Friday, 23 December 2011

An excerpt from Russell’s facebook (where some words may have been edited to remove bad language or drunkenly misspelt words)
Saturday 5th November 12.47 -  Heathrow
Is sipping champagne thanks to those wonderful people at Emirates Airlines. Flying to Hong Kong with a brief stopover for Sunday lunch on the Palm. Chocs away.
Sunday 6th November 17.26 - Dubai International Airport
Lady at check in: "did you pack your bags yourself?"
Me: "good heavens no. My wife packed them."
Lady at check in: "Why is that, sir?"
Me: "because if I packed my own bags they would contain an elephant's foot warmer, an automatic card shuffler, a tennis racket and no clothes. It's a constant source of surprise and delight to me when I open my bags that I actually have useful items inside them".
Lady at check in: "you need to say "yes" to this question, sir".
Me: "yes"

Sunday 6th November 18.03 - Dubai International Airport
Bit of a drama whilst on walkabout to see if I can find anyone to upgrade me. Return and pass chap in green combos with large gun standing over my luggage. Smile at him. Wander. Pass him again a few minutes later. Nod happily.
“Is this your luggage sir?”
Me: “yes”.
“You must not leave your luggage unattended, Sir”
Me: “It’s not unattended. You’re standing over it with a large gun. I doubt anyone is going to try to steal it”
This is not the correct response. “I was kidding” doesn‘t help enormously, either.

Sunday 6th November 18.24 - Dubai International Airport
I have been ushered to the relative sanctuary of the Emirates Lounge and introduced to a rather nice looking bottle of Chateau St Georges 2002.
A breezy girl in a fetching uniform says. "We'll do what we can to upgrade you. You don't have to go anywhere. You can stay here" which could possibly be translated as "you are not funny. Now for goodness sake leave us all alone".
"No problem at all" I say cheerfully. "I'll check in on you in an hour or so". China here we come. Chin Chin

Sunday 6th November 18.55 - Dubai International Airport.
Just stood up to get a further bottle of this French number and immediately intercepted by a waiter who has possibly been briefed about my predilection for popping along to see how they are all getting on with the busy task of upgrading me.
"I will bring you whatever you need, sir", he says.
"I'll start with another one of those please. But don't go far away", I say.
"I won't" he assures me, in a tone that underlines these words.
Sunday 6th November 19.09 - Dubai International Airport.
I seem to have mislaid my passport.

Sunday 6th November 19.33 - Dubai International Airport
Clandestine Search of luggage and person reveals passport is AWOL. Unsure whether to alert waiter / Guard at this early stage as may compromise existing supply of Nuits St George.

Sunday 6th November 19.57 - Dubai International Airport
Waiter has brought passport. We didn't discuss where it was. We just nodded.
Sunday 6th November 20.27 - Dubai International Airport
I will hear news of my upgrade request at 2.30am Dubai time.

At 2.30am I was rather tipsy, but I can report that I was, indeed, upgraded.

Monday 7th November 05.12 - Bangkok
Just landed at Bangkok. I thought I was going to Hong Kong

Saturday, 26 November 2011


It is Olivia’s birthday party today. She will be thirteen, which, according to Mrs LG is “a very important age”, which means that everyone in the LG family except for yours truly and Tom is out getting their hair and nails done.

Her actual birthday is on Monday and because I will be away for this, and because I was in Hong Kong last week where everything is cheap, Mrs LG suggested that I buy something to put in what I like to call the “going-home now thank God” party bags.

So I decided to check out one of Hong Kong’s most famous street markets.

 “I want to go to a market” I said to the taxi driver

“WHA?” shouted the taxi driver. Taxi drivers tend to shout at me a lot.

“A market” I said “where I buy cheapy cheapy”

“YOU WAN RADYS MARKET” the driver nodded sagely

“Ladies Market?”

“RADYS MARKET CHEAP CHEAP”

“Yes, but I don’t want to buy any ladies?”

