These Divas Didn't really get my Respect

Last night me and my closies went to see a show. A show! London Town! The West End! I haven’t been to see a show in the West End since before I even lived in London. In first year of uni we would get the train in to Paddington, buy cheap tickets from Leicester square for anything showing that evening that was cheap, then wonder around going oooo and thinking Trocodero was cool and having lunch in central London and assuming that was a good thing to do. We didn’t even have a drink cos we thought it was too expensive. And once we sat in the front row and saw a play called “Humble Boy” and it had felicity kendall in it and she said “I’m not angry, I’m incandescent with raaaaage!” and we loved it and we waited by the stage door and the main man told us he could see our smiling faces and that we were the best audience members he’d ever seen. And Felicity Kendall was a bitch to us and my friend Andy was heartbroken cos she was his idol. And then once we saw My Fair Lady and I stole the bincolulars. Oh the folly of youth.


So anyways. My friend Halcyon organised this night out. I was pretty excited cos it’s not often all the closies get together. The show is called “Respect La Diva” and it’s showing at the Garrick Theatre. Quite a main theatre in “theatre land”. So we met up before hand. I really struggle with “theatreland”. The pubs are all really skanky with weird patterned carpets and they have fake blackboards that advertise “fish and chips”. For fuck’s sake, tourists coming to London must think all we eat is fish and chips. I guess it’s like when I went to Paris and I thought Parisans only ate fondue. That’s probably true though.

So yeah, the pubs are packed full of tossers and tourists and they don’t have any cute little pubs with nice wallpaper and giant glasses of wine. The sort of cloned cosy pubs you get in South London which is what I like. I judge pubs based on the wallpaper, olden day style picture frames and the quality of the hummus and bread on the snack menu. But enough of that. They don’t have that on the Strand so we went to All Bar One. When I first moved back to the UK after my year finding myself in an various English Language schools, and I was looking for a job in London, I used to think All Bar One was really cool. They have them in central locations! They do nachos!


I don’t think that anymore.


So me and my mate ordered some sharey platey small things that were 3 for £15. I'll be honest, I think that the cost of them together was actually less that £15 but we were hungry. We were still hungry when we finished by hey ho.


But on with the show!

It’s a show of songs that claims to enter a range of “divas” into the Diva hall of Fame. Queue lights and music.


We were sat right in the front row, reminiscent of my brush with Felicity Kendall. And from there you could really see the make-up caked faces of the old boiler washed up singers, belting out tunes by Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Beyonce, Dusty Springfield etc.


There were 4 main singers and they were really giving it their all, waving their hands around and fluttering their eyelashes. They were giving it real sass. You had one who reminded me of Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act when she's in those terrible shows in Reno. She did a little “bit” where she said she’d gornw up with a lot of the divas they were paying tribute to and was even still friends with them. AHAH that’s a funny joke! So I laughed laudly and she seemed very offended and went to be “oh ha ha” and then carried on. Later on it was revealed that she actually used to be in the 3 degrees and really did know the Divas. Oops.


The there was a blond one who was so old and scrawny thin and her costumes were too big for her. here she is. She's not blnd here though. Maybe she was wearing a wig.



Then there was one who was quite young and really giving it too much sass for some of the songs she was singing and you could also see right up her dress from our front row seats. Apparently she was in pop idol or something. sometimes she would sort of squat with her legs spread when she hit the bog notes and she was always doing sassy shaky around hands. I just found out that she actually WON pop idol in 2002! So well done to my friend Laura for spotting that one.


And finally. The best one of all was this black lady with long black hair who was so sassy it should be illegal. She had a weird hand twitch, like she was conducting the music. On acid. And she made these really weird faces like she was in pain when she hit the big notes. And sometimes she would move the microphone around in a motion that looked like she was drawing a Chelsea smile upon her face. And dead eyes. AMAZING.
Her face was mesmermising.
Here it is.


You can tell that photo is airbrushed to within an inch of it’s life.
Then we have the compare who was Andy the binman off of X factor. I've never heard anyone deliver their lines so much like someone who was delivering lines. He wasn’t wooden. Just really really like he was in a 6th form play. In between some of the songs he would do a “bit” with this girl pretending to be a sound technician and she would go on and on about how she wanted to be a Diva and have HER name in lights and it all built up to this bit at the end where she got her name in lights and she got to do a song. It was a bit of an anti climax really cos they only gave her ONE line of song and I didn’t even recognise her and thought it was one of the others with a wig on. and she totally refused to come out of character and kept stage whispering to the old blond lady “I love my dress” and the blond lady would nod politely thinking “ok ok they get it”.

