Did you spot my deliberate mistake yesterday ? No? Well, regular reader Simone did and I told her nobody else would notice because my readers aren’t “ Hello “ or gossip column readers ( you are all much better than that… and so are you Simone ) and I am sure you only knew that Kanye West was married to Kim Kardashian and not Beyonce because somebody mentioned it to you at the theatre, the ballet or the opera or because it was in an editorial in ‘The Times ‘ or ‘ The Guardian ‘ or ‘ The Spectator’ or ‘ The Times Literary Supplement’
Anyway I have to ‘fess up and say it wasn’t deliberate at all. My bad ( as young people say ) However, I do know what the Kardashian woman looks like ( well not what she really looks like, because that’s a closely guarded secret between her make-up artist and her plastic surgeon. I’ve never watched that Kardashian tv show, but I’ve seen the odd ad for it and I wasn’t impressed. Bizarre, I think is the word. She’s one of those people who are famous for being famous and not because they have any talent for anything other than being famous (and being married to Kanye West as Simone has nicely established for us ) and having a lot of social media followers who are probably as air-headed as she is if not more. Apologies to any of you who do follow her, but I get quite worked up about things like that. I mean I sweat blood for you every weekday on my blog and do I get a million readers? No, I do not.
So, this blog is a celeb special today because you have to be living in a very dark bubble (and many of us are ) not to know that Johnny Depp is bringing a defamation action because somebody wrote that he was a wife beater. I beat my wife occasionally… at scrabble, but nobody writes about that, so no litigation for me. I am really not interested in the marital habits of Mr Depp. He’s an ok actor, but I am not queuing up to see every film he makes and indeed, apart from “ Pirates of the Caribbean “ ( which I liked ) I’d be hard pushed to name any. Actually, just remembered he made “ Sweeney Todd “ in which he was awful. I love Sondheim. Think he is one of the great composers and lyricists ever, but Depp can’t sing and just never convinced. He was more like the Demon Pixie than the Demon Barber ( sorry, for the cutting remarks…. pause to allow you to laugh… but I have to say it like it is) Oh, and he was also “ Edward Scissorhands “ Another terrible film, but I have to confess that it’s the only ballet I’ve ever seen that I actually enjoyed and understood. I didn’t volunteer to go, but my wife had been let down by the friend who goes to the ballet with her so I deputized.
This isn’t a film column and the only reason I mention Depp is because in his evidence it emerged that he spends $30,000 dollars a month on wine. When that was put to him ( presumably as evidence that he knocks his wife around in a drunken rage ) he said, “ Of course, I don’t drink it all myself. “ I would hope not. Can you imagine the state of the liver and kidneys of a man who glugs $30,000 dollars of wine a month? And who does he drink with ? Has he managed to maintain that level of orders during the Big V. ? If so, who has he shared lock-down with ? Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton? Just after I got shut in and was preparing myself for a long siege ( only I didn’t realise then just how long it was going to be ) I ordered a dozen bottles of wine and a bottle of good scotch from my kosher wine supplier in Temple Fortune in North West London ( Sussers if you want to know. very well stocked and run by a delightful young man called Yitzi ) I think that bill came to about £250 and that included the expensive whisky and the delivery charge and I am still only about half way through it. Not sure about the mathematics of that as we do tend to get through a bottle a week and a glass of whisky a night ( when we aren’t drinking the wine… and in case you think we have both turned into alcoholics the wine gets opened on Friday night and often lasts till Monday and the glasses are pretty small and the whisky glasses even smaller )
So, I am not up to competing with Depp on any level although if I did I think I might be seeing all sorts of things. Like a rat-snake, for example. Did you even know there was such a thing? Well, there is and some poor bloke in Tulsa or somewhere like that staggered down to open his front door ( I am not sure how much he’d had to drink ) to find a rat-snake had actually pressed his door bell. I reckon the bloke took the pledge there and then.
Salesmen ringing at or knocking on doors in the States peddling snake oil were a quite common occurrence before the war. You’ve seen the movies, the guy with the bowler hat at a State Fair lauding the properties of this magic cure for everything. That’s what snake oil is, or was. It’s a substance with no real medicinal value whatsoever, sold as a remedy for all diseases. Sounds a bit like something Trump or the bloke in Brazil ( where the nuts come from and he definitely is and he now has the Big V having said it was a mild type of flu ) might suggest as the cure for the Big V itself.
A fake cure to follow on to the fake flights and fake hotels I’ve mentioned this week. As far as the fake hotel was concerned I suppose I should have recommended Isabella aged 94’s house as an option to my establishment or that of the Iliffes who live on the other side and also read my blog. Mind you that they had the chance to put themselves forward and didn’t take it so why should I advertise their premises as fake alternatives to my own? Get your own fake punters and leave mine to me.
And more fakes. In Germany they are making and actually selling robotic birds. Now they would solve a lot of my bird watching issues. If I don’t see what I am looking for I just get on the blower and speak to my mate in Germany and ask them to rustle up a robotic version of something totally rare. That would get the Twitchers twitching, wouldn’t it as I post my sightings wherever these expert bird watchers post their own findings? I’m not sure that Derek across the road or any of the others who pack their sarnies and bins ( birdwatching talk for binoculars ) and a drink and head off to the wilds in a coach on a Sunday morning would approve, but if you can get your own robotic bird ( and it seems you can order flocks of them although not sure if they can come as a variety set or just one breed ) then why go to all the time and trouble of spending hours ( probably in the rain ) waiting for a glimpse? What next a robotic Loch Ness Monster? Seems some sad bloke spent over twenty-four years camped out by the side of the Loch waiting for Nessie to appear.
Anyway, looks like more rain today, but I will sit there again waiting for play to start. I loved it on the radio commentary yesterday when somebody said “ And umbrellas are going up all around the ground “ and then realising the ground was well-nigh empty, corrected himself and added, “ well, one umbrella anyway. “
See you all tomorrow if we are spared and meanwhile stay safe and stay dry.