CHARLIE MY SON FULL OF PASSION VIVALDI STABAT MATER

I listen to beauty and pain in this voice
sometimes good
and sometimes broken
due to inexperience
I don't like perfection
yet I do
but this child has been
so incredible to be
with
from walking at 7 months old
to listening to the history
of French Courts
and his fascination with opera
HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY NEXT WEEK CHARLES

ALL TOO MUCH

My face hidden with a mask of lace
to obscure
fury in my eyes
"Go go have fun and dance and be creative
he said to me",
I covered my lashes
too thick with tears
too think
as I cried
the dew of life
mimicked the pattern of lace
down my face
merging with the wet
lipstick which also copied the
existing decoration
of butterflies on my neck
wet
with frustration
time passes quickly
and the past becomes another
future and drama
was
so very unnecessary
I am smiling as I wrote this
as my anger seems so long
ago.

Vivaldi - Stabat mater - Andreas Scholl

I am urgently
Building a mask
Of makeup
So beautifully
Put on that
Nobody can
Ever touch me
Again
My hair is
Fake and is
Put into abnormal
Shapes
covered with
Lacquer explains
To men to
Stay away
I hurt too
Much
Stay away
Your kisses
Aren't good
Enough
Stay away
Don't smudge
Stay away
Keep me clean
Keep me pure
Don't touch
My heart hurts
It only wants
One man
Stay away
I have pins
That will
Pierce you
And heals too
Corsets filled with
Steal
Do not enter
My heart hurts
I wear a gaze
Made out of steel
I am distracted
By my past
Which
Looks down
On my tattered
Soul
Keep away
Do not touch
Contents are fragile
My heart hurts

Matthieu Ricard: Habits of happiness

"Happiness" from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown!"

HAPPINESS IS DUST FROM THE MOON

I have now been away from England for about a month, and I am not missing it. There is nothing like sunshine first thing in the morning and waking to birds singing. I have dieted, I have laughed, and I have cried. There is so much that I have done wrong in life that I can only smile at myself for being very human. I wish I had learnt to say NO at a very young age politely. It is very tricky doing this the right way. No person likes being told that they are wrong. As for happiness, I think we search for it a little too much and it only exists in very small moments. Watching my son walk at 7 months, seeing him born, falling in love on a train, things like that, tiny morsels of happiness like dust from the moon.
So for me Happiness is the following
My first cup of coffee in the morning
weighing myself first thing in the morning and I am thinner
having my hair done
and make up
I look so much better
giving a friend a present that they want
taking some flowers to an elderly friend
listening to classical music
making love with someone I care about
going to the Theatre
finishing my play
Eating at Soho House in Los Angeles
trying on clothes
hearing a piece of music newly written
hearing my son sing
having a bath
well six a day
meeting with friends
writing a poem
sleeping
playing Farmville
searching for furniture on First Dibs

Haydn - String Quartet in D Minor "Fifths" - Mov. 1/4

ARTISTS I CARE ABOUT

I was asked to take photographs for scrap book by Franca Sozzani, The Editor of Italian Vogue, in 2002, about 46 artists for a project British Artists at work a book later published by Assouline. This project changed my life. I knew nothing about contemporary art at the time, I was friends with Charles and Kay Saatchi, who were still married. I remember going to Kay's kitchen and being amazed at their pieces. A large painting brightly coloured by Michael Craig Martin on the staircase The sheep by Damien Hirst, The baby, colourful images flash into my brain. It was a very happy time for me. The experience opened up doors for me that working in fashion would never have done. I love fashion but art is everlasting and exciting. I would only ever buy something that I had a crush on. My love for different objects now includes furniture, lights and a wonderful skull. The sensory deprivation skull by Atelier Lieshout, that I bought through Phillips Dupury. I also collect artists like Oriel Harwood and Mark Brazier-Jones. Although the book wasn't about furniture design in a room I include everything. I loved my Dexter Dalwood painting which I lost in my divorce to Johan. It was a black painting of Stalin's war room, I found at the Gagosian Gallery. There are so many beautiful objects on this planet that I love collecting. It is a passion that I shall have until I die. I now have a crush on Paul Evans and Tony Duquette. Pedro Friedeberg designed a hand and I was lucky enough to find on Los Angeles and I cherish it, so altogether collecting has kept me very happy let's hope it proves to be an investment.

