Cold

Have a proper, old skool cold, like the ones we got back in the day and called "flu" before being reminded that flu is actually something that can kill you and if you can get out of bed and blog about it, it really is just a cold. Even so, pity me. Yes, I am ill all the time. No, I don't know why, as have none of the risk factors: I don't commute, I don't have kids, I do wash my hands.

Anyway, I am about to get back into bed with some research (soldiering on), thus depriving you of an interesting blog to read. Fortunately, with incredible foresight, I scheduled this month's book club for Thursday, so while you are waiting for me to get better, you can all read The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie. It's funnier than I am anyway, even on a good day. Chop chop.

This Week In Grazia

I have a(nother) stinking cold, which in my house means that I have permission to buy Grazia and read celebrity stories, such as the cover headline that sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are back together, although the actual story in the magazine only sensationally reveals that Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are not back together. I also get to find out what I'm supposed to be wearing this season, because really, I do not know. Right now I am wearing tracksuit bottoms, a jumper and some old cashmere socks. That's another thing having a cold means in my house.

Anyway, it turns out that I am supposed to be wearing this season is: jeggings. In other words, a cross between jeans and leggings. Skinny jeans are just too baggy, apparently. What you really want is denim that looks as though it has been spray-painted on. The piece comes with the following encouraging quote:

Denim guru Donna Ida says, "Jeggings flatter as they hug you in all the right places, and the high-waisted ones suck in the tummy."

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - *high-waisted* jeggings? Could anything promise more hideousness? Jeans that are equally tight on your belly button as on your ankles! Meanwhile, the jeggings (the word doesn't get any less stupid with repetition) themselves are photographed without actual human beings inside them, and still manage to be unflatteringly fattening when worn by air. That's right: even nothing's bum looks big in jeggings. That's because they hug you in all the right places - and all the wrong places as well. And what does denim need a guru for anyway? Ladies: just say no to jeggings.

Three pages later, Grazia, as it does, has moved on from ensuring our compliant grotesquitude, and runs a piece on a 12-year-old Indian girl who has made a stand against forced marriage. It's the thinking woman's weekly, lest we forget. Unencumbered by any apparent sense of doubt in its reporting, Grazia cheerfully tells us:

While Rekha's parents at first reacted angrily, even refusing her water and food for several days, they eventually relented and now couldn't be prouder of their campaigning daughter.

Heartwarming stuff.

I can't quite figure out whether I need to never read Grazia again or buy it obsessively every week.

To Claim Or Not To Claim?

I am concerned about expenses.

The normal way, obviously, like everyone else. (People who run our country and whose wages we already pay also think it is OK to claim for moat-cleaning?) But also because, being self-employed, I am allowed to claim my business expenses against tax, ie I do not have to pay tax on income which goes on my expenses, so effectively you the British taxpayer cover 22% of my expenses - the rest I pay for myself. (Is that right? or is it just that the Treasury has 22% of my expenses less to play with? I was never good at maths.)

But it is not immediately clear what counts as a legitimate business expense. Paper obviously, and pens, writer-y stuff like that. Library membership, maybe? Internet access? The electricity I use to run the computer that I write on and the gas to heat the room that I sit in? Stuff your employer would usually pay for, basically. Stuff I can't do my job without.

How about this: after some moderate but bulky shopping in NYC (new winter coat: J'accuse) I suffered the indignity of having my suitcase burst apart at the seams on the flight home, turning up forlorn on the luggage carousel wrapped in accusatory bright orange Virgin Atlantic parcel tape. (Me: "That's my case! - Oh, no it isn't - Oh god, it really is.") So today I went out to buy a new suitcase, because I need it to go to the Hay Literary Festival at the end of the month (I am not reading there, but I am seeing other writers read, and using the opportunity to do some schmoozing of publishers, journos, etc - business trip? Fun weekend jaunt? Who can say?), to Milan in June (book tour, 100% business) and to France in the summer (holiday, 100% fun.) I didn't buy the most expensive case, nor did I buy the cheapest. (In fact I bought the lightest, because of budget airline weight restrictions and so I can lift it in and out of the loft by myself. Also, it is a bit bigger than my old suitcase, but not so much bigger that I will lose my mind. That's the idea, anyway.)

