20 December 2008

Gobble gobble nibble nipple



Image courtesy of Flavia, who has been researching her forthcoming tableau role (see below) with GUSTO and COMMITMENT. Let her be an example to you all...

15 December 2008

Calendar girls



It’s very cold here in Milan. The nights are long. Tots and I have therefore taken to passing the time by making our own fun. In the manner of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, we open a bottle of wine after dinner and settle down to composing philosophical treatises of a literary bent. How we love to bicker over particularly difficult phrasing, or to argue furiously over the precise meaning of a word, furiously smoking unfiltered Gitanes and shrugging our shoulders, gesticulating wildly as we make our points.

Errr…. The wine and the fags remain extant. But our literary endeavours are a little less highbrow than those of the Sartre-De Beavoir household. And usually take the form of composing lengthy lists of future frolics to be had.

So. Here’s the latest. We have decided that 2008/9 is the year of the TABLEAUX. To be posed and shot in Maremma 30 Dec – 4 Jan. And then flogged on the internet in the manner of Women’s Institute/Pirelli calendars thus making much needed £££.

January – Jackie O


Log fire. Fur coats. Jackie O spex. Louche lounging on white leather pouffe to frame a naked and glistening (with home pressed olive oil, natch) Thomasina von Falconbury. A’s head to tastefully obscure genitalia.

February – Fags


Disco dollies. Studio 54 (memo to self: ask Germans over the road for white horse). Campari. Crostino. Cocaine. Cigarettes. Cox.

March – Matilde


Re-enactment of Matilde di Canossa’s wedding banquet. Flavia to play Matilde, naked on kitchen table, garnished with sushi. Little J poised to nibble nip. Maude frenzied and lactating.

April – Asino d’Oro


A Romanesque lavish feast of excess. Think togas, think centaurs, think wine. Think vomitoria. Think acqueducts.

May – Moses

A still life of God’s most beautiful-slash-horrendous (depending on sexual preference and point of view) creation. Olive tree on fire with female participation in widespread positions. Volunteers welcome.

June – Juana La Loca


Spanish Inquisition meets the Spanish courts. Dwarves (Catherine and Heidi). El Greco-inspired priests (Albert and Luigi), crucifixes, wax, rosaries, auto de fe, auto fellatio. Torquemada. Rioja as beverage of choice, slash light sherry post crucifixion. Tapas.

July – Jason and the Argonauts


Sheep! Tom! Tots! Baaaaa! All run naked in direction of pecorini, tossing baby human hither and thither (memo to self: conceive IMMEDIATELY, pref. male. Sacrifice is worth it for Art.)

August – Arty Filth

Re-enactment of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Renaissance romps in Carthan setting (guest appearance: Elena). Swirling fog, moody music, flagons of mead, bare-chested Tom riding big black stallion (memo to self: paint Alberto black). Food: sausage

September – Swedish design


Heidi in plaits. A Viking re-enactment of discovering the New World. Think Pocahontas meets Brunnhilde in hot-tub. Mooses, smorgasbord (wedding banquet sushi recycled), smoked salmon, Sven and cosy knitwear. Slash 1970s catalogues. Slash Ikea.

October – The Osbornes


A goth-fest of drug-induced self-delusions of grandeur. Maude to play family dogs. Dave to play Ozzie. Annalisa to play Annalisa. Michelle to play Kelly’s lesbian lover. Everyone to play air guitar. Sausage on menu here too.

November – Necrophilia and Nuts

First: bury Marcella in shallow grave.
Second: run for the hills
Third: exhume body before it starts to smell
Fourth: portray Pieta. Alberto to hold. Some talc required
Menu: chestnuts

December – Dirty Dogs


Cruella de Vil in a Disney deranged setting. Maude to star. Hideous hounds from next door to suffer. Doggy style at all times. Hound of the Baskervilles as star appearance. Dog sausage on menu. Leashes all round.

We expect full participation and Compulsory Fun. Everyone to bring costumes and props. Profits to be shared by all.

05 December 2008

Dilemma of the week

Well. We're all at it these days, aren't we? Rushing from meeting to meeting being busy and important. Saving the world from financial collapse. Penning articles about the state of the nation. I was struck with awe at The Quiet American's provocative piece on Obama and thought it only fair to share with you my own musings on my own topic of specialisation: myself.

I have spent the entire week huddled in my beloved spiritual home, The British Library, sweating lightly over pitches to the press. These days I have a publicist, whose job it is to get people to buy copies of The Novel. This involves me writing articles for Sunday supplements about my life. Be brutally honest, they say. Reveal something about your life. This has led to an excruciating 5 days of inner turmoil, my innate distaste for exposure in battle with my secret show-pony self. I have written serious pieces debating how we as a generation are redefining the notion of the family. I have put together a Valentine's Day article on the death penalty for homosexuals. Anything to avoid what they actually want.

In despair I turned to everyone's favourite press hound and Agent Provocateur, FKJ. 'Be funny' she said.

So I sat down and knocked out this pitch:

-----------------------------------

How do you conceive a child without having sex? Perhaps it’s being a vicar’s daughter that attracts me to the idea of an immaculate conception. Or perhaps it’s just the fact that I’m a lesbian.

I’ve recently moved to Milan with a friend. He is setting up a business whilst I intend to learn the language and get pregnant. So far, so expat wife. But not quite. We're both gay.

This is an article about the absurdities of trying to conceive a child without having sex, about the differences and similarities between our situation and that of straight friends who are trying to conceive and about the differences between Italian and English attitudes. I will talk about the embarrassment of going to buy syringes at the pharmacy in the UK (suspicious looks whilst the pharmacist decides whether or not I am a drug addict), whilst in Italy they offer a vast selection of sizes; of how the romantic lighting and a bottle of expensive wine the first time we tried soon turned into a prosaic reality to be fitted in before people come round for dinner. I will describe the oddly communal nature of it all – a friend wandering into the bedroom for a chat whilst I’m lying with my legs up against the wall post conception attempt and lighting a cigarette in a strange echo of the classic post-coital fag. How the attitudes of Italians to pre-natal care is worlds away from the North London regime of vitamins and yoga – “My gynaecologist told me I should cut down on cigarettes, maybe to 5 a day. Trying to stop completely would be too stressful for me and so might harm the baby. And wine is good for you. It strengthens the blood.” And how, if this whole thing works out, we will have to confront the next hurdle – our combined horror at the thought of the baby-daddy seeing me naked during labour…

-----------------------------------

I pressed save. Then I pressed send. Then I began to panic.

I went for a walk around the library. I looked at the great stack of leather-bound books in the central well. I asked myself what Virginia Woolf would do.

I went back into the reading room and wrote a note to the publicist. I told her I thought I should retain some gravitas, at least. I told her to ignore the pitch.

Disaster averted. I need a stiff gin. And then I shall leave the country.