You Are My Sunshine

It's muggy in London tonight. The sky is grey and low slung. It's 9pm as I write this yet it's still light outside.

I'm not used to London feeling like this. The warmth and humidity reminds me of the tropics. It makes me want to be outside by the ocean. If I was in Perth right now, I would drive myself to the seashore and lay on the sand and breathe.

Over the weekend we had fantastic weather. For the first time this year I lay down in the long grass in Richmond Park



and looked up at an all blue sky. I took off as many clothes as I could in a park without being arrested. I closed my eyes and took in the warmth of the sun. I turned my head to my husband who lay next to me:

Hey, if you close your eyes you can hear the sea. I can hear the waves lapping up against Leighton beach...

courtesy of Ben Cooke

The all seeing, all-knowing BBC weather channel has informed us citizens that we are in for a good summer. We're going to get consecutive days of sun interspersed with a few odd days of rain. Just so we don't forget that we're in England.

I hope so much that we have a good summer. Every year everyone I know hopes. Our collective hope could power Ireland.

I love that about you Brits. Despite the grey and grime and grot - you hang on and never stop hoping.

Freedom's Just Another Word...

with nothing else to lose", sang Janis in her usual husky style.

I was certainly not free at work yesterday when I came across this speech by David Foster Wallace about freedom. I had a mountain to move off my desk before I could leave for home so that a new mountain could appear overnight.

Nontheless we all pick and choose our moments so I decided to ignore the incoming emails and phone calls and questions and tasks and deadlines. For ten minutes I sat down and read what Mr Wallace had to say.

When I'd finished reading I went back to my mountain and worked steadily away until I couldn't anymore and left for the day.

Before and after those ten minutes, nothing changed in my space. If you looked into my world through a viewfinder you'd have seen everything was where it always was.

That's the way it is. That's the way we see each other.

So you wouldn't know unless I told you that the ten minutes I spent reading that speech were ten of the best minutes of my life.

I have had lots. But yesterday. They were ten good ones.

Thanks DFW. RIP.

Climb Every Mountain?

In my work life I am surrounded by successful career women. Women who have clawed their way up to the top of the arts' professions. Women whom I never once thought I would have the opportunity to meet. Once upon a time I would have considered many of these people to be role models. I would have considered myself lucky to have landed any one of their jobs.

But not anymore.

I am lucky. I am lucky that my current job has allowed me to meet and work with these women. To see that up close, all that glitters is not always gold.

These women will have had made significant personal sacrifices to get where they are. I know they all work hard and have persevered for years against constant obstacles. I know that they have beat off hundreds, even thousands of competitors to survive in their chosen environment. Up close they do not seem particularly hardened but they are as tough they come.

Knowing this makes me feel distinctly uneasy. Why?

Because I don't want to get to where they are and have become like that. But to get to where they are, I don't think there is a choice. The arts world in London (and everywhere else) is dirty and grasping. As soon as you get a known profile, the knives come out. You have to get your hands filthy to survive and the higher up you are, the grottier they potentially get.

When I was little, my mother, to warn me off a career in politics used to say:

All politcians are corrupt. Even if they start off with good intentions, to stay and succeed in the game, they have to become crooked. A good politician is a contradiction in terms.

So where does that leave me?

With clean hands but no career? Or with a potential career but at what cost?

The Food Anger

I hate getting bad food in restaurants. It makes me so angry. In fact, it makes me LIVID.

London is not a city where the general standard of food is average or better. It varies wildly between bloody awful to exceptional. When you try a new restaurant in London, you are taking a risk.

I had dinner this week at the Giaconda Dining Room. This place is well known as being a little haven of inexpensive civility amongst the brashness of Soho. I'd heard good things so was looking forward to it.

When we sat down to order at 8pm I was ravenous. I'd been up since 5.30am and worked on a photoshoot all day long. My eyes made quick work of the menu. Rigatoni Puttanesca for starter. Baked cod with polenta and endive salad for main. Done.

The Puttanesca came and went without comment passing from my lips except for two words:

Very salty.

The Husband who was happily tucking into his Pig Trotters cast a wary glance in my direction. There was fear in his eyes but he wisely made no comment.

