AN OLYMPIAN GAFFE?

I've come to the Edinburgh Festival to escape the Olympics.  I booked this months ago when the Games were, to my mind, an irritating inconvenience.  As a non sport-loving Londoner, all I could envisage was my city being stolen from me.  Little did I realise how much I'd enjoy it.

Anyway, can't help that now: train and apartment booked and paid for, so here I am.  On my own. 

Unlike Greta Garbo, I don't actually vant to be alone.  As I alight from the train, I feel weird.  I've been here many times, always with a crowd of friends.  I know my way around so that's not the problem; the problem seems to be that everyone else is 'with a crowd of friends'.

I settle into the apartment, which is well located, and hit the streets.  It's 7.30 p.m. and I'm hungry.  I go to M&S and do a food shop which feels normal but not in a good way.  I walk down Rose Street looking for a place to eat but everywhere is full of couples clinking, poring over programmes, jovially jabbering. There's a fair amount of jabbering going on in my head - like WTF are you doing here?  It's the first night of the Festival for Crissakes - I should be partying in the SpiegelTent!  But (cue violins) I'm all alone...


The carrier bags make me feel a bit more local but I fail to find anywhere I fancy.  I don't want to eat in a pub and I don't want to eat at Le Petit Posh.  I'm here for 2 weeks.  If I spend a minimum of £30 a day on food, I'll go broke. 

A couple of solo men walk past and I quell the urge to grab them by the lapels and beg them to have dinner with me.  Not the women, you'll notice! Then I reason that men walking on their own are probably sad weirdos.  After all, who in their right minds would want to be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival without their crowd of friends?!

I smile at a busker.  He ignores me, but in fairness, his eyes are closed.  I wish I could play guitar so I too could busk.  That, at least, would give me something constructive to do.  Eventually I stop at a Cafe Rouge and order soup and a salad.   The waiter is cute.  I consider asking him what time he gets off.

The dinner revives me.  I take the shopping home then go back out again.  I buy a ticket for a show called Fat Whore.  She is. That makes me feel better. 

I'm sure I'll be fine: an erstwhile toyboy of mine, Mark Restuccia, has a show called How to Succeed at Internet Dating. Another friend, Spencer Maybe, performs as a male Burlesque artist.  I'm having lunch with one of the Fringe organisers next week and start my daily reportage to italkfm.com on Monday.  I'm looking for new talent for BBC London.  The Book Fair starts soon...

In 7 days time, my crowd of friends arrive but meanwhile, I can always stay in my flat and watch the Olympics on TV, uninterrupted and happily alone...

THE LONGEST SHOW ON EARTH!

I wonder if any of the popular press are going to have the guts to say that quite a lot of the Opening Ceremony was a complete mess?  Or is Danny Boyle going to get an instant knighthood just because he created a programme of British whimsy with flashes of brilliance marred by trying to cram too much in?

The Industrial Revolution scenes were inspired as the smoke stacks from dark satanic mills rose belching from beneath the ground.  The James Bond/HM/helipcopter sequence was highly amusing.  The Mr. Bean episode was hilarious.  Even the NHS bit wasn't too bad but then it all started to go horribly wrong. 

A cacophony of modern music blared forth with great groups of seemingly random dancers prancing about all over the place texting each other.  Was that meant to be cool or what we used to call modern?  I remember the Chinese with their rigid, regimented lines and jaw-dropping aerial acrobats.  I remember the Catalans with their insanely grotesque though fascinating figures and I know they were a tough act to follow. 

But Danny, darling, less is more!  And you chose not to showcase what we Brits do best: pomp, ceremony, circumstance and pageantry.  I know we've just had all that with the Jubilee, but if we had the Red Arrows again, why couldn't we have had the Horseguards or the Busbys or a Coronation Coach or two?   So colourful, rousing and quintessentially British.

I don't think the Queen appreciated hearing the Sex Pistols or Prodigy - I know I didn't.  And at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old woman, yes, we've always been at the vanguard of popular music but Paul, Paul, Paul sweetie: next time you're asked to sing live, just say you're washing your hair that night.  Let us remember you the way you were.

Beckham was Beautiful. The Fireworks were Fabulous. The Torch was Tremendous. And the 16,000 athletes from 204 countries are what it's all about.

