Saatchi Sister

I have decided to become an ‘art baron.’ Please note I made up this new title, but it truly feels like what I want to do with my life after my two recent visits to the Tate Modern.

I am unsure whether I am qualified. If it does involve having large amounts of cash, it may be a slow climb to the top. As I look around my sitting room I also hope it doesn’t involve actually having good taste. I say this specifically with reference to the framed takeaway menu on my wall (if you had eaten there you would understand.) I might have to settle for being less than an art baron, maybe just an ‘art bar,’ which on the upside might mean I get free membership to the Members Bar on the Tate top floor.

A girlfriend asked me to go all arty on the day that London got down to -11 Celsius. As it was -15 in my basement flat I decided a stroll along the Thames would warm me up.Upon arrival she asked me what I wanted to do first. My response was ‘Bathroom, bookshop, then art. In that order.’ This also does not bode well for my baron potential. Yet within 2minutes of being in the ‘Pop Life’ exhibition I knew that no matter how stacked the odds are against me I wanted to be involved with art. The fact that I draw like an epileptic and can barely dress myself is a minor detail.

Having met Tracey Emin last year and subsequently developed some kind of career role model crush on her, I spent most of my time hovering over one particular glass case. In there were obscenities scrawled across everything she could get her hands on. If writing the word ‘fuck’ on every texture provided by God isn’t art then I don’t know what is. I cannot bring myself to say the same thing about a calf in a vat of formaldehyde, and I was tempted to offer to get in there myself for several million pounds. My friend most certainly would have obliged.

What I did next however does lead me to believe that I do in fact have potential: I went on a bar crawl that started in the Tate Modern and wound up somewhere near Tower Bridge. I say ‘somewhere’ as the only record I have of the last place we went was is my camera and the shots involve a bowl of what is hopefully olive oil. I will leave this one to Colombo, but I like to think that these shots are a testament to my ability to find and even create art. I wonder whether out of professional courtesy I should offer the shots to Charles Saatchi before someone else snaps them up.

When I sober up the next day, I decide to go back and start my collection of work that shows ever slightly more potential than my own: I buy a Tracey Emin print. When I get it home however I realize that it will have to stay in a drawer, as it doesn’t really go with my framed menu.

My spell check has just advised me that I am unable to spell the word 'exhibition' without assistance, so I may after all have to take a glance at the job section to see if there is something more appropriate than ‘art baron.’

My unfair lady

It has just occurred to me that I talk funny. I don’t have an accent when I talk in my head (and believe with the volume of conversations that go on in there, I would know.)

Having lived in London for four years I sort of assumed that I would now be mistaken for a local…the upside down smile and the fifteen additional kilos I am carrying not being enough. Yet I was taken aback on the phone today when, after announcing to the person on the other end that I was an Australian, back came ‘no shit’ as the response.

I must point out that thousands upon thousands of Australian dollars (approx £2) was wasted on elocution lessons in high school. My mother wanted to ensure that even in Australia I wouldn’t sound Australian. Had these lessons not been taught by a nun who was convinced I was the anti-Christ, I may have turned up to a few more of my Wednesday morning lessons. Believe me, after six years it becomes harder and harder to explain how it is possible for the public transport system to be thrown into turmoil at exactly the same time every Wednesday morning, or how every one of the 127 goldfish you claim to have had during high school seems to meet its maker on a Tuesday night.

I should not be that surprised that my accent can be detected; hell I can tell when the author of an email is Australian. The first clue is that words are shortened. It has always surprised me that a race of people considered to be hardworking (settling a wild island does tend to take it out of you,) are so lazy that they cannot even be bothered to finish the words coming out of their mouth. Afternoon becomes ‘arvo’ in most cases, in my case because the faster I finish talking about going to the pub in the afternoon the faster I can get on with getting there.

