Oh my giddy aunt

After the inactivity forced by my cold and the attendant mucus, dire warnings of infection (and we all saw what happened to Dana on ‘The L Word’ this week) and a need to sleep 18 hrs a day I’m finally back at work. And busy. I’d describe it as a ‘giddy flurry of activity’ – if I was a 74 year old harridan from Harrogate, but I’m not and thus I won’t.

Tuesday was a 6am start (I’d forgotten about rising before dawn) and a quick blast up a familiar road to Tarrytown – where a two day client training course in need of my moderating skills awaited. Of course two other agencies sent planners – and they sent people with real careers. Quite what happened to my career I’ll never know. Splendid as both ‘proper planners’ were they seemed no more able than I – yet they command vast planning empires and more enormous salaries, whilst I languish in squalid anonymity, commanding not even the clout to order pens from the man in the cupboard downstairs and worried about the spiralling cost of Velcro's 'Oooops I poo'd bag'. It’s actually quite shocking the potential I’ve squandered over the years – and what’s more shocking is that I’m not quite sure how. There was a time when I was really good at what I did and yet… never mind. In the words of Mother Teresa ‘Fuck It’

Anyway client day went well – terribly bright people having very interesting conversations and then finding all that they did blunted by the tools, forms and formats that they’re forced to use.

One example – all were accused of being ‘too linear’ in the way they approached filling in a key form. Well yes… BUT the form was numbered. It was a form full of numbered boxes, given that people tended to start at ‘1’…

Such is corporate life (said the man working for the ad equivalent of ‘the man’)

Tonight was a ‘cocktail party’ at SoHo house. The New York SoHo house is much more glam’ that the UK version – though fewer minor celebrities can be spotted doing coke of the lavatory cisterns. I guess it’s a trade off.

Said party was thrown for David Lamb – a man with whom I loved working and moreover loved listening to. My favorite David quote came at the US Open Tennis Tournament where a very overweight Jennifer Capriati was glued to the baseline and losing badly. In crystal clear tones that cut through the stadium David cried,

“Jennifer, think of the net as a buffet… and rush it.’

I swear I saw her tense.

I didn’t want to lose David as a colleague and had I not had one foot sinking quickly into the grave would have attempted some kind of switch to the world of Diamonds (where he now works) in a bid to maintain some contact. As it is the diamond team is quite strong enough. But the idea of diamonds being a solution to the romantic inarticulacy of men is one with which I’d love to play.

Good to see colleagues past and present tonight – though I really ought to make myself some kind of T-Shirt that says ‘It’s not a look, it’s chemo.’ – the explanation gets tiresome after a while and I find myself veering into brutality in the way I deliver the information. People deserve better than that.

Oddly I’ve just received an e-mail from a ‘futurologist’ who wanted to know what I have under my sink. She’s asked me this before. It’s bordering on obsession I think. To the point that should she ask again she may find her entrails joining my recycling bin and old carrier bags.

And on that note, I’m off to bed.