So can we please now get on with it so it can all be over and we can get back to normal and I can drive through the West End and go about my business without having to fret about whether I'm going to get a £130 fine for traversing one of those blessed lanes?  And all those sodding dignatories who've caused major disruption in our fair city can buzz off back from whence they came and give us Londoners back our London. (On the plus side, however, there will be lots of muscly men in tight Lycra to watch so Bring Them On!)

Good luck athletes!  And good effort, Boyle but maybe rein it in a bit next time.

50 SHADES OF SHUT IT!

If one more person says to me: "You could have written that - and better!" I shall have to thump them. "You think I don't know that?" I reply between gritted teeth.

It's like standing in the Royal Academy in front of a white canvas with a black dot in the middle that's been highly acclaimed by the (f)Art World as a tour de force.

The point about: "I could have done that..." is that you didn't. Someone else did and yes, I'm jealous as hell and want to scratch her eyes out then get hold of her credit card and pin number.

The zeitgeist of what's hot, what's not, what's coolish and what's foolish is that you just never know. Maybe 50 Shades of Beige - A Fashion Guide for the Dullhamshire Ladies Guild - would sell like hot cakes. But would I compromise my writing integrity and bash out a sleazy piece of shit-lit just to make a squillion quid? YES I WOULD.

As most writers of soft porn will tell you, it's not easy to get it right. Legs have to be placed just so, ditto, lips, hips, sighs and thighs. Good sex scenes are best expressed with a mélange of eroticism and vaguery. This is titilation not do-it-yourself gynaecology.

So no, in case you're wondering, I have not and will not read 50SOG. I downloaded a free sample onto my Kindle just to see what all the fuss was about and only because I value my e-reader did I not lob it against the wall.

And so I continue my struggle to write well while a fairly large part of me wishes I wrote less well but more lucratively!

KOLKATA - contd.

My reunion with Dominique was as effusive as it was emotional. He’d been 34 when I’d last set eyes on him. Now 80 he seemed as fit and enthusiastic as ever as he introduced me to my co-Kolkatans, journalists and humanitarians from all over the world: an economist from Italian newspaper La Repubblica, a features writer from Vanity Fair, a fiscal lawyer from Milan, an philanthropic entrepreneur from Amsterdam, a news reporter from Switzerland, charity workers from the Napa Valley, a French documentary maker, a Spanish film crew – fine and motley one and all.


On Day One, we breakfast early and leave the hotel in a convoy of bone-rattling mini-buses. The scenery has not improved since yesterday and just beyond the city centre, the road runs out of tarmac. The bus bumps in and out of potholes big enough to bath in, shaking our diverse group into a cultured cocktail. In the absence of seatbelts, we hang on for dear life. The aircon vents in the roof begin to leak, dripping water onto those seated below. We accommodate as best we can. Soon the actual road runs out leaving only dirt track.

We weave on for miles through villages and shanty towns . . . om shanti, shanti, shanty. Industry in the form of headboard-carvers, palm-frond choppers and cauliflower vendors line the dusty way. Water buffalo amble along en route to who knows where.

As we approach our first stop, ICOD: The Interreligious Centre of Development deep in the heart of West Bengal, posters tacked to tree trunks and telegraph pole welcome Dominique Dada and his wife, Dominique Didi - Big Brother and Big Sister.

In the 1980s, the Lapierres journeyed to Calcutta to meet and research the life and work of Mother Teresa. The experience moved them so profoundly, they felt compelled to get involved and since then, through tireless fund-raising and the donation millions of dollars of his personal royalties, Dominique has build up a network of schools, clinics, hospital ships and rehabilitation centres to cure, care for and educate those children who would otherwise have perished from poverty, malnutrition and diseases long since eradicated in the West.

Our buses pull up and out we spill into the blinding sunlight. We are immediately surrounded and swept along to the beat of a band of drums. A troupe of young male stilt-walkers dressed in red dhotis dance around us. Firecrackers explode in the air; jets of crazy foam rain down on our coiffures. Brightly-clad women and children shower us with flower petals. Others rush forward and bedeck our necks with garlands of sunny marigolds.

The welcome is overwhelming. Mr & Mrs Dominique Lapierre are regarded as Saints. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2008, the highest civilian accolade in India. Their arrival, and ours it seems, is viewed as a great honour.

Babes in arms sporting charcoal bindis on their temples to ward off the evil eye stare at us with curiosity. Little girls in traditional dress blink shyly with their kohl-encircled eyes. Some reach out to touch our pallid Western skin. Ashamedly, I pull away, wiggling a wave instead. I’m ignorant, uncertain, unsure how to behave. If I’m honest, I’m afraid of catching something...

