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 Saturday, January 29, 2005 First famous-person-spotting moment at Davos -- Richard Gere, walking out of a lift at the Belvedere Hotel. If I had a time machine and could warp him back to the 1980s-style, Armani-clad, slightly sleazy Richard Gere of American Gigolo, I would have been breathlessly excited. As it was -- well -- my colleague met Sharon Stone yesterday, and I think he wins. No matter which way you look at it, this is a surreal event. It becomes normal to see these hugely important capitalist types walking through hotel lobbies, normal to subsist on free croissants and fruit nicked from the Really Big Consultants' office next door. Normal to harvest business cards from people you'll never meet again, normal to be snuck into formal dinners for delegates but be told you're not allowed to eat (I did anyway!), normal to snigger with fellow hacks as some right-wing pundit types say they're American first and journalists second, normal to walk home through deserted streets as the snow falls all around you. Tonight, I'm going out for a few drinks -- John is off seeing Henry Rollins do a spoken word gig at the Hammersmith Apollo, and I am terribly jealous. In fact, one of my colleagues produced an interview with the great man today -- apparently he was terrific, articulate and funny as you'd expect, and I'm so gutted that I didn't get to meet him. So. Last night in the land of snow, knives and chocolate. I'm going home tomorrow -- hefting heavy sound kit that I didn't use, with bags full of chocolate bars and Swiss liqueurs to give as presents. It's been a fun, strange, exhausting few days, and it's great to be going home. link - Thursday, January 27, 2005 Downstairs, in one of the big conference rooms, a band is rehearsing for some function tonight. Their chosen sound-check songs: "Crazy" by Seal, and "Talkin' bout a Revolution" by Tracy Chapman. Strange picks for a bunch of worldwide "decision formers", I think .. link - After a slightly shaky start (a long train journey carrying heavy sound kit, a feeling of being the lowest-possible priority) Davos is actually pretty fun. The weather is stunning -- really really cold (minus 12 degrees), sunny, thick snow on the ground to crunch and slither through. Davos itself is pretty and people have been exceptionally friendly and patient with my inability to speak more than a couple of words of German. It's a tribute to advertising that one of the only phrases I know is "vorsprung durch technik", which is almost impossible to use in any other context. Also, the project I'm working on is taking shape, and all these important people talking about changing the world is really rather exciting. (Please don't e-mail me to tell me these are just words, not actions. I really want to believe that business and government will work together to make tough decisions. I think it might be time to become naive again, to hope for the best, to aim high. I really do.) I have been sleeping badly, my mind racing with thoughts and dreams and ideas. Out of the office window I see snow, thick drifts bearing the marks of a brave skier gliding down. From our apartment I see ski-lifts, little groups of snowboarders making graceful curves down the mountain. I wish I was out there with them. I didn't bring waterproof clothes, fearing it might send the wrong message to the people who've contracted me. But I hear about a fabulous tobogganing track through the woods, and I might investigate that on Saturday afternoon when my work's all done. Amid all the craziness, I am feeling optimistic. Being in the fresh cold air makes me happy. Hearing rampant capitalists admit to sentiments that in the past they would have dismissed as suitable only for tree huggers, sandal wearers, makes me really really happy. (The food is still pretty bad though. The Swiss are good at banks, good at watches, quite good at chocolate, not so good at real food. Yesterday I watched an elegant woman eating a pudding that looked like wholemeal pasta served with little splodges of aerosol whipped cream, decorated with tiny bunches of redcurrants. Ich weiss nicht, meine freunde.) link - Sunday, January 23, 2005 As I look out of the sloping window in my spare room/office, I see a winter blue sky with a single jet vapour trail. With my life so frenetically busy right now, a moment just to look out of the window is welcome. A napoletana pizza with no cheese -- waking up in a bright room -- playing tennis in the cold sunlight -- burying myself in my book and iPod on a boring tube journey, anxious not to waste a second of leisure -- smiling about a well-deserved win for my boys -- all of these things feel like snatched moments, and they're all the more delicious for that. So next week I'm off to Switzerland for this, where I'll be rushing about trying to secure interviews for the corporate project I'm doing. I'm nervous and excited all in one. I've never really relished trips to Switzerland, but then I've only been to Geneva, which is the geographical equivalent of Gwyneth Paltrow. I've never been to the mountains or to the German-speaking bit, and it'll be interesting to see what it's like. So there will be snow, and a lot of grey suits, and photos -- as a late Christmas present to myself, I upgraded to a Flickr Pro account, which means a lot more pretty picture action. Tomorrow will be spent running around picking up audio equipment, arming myself with dried fruit and nuts to take to the Land of Cheesy Food, charging batteries for various electronic devices and packing the USB charger for my Game Boy Advance. Oh, and attempting to do some background research for the interviews, and trying to fit in my Arabic class (though I suspect I may have to give it a miss). So today it's a wonderful luxury to sit, with my laptop warm in my lap, looking out of my window at a blue sky. link - Saturday, January 15, 2005 Crazy busy last week -- but I'm still here. Tired, and lacking in sunlight, but here. A few things I've discovered this week: - after a rant today to John about how mean-spirited the British media is getting in its celebrity reporting, I'm kind of embarrassed at how much I enjoyed Go Fug Yourself. Bad red carpet fashion, critiqued. I adore this almost as much as I adore the Manolo. - also, sometimes the tabloid outrage is totally appropriate -- Prince William is a silly, silly boy and got