When my main arrived I dug in with gusto. My enthusiasm palled after the first bite. And took a rapid nosedive after the second and third. The flavours of the dish were not fish as expected but oil. The fish tasted of oil. The polenta tasted of oil and even the salad tasted of oil. I put down my fork. My husband looked up nervously from his Hashed Ham Hock with Egg and Salad.

How's yours? I asked
Good, he said. Do you want to swap?
No.

I sat fuming and then it was upon me.

The Food Anger.

When I am very hungry and I do not eat, I get a bit nuts. I'm short tempered, irrational, snappy. I would not trust myself to drive when I'm like this.

However when I'm very hungry and have paid good money to eat something at a nice restaurant and it turns out to be crap, I lose it. One of these days a plate will hit the wall. Another diner will be spattered with food as collateral damage. I will probably be arrested.

As my husband ate, I stabbed. I stabbed the oily fish on the oily polenta. In my mind I was stabbing the chef. Then I started to complain. Loudly.

I warned all the other diners not to get the fish. I also told everyone not to bother ordering fries either as they were oily and rubbery. I lamented how it was too late for us but they should all leave now if they hadn't yet ordered.

My husband continued to eat and ignore me.

I was being childish and obnoxious. But I didn't care. I didn't want to speak to the waiter politely and ask for another dish. The waiters were giving our table a wide berth by now anyhow.

When he had finished his meal my husband ushered me out as graciously as he could. He did not tip them however which was just as well as it would have meant the end of our marriage.

Two days later and I am still pissed off. But at least I am not foaming from the mouth anymore.

We went out for dinner the next night too. But that's a whole other story.

Coffee Makes the World Go Round

This London man is supposed to make the best coffee in Britain



I must hunt him down...

Like A Fish to Water

In Australia I am a below average swimmer. I would swim but I was never one of those strong, sleek bodies that charged through the water doing lap after steady lap. In Oz I always swam in the Slow or Medium lane. I would never have dared dipped my toe in the Fast.

When I moved to London I stopped swimming. Having been spolit by Perths' open air, salt walter pools, I could not bring myself to become enthusiastic about swimming indoors in a heavily chlorinated, 25 metre urinal.



After a few years of non-swimming, I got free membership to one of London's best gyms. The pool in this gym was decent by London standards. It was still indoors and 25m but it looked clean. The husband said:

No excuses now. You can start swimming again.

But I didn't. By now I hadn't swum for years and was out of the habit until.....

the Paris Half Marathon.

Training for the half marathon forced me into the water again. I knew I needed to incorporate some cardio exercise that would not put weight on my joints. So I dived in and to my surprise I discovered that not only could I still swim, I wasn't bad at all. In fact, I was pretty damn good.

What happened? Three years of not swimming and in the first lap I become Esther Williams? Something's wrong.



I looked around and slowly the light went on.

I was in London.

A city of BAD swimmers.

As a general rule, Londoners are not great swimmers. It's not a part of their upbringing like it is for Aussies. They try, bless them and it's not their fault. They don't have the sea and lovely pools like us.

Still, this makes me feel great. I did nothing and became an above average swimmer. Over here I even swim in the Fast lane.

It doesn't get any easier than that.

The London Marathon

Oh my freaking god!

Today is the London Marathon. It's 7.30am and I have been up for the past two hours. I barely slept and my stomach is churning over with nerves.

Am I running?

No.

This pre-marathon frenzy is just my excitement and anticipation. My husband and four of our friends are running today in what is reputedly the best fundraising event in the world. For all of them, this is their first ever marathon. I've watched them work their guts out over the past 4-5 months in preparation and I feel so proud of them all. To run a marathon requires not just physical capacity but huge reserves of mental strength and discipline. It's very tough.

If this is how I feel I can't imagine what it must have been like for them over the past few days. No wonder when I met up with a few of them yesterday, they could barely eat or talk.

I have never been to the Marathon. I've heard it's brilliant. That the atmosphere is incredible and that it is a day where the whole of London comes together to cheer on our runners. I can't wait.

Go Team!

Nail the Bastards!

