I was brought up in education with the Henry Grantland Rice adage: “For when the One Great Scorer comes/ To mark against your name/He writes – not that you won or lost/ But how you played the Game.” Well, stuff that for a bunch of soldiers.
If there was a defining moment in the Oscars’ history, it was La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, statuette still in hand, stepping up to the microphone and giving Moonlight their moment in the sun. They had been denied their big announcement, but I suspect the end result overwhelmed initial disappointment. That hug between Horowitz and Moonlight producer Barry Jenkins will go down in history not as a moment of horror, but one of strength and unity.
Los Angeles still seems like the obvious alternative. I love the West Coast weather and, as a place to escape the summer humidity and winter winds of New York, it’s a great contrast. The problem is that the things I love about it are the things I dislike, too. Film, TV, showbiz and media are my passions in a life that I am grateful every day to be a part of. But then there is the downside of all that – the people struggling to make it in those areas and, invariably, being disappointed: the scent of hope, the reek of failure.
The Corsican red I was hoping to try is unavailable, but Corsican co-owner of Cliff’s edge Pierre Casanova enthuses about his country’s liquid assets. . I give him a smattering of my best French, and, after the red wine, I discover I am fluent in Russian, too. Again.
I don’t know what it is about being airborne that makes the hair on my upper lips grow at double, or even triple the rate as it does on land; but all I know is that by the time I’ve finished my entrée and watched a movie, I look as if I’m about to deliver a speech at the Nuremberg Rally.
Everyone recommended melatonin to conquer jet-lag. Unfortunately, I was so jet-lagged, I told everyone I had taken methadone, which isn’t the same thing at all, and I then had to make a lot of frantic phone-calls to explain that I was not coming off heroin, nor, indeed, had ever been on it.
The main course arrived almost without incident, but when it came to choosing the wine, I said that I didn’t like Californian. “I’m from California,” snapped Pete. I really don’t give a flying ferret where you’re from, Pete; I just want a glass of wine that is not going to require chloroform in order for me to get it down my neck.
On the night that Hillary Clinton conceded defeat to Trump, I cried tears of despair. Racism, sexism, the language of intolerance, anger and hatred that would not have seemed out of place at a Nuremberg rally – I was not alone in thinking that we are living in dangerous times. The fact that Trump’s ongoing message is shrouded in what many believe to be the language of safety, caring and sharing makes it all the more frightening.
Where do I start, Frantz Yvelin, hot-shot CEO and founder of the airline? First, you make me feel like a second-class citizen by refusing to allow me to be anything other than a “Mrs” (heaven forbid that a single woman would, or could, travel Business Class without a man on her arm), and now you compound it by offering a deal to couples only.
Christmas is a very stressful time for people with phobias. It’s a dreadful time for people born in the festive season for example, if they suffer from Fragapanophobia (fear of birthdays); and for anyone thinking of substituting turkey for duck, spare a thought for anyone coming to dinner who might be suffering from Anatidaephobia, which is a fear that one is being watched by a duck.