One morning on the tube (my beloved BMW has not coped with the cold spell and alas is not even a tasty enough model to be served up as a frozen dessert) I try and listen into the different accents around me. It is then that I realize I do not even know what a Londoner sounds like (apart from angry.) There are only a handful of people who do sound like they may be on their way to sell fruit or fish at the local market, the rest are Eastern Europeans and Americans (they may be Canadian and if so are they not just known for being almost American anyway?) Another clue that the six-figure sum spent on my education was not entirely fruitful.

So I realize that every Londoner sounds a bit foreign, it’s just a question of how foreign you are? And if it was between sounding like the call backs for Eliza Doolittle or a baddie in a James Bond flick or Danni Minogue I think I would chose the later anytime. Ideally my breasts would be more like hers as well.

Sister Sonia, if you are reading this, I must confess that the goldfish body count between 1988 and 1993 was zero. Although there really was a Mexican Walking Fish whose demise broke my heart. If it’s any conciliation my penance, it seems, is to one day, many years from now, end up sounding like I am selling them.

Xmas miracle

Given the subject matter covered in my blog, I am always tremendously relieved that my family doesn’t read it, this post being no exception.

I know they won’t be reading it because they suffer from a severe case of technical retardation. Symptoms include a lack of desire to work out how to get online. This is common disability amongst Australians, who cannot imagine that everything they need to know is not found in their local paper. Happily what they won’t find in their local paper is this confession; I think I had my best Xmas ever in London, despite no one at the table swimming in my gene pool...for the best really, as it is rather shallow.

Now the fact that I was terribly intoxicated by 1pm obviously had nothing to do with it. Nor did the fact that with my neighbors away, I was able to dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up before I went off to lunch. I am joking of course: I dance naked to Madonna with the blinds up even when they are home.

Am I the only one who had never worked out that Xmas is far less stressful when you spend it with people you don’t know that well? No one cares what you do; because there is a very good chance you will never see each other again…that, and the fact they are just as hammered as you are. So there is no judgment when you ask for a vodka and coke at 11am, or a second vodka and coke at 11.03am.

There is also no judgment passed when whilst watching The Sound of Music you reveal to this room of strangers that you are sexually attracted to Captain Von Trapp. Admittedly after five bottles of Veuve and Moet the Captain is making everyone tingle…even the blokes.

The other bonus of Xmas with strangers is that because everyone brings a dish, you inadvertently reduce the odds of sitting down to a meal that leaves you rushing to find if there is a McDonalds open. Even if there is one dish that you would rather slip into a pot plant, the rest is pretty darn wonderful. If my host is reading this, I am sorry I really should have mentioned the incident with the pot plant sooner.

The only culinary drawback of Xmas with strangers is that you finally get confirmation that as you always suspected your mother overcooks her carrots. ‘Overcook’ being an uncharacteristically polite euphemism for ‘murders.’ The massacring of vegetation is not really such a travesty; you didn’t eat them at home, and when you are with strangers you don’t have to clean your plate. In fact on reflection if I had asked for a bucket of gravy and a snorkel instead of a knife and fork, no one would have battered an eyelid.

Even the presents are better. No one attempts to second guess what you might like, and so they just buy you something that anyone with a pulse would like; in my case a set of wine glasses. How did they know? Santa Claus never contributed to my liquor cabinet. This is how I knew he wasn’t real; anyone who really knows me would have slipped me some crystal and ideally a cocktail of lets say legal stimulants, instead of a Cabbage Patch Doll.

By the time I get home from Xmas at almost midnight I was so drunk I could barely walk, again nothing new for the neighbors. Well, except for the bit where I started undressing before I got the door open. Which I can report lead to a rather unfortunate case of frost bite, given the below freezing temperature.

So next year I am just going to wander into someone else’s house and see if they will have me, but not before I dance around naked. For old time's sake.


Here’s to the people who are no longer strangers: Amanda, Em, Jo, Peter, Tim and the two little girls who made me fall back in love with Xmas.

Santa's very little helper

They say that charity begins at home. Sadly this year it can’t find its way out of my front door.

