Archive for the ‘Diary’ Category
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
The Royal Opera House’s forthcoming production based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith might offend the cognoscenti, but what a story line…..
At eighteen she married a kitchen hand while working at Jim’s Crispy Fried Chicken Restaurant near Waco,Texas; when the marriage failed she moved to Houston but her lack of talent as a topless dancer had her switched to the lunchtime shift where as luck would have it lonely octogenarian oil billionaire J. Howard Marshall II would pass an hour. When she was asked if it was love at sight, (shades of Mrs. Merton asking Debbie McGee what first attracted her to the millionaire Paul Daniels), Anna Nicole revealed it was his liver spots that turned her on.
He married her, ignoring the sixty three-year age gap and paying for the 44DD breast implants which brought her Playboy shoots and her own TV show, but within a year he’d died, leaving her half his fortune.
Happy endings are bad news in operas and sure enough Anna Nicole spent the next five years in failed bids to get her hands on the cash, ballooning to fifteen stone by her bankruptcy hearing and finally dying of a drug overdose in a Florida hotel. Such was her fame that when a judge burst into tears when awarding custody of the body, he was promptly offered his own TV show.
But hold that curtain! Act Three centres on her funeral, (for which she wore a designer ball gown with matching tiara and a light dusting of her 44 DDs with J. Howard’s ashes), where her two ex’s stared each other down across the nave and her mother arrived to a chorus of booing. She was thirty nine.
Casting’s a cinch – Covent Garden have fat ladies coming out their arias – but the uninspired title of ‘Anna Nicole’ will have to go – for the life story of a thwarted topless dancer, it has to be, ‘If She Wants to Rigoletto.’
Tags: anna nicole, news, opera
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Fifteen months after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, security remains very… well, Indian. Sort of ho-hum karma. Hotels check beneath cars with mirrors on rollerskates; some look in the glovebox, some glance at the luggage, few do both. It gets more perfunctory as the queue and hooting grows but with Mumbai traffic it’s hard to know what’s queue and what isn’t, what’s road rage and what’s habit.
At the Leopold Café you’re frisked by a man with a rifle over his shoulder that would take down a chorus line of rhino with one shot. It was early morning and just a few Europeans inside so when waved to any of the tables, I chose one a little too close to the serving counter but with the best overall view.
A waiter took our order and without prompting pointed out the bullet holes in the walls they’ve kept after renovation and then lifted the tablecloth a little in front of Alex and pointed to a saucer-shaped hole in the marble floor between her feet. “That’s where the bomb went off,” he said, clicking his ballpoint. ”You want snack too?”. Suddenly the ho-hum’s replaced with a little chill that I’ve chosen that table out of thirty and Alex has picked that particular chair out of four. We skipped the snacks, just had coffee. And didn’t linger.
Tags: india restaurant
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
After two fruitless days last week criss-crossing the Gir National Park’s dusty hinterland for the elusive Asian lion – smaller than their African cousins and lacking their natural sense of rhythm – we were on the verge of asking Alex to volunteer as tethered bait when our guide Desraj got a radio call from rangers who’d spotted three cubs resting up in the 95 degrees after a morning kill. Reversing our Jeep through the teak forest for better close-ups, (and a faster getaway should the kill have merely whetted their appetite), Desraj would have qualified for a hefty tip till we spotted his diamond-studded ear lobes.
By the time we reached the dirt track again, (and this being red-tape India), a Camera Permit Inspector with waxed moustache had monitored the call and was waiting to check our paperwork, (500 rupees for each camera over seven megapixels), while the guide and driver surreptitiously slid theirs under our seat. It’s a jungle out there.
Tags: india lion
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Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Land of Contrasts? Tell me about it. Yesterday we trained from Cochin, a local second class stopper laughably called the Parasuram Express, which hugs the Keralan coast for eight hours of swaying hell as an army of shouting hawkers march the aisle with chai, coffee, curries, fried bananas, dodgy torches, Hindu fiction and religious tracts, all of which could be optimistically described as colourful – but not the toilets. These squatting hole-in-the-floors offer nothing but nothing to grip for support and though I was able to brace my head against a wall Alex had no such luxury, so a real toilet in our beach cottage last night proved heaven – until pressing the flush button revealed too late I was sitting on a state-of-the-art Toto Eco-Washer and my scream, as a freezing burst of water intruded off the Richter, had Alex rushing in lest I’d discovered non-brochure wildlife.
