Quantum Leap

Have you ever spent your Sunday afternoons on the sofa with nothing better to do but watch a sci-fi series called QUANTUM LEAP? It was about this scientist leaping from life to life, hoping each time that this is the final journey home in the name of his experiment.

He would travel to different periods and enter the body of the most unlikely characters, living their life but at the same time being himself.

I can already hear you: “what a whole load of **** that series was! Rubbish. 80’s ****! ” I personally enjoyed it and week after week I’d be curious to find out about his journeys into other people’s lives.

Stay with me, don’t go anywhere, I am not writing this to review an 80’s TV series, tempting as that might be. Actually, I might just do that next time around (clue: Sue Ellen, Pamela, Lucy, get it?). This time I am only using this rather long intro to kind of illustrate my very own quantum leap from which only recently did I return.

After my work trip to Toronto, I thought I might as well take advantage of being near New York, so I got myself a one way ticket to the Big Apple with view to meet up with my dear Americanized family and friends. At this point I should mention that they all have small kids, all three of them under 3 and another one on the way, with us by the end of autumn. In a nutshell I was heading down to babyland. Lucky me I am not one of those women (ahem!), but for those with an overbearing biological clock ( and/or mother), this may as well have been the trip to hell…

My friends are lovely, all very different characters, therefore all possessing ever so different parenting methods. There was the chilled mum who didn’t mind her gorgeous daughter (my goddaughter) picking her cheerio up from the floor and eating it. All for the good cause of boosting her immune system. I see the logic but as someone who owns an antiseptic gel from Duane Reade, if I could have put it on the floored cheerio I would have.

Then there is my cousin, whose approach would be best described as hands on. My cousin runs an operation carrying her child’s name. She is in control in such an impressive and orderly manner that I did wonder why I hadn’t been dealt that degree of organization myself when organization was being handed out. We are family, after all. My cousin does not take risks and I admired her 360 degrees field of vision on the playground.

Lastly, there is my friend C who is more like L, chilled, man, they’ll be ok.

Where did I fit in this whole picture? Nowhere as myself, just like the QL guy. I had to adjust to:
• look after a baby
• getting used to giving them my full attention ( not easy)
• changing nappies ( I am sorry, but do you guys gag? I did, every time!)
• listening to stories about how and what they did so very well for the first time
• get involved in conversations about prams ( “Oh, you have a Maclaren, too? They are so practical, I am glad I did not get the Chicco in the end”), teething, sleeping patterns, if they eat solids, etc, etc.

The list may continue. I did feel, however left out of a circle. A circle that didn’t use to talk about such things in their before-the-baby era. In the end, my conversations were a lot about all things babies and how the world relates to them. And a crash course it was. I now know enough to be confident that if ever I had a child of my own I’d be able to keep them alive…. Which, given my previous total lack of experience with babies before last week, wasn’t a dead cert up to then….

You’d be forgiven if you looked and failed to find a point in all this discourse. I guess what I am saying is that I did not feel myself in that circle of parents. I constantly thought about my trip back to London as also a trip back to my own life, my real life, where I would not have to include babies in my daily conversations. Not that there is anything wrong with baby talk. Just not me, not yet, anyway. I had lived a pseudo-life as part of a parents’s circle and then I was ready to go back to the old normal me.

You want to hear something funny? The very day I was back in the office, two not one of our colleagues that are on maternity leave came in to show us their pride and joy, babies M and H. Here we went again….

And Here’s to You, Mr and Mrs Parents!

My parents are celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary today, Sept 9th. Happy Anniversary Natalia and George! And, to drop in a literal translation from my language: TO MANY MORE! ( LA MULTI ANI!)

35 years together, man, that is a long time. They have been together more than I’ve been alive! They are my parents and I am not 35 yet, so it’s normal (doh!) but you get the point: 35 years is a loooong time.

They are happy, beautiful, they do nice things together, they nag at each other, they are a team! And, while I doubt my talent at keeping a relationship going for that long, I think what they have achieved is a great partnership indeed.

So please all send them a positive thought on this beautiful September day!

PS Also, jot down Sept 22nd when this blogger will hit 33. Mum and dad liked their important life changing events to take place in Sept.

Bon apetit!

