out

It's still all about David Bowie

The day started out peculiarly because the man sitting next to me on the bus to London got off before my stop and took my coat with him.    

By the time I realised, he was long gone and I was standing at Victoria in an ill-fitting blazer. I am really hoping that he isn't enjoying being squeezed into my neat little reefer jacket and will get in touch with the bus station in the same way that I did so we can swap back.  

This evening, possibly inspired by a day in gorilla-ish sleeves I managed to leap onto a bus  just as it was setting off back to Bristol and plonk myself in the front window seat next to a nice-looking lady. We chatted then she dozed and I knitted and then she woke up when we were near Swindon and we talked a bit about me and then I asked about her and she said       

Well I'm busy doing publicity for my book about being David Bowie's sort-of-landlady   

 and I said you have to tell me everything      

she didn't look as though she wanted to tell me everything so I said that I would definitely buy her book (and I just have) and that she should tell me everything because I used to work for Peter Gabriel   

She told me that she'd been David Bowie's sort-of-landlady until Ziggy Stardust, they set up an Art Lab together at the pub up the road and her house was always full of rockstars and fans and she'd been working on the book for two years and was going to launch it at Christmas but then heard about Blackstar and decided to wait until the 8th of January.      

then she told me   
I'd had lunch with Tony Visconti just the week before and he didn't say a word   



this is a sliced-off version of my all-time-favourite David Bowie/Brian Eno/Tony Visconti film

It's been a tough week

David Bowie died first thing Monday. In the evening I walked to the bus stop and the top part of the post office tower was spinning with a lit up a message to him  and in Brixton there was a mass David Bowie singalong - it was a very emotional day.  

I sat on the top deck but didn't pay attention to my actual seat until I wanted to get off the bus and realised that the long ride had melted a gob of well chewed gum onto my jean-clad backside.   

Because getting off the top deck of a London bus can be a God-awful affair and because of David Bowie and because I was ravenous, the gum was forgotten by the time I made it to the pavement. Back at the house that I am taking care of for strangers I put David Bowie music on and made supper.  

Then I sat in one of the expensive black leather dining chairs owned by the people who are trusting me to look after their home*, I sat in that chair and ate my delicious supper and then I stayed in the chair for a really long time watching old David Bowie videos. When I finally tried to stand up I couldn't because the gum on my jeans had welded my bottom onto the seat. I peeled myself off gently and then stared in horror at the mess.  

Warm gum smears worse the more you wipe. 

I panicked  but luckily I'm also the kind of girl who reads Top Tips  

I put my gummy jeans in the freezer along with a folded wet cloth that had a nubbly side and then I went to bed  

In the morning I chipped the gum off my jeans and rubbed the iced nubbley brick on the leather seat and it cleaned up like new. 

*bum-crayon cat house

Yay! My essay was delivered yesterday so I have words again   

Last lecture of term

5pm yesterday.  last week's newsletter made passing mention of a forthcoming presentation in one of the lecture theatres by Kate Tempest, a young poet whose prodigious and varied output as a writer and musician, garners awards and accolades in abundance.

she came to Bristol earlier this year and people were murdering each other for tickets

at 5pm I was seated at the front row of a half empty lecture theatre, Ms Tempest seated behind a desk as a few more students trailed in late

we got a show 

it was impressive 

at 6 sharp a booted skirted fierce woman appeared at the door to tut-tut and look at her watch she walked away slightly then reappeared to tut a bit more.

we hurriedly clapped and all got up to go but the next event which involved trolley loads of sandwiches was already being wheeled in and we all got stuck together in the doorway.