The local women hold their hands together in prayer position and bow their heads, greeting us with ‘Namaste’ and ‘Namaskar’. I know Namaste from my yoga class but Namaskar?

I bow to God in you; I love you and respect you as there is no one like you.

Wow! I feel totally unworthy. I have donated nothing except my presence to this trip. I live a gilded life of luxury and excess. I know nothing of their hardship, nothing of their plight. So I too lower my head in humility and guilt. Maybe I shouldn’t have flown Business Class after all. Some of the ladies in our group dab tears from their eyes.

KOLKATA contd....

I awake from a restless sleep punctuated by men snoring and babies crying. Sitting forward in my seat, I peer out of the window. The horizon is on fire: a dazzling curve of flame sandwiched between the darkness and the dawn. Beneath us, spread out like an old embroidered carpet, lies the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire: India! At last!

We disembark into the dirtiest airport I’ve ever seen. The once-white marble is grey with grime, the walls splattered and stained, the floors filthy with food and coffee spills. Flying insects buzz about. A moth the size of a sparrow flaps past my face. I duck in terror and beat my hands about my head, suddenly afraid to breathe. What other horrors lurk in this fetid air? Will I catch cholera, typhoid, dengue fever? My first Calcutta cramp heralds a bout of Delhi belly, confirming my stomach’s total disregard for geography.

I exit through immigration into a heaving horde of humanity. An onslaught of sweat and spices assaults my nostrils. Meeters and greeters swell forward straining to find their arrivees. They wave and call out in Hindu and Bengali. Behind them, buses and taxis hoot impatiently as they try to navigate the stragglers who’ve spilled into the road. Goats graze indifferently alongside old men crouching on their haunches against the terminal building chewing betel leaves and smoking bidis.

I peer at the hand-written name cards but none of them bears mine. A mild panic besets me, then there, amongst the mêlée, like an oasis in the desert, stand a regiment of beaming, white-clad drivers bearing boards. The comforting logo of the Oberoi Grand Hotel beckons me like a long-lost lover as my name hoves into view. Take me home, Shankar, I mutter, and allow myself to be guided towards the air-conditioned car.

The journey from the airport is sphincter-clenching. I can’t work out which side of the road they drive on as they appear to use all the lanes at once. Knackered old buses with passengers hanging off the roofs, motorbikes a-wobble with entire families, cyclos, taxis, trams, trucks, tuk-tuks, rickshaws - all hurtle towards each other in a dance of Destination Death.

Road signs advise: Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow and Take Your Time Not Your Life. When my driver goes over his third red light, I ask tremulously: “Isn’t that a bit dangerous?” to which he laughs jovially and replies:

“Oh no, Madame. Red light is only a suggestion.”

As we approach the city centre, a modern monolith or two rises up out of the gutters which house huddles of rag-clad beggars. Beneath a flyover flying nowhere, a market has been set up selling cracked toilet cisterns, sections of old piping, scrap metal, rusty chains.

A dead dog lies in the road, its entrails spilling out, inviting anyone peckish enough to sample its bloody buffet: Come Die With Me.

The driver points proudly to the Victoria Memorial looming out of the early morning mist. Standing in a lush green garden, it bears testament to the long gone Days of the Raj and the supremacy of its ruler, Queen Victoria, Empress of India and all her dominions.

Eventually we arrive at the wrought-iron gates of the Grand Hotel and enter this hallowed enclave which, as the week progresses, becomes a haven of calm and karma from the madness of the street.

KOLKATA - The City That Never Sweeps.

Calcutta! What sensuous energy does this name evoke? Maharajas riding painted elephants. Tiffin wallahs serving British Officers on colonial club lawns. Dark exotic beauties with jasmine in their hair. . .

Forget all that. It’s called Kolkata now and it’s a drab, decaying bag lady of a place behind whose tragic eyes – if you look hard enough - still burn the dying embers of an old remembered flame.

And yet this savage city is still able to seduce, to draw you in and clutch you against her pounding breast.

At first glance, everything seems hopeless – broken down, bashed up and busted. Great mountains of garbage litter the streets, picked over by dogs, cats, vermin and, pitifully, children. Amidst this detritus, the street people live, families of pavement dwellers who gather beneath flyovers and on sidewalks with nowhere else to go. They’re not ‘homeless’ as we know it – the street is their home.