My point is: is a suitcase a business expense? I can't do my job without it; on the other hand, if I never went on another work trip again, I would still need a suitcase, plus I think that people who go on lots of business trips in normal jobs are not provided with luggage by their bosses (correct me if I am wrong.) Before the whole MP expenses scandal I would probably have claimed it without another thought: at least 22% of my travel is work-related. But now I feel sleazy and tainted by association. I feel like Hazel Blears. I do not want to feel like Hazel Blears. God prevent me from feeling like Hazel Blears. The value of not feeling like Hazel Blears is surely at least one quarter of a suitcase. (Hazel Blears: the kind of vomit you get from eating too much Nutella?)

Anyway, I don't know. Is it legitimate? Is it illegitimate? This is as confusing as Prince Harry. And multiply that by everything I buy which I sort of use for work but also use for other things - filing cabinet? *Assembly* of filing cabinet? I can sense it's going to be a very soul-searching, guilt-inducing tax return this year.

And don't even get me started on the leaky pipe underneath my tennis court. Totally interfering with my concentration on my second novel.

Tearjerkers

Every week on his blog The Medium Is Not Enough, Rob (aka MediumRob, when he comments here) posts a TV or film related meme, which usually I answer in the comments section there. This week's meme, however, deserves a post here all of its own. The question simply is: what's the most tear-jerking movie you've ever seen and why?

So here's the thing. I am a full-on, unashamed movie blubber. If you are going to see a sad film with me, bring extra tissues because I will be needing them. I don't think there is anything that makes me cry more than films, except perhaps really unhelpful customer service, and missing trains, but that's a whole different post.

I should probably warn here - this post will no doubt be full of spoilers, because I am going to talk about very sad films and what makes them very sad, and maybe some of the films in question you won't know are sad or why. So reader beware...

The first film I remember making me cry was Out of Africa, which I saw in the cinema when it came out in 1985. I was nine. As I recall the bit that really got to me is when Meryl Streep can't bring herself to throw the handful of earth on Robert Redford's grave. I managed to hold it together until we got outside, but then in the street outside the Swiss Cottage Odeon my whole body went into judders. My oldest sister asked me what the matter was, and I just about managed to say "It's sooooo sad" before I was engulfed in huge, racking sobs.

From then on my sister instigated the tear test, in which, at any potentially tear-jerking juncture in any film we were watching, she would shove her finger underneath my eyelid to see if I was crying yet. She also gained huge pleasure from taking me into her bedroom, playing the theme from Watership Down on her record player, and telling me the saddest story she could think of, usually involving a dying animal, until I wept.

There were, of course, any number of films which got me teary in the interim, but the next full-on sob-fest that stayed in my memory was Beaches, which I watched by myself on video in the living room of the family home. Looking back, I can't remember what exactly it was about Beaches that got to me, but I suspect it has to do with the protracted and painful death of selfless but beautiful Barbara Hershey from cancer while her traitorous but repentant best friend Bette Midler looked on and then wrote a soppy song about it. Yes, that's probably it. Again I made every possible effort to hold it in and managed to get across to the video player, press stop, and get halfway back across the room before collapsing into floods of tears. What was significant about Beaches is that it was the first time that I knew *even as I was crying* that I had been manipulated by a shamelessly sentimental heap of tripe.

I got older, I got tougher, I learnt the ways of the world. The crying did not stop. If anything, it got worse.

Take Atonement, for example, which I went to see with a new friend, after which - despite (or because of?) having read the book, and knowing exactly what was coming - I was so hysterical I couldn't leave my seat in the cinema, and had to wait while the whole of the rest of the room filed out, nudging each other and whispering "what's the matter with her?" Or Miss Austen Regrets, which was on TV a while back, and is about Jane Austen of course, looking back over her life as a spinster author and wondering whether the brilliance of her career was an adequate replacement for the lack of romantic love and and children. Inexplicably I identified with her predicament - I know, it's weird - and I cried pretty much all the way through from the beginning, so when Jane Austen actually died (she does die at the end, I hope that's not a spoiler) it barely registered.