The time of the day: Friday, 9pm, beginning of the long weekend. Hurrah!

The place: my kitchen, preparing a nice dinner (pasta with salmon and vodka sauce, recipe courtesy of Trevor, Amore’s chef mate from Switzerland)

The conversation: flowing.

Something missing perhaps: why don’t we crack open that bottle of champagne while we are preparing the food?

Agreement. Food smelling promising. Overall atmosphere: very good.

Romantic thought: why don’t we open the champagne together? Make a wish?

The cautious of us: make sure we don’t point it in the direction of anything breakable.

The next step: aim, fire, bull’s eye!

The result: sudden darkness, broken glass noise.

Confusion. The bulb is smashed into the tiniest pieces that find their way to the salmon sauce…

Chance of aiming so well: 1 in hundreds.

Wish we could have rewound and filmed the whole sequence of events.

Laughter: uncontrollable. Still going.

Dinner: not bad.

So?

For exactly 8 years and 1 month, I have been going to work to the same office in London’s rather obscure Bowling Green Lane. One of those streets that lack lustre in itself but it’s good because it is close to exciting places. Houses – I have moved, partners – have come and gone but the so-called BGL office always stayed put. Now that constant in my and my colleagues’ lives is about to go. Alas, we are moving office and the new and swish place is in an all-together different part of town. Not one of my favourites, it’s near Camden, for those of you who’ve been to London… Only recently found out that had Hitler won the war, the building we are going to work in would have been his HQ. Nice one.. I’ll let you make your views:

There is nothing we can do to change that (or should I say to not change). So in homage to our beloved BGL area, we organized a pub crawl making sure we were not leaving out any of the pubs that have seen and heard our joys and sorrows over the many years we frequented them: The Bowler, The Peasant, The Eastern, The Crown, Three Kings…

So here’s to 33-39 Bowling Green Lane!

I am using this trip down nostalgia lane as a backdrop for the actual topic of this post. While (still) standing by the bar in the Peasant – a favourite of ours for leaving and Xmas do’s, conversation flowed along with the drinks. Snippets I heard ranged from the stress that having babies puts on a relationship (“It’s got to be there in the first place to be put back together, you know”), to football, ghosts, Owen Wilson’s suicide attempt (“ And he is such a funny guy!”). The one conversation that caught my attention tonight was about something that sparked debate: do we believe in life after death? Not a light note, I know, but the kind of conversation that will always divide people into two camps, maybe three.

You have the spiritual amongst us who genuinely believe there is indeed life after death; they are from the “Of- course-this-is-not-it” school of thought and, while they admit to the idea of heaven and hell being a bit of a stretch, they are firm on their position that the road does not stop with our physical being, but transcends it to an endless combination of self-resurrection.

You then have the second group which I belong to and that is the realistic, no nonsense “this is it, this is as good as it gets” believers. “ Does it not scare you, the certain knowledge that it is all going to end at some point?” Well, no, not really. I have never actually stopped and worried about life eventually coming to an end. Nor is ageing a concern. Ageing has its benefits. Every decade I have gone through had its purpose and its lessons. In my early 30’s, I cherish what I’ve lived and look forward to the next stage. If anything, I am aware that time passes so rapidly that wasting it to worry about its effect on us would not be beneficial.

The third group is made up of those of us sitting on a fence. “Well, I know that it is scientifically impossible to prove anything, but believing in life after death has its benefits. Kind of a win/win situation we’re dealing with here. You believe therefore you hope therefore you cope better. And if you are wrong, you will at least never know you were wrong.” That’s what I call a good deal in my books.

Many are the pages I could fill with philosophical ink but I am throwing the debate your way. What do you think? Is there life after death? Easy peasy… I’m off to watch Eastenders, will be back for your comments.

You Look Just Like….

We human beings are, I should imagine, a tad more analytical than the rest of the species we share this planet with. Although this is merely an assumption, how would we ever know how analytical cats and dogs are, for example.

As humans’ thirst for knowledge and detail is something I am more familiar with, I’ll focus on one particular trait that I hate to admit I possess. It’s a pattern I easily and critically recognized in others until it dawned on me that I was no better.