And yet they live with dignity, rising at dawn from their concrete mattresses to perform the holy ritual of cleanliness. There, at any nearby standpipe, they wash themselves with diligence, brushing their teeth and scrubbing their clothes in the abundant waters from the annual monsoon rains.

When it was first suggested I visit Kolkata, I politely declined. I’d always longed to travel through India but saw myself more suited to the marble palaces of romantic Rajasthan. The purpose of the trip proved irresistible however - to meet a man I’d worked with when I was just 19, the prolific author Dominique Lapierre whose epic masterpiece The City of Joy documenting life in the slums of Calcutta was translated into 31 languages and made into a film starring Patrick Swayze.

I’d first met Dominique and his co-author Larry Collins in Spain in the 1960s. Whilst researching and interpreting …or I’ll Dress You in Mourning, the biography of the iconic bullfighter Manuel Benítez ‘El Cordobés’, I was flung into a relationship with the charismatic matador. Now, 46 years later, here was my ex-boss offering to introduce me to yet another world.

In the early 1980s, Dominique Lapierre and his wife journeyed to Calcutta to meet Mother Teresa. The experience moved them so profoundly, they felt compelled to help the under-privileged children of West Bengal. These tiny scraps of humanity perished by the thousand, victims of malnutrition, poverty and diseases almost eradicated in the Western world.

The City of Joy Aid Organisation was founded as a non-profit making humanitarian project dedicated to rescuing, rehabilitating, educating and ameliorating all those little lives. By donating millions of dollars of his personal royalties, Dominique’s altruism and that of his supporters has created a network of clinics, schools, hospital boats and rehabilitation centres so that children who would otherwise have died of leprosy, tuberculosis and malaria, or grown up blind or crippled by polio could learn to read, write, walk, talk, play football and best of all, smile.

My mood as I packed for the trip was ‘flapprehensive’. Travelling alone, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that the term ‘city of joy’ was probably an irony, and as I locked my front door and left the luxury of my home, I was already looking forward to unlocking it on my return.

NOT MY MOTHER RUSSIA

“In an uncertain world, all things are ‘usually...’”

So said our guide on our first morning in Moscow in response to the question: “Is it usually this cold in November?”

He followed this philosophy with another Russian gem:

“Take wodka on waking then you von’t have to vorry all day what time to have your first drink.”

Russia has always held a macabre fascination for me. Both sets of grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants chased out by the Bolsheviks in the late 1800s during the pogroms. One uncle was thrown in the Volga with rocks tied round his ankles. Another was cut off in his prime by marauding horsemen wielding sabres. No ‘Mother Russia’ gathered my family unto her breast and so they dispersed in the diaspora to Buenos Aires, Brooklyn and Bayswater. Yet here I was returning to the land of my forefathers.

I’m not sure what I expected of Moscow but it wasn’t what I expected. I’d seen the footage of grey-coated, fur-hatted armies marching across a snow-brushed Red Square while grim-faced generals took the salute. I knew about the poverty and deprivation, families living ten to a room with barely a bowl of barley soup between them. I’d heard of dissidents being tortured by the KGB and youngsters yearning for a simple pair of jeans. But when Communism collapsed, Moscow went West to bring bling to the people.

Moscow is the capital of the world’s biggest country, the beating heart of European Russia. The architecture is a fusion of splendour and austerity: affluence in the shape of ornate Belle Époque classicism battling for supremacy over inevitable Cold War concrete. Lavish cathedrals with golden cupolas stand serenely in the shadow of thick set apartment blocks. Flashy shop fronts house French and Italian franchises; restaurants serve Asian Fusion cuisine and late-night Karaoke bars proclaim the shaking off of state-imposed imperialism.

The centre is spotless; wide avenues called ‘Prospekts’ are lined with grand baroque buildings reeking of Tsarist times. Dark forbidding structures in which 007, 8 and 9must surely have been interrogated seem less sinister with a branch of McDonald’s at street level.

Our agenda for Day One offered a City Tour but it omitted the word ‘walking’. The implied coach, minibus or private car was, in fact, Sergei, on time and on foot. We set off into the cold crisp morning ill-equipped against the Siberian wind that whistled through our very bones within minutes of leaving the overheated comfort of the National Hotel.

The pavements around the Kremlin are kept pristine by a militia of lady cleaners diligently disposing of every stray fag end, waste paper or leaf that dares to fall. One of them was beating the hell out of a tree so her co-worker could rake up the remnants and cart them away. Autumn and its attendant untidiness is not welcome here...


To be continued...