GSOH REQUIRED

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, how come lawyers grow rich from clients suing hordes of people over allegations of plagiarism?


I read a very interesting piece yesterday about intellectual copyright in the world of Oscar-winning luvvies:-


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1379933/The-day-I-sat-Emma-Thompsons-kitchen-accused-stealing-movie.html

(Quite interesting what it says about lawyers, too.)


Anyway, I myself have been 'flattered' of late, it turns out.  


A few months ago, having tired of the weirdos I'd been encountering on established dating sites, I decided it would be far preferable to encounter weirdos on a site of my very own making.  Apart from anything else, a great way of being required to talk to every man who happened along, n'est pas?  And so my singles site was born.  


The membership grew quite quickly and I instigated a regular monthly coffee morning, along with organizing the usual sort of drinks evenings, visits to the local book market, and so on.  I wrote the questions for the members profile page to include which attributes best described them and what attributes they were looking for, leaving space for each person to list their their interests and passions.


Naturally, since I'm moving out of the area, continuing to run such a group would be impossible, so I found someone to take it over.  Would have been a shame to see it go under, it having in excess of 50 members.


Well, guess what?  Another singles site has sprung up!  Here in Nice, where my singles site is based!  


Regular readers to this blog might like to hazard a guess as to whom they've met on these pages who would have the chutzpah to do just such a thing...


...any luck yet?


Well, here's a clue.  Remember Pam?  She of the school of kamikaze driving and secret socializing sites?  The one who threw me out of her group for committing the heinous crime of not having turned up to an event on a wet Wednesday afternoon, thus causing permanent emotional scarring to her members?


Yes.  Pam has started a new singles site.  Here in Nice.  It has the word 'singles' in the title. As does mine. As the second word. Just as in the name of my group.


There are a few differences, however.  Like, er, the secrecy thing.  If you're a non-member you have to join (usual Pam essay required to persuade the esteemed Organizer you're worthy of membership) before you can see if there's anyone there with whom you might like to mingle. (I think Match.com might learn a thing or two from Pam).  


And oh, the profile page...


WHY ARE YOU JOINING THIS GROUP???


WHAT CITY ARE YOU LIVING IN NOW???


HOW MUCH FREE TIME DO YOU HAVE???


WHAT TYPE OF ACTIVITY DO YOU WANT FROM THIS GROUP???


FRIENDS OUT OR HOOK UP???    (?)


STAND UP STRAIGHT, MAN!!!  (I added that one myself).


GRRR...(I added that one, too).


Not sure how, but this group appears to be related to something called Looking for Fun Cote D'Azur 2011. 


Well, if that's somebody's idea of fun, I'd rather sit in front of the TV and watch the Royal Wedding coverage, ta very much.  Whilst having my fingernails pulled out.  Very slowly.


You're not really going to be surprised when I tell you I wrote to Pam, are you?


No, thought not.


I asked her how many singles groups she thinks Nice can support, and whether she'd mind if I started up a group with the same premise of one of her other sites.  


Surprise, surprise, am still awaiting a reply. But then, who am I kidding?  I haven't submitted 2000 words about myself to be worthy of an email acknowledgment.  


Tsk.

***

P.S.  There's an upper and a lower age limit!  As there is with Pam's other sites!  25 to 58, or some other unfathonable random selection. 


Oh, and:-


This group is for singles, and those looking for fun/ relationships who know what they want, and have good reason!  You've got the finances...and the personality to go with it!! 


Screening and selection apply to each candidate.


ZZZzzz...

ALL MOD CONS - No. 1

Let Me Give You Money For Being Nutty

It's hard being homeless.  But at least I'm not green.  (According to Kermit - another frog I haven't kissed - it's not easy being green, either. And just imagine - homeless AND green!  See how much I have to be thankful for?)  


Especially hard to find somewhere to live from 1000 miles away.


Still, thank goodness for the internet, eh?  Look what's out there:-

Beautiful double room with ALL MOD CONS available ASAP.

