Jocasta Innes Diary

Oh those YBAs ! Young British Artists in case you havent been reading the papers or mags.We have several in my patch, the Chapman brothers, Chris Ofili, and the notorious Tracy Emin.The Chapman brothers are in the running for the Turner prize and certain to win according to artist Peter Blake`s lady friend who just might have inside information. I think they deserve to win and we locals will unstintingly join in the celebrations in The Golden Heart, the YBA`s favourite boozer, where Tracy is regularly to be seen holding court of an evening and Jake Chapman`s book has pride of place on the back shelf under the bottles. The wonderful Sandra, landlady of the Golden Heart, wont be there of course because she will be attending the Turner Prize do itself, frocked up the nines - no YBA ceremony would be complete without Sandra, whose charisma,charm and volubility makes East Enders` Babs Windsor look pale and weedy. No kidding. We all love Sandra, but the YBAs dote upon her and she gets to fly off all over the place to attend openings and private views and such, events she enjoys but takes in her stride. My problem with the YBAs is that they are such a stroppy lot, mouthing off about this and that, which is awkward if you keep bumping into them, walking dogs in our nearest green space, or exchanging chat in the Golden Heart. Spitalfields is becoming a `village' of sorts, arty, buzzy, top destination for the young and trendy, a bit like New York`s Greenwich Village, perhaps. My beef is that the YBAs are convinced that they discovered Spitalfields, and that its fascination is all due to them. I wouldnt dispute for a moment that they have contributed to the current scene, but the fact is they wouldnt be here at all if people like Dan Cruikshank, Mark Girouard ( architectural historians both) and myself, putting money where the mouth was, hadnt moved in twenty years ago and taken up residence in what was then a sleazy, run-down area a step from the City, but unknown territory to people living in respectable middleclass London, Chelsea, Fulham, Knightsbridge. We all publicised the place in our own ways, because we loved it and wanted it to become alive again- I cant remember how many times my house was pictured in magazines and colour supps as the restored ruin, DIY success story. So now it is all happening, boutiques, clubs, coffee bars and delis springing up wherever you look, no fewer than 67 Asian restaurants fronted by `tikka touts'. With Monica Ali`s novel Brick Lane, shortlisted for the Booker, this could even become arival to Nottinghill as a must see patch of essential London. It is exciting to live in a place that changes from week to week, dilapidated I8th century buildings reviving under green
swathed scaffolding, derelict warehouses metamorphosing into studios and lofts,boarded up shops re-opening, all glassy fascias and trendy furnishing, as retro boutiques for furniture,fashion, music. All we did was set the ball rolling, break the ground.But we made the leap of faith, and took the risks of decamping to an area devoid of urban mod cons - supermarket, chemist, newsagent, offlicence, dry cleaners.

Today is Boring - this isnt me speaking, its the name - cutely scribbled in yellow neon on the window - of a tiny, scruffy little video shop which opened recently on the edge of trendy Hoxton. The opening hours are unusual - Ipm- IIpm, and your £3 rental only gets you 24 hours of video time but it is already doing good business. Their pitch is that they only stock what one might call ` modern classics', art house movies like Pedro Almodovar`s All About my Mother, those Matrix titles, My Beautiful Launderette etc. But I was pleased to find The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich, one of those golden oldies you wont find in Blockbusters. I think this is a retail idea with a serious future.I can see them rolling out wherever there is a student population ( we have Hackney College) and the beauty of the idea is you only need a tiny retail space, a secondhand sofa or two, and a student strapped for cash to run the place.I would like them to dig back further in movie history - 3Os Hollywood comedies, 4Os French classics like Les Enfants du Paradis, Quai des Brumes, and it would help if they extended the rental time. But, hey, it is a venture which could add a whole civilised, cultural dimension to city living ! Brilliant.

Consumer Corner I spent several hours recently looking for one of those note blocks in a neat acrylic case which I like to keep by the phone and extensions (2) because this stops me scribbling on the back of envelopes, margins of newspapers and any other scrap of paper to hand, which then gets binned by mistake. I finally ran some to ground in Paperchase BUT to my annoyance they none of them have that neat hole drilled in one corner which allows a biro or pencil to conveniently live there and was such a handy feature of the kit. I mean what is the point of keeping a note block by the phone if you then have to scout around looking for something to write with ? Is this another mfr`s cost-saving exercise ? Wouldnt you pay a few pence more for block with hole ? Yes, I know this is a mere niggle, but the devil is as they say in the details.

