To the left, to the left

Yesterday evening, something unexpected happened. Out of the blue, I was invited (persuaded) to go to a concert to raise money for different women’s rights causes. Names were thrown at me to entice me – “J.Lo’s going to be there,” “Madonna’s putting in an appearance,” “Rihanna is performing.”

In the face of such strong persuasion (and the accusation that I’ve become quite boring and must go, to inject some liveliness and optimism into my life), I agreed to go. With stout British stiff upper-lip-ness, though, I told myself it was ‘not really my scene’ and I’m not even into J.Lo and I was simply going to keep a friend company.

We found our seats without too much trouble and watched while a crew of Zumba dancers gave it their all for a little while, to keep us all entertained.

We knew the big names would be headlining so were surprised to see Jessie J walk on first. I was also surprised to see that looked like a sickly anorexic teenager. The new shaved head she is sporting doesn’t help, it makes her look really skeletal. But about her singing, I was pleasantly surprised. Her Olympics closing ceremony performance last year hurt my ears and I hadn’t high hopes for her live singing but she was good. Hats off to you, Jessie.

Then a gal in a pretty red dress and flowing blond locks and typical high school beauty looks performed some strange loud crashy rap songs. The energy fell a little flat and we sat smiling politely and clapping along a bit. As she did her second and third songs, we feigned polite interest, as one would with a boring guest at a dinner party. Not wanting to break out and yell, “GET OFF! WE ONLY CAME TO SEE BEYONCE,” we tolerated her disjointed noise then sighed with relief when she left the stage.

The next few acts were an Italian woman (the beat was funky, we clapped and wooped and waved our hands – then she started singing in a foreign language and we lost interest and went for a toilet break), Florence and The Machine (long flowy dress made me think of Lord Of The Rings and elfin beauties for the whole time) and John Legend (he was alright on his own songs but murdered Bridge Over Troubled Waters, which upset me).

Then a group of three girls came on and played guitars and bashed on drums and sang/shouted and made funny faces and I found the whole thing quite confusing.

Then Madonna came on! (We had blagged our way to some seats closer to the stage by then.)

“WOOOOO!” said we.

“We’re all here today because we care about women and we know how important education is in the empowerment of women,” said Madonna.

“I CAME FOR J.LO AND BEYONCE! I COULDN’T CARE LESS ABOUT THE WOMEN!” someone yelled. I don’t know who. Just, ahem, someone.

“I’m going to tell you about a woman in Afghanistan,” said Madonna.

“WOOOOOO!” said we.

“Her name is….”

“WOOOOO! WE LOVE YOU!”

“Listen to me,” Madonna said, earnestly.

“WOOOOO! WOO! WOO! WOO!”

“Listen to me!”

Silence.

“Sorry, Madonna. Sorry,” we mumbled, and listened obediently while she talked about education.

Next up was Ellie Goulding. She wore little shorts and trainers and looked the picture of effortless cool. She bounced around on stage and had a whale of a time. Then Timberland came on with (wait for it) Simon Le Bon! Tinberland proceeded to do a few of his biggest tracks, replacing Justin Timberlake’s smooth gentle voice with his rather shouty one. He really went for it, giving it his all, performing his heart out. We rewarded him with a typically British response. We wiggled around a little doing sitting-down-dancing in our seats and held our cups of tea aloft and hoo-rahhed his efforts.

And then finally, you could tell the Americans had landed when a massive explosion of glitter sparkles shot out of the stage accompanied by mini firework puffs and smoke machines. Out of this emerged J.Lo, skimpily clad in a black leotard thing and looking fabulous at 43. She flicked her hair and spent a lot of time at the front of the stage, looking into the wind machine and being glamorous and performing perfectly executed dance routines.

There was a strong emphasis on loud drum beats and sometimes I didn’t know what she was singing but it didn’t seem to matter, cause she’s still, she’s still, Jenny from the block so I wooped and danced with the rest of them. Occasionally, there was a fast and a slow beat going on at the same time and I didn’t know what to do with myself so I bobbed around a bit and swung my arms enthusiastically at my sides. J.Lo finished her set by singing Come Together by The Beatles with Mary J Blige. That’s right. Mary J Blige. Two for the price of one.

Then some talking and videos etc happened, I didn’t really follow them.

And then… Beyonce entered.

