Sunday 12 September 2010

A GOLDEN LION FOR SOMEWHERE, AND AFRICA's SAVIOUR, WHAT A WEEK IT WAS












What a week its been!, Sophia Coppola wins the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for "Somewhere" although critics slated her and instead wanted Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" to win. Vogue opened its doors in every fashion house so the West End was boiling over with too many people, but because I suffer from claustrophobia, I ended up in the Wolseley having a delicious dinner with my wonderful friend Nicky Haslam. The food was so good and the atmosphere buzzing with intellectuals.

I have decided I want to buy a barge while my oldest son starts music school in New York. I have realised LA is too far away sometimes and the long flight there is physically and emotionally draining. A companion of mine has to have a double heart bypass and it was the last night of the proms. What a long week it has been.

Saturday lunch I luckily met Ozwald Boateng at Cecconis.
He looked sharp in his white shirt with black trim and cut away small collars. He is a beautiful man with kitten hips and long outstretched arms, but there is so much more to him than this. He is celebrating his 25th year in the business at London Fashion week and he says he needs my help. Is he crazy?!.
His family originate from Ghana, but he grew up in England with a strict father and mother who taught him to value money, this aided him greatly as he went from one success to another building an empire based on mens tailoring. Today he has already worked with Givenchy, had many collections and dressed some of the most interesting stars on the planet, from Will Smith to Mick Jagger, Daniel Day Lewis to David Bowie. He himself is the slinky dressed killer who makes all men desirable in his suits.

There is a lot more to Ozwald than meets the eye, especially if you dig a little deeper.He very quickly became passionate about Africa, naming it's 53 countries, telling us that they are all mixed up with different tribes and languages caused by the colonial conquests of the worlds superpowers two or three hundred years ago. Yet he continued with a very interesting fact that should worry us all, Africa has 50 percent of the worlds natural resources.
Concerned and passionate for its future, he believes it should be self sufficient. He knows it's rich, yet badly run, turning to me he looks deeply and says "How can we expect an uneducated person from a village to run a country?". He then says" Look we have sophisticated names for taxes, such as a congestion charge, but because the Africans do not have knowledge to understand that, saying "this is my cut" sounds corrupt, it gives a pre-conceived and naive image to the world that they are ruining their countries when really they are just taxing their people just like anywhere else. Charities are corrupt too. It is all the same, everybody takes huge percentages of donated money".
He believes that with a different outlook and a decent high speed railway, Africa could be a saviour to the world.
Well I do hope so, 2012 looks far too close. I am getting my food supplies in now.
Later I open the Newspaper and see that Wayne is now begging Coleen to come back and a house in Knightsbridge costs two hundred million.

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