ARMANI WOWS THE ROYAL ACADEMY

Thanks to having an R.A. in the family, I got to go to the preview of the Giorgio Armani show last night. It wasn´t held in the Royal Academy building, but in the former Museum of Mankind, which backs onto Burlington House. Anyone familiar with the Museum of Mankind was in for a big SURPRISE ! To begin with the pavement outside was lushly carpeted. Past the paparazzi, bouncers and cops, the foyer was unrecognisable, sexy low key lighting, walls finished in Venetian stucco ( the gritty finish, not the marbly one) - Armani spent £2,ooo,ooo on the refurb, we were reliably informed, part of the deal with the Royal Academy. The Man Himself, Giorgio stood at the foot of the grand staircase, smiling, shaking hands. But he is a little guy, easily missed in the stampede up the stairs. We had to fight our way back down again to press the flesh. I can now brag that I have shaken hands with Signor Armani. He has a flashing white smile, snowy white cropped hair and a nut-brown face, and looks lissom and lively for a man of 7O plus. But I am sure you, like me, want to know about the clothes ? The sheer extent of his stuff was gob-smacking. Gallery after gallery packed with svelte dummies ( headless) in glitter frocks, starlet show stoppers like the silver number worn by Rosamund Pyke to a recent premiere, but mainly quiet, cool, relaxed outfits such as hugely wealthy women of a certain age would wear to lunch in. Lots of beige, loads of grey, but even more `greige', the Armani signature colour. It took a while to focus on individual outfits because greige outfits tended to merge into greige stucco walls. But the fun of these previews is you get to touch and feel without being jumped on by attendants. I fell for a nubbly, super soft grey coat, relaxed as a thigh-length cardi, open just enough to glimpse chestnut brown satin breeches underneath. He majors on texture and contrast, crusty beaded embroidery flowing into swirly chiffon, that sort of thing. We reckoned, off the top of our heads, maybe 2,OOO outfits, many dating back to the 8Os, but not the least `dated'.Compared with the Versace show at the V & A, which was knock-your-eyes out colourful ( and often vulgar) Armani`s gear is tasteful, wearable and flattering. It appeals to royalty. I spotted Lady Helen Taylor in the scrum, all blonde moonbeam prettiness in a delicious little cardi jacket apparently knitted of pearls, or maybe sequins, or maybe both.Lady H has some kind of a deal with the Man, to talk him up in the right circles in return for getting to wear his spiffing outfits in the right places.Lucky her, you might think, but she would need to work at staying a size 8 or at most IO. An ounce too many in the wrong place and the tabloid editors run a piece calling attention to her bum - Armani scolds Royal.

So what else is new ? A sprinkling of celebs in the vast hospitality space. My friend Mika and I competed to spot-the-famous-face. Richard Gere, looking just like he does in movies, but shorter, talking to Minnie Driver, a tall girl it turns out, Lauren Hutton yakking away to Boris Becker, a powerful blonde duo. Not one super model strutting her stuff ( to the dismay of the paparazzi) but crowds of streaky blondes in Armani gear, and more youngish men in Armani suits than one sees most nights of the year. Gay guys we reckoned. Exquisite canapes - I stuffed my face with tiny rolls of carpaccio, enclosing crisp slivers of celery perfumed with truffle oil, tied round with a fragile ribbon of chive.Yum. These and many others proferred, as the new style has it, lined up on a square of slate. We chatted to artist Peter Blake, reviewing the scene from a quiet corner. I asked his lady who she thought might win the Turner prize, out of the four ( five if you count both Chapman brothers) finalists. `Oh, the Chapman brothers, no question,' she said, with finality. I sort of hope she is right, because the brothers live just round the corner from me, and one enjoys a beam of reflected glory. On the other hand, Jake Chapman and I have an ongoing feud over our black Staffie bitches Bella and Kylie, but that is another story. The brothers have invited Will, my honorary stepson, to the Turner Prize dinner tomorrow, as it happens. No way we can be first with the news, but Will is an observant guy, so I am expecting lots of hot gossip. Watch this space.

Living smack in the middle of a multi-cultural community ( Spitalfields/Banglatown is the official designation) with Asians ( Bangladeshis,Bengalis) making up an estimated 6O% of the local population, racial tensions and problems are never far away, and I tend to pick up on relevant news items.
I was interested to see that Germany is now following France in objecting to the wearing of headscarves by Muslim schoolgirls. There seems to be considerable variation in this veiling rule for young Islamic girls. I pass groups of young girls in Brick Lane every day veiled so closely only their eyes are left showing. Asian girls working on supermarket check-outs are veiled to hide every scrap of hair, but leave their faces showing. However, walking past a big local secondary school as the kids ( almost all Asian) were streaming out, I noticed that some of the prettiest girls had discovered a new take on veiling. They wore black headscarves tied pirate fashion, covering their hair in front and knotted at the nape of the neck. They were definitely keeping to the letter of the law rather than the spirit, since the effect was cute, flattering and decidedly provocative if you had the looks to carry it off. It made me smile reminescently, remembering the tricks we got up to at school to make our navy puddingbowl felts look a tad sexier,punching in the crown, wrenching the brim. Girls will be girls, thank goodness. ` But what is it about hair ?' a woman journalist friend commented. `Why should concealing a woman`s hair turn away lustful thoughts ?'
I see it as a control thing, outward proof that in this community men still rule. But a smart girl can bend the rules, as I discovered.

