more boss non stop

groupies

early wake ups

trying to catch up on sleep is never easy for me.
even harder when i get woken up at 1:28 a.m. by this bosley-like text message.

OK I'M ON LATE SHIFT TOMORROW. S.M. AND M.B CAN TAKE HEADS. FLAV PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO V AND N. FLAV, V AN N FROM HK WILL BE THERE IN MORNING. N HAS A SHEET OF PHOTOS FOR YOU OF ECB TYPES. N IS SHORT. ASIAN. BEAUTIFUL. SHOULD BE EASY TO FIND.

i have a faulty phone. no charger.
a broken laptop and absolutely no idea about what anyone looks like.

born-again heterosexuals

the boss, had a devastating effect on lady v and myself.
i was quite beside myself and the sight of bruce spontaneously sponging the crowd with buckets of ice cold water officially tipped me over the edge. what a man!



he starts on time. !
he has no support band. !!
oblivious to the rules that concerts must end by 1130pm, he rocks on past the 3 hour-mark. we're exhausted!!!!
he takes requests..!!!!!!!!!!
he mingles with the adoring fans, 70,000 and counting.
he genuinely enjoys performing. !!!!!
no stage tricks. no phoney antics. !!!!!!!!!!

oh sam......

swoon. swoon. swoon. swoon.

this captured my eye in the village voice.

``After a 28-year absence, he returns to the Public Theater with Kicking a Dead Horse''

there are no words to describe my love for sam. so i'll just restate, reiterate it. again. and just a quick shallow reminder as to why i love him. mmm. gao.

ANOTHER very civilized weekend
cars that ran out of gas: one
non functioning fridges: one
house: full
films seen with trains: two
films featuring cocks: one
house frau: tom


the rest is to your imagination and to the ones that are in know, please keep it on the downlow. reputations must be protected. appearances must be kept up.



after spending three hours in a pair of shorts claiming she was going for a jog, lady v finally bit the bullet, changed FROCKS, and gave up on exercise all together. here is a distant shot. g&t in the background.



ME ME ME ME ME ME. errr



when it was all going to hell in a basket who do you think cooked, cleaned. got me up in time to leave. guided me. loved me. supported me. well yes, tom. i think the experience took its toll, judging from his reaction...



YOU know who you are. signed: your no. 2 fan

good clean fun

all in all, as you can testify. a very uneventful weekend. bread making and what not. really let's not make a habit of it shall we?

photographer: michelle tan esq.

tots pull it together

in response to a crisis, the tot machine goes into overdrive

f: holy mother of god. silence. EXILE. cunning!
lady v: i think i need a drink
f: i'll see you one and raise you one
lady v: spade this weekend. i insist
f: queen of hearts anyone?
lady v: queen of tarts, more like..

at ease.

Mongol: The Untold Story of Genghis Khan (2007)

AM VERY BLOODY EXCITED! i love mongols! they're HOT HOT HOT!


here is a trailer of what is surely an execrable film. do i care? no.i love an ostentatious blood bath in glorious technicolor settings.



i will now ponder the solitary barbarian desert warrior, Lo.

la vera storia dei finzi contini

today in la repubblica>

L'enigma dei finzi-contini, il celebre romanzo di giorgio bassani sulla tragica storia della famiglia ebraica di ferrara, e' celato in alcuni fogli di colore giallo sepoltti dentro uno degli armadi in acciaio dell'archivio nazista di bad arolsen. Il dossier che emerge ben custodito dall'istituto per la ricerca internazionale (ITS), che la croce rossa da pochi mesi ha aperto agli studiosi nella cittadina dell'assia, porta un'intestazione molto semplice: ``Magrini Silvio.'' Ma chi era Magrini, o piu' esattamente, Finzi-Magrini?

i think i just got goosebumps. the fact that the book was semi-autobiographical was always known. but it was always left open whether they really existed or where just a fanciful conjecture.


alberto and micol finzi-contini as played by helmut berger and dominique sanda in vittorio de sica's 1971 film.

mission accomplished

so le duc finally bowed to peer pressure and is coming to marem afterall. although peer pressure is perhaps not quite the term way of putting it. he was promised suckling pig by lady v. posting of gratuitous cock by me. countless other conditions were set. and both tots blindingly agreed to all of them. alas i find now that i may have some trouble fulfilling my end of the bargain. so here are a few warm up rounds.
so country cock (ho ho ho)



err. ok. not really going to cut it, is it. where do i go to look? let me see....will search for twinks and see where this takes me. one small willy for you and then i am done.
aha. here is one!

so done small. what else. a nice keanu pic for you too, since you love him so.



that's him on the right. er. playing ping pong
okay am done. i should get SOME marks for effort. and i have a new found appreciation for what you do.
as an aside. DO bring the fabulous baker boys. you know my THING with jeff B.
yum.