But I think the most embarrassing of all was The Lives of Others, which my parents took me to see on my 31st birthday, a few months after I had signed the publishing deal for Gods Behaving Badly. In the lobby on the way in, we happened to run into Dan Franklin - my editor and the head of Jonathan Cape - and his wife in the lobby. My parents had never met them, so we chatted pleasantly for a while before taking our seats. As chance would have it, we were in the row directly behind them. For those of you who don't know, The Lives of Others is one of the most brilliant and unbearably sad films made in the last few years, filled with moments of selfishness and selflessness, love, betrayal, misunderstanding, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, death, redemption - any one of which could make me cry, but all at once? I cried my eyes out in the film, but managed to pull myself together and thought I was going to get out of the cinema OK, until I saw the name of one of the characters (Christa-Maria, the writer's wife, for those who know the film) in the end credits, which set me off again. Which normally would not have been a problem. My parents are used to this. However, what doesn't usually happen is that I have to stand in the lobby of the cinema making small talk with my publisher while chocking on vast, engulfing sobs. I was crying too hard to even be able to say goodbye. Eventually I sort of waved and walked away, but then - but then!! - almost immediately walked into an old schoolfriend of mine who I hadn't seen for some years, who was there with her new husband who I had never met, and had to do a whole other round of small talk ("How was the wedding? How lovely!") with tears streaming down my face.

I could go on, but I won't. Suffice to say that I love a sad movie. And there is nothing worse than a film which promises a wealth of weeping but does not deliver. Love Story, I'm looking at you.

Vanity: fair?

I have just been interviewed by Italian Vanity Fair magazine. We had the interview at my house, at my request, because I feel self-conscious doing interviews in a cafe where people can overhear.

The interview was at 10am. At 9.30am, I suddenly realised that if you do an interview in your house, it is not only you being interviewed: it is the house itself. Flurry of panic. I was, of course, not ready myself either. Thus had to do a whole series of appraisals:

- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not drying my hair, or by having all my laundry inc underwear on drying rack in corner of room?
- will Vanity Fair be more shocked by my not having any make-up on, or by drifts of dust and loose hair on my white-painted staircase?
- is it worse for doorbell to ring while am carrying dustpan and brush, or with only one set of lashes wearing mascara?

And so on.

But hurrah for confused cab drivers: the journalist was 15 minutes late. Thus was able to open door with styled hair and emergency-level make-up (you know what I mean: hadn't curled my eyelashes, had stretched to Touche Eclat), graciously accept apologies for tardiness, and lead journalist into gleaming house with nary a trace of laundry to be seen. It was only when I went to make the tea that I noticed the wok from yesterday's stir-fry still sitting soaking in the sink... but she'll never know about that. Except when she looks up the blog to help her with her research. Ah well.

The thing about being interviewed, you see, is that you forget: it's not just you bring interviewed, it's your house. And your blog. And your book. Maybe I should worry less about being overheard?

Vanful of cats

As requested by my sister:



I would comment further, but that would involve me knowing why there was a vanful of cats parked on the street in Manhattan.

Gather up the news again, I'm back from New York

I'm back, and even my bleary jetlagged eyes can see that I have apparently only blogged about what I wore in New York and the arguments I had with subway operators. There were more arguments with subway operators, incidentally, but it just got too repetitive to log them all. Sometime around the penultimate one I noticed a small sign on the booth reading "Courteous Service Here". Would have taken a photo but feared it was forbidden and I would be punished with some kind of ritual decapitation.

I did do things other than argue with subway operators and get dressed, but I did do those things every day. (Wardrobe watchers: I returned having failed to wear two dresses and a top, and really I could have done without at least one of the cardigans.) I did remarkably little shopping (although my suitcase burst at the seams on the way home, which tells a different story) and I only went to one museum (the Guggenheim, stunning building but mostly shut) and one gallery (the fantastic Sophie Calle show at Paula Cooper) and rain for three days curtailed some of my walking around with my eyes open, and yet somehow I feel like I crammed full every minute with diverse sources of joy.

Will it be singing showtunes by the piano at the excellently-named gay bar Marie's Crisis that I look back on with most fondness? Will it be the jazz gig in an old woman's Harlem flat? Or perhaps the Lincoln Center's screening of an obscure 1934 Soviet musical farce, described with much accuracy by them as "part Marx, part Marx Brothers"? Will it be going to the birthday party of a Tom Cruise impersonator who had his own showreel projected onto a screen throughout, and who took time out from the cocktails and cake to show the bar the trailer of his new movie? (Surely he was lost - that sort of behaviour belongs in LA.) Will it be arguing (and winning the argument) with a ferociously patronising New York waitress ("I don't know how it works where *you* come from, but here if you put your knife and fork together it means you've finished")? Or will it be the simple joys of Coney Island on a Monday morning in torrential rain, where the only people around are moribund Russian waiters waiting for something - anything - to happen? Getting drunk on Mint Juleps and watching my horse lose the Kentucky Derby with a group of the preppiest men in history? Eating eggs over easy in an old Greek dive, served by a seventy-year-old waitress with drawn-on eyebrows? The vanful of cats? The Burger Parade (not a place, but a menu item)? The Bourgeois Pig (swine flu not included)? Shoegasm? Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King? Or just the discovery of the best bar on earth? (You think I'd tell? On a public website?)