But it had been decided and I was slammed against the back seat and we were off with my head swimming with thoughts of being tossed into some back road nightclub. But twenty minutes later we were amidst large crowds and market holders adept at untying even the tightest of purse strings. And of course I realised immediately why it was called “Ladies Market” because it was full of pretty, shiny things that nobody needs.

So I jostled my way happy among the stalls, smiling “no” politely, until I stumbled upon a group of children slapping brightly coloured plastic watches onto their wrists.

The watches were rigid, but as they hit a hard surface (aka a wrist) the straps sprang to life and coiled tightly around the object. Utterly brilliant, I thought. Shiny. Tick. Novel. Tick.

But were they cheap?

“How much are these watches?” I asked

“ONE HUNRED THIRY DOLLA”

No tick there then. There are just over ten Hong Kong dollars to the pound, making these watches just shy of thirteen quid each. So if Olivia was inviting ten friends to the party I’d need over a hundred quid.

“How much for more than one?”

“HOW MA YOU WANT?”

It was a good question and I held up an index finger to indicate a hiatus in our negotiations and called Mrs LG, who was lunching somewhere in the UK. I explained the story so far and repeated the stall holder’s question.

There was a pause.

Pause are not good signs in the LG household, for they indicate Mr LG has unwittingly stumbled across information that has previously been hidden from Mr LG on a Need To Know basis.

“Thirty” said Mrs LG.

“THIRTY?” I spat into the phone.

The stall holder perked up.

“Where is she having the party?”

“At our house” said Mrs LG, calmly. “It’s going to be a disco. And actually it’s more like thirty five”

“FOR THIRY I GIVE YOU SEVENY DOLLA EA”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” 

“No I’m not crazy” said Mrs LG

“OK. OK. NOT CRAZY. SIXTY DOLLA” said the stall holder

“Who are you talking to?” asked Mrs LG

“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING”

“OK. OK. NOT KIDDING” shouted the stall holder. “FIFTY DOLLA LAST PRICE”

“Are you talking to me or him?” asked Mrs LG

“YOU”

“Well, i think you should be talking to him. That sounds like a jolly good price to me” said Mrs LG. “Get forty five to be safe. Probably a few will drop out”

“FORTY FIVE?”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA” the stall holder belly laughed before leaning in towards me and the phone “OK, OK, FORTY FI DOLLAR. NO MORE.”

“DONE” said Mrs LG.

And I had been.


Saturday, 19 November 2011

We've bought a dog


We’ve bought a dog.

“What make is it?” I asked.

“It looks like a Shih Tzu” said Lolly

“What’s a Shih Tzu?” asked Thomas

“One with no animals” said Tilda, her eyes on the television.

“She’s a Miniature Schnauzer” said Mrs LG. “And she’s called Lola”

I didn’t want a pet – I wanted more children

Don’t get me wrong, the first time I found out my wife was pregnant I wasn't exactly thrilled, but they grow on you, these children. And over the last few years Mrs LG and I have been out to a few dinner parties where the subject of children has come up and we have 3 children now, and when the women at the dinner parties ask me if I want any more children (and it’s always the women who ask) I answer ‘yes’ and Mrs LG, never far away from me in social circles with predatory females, answers ‘no’ and ushers me quickly away. Nothing to see here.

Because if Mrs LG doesn’t want to have any more kids, then we won’t be having any more kids. Having more kids joins the long list of things that I want to do that Mrs LG is not going to do, and the first thing on the list is to talk about the list.

But I know she thinks about it, because when I walk aimlessly down an aisle in Sainsbury, wondering how I’m going to acquire Rooney in my fantasy football team without losing Van Persie, she pulls me back by the small of the neck quickly rendering me as incapacitated as a suspended kitten, and she looks at me with smiling eyes and says “don’t think I don’t know why you are walking down the baby aisle.”  
And of course I smile back. With no mention of footie. I want her to think I'm cleverer than I am, and in my expereince the best way to do that is by keeping my mouth firmly shut.