Would suit someone who is EXTREMELY neat and tidy (who doesn´t like clutter or dust), who has one suitcase, who is patient, good with computers, understands if people are sensitive to chemicals and food allergies and doesn´t mind checking the post.

Flat comes with ALL mod cons, excellent washing machine, nice lounge, excellent storage, gas central heating, double glazing, big refrigerator, cleaner, wifi (internet), free telephone calls to most of Europe and USA, big TV, TV license.

Ideally short term is best, but might become long-term. (Someone who is easy going and flexible with this - and doesn´t mind making sure the flat is kept to a high standard of cleanliness as most people LOVE the flat when they come in because it is kept well-maintained). Thanks!

Now that sounds like just the kind of welcome to a new life I'd been hoping for. I think it would do me good to have to get out of bed at 5.30am every morning and stand up straight with my back to the wardrobe, proffering my fingernails for a cleanliness inspection. And since I don't know many people in London, what better to do in the evenings than polish my boots and iron the edges of the sheets as they form the perfect 90 degree angle over the mattress?

One suitcase?  Must write and ask how many pairs of socks are allowed, and whether they can have stripes...

Think it might be an idea to post an ad looking for accommodation instead.

*

ROOM WANTED

Stuffed dog, no suitcase, 4 paws (clean-ish), would like kennel for himself and his menopausal Jewish fairy (unstuffed for some considerable time).

Very good with computers (loves dribbling over keyboard).

*

Now let the dog see the rabbit...(which shelf in the big refrigerator did you say the rabbit was???)

***

JOGGING OVER EX-PATS

It was the London Marathon on Sunday.  I know this because I was watching the news, where they interviewed assorted pandas and carrots - along with Fred Flintstone - before the race started. (Superman apparently completed the course in 2 hours 42 minutes - what kind of superhero is that, FFS???  No wonder the world's in such a bloody mess).


They then spoke to some kind of an expert, who explained that when you're running in the usual wanker  jogging kit, your blood temperature is a normal-ish temperature for jogging blood, whatever that may be (what am I now? A doctor???)  However, in a chicken suit your blood reaches the upper limits of what is considered safe for freshly heated soup. (Umm, lovely giblets. Can you pass the salt?  Ta.)


As it happens, I had a very urgent appointment on Sunday morning for coffee on the beach, so on prising myself out of my sick bed (had been imbibing fish soup the previous day, having run out of chickens - possibly because they were all taking part in the bloody London Marathon) - I went over to my living room window to see what all the traffic noise was about in the street below. (Sunday mornings are usually quiet, it's the middle of the night when you get noisy traffic round here).


I live on a crossroads.  One of the roads had been closed off.  Not a good time to do this; for one thing it's Mercury Retrograde (oh, don't bother yourselves, I'll fill you in on it another time), for another, half of the street connecting one major thoroughfare to another had been drastically reduced in width because of roadworks, and now, among the hundreds of cars that were gridlocked thanks to the sudden road closure, there were lots of buses trying to negotiate the redirected route, too.


I looked down the street that had been barricaded to see a fearful sight - men and women bobbing up and down in bright spandex.  Not a couple, not a few, but over eight thousand of them, I later discovered.


Well, I knew the London Marathon was arduous, I just hadn't realized that it started in Nice.


Anyway, out I went (not in bright spandex), and ambled down to the Promenade for my rendezvous.  And that's almost as far as I got.  For the road that runs alongside the beach was entirely full of joggers, jogging as if they would have looked completely stupid in neon rainbow clingy jumpsuits had they decided to walk.  


(SHUSH!)


I wanted to cross the road to the beach cafe.  I looked left.  I looked right.  Joggers to the left of me, joggers to the right of me - into the promenade of deathly attire it was impossible to ride.


From the port to a distant point on the way to the airport, there were joggers jiggling in every direction.


Many of us wanted to traverse the Promenade des Anglais.  We live by the sea, it's not entirely unreasonable to want to get to it from time to time. Especially on a Sunday. But the Promenade (it's a PROMENADE, joggers, you're supposed to PROMENADE on it, otherwise it would be known as a JOGGENADE, would it not???) was saturated by the spandex crowd. For miles. 