My mate Jerome is having a hard time with his employers. They are diddling him around a treat and after a long and ranty phone conversation, we decided that he would launch a one man campaign against them. We decided to call this the Nail the Bastards! campaign.

You might want to know who these employers are who have elicited such eloquent ferocity? Well I can't say specifically but what I can say is that Jerome works as a public servant. I am very biased when it comes to the public sector. I don't have a high opinion of it having toiled for a local council for two years. I have a strong opinion and that opinion is that it is bad. My opinion is that if you must work within the public sector- get in, get skilled up, get out.

So although I was sorry to hear of Jerome's troubles, I was not at all surprised that he was having them given who his employers are. Still, I was livid for him and determined that he didn't take it lying down:

You gotta be focused and get what you want, I lectured. Don't take no for an answer. This is a battle and you have to be prepared to fight. Listen to me - are you prepared to fight. You can't let them get away with this. You are a one-man campaign you understand? This is a war that you are going to win. Are you listening? This is WAR.

By this time Jerome had been listening to my ranting for well over an hour but still he complied:

I'm going to nail the bastards.

And hence, the revolution is on.

Yes Prime Minister

Last week I went to the Houses of Parliament for a work launch. I'd never been inside the actual buildings before and so approached the expedition with a touristic avaracity. Everything seemed so interesting, right down to the thorough security screen at the entrance and all the pollies rushing past me looking intense and harassed. I was in heaven. My West Wing fantasy come to life in a Yes Prime Minister kind of way.

My boss who was with me sauntered around the place as if she was born to be there. I half expected her to start waving to people, calling out things like:

Hey Bob, where's that policy paper we went over yesterday? I want it on my desk in an hour!

Instead she casually mentioned:

This is where we might be doing a show next year. It's your project.

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament

Gulp.

I looked at the space we were in. The walls of Westminster Hall were erected in 1097. When you walk through this grave and stately building, you can feel the air particles resonate with the combined history of every single one of those years.

A show. Here?

How on earth can we do this building justice?

Time to get working.

Bob - where's my paper?

Dream Mail

Whenever I have an especially vivid dream about someone, I see it as a sign for me to get in contact with them, if I am in contact with them. Life doesn't always allow this to happen of course. I had a dream about Obama awhile ago but unlike Scarlett Johannsson, I'm not gonna try email the guy.

Recently, I've been part of a dream mail sequence. Last week my friend Sophia got in touch to tell me about a dream she'd had about visiting me in London. It was vivid, real and a bit disturbing so she texted me to tell me about it. Yesterday I emailed my friend CJ in Perth because of a dream I'd had in which I was checking to see how she was settling in back at home after a six month travel adventure. Today I got an email from my friend Mack in Canberra. The opening line of his email was that he had had a dream about having coffee with me in London and then realised that we were actually having coffee in Ginos in Perth. So he got in touch.

There's something reassuring to me that in a time where email and internet are king and queen and all the post you ever get in your letterbox are bills, that reaching out to someone can be determined by your dreams.

I think that's a good definition of the word lovely.

A Magic Place

I was telling my friend how I bumped into my favourite artist, Paula Rego at the shops the other day when she suddenly announced:

London is a city where you can be single.

Startled, I took stock for a moment wondering if she was trying to tell me something. Unperturbed she carried on.

Its a city where there is so much going on. So much for everyone. It embraces you and anything can happen. You can be alone in this city and you'll be ok.

I understood what she meant. Its true. London is a city of possibility and change. Of shifting boundaries, ordinairy miracles and open embraces. It welcomes you. Somedays when you walk down the street, you can feel the buzz of the city flow through your bloodstream. London wants you to tap into her heartbeat so you can be in sync with one another. She calls out to you in so many different ways. If you live here you will have days where out of the blue, you will bump into your childhood icon at the shops. Where a stranger chases you down the street to give you back your umbrella that you left on the tube. There will be days where you despair at the weather and the grottiness. The lack of space and how it takes an hour and ten quid to go around the corner. London also requires you to be a people person. If you are not interested in, and curious about people and by that I mean the human race, then you best get out.

