Dear Reader … well, Manny! The first to sign up, that’s what I call loyalty. A slightly novel means of communicating with one’s son, it beats hollering upstairs – or competing with a screen. All good. So, how was your day?!
It feels weird writing this on my new website. Correction. I have to load it onto Trish-Trash from this word document. Sound simple? Must be! I managed to transfer some of my previous tomes. However, now there is a little more pressure to get it right …
Going Live! Remember Saturday mornings in the 80s? No? Well, it was the must-see programme which we all watched in our jammies, following the night before, and which set Phillip Schofield on the road to stardom having discarded Gordon the Gopher and escaped from the Broom Cupboard! I kept thinking about that as Trish-Trash.com went live on Monday despite my attempts to delay. Some of the photos were not yet in situ but, in reality, only I knew that. Panic? No. Back to Doris and Que Sera, Sera. A project for which the seeds were sown just before Christmas, it has taken a lot of thought and collaboration over the past few months but Primal Space have brought my ideas to life and I have loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to start adding to my different pages and, once I have read and executed the instructions, there will be no holding me back. Did I hear somebody mention packing? So bored with that. I think I might just go to Rome …
Where has this year gone? Nearly halfway through, I thought I had ages to pack up the last twenty-six years but, as ever, the concept of time is very different from the reality. Months. On paper, that is several blocks of four weeks. Why is it, then, that they fly past as though minutes? Perhaps it is just an age thing? Perhaps it is merely so when one would choose to delay? Then, conversely, why is it that a date to which one is actually looking forward takes forever to come round? Just another of life’s little mysteries. Right, if I concentrate on looking forward to Wimbledon, logically, that should give me all the time I need!
Now, this is a pound well spent. To think, it could have given you ten seconds on the parking meter or afforded you the luxury of a trolley to push round Sainsburys! The choices we make. At least one can be assured that I am not going to mention the ‘B’ word although, in truth, it could be summed up with another ‘B’ word – one of my particular favourites. Personally, I still hold those who voted to leave responsible for the mayhem of the past two years and, no surprise, I have a particular face in mind when bemoaning that section of the electorate. Does that mean he’s responsible for us coming last in Eurovision, too? Consequences. Far-reaching.
So, what else has been happening over the past seven days to counteract the panic? Actually, let me, first, deal with that little word at the opening of the paragraph: ‘so’. As with the prolific misuse of the word ‘like’ by those struggling with mastery of the English language, the increasingly common adherence to these two letters as an automatic pre-fix to the answering of a question does nothing to allay my blood pressure. As ever, my question is why? Completely unnecessary, affording no value to the answer, it is merely a slovenly habit – and, had I mastered the uploading of new material to my ‘Seriously?!’ page, this would definitely have been on it!
Back to my fraught week. I popped into Harvey Nichols on Monday – not my favourite. Brings to mind – sorry, digressing again – a quote from the outrageous Mark Francis on Made in Chelsea when he was attending a launch party for loungewear: ‘The propensity to spend money in order to look poor … ‘ I said he was outrageous but he has a point!
Fifteen percent off at the La Mer counter tempted me to venture in with Becca’s upcoming Birthday in mind. Funny how the words ‘percent discount’ serve to momentarily paralyse one’s cognitive powers ensuring the remaining eighty-five percent of the one hundred percent one had no intention of paying in the first place is inconsequential! Age old …
Turns out there was a chance there would be nothing left worthy of a second mortgage as I waited in line behind a Chinese couple who seemed to be purchasing the lot. Seriously, I could have wallpapered a room with the receipt – if I could wallpaper! What is it with the Chinese? Money is no object. Working in Cath Kidston all these years ago, I used to ponder at their consistently pristine notes, rarely producing anything below the value of £50. Most were attending Edinburgh University and privy to the ten percent student discount and, I have to say, that did raise the blood pressure – not the discount but the numbers at university in the city paying for places which could, otherwise, have gone to Scottish students. It is a bugbear of mine as, several years ago now, Manny endeavoured to transfer from Aberdeen to Edinburgh and was told there were places available but these were reserved for Chinese students! As ever, money talks. I shall stop there … or maybe just add a snippet of information I gleaned from the Jeremy Vine show on Channel 5 yesterday morning: apparently, in the last two years, China has produced more steel, cheaply, than British Steel has in its past two centuries of operation. I think the battle against world domination is becoming more futile by the minute. Can somebody tell Donald?!
My car is in the garage once more. Sixteen years old now, one can’t help but worry – and pray! Newly serviced, we were stuck in traffic for hours on one of those hot afternoons last week and there was a repeated groaning metal sound every time we edged forward. “Whose car is making that noise?”, I asked Manny. “Yours!”, came the reply and he was right. Fiddling with the handbrake and, eventually moving, it was gone but the relief was short-lived. Reminded me, though, of other occasions when the laugh has been on me – and one in particular. Returning from London for Christmas, we were at Luggage Reclaim in Edinburgh Airport observing the cases appearing up onto the turnstile when items of clothing – mainly underwear – started flying everywhere. A case had broken and was dispelling its contents willy-nilly. “That poor person”, I said. “How embarrassing!” – as I killed myself laughing. Of course, it was then that I recognised said contents and realized that ‘that poor person’ was me. Divine retribution. Straight behind a pillar! I was young …
Finally, Manny, a reminder of the reality from which I have tried to protect you for twenty-six years … Somewhere in New York City, right now, sitting on a white cube in some random room, is an eleven year-old Samsung laptop loaded with six of the most destructive viruses ever released into the connected world – malware – responsible for nearly one hundred billion dollars in related damages. Currently being auctioned for hundreds of thousands of dollars – with bids already in excess of a million – under the guise of art as ‘The Persistence of Chaos’, it is deemed as ‘an exposé of how fragile our machine-connected lives really are.’ (Curtis Silver, Forbes Media LLC) To think we recognize evil – even highlight it – but do nothing …
On the day of Theresa May’s emotional resignation, the word ‘dignity’ came to mind and thus I leave you with a quote from Michael J. Fox:
‘One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.’
This is Trish, signing off.