What is it? Well, in a nutshell, I compare new acquaintances, colleagues, friends, friends’ partners with those I believe they look like. Not necessarily celebrities, although that makes for an obvious choice. But I will see someone and it’s almost as if my brain is programmed to send keen signals to my memory centre and inquire into whom the new kid in town looks like. Google images have helped a lot in supporting my individual cases.

Over the years I must have seen them all: from Klaus Kinski to Maradonna, Vanessa Paradis to Bono and moving on to an African American DJ at a party who – to me – looked the spitting image of my Italian neighbour upstairs.

It is not something I am proud of, especially when it becomes clear that my comparison is not welcome. Many a times, I’d declare in a victor’s voice that so and so are the spitting image of, say, the girls’ gay friend in Sex and the City. Bingo, got him right there! The look on their face indicates that they’d hoped for more! I’ve been on the receiving end of an unwanted look alike statement and boy, it was no fun. This is not the place to create inaccurate associations in your minds, suffice to say I was once compared to a reputable singer. No, it wasn’t JLo… I listened to the comment, I reasoned that my dignity was being put to the test and smiled it off politely not without a degree of grudge against the “opinion leader” who’d instantly found his nodding supporters. Well, at least she is talented ( which, when it comes to singing, I’m not)…

Nor was it great fun to have this guy in a bar in Spain stare at me with a mix of horror and filial love only to reveal to me that I was the carbon copy of his (now dead) mother. His intake of alcohol and God knows what else that afternoon contributed to the intensity of his feelings I’m sure, but how freaky had it become when the guy started asking me if I remembered how I used to feed him dinner when he was a small child? At this point it’s worth adding that he was quite a bit older than me…

Lesson here being that sometimes silence is indeed gold.

I do have a match in this respect (someone who may not look like me but certainly behaves similarly) and that is my colleague G from work. G will understand my otherwise inexplicable need for associations. He almost has a little ritual: one of our (male) clients has a very distinctive “cool glasses/ funky hairdo” look. To G this particular man looks just like another client of ours, only this time we’re talking about a “she” and she is 30 years older than our guy. And G is no amateur, he will bring accurate supporting proofs of his statements.

I sometimes identify this sport as bullying in others, but I guess the difference with them is that they make light of their often harsh views. I prefer to spare those who need sparing, but nothing is going to stop me from seeing Michael Winner sat in my office day in day out. All he has to do is say the Esure line and my point will be instantly seen by most.

The guilt within having been unleashed, I can go one step further and admit to a very deeply rooted belief in groups of people having their parallel peers in the animal reign. For example, eversince I was a child, I would immediately see the bird, fish, dog, horse in those around me.

This is when anonymity comes in handy otherwise I wouldn’t blame those of you who’d be inclined to call a shrink on me…

Instead, what you could do, is indulge in this deep conversation and reassure me that you, too are into comparing and also that you too see the animal within as an obvious fact of life. Who do you look like or should I say what do you look like?

I can tell those of you I know….

Congratulations, Cristian Mungiu (the one on the left)!

I can’t contain my pride, check out the BBC News Online today:

“Romanian drama wins Cannes gold”

Jury head Stephen Frears was on hand to congratulate Mungiu
Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days has won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival

Phantom Affair

Following on my post on online dating (A Very Brief History of Dating), I have requested and been granted the permission to produce an anonymous case study of where modern day technology has taken our emotions.

A dear friend of mine, let’s call him M, is happily immersed in a relationship with his loveable, intelligent and exotic girlfriend. They’ve been together for a while now and things are looking on the promising side. Lately M has been showing signs of fatigue. He was less tolerant to silly jokes and his time with friends and family (be it on the phone or in person) has been sparse. Not one to leave such developments un-questioned, I took it upon myself to get to the root of the matter. What was going on? The man has a good job, a great partner, he is well liked and suddenly he decides that’s not good enough and sulks. WHY?

Roll on a couple of days later.

The setting: a posh pub in an affluent area of London.

The glasses: filled with velvety red wine.

The mood: tense.

ME: Go on now, M, what is up with you, you can’t fool me.

HIM (replying with a question, which always makes me think of that joke: Is it true that you always answer a question with another? Who told you that?): Is having an online lover cheating?

