London – Another Country
BBC Radio 4, Towering Ambition – A Tale of Two Cities, 14th July 2011
Rosie Millard explores whether skyscrapers – once seen as an essential accessory of a go-ahead, ambitious city – are really the best way to express pre-eminence and modernity.
In London, Mayor Boris Johnson, who pledged to stop the “plague of towers” promised by his predecessor, has given the go-ahead for a privately funded tower to mark the 2012 Olympics.
Pushy Parent
So I’ve just done a radio thing on Radio Ulster discussing just how pushy I am with my children and how I forced them to go around the world eating iguana and singing the Marseillaise just because I wanted to….
Hooray I have finished my book
Yes! 80,900 words and tonight, I’ve done the last corrections. It’s now all edited, corrected and going off to the typesetter’s pronto! Only two years after we left for our trip around the world, this is the account of it. And it IS very funny. It still makes me laugh. Publication date – June 6. Name of book? Bonnes Vacances. Would I ever ever want to do this again? Hell yeah.
Sole Trader Yawn
What I’m really really fed up with is doing work for people who don’t pay, or say they’ll pay, and then stall. I am THOUSANDS of pounds in debt, and owed THOUSANDS of pounds by people I have done work for. Result? Huge bank charges and major stress for yours truly. God! Drives me mental. Grrr. Otherwise, Happy Easter!
In Los Angeles with Lisa Kudrow
So here I am in LA interviewing Lisa Kudrow about her role as exec.producer of Who Do You Think You Are (US) and her pioneering show on the internet Web Therapy. Which is hilarious. She’s very smart! And quite serious. No swearing in her presence, anyway. I liked her. What I really liked about her is that she didn’t hire hair and makeup for her picture (the piece is for the FT Magazine). She got $1 million per EPISODE of the last two series of Friends yet she’s not turned into a paranoid celebrity.
My achilles tendon
Oh, total pain. Have knackered my Achilles. Might have to miss the Royal Parks Half Marathon next we… after all that bloody training!
Sex in Paris
Just interviewed my old friend Christian who I was amazed to learn is part of a sort of sexual revolution sweeping France – or at least, the urban parts – the Libertinage – if you are Libertin, you enjoy getting it on with other couples, essentially. No nonsense about fidelity, er, betrayal, er, monogamy or come to think of it, divorce either. He’s so open about it. Probably because I also learned his parents were swingers in Wimbledon (where we all grew up) in the 1970′s. Steady on! You can read about it in the Standard, Wednesday 7th July.
We love Paris
No, not just because the Marathon was hilarious, 26.2 miles observed by a) women in full make up, smoking and b) cornet-blowing hunting types in long red coats. Not because it was so beautiful. Not even because Mr Millard was overtaken by someone on STILTS. But because my bag, pinched from under the dining table during my birthday dinner in Montmartre has been returned. How likely is that to happen? Of course I’ll have to go back there to collect it. Any excuse…..
20 miles is a VERY long way
As Mr M and I discovered on Sunday doing the grim and gruelling Finchley 20 which is basically run by 500 men in singlets. And about 20 women. Twenty miles in four five-mile laps. Was overtaken by the winner when I was only at Mile 12, but came in about 190th with a time of 2’43″. I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was realise my dream of lying down on the wet grass afterwards (this race ends in a muddy field). Mr Millard trailed in some time after me but as he is a Colussus of Journalism having nailed politics with his Dispatches on the lobbying ex-Ministers, we can forgive him for not having trained too much. Now I am completely pooped. There are less polite ways of saying it but not on this blog.
Way-Hay
Or even…yay…as my daughter would say. Watford Half Marathon- we conqurered it. Well, in 1.47 min which was some distance from the winner who did it in about 2 seconds. But at least my toenails haven’t fallen off, I can go downstairs without agony and I didn’t go anywhere near a wall. So all’s looking good for next one. Mr Millard? 1.56. Ha! Except a mix up with our numbers has meant that I have his slow time on the official website and he has my speedy time. Very irritating. there are a LOT of hills in Watford, I have to say. Too many..
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