And some kind of hysteria took hold of me. I gave a short scream and jumped up.

“YEHHHH!” I yelled.

“Are y’all having a good time tonight?” Beyonce asked us.

“YES, I AM, THANK YOU FOR ASKING!” I yelled. “ARE YOU?”

Someone then pointed out that she’s not actually asking us. It’s just a rhetorical question, to which the answer should always be, “WOOOOOO!”

“Are you ready to party, London?” she asked.

Forgetting myself, I said, “YES! I’M A BIT TIRED BUT I THINK I’LL BE OK.”

And she got down with her bad self. She sung, we sung with her. She waved her arms, we waved our arms with her. She wooped and held the microphone to the audience. We screamed with unashamed abandon and lapped up all her fancy sparkly confetti, her smoke machine, her wind machine, her funky dancing and drum beats and long flowing hair. We sang ‘To the left, to the left,” in unison and all pointed to the left and loved Beyonce and loved each other and looked in teary-eyed wonder at her amazing beauty and wondered if we’d ever love anyone as much as we loved her in that moment.

“If I were a boy…” she sang.

“WE LOVE YOU BEYONCE!”

“Even just for a day…”

“WE’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!”

“I’d roll out of bed in the morning..”

“WE WANT TO BE YOU BEYONCE!”

“Put on what I wanted and go…”

“YOU LOOK GREAT IN EVERYTHING BEYONCE! YOU’RE GORGEOUS! WE LOVE YOU!”

And so it went on. Beyonce sang, we loved. She was golden haired and slim waisted and angel voiced.

And Jay-Z walked on and did himself a little rap on Crazy In Love and we didn’t know where to put ourselves. Our throats became hoarse from excited screaming.

Beyonce finished with a little tribute to Whitney, which morphed into Halo, which made me giggle because I used to play it to a guy I was going out with and look at him with my serious eyes and tell him it made me think of him. Vom.

And then she left us. She just said thanks, bye, and walked right out of our lives. And we were left, empty and helpless. Life would never be the same after Beyonce.

Then suddenly we remembered the time and that public transport and getting out was going to be a nightmare. And suddenly we were all trying to squash out of the exit, cursing one another for barging us or getting in our way and scrambling for the train stations and bus stops, as though Beyonce didn’t even exist. Beyonce who? Get outta my way! I need to get home!

T is for…

TIBERIUS’ PALACE!

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that we’d had an eventful evening. And I wasn’t lying. It started with a simple look through our guidebooks for restaurant recommendations. We read a write up for a place called Savardina da Edoardo which sounded pretty good. It was everything I look for in an Italian restaurant when romanticising about my ideal place to eat. The review said things like ‘set among the orange and lemon groves’ and ‘family-run’ and ‘welcoming atmosphere’ and ‘fantastic service.’ It also said it would be the perfect place to stop for lunch or dinner when trekking up to see the Villa Jovis.

This sent us on a search to find out what the Villa Jovis was. It is the name of the Roman emperor Tiberius’ palace on Capri. He moved there ten years before his death, for fear of being assassinated if he stayed in Rome, as had happened to Augustus before him. He ruled the Roman Empire from Capri, through a network of fires and smoke signals to convey his orders which seems, to me, an inconvenient way of doing things. But who am I to pass comment on the most successful empire the world has ever seen?

And so, the scene was set. We would hike up to Tiberius’ Palace, the Villa Jovis, in the early evening then come half way back down the hill, to the Trattoria Savardina where we would have dinner, then finish the walk back to our hotel at a leisurely pace.

Off we went, at about 7pm, so a little later than planned but Danda found out that Chelsea were playing football so he stayed in the hotel to watch it. We walked up the steep steep hill, looking to the top of the hill, excited to go and see these two thousand year old ruins of the emperor’s palace.

I wanted to stand at the edge, looking out over the Bay of Naples and imagine being the emperor. I wanted to imagine living on top of the steep unforgiving cliff edges, called Tiberius’ Leap, as Tiberius forced people to throw themselves off it if they had displeased him.

As we worked our way further up, we realised that this is where the local Capresi people live. The town and shopping area had once been fisherman’s villages but has now been given over to pleasure seeking tourists and the locals have headed up into the hills. We passed a school, working farms, lemon tree groves – all the signs of village life in Italy.

We rounded a corner and suddenly, as the light was fading in the sky, everything was tinged with the beautiful colours of the setting sun.