Last week

I had a two-day turnaround between cats, these were 'no-school' days so I went home to Bristol, the Man was away in the USA but there was a bar of chocolate on the shelf and bacon and cheese in the fridge, the chocolate contained raisins to ensure a balanced diet.

last week was all about listening - highlights include:

a talk about the pebble-iness of a section of east devon, how it came to be that way and all the things people do with pebbles from Bronze age cairns to the bounding walls of new housing-estates via victorian farmyards

being shown images of brightly painted designs on ritual houses in an area of Indonesia and realising that we were looking at thousands of vaginas

I ushed another talking event, this one with David Attenborough about what we need to do to halt the progress of climate change, someone described trees as being blocks of congealed carbon and how we need lots more congealed carbon - the best ways to do this included growing lots of seaweed and thinking of things to make with seaweed. Methane is also something we need to deal with - in Korea they have worked out a way of capturing methane in used coffee grounds.

I am back in London now, looking after bum-crayon cat who is currently stalking me in big circles but refusing to let me touch her

Last night I had supper with a rock star

at a restaurant - it was a birthday party for the rock star's right-hand woman

towards the end of the evening a waitress arrived with a tiny candle stuck in a chocolate truffle surrounded with Smarties and we all sang the Happy Birthday song and then the rock star wanted to make a speech but at the exact same moment that he stood up and started speaking the couple at the next table who were having a difference of opinion got really really shouty at each other

so we watched them instead

Here's a thing

The man has been in France with a lady who makes enormous dinners and keeps dozens of dogs and who first noticed the luminous earthworms 3 years ago. Thinking this to be interesting, she told some French scientists - boy did they laugh.

Madame you 'ave no penis - it is not possible that you make observations - go back to your kitchen
and drink less absynthe

The luminous-worm story was repeated among the scientists to illustrate the stupidity of women until it filtered through to someone who did go and visit the lady and the worms who then set about finding someone with a luminosity-filming camera ...

this is just the beginning of a story 

POSTSCRIPT

Sir David Attenborough was so excited by this and other intriguing bioluminescence stories that he agreed to present the Man's film which is called David Attenborough's Life that Glows in the UK and David Attenborough's  Light on Earth elsewhere

The programme started airing in May 2016  Here's a link to a site with a trailer

I'm a fishperson

and I just thought that I really liked Kate Bush.

ONE DAY SHE CAME FOR SUPPER AND THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN !!

it was back in the '80s - in the days when I used to cook at popstar recording studios - those days when popstars traipsed in and out of my kitchen day in day out: that bloke off Police, a Beatle, Joni Mitchell, all of them - I'd just put supper on the table then sit down and eat with everyone like we all went to school together.

Until Katebush Day

A fan finds it hard to believe the object of fandom actually exists - or that's how it affected me - it was like having a unicorn in the house.

I was also dazzled by that whiterthanwhite top which stayed unblemished the entire day - and I know biscuits were involved in the recording studio. Look at me, I'm wearing a brown jumper because I know that if I wear anything smooth or light-coloured something stain-ey will jump on it within 5 seconds.

As you can see it was in the good old days of cigarettes - that's Kate's brother Paddy in the front - I'm trying really hard not to set his hair alight.

An Evening With David Sedaris

The girl with the collection of penis bones called me to say that she had a spare ticket for David Sedaris - did I want to go

DID I ...?!?!?!?

Mr Sedaris' early books make frequent mention of his OCD and now that he has moved to East Sussex  he talks about how he spends as much time as possible picking up litter in his neighbourhood. This includes a wooded area where people go for fried chicken and sex

They leave behind masses of those styrofoam coffins with chicken carcasses in - and strewn all around are several used condoms

His friends are amazed that he picks up the condoms

Of course I do, I put leaves between my fingers first - I don't pick them up with my mouth


I came directly home but left my friend standing in the queue waiting to meet the famous author - she wanted to give him one of her penis bones

Flop House Blues

 Image Matthias Haker

Today was a fixing bonanza; the chimney man arrived unexpectedly* to admire my flue and then another man arrived to pull pieces of rubber band out of my dishwasher and make it work again.  Chimney Man and I peered at the dripping leak beneath the bathroom and decided that it did really look more like broken plumbing than broken weather, I still can't get a plumber to visit.