There are no underground pedestrian tunnels to gain access to the beach. No overhead walkways. The place was designed as if beach goers are grown up enough to cross the road safely under their own devices, negotiating speeding tons of metal coming at them from all directions without any help.  


Negotiating joggers, however, is an altogether different - and evidently more dangerous - matter.


(Why did the chicken cross the road?  He didn't. Too many people jogging in sodding chicken costumes stopping him from getting to the other side).*


*  Or was it that he was just too chicken?


I managed to get to the narrow island in the middle of a pedestrian crossing area, where 45 others were also perched, waiting for a chance to reach the Promised Land of pebbles, friends and coffee.  And there I stood for 15 minutes.


I won't tell you how I managed it in the end, but suffice to say there's a really interesting domino effect when you stick a foot out 45 degrees from your body in an absent-minded, menopausal kind of a way. Which subsequently made the hardest part of traversing that narrow width of tarmac being able to effect the journey without laughing my head off.


Oh, and yes, lovely day in the end - coffee turned into lunch, I got home at 5.30pm.  By which time there wasn't one single chicken in sight.


Clucking marvellous.

***

P.S.  Yes, I know chickens are female, should anyone else want to have a go at educating me.  We used to keep hens in the back garden. Rare breeds, all: Swarfega (my favourite), Nutella, Fruitella, Anaglytpa and Dyspepsia.  


To my knowledge they never entered a race in which they had to dress up as themselves. Nor did they try to cross the road. 


They did come into the house from time to time (egg-delivery used to be a sight more personal in those days) and follow me around on the grass when I teased them with grain, not to mention take soil-baths in the summer, but they were all extraordinarily well-balanced chickens (except for perhaps all of them) and knew I would have taken a very dim view of any monkey business. Which is just as well, since they were chickens.


All now jogged off to that great hen house in the sky, graves close to the house.


RIP, girls.

WEDDING FEVER

Feeling ill. One of those things where your whole body aches, you feel sick and you can't sleep, even though your eyelids are continuously on the point of closing.


It's 17 degrees outside, my (double-glazed) windows are closed, and the heating's still on full throttle. I've just been lying in bed under two duvets (that's not a euphemism for two Italian painters and decorators - why aren't you following me on Twitter, FGS???) and I'm cold. Even my stuffed dog looks sorry for me.


Mind you, perhaps the reason I can't sleep is down to a typical Saturday afternoon in Nice.


The woman upstairs is playing some jolly, bland (and jolly bland) plink plink plink plink pop song very loudly, the pompiers are hurtling around, sirens belting out the usual siren sound, and assorted cars are driving slowly along the streets of my neighbourhood, car horns BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEPING as is customary at the weekends.


Manchester United fans?  Manchester City fans? Exasperated drivers in north London stuck in jams trying to get to see the FA Cup semi-final?


No.


These beeping cars (meant literally, but please feel free to substitute a swearword of your own choosing) constitute a wedding party.


Wills and Kate, take note.


For here in Nice, brides - having enveloped themselves in acres of bright white polyester satin (the fabric, if laid out end to end, would undoubtedly cover the Alpes-Maritimes; twice), and caked their faces in make-up so orange, Judith Chalmers would look like a veritable Goth standing next to them - climb into the back of open top cars to be driven around town for hours so they can wave at Saturday shoppers struggling with their heavy Saturday shopping, yell at startled passers-by, and look the smuggest they're ever going to look. I was on a tram once, with such a wedding car following behind us, wheels astride the tram lines. Sweet, how the vehicle duly waited at all the tram stops, presumably to see if any other orange brides needed a lift. 


Don't you think a tour of London in this way would endear the future king and his wife to their future subjects? Prince Phillip does that carriage driving stuff, I'm sure he wouldn't mind taking the wheel of a resprayed Renault 5, banging his fist on the horn several times a second. It would give the Queen time to nip back to the Palace to make sure the Cheesy Wotsits were laid out strictly according to royal etiquette. And it wouldn't cost much either - Kate's parents would, I'm certain on this occasion, donate the bunting tied to the back of the vehicle, and the silly string, and the life-size cardboard cutouts of corgis stuck on the side of the car, from their own, Party Pieces pockets. (Frilly pockets £5 extra).