We kept on heading up. We could see the Villa Jovis complex up ahead of us but it was still a fair walk. We got our groove on and sped up. As we passed a couple in the street and stopped to work out how much further it was, the young man asked if we spoke English then said, ‘Villa Jovis?’ We nodded vigorously and pointed to check if we were heading in the right direction.

Then he said, easily and casually, as though the information were no big deal, ‘It’s closed.’

We stopped, unsure if maybe ‘closed’ might be the Italian word for ‘open.’

‘But you can go up this path,’ he said, pointing into the dense trees to our right, ‘And come to some safety bars and you can see the best view in Capri.’

With nothing to do but trust him, we clambered up off the path and into the trees, the light fading fast, and crept along the edge until we came to the view point.

And it was glorious. We were so high up and the whole of the island spread out below us and we thought, with wonder, of how such a small place had brought us such joy.

After a little while, we were getting hungry so we headed back down to the path and along the road called Via Lo Capo, to look for our restaurant, to ease the disappointment of not making it to the Villa Jovis.

We went up, we went down, we went around and in and out and about and eventually asked a lady passing by, to show us the way to the trattoria. I was ready for the lemon groves and the family-run and the welcoming atmosphere.

We did find it in the end. Look.

And in case, like me, you are thinking it is not what it looks like, then let me tell you, I tried the handle and no, it definitely was not open. So both things we had come up the hill for were closed.

After navigating the hills back down with some difficulty, we had dinner in the Aurora restaurant which we had seen with good reviews (the likes of Mariah and Beyonce have eaten here) and we didn’t regret it. It was the most beautiful food I have eaten in a long time.

The pre-dinner nibbles.

Aubergine stuffed with mozzarella

Insalata Caprese

Pasta with zucchini flowers and parmesan

Tiramisu and espresso, the dessert of champions

Post dinner nibbles

It was the perfect end to an unexpected evening. The palace and restaurant were closed but the viewpoint and alternative dining were more than fabulous!

An ode to my tooth

Tooth, we have spent many years together. There have been highs and there have been lows.

In our 27 years, 2 months and 25 days, we have seen plenty of action. We have sampled the local spicy delicacies in Laos, lived off rice in Namibia, eaten strange unnamed bits of animal in China and devoured our fair share of chocolate. I always showed you the best things, focussed on homemade. I even homemade tomato ketchup for us to enjoy with our fish and chips.

Ok, so I didn’t always pay attention to you. When I was younger, I was too busy naming my millions of cuddly toys or hurtling down the stairs in a sleeping bag to remember about looking after you. When my parents would shout up the stairs to check whether I’d got you ready for bed, cleaned you up, I’d shout back ‘YEAH!’ with my head in a Famous Five book. That was disrespectful toward you and I apologise.

But I was young then. I looked after you better as I got older. The past few years I’ve showered lots of attention on you, bought fancy expensive things to keep you sparkly, visited a hygienist for a thorough clean.

I was warned about two years ago that I should break it off with you, that we should go our separate ways. I was warned you would hurt me, but I was faithful to you. I dismissed their opinions as scaremongering. They didn’t know you like I did. I didn’t want to lose you.

But now… Now it is time. We both know it’s the right thing. We aren’t happy together anymore. Maybe you have grown dissatisfied with me because you have abandonment issues from our childhood? Or maybe you don’t know how to resolve things so you go on hurting me, knowing that I will eventually end things between us?

I don’t know. But the other night, I was so upset about how things are going between us that I was awake at 2am, my head in my hands, knowing I had to end it. It hurt me so much, but I knew what I had to do.

And so today will be our final day together, last tooth on the bottom left. I have been told that a replacement awaits it’s turn to push through and emerge. It seems that, in the words of Beyonce, “I can have another you in a minute.” They call it a wisdom tooth and say it will grow into the empty space that you will leave in my life.

I regret that it will end this way, in such violence, tearing you rapidly out. I’d like to say I will regret our parting but the dentist has assured me that I won’t feel a thing. I guess there has been too much hurt between us. I will feel horrible after it happens though, I won’t be able to eat a thing, I know it.

So now I bid you farewell, dear tooth. It has been amazing, the years we have spent together. I think we both know that our separating is for the best. We are not making each other happy anymore.

I will miss you. Always.