I WOULD RATHER HAVE A BATH THAN BURRITOS AND MAMAS

I hate the idea of dates and dating.. It makes me feel I am closed off and in a prison. Last night some person who will remain nameless was sweet enough to ask me for dinner. This is a rarity, as I usually have to pay. A sad fact of life but true, or I don't get dinner at all, in any case I am always on a diet. Food for me is just a necessity and not a pleasure. I dressed down as I thought it was a hippy area, but with my hair and make up done by Angela Kalinowski from the Montage Hotel and Tanya Crooks make up artist to the stars, both Beverly Hills professionals. We agreed to meet on Vine and Sunset Blvd, that is about the last street I recognise before I feel LA disappear into a mass of concrete. I am a lousy driver, terrified and neurotic. Of course I had told my friend this but he obviously didn't listen. So I arrived at Vine, was sort of picked up, but kept waiting. I then followed him to his house in Silverlake. This is meant to be very hip, but we arrived in the dark. I was unable to appreciate it in any form. In his apartment I was greeted by the largest dog I had ever seen, I have an aversion to all breeds except greyhounds and whippets. I looked around and although it was tidy it was not clean, the white carpet had seen better days. His dog was licking him on his face jumping up, was I supposed to kiss him after this good dog scenario?. I have become like Howard Hughes looking forward to my fifth bath of the day. We then went to the restaurant with the panting dog,( which was stupidly my idea), in the back of the car, and my date looking like a good looking Charles Manson.. He was adorably keen, and I was lying and yet not. I suppose I could have been keen, but I no longer know. I ate dinner in a dream, in some joint which had signs up in neon saying Burritos and Mamas. A supposedly french restaurant although the food was American. The poor man had made some effort, but I am a spoilt bitch. I was about to pay and the man gallantly produced his card. I begged him to take me home so that I wasn't frightened, and to make sure he didn't leave me. He said yes. I jumped into my car and off we went me following him. We got to the freeway and I tried to keep up but could not. I was terrified. Cars were coming up behind me, lights flashing. Lorries and vans coming from every direction and my friend had disappeared. I was terrified.. I stopped with hooting all around me. I was shaking. I tried to call and my telephone would n't work, my fingers were unable to dial. Luckily he called just as I about to die, and he picked me up shortly afterwards. I drove home in a daze. Hardly romantic, and totally exhausted I ran a bath and jumped into it,there is truth in the saying "There is no free lunch" Poor man what does a nice guy like this need a woman like me for? His Mother obviously never warned him, about blondes and red lipstick.

GRAB SMASH AND LUST

Sell everything
I am lucky to get
what I have got
after all it probably just pays
for the carpets on your boat
eradicate the past
pretend it didn't exist
confuse me with facts and figures,
exhaust me,
take away my youngest child
by not sticking up for me
change everything
so you can con yourself
take take take
take the money
don't pay interest
you have to keep up
with Russian trash
splash out on diamonds
fill your house with fake
feelings
grab smash and lust

I was a bright
and smiling
child
laughing
happy
until I realized
I was alive?
what is life I
thought?
does it have names
I thought?
I was passed
life
by parents who
are now dead
but
should I love
it as gurus
teach?
I no longer know
or have any feelings
I just know that
I exist

LOST FILMS and TANGO

How do films get lost, so many brilliant films, lost to nonsense and crap?.. I love the Oscars but some films are never talked about. One in particular is The Man who Cried directed by Sally Potter. I love this film, the music, the acting, and yet nothing is said about it at all. The Tango Lesson she also made is neglected. I am not a fan of Four Wedding and a Funeral it was a huge success but I found it banal. The title says it all and I love mystery and not necessarily the obvious. There are so many things that are good in Potter's films the dance sequence in The Tango Lesson is erotic and flamboyant.
Yesterday I was back having Tango lessons in Los Angeles it felt so good, it puts the smile back into my face, there is nothing better than being wizzed round a dance floor, the intimacy the fast pace. I had a fear of dancing since the age of eight when a girl called Helena Fairley teased me about being porky, so I swore I would never do it again. Forty years later I want to conquer the fear. It cures depression I hope. On this subject Doctors seem to give out anti depressants like sweeties. I will not take them although I can suffer badly from this thing. I used to stay all day in bed until a kind friend dragged me out to a yoga class in 1990 and I skipped home afterwards. It seemed to cure it. I became obsessed. Why is it that they give these pills out, the side effects can be devastating on other aspects of your life that could give you the pleasure needed to make life worth living?. They can make men impotent and women like zombies. All the greatest artists on the planet seemed to have suffered and used it. Byron, Siegfried Sassoon, Mozart, philosophers, painters, in my case I don't want anything to dampen my enthusiasm for life. Why don't they let me use amphetamine? I could achieve three times as much. No the powers that be seem to enjoy a dampened down human being,
Back to films, my favourite being Peter Greenaway's film, The Cook, The Thief his wife and her lover, with music by Michael Nyman, a crazy mixed up film, with a fabulous script, and beautifully shot, terrible language and great looking. There is a lot wrong with it too, and it makes it all the more perfect, starring Helen Mirren..Peter Greenaway looks depressed too. Perhaps you have to be if you wish to be truly creative so that you can see clearly all aspects of life.