And while the kids issue seemed to be getting to her, there was always hope.

But that has all backfired spectacularly as now Mrs LG, in her concern for the fact that I’m getting broody, has bought a dog. A Miniature Schnauzer, called Lola.
Lola and I don't get on particularly well. She knows her place in the family pecking order. And it's way above me. She tends to show me her tail a lot when I try and call her. Or at least I think it's her tail she's showing me.

And for the last two weeks while I have been away, noone in my family has called me. They’re all going gooey over the dog. Time is flying by.

And I can see that Mrs LG, Tom, Olivia, and Tilda have been posting photos on Facebook, of the upgraded family, minus Dad but more than complete with Miniature Schnauzer frolicking in the autumn leaves, perched across Tila’s shoulders outside school, shitting on the spare (my) bedroom floor, that sort of thing.

 And when I call, they only want to talk about the dog.

So now I have slid ever further down the slippery slope known to a man as the family pecking order; which now stands at: Mrs LG, Olivia, Tilda, Tom, Lola the Miniature Schnauzer, the one-eyed goldfish and then a long, long gap, that stretches out to the horizon.

 And then, if you squint really hard, you can see me.

But despite all this, Lola is growing on me. And I missed her, just a little bit, when I was away. And I’m happy being way down at the bottom of the pile, just as long as we can throw some more bodies in-between.

And if they all have to be Miniature Schnauzers, then so be it.

Saturday, 12 November 2011

Diets and the battle of the sexes


Diets and the battle of the sexes.

 For the last three weeks I have been on a diet, although it has been a long time coming as it all started about the time of the riots. I was working remotely from France and bemoaning the fact that David Cameron was returning home to sort out the country, thus putting us remote workers back several years in the process, and Mrs LG, who is far more comfortable delivering rather than receiving personal information, and has no problem with wandering off on tangents, remarked that I should go on a diet.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are fat”.

I rushed to the nearest mirror and discovered that it was true. I was not a dead ringer for the lithe energetic hoodies leaping from Currys with forty inch plasmas. I was the outraged Daily Mail reader; in pink shorts; bald, chubby and with a slight whiff of a middle-aged homosexual gone to seed.

This, in itself, did not force me into any change of habit (unless you count avoiding mirrors) but since then there has been an ever increasing stream of hints about my (over) weight, and then three weeks ago I returned home to find that my wife had bought me a book.

Mrs LG doesn’t buy books, because there’s already plenty of unread books scattered around our house, more that you could ever read, because I make a point of buying books, particularly books from small independent bookshops. And as I make a point of passing small independent bookshops, this is quite often. It’s a weakness of mine to buy books from people who love books, just as it is a weakness of mine to buy my meat from nice people dressed in large cotton aprons covered in large splatters of blood. Because just tastes nicer that way.

The book that she had bought me was The Atkins Diet

Now normally when a woman (and it’s always a woman) starts talking about diets (and Mrs LG has many friends who pop over and indulge each other upon this subject) my brain automatically shuts down all vital response mechanisms other than the occasional nod so that I can appear to still be listening while free to roam on autopilot, but, being a clever old sausage and knowing that I am a bear of very little brain she was quick to give me a brief synopsis before I slipped into my comatose state and that synopsis of 366 pages was two word, which were, No Carbs.

OK. I get that. And, well I’ve never quite understood pasta, noodles and rice anyway, so it sounded like a rule that even I could follow. And so I have been, and, in three weeks, I’ve lost a tone and a half; or perhaps a stone and a half.

So you’d think Mrs LG would be happy, but far from it. It appears that diets are supposed to be traumatic challenges that are agonised over and debated at length. They’re not supposed to work.