Well, let me know if they take my advice.  Sadly, I'll be leaving for the airport at the very time Kate arrives at the Abbey. We already know she's turning up in a car, perhaps the Royal advisors have got wind of how to make the British monarchy just a little more relevant to the British people in this, the 21st Century.


Oh god, where's my bucket...

***

A MENOPAUSAL FAIRY TALE

At first glance you wouldn't think Kate Middleton and Nice Etoile had much in common, would you? One, a rather emaciated young woman, a safe dresser, about to walk regally down the aisle in some understated, costly creation towards her prince; the other, a curvy middle-aged Jewish fairy, tripping through passport control in a tutu, sparkly wand in hand, having failed utterly to find even a boyfriend in her erstwhile adopted home, let alone a balding royal fiance with a good job in helicopters.


Handsome prince? The deal is, as I understand it, that you have to kiss a lot of frogs before he appears, yet I haven't kissed one single Frenchman.  


Don't get me wrong, I've had offers (from an assortment of nationalities, as it goes), and did actually come pretty close to smooching with one tall, dark, handsome Frog in my early days here, but I chose not to go for it in the end.  Therefore, I suppose I can't really complain about a lack of action in the prince department, can I?


Hmm.


So, what's the link between the future Queen of England and myself?


Well, we both start our new lives on the very same day.  


I hope she's happy as Mrs Mountbatten-Windsor. But there's little she can do about it if she isn't.  Whereas I, Ms Etoile, am able to float out of marriages at will, flutter down to the Med and take up residence in a foreign apartment with a leaking dishwasher (there is a limit to a wand's powers, you know), with the potential to pucker up for a future Mr Etoile, should he happen onto the scene.


I can see friends on the spur of the moment, wear jeans day in, day out, and big, cheap jewellery, and not have to stay with the mother-in-law every single Christmas in some drafty old castle.  Nor will my future years be taken up with smiling, shaking interminable hands, listening to mind-bogglingly dull speeches, smiling, tripping over bad-tempered corgis, never revealing any real emotion, smiling, and being nice to the security detail who accompany one absolutely everywhere.  


Oh, and smiling.  


If I want to have sleepless nights worrying about paying the bills, and finally fall asleep just as the world is waking up, I'm perfectly free to do so.  I can spend whole days touting for freelance work, sending off 50 letters at a time, and know I won't have to concern myself about receiving even one acknowledgment in return. I'm also at liberty to pop out to the supermarket for some vital ingredient I forgot to obtain earlier, without which supper will be a complete disaster, only to forget what the vital ingredient is once I get there because I'm menopausal. (Goes without saying the royals can be as menopausal as they like...they have staff.  Including chefs).  


I can choose where I go on holiday myself, were I to have enough money to go on one.  I can drive myself around, getting lost for an hour, be unable to find a parking space once I've finally reached my destination, give up and drive myself home again.  When I can afford to own a car, that is.  And I can toil away for years at getting my name known for my creativity, rather than achieve instant fame for marrying someone famous for being famous.


I don't think much of this will bother Catherine (as we must now call her, according to royal commentators); she didn't have much of an interesting life before her engagement, passing almost a decade since university dabbling in a few days work here and there as an accessories buyer for the retail business of some family friends, and taking the odd photograph of cakes for her parents' party accessories business. (Notice a theme here?  Yes, she's on the verge of becoming an accessory herself to the outdated institution that rules Great Britain! Smile please!)


In exactly two weeks time, Ms Middleton's and my own life will change drastically.  Hers for decades of absolute certainty in every aspect, mine for yet more insecurity and adventure, only in a different place.  


But would I swap?  Not a chance.  I have the freedom to be both happy and unhappy.  Kate Middleton has to be happy come what may. Forever.


And yes, some day my prince will come.  Only, I hope he's not a prince, if you know what I mean.

***

The children of royalty:  Princes and Princesses

The child of a Jewish Menopausal Fairy:  My son, the prince!