Having lodgers seems to be my main motivation for keeping the house functioning, if it was just me on my own I’d probably let everything grind to a halt and wear away until I was just living in a tent in a pile of rubble.

Somehow I’ve extrapolated this into the idea that I should run a hotel or at least a boarding house of ill-repute.  I see myself as a harsh concierge in bright lipstick and a bouffant hairdo, pasting up lists concerning rules of conduct. I’d hand out weekly allowances of soap and hard lavatory paper and make judgements about the resident’s visitors to whoever was drinking Cosmopolitans with me in the public lounge.

This may also be the only way that I’ll be allowed to have a dog - it will be a poodle.

I have a New York friend who took me to the Chelsea Hotel once,  she had delivered drugs there to certain residents in the infamous days. At the time my friend lived in the same apartment block as Madonna who was just becoming known and was right from the beginning notoriously rude. Madonna was getting sent more flowers than she had vases to accommodate - my friend loaned her vases - and never got them back.

* I emailed him weeks ago and had given up hope.

My Life Among Top Celebrities

I have no more cooking jobs booked in until next month so I've returned to Bristol to make myself useful and hang out with the stars.

I do have previous form as a celebrity chauffeuse so I was the natural choice to collect John Lynch from Bristol Temple Meads and deliver him for a voice recording on a film about lions. I donned my best chauffing uniform to take him to the recording studio and he did tell me loads of really good juicy celebrity gossip - but I was so star struck that I didn’t pay proper attention and now I can’t remember who is running off with who on the film sets these days.

Not content with just the one celebrity this week, I spent yesterday with Joey who is not only movie star glamorous but also extremely talented, she is a vestment-maker extraordinaire and definitely the person to go to if you need some new clerical outfits - and if that’s not enough to impress you, I have first hand evidence that she is the best macaron-maker in the world.






We spent the day improving our porn site app for the iphone and I’m fairly sure that I convinced John to appear in some of our videos while I was driving him back to the station.

Job Hunting Blues

Earlier in the year it was agreed that I would stop working at the production company in October and do cooking for a living full time.

I am looking for work in London, a lovely friend has loaned me her apartment to use as a job-hunting base. My friends are concerned, they write to ask if I’ve found a job yet. This is one of my recent progress reports:

Dear Em,

I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, London’s been a bit up and down, well quite a bit of down actually, and I’ve been waiting for an up before writing.

Last Tuesday I put on a smart black dress for an interview with a titled lady who needed a cook for business meetings. I spent 2 hours in a Holland Park basement listening to an aide telling me all about Her Ladyship's 'funny ways', she asked me no questions at all - not even about my axe-murderering past. I met the Lady very briefly on my way out.

Wednesday: a fashion company asked me in to cook a lunch for 60 staff members then totally sabotaged my efforts - I couldn't start before 10 am, they changed the menu, didn’t order what I asked for - it all became so bad it was funny.

Thursday: An aide to that fancy pants photographer Rankin rang to ask if I’ll come in and cook for a day (lunch for 20, top models, hysterical assistants - you know the thing) and will I lower my rate by two thirds!

Friday: cooked lunch for 10 vegans, 2 babies and a very bouncy dog, that went quite well actually - I think I even enjoyed it and they've just written to tell me that they thought it was marvellous!

This week all the meetings I set up have been postponed or cancelled, it’s also been a week since the monologue from the titled lady's assistant, I’ve not heard back from her - I guess she’s found out about my axe-murdering past!