Underneath all the dirt, miracles and crowds lies a city with a raw brilliance which has been created through a fusion of time, population and coincidence. You know this is so because as a citizen, you can feel it.

Not all cities are great. Some are only great for periods of time before they sink back into obscurity. This is London's time and I'm glad I'm here to witness it. To be a part of the pulsing heart that is this great city.

Javed Akhtar

Last night I had a work event on at the Nehru Centre which I was not too keen on going to. The event was a poetry reading and Q & A with Javed Akhtar; a famous poet, lyricist and scriptwriter from India. My reluctance stemmed from the fact that the reading was going to be in Urdu - a language which I do not know except for one word - Shukria. My boss hustled me along nonetheless.

Just go for a bit, she said. Then you can slip out.

Yeah right, I thought. I'm going to be stuck there for the whole night.

When Javed came onstage, I immediately felt a sense of familiarity about him. A few minutes it occured to me why. He was a male version of my boss. Except from a distance, he seemed less tired.

He started to speak in English. He welcomed the audience and made witty jokes. His eyes sparkled and he looked liked he was constantly smiling on the inside. He was one of those people who when onstage, light up. Effortlessly.

I sat up straighter in my seat.

Javed recited his poetry for about 30 minutes. In that time he spoke mainly Urdu but from time to time, he spoke some lines in English. Maybe about 10 sentences. When that happened something in me lit up too.

During the Q & A, someone asked him about what it was like to be an artist to which he replied, Schizophrenic. I was still laughing when he went onto explain that he regards creative endeavour as a paradox. Being that you have to keep loose and open and fluid for the ideas to arrive but when they come, you must then force them into an infrastructure and operate to a rigid system to deliver those ideas.

He talked about form and the importance of training which he summarised by saying: You have to learn to draw a straight line before you can bend it.

Someone else asked him what his source inspiration was to which he replied, Deadlines.

I stayed till the very end. I couldn't have left as I was glued to my seat.

Eventually my boss hustled me out in the same way she had hustled me in.

Wait one moment, she said, I have to say Hello.

So we stood with a crowd of others and waited for Javed to exit the auditorium. It seemed that everyone wanted to pay their respects.

When he came out he went straight over to my boss. His eyes lit up upon sight of her and they smiled at each other and exchanged greetings in Urdu. I was so delighted to see them two of them together but I wasn't sure why. He smiled over at me, probably wondering why there was a lone Chinese person present amongst a crowd of Indians. I beamed back. I felt so lucky to have heard him speak. What a guy. Magic.

When we left, I asked her what she had said to him.

I told him off for giving me a fake mobile number the last time we met.

We laughed and went home. Inspired and smiling on the inside, and out.

Thank you Mr Akhtar. Shukria.

Give and Take

I don't know what it is about me at the moment but I seem to be surrounded by young women (and by that I mean younger than me in their late 20's, early 30's) who just want to talk to me. About themselves. Endlessly.

I saw a friend recently whom I have not seen for a very long time. She is a delight but during our catchup, she talked about herself non-stop. I don't think I even needed to be there.

Another friend cornered me the other day to spill her ongoing tale of woe. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. I don't think she listened or heard anything I said. I think she just wanted a face to talk to.

My neighbour loves to talk too. At me. By me. To me. But not really with me.

I'm getting a bit fed up with all this. I'm a curious person and I genuinely like to get inside another person's heart and mind so that I can understand where they are coming from. But this pattern is starting to bug me.

Sometimes when I'm in this situation I feel like that other person is trying to suck up all my energy. That I have something that they want.

For god sakes - what on earth could I have that they want!?

So I took a step back from it all and remembered. I remembered when I was like them. Younger, unsure and trying to figure it all out. Continuously on the brink of something but never knowing what that something was and not knowing how to get it. I remembered when I was in the company of an older, sympathetic ear. I remember how I used to blab about myself non stop and never stopped to ask that person:

By the way - how are you? What's going on in your life?

What goes around comes around.

But that's not what I wanted to say.

What I wanted to say was that to those men and women who listened and listened and advised and nurtured and helped guide me through those woolly, wilderness years. Thank You. From the bottom of my woolly, wild heart. Bless you.