INTER MARRIAGE

Not having driven for two years and not trusting my wonky ankle to perform, I signed on for a refresher driving course with an AA instructor recently. Darren ( not his real name) was patient, monumentally calm, fast thinking and funny. He responded to my occasional panics, and my anecdotes, with a big, genial laugh. Darren is tall, and goodlooking, and black. We were chatting about how Asian families get their daughters to pass their tests so they can act as chauffeurs, when he electrified me by revealing that his girl friend is Asian, Bangladeshi, and their relationship goes back several years. Thinking of the grisly recent case of the Kurdish father who murdered his young daughter for going with a Lebanese Christian, I asked him if he wasnt worried about so-called honour killings.He made the interesting point that these tend to happen in poor, uneducated `peasant'
immigrant families. His girl friend`s family was wealthier, westernised; she was studing medecine. Even so, he admitted, she had been talked into an arranged marriage. But this wasnt working.The couple were getting a divorce. Once this was finalised he and his girl friend could get together, properly, marry, set up home. I dont suppose the Bangladeshi family will wellcome the situation with open arms.There is little fraternising between the two communities, and I would guess that inter-marrying between blacks and Asians is both rare and frowned upon. On the other hand, a divorced wife might be a tricky proposition and they might be grateful to Darren for taking her off their hands. My driving went a bit to pieces while I pondered the intricacies of his situation, but we fetched up outside my house safely, and I wished him the best of luck, with feeling, as I waved him goodbye, wobbly about the knees, but not I am happy to say, the wonky ankle.
I do seriously believe that racial inter-marriage is a good thing, a way forward, and that the children of these marriages, a mix of racial characteristics, colours, cultures, languages
will be placed to shake up our prejudices and stereotypes in an exciting, liberating way.

CONSUMER MOAN I
Has anyone noticed how toothpaste seems to be turning into polyfilla ? First the mfrs drop the screw on cap for a little snap cap, which refuses to snap if there is even a smidgin of toothpaste around the top. Overnight the paste sets solid. Either you have to gouge out the solid bit with a nail file .Or you have to press really hard on the tube in which case the obstruction is cleared but a gout of paste erupts all over the place. You might think this is too minor a detail to enter the mfrs thinking but I am not so sure. I expect you are familiar with the theory about how Colmans` mustard got rich ? Because of all the mustard you leave on the plate.Bring back the screw cap !
MOAN 2
Do you own a HOZELOCK? Brand name of widely sold garden hose thingy which stands on metal legs and has a handle for winding your hose neatly after watering. What happens I find is that the winding process yanks the end of the hose off the connection. When you try to push it back you come across a little metal strut which cleverly prevents you gaining access to the connection. Sorry if this sounds confusing but anyone who has been in my situation will know what I am talking about. In the end, after struggling with the contraption and getting soaked in the process, I decided to dispense with the Hozelock gadget and connect the hose directly to my outside tap. This works but it means I have metres and metres of green plastic hose snaking about instead of neatly coiled around my contraption. I guess the metal strut is there to strengthen the Hozelock, but wouldnt it be possible to fix it so it doesnt get in the way ?
CONSUMER MOAN 3
This applies only to AGA owners. You must have asked yourselves why AGA make sliding their oven racks in and out so fiendishly difficult, not to say dangerous ? It is all to do with that maze of little lugs both sides of the oven. Lets suppose you put your roast or your casserole in about halfway up the oven, to start it off. Then you want to move it down to the bottom of the oven to cook more slowly only to find you have to move the rack up a notch to allow clearance beneath, always the case with those huge Le Creuset casseroles.
Wearing your Aga armour ( oven mitts) you tug at the rack. One side slips down a notch, so you are trying to pull it out on a slant. It stalls. Trying to wrestle it back makes the situation worse. It is now completely stuck and you have little burns on both wrists. and
the only hot thing is your temper. Why oh why cant AGA get rid of this antiquated system and give us racks that slide in and out as easily as they do in a gas or electric oven ?

