GIVE THE EAR ITS OWN SHOW!

In case you thought I’d dropped through a deep, dark hole in the planet, I have in fact been travelling around Spain on a promotional tour for my first novel ‘LA INGLESA Y EL TORERO’.

To say I’ve enjoyed every minute of it would be an understatement. I've lapped it up and swallowed it whole and embraced it with every fibre of my being!

That may sound incredibly self-obsessed but when an author of two volumes of nefarious memoirs find herself being hailed as a serious writer, one has to take the praise and run with it.

The premise of the novel is based on my experiences in the Spain of the 1960s with the world’s most famous bullfighter, Manuel Benitez 'El Cordobes'. I met him when I was working as the interpreter for two journalists writing his life story. I allowed him my virginity but to go on live TV and radio in Spain and speak about it in a foreign language to a goggle-eared public was daunting to say the least!

The ear of the title of this blog was thrown to me 45 years ago after an historic fight one brazen afternoon in 1965. For those who don’t know the finer points (and many of you will be too squeamish to care) when a matador has honoured his adversary with a noble death, they give him a trophy of the ears, tail or hooves of his bull. These he dispenses to the crowd.

As I stood there clapping till my palms burned, my Manolo winked at me broadly and swung the ear in my direction.

Here is an excerpt from my book - the character is Cassi Samuels, the matador is Rafael Romero 'El Macho' - both loosely based on himself and I.

“As if in slow motion, the severed appendage came flying through the air. People nearby jostled to reach it, but Cassi reacted quickly and caught it smartly in both hands like a clap. An explosion of fresh blood splattered across the front of her organdie top causing her to gasp as if she’d been stabbed.

Cassi looked down at first with horror, then with a creeping sense of pride. The irony was not lost on her: he’d spilt her maiden blood, but he’d replaced it with that of his nemesis. There was poetic justice in this, and in some indefinable way, it touched her as deeply as a blood brothers pact.

Her pretty blouse, like its occupant, had been branded as one of his possessions now, and she knew in that instant she would never wash it but would wear it with honour and if anyone wanted to know what the stains were, she’d bloody well tell them.

Cassi turned the amputated trophy over in her hand and stroked it affectionately. The black hair on the outside was long and coarse but on the inside the ear it was soft, fleshy and disturbingly, still warm. She said a silent thank-you to the brave beast who’d died so valiantly in her name and who’d sacrificed his life with such dignity and grace. . .”I know that bullfighting is seriously frowned upon in the UK, despite their love of fox-hunting... I happen to be a serious aficionada and I make no excuse for that. You either understand and approve of this element of the Iberian culture or you don’t.

And so the dried-out ear accompanied me on my book tour and has now appeared on a variety of TV chat shows all over Spain. Some people turned their noses up but others were fascinated.

I’m sure the ear enjoyed the attention. It has, after all, but stuck away in a box for some four decades waiting for its (second) moment in the sun.

And by the way, how many other women do you know who - as they say in Spain - 'opened their flower' to a bullfighter??

FAMILY AFFAIRS

A happy busy time just now as my 12-year old granddaughter Tatiana prepares her rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood. The ceremony followed by the inevitable Big Bash has been the sole topic of conversation for the past six months.

In the Jewish religion, a barmitzvah is when a boy turns 13, comes of age and becomes a man. The girls have jumped the gun, got on the bandwagon and are having theirs a year early at the age of 12.

Crumbling under the weight of filial pressure, my daughter and son-in-law have been mugged into having the most expensive party they can afford. I disapprove totally but cannot voice it. It's tradition, they say, like Christmas. It's commercial, I reply. Like Christmas.

Having already been invited to many other such parties, Tatiana returns home each time with fresh and ever more costly ideas:

"They had a tattoo artist! A belly dancing teacher! Goodie bags containing Gucci keyrings! A herd of performing elephants for each child to take home!"

And so the buzz words are: caterers, marquee, red carpet, dance floor, balloons, canapés, food stations, sushi chefs, mirror balls, microphones, cocktails, bouncers, dresses, shoes, hats, tights, hair and make-up.