tots do milan

lady v looks exquisite. heidi is the cutest thing ever. i am a parody of myself. tot is zoolander. the water is real. the negronis have kicked in. everyone is happy to be alive.

blast from past

ring ring ring
(witheld number)

f: hello?
l: fraaaaaaaaaaap!
f: alvy!?
l: annie!
f: are you HK?
l: i was frapping along and frapped a left and turned into draycott place!
f: there is one there too?
l: good times!
f: happy days!
l: am coming to geneva for wedding
f: i hate weddings. can you swing by rome?
l: frap!!!!


london. 2001. i lived in a dodg flat in draycott place
sometime in 2006, laurence moves to HK. not a word to anyone.
i have since spoken to him, twice?
anyway here is to him. and the film projects we stayed up talking about. and the preston sturges movies we loved watching.

suicidal bunnies

a new obsession. thanks to luigi for the introduction.
l: i KNEW you would like it
f: you know your chickens
l: genius
f: genius

i love obituaries

and no one writes them better than the english broadsheets.
an excerpt of a fine one, i stumbled into:

When I asked him once what he would like in his obituary, he said: "Mr Crisp thanks the world for letting him stay so long." Quentin Crisp (Dennis Pratt), individualist, born December 25, 1908; died November 21, 1999

at its worst an obituary is just a dull old news article, with a splatter of common place facts and figures. at its best, it's a series of amusing and touching anecdotes bringing alive the character of a formerly significant but possibly later forgotten figure. sometimes it's a question of finding something new, or a new way of showing, the achievements of someone far too-well known, of which everything seemingly has already been said. a good obituary takes years to write. to refine. to update. and when the time comes. it's a fitting and unbanal legacy, one hopes.

vinnie, U.S. Treasury, and loyal subject

vinnie: how are you your majesty? regal and in all your glory?
f: always. bow..
vinnie: i am here to bow ... never forget that! ... now i must slay another dragon
f: head on a silver platter please
vinnie: would you like a side order of pasta?
f: execrable...
vinnie: ok how about some country gray and home made biscuits?
f: you are dismissed
vinnie: deep bow and farewell until we meet again.

so she kissed him

yes she did. who's she. not the cat's mother. all details unveiled June 13-14

lovely innit

sex and the city

okwell. what's left to say that hasn't been said already, by someone. so. yes.
here is one of my fave quotes, and i will leave it at that


Enid Frick: Forty is the last age a woman can be photographed in a wedding dress without the unintended Diane Arbus subtext.

okay. fine. just one more.
Samantha Jones: Don't blame marriage. She's married and she's not growing a national forest.

okay. am done.

6:35 a.m.

yup. after sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting and mulling, the hound of the jacksonvilles thought she would pounce on my face at the crack of in a fit of excitement, playfulness, mischief and puppy dog love. errr!

conversations with former mentors

back when i was a youthful 22-year-old, my mentor was the silver fox. oh how i loved him. quirky. northern. a shock of grey hair. a devout david bowie fan. an irreverent wit. a suicical smoker. an utter cheapskate with terrible dress sense. five years have passed since i flew the coop. and i barely hear from him these days.. until today....

silver fox: leave young M.A. alone!!! he lives the life of riley here, unstressed, laidback, surrounded by adoring young women. don't listen to his moaning. he's a picture of health, mental and physical, he goes to the gym twice a day, cycles home every night and plays rugby union at weekends.
FKJ: well i think he should move to rome. london is an awful place. come on. he can still do everything he does there from here. and the lovely sea breeze will do him the world good. there are NO adoring women in london. it's a nest of vipers. they are all stressed. overweight and hysterical. here he has his lovely flav that will treat him like a king and give him good copy to edit.
silver fox: you're just trying to make me jealous, to retrospectively justify the transfer of your affections from me to him with some spurious health reasons
FKJ: do i need to remind you that you picked la KOLLEWE over ME. to
this day i lament your taste in women..
silver fox: do i need to remind you that a) you were always number one and still are b) i plucked you from impending Commoditiesdom and winged you to the land of sun and pasta c) i have to put up with fraher flaunting your adoration of him d) it's lonely at the top*********************

so here is to you silver fox. and to the next time i hear from you. 3 years from now when i try and poach another one of your editors.

feigning interest

okso. at 8pm i don a frock and some slips


lug the laptop in the little red rucksack

and trot off to monte mario for a slap-up bankers' dinner at a 19th century villa

looking a bit incongruous.






the thought of food fills me with some dread
the image of lashings of free champagne mitigates aformentioned fear
the prospect of a boring speech to cover will temper my excesses, i rationalize.
the anticipation of lots of boring men in suits with crumbs stuck to the sides of their mouth turns my stomach a little.

as it turns out it was all in all quite jolly
i got my palm read. and it was disconcertingly on the money
i was on the terrace smoking fags and talking shit with adoring old fuddy duddies
the speech was off the record so could pretty much ignore it

and well there are worse things to do in life, surely.