FAT KIDS
Obesity among schoolkids is one of the hot topics in the media. The fattest kids ( overflowing their chairs in the L.A. hotel restaurant) I have ever seen were newly rich Mexican adolescents, scoffing huge breakfasts alongside their even fatter parents, before waddling out to the flashy family auto in the car park for a day - I am guessing here - of sightseeing around L.A. from the air conditioned comfort of the back seat of their Cadillac or whatever. I bet their grandparents, smuggled over the Mexican border,fifty or so years ago, to work in the Californian orange groves, were skinny as wire coat hangers, physically stretched from morning to night, scantily fed, struggling to survive. Their mountainous descendants had struck it rich, and their obesity was like a proof of that. They could afford to be hugely fat, stuff down immense meals and not walk a step further than between the hotel lobby and the car park. Fat can be a class issue.
It can also be a family thing. I often spot bloated kids in supermarkets.When I track them to the check-outs, it nearly always turns out that they are tagging along behind immensely overweight parents. When I snoop on the contents of the trolley, it largely consists of junk food - crisps, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks, sliced bread, biscuits - or lazy food - microwave dishes, oven chips, cook-in pasta sauces, tinned baked beans. Rarely a fresh vegetable, or fruit, never a salad. Fat parents make fat kids.Any serious initiative to slim down the growing numbers of overweight kids has to begin with educating their parents. Sometimes obesity is a glandular problem,granted, but how come the numbers are rising so fast and incrementally ? These are lazy people, if you ask me, couch potatoes, whose idea of a good life is to slob out round the telly and stuff themeslves and their kids with rubbish foods because they just can´t be arsed to prepare a decent meal if it means missing an episode of Big Brother. The media has a lot to answer for.

CARE OF THE ELDERLY

Another political hot potato. Many people strive to keep their aged parents in their own homes - the parents' - for as long as possible in the belief that uprooting the elderly from the dear and familar cuts away their dignity and shortens their lives. The situation can be just about managed with a combination of helpers - the cleaning lady who pops in for extra hours, for extra pay, health visitors or district nurses, and many family visits. But the time comes when professional nursing care, round the clock, may be necessary- if you can afford it. It may well cost as much as £5O,OOO p.a.But there is another cost, rarely mentioned, which I feel needs to be flagged up. Some private nurses are not above ` casing the joint' and stealthily removing small valuables, like jewellery, which they may think of as the perks of a wearisome job, long hours, lonely, tedious and menial. But it is a shock to find that the nurses caring for a dying parent in their last days, and well paid , have taken advantage of the situation to ransack their drawers and prized possessions, relying on the family`s grief and bewilderment to escape undetected. This happens more often than you might expect. Proof is impossible since private nurses work shifts; the thief could be any one of three or four people. There is a solution, which is tough to implement - ` If your old mother or father is losing their marbles, make sure their valuables are safely tucked away in the bank before you get the nursing staff in,' says my friend and neighbour Polly Hope. My own mother, my partner`s mother, were both stripped of thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and other family valuables when they were too frail and vulnerable to realise what was happening. It is not so much the cash loss that hurts as the knowledge that a sapphire and diamond ring which should by rights have been passed on to a grandson`s bride, has been pilfered by a total stranger and has probably ended up on a velvet cushion in a jeweller`s window, `secondhand bargain´.

The Big Tattoo

I am an ( offpeak) member of the Broadgate Club, a posh health club a few
minutes from Liverpool Street station, patronised by- by the looks of them -
mainly City types, male and female. Hard to tell because this is such a
serious body worship place one rarely hears the spoken word except from
trainers and cleaners. I do a bit of a workout in the gym, having finally
learned how to programme the exercise machines, followed by several lengths
in the pool ( biggest in the City, with a mosaic mural by artist Howard
Hodgkin) but always ending up in the sauna to get warm again. The sauna has
a glass door, giving a front stalls view of naked women on their way in or
out of the showers, anointing themselves with the club`s free Body Lotion
dispensers, drying their hair with the ranks of hairdryers, leisurely doing
their `faces' from outsize cosmetic bags. I learn a lot about my sex
watching the to and fro in Broadgate`s palatial Women`s Changing Rooms.
Frivolous undies score, even fatties choosing thongs.Tiny, pretty tattoos -
a butterfly on the bum, or lacy anklets, are much in evidence. But recently
I have been astonished to see quite massive examples of tattooing - one
woman sported a dragon tattoo all the way up her outside calf, another had
a complete mandala, in four colours, a foot wide, tattoed on her back
between her shoulder blades. This is surely a new departure in tattoing as
body art for women ? Now why would a woman today offer a large area of her
visible skin surface to be indelibly decorated with these exotic, foreign
motifs ? I can quite understand the erotic frisson a lover might get from
the flirty butterfly disclosed by dropping one`s knickers, but these
large-scale tattoos are defiantly in your face, a statement - but what about
? You could conceal the dragon with black tights, but how would a bride look
in one of the fashionable strapless bridal frocks ( she was quite young)
with a half-visible mandala showing above the cream silk bustier ? It is a
mean thought of mine, but I cant help wondering how any tattoos, big or
small, will look a few decades on when the firm flesh and taut skin have
aged ? A sad mothy souvenir or a jaunty reminder of livelier, free-wheeling
days ?