Mrs LG - along with all the other yummy mummies who shove their kids into class and then rush off (five past nine is gym time) - invests a lot of time, energy and money on a rigorous training programme. This seems to involve a variety of jaw-droppingly terrifying exercise programmes run by someone called Claus and then sitting around my kitchen complaining that they’ve only lost two pounds while shoving in another handful of quavers. So my weight loss has been greeted with distinctly muted enthusiasm by the ladies who lunch. As has my answer when asked how I did it, which is – by following the instructions.

Men, unlike women, don’t need to give themselves the odd “day off”. We either crash diet or fall of the wagon completely and keep rolling, lacking the long term commitment to something as boring as a diet. And the good thing about Atkins is that the effects are pretty quick. Possibly because eating becomes so dull that the laws of mathematics kick in and the less food you put in your mouth, the more weight you lose.

And it also helps if you’re pretty fat to start with.

But when she looks at me distastefully as I scoop a selected Sainsbury’s £2.99 seafood medley directly from the box into my mouth at breakfast time, I know it’s not the smell. It’s the fact that it’s working.

Because it only smells when I burp.


Advertiing to children


My six year old daughter, Matilda, runs the house, which I believe has something to do with her ability to make people accede to her bizarre, irrational demands.

I try to spend as much time with her as possible; i’d like to find out her technique. But it’s hard weekdays as I tend to leave for work before she wakes up and when I’m back she’s in bed again, clearly exhausted from all the bizarre, irrational demands she has been making throughout the day.

But this weekend we got some time on the sofa. We’re both early birds and we both like some quiet time in front of the telly, and in a family of five mornings is the best time, and the earlier the better, believe me.

So I get downstairs first and put the news on, and when she wakes up she comes down and then we watch what she calls “something we both want to watch”, which means something that she wants to watch.

And we have about two hours before anyone else emerges from the nest.

So I’m pretty clued up on iCarly and the hundreds of other shows that are beamed directly from some Hollywood studio to my kitchen sofa and I try to get my daughter’s attention with some sparkling conversation and this is not an easy task for me, as my conversation is not that sparkling even if it wasn’t competing with Hollywood Hills, and it usually goes something like this;

Me: Have you noticed how the brake lights of cars look like eyes staring back at you?

Tilda: Who’s eyes?

Me:  People’s eyes. Anyone’s eyes.

Tilda: I think you are confusing your eyes with everyone else’s eyes daddy.

Or these

Me: Look out at those bright stars! Oh wait, they are airplane lights. They’re very bright, aren’t they?

Tilda: (looking at television): They’re brighter than you.

But during the ad breaks conversation becomes easier. Not because Tilda finds advertising boring. Quite the contrary. And the one subject Tilda is happy to talk about during the ad breaks is how much she is missing what the various advertisers are selling and what my plans are to rectify this vacuum.

I do buy my daughter a lot of random presents, mainly second hands from charity shops. If you close your eyes hard enough Princess Alice Hospice can look like Hamleys. And like most children, Tilda doesn’t really know what she wants. So she wants everything.

Now I know that what she really wants is cheap stuff and stuff that she can get bored with 9 times out of ten but because it only cost 50p an item I don’t really care.

And one time out of ten she finds something she loves and makes it worthwhile.

Advertising is a powerful tool in front of children. Some of the ads i remember the most were for toys when i was about the same age – weebles that wobbled didn’t fall down, indestructible Tonka Toys, that sort of thing.

But it’s a powerful tool in front of anyone. We’ve just bought out a range of flat screen LCD TV greetings cards so advertisers can now beam their wares directly to those they think are more likely to buy them. And that could be kids, I guess.

There’s no escape.

But does advertising to kids really work, or is it just advertising to amenable parents? Children move on very quickly from disappointment to disappointment and their tears are easily drowned out by the cries of parents; “Course my precious can have the new sparkly dress with the flashing lights! Nothing’s too expensive for my Princess!”

Of course my daughter wants everything that’s offered her, especially if it’s done in a memorable and entertaining way on the screen. But when her cousin who is about the same age comes over she’ll trade whatever she’s got for whatever he’s holding.