THE INTERNET IS A DEVIL WELL OF FLORESCENT COLOURS AND DRUGS

And so the internet is, but I admit I am addicted. I have met so many interesting people on it, of course you have to be careful and watch yourself but it is a fascinating opportunity to learn new stimulating things. I never realized you could become so attached to people and really not know them and yet know their ability to write so well. It is dangerously exciting to expose myself to this. In fact I am now truly keen on Skype. It's free and you can really share everything on it.I feel I am in a white room all on my own most of the time and only want to delve into the mystic magic of this electrical black hole. I was so very lonely before. Now I have odes and music written for me, what a lucky girl I am.

On another note I have had one lunch and one dinner with Joan Collins, and we were discussing how rude it is having the Blackberry's and Iphones at the table, I sheepishly pushed mine deep in to my bag, as she rightly proclaimed how people are obsessed and can't talk anymore, only type. I said I was one of those very people. Joan looked amazingly perky and fit in her hat and skinny jeans. She is right it is rude, and only beaten by the smokers, who now get up from the table to smoke outside. I think personally it's an unacceptable excuse to leave a table, but the smoker never cares who they are leaving on their own. Between the Blackberry user and smoker there is no point in having a dinner.

I squeezed in an incredible private viewing of a Swedish Film, in the same genre as the French film Le Prophet, but equally compelling "Snabba Cash" directed by the talented Daniel Espinosa. He came over for a drink at my house in Beverly Hills, a quiet and modest man with artistic brilliance represented by David Flynn, they both drove off in my customized Mustang (by Harley of Chrome Candles) like two wild teenagers.

During all of this I have been dieting and have at last shed the half a stone eating green slime..
Oh goodness the world does move in small circles...Katy Barker has lost the same amount and Lyall Watson who I have written the play with "As I Like it " lost twenty four pounds, well done Catherine Vanazzi.

WHEELS AND WORDS

Do you know I am becoming a good driver, I am sure you don't believe it but I am. I actually offered to drive this morning,which surprised me, taking the steering wheel all the way to Venice Beach.. Now for some people that is easy but for me I find it terrifying, and have a form of vertigo which makes me want to go into the back of peoples cars.Don't tell me that is normal because no sane human being admits to such misdemeanors. Anyway I felt in control with the navigator on and ended up at a friend of a friends house on the beach which was designed by Frank Gehry. A huge bunker like space that many would be happy living in overlooking the beach. We talked art and I felt at home as there was a huge sign of Tracey Emin's saying "How wet is my cunt" I am a fan of Tracey's but being a bit less cool than she is, it's not something I would be happy people asking or knowing about. Oh dear another thing about me that I need to modernize. I suppose I like privacy in this area. Anyway the shock value of this word is obvious and I was once beaten by my mother for saying it. Now it has become very everyday and I am ashamed to say slips from my lips on occasion.
I am so loving California that I really don't want to go home. What for some boring builders tales and a flat that costs a fortune and is a forth floor walk up that I rented stupidly from Foxtons?. No I want to live here amidst palm trees and blue skies. I do miss my friends Nicky Haslam and Chris Sweeney I had fun with them last week with Oscar parties and glamour and I would love to repeat it. but am now working on my play with Lyall Watson, "As I like it" which I plan to put on shortly when I go back to London sometime in early Summer. I think I shall put it on at The Gate or another pub. It's about the trials of drama School which I thought was boot camp and how divine my real life is..
as I take the wheel and attempt to drive to the Joshua Tree.
Also I am attempting to become totally healthy this week not just a little.. I will cut salt.. I can't believe I am even going to try.