Much Love
Lulu

Old Money, New Money, New Order

People with inherited titles are a subsection of celebritydom. Wealth and privilege seem to make most people peculiar but there are significant differences between old and new money, I've also noticed that the way people behave about food reveals a lot about their insecurities:

Many years ago I cooked for Kaiser Bill’s great-grandson, known to me as Prince Nicholas. The Prince's wife at that time had been a debutante and her teenage years were spent being groomed as a suitable marital prospect for Prince Charles, but Charlie went off with Diana so the deb had settled for Nicholas. This setback wasn’t going to be allowed to dampen regal standards;

At the beginning of each week the Princess would hand me a very royal set of menus, every day the meals involved lots of richly sauced game, accompanied by side dishes and desserts swimming in alcohol and butter - and there was always a soufflé, the weekend menus would require two soufflés in the course of one meal. Not that any of this was actually eaten, the Princess preferred to eat salad and her husband was watching his cholesterol, so the ducks, the soufflés and the trifles would come back to the kitchen untouched.



I have never yet known Old Money admit to a food allergy, they simply bark a command such as: Never serve mushrooms! or There must always be gravy! Popstars, models and actresses, on the other hand wear their food fads like identity badges. Working at recording studios I got used to serving food that allowed for various diets and allergies. There was a period when a great many wheat-and-dairy averse clients from California were staying at the recording studios, and the food had to get really esoteric. These were overlapped by an English band called New Order, everyone sat and ate together in the large dining room. After a couple of days I had a visit from the New Order boys

Can you do normal food? - shepherd’s pie would be great, or sausages, we love sausages.

The Luck Of An Attenborosaurus

A few years ago, during a BBC shoot in Switzerland, Sir David Attenborough arrived for a single day to narrate a piece to camera.

SDA has a reputation for having miraculous luck and one of these events happened on this short little shoot.

During breakfast we discovered that SDA didn’t have a blue shirt. For continuity reasons he always wears a blue shirt and the producer usually carries a spare but today no-one had a blue shirt.

The nearest town was at least an hour’s drive in a direction away from the filming location, a big logistical nightmare was brewing as we discussed the options.

On the way to the location we had to pass through a tiny town consisting of a baker and a newsagent, none of these unpromising-looking shops were open yet. But as we arrived three vans were parked and starting to set out their wares; a ladies underwear seller, a tablecloth seller ... and a man wheeling a rack of ladies blouses out of his van, we screeched to a halt, I snatched a short-sleeved blue blouse off the rail, held one against Sir David and said 'how much?

We were charged a ransom for a really badly made nylon blouse with buttons the size of cds but the colour was right and it saved the day.

Celebrity Gossip part I

Some of my readers are feeling toyed with, a couple of my posts have mentioned famous people and it is felt that I am holding back - I should stop teasing and start spilling beans.

I have worked for quite a lot of famous people but there are some problems with telling stories about them:

a) The people that I think are famous are probably unknown outside the UK

b) The best stories would get someone into trouble (mostly me)

c) Famous people aren’t necessarily gossip-worthy – hey guess what! David Attenborough is a really nice man and he’s not that keen on guacamole*


Ok - here’s a Paul McCartney story:
Macca was due for lunch at the studio where I was working, his wife Linda was coming too and we were all a bit nervous. The main door to the studio was also the kitchen door - my job was effectively cook/receptionist and I was trying to get the place tidied up before the celebrities arrived.

The rubbish bin liner was overfull and was wedged in it's container so I got one of the engineers to hold the bin while I hauled at the sack. We were at maximum strain when four things happened simultaneously:

1 the door opened and the McCartneys walked into the kitchen

2 the liner popped out of the bin and I fell backwards

3 a mouse was flung out of the bin, into the air landing briefly on me before running away

4 everybody screamed

then we all laughed, the ice was broken and we seemed set for a comfortable vegetarian lunch. During the meal Linda started getting a bit ranty about the cruelty of fishing. The engineer got the devil in him and changed the subject by saying how delicious my tart was - everyone agreed and made yummy noises, then he said

And she's not just good at veggie stuff, we all had a bit of the goat she killed last week and that was great too

I had in fact recently slaughtered one of my goats and shared it with my colleagues so I couldn’t deny this and the atmosphere went icy.

