Letter From London - The Deed is Done - Humorous Gossip from London

DOES MY HAIR LOOK BIG IN THIS? - 6 November

Dear Lulu,

Madonna. A word. Don’t give up your day job - to the manor born. After seeing Madonna’s new video previewed the other night, I am convinced she should appear in public fully clothed…preferably in layers. Yes, yes, we see your bum…over and over again. Yes, yes, we see the results of your years of yoga classes…again and again; body over-kill. Isn’t extreme muscle definition admired only by body builders and their immediate families, who have a vested interest in their financial success? Isn’t it all a bit creepy, really? Isn’t Madonna faking sexual hysteria with LA gang members just too much for anyone’s jaded imagination? Without her, the video would have been quite entertaining. Maybe she always had this false face, but the cast in the video only exacerbates the frozen facade. Madonna must have been exhausted; not from performing, but from holding her face in that, ‘I’m Madonna! I am so fucking cool. Watch me do yoga poses. Watch me do sexual angst. Better still, just watch me.’ The falseness just isn’t fun any more. Time to spend more time shooting unsuspecting chirping birds out for their morning exercise. “Bang, bang. You hit the ground. Bang, bang. I shot my baby down.”

And then there is (poor) Kate Bush and her new video. I know. We all loved her when. I don’t mind her being rather plump, but the camera angle was totally unforgiving and unforgivable. Apparently her new middle-aged-middle-England-suburban look hasn’t been exactly ignored by the press because she suddenly cancelled all future interviews in view of the fact that she was ‘too fat’. I must admit, it was a bit of a shock at first, but the real problem with the video was that homage-to-Halloween Elvis white flying suit behind her feathered (oh god) head. I was embarrassed, but the presenters fell over each other: “Oh! Wasn’t that sooooo fantastic!” “Indeed! Indeed! I just loved it!” Apparently London’s Evening Standard forgot to check for that ubiquitous white powder on the back of the toilets at the BBC when they were playing sleuths out to name and shame an entire world on coke…not just Ms Moss and Baby (shambles) Pete. Quickly. The Artic Monkeys, please.

At least Kate Bush hasn’t gone all blond and Farrah Fawcett-y. Even FF doesn’t look like FF. (But then again, can you name one actor in Hollywood who has any resemblance to their former selves?) To be honest, we should all love the fact that Madonna has announced her agelessness (think the most recent MTV Awards), but this blond hair caught in a wind tunnel test - flattened yet flipping out five inches from her face is stunningly stupid. Perhaps it’s just her LA look. When in LA…. I can’t quite picture it perkily plunked in a downy chintz sofa set by a roaring fire and bog-smelly dogs, all surrounded by woolly tweeds, can you really?

And then there is the queen of hair absurdity: Charlie’s Angel, Camilla. Her hair dresser, whose name escapes me at the moment, was flown over with all the other staff to keep that confection alive and well throughout her US Grand Tour. The man must be blind or sadistic – or both. Is it a (Philip Treacy) hat, is it spun straw, is it hair? We’ll never know, will we? When Camilla donned Queen Mary’s magnificent vertical tiara a week or so ago in an unconscious attempt at Queen Camilla’s pre-America elevation, her hair failed her. Massive, sparkling diamonds caught in a bleached nest. Too disparate. The woman spent the evening emulating a deer in headlights. This very tiara, adorning Queen Mary when she was made Empress of India, was so spectacular that the actual Queen looked like a poor relation next to Camilla. I may never warm to Camilla from afar, but it was undeniably endearing when she performed the-royal-wave at hip level; a little hand flick to the crowds, twice, before following The Plastic Bush Pair into a White House function. Suddenly her short, waist-less body, nicotine-stained teeth, happily swirled hair all looked a familiar and welcome relief.

While on the subject of blonds, who could have been saying those nasty, naughty things about Britain yet again? First it was all those pathetic British men (well darling, you married one). Now it’s “the customer service is rubbish (oops, I do believe that is a British expression), it drives me nuts (oh, I do believe that is an American expression)…it always rains…the streets are filthy….” Are we living in the same London I wonder? When I go into a shop, a chemists’, a market the sales clerk, “Follow me, Madam”, literally takes me to exactly what I’ve been unable to find. There was so little rain this last spring/summer that London Mayor, Ken Livingstone asked Londoners to cease and desist toilet flushing until absolutely necessary due to drought conditions. What rubbish? All those pavement cleaning machines, all those street cleaners sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. Gwyneth. How many days have you spent in London this year? Exactly how many homes do you have? I have a novel idea. You could stay in LA: sunny, gormless, vacuous, vacant… blond. Perfect for you I’d say. Maybe it was better when you simplified things and chose one polysyllabic word a year for interviews. I remember one year when the thesaurus chosen word was ‘solipsistic’. I do believe a comment here would be redundant.

TTFN, Maggie

Letters From London