This week I discovered just how hard it is to be kind to my fellow Londoners. Several months ago I decided to volunteer with the Salvation Army on Christmas Day. After years of snorkeling in vats of gravy on the 25th, it felt like it was time to help serve up lunch to someone who might otherwise go without.

My newfound thoughtfulness may have had something to do with the fact that everyone I knew in London (all six of them) were fleeing the city for Christmas, but suspend your scepticism and assume that my intentions were entirely honorable.

After putting my name down to be a volunteer I waited for my call back. The call never came, and so last week I called to check where I was needed and at what time. Needless to say I hoped that they would understand that it would be ever so inconvenient if I was expected to be anywhere before midday.

‘Oh no, it’s too late to volunteer, you needed to file an application and we have to do a police check on you which takes 10 days to come through.’

‘But I put my name down weeks ago and gave you all my details, no one said anything about filing an application. What do you think I am going to do anyway? Steal the baked potatoes?’ This was in fact exactly what I intended to do. I had spent all my free time in the weeks prior trying to calculate the best way to walk away from the Salvation Army with a large volume of gravy on my person.

I cannot tell you how bad it is for one’s self confidence to be rejected by the Salvation Army on Christmas Day.

So I called Crisis; a London based charity involved with helping the homeless. Surely these guys would need some help on Christmas Day.

‘Sorry but we have enough help.’ Said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Remember this is a charity we are talking about here.

My last hope was to type into Google ‘I have no where to go on Christmas Day.’ Another charity popped up, but it turned out they would only take my help if I committed to working from 7am to 3pm. Happily by this stage I had been invited to a Christmas lunch, so my goodwill for mankind needed to be wrapped up by around 1pm. This apparently didn’t work for them.

So I sit here wondering whether Londoners have bigger hearts than I thought and that just maybe the bureaucracy here makes it hard for us to use them.

Then I realise that someone has swiped the notebook which was perched next to me in the pub where I am writing this. I think my charity and belongings are better off at home whilst in London.

Gobble Gobble

I have just survived my first Thanksgiving in the States unscathed, however now I do walk around under the impression that consuming just three meals a day is for people who lack ambition.

When I was there I had to eat something I didn’t want to, which for me is saying something. I had to eat my words.

For some time it has been a sport for of mine (and most Londoners) to slag off Americans. Maybe the participation rate of this sport is so high because it is pretty darn easy to win a place in the finals. Three words: war on terror. But our cousins across the pond do have something over us Londoners: a genuine capacity to relax and enjoy themselves without artificial stimulants (yes this includes X Factor.)

The joy that radiates from Americans during Thanksgiving is almost thermonuclear. At first I just assumed that the saturated fat had finally triumphed to become the number one ingredient in their brain. Then I realised that these jolly people were just genuinely happy. This emotion was difficult for me to recognise after living so many years in London. Their joy was also contagious. I even eventually gave in and found myself saying ‘happy holidays’ to every person who crossed my path. The odd poodle also had to endure my new found desire to spread goodwill. I didn’t even know what my annoying new greeting meant...admittedly I should've been able to crack this verbal code.

I only truly understood its meaning when Thanksgiving Day itself came around.

Never in one place have I seen so many potatoes, and I have been to Ireland on several occasions. Happy holidays indeed. My first task of the day was to peel all 20lbs of them for my hosts. Manual labour has never brought me so much pleasure.

Had I had an understandable heart attack at that moment, I would have died a happy woman. Nothing could have topped the sight of all those potatoes sitting in the pan, waiting for greatness. That is until I saw the cooking appliance in which my gravy was being made. I say ‘appliance’ deliberately, because anything that needs to be plugged in is surely an appliance. My gravy was being housed in the world’s largest crock-pot: undoubtably the two sweetest words in the English language.

Now I finally understood my host’s insistence that I wear sweat pants to lunch. This meal called for clothing without boundaries.