And thousands and thousands of pounds being blown away on people who won't appreciate it nor even remember it the following day.

She's 12 for God's sake! When I was 12 I probably had 3 schoolfriends over for a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of jelly. And then maybe we played a game of Ludo.

Do I sound like a grumpy old woman? Possibly, but my poor daughter would rather have spent the money on a fabulous holiday that at least she too could have enjoyed.

Now don't get me wrong. I am looking forward to it. And I've bought myself a whole wardrobe full of new outfits. And I'm sure we'll all have a fantastic time. But all that money...it makes me want to weep.

I just hope Tatiana appreciates it. She has 2 younger sisters so we have to go through this whole thing again. Twice.

And then if we're lucky, there'll be 3 weddings hopefully before my funeral!

I refuse to be 'one of the grandmas' next weekend. I'm determined to get up to mischief of some sort. What do you reckon? One of the neighbour's sons? They're 26 and 28. And both cute. I'll keep you posted.

ROAD TO REDEMPTION

I love make-up and I love sex but what I love most is make-up sex.

I don’t mean rouging my nipples and painting my partner’s genitalia with lipstick and mascara, I mean getting it together again when you’ve been apart for a while.

Let me explain: having so upset my latest flame to the extent that he nearly went out, I feel it only fair to give him credit where it’s due.

The gentleman in question, whose knee so jerked when he became the subject of my blog “Is ‘Good’ Good Enough?” has crept back into my affections and redeemed himself in a rather pleasing way.

Now I don’t want to swell his pretty little raven-haired head any more than it is already (I am conscious as I write this that he is going to read it) but we had a rather fine reunion which definitely deserved an A-. OK. An A then. Alright, alright. An A+.

The very thing I commented on, or rather complained about last time, was the fact that we felt so comfortable with each other. This caused him to deduce that I was dissatisfied because there were ‘no fireworks’. He immediately concluded that there were none on his side either which was, of course, missing the point.

Fireworks are all very well but they burn out far too quickly. Harmony on several levels doesn’t.

We do seem reasonably compatible. Whether we had genuinely missed each other is for me to know and him to find out. And as for the comfort factor, how many people would you feel sufficiently at ease with to break off a hot humping session to talk about fried fish?!

I hasten to add that the segue between passion and battered seafood was not a reflection on the ambient odours surrounding us at the time.

It was, rather typically, a close encounter of the Jewish kind in which food must be mentioned, if not eaten, at all times.

We’re now apart for a week or so while I work on a writing project in Spain.

We’re texting.

It’s getting a bit saucy.

I like this a lot.

Out of sight is not necessarily out of mind. And absence can, in some cases, make the heart grow fonder.

Having said that, I fully expect this pleasant interlude not to last.

In my world, le plus ça change, le plus c’est la même chose...

AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH

Sometimes I wake up alone and sometimes I don’t. Last Sunday morning, for instance, I awoke in a single bed in an unfamiliar room surrounded by stuff that wasn’t mine.

Where am I? I wondered as I crawled up through the depths.

I went to the window and peeked out: a spectacular landscape thrilled my eyes - definitely not my usual view. Instead of the quiet communal gardens of my leafy London neighbourhood, a towering range of snow-capped mountains soared above me, the imposing majesty of Mont Blanc dominating the peaks like a great rock god.

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I was away on a ski trip staying in a beautiful chalet owned by some friends of a friend of mine. For someone who lives alone, waking up to happy clan of noisy people, lots of kids and a large, wet Labrador is a very different experience to that wot I am used to, but one to which I quickly warmed.

It felt like Christmas every morning as a mixed bag of bodies in various stages of undress wandered into the vast, beating heart of the house to help themselves to the copious choice of breakfast: freshly-made apple, carrot, beetroot and ginger juice (thanks Shaun!) hand-frothed cappuccinos, yogurts, cereals, breads, cheeses, jams, chutneys, last night's leftovers. And then we went off skiing. Or didn’t, depending on the weather and our mood.