APRIL SHOWERS

Mellow evening.  Lying on the sofa listening to soft jazz, reviewing the past 20 months, before I start packing up tomorrow.  But that's what wine is for, right?


What I'm looking forward to in London: a good Indian meal; fish and chips; English newspapers costing less than a month's rent; people you don't know smiling at you and having a chat; waking up to BBC Radio 4 news; seeing my son and my UK friends more frequently; men taller than my stuffed dog. 


What I wish I could take with me from Nice: my friends; the weather (when it's good - been through a couple of harsh winters here); my hairdresser; the stunning scenery; and...erm...


It's hard to say goodbye to things, even if you want to say goodbye to them.  I will miss Nice, although my experiences here have been, at best, mixed.  I'm imagining looking out of my window in north London on a rainy day, dreaming of sitting on a Baie des Anges beach, catching a few rays, listening to the Mediterranean swish onto the pebbles, caressing the ankles of those who don't mind getting their ankles caressed by the swishing Mediterranean; eyes moist, wondering why I gave it all up.


But practicalities must prevail.  Life for me on the Cote D'Azur is not sustainable. It's time to move on. And at least bits of me are tanned...(the Portuguese bits; the Russian bits are still Brilliant White. Snow goggles advisable).


So the next few days will be filled with practicalities - packing up, arranging couriers - and visiting favourite haunts and seeing friends, along with thinking about what being here has meant. Pondering how it's changed me.  


All part of the process.


And gradually Nice Etoile morphs into Not Nice Etoile...

***

PLEASANT VALLEY SATURDAY

For the first time in the eight or so years that I've been coming regularly to the Cote D'Azur - if not living here - I have hayfever.  Well, to be honest, there's not a lot of hay in the centre of Nice, but I'm reacting strongly to the few bales that have been blowing across Place Massena, getting in the way of the trams and tripping up unsuspecting, appallingly-dressed tourists (so not all bad, then).


Didn't bring my prescription medication with me from the UK because I don't suffer from hayfever in Nice.  Unless I do.  


But where's the pleasure in sneezing throughout the night in my bedroom with the wafer-thin walls now that Monkey Woman and her Banana Boyfriend have gone???


For indeed, they departed the other Saturday for pastures (ATISHOO!) quieter.  Well, hopefully for somewhere without any scary pussycats, noisy elevators - or quiet elevators, when they don't work - or diminutive Jewish menopausal fairies...


That morning they arose around 9.00am, at which point they started to vacuum and move the furniture around, so I knew immediately The Day had come. I got myself ready for an appointment and emerged from my apartment to run straight into Banana Man, who was carrying various items of junk (non-judgemental description) to the elevator.  I looked at him.  He looked at me.  I looked away and elected to walk down the stairs.


Once I'd almost reached the floor below I heard the strange mantra of fuckofffuckofffuckofffuckoff.   Took me an instant to realize that was directed at me.  Couldn't let it pass, dear Reader, I have a blog to support, so I shouted up that it had been extremely interesting hearing him and his chunky Monkey girlfriend making love for the past year and a half, and that I was sorry I'd once had a conversation in my bedroom.*


*Irony.  It wasn't actually very interesting hearing them have sex, and I wasn't the slightest bit regretful of having had an (all-too-rare) conversation in my bedroom.  


There was a white van parked in the street waiting to ferry their crap treasured possessions to their new abode.  The one situated next to the airport and the out-of-town shopping centre.  Which they were obviously looking forward to as being the equivalent of residing in the middle of a field. (ATISHOO!)  


But anyway, it matters not.  Because they'll probably still be able to hear me from there.


<SNIFFS>


So bye-bye horrible neighbours.  It's the end of an era.  No more monkeying around.  


Take the last train to St Laurent Du Var-ville
I won't meet you at the station
You can f*ck off by 4.30
'Cos I've had my reservations
Don't be slow, just go go go...
Oh ah ee oh...


[REPEAT AD INFINITUM UNTIL 5AM, AT WHICH POINT YOU PUT ON THE TUMBLE DRYER...]

***

ATISHOO!