As promised the day consisted entirely of eating, drinking and watching TV in comfortable trousers that could sleep two. The genius of Thanksgiving being that unlike at Christmas time there is no requirement to make a pilgrimage to church, and no pressure to spend money on others (when you would obviously rather be spending on yourself.)

So I wondered why us London folk have not adopted this truly transformational holiday, after all our love of lard based products would make it easy for us assimilate. When it comes down to it, I am convinced it is simply because Thanksgiving would require us to relax to a point that would make us feel uncomfortable; loose clothing, spontaneous displays of affection and the decision to set a straw next to the knife and fork to aid gravy consumption. What if someone saw us? Making an arse of ourselves is reserved only for reality TV shows. Reality is something else.

So sorry Londoners, the Americans have got at least one thing right (please note that Americans have got the following things wrong: The Amish, cheese products in a spray can, any member of the Bush family, American Football, Dr Pepper and Britney Spears.)

I do wonder however whether I would be so happy to eat my words if said words weren’t smothered in gravy.




God bless the gravy makers: The Moore, Zajac and Plunkett families.

Sticks & Stones

I knew I had been in London too long after I found myself explaining to a perplexed ambulance driver that he would have to wait to take me to the emergency room until I had moved my car.

It was a great inconvenience to me that the night I had woken up in agony was the same night that I had failed to park in a residents bay. If my car was still there at 8.30am I was looking at a £60 fine, and if it was still there 24 hours later it would be towed away.

To put my dilemma in context; I was unsure whether my BMW was worth £60, and I was damned sure that I would never bother to recover it from the police pound; as it would undoubtably mean driving outside of Zone 1 to Zone 2 or god forbid Zone 3.

I didn't want to risk the altitude sickness.

In the end, I gave into the stomach pain that had me reaching for the phone in the first place, and I begrudgingly agreed to get on the stretcher.

Mainly really for the sake of the neighbours: it was after all only 3am, and as a result of all the screaming from me and the sirens, one by one the lights in the neighbouring houses had gone on. My prioritising the avoidance of further embarrassment over and above anything else at that moment was also surely a sign that I had been in London too long.

I don't remember much of my journey in the ambulance. Regrettably I do remember announcing to the paramedic that I needed painkillers, and that if I had had the foresight to bring my wallet would have happily paid him for them. I even went so far as to offer to buy him a little stash for himself. He thanked me for my not entirely unpleasant offer, but said I would have to wait for the doctor before I took anything.

Surely there is no better sign that I am a failure in my chosen career of advertising: I am unable to score drugs even in the back of an ambulance.

After spending several hours in A&E and being given no less than three shots of morphine (and warned that if I didn't keep the screams to a minimum I would have to be gagged,) I was wheeled into the 'Critical Decisions' ward.

I think the London hospitals would benefit from spending a bit more time brainstorming the names of their wards. I mean if my new ward had been called the 'Double Cheeseburger' ward or the 'Saturday Morning' ward, I would have been more optimistic about how I was doing. A sort of verbal poker face if you will.

I would still be in that ward had an incredibly kind girlfriend not come to visit me, and asked me why I had not been transferred to the private section of the hospital. The truth was that after 18 hours of morphine I could barely move my hands let alone negotiate a bed transfer. The NHS had successfully managed to take my blood, urine and my spirit.

So with some much needed help from a friend I found myself in a private room with all the luxuries not available to the patients on the NHS: water, food, a shower, and visits from a doctor. A doctor finally diagnosed my kidneys and gallbladder were not functioning; somewhat of a story anticlimax given my performance started at 3am.

The rest of my stay was a bit of a blur: I was in a self induced Ribena & 'Antiques Roadshow' coma. It was several weeks before I could look at vase without being tempted to swipe it.

After my first day back at work I came home to find a letter from my health insurance company; they were seeking payment for the excess on my hospital stay.

I am glad my car wasn't towed away: I may now have to live in it.

A NOTE: The author of this blog would like to thank everyone who visited me armed with cupcakes and jelly. I am now considering using the leftovers to build a second bedroom.