While accepting the maker’s claim the saving of paper contributes to preserving the rainforests, I’d sooner be lashed to the top of a mahogany tree as Brazilian loggers circle with buzzsaws than experience that again.
Tags: India
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Thursday, February 18th, 2010
In the absence of roads in the Keralan Backwaters all haulage is by lake or canal and with profit margins thinner than the locals, overloading is the norm. These two are shifting sand for construction with a freeboard that would have Samuel Plimsoll turning in his grave. Nifty bailing with a handy saucepan is the only way to prevent sinking from the wake of passing rice barges which is maybe why the skipper’s taken up smoking.
Tags: India
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
After shooting a feature at Calcutta’s Future Hope School which rescues street children from Hell-on-Earth slums, we felt ready for R&R in Pondicherry, staying at a colonial gem in the French Quarter described in its brochure as ‘a hotel that never ceases to surprise,’ a claim born out as we entered Room 15 when a rat ran past our feet, under the bed and into the bathroom, causing Alex to immediately down her remaining Gynergene tablet, preciously reserved for severe migraines or rodent sightings, while I had to settle for a stiff lime and soda to aid recovery – being dry for nearly a year now, this proved the greatest test of resolve to date.
Once Alex’s eyeballs re-aligned and a new room was found free of wildlife we dined alfresco and, mindful of the Basil Fawlty episode, I suggested we skip the Cheese Platter lest opening the savoury biscuit tin produced a second sighting.
Tags: India
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Monday, October 12th, 2009
At my request, Saturday’s ceremony was a low-key private affair with just me and the local shoe repair man, though I doubt he felt the same rollercoaster emotions as he punched a new hole in my leather belt and shrugged away payment.
For me though it was a moment of spiritual joy, brought about by the two-pronged catalyst of an insensitive guest, (see diary entry of August 23rd), and Alex’s gentle advice that I couldn’t do the book tour looking like a muffined slob. So on March 15th. I gave up alcohol, wheat, dairy and caffeine and started eating a lot of everything else, coupled with three days a week at the gym.
The result is five inches off the waist, which may not sound much on paper but to me reflects a daily triumph of the will. (You work out the weight loss as I never weigh).
The problem of growing sideways has lived with me since my mother told school bullies that I wasn’t fat but big-boned, with the subsequent fuller figure blamed on genetics, cheap mirrors or bad tailors.
It’s not resolved of course, it never will be – ‘my name is Clive and I’m addicted to buttered crumpets’ – but when friends ask if this will be a lifetime’s regime I tell them six months without the aforementioned is a lifetime.
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Saturday, October 10th, 2009
Over the years I’ve had photographs rejected by a broad spectrum of the industry but when turned down this week by Henley Post Office, I felt my career on the slide.
Alex’s passport shot was 2mms. too small, mine had grey lines in the white background. On their advice, we used their instant photo-booth which turned us into Fred and Rose West. Worse still, I looked like Rose and….. no, let’s not go there. They’re fine, said the clerk. So now, immigration will either laugh out loud or ask for the name of our plastic surgeons.
Next day, I submitted the original versions for an Indian visa and wasn’t certain they’d been accepted till the clerk punched a staple between our eyes. Professionally, I feel back on course.
Tags: Photo, Photography
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Monday, October 5th, 2009
Yesterday I was interviewing William Dalrymple at the Henley Literary Festival before a sell-out crowd, (possibly drawn to him rather than me), about his extraordinary new book ‘Nine Lives’ which centres on the spiritual extremism shown by nine individuals within the Indian sub-continent.
Equally impressive was his bibliography where he lists 122 books that helped with his background material. For ‘India Exposed’ I relied solely upon Google, seeking three to four independent sources before committing facts and figures to paper during the six months research, and I wondered over what period he’d read these books and if Google would have shortened the research. It was more an author-to-author question so I saved it till the end of our joint book-signing that followed. Sadly, once his queue finished he rushed off to listen to Rick Wakeman who followed us. That’s rock’n'roll for you.
Our thanks to all who came for their support. May our books bring you pleasure.
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Sunday, September 27th, 2009
Here’s an interview I did recently with Shutterbug Magazine radio in San Diego, California (requires quicktime player – which you can download here for free)
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