New York City Wardrobe Watch: I have lost count of the days

Only here for two more days. I have worn everything aside from two dresses and a cardigan. And a top. I may have to get changed a lot before I go home.

Have started to believe that I live in New York. Arguments with subway superintendents a daily occurance. Latest was trying to buy a replacement for the Metrocard I lost: the credit card machine asked me to put in my zip code, I remonstrated with the superintendent that this was not possible (the machine's numeric only), she said with great boredom: Just make up a bunch of numbers. Eventually forced her to sell me one for cash. Her face spoke volumes of outrage.

Found myself getting irritable with stupid tourists trying to get into Guggenheim museum this morning as I swanned past with my yearly membership pass. Out of my way, peasants. I belong here. Oh hang on, that would be my friend's elderly landlady's yearly membership card. There is no photo.

Haven't decided what to do tonight yet. The doorman suggested going to the Intrepid. I imagine hidden locals-only bar. Google. It is naval museum.

Tomorrow I am wearing a dress.

Revenge of the New York Subway

Following that post I went out for the evening. Got to the subway stop - the same subway stop where I had previously been lectured on my subway entry technique - only to discover that I had lost me Metrocard. After emptying out my entire handbag on the floor of the subway station and ensured that there was definitely no card in there, I gathered up my possessions and went over to the little booth and asked the man there to sell me a ticket. The man went on the dreaded microphone - I forgot to tell you that when the superintendents lecture you, they do it *over loudspeaker* - and explained to me that they do not sell tickets, you have to get them from the machine. Yes: I have been lectured twice in one day by New York subway officials. Yes: New York subway officials are only employed to sit in booths and lecture people over loudspeakers, and not to sell tickets. What kind of a system is this??

Later, we went to a bar called Marie's Crisis. True story.

New York City Wardrobe Watch: Day 3

Rain in New York. I misjudged and put on one of my chunky knits when I went out for the day, but it's warm and humid, thus I ended up far too hot and had to carry my coat most of the time. Don't see it getting any colder than this, and so must reluctantly register a FAIL for the cardigans. They were added as a last-minute impulse to an otherwise perfectly calibrated case: note to future self, ignore the impulse urge.

Meanwhile am experiencing a love-hate relationship with the New York subway. Points in favour: it's cheap. It's fast. It runs all night. It is air-conditioned - every time i get in to a busy carriage I brace myself for a London-style wave of fetid human bodyheat, but it's always blissfully cool. (Sadly not cool enough to justify the cardies though.)

Points against: it is totally beyond man or beast to understand. Particularly beast, I'd imagine, but basically there's a totally confusing map where it would appear that certain train lines all go the same way, BUT trains from different lines stop at different stations on the same trajectory, AND not all trains of the same line stop at all the stations on their line - it depends whether they are local or express. To further complicate matters, after a certain, non-defined, non-signposted time of night, some of the trains stop running and other express trains become local trains. You are supposed to know when this happens by some kind of New York ESP. Also, sometimes, without announcing it, they decide against doing this non-defined change, or they decide to do it but at a different time then usual, or do it, but then fox you by changing back. Result: I am becoming intimately acquainted with the subway stations of Harlem.

If that weren't enough, for some subway stations, there are separate entrances for the uptown / downtown platforms, and if you go in the wrong entrance you can't get to the other platform through the station, but nor can you exit the station using your Metrocard, cross the road and go in the other side. When I did this I had to be summoned and lectured by the subway superintendent, an utterly terrifying woman who gave me a long lecture about how I had to READ the SIGNS, and then who finally said that she would let me onto the correct platform "as a courtesy" but that I must NEVER DO IT AGAIN. She also informed me that if I *did* do it again, the mandatory amount of time that I had to wait before I was allowed onto the correct platform was 18 minutes. I would love to have been at the meeting where that was decided. 15 minutes not enough of a punishment; 20 too stringent.

I can't say I exactly miss the expensive, sweaty, early-closing tube, but somebody needs to sit the people in charge of the Subway here and have a long, firm talk about signposting.