High priestess of London

This morning I walked past an ad for a church called ‘The Church of London Reality.’ Ironically it had been posted on the frontage of a Foxtons. It tempted me to attend mass for the first time in years. Confession at school had put me off as I had found myself constantly lying to the priest about things I hadn’t done just so I could get out of there as fast as possible.

According to the poster the service started at 10.30am. I was embarrassingly unable to work out what time it was, as the clocks had changed at midnight. Despite having several degrees under my belt I was unsure whether the clock had gone forwards or backwards. I mentally drafted a letter to the two universities in question for a full refund for my education.

I wanted to go to the church out of sheer curiosity: I mean what happens in the Church of London Reality? I had images of kids shooting up in the pews and images of just plain old shootings. I wondered most of all who the priest would have been. I answered my own question as I recalled the Tracey Emin lecture I had attended a few weeks back.

Thinking about the lecture, I became convinced that Tracey Emin would be the priest at my new favourite church. At this same moment she also found her way onto my hypothetical list of people who I would like to invite to my fantasy dinner party, (fantasy, firstly because I don’t cook and secondly because I had also planned on inviting loads of corpses.) I am still undecided whether it would be more dangerous to seat Emin next to Napolean or Cleopatra. Perhaps she is best next to Cleopatra; I don’t want to scare Napolean off home before the main course.

Emin arrived to her lecture late. Parking, traffic and public transport surely are three of the vices that the Church of London Reality will warn us all against. Her first words into her microphone were, ‘Can we get a bottle of wine up here?’ As a result, throughout the interview whenever she was asked a question there was a good chance she had a mouthful. The benefit for the audience was one less obscenity.

When she did speak, her answers (regardless of what the question was) invariably involved underage sex, abortion, smoking, drinking and poverty. It was like listening in to an NSPCC helpline call. She was a woman who had literally seen everything…and as an audience member, I can now say I have heard everything.

Emin was a woman of the people in not only speech but dress, dressed in black and wearing heavy cowboy boots. The outfit would have made it possible for her to disappear into crowds at Tesco, and yet gain her entrance to any restaurant or club in London. The greatest benefit of living in London is that black tie just means ‘please look arty.’ As I listened to her talk I kept trying to ruffle my hair to give the impression that I too might be on the brink of artistic greatness (if my bed was anything to go by, I was mighty close.) She was also bronzed like any other Londoner in September. Those than can afford it have been to the South of France or to Spain, whilst the rest of the locals settled for a sun bed.

At the end of the lecture she offered to sign copies of her new book ‘One Thousand Drawings’, a book (as the creative title would suggest) which contains one thousand drawings. Most of these involved vaginas. It was a bit like flicking through Hugh Hefner’s second grade exercise book.

I had selected the exact drawing within the book that I wanted her to sign (vagina count: zero.) The drawing was, in fact, about writing and she herself, on being asked what her favourite genre of art was, had replied ‘writing.’ I was ready to worship her, in church or otherwise. When it was my turn to present the book for signing she asked, ‘Don’t you want me to sign the front? I explained that I wanted this particular page signed so that I could frame it and hang it above my desk.

‘You’re going to tear up my book?’ She asked. I repeated my plan and again she asked, ‘You’re going to tear up my book?’ The penny finally dropped. I realised what she was saying was ‘Don’t tear up my fucking book.’ She repeated herself and in the end all I said to her was, ‘I’m a bit scared of you right now, so I’ll do anything you want.’ She laughed. I wasn’t kidding.

So I could think of no more qualified a priest for The Church of London Reality than a scary, cowboy boot wearing, foul mouthed, wine guzzling, and highly creative woman…especially if she is somewhat preoccupied with female genitalia.

As I sit and type, I look up at my framed, signed Tracey Emin drawing hanging above my head. She’d understand. She’d know that the reality of London is that no one listens to anyone else. In church or otherwise.