HAPPY NEW YEAR!

No NYC New Year for me, we are spending it in Utah.  'Life elevated' is the motto on the Utah sign and I can't think of a better Resolution for 2011. This year I intend to try and elevate the lives of everyone in mine. I want to give back, give better, help, preserve and maintain life in all it's manifestations.
Blessed be the Great Mother of Heaven and Earth, peeps! XXX

KIPPLE DRAWER DIVORCE

2 ALMOST EMPTY kipple drawers
(kipple = Martin Amis word for drawer miscellany)

NEWSFLASH: The Real (British) Husband of New York has surreptitiously emptied my kipple drawers.

When? I don't know but his ears were sticking out at a particularly angry angle on Saturday so I think it must have happened then, when I went round to Hot & Crusty. He must have been quick though, because I was only gone for five minutes. Plus this must mean that he also emptied the bin in that time - OMIGOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM? He never, ever empties the bin despite my notices on the wall above it.

On the other hand, the dustbins for floor 11 live outside our kitchen door so he could have opened the drawers, removed them, emptied the contents directly into the outside dustbin, then speedily replaced the drawers. However, that would have taken some planning. How long was he planning his kipple raid for I wonder? Who else, if anyone, knew? He showed no signs to me and I am trained, that he was planning a kipple raid. No obvious signs that is, other than the sticking out, angry ears and slightly raised eye-brows.

I truly admire the temerity of a man, who has been heavily warned about ever touching a kipple drawer again in his life (five years ago), who would then empty more than one during the week before Christmas. A week when I have hardly seen him at all, yet bought, wrapped and prepared everything for a Christmas with his family. It takes the kind of guts that I didn't even know he had. Rest assured, I will be testing these guts to their very core this afternoon when I proceed in an orderly direction directly to his office. There, I will assist his secretary with straightening up his office pre-Christmas and empty all 25 of his kipple drawers into the bins on the 43rd floor. Not before I have irritably questioned him about the location of the radiator key for the upstairs bathroom though, normally a crucial part of kipple drawer emptying - syndrome.

Happy Holidays!

FUR WARS

All I'm saying is - she looks amazing...

The fur debate rages on. I LOVE that Carine Roitfeld, while openly hating handbags, is happy to wear fur. A don't-care attitude is crucial for the truly creative. For the rest of us, who must dwell in the school-child-going, friend/relation-not offending, conscience prickling world, the don't-care attitude is hard to achieve.  I'm a deep admirer of genuinely bohemian, creative folk, rich or poor. My boundaries are too entrenched in 'normal' to not care but hats off to those who dare.

La Carine's detestation of the handbag is an open secret in the fashion world, now all over the web. The Bag Industry is huge and yet, while you can't argue with a Balenciaga Lariat, most of everything else is getting tawdry, embarrassing and ultra-revealing of too much wannabe in the wearer.  Don't worry, I'm lamenting this as much as the folk at Louis Vuitton. Heaven knows Style would be a lot easier to accrue if you could buy it for $5000 a pop in Barneys.  Fashion insiders know you can't though.

One of the most stylish people I know, a trend forecaster and mini-fashion-icon in her own world has NEVER owned a designer handbag.  Yet I also admire the whole idea of buying new, hand-crafted or gorgeous things if you've worked hard for the money to pay for them. Fashion is such a complex beast with so many faces...from the Kardashian-inspired Bling-ette to uptown Annas, perfect Gwyneth and Alexa-style shoppers and Chanel-loving popstars, there is not a lot of originality in such looks. Instead, fashion insiders lead from within by stealth. Throwing out handbags, giving up jobs, wearing naughty things and just not caring at all. I love that.....

MY PEOPLE LIST

The New York Observer has published it's Hot 150 New Yorkers list today.  Includes all the usual suspects, Mayor Bloomberg, Steve Schwartzman, Rupert Murdoch etc.. In the spirit of the season, here, in no particular order, is a list of people I will still be interested in, in 2011. There are tons of others but this lot spring to mind:
Jack Dorsey
Scott (Charitywater)
Stacey Bendet (Alice & Olivia)
Tina Brown
Lady Gaga
Tina Fey
Kanye West
Jay Z &Beyonce
Sarah Jessica Parker
Tory Burch
Bradley Cooper and Renee Z
The Clintons
Arianna Huffington
Stephanie Winkoff
Glenda Bailey
Kirsten Gillibrand
Cathie Black
DVF
Jon Stewart
Susan D Plagemann
MORE TO COME......

TAN-BAN

Perhaps it's just as well I've been banned from my bikini forever.....

