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musicandchips
Thoughts from 30-Something London
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Monday, August 04, 2003 :::
My goodness, I can't believe I'm sat in an office writing this when it's 33 degrees outside! Apparently Sunday was the start of a predicted two-week heatwave here in London - Laaaaverley! I spent it sat in Hyde Park watching assorted costumed lunatics hurl themselves into the Serpentine river aboard ludicrously-designed flying machines (a term best applied very loosely in this instance as it turned out!) from a thirty foot platform. A splendid day, despite the hosts being terrible, resulting only in a minor headache from a combination of too much wine in the sun and that idiot Brian from Big Brother being a total amateur with a mic. Another basic error from the organisers makes me seriously question their suitability for the job: the heatwave was predicted over a week ago, and they've been advertising heavily for two months or more, so you'd think they'd have some inkling of an idea that more than just a few thousand people would turn up. So why on earth had every drink tent in the park run out of water within an hour? Not helping matters were the public health announcements flashed onto the big viewing screens every 20 minutes advising us to drink more! Other than the muck in the Serpentine itself, which is more makes-you-go than H2O, there wasn't any! I had to go all the way to Marks & Sparks on Oxford St. Still, a pleasant enough day all in all, and a deeper tan at the end than at the start, clearly a Very Good Thing.
Speaking of Very Good Things, isn't it a pain in the a*se when one is dangled in front of you only to be snatched away at the very last minute? That happened twice to me yesterday, and to say I'm a tad miffed about it is somewhat of an understatement. Them fellas and fella-esses up on Mount Olympus are playing games with me again, and have alot to answer for! Here's the rub...
1) A couple of weeks ago I had a great meeting with a guy who is setting up a bar / club right in the heart of London's trendy Holborn. With a 4am license he was looking for someone to Dj the launch, and run a Thursday night weekly promotion thereafter. He'd heard of liggerswithattitude and was interested in us doing it. Blinding news! Just the break we'd been looking for, the venue was the right size, the location was great, the license was good - I didn't count my chickens, but optimism was running high chez-liggers. We were clearly onto a Very Good Thing. Then yesterday I call for an update on the situation only to find that a difficult clause in their lease agreement with the freeholder of the property had forced them to pull out of the deal. Which pretty much leaves me back in the dugout waiting for my call up again. Major Bummer #1.
Still, all was not lost, as I was still looking forward to a nice meeting I had planned for the evening, bound to cheer me up. Cue...
2) About a month ago, tired after a long Dj set and waiting for my cab home, I suddenly remembered it was a friend's 30th that night and I'd agreed to drop in late and say 'Hi'. I wasn't really in the mood, but being of some social conscience, and not having seen my chum for a while, I resolved to redirect my cab, pop in for a while and then head off early to bed. So I pitched up around half 2 in the morning to find everyone utterly wasted and dancing around like lunatics in the front room. Resisting calls to play records (I'd already done 5 hours that night) I went looking for a bottle opener in the kitchen, only to be confronted by an interesting looking pretty young blonde who demanded I immediately remove my glasses so she could see my eyes properly. To cut a long story short we ended up getting on like a house on fire, and resolved to meet again, which we have done on several occasions between then and now. With each meeting the chemistry, both physical and personal, became more apparrent, and we were both thinking we could be onto a Very Good Thing. Then yesterday I find out there's just one problem however; she was only recently free of a lengthy and difficult relationship (this I knew), and being somewhat younger than I she felt she needed to go out and explore the world as a singleton (this I didn't). Indefinitely. Obviously I fully understand and endorse this decision, but it still constitutes Major Bummer #2.
My main worry now is that these things generally come in threes, and I'm desperately searching for something that's looking promising that the Gods of Providence will screw up for me in order to complete the truimvirate, satisfy the Heavenly Laws for Toying with People's Lives, and prevent the universe from imploding catastrophically. Luckily everything's pretty sh*tty right now, so I think I'm off the hook. Mind you, I guess that means the universe will implode. Sorry guys, my fault. Although I didn't write the rules, so maybe it's not.
Actually I'm not really as despondent as I sound; the sun is out, it's warm, I'm on day 2 of another detox and feeling better already, and I've got a night off tonight during which I intend to order a take-away curry, so life's not that bad really.
Another for whom life isn't all that bad in retrospect is John Leslie. Whether you think he did it or not, the man escaped trial primarily because he is a celebrity (the defence were to argue that he couldn't receive a fair trial because his celebrity status had attracted so much negative publicity to his name that it would be impossible to find a totally impartial jury), and now thanks to that celebrity he's able to sell every sordid little detail of his sexual history to the highest bidder. And they're bidding high. He must be happy as Larry.
For those not in the UK, Leslie was a daytime TV presenter who's name accidentally slipped out on a rival morning TV show in connection with a rape allegedly suffered by Ulrika Johnson (another TV celeb) and detailed in her autobiography, without naming the perpetrator. Speculation had been rife in off-the-record media circles for months that Leslie had been responsible, so as soon as he was 'outed' the papers went mad. Ulrika Johnson rigidly refused to either confirm or deny that Leslie was to blame, thereby putting him into a sort of limbo; the police couldn't charge him, but neither could he clear his name. A perfect window for newspapers to speculate and circulations to go through the roof. However, when several other young women then came forward alledging similar sexual offenses comitted upon them by the same man he was arrested and charged.
This whole episode has brought several key issue to light. For example, the right to anonymity for those accused of sex crimes (personally I believe if we are to have a judicial system based on the fundamental principle of innocence until guilt is proven then anonymity until proven guilty should be hand-in-hand with that principle as a matter of legislation regardless of the nature of the crime), the responsibility on the part of the victim to bring the name of their attacker to the authorities (not least because if it wasn't Leslie then there's a rapist running around free somewhere), and the effect of media attention on celebrities or in high-profile criminal cases to not only pervert the course of justice, but, as seems to have happened here, to prevent any attempt at judicial process being entered into.
As we as a society become more and more obsessed with the mundanities of the private lives of our celebrities it is surely time to place some restrictions on what can and can't be reported, and also on what kind of information can and cannot be sold to newspapers. If Leslie avoided trial because of media intrusion into his private affairs it seems disgracefull to me that he is now able to make so much money selling the very same type of story, although with his own spin, back to the press. If Johnson was to profit from allegations of rape by including them in her memoirs, she must be beholden to contact the police and have the perpetrator brought to justice (the implications of not doing so being that a rapist is free somewhere and may well strike again). It seems that in these cases the freedom of the press is not in the best interests of society. Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow are under immense strain due to being tailed around the world, Kylie's relationship is being put under so much scrutiny is bound to drive it to the rocks (to paraphrase todays's Standard, simply because her partner hasn't proposed after a few months she's deluding herself), and the intrusion into the private lives of Diana and Dodi led directly to their deaths. It's time the press took the lead, and rather than fueling the fire of seemingly insatiable public appetite for dumbed-down who's-shagging-who gossip, eased off on these people and devoted some of the millions of column inches wasted each week on this nonsense to issues that really matter.
So there.
Today I've been listening to the Goldfrapp album (much better than I expected, if a little contrived) and the Classic FM 'Best of Baroque' compilation. Very cultured, me.
::: posted by Andy at 8/04/2003 03:42:00 PM
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