The whole show was so ropey and cheesey. The dancers were pretty good but they weren’t really giving it their all. Sometimes you just wanted to shout “look this is a proper performance put your back into it!”. and the 3 backup singers were given really complicated dance routines to do but couldn’t really cope. I just don’t understand who they were cast at all. It was like watching your mum floundering in the lights.

And then at the end we all clapped and gave a cheer and the young one who won pop idol actually told us to request an encore. We did and it was fun and we all got out of our seats. I felt a bit on show dancing out of my seat in the front row but I shook my booty in the hope that the director would see me and give me a part. I'm not joking, that thought actually went through my head and I wasn’t even tipsy cos I'm still not drinking.

So all in all it was a great night out. I laughed so much through the whole thing although I was worried the cast would see me. I'm pretty sure the weird one with the mesmerising face saw me at one point and scowled. And we even saw Harry off of Eastenders in the interval. These media types, always with the glitz and glamour huh?

Eff off sun

I hate Autumn.

There. I said it.

Last week, Eva Wiseman wrote an article in the observer magazine about how much she loves autumn. She said that summer is actually a drag cos you always have to be “making the most” of the lovely weather.


I totally agree with her there. What she said made me do a LOL, in fact. I love summer as much as the next person of course. I'm not going to be controversial and say I hate summer. Who doesn’t love the heat, the sun, lounging in parks with a bottle of wine or some beers after work? Avoiding pubs and playing rounders with your mates and a picnic? Summer in London is the absolute best. Plus I'm half Maltese and I grew up in Germany where you’re guaranteed good weather for 3 months. I've got hot blood.


But, like Eva, I can appreciate that sometimes you just want to watch the Gilmore Girls and you don’t want to go for a walk in the sunshine, you just want to close the curtains, but you always feel guilty about it. I suppose if we lived in America, where it’s scorching all summer. we wouldn’t feel guilty because you know it’ll be hot again tomorrow. When every day’s a gamble like it is in GB, you really are wasting it.

But anyways. I feel like summer is a big stress because of that gamble. This summer just gone especially. I wore tights in August! Quite a lot in fact. At least twice a week. so basically I'm glad summer is over. I'm fed up of the charade.


But that’s doesn’t mean I'm welcoming Autumn. Oh no sir-y bob. Because as an antidote to summer, I need winter. I need to snuggle under blankets and put on my faux fur coat. Buy some new boots and splash through the puddles. Drink hot chocolate or red wine by the fire place.


That’s what a I want. And that’s how Eva Wiseman described Autumn. But that is certainly not how autumn plays out.


Autumn is warm. It’s hot. People are fooled into thinking they need the heating on and that it’s ok to wear a winter coat with opaques and that’s why I spend the whole of autumn sweating.

I just spent August freezing and now I'm dying of the heat. I told you I was hot blooded.

And so it begins. Today I wore tights and a coat and the sun came out and I sweated. When I go home, Dan will ask if we can put the heating on and then I'll have to sleep with the window open.

No thank you.


But I won’t learn my lesson and tomorrow I'll check the weather, ignore it, and wear a woolly jumper with a scarf and boots.

All I can say is, roll on November.

Have I got Anything on my Face?

I'm quite obsessed with the Sali Hughes beauty column in Saturday’s Guardian column (that was a very long description wasn’t it?). Every Saturday I eagerly check my guardian app on my phone (welcome to the 21st century yeah?) and see what she's recommended. Sali is a beauty/makeup up expert and every week she writes a few words with some recommendations and a video of how to use it.


If she says I should buy something..I want it. I have to have it in my life. If I already use that type of product (wash off fake tan, getting my eyebrows threaded) then I think I must be amazing cos I'm already doing something that Sali recommends)

So far I've been encouraged to buy

1. Facial refreshening spritzer (for those long hot days pounding the streets of New York with my make up melting off my face!)
2. Tinted moisturiser (makes you look like you’re effortlessly wearing no makeup when secretly you are GUFFAW)
3. Batiste dry shampoo (festival MUST have!)
4. Rimmel liquid eyeliner (an oldie but a goodie!)
5. LIPSTICK.