The toyboy content during this break was rather thin on the ground. There's always the ski instructors, of course, but we all remember The Great Val d’Esire Massacre a couple of years ago, so poignantly documented in TBD2 'The Daily Male'. I decided not to go there again. I chose Megève instead.

Holidays are for kicking back and going with the flow – or in this case, the snow. I didn’t even work ... WELL I COULDN'T, COULD I, BECAUSE I’D LEFT MY LAPTOP ON THE PLANE! Can you believe that - me, whose laptop is an extension of my right hand, forgetting to put it back in my holdall when we landed in Geneva?!

And so it cowered, frightened and alone, under seat 9D, whimpering quietly to itself, wondering whether it had done something terribly wrong until an honest cleaner picked it up and handed it in at the airport's Lost Property where we were reunited on my return.

Although no fresh toyboys were added to my arsenal (the use of this word will no doubt jar with Mr. Is-Good-Good-Enough as he's a Spurs supporter) I did stick a few new irons in the fire. Some of them had marshmallows on the end as I’m rather partial to soft pink squidgy things especially when dipped in rich, dark, melted chocolate.

And apart from cuckoo clocks, fondue, yodelling and charming mountain villages nestling in the crisp white snow, the Swiss do excel in rich, dark, melted chocolate...

HE DUMPED ME!

He read my last blog, reckoned I was about to dump him and beat me to it! We had a couple of days respite when I kinda missed him - or maybe I just missed 'it' - then we started texting again.

He hasn't asked to see me and I haven't asked to see him. I've been away and really busy but I've no idea what's going on in his head and I'm not sure I really care. I suppose the fact that we're still in touch must indicate something but I'm not sure what. A slower letting go rather than sudden death, perhaps?

I think we got too easy too soon. But is this a fault? I was quite enjoying 'having someone' while certain in the knowledge he wasn't The One. There've been so many Ones over the past years, how will I recognize the next One anyway?!

What I did recognize was the fact that the romance ebbed away fairly quickly. I searched for it behind the sofa and under the bed but I couldn’t find it anywhere... and when he had the nerve to comment that I was ‘as comfortable as a pair of slippers’... Well! Really! What was a girl to do?

Romance is like fresh cream...it has a very short shelf life and goes off once you expose it to the light.

If you ask couples who've been together forever whether they’re still 'romantically' in tune, they may look at you rather quizzically as if they haven’t quite understood the question. It’s probably not something they care to ponder over, for if they did and the answers came back negative, it would open up enough cans of worms to stock a fishing tackle superstore.

Although being in a relationship does have its comfort zones, I never want to reach the point where my emotional life contains no rollercoaster rides, no passion, no drama, no excitement, no thrills and therefore no soaring highs and no crashing lows. All the things to which I am addicted...

It's such a shame that no matter how hard we try to preserve it, that delicious stomach-churning exhilaration that accompanies each new encounter seems to last no longer than a butterfly landing on our shoulder. Perhaps that's why one of my other addictions is 'firsts', because when the conversation dwindles down to a rather plebeian intercourse about the weather, work and what you've had for lunch, it's definitely time to pack up and go home.

So here I am swimming upstream again not sure if I'm headed towards a muddy maelstrom or about to float peacefully on a placid lake. Whichever it is, I shall enjoy the breast stroke as well as the crawl!

Old Romantic or New Romantic doesn't really matter as long as romance is present somewhere.

Off skiing next week so pray I don't break anything unless it's someone's heart.

IS 'GOOD' GOOD ENOUGH?

I'm still seeing him. I daren't count, but it must be what... seven weeks now? That’s a lifetime in my social world.

Living, as I do, by the 'No Expectations, No Disappointments' diktat, I always expect the next date, or even the next text, to be the last. But this...this... er...relation... – no, let's call it friendship - seems to be going on and on.

You see, we manage to connect on a variety of different levels: intellectually, comedically, nutritionally, religiously, and politically.