A nasty mole scare (skin, not hairy little grass-pusher-uppers) means my sun-bathing days are gone. Before my kids can truly celebrate though, I must warn everyone that I will simply become a fake baker and plan to carry on in my bikini, willy-nilly, until the end of my days. I must be an exhibitionist because I just don't care what I look like in my bikini. The only place I would never, ever wear one is here in New York City and luckily, there's just absolutely no call for them at all. In fact, even Gisele Bundchen would look a bit ridiculous strolling down Bleeker in her bikini - you and me both, eh Giselle!!

So now I must master the art of fake tanning properly...I love a tan and even through winter I am a 'funny yellow colour' according to my dear Mutha. That's because I use enough fake tan every day to achieve that jaundiced look I love. However, next summer I am going to need the full tandoori. Never had any success at all with this, though close fashiony friends who do, always look amazing. It can't be that difficult to get an artificial tan these days, can it? Don't tell me to be pale, I am a grim Northerner with nothing much to offer physically. Brought up in the 70s, as I've told my therapist a million times, a tan equals Liz Taylor, Mike Baldwin and the Jet Set. I want one and I can never change.

By the way, sorry about the state of world politics, eco-systems and all the Important Horror in the world. I care deeply about all this stuff. However, this blog is devoted to the blah blah side of life. I hope you'll feel like me,  that your own little wibbles and wobbles are just that and everyone of us, able to read this blog, where-ever we are, are probably bluddy darn lucky. Honestly, it's exhausting trying not to swear on here but I'm scared my posts will get stuck if I do. Suffice to say, in real life, I probably wouldn't use a word like 'darn', other than to say to RBH when he's rummaging through the kipple drawer for a needle, 'People no longer darn socks, buy some new ones you snugly-fitted-clothed person Alf Garnett might not like'. xxx

RUNWAY NIGHTS (snow joke)

Snow and airports - an unhappy combination

Awoken this morning by the glare of RBH (Real British Husband)'s i-pad. "No flights coming out of UK today, it's snowing badly". Since moving to NYC we've become a little bit obsessed with flying weather conditions around the world. "No-one's going anywhere today in Japan" he says "Though that hurricane is over in Uzbekistan.."

About this time last year we set off for JFK on a wintery afternoon for a night flight back to the UK. At 4pm there were a few snow flurries but by 6.30pm, our take off time, it was coming down heavily. We boarded our flight, pushed off from the gate and headed out towards the runway. Then we slowed down as thick snow seemed to bury the plane. In fact, that's what happened and after 30 minutes of battling towards the runway the pilot just had to stop.  There we stayed. For 12 hours. The crew served all the meals, ran all the entertainment but at 4a.m they just took themselves off duty. 'We're going off duty now' said one, helpfully, when I asked for a drink of water. 'You can have water while we've got it but it's by request only, we're not offering it.'  Meanwhile,  parents with toddlers and babies were openly sobbing more loudly than their kids and people's moods changed from grim acceptance to defiance. Naturally I led the 'Get us off' campaign but nothing could be done. You're about 30 feet off the ground (made that figure up but it sounds right, the beauty of t'internet) in a jumbo so you can't just get out. It occurred to me to just storm the emergency exit when the crew weren't looking and lead everyone out down the chute. My immediate family refused to accompany me so I abandoned that plan and in the end just sat in my seat with a permanent case of Wife Face. Wife Face is the facial expression you see on wives in traffic queues or supermarket car parks, sometimes in petrol stations. It's a look that combines blinding boredom with abject misery, resignation and irritation. Wife Face, why not try it out?

ANYWAY, I am bored now so you must be asleep...for those still awake we finally got off that plane at 7 a.m the next morning. Holding passengers hostage like this is now no longer allowed by the way. Our nightmare happened the day before a new 4-hour limit law was passed in the USA. We eventually got to the UK four days later but I vowed we would not bother this year.  So glad. We would have set off today and sure-as-s---t, no planes are taking off or landing in England due to snow this time.  I am feeling very sad and sorry for a number of close friends currently stranded on both sides of the Atlantic but am also smugly lying in bed with my laptop.  So sad not to be spending Christmas with my darling sis but so glad not to be stranded at the mercy of British Airways and the weather goddesses. At least, not today..........

Good luck and warm, hopeful thoughts to all who are xxx

HIDING FROM THE CATERERS

(Well done all Zoolander fans for spotting the Magnum in the above pic - Z2 soon, yay!)

We are having a party this evening in our very small apartment for a number of Hubby's colleagues...I've moved all our furniture back so the place looks like the Scout Hall before the disco kicks off.  However, there are now so many caterers in the place that Poppy and I can't move. Therefore, we have both retreated to her basket in our tiny study where we will huddle silently, giggling occasionally and sharing her water bowl until it's safe to come out. There are large gay men who are nice but domineering, a United Nations cast of extras and some people with German accents. Things can only improve....

More later ! xxxx