May 26, 2005

  • Neville is a master of strange evenings.  I'm not quite sure how he does it, or even what he is.  Apart from on the beguiling side.  He would make a wonderful boyfriend if a. I fancied him and b. he weren't old enough to be my father...


    So, I hurtle out of the flat, leaving my bedroom looking like a whirlwind has just torn through, and leaving messages here, there, and everywhere on various phones.  Note to self.  Leaving messages works better if you don't try and leave them at the same time as trying to get changed.  Focus is required.   (look, on the one day I left my phone at home, I had four text messages and a voicemail.  I never get phoned at work, and rarely get texted.  And all these messages left me feeling terribly guilty).  Arrive at the Groucho club early, and footle round Soho for a bit.  Consider buying a book, the name of which completely escapes me at this point.  Something to do with glamourous bombshells.  Find two of Neville's friends, and realise with some approbation that I'm almost young enough to be their daughter, and I'm certainly young enough to be the child of the other couple.  Oh well.  They were all lovely; and I didn't lose that much from being the only person there who can't remember what it's like to go to a cinema where people are smoking.  In we bounce.  Neville bounces in soon after, and is immediately talking to everyone.  For some strange reason, his shirt zips up horizontally as well as buttoning vertically.  He introduces me to the chap who co-wrote Karma Chameleon with Boy George, name of whom I didn't catch and totally forget.  This chap has a limp handshake (but mine's not much better, and I'm still in a state of slight panic).


    The food was ultra yummy.  Yumminess unsurpassed, and only one item on the menu was wheaty.  So, I had carpaccio of beef, and monkfish on a herby risotto with asparagus (oooh.  Green pee tomorrow!) and divine, but divine oh-god-it-was-so-good-and-sticky honeycomb ice cream with hot chocolate sauce.  "Are you safe with this?  Madam, you will need security officers, to fend off those who wish to steal it from you!"  We also had the most incredibly fun maitre d'.  He was fantastic.  Funny, and knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, and all such good things.


    Reiterated several times to Neville during the evening that I had never been to the Groucho Club.  I do not move in that sort of circle.  More's the pity.  I like these private dining clubs - Blacks, if you remember that far back, was also excellent.  And, the advantage of tonight was that I did not have twenty-four hours or so in which to get completely and utterly wound up about it all.  Although, being informed that I should wear something sexy was not the most helpful answer to 'what shall I wear?'


    Then onto the club, in Walker's Court, which is that bit in Soho that has a faux bridge of Sighs and is full of hookers and confused looking American tourists wearing plaid shorts and white socks.  It was Raymondo's @ Too2Much, and we were sat right in front of the stage.  Lord knows how Neville seems to know absolutely everyone (his phone book is simply bulging), but there we were.  Right at the front.  Touching the stage.  Several rows in front of (please avert your eyes if you are going to be offended by blatent name dropping but, honestly, I have to take these opportunities when I get them) Sting and Trudie Styler.


    It was truly excellent.  There were two guys dressed in red bondage gear singing silly songs.  Nina Conti and her Monkey (saw them at Glastonbury, still funny on the third viewing).  Johann Lippowitz (good God, it was like nothing I have ever seen before), this incredibly tiny woman who hula-hooped six hoops simultaneously and, could make one go up and one go down and have two going in the middle at the same time (and she did a strip tease - you can see the hula hoop bit on the website, but not the strip tease.  It's perfectly safe.), and some incredible viral films, including that Bush-and-Blair one, "Read My Lips" and a really funny one about German fork lift truck drivers...  Then there was a strange man with a guitar, and an interesting Klezmer band.  We left at that point.  It was nearly midnight.  I want a hula hoop now.  Neville thinks that the Esps ought to dance there (it's a paying gig, so why not?!)


    And a bath.


    And ten hours sleep in less than seven.


    Hmmm.


    I'll work on the bath first, and take it from there, I think.


    xxx