Wednesday, 14 September 2011

Art For Art's Sake


Art Buchwald, the American columnist, was pacing up and down Fifth Avenue one day a few years back, glancing at his watch every now and, like many husbands, wondering when his wife would emerge from the shops

When she eventually did, she handed him five carrier bags to look after while she trotted off to check out some jewellery in Tiffany’s.

Hanging around a street in Manhattan with bags from five top stores – Macy’s, Saks, Barneys, Bloomingdales and Berdorf & Goodman – wasn’t smart so Buchwald sauntered over to Lexington Avenue and popped into an art gallery. He carefully left the bags in a corner and slowly sauntered around the place, checking out the state of the art.

When he returned a little while later to pick up the bags he was delighted. The gallery, it turned out, was holding an exhibition and Buchwald’s bags had been awarded first prize. He was handed a cheque for $10,000.

Can this sort of thing happen in London?

 It has – and, of course, it can again.

Some of the works of modern art bought by the national galleries (funded by the taxpayer) may have fooled the aficionados but haven’t fooled the punters.

Remember the Tate’s acquisition of a Pile of Bricks by Carl Andrew (officially known as Equivalent V111) which was bought for £6,000 in 1972?

Or Mark Wallinger’s work? He bought a racehorse and designated it ART by simply calling it A Real Work of Art.

Then there was Damien Hirst’s pickled sheep. Away From the Flock (its official title) which consisted of a lamb suspended in formaldehyde in a glass case.

The work of Laos-born Vong Phaophanit, who was short-listed for the Turner Prize for his Neon Rice Field, consisting of seven tons of rice, so infuriated the punters that a young woman threw flowers into it as it went on display at the Tate.

Vong Phaophanit didn’t win the Turner Prize. The winner turned out to be Rachel Whiteread – whose cast of a derelict house was labelled Disaster in Plaster. The house was later demolished by Tower Hamlets.

Then, of course, there was Martin Creed. He showed us he was pretty switched on when he gave us Lights Going off and on in an Empty Room.

Art, according to Tate guidelines, “treats everyday reality in a recognisable manner”.

So anyone can be an artist?

Yes, sir. Even I.

All I needed for a start was inspiration. So I thumbed through the works of Manet, Monet, Chagall and Tretchikov, but eventually I found what I was looking for while making a call from a BT telephone box.

Call girls. Or rather, call girls’ calling cards.

I bought a piece of  plywood, painted it, sanded it,  mounted the cards on it and then framed it with a border. It was all very tasteful , naturally. Well, most of it was.  I put a picture of a telephone box in the middle, a phone card in the top right hand corner, a packet of condoms on the left for emergency use only and added some oil paint squiggles for good measure.

 The work was entitled Marking Man’s Progress to the Second Millennium.

 I wrapped up my work of art and sauntered over to Sotheby’s in Bond Street.

They were charming.

“Mister Brown will be with you in a moment, sir,” said a receptionist.

Mr Brown turned out to be a Mr Benjamin Brown, Deputy Director of Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s. He was busy right now, explaining to a chap from Italy that the prints the man had found in a vault in Sienna were not the works of Boticelli, not even by the wildest stretch of imagination.

Next he spoke to another art lover from Italy – in fluent Italian – before it was my turn.

Mr Brown came over. I took a deep breath. I gave him my name and said: “I would like your opinion on a work of art. It is by a famous artist. I myself have not been told who the artist is but an expert like yourself will probably recognise the signature in every brush stroke. I want to find out what it is worth.”

Mr Brown didn’t throw me out on my ear. He waved his hands. “No, no, no,” he said. “I don’t have to examine the brush strokes. Do you know who I think this is by? This is by Sarah Grieve Stewart.

“Sarah Grieve Stewart does work very similar to this.  But she always signs her name.”