PETVILLE IN BEVERLY HILLS

Some accents I love and some English words too. When I was young I remember a friend of my Nanny calling her husband "Pet" a form of endearment from the north of England. I used to copy her behind her back screaming "PEEEEETTTT" and now I have a passion for using it myself. I also like "pets" in my life.
I realise I have become a veterinary clinic for abandoned humans. Most "pets" are taken for a walks each day and fed food out of brown sacks,but my human pets are special, they get their diet controlled treats from Catherine Vanazzi and are well dressed in black snakey Naked and Famous jeans from Fred Seagal's on Melrose, that is if I can get my hands on them, because they walk out of the shop.
These "pets" are kind and in return, look after me very well too. They cover all aspects of the arts, writing, music, theatre and cinema. I could not move without them. They can often be seen licking their wounds in the basket by the fire.. needing lots of brushing and cosmetic enhancements and occasionally they want their tummy tickled, I hasten to add not by me. In return for happy conversations they are well loved. If you wish to be a "pet" send me your photograph and may be you too can be treated for loneliness.
No seriously this was my idea at the beginning of the week. I had if you remember joined several dating sites to prove to my girlfriends that there are lovely men everywhere and this it did, Chemistry.com was the most efficient in California. I have now met five suitors and although none of them will be marrying me they have become good friends, we all need good friends. What I find they ask me to do is change their clothes and get them a haircut and can meet the women of their dreams. So I have gone shopping to improve their natural style. It has been lots of fun, for these neglected souls.

GOD'S DESIGNER.... IN PASSION THERE IS MUCH SORROW The Bible

WHAT IS THE JOKE?

I love the Oscars, as a child I loved them and in fact I like all award ceremonies, which is funny as I have never won a prize in my life. I just like people being rewarded for talents, I think it is a school thing.
It is funny I realise six parties have become one, a blurred happiness of hello darlings. Now I like this, but feel rather sorry for the people who have given them because it takes some concentration to remember everything. It was fun being included, and Nicky Haslam was adorable taking me around like some young debutante who had never been out before. He introduced me to the aristocracy of Hollywood, and I just remember their hair.. I look at people's hair all the time.. I am very fussy even with my own. I can't believe how unimaginative stylists and people are with their locks and make up.. I like to change from character to character in my own play. I am an actress in my own life and have so many different personality's.

Looking back at the clothes this week there were only about three dresses I liked and none I would have liked on me.. Some of these dresses would never see the light of day in London. The wearers should know that it is a good idea to take a picture of every angle before they go out. Sarah Jessica Parkers couture dress from Chanel was cute from the front, it made her look a trifle pregnant but was the most imaginative dress there. It was a pretty colour, nice details but made her bottom big, and didn't suit her. She also looked uncomfortable and unhappy. Perhaps she was. The other problem is for an award ceremony you need something that won't crease. It needs to look good and stay the same throughout the evening. Unfortunately plainer dressers do this and that is why Cameron Diaz in Oscar de la Renta looked one of the best. Her hair was sophisticated and quite austere, but had glamour from another time. On the other side of the world Beth Ditto was wearing a dress that is fine for fun, if that is what it is? People seem to pull girls out of a hat for a joke, I think personally the dress is a disaster, or have I lost my humour? You wouldn't catch me wearing it..

At the parties everybody was quite scruffy not knowing what to wear as it was pouring with rain and freezing cold. I wore my long black dress from Victoria Beckham's line and a long Chanel coat to Barry Diller's.. Victoria didn't recognise them, as when I went up to her, I was dismissed, little does she know that I have at least ten of her things of hers in my wardrobe.

On another note I saw that Amanda Knox may be freed, that the guy jailed with her said she didn't kill Meredith.. well he could of said this before, and that it was somebody else that the police didn't know yet.. YA YA YA. Meanwhile an innocent girl and her boyfriend sit in jail like dust on top of a wardrobe.

OSCAR CLOTHES BAGS AND BAUBLES

The love of clothes follows me everyday, but I have always been envious of those that look good in a long dress. It seems to be another world that I try to avoid having to join and wear at all costs. They just simply don't make me feel good, beautiful or glamorous. Like clothes for Ascot, I feel I run away from events that require them. Tonight I like to happily lie in bed and just watch the simply beautiful puff ball fantasies pass by and know that I will avoid any occasions that I need to wear them. I love parties I love having a good time, but I sigh with relief that I am unlikely to ever win an Oscar and have to say an acceptance speach. Congratulations go to Carey Mulligan, Cameron Diaz, Elizabeth Banks, Milley Cyrus, Sarah Jessica Parks and Amanda Seyfried for pulling it off, their stylists too should be congratulated... There were also pieces of jewellery and a hair piece in Demi Moore's that I could die for and probably the only thing I could wear..