You might, however, have noticed that I've left out one very crucial connection in my description of our association: the element about which I am prone to crow, gush and blah on about loudly and explicitly most of the time.

So am I not commenting on it because it's so mind-blowingly-off-the-scale- fantabulastic that I don't want to share it with anyone but him and my "Whoops! they’re-on-the-floor-again" pillows, or am I resisting discussing the subject because frankly, although it's good, it's not quite good enough.

And if you connect on the former levels, how important is the latter? (Carrie Bradshaw moment...)

I walked out of my first marriage because everything was fine except the sex. I rushed into my second marriage because the sex was awesome and therefore unsustainable.

So what is really important in a relationship? A comfortable conglomerate, methinks.

If all you want to do is gnaw each other's flesh off but when you're sated you have nothing much to talk about, that ain't gonna work long-term, is it?

But if you drift towards the boudoir while still deep in conversation, does that mean you don't really fancy each other?

Current Squeeze and I have actually stopped mid-sexual stream to chat about something completely unrelated to the task at hand. Does this means our brains are not fully engaged in whatever our bodies are doing? Or does it mean that we are so homogenized that we can morph between thought and sensation in one seamless move?

For now, I shan’t question it any more. I’ll just enjoy it and go with the flow.

On a totally unrelated matter, I often wonder if I’m having more fun that my daughters. I certainly think I’m having more sex. They’re both married with 2.5 children so they’re hardly likely to be feeling flirty, flighty and fabulous wearing old track suit bottoms with a baby on each hip and a husband who’s turning the house upside down ‘cos he’s lost his keys again.

I, on the other hand, am swanning serenely about my apartment wearing nothing but some pink and black dental floss and a shpritz of Chanel no. 5 behind each ear, sipping champagne from a crystal flute while waiting for my paramour to call.

It wasn’t always like this. I, too, was once a harassed housewife but I paid my dues, survived the tricky years and earned my freedom.

And best of all, I still feel good.

So yes, for now 'good' is definitely good enough.

THE SIX DATE RULE

A girlfriend once told me - so it must be true - that you should Never Ever sleep with anyone before you’ve dated them at least six times. They’ll think you’re a slut and you’ll never hear from them again.

“Six dates?!” I gulped gargling into my Chardonnay. SIX DATES? That could be Six Weeks? Or Six Months? And if you’re gagging for it, you’ll want to jump him in Six Minutes. And if you’re not, Six Years would still be too soon.

So what is the theory behind this so-called Six Date Rule which, according to Google, doesn’t even exist?

It’s a lure, innit. Treat ‘em mean and all that tosh. Keep ‘em on a promise. Insinuate everything and give away nothing. But can this kind of behaviour not backfire? Blokes do have a rather low attention span and unless they’re extremely keen on buying you endless dinners and getting precious little but a peck and a thank you in return, they may get bored and go looking elsewhere.

From my vast and varied experience, chemistry, unlike photography, does not develop. It’s either there or it isn’t in the first nanosecond of setting eyes on someone. And if chemistry is present, it is human nature and animal instinct to want to explore it further, which usually involves ripping each other’s clothes off a lot sooner than after six dates.

There is, however, the deliciously tantalizing aspect of anticipation. For once you’ve crossed the line, you’ll never enjoy that heady innocent maybe again.

I’m currently engaged in observing the Six Date Rule, more by circumstance than design. Being unable to invite him home due to building works has become a form of self-preservation.

Date 1: Meet for lunch. Check each other out in broad daylight. Tick.

Date 2: Dinner in expensive restaurant. Good conversation. Snog in car. Tick.

Date 3: Cinema and snack after. Longer snog in car. Big Tick.

Date 4: Supper and Scrabble in nearby wine bar. Works nearly finished. Bit of wriggle on the freshly-Hoovered sofa.

Date 5: Theatre and dinner. School night so can’t be late.

Date 6: I’m cooking for him on Valentine’s Night. This might be it...