ME: I could have done with a bit of intro… Is an online lover cheating? Tricky one, my friend. Would you care to expand on the topic?

And expanded is what he did. He’d met this girl online. Hadn’t thought much of it, she was living on the other side of the world and he had actually found her friendliness irritating to begin with. She had seemed at ease with the situation while he was all awkward and confused as to what the point of that friendship was. So didn’t think much of it. It was something to do when he happened to be online, say hello and chat with this person. So far so good. I kept nodding in approval. I even said “Don’t be silly, everybody does that at some point. I had a friend I chatted with occasionally. He had praised my writing, I was prepared to make him a friend for life….”

But why did I think my situation had not led to similar consequences… I was still sane. M was drawn out and confused. He had basically fallen in the trap of the novelty of the situation: conversations became longer and longer, he used every spare moment to run to his computer and see if she was around and before he knew it, they’d become very intimate in those moments oblivious of their respective lives (they both had partners, whom they spoke so fondly about). It had come to a point when he was living this parallel reality, updated on the life of a faceless person on a regular basis, opening up to them, caring about them. Virtual talks, virtual walks, virtual flirting. The only thing “non-virtual” about this was his involvement.

What do you say to that? His girlfriend did not suffer a thing, maybe she put his tiredness down to hard work. He was not planning to meet that other person. He said he felt like he’s jumped on a train that was going nowhere. That sounds scary (although not unlike my tube journeys to work on a bad day).

As a friend I wanted to be non-judgemental. As a woman I got paranoid. What if Amore did the same, how would I feel? Not happy is the answer. But then again, what is it that drives a perfectly decent person to this kind of activities? Questions kept shooting through my head. I couldn’t think of an honest way to help him out. So I asked for some time to think about it, recommending that he took it easy in the meantime. Which depressed him, because I was clearly implying he was doing the wrong thing. But was it the wrong thing?

Here’s an analogy. In the world of film, traditionally rights were sold for TV, VHS, DVD, cinema chains, etc. Then internet came along and rights have been selling for online distribution. Would that mean that cheating has expanded its realms from the world of hotels, parks, his/her house to the all mighty internet?

What is your view on this? IS ONLINE CHEATING – CHEATING? I believe it is.

How “Cannes” I Put It in a Few Words?

THE PREPARATIONS

For many who work in the film industry or in any field that touches upon it (as is the case with me), May is the month of re-visiting your wardrobe, doing a round of the free trials offered by the gyms in your area, generally the month of a late start of a much needed overhaul. Grey hairs covered – checked. What grey hairs?!? Eyebrows shaped – checked. Removing any sign of your ever being in touch with your masculine side, basically your slight “mustache” – checked. A facial while you’re at it, why not? That still leaves the big W: your wardrobe.

In case you wonder why May, well, that is when everybody who’s anybody in the world behind and in front of the camera heads to the Cannes Film Festival. Oh the glamour, the mixture of class and kitsch, the buzz of it all! One thing is sure for most of us though: Cannes is the one place where you’ll be wearing your most elegant black number (it usually comes down to a choice of black dresses with few other colours getting a chance).

ONCE YOU ARE THERE – PART ONE THE WORK

You get to Cannes. You do your behind-the-scene hectic work, reminding yourself that it might be tiring and at times repetitive, but running up and down the Croisette still beats sitting down all day in front of the computer in an office reminiscent of its previous use, a hospital. This small but world famous place is as much about the business of selling film rights as it is about glamour and stars.

Hectic and tiring it may be, but you have to make darn sure that you do all the running around dressed in your best attire. Casual in Cannes is a costly affair. The Cannes look involves expensive linen items, so Primark will have to take a step back (don’t worry, I will return). That place demands more from your look in two weeks than London ever will in a lifetime. Cannes is also extremely demanding of one’s social skills. While back home it will be years before you bump into someone in the street, that changes in Cannes. From the moment you arrive until you get on the plane to come back, you are constantly bumping into people you know, you want to know, people who know you and whom you don’t remember. You are also constantly surrounded by your work colleagues, many of whom are friends, but with whom you would maybe not choose to spend so much time back home. In that way I suppose the situation is no different from other trade fairs.