Lipstick was her most recent one and she basically said she should never leave the house without it. I've recently been trying to make lipstick my “thing” anyways; A few months ago for Glastonbury, I went to MAC and bought an orange lipstick. As a novice with dry lips. This was a bold move and I spent most of the festival asking people if my lips looked ok and worried that I'd got it all over my face. Then a few weeks ago I brought a bright pinky purple one that would apparently make my teeth look whiter. I've been alternating these 2 lippies on the weekends and it’s basically a lot of hard work. I'm constantly worried that it’s caked or some off on part of the lip but not others. Have I smudged it? how will I eat this baguette?

But the 2 colours were not suitable for work really. or daytime wear. Plus I don’t think I could handle that sort of pressure at work anyways.

But then Sali told me…NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT IT so I rushed out and used my No.7 £5 off vouchers at boots to buy a lipstick and the lipliner she also recommended I buy. She says to put on a nude lipliner first and then put on the lipstick without a brush. So I do. at work.
I now have to keep a mirror on my desk and the worry really hasn’t subsided after a week. I'm hoping I'll get used to it all but really it’s such a hassle. I can't put it on til I get to work cos then I can't kiss Dan goodbye. If I got to a meeting I have to keep my hands away from my mouth in case I rub my hand across my mouth and smudge it. I actually did this the other day and I had to spend the entire meeting looking down in case I looked like a psycho killer. There was an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel Air once where Will treated this girl really badly so she took him to a cabin in the woods and tied him up and pretended to be a psycho to get back at him and in one bit she puts her lipstick on while grinning manically and rubs it all over her face and she goes “do I look pretty?” in a crazy voice. That might be one of my favourite episodes ever. Maybe I'll watch it later on you tube if I can find it.
Anyways, I have visions of looking like that.
Its such a shame that Sali told me I have to wear lipstick every day as I'm now in for a lifetime of discomfort BUT I HAVE TO DO IT COS SHE SAID.
She's also really pretty and welsh by the way. And once she replied to me on twitter. It was only one word, but WHAT a word! “blush”. I cherish that day.

On weeeeeeee!!!!!!!!

I've been feeling a bit low the last few days. On Monday morning the crippling depression was even more crippling than ever and I just got really overwhelmed by life.
I thought, god I can’t believe life. What is it? Why are we here? Do I just go on living forever? Why? It’s like I was 17 or something. Although to be honest when I was 17, if I were to read back over my diaries, I would find that I wrote quite a lot about becoming an actress.

When I was a teenager living in *insert name of shit town here* I had a collage on my wall. I was really proud of it and I put all sorts up there. Shopping bags from my favourite purchases, train tickets, cinema tickets, postcards from museum visits, photos, all sorts. I would go as far to say that it was a piece of art and when my mum and dad moved abroad and we had to take it down I cried. Well not properly. I cried a bit inside.

Anyways, one of the postcards was of a print of a painting called The Lady of Shallot. I'd seen it at a museum on an Art gcse visit and fell in love with it. I was very dramatic and believed myself to be a big fish in a small pond. I'd say I had a few airs and graces and thought my school was a shit tip and that the lady in the painting was so tortured..LIKE ME! Now I'm not saying I was alone in this feeling. Most people felt like this as a teen. But obvs at the time you think you’re the only one.

So on the back of this postcard, my 16 year old self had written my 35 year old self note. It said that if I wasn’t a famous actress by the time I was 35 then I should give up trying and become an air hostess.

Oh the lofty aspirations of youth!

What a fucking idiot. Considering how much I supposedly wanted to be an actress, you’d think I would have done a drama a level and tried to get into a drama school or SOMETHING. But no, apart from playing a mental nun in an am dram play when I was 17, and then auditioning a few times for the uni drama society who ceremoniously rejected me THREE times, that was about it.

And then, an air hostess. Come on Young Lara! At least a temp at a publishers or a waitress in a fancy restaurant. Air hostess? At 35 as well. I'd be well over the hill for that job.

And also if only I'd known about the future of budget airlines, I wouldn’t have been so hasty. Elbowing my way around stag do’s to Barcelona all day doesn’t sounds very glam but to a 16 year old I suppose any way to get out of shit town was preferable.

So back to me feeling low.

Just like my 16 year old self who DESPERATLY wanted to be an actress but wasn’t proactive enough, over the past 4 years of working at my public sector beacon of drab, I've decided to:

Become a Librarian
Do a masters in literature
Become a teacher
Work in advertising
Become a social worker

But have done nothing about it.

And so, the ennui continues……..

Oh yeah and I've given up booze for a month so that might have something to do with it.