My punishment came the following week. Linda had recently expanded her range of pretend meat products (TVP sausages and mince) and she had written an accompanying recipe book. She sent some recipes to the studio head, asking if the cook would try them out on the studio guests and fill in reports about how well they went down. Everyone hated them and I had to bribe the testees with extra special cakes whenever I made a Linda Lunch.


* Actually I do have an Attenborough story – the last time I saw Mr A was at an event at London's Natural History Museum. Towards the end of the evening he led me through the museum’s corridors until he found the specimen he was looking for – He grabbed my arm and pointed up at a big old fossil and said

Look! Attenborosaurus Bakker – how cool is that?

then he said

Right must go - Goodnight!

and he danced backwards down the corridor waving at me as he disappeared out of sight.

Naked Ambition

Whiplash is doing Community Service today and there’s no cake left. In the lull I find myself once again checking the small ads. Today’s favourite is this one for a Receptionist/PA

(must be over 18) Need a receptionist/Personal assistant for our successful company but must be a hit with management and clients. Must be a flirty bubbling character very open minded.

Are you prepared to do anything for progression. can you work in the nude in a naked office environment?

If your that person get in touch

One might think that this is for employment in a common-or-garden House of Ill Repute and although the syntax does seem to point that way, I'm considering whether this might be the start of a general trend towards nudism in the workplace - or maybe one of my ex-employers is doing a recruitment drive:

I once had a job at an architect’s office, cooking lunches for a sexy beast called Ian Pollard and his staff. Ian was terribly enthusiastic about nudity at work, he had more nudie pics on the walls than you could shake a stick at, his wife and his PA wore very few clothes indeed. Ian himself didn’t like to be too naked at work, we frequently entertained Stalwarts of Industry and he wouldn’t have wanted them to have felt overdressed, and the risk of injury from spitting chip fat compelled me to stay fully covered.

Mr Pollard gave up the architectry soon after I stopped working for him and followed his true vocation: getting on telly as a naked gardener, I’m wondering, if that’s him advertising for a new PA.

Update: I quite like the Sun's take on this too.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

Miss Whiplash is due in court today and we’re all hoping it won’t result in a custodial sentence this time. We’ve had a few discussions as to the best outfit to wear for the judges and I think she might be reducing the leopard print accessories for the occasion.

I’ve never actually made it to court but that’s not for the lack of being naughty, I’ve had several sphincter-clenching moments when I’ve fully expected to be taken away by a policeman and locked up for a very long time. I started a list of my best closest near misses but it just rambled on and on so I'll cut to my top favourite brush with the law of all time:


One of the recording studios where I worked had a big farmhouse kitchen, I cooked and we all sat down and ate together, we drank just water, no wine. After supper the musicians, producer and engineers would go back into the recording studio and continue working.

Larry Klein arrived to record one day and that first evening his wife joined us for supper. Larry’s wife at the time was Joni Mitchell, she had spent the afternoon smoking weed with Dawn, one of the studio employees. They were in high spirits and when the boys went back to work after supper, the girls wanted to get booze and cigarettes and asked me to take them somewhere to stock up.

My car was an A35 manufactured before my birth date and as Dawn got in the back and Joni sat next to me lighting another joint, my mind was obliterated by one repeating thought

I have Joni Mitchell in my car

As we swept into town another thought joined the first

I forgot to get the MOT* done
which distracted me a bit.

Then Dawn said
You’ve just gone through a red light

and there’s a police car behind you

it wants you to pull over

Now my head was full of the newspaper headlines

I got out of the car and smiled sheepishly at the two policmen who said:

Did you know that you jumped a red light back there?

Yes I’m really sorry

We’ve been following you for quite a while actually, we’ve not seen one of these for a few years, d’you mind putting the bonnet up and starting the engine so we can have a look?


And they never noticed the stoned rocker.

*it's a legal requirement to have a valid MOT certificate and the police would normally have asked me to present this document.