ONCE YOU ARE THERE – PART TWO THE FILM AND THE RED CARPET EXPERIENCE

The evenings are good. If you are lucky and want to make your presence at the Festival worth your while, you take to the red carpet to the premiere of some film you A) may have always wanted to see or B) you wouldn’t otherwise pay to see in the cinema. It largely depends on your luck on the night, in other words on the free invites that come your way. My red carpet events range from Nurse Betty to Shrek II via Matrix II. And yes, I am not going to be all blase and fake indifference towards the plethora of actors, directors and writers that unfold before your very eyes when attending a red carpet event. It is most definitely a unique cinematic experience..
Equally important though is your moment on that red carpet. Lights, camera, action: up those stairs you walk feeling a million dollars. To the left and the right of the red carpet you can catch the humming of hundreds of photographers and passers by, all looking straight to where you are or through you in the hope of a Cameron or a Keira. Not sure I would like to be in the spotlight like that for real, day in day out. God, the pressure of no privacy would drive me mad… Just as well that I am from the very-behind-the-camera crowd and a snippet of pseudo-celebrity will do me just fine, thank you very much.
Once the slow-mo walk up the famous stairs in the Palais de Festival is done, you are in essence an over-dressed cinema goer with the added bonus of maybe brushing shoulders with Al or Woody if they happen to be attending that same premiere.

THE AFTER FILM PARTY

The film starts and ends, you hopefully enjoy it, the talent comes on stage afterwards and you all clap with varying degrees of sincerity. Then comes a possibly even more exciting time of the experience: the after film party.
Less and less distributors organize the massive after-film parties they used to throw in the early 90’s. Nonetheless, every year you get to attend a bash thrown in honour of some high profile production. These parties happen in two main locations: by the sea or on the grounds of glamorous villas up in the hills of Cannes. I prefer the second category.

What you do after the film is go to a pick-up point where buses await for the guests to jump on and be taken to the villa. The atmoshpere is all round jolly. Yet again, you are bound to bump into someone you know and even vague acquaintances start showing promising friendship potential in the euphoria leading up to a good night. Once you get past the scary bouncers you are “on the other side”. Everyone is elegant and in a good mood, the music flows and so do the drinks. Not much food unless you are willing to queue for hours at the buffet areas, which loses its appeal after a while. You dance and smile and meet and greet and even if it’s work and your real mates aren’t there, you don’t feel that what you are doing is working. I, for one, love this perk of the job. Occasionally, you have to contain yourself from throwing idolizing glances in the direction of mega-celebrities who pass you by in a casual manner. You have to act cool…

These parties are about networking, I suppose. It is actually surprising how much gets done in that apparently informal and relaxed environment. The conversations you often overhear are revealing the 24/7 nature of this business: “ I have a script I would like you to look at”. “ I think I have a big star line-up for my next production. I can’t tell you who just yet” ( probably because they themselves don’t know yet….); “I am setting up this fund for film financing”
Unlike a “real party” you have to keep your wits about you a bit more, but not as much as you’d think.

The next day starts with its 8am meeting, you chit chat about the fun ( or lackthereof as it may be the case) during the night before and then head for pretty much the same pattern. For at least ten days.

Is this in line with how you envisaged Le Festival?

Hong Kong Story

Don’t know why, but it seems that when it comes to massages, spa treatments and any sort of body embellishments, travelling to Hong Kong equals heaven. Not only does the quality of the service excel, but – very importantly – the prices are affordable. That explains why many of us tired, jetlagged Europeans recently arrived on our 5 day business trips, end up looking better than before our flight took off from Heathrow. It’s the magic touch of the HK beauticians.

And this time around, I was not let down. My third trip to HK started like the other previous ones: get on the plane, watch some movie (saw star-packed Bobby), chit chat with the person next to you if they’re nice (she was) and hope to get some sleep in (I hardly did).

The next morning comes with a treat in store. We jump in the cab to go to Central, which is a shopper’s ultimate destination. I am not a keen shopper (it was the mortgage or the clothes…) but I was dead set on at least working with (or against) what nature’s given me. So picture this: a super crowded super narrow market street. Nothing like the welcoming wide aisles of the Istanbul Bazar, for example.