the media shoeing he deserved. The always-excellent John O'Farrell analyses the whole thing in the Guardian. Favourite quote, as O'Farrell notes that the newspapers quoted all the same MPs who are always quoted in these sorts of stories: "I'm sorry, I am not in at the moment. However, I am shocked or disgusted because whatever it is, it's disgraceful and he or she should immediately resign or apologise or remove the said painting from the Tate." - completely unrelated: had a wonderful, though far too enormous, lunch today at Tas Firin by Brick Lane. It's Turkish food done really well -- the lamb shish was really good, and the flavours and smells of cooking food made me yearn to be by the beach in Patara. Maybe soon. - A charming new read: Wee Wonderfuls, in which Hillary manages to find time to create wonderful crafts while looking after her very cute son Oscar. I am very envious of her talents. - But that said, I might have more time to make stuff if I spent less time playing games. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is the latest electronic diversion I'm enjoying. Tending crops, patting my dog .. lovely .. Everything's going well, really -- I'm just swamped trying to organise a big project by the end of the month. More proper updates soon, I promise. link - Friday, January 07, 2005  sparkly things!  sweet things Yesterday I had a rather glamorous jet-setty day -- I went to Paris for lunch. It was my publisher's (belated) Christmas party and they very kindly invited me to go along. It meant a very early start at the Eurostar terminal, a delicious lunch with a whole lot of people I'd never met (but were all very kind and lovely!) and, most excitingly, two free hours in Paris before we had to get the train back. As soon as I saw that on the invite, I knew what I was doing with those two hours: the La Droguerie concession at Le Bon Marche department store, and La Grande Epicerie, which is a food hall to end all food halls. Luckily, the two are right next to each other on the Left Bank. So while the others wandered off for a drink by the Seine, I headed for the Metro and haberdashery heaven. If you click on the photos they'll take you to Flickr where you can see details of what I bought. La Droguerie is amazing -- so much beautiful stuff to touch and sigh over. It's not cheap, and shopping there is a challenge if you don't get the weird queuing system -- plus the fact that once you pick out your stuff, you get given a ticket, you go and pay at a separate counter and only then do you return to get your bags. It's not quite like John Lewis, where you can dive in on precision missions and be in and out within a matter of minutes. At La Droguerie, you consider at length, you pick things out in consultation with a saleswoman, you discuss and touch and experiment with them. It's a leisurely process, and I quite like that. It was just a bit nerve-wracking when time was short and my very rusty university French was not instantly leaping to my command. Next to La Grande Epicerie -- and again I didn't have enough time to browse, but as you can see I managed to pick up a few things -- it's a huge place full of such gorgeous food, beautifully packaged and enticing. Bags in hand, I leaped into a taxi and made it back to the station in time. Phew. Back in London after a train journey that involved some work deals being half-done and a very raucous game of cards, I headed off to meet John and some friends for a curry. Nice food, good company and laughing till your stomach hurts -- in other words, a good day. link - Saturday, January 01, 2005 Happy new year to you all, near and far, home and away. I hope 2005 will be kind to you. I spent New Year's Eve at home -- for me, there was no better way to see 2005 in than at home on our super-comfy couch, eating John's pasta bake and drinking delicious red wine. Outside, the fireworks in Mile End Park signalled the arrival of the new year, and we raised a glass to 2005, and all that it will bring. There is a lot to be said for a quiet NYE, and I think in the light of a year that's ended very tragically, a loud and raucous one would have felt a bit strange. One online friend of mine survived the tsunami, but two colleagues of John's are still missing and we presume they must be dead. If you haven't, please give. Please. Here's a really good list of places you can do that. I haven't made any resolutions per se -- just some vague promises to myself. I will be kind to myself and to others. I will create -- keep on writing, taking photographs, making things for people, exploring new forms -- because I can't not. And I will keep doing the best I can to make my world -- and the wider world -- a better place. *** I'm thinking today about a trip I once took around the very bottom of the North Island in New Zealand. It was the middle of winter, and very cold. In many places on this coast road, fords crossed the road -- fast-running streams of water, heading for the sea. I drove through several in my dungy old Mazda, but then I reached one that was clearly too deep to cross. That was as far as I was going. So I drove to the side of the road, and got out of the car. I walked to the edge of the land and looked south. As far as I know, there is no land between there and the Antarctic. The sun was not far off setting, and the wind was really cold, stinging my face. I could see nothing but the ocean, cold and grey, unfathomable and unknowable. And yet it was still the ocean, the same waters I had looked out on so many times, with the same rhythms of tides in and out, waves throwing up thick salt spray. Legends were written about this land by the Maori, and years from now people will still stand looking out from that point of land, feeling like I did. There's something really wonderful about knowing that. The ocean, grey and fierce, won't change. It's the world that we all turn back to that's changing. I didn't take a photograph of that day -- it was a little too dark, and somehow I don't know if a photograph would have captured too much of the grey, the cold, the smell of sea-spray. But it's in my mind, and days like today -- when I think about the future -- it comes back to remind me about something important. Something about home and place and belonging -- something about responsibility and love and the future. I'm going to try to hold these things in my mind a little more from now on. link - |