I explained that the signature had been left off deliberately to get unprejudiced comments.

Said Mr Brown (again): “I really think this is the work of Sarah Grieve Stewart, an American artist who lives in London. She does this sort of thing and I think she is great fun. I think she is not necessarily a great artist, but she is pretty good.”

Me: “So who would exhibit this?

“I don’t know.”

“So it is just a fun piece?”

“Oh, no, Sarah Grieve Stewart would consider herself a serious artist.”

 “So what is it worth?”

“That would depend whose signature goes on the work of art,” said Mr Brown, adding, after a pause, “for a pointer though, Sarah’s work sells for thousands.”

Wow! Cheered up , I bounced along to Lots Gallery in Chelsea and unveiled my work with an air of panache.

Mr Nicholas Carter, picture valuer at the gallery, looked at it with the pleasure you would think he would reserve for a newly-discovered work by Leonardo da Vinci, or, at least, Turner.

I started my routine about recognising signatures in brush strokes and the work being a comment on the 21st century, but he waved me to keep quiet and said:

“Gosh! This is excellent!”

A couple of people, who had wandered into the gallery, rushed over for a peep and an elderly lady burst into giggles. “I say, isn’t that naughty but wonderful at the same time.”

“Steady girl,” said her equally elderly friend.

Mr Nicholas peered at it again. “What fun! I would like to know whose work it is …but anyway, I am sure someone in the West End would buy it.”

“Who do you suggest,” I asked. “An art dealer or a gallery perhaps?”

“Someone who doesn’t mind taking a risk in the avant garde,” said Mr Nicholas. “What I would do would be to take it around to Cork Street and Albermarle Street and even Duke Street and talk to them there.”

As I turned to leave I asked: “What would you say it was worth?”

Artists, I was told, value their own work and then everything depends on the market and who likes it.

“Sotheby’s said it could be worth thousands. What do you think?”

“Try it.”

 The Eaton Gallery in Duke Street was my next call.

The boss, Mr Douglas George, squinted at the work, waved me to silence when I launched into my spiel and said:

“A friend of mine collects these cards. He has about three hundred of them, all different. He believes they are going to be very valuable one day.”

He added as an afterthought: “He’s Australian, needless to say.”

Would the Eaton Gallery hang the work?

No, but not for any other reason that all the art displayed in their gallery is over 100 years old. The telephone numbers on my work prove that though the game the girls are engaged in is by no means new, the cards are.

I worked my way through the Burlington Arcade to Browse and Darby and had my first disappointment.

A girl at the reception desk spotted the condom packet and looked as though a nasty smell had suddenly settled on her top lip.

“I’m afraid we wouldn’t exhibit that,” she sniffed.

But across the road at a gallery claiming to deal with the likes of Dubuffet, Nicholson, Matise, Hoffman, Margite and Picabia, I ran into Mr Lindsay Tuckett, who described himself as an art connoisseur.

“I think you have hit the jackpot with that, ol’ man. Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“That there is a massive campaign to rid all telephone boxes of these cards. “Really?”

“Yes really. Spoilsports. The Metropolitan police, the Rotary Clubs and groups of Women Opposed to Bloody Everything have demanded their withdrawal.”

Mr Tuckett advised me to exhibit my work at the Tate to boost its price.

“Will the Tate accept it?”

“Are you kidding?”

The Tate, it turned out, were busy organising a Bonnard exhibition and didn’t have much time. A receptionist looked at my work briefly, said yes, it looked all right, but I needed to send in slides.

I made one more trip, down the road from Harrods to the Bunch of Grapes, on my way to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

As I sat down and ordered a pint of lager a guy, wearing a Chelsea scarf, said inquisitively, “What you got there, mate?”

“A very valuable work of art.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.”

 Silence.

“Gee, mate, this is a load of crap if you don’t mind me saying so.” Another pause. “But can I borrow your pen. If you’ve no objections I would like to take down a few of these phone numbers…..”