Suddenly you hear a lady in the crowd asking “Manicure for HK$70?” (that’s £5) and the next thing you know, you are entering this council tower- type building, going up the stairs to what may very well be someone’s flat. But there is a good feeling, so what if it’s not The Sanctuary?

Well, there were no incense sticks and waterfalls sounds, but boy were we in for a surprise! As we were going up the stairs to what traditionally should be a tranquil place to sit down and be pampered, we were greeted with a Madonna wannabe belting out I’m Crazy for You on the karaoke machine. They had a karaoke machine in the waiting room, complete with glass disco ball and all.

The place was a flat in which they had turned the tiny entrance hall into an entertainment centre: karaoke, internet connection they had it all. For a second there I contemplated leaving. There is a good reason why I didn’t choose singing as a career and a morning “I Will Survive” sesh was not on my agenda. But I was re-assured I did not have to sing if I did not want to, although they did encourage us to follow the example of a 5 year old who did not shy away from declaring the she, indeed, Will Survive.

I wish I’d taken a photo of the place. Most people working in there were from the Phillippines, so when a Philippino pop song came on, the nostalgia overwhelmed them and you should have heard the collective humming and tapping while they were painting those nails, rubbing those feet and applying the perm solutions….

Surreal! But great fun. I am going to take the idea back to my local manicure place. The ladies there are Korean, maybe they won’t think I’ve lost my mind. Maybe they’ve been to Hong Kong themselves. South London, get ready for this.

A non-Shakespearian Heroine in Stratford

This weekend Amore and I took a spontaneous trip to Stratford-upon-Avon. This is in line with our getting-to-know-England-better plan. Also, with 3 degrees Celsius extra on our doorstep (this weekend’s Sunday Times illustrated article on global warming is not for the faint-hearted), we said to ourselves maybe it’s time we did our bit and cut down on those tempting cheap weekend flights to the sunnier sides of Europe. What the heck… We live in England and when somebody mentions High Wycombe we still think they are talking about Scotland…

So, we got on the train at Marylebone Station, one of London’s oldest and most charming, my personal favourite (have you seen their florists?). Two hours later we are in Shakespeare memorabilia heaven: there are souvenir shops, statues of characters from his plays, a tour of the haunted house that once belonged to the man who inspired Falstaff (the Bard’s brother in law).

There are, of course, the theatres, the lovely country pubs, the beautiful riverside walks and the overall olde worlde charm that sold England to me in the first place, all those years ago. We had a fantastic day and I recommend it to anyone who wants to get away from the hustle and bustle of London at the weekend. Not a place for longer than two days, methinks.

The day is also memorable for the sight I’m about to describe. As someone else was commenting, it’s got to be one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen. As we were walking along the river enjoying the sunshine and eavesdropping on a tour guide, we saw this elderly lady coming from the opposite direction. When I say elderly I mean proper elderly, early 80’s at least, with a hunched back, snow white hair, a scarf and a long pink raincoat. Like any of our grandmothers, only older. She suddenly stopped, looked around her and decided on putting her large black bag by this big tree on the riverbank. Nothing strange about her yet. She wanted to have a rest. Well, here’s where I was wrong. I kid you not, ladies and gentlemen, the lady leant her bags against the tree, put herself in position and took off for a jog!! Up and down in a leisurely manner, stopping to draw her breath and then off she went again… I had never ever seen anything like this before. She was so fit, so the opposite of what you’d expect from a 80 something year old lady quietly shuffling along the river. She went on like this for at least half an hour while Amore and me were sipping our Stella’s at what we were told was the best known pub in the world (The Black Swan, also known as The Dirty Duck). She then stopped and dutifully did her stretching after which she recuperated her bag and went away. I can tell you that she made a lasting impression on a wide open air audience. She was our non-Shakespearian centre stage lady. She did make me smile. Amore thought she was not all there and felt sorry for her (How would you feel if your granny took off like that in the park?); I thought she was an eccentric fitness fan. Good on her.

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Let’s just say it was enough to make me reconsider the extent of my weekly exercise routine (three times a week walk from Farringdon to Elephant and Castle).

So here’s to you, the jogger in a pink raincoat in Stratford. You made the trip less about Shakespeare and therefore less predictable. Have you considered the marathon?