anyresemblance

Wearing John Malkovich

John Malkovich has extended his creative empire to a new range of men's clothing.

But this is no ordinary fashion line. Malkovich, in typical esoteric style, claims inspiration from Taliban “style icon” Abdul Salam Zaeef, former spokesman for the Afghan regime and ambassador to Pakistan. Malkovich remembers hearing that Zaeef was exiled “for wearing his turban too fashionably” and decided that this was a man who deserved to be immortalised in fabric

Buoyed by his success and his friends’ enthusiasm, Malkovich considered sending clothes to the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi, but his business partners persuaded him against it. “Anyway, he has very nice outfits of his own,” says Malkovich, who claims he is a fan of Gadaffi’s “1980s Comme des Garçons look”.

Migraine

I've had this headache since Saturday night. In fact, I think it commenced at 6.55pm when late already for a dinner (I was supposed to be there at 7pm), I discovered that Miss I had emptied the bathwater I had hoped to use. It was aided along by some red wine and chocolate, lack of sleep and work pressures. Now it's Tuesday evening, I've taken neurofen, panadeine forte, myrsendol day strength and had a neck and back massage and I've still had this throbbing behind my left eye. I wrote the above last night. Now it's Wednesday and my headache has gone thanks to bed at 9:30 and night strength myrsendol. The day has been busy. Last day of the quarter and Wall St cracks the whip. I've still got some stuff to close out but I've done all I can to make it happen. I'm applying for another job. I realise that I have this constant low level unhappiness with work and that it's been a long, long time since I had fun here. So now I've said it and I have to follow through. Tonight I cooked lamb cutlets on my cast iron ridged grill pan (I have the luxury of a super-extractor fan which whooshes away all the charred meat smells), beautiful rosevale potatoes (not quite the beautiful floury potatoes of Ireland, Anne, but a close second), broccoli and stuffed tomatoes. Apple crumble with a dash of calvados in the apples. I've also made minestrone soup for tomorrow night. Since seeing the movie, I've been re-reading Under the Tuscan Sun. I'd forgotten how foody it is and her descriptions of winter food and ribollata made me want to make soup. I stuck the heel of the parmesan in for extra flavour but I've no idea what the equivalent of cavollo nero is.

My father surprises me

When I went to graduate school my father started writing to me. He and my mother used to take turns week about to update me on weekly news. My mother's notes were short and loving. My father's longer and more detailed, typed since he never wrote easily. He is left handed and found holding a pen awkward. His turn of phrase was sometimes very stilted (my niece once commented that getting a letter from grandpa was like getting a letter of rebuke from the bank manager) but he wrote with detail about what he had done or read or seen. I have a box of letters going back 20 years. When I moved to Hong Kong, he bought a fax machine so our letter writing would be more immediate. And the past 4 years he's graduated to e-mail. Ironically, the immediacy of e-mail has actually made him a less diligent correspondant but although the cost of an international phone call to the UK is cheap we still write to each other regularly. He's uncomfortable chatting on the phone but waxes at length in writing. This week he told me about the builder who is putting a new window in his dining room, about how the fact that this builder lives next door to him doesn't stop him from disappearing for days at a time; about his stress levels during the Six Nations; about how he has cut the grass three times this spring and what he plans to plant in his front garden; about his proposed itinerary when he comes out to Australia and New Zealand at the end of the year; about going to see Lost in Translation which he loved and how much he likes Bill Murray. If you'd asked me, I'd have said he didn't even know who Bill Murray was which just goes to show that people have the capacity to endlessly upset your preconceptions about them.

Friday night I took the girls and Miss S's friend to see Hidalgo. I have nothing to say on the subject except I thought Viggo Mortenson looked exceptionally weedy and unattractive. They, of course, loved it. Apparently, it's a horse thing. Saturday was hectic - laundry, house cleaning, horse riding, basketball. I didn't draw breath all day and felt very grumpy that I had not achieved much around the house. I went to dinner on Saturday night for a friend's birthday. It was beautifully cooked food - a salad of rocket, walnuts and brie; slow roast lamb with juniper berries (this divine so I got the recipe from the hostess); a peach tart tatine. I was tired though and not really up for an evening out. After a day of racing around I would have preferred time alone. I realise that I prefer my own company - and I especially enjoy time in the evenings when my children are asleep and I can have a quiet time while knowing they are close by and safe. The nicest thing was to get home at 11 and discover that Mary, my babysitter, had tidied up after the children and emptied the dishwasher. A wonderful girl. Today didn't have much space in it either. I returned the car borrowed from a friend since my own car was returned from repair on Friday. It was a complicated arrangement but ended with us having lunch with the father of my children in Bungendore. It was pleasant and I know the children really enjoyed us being together in front of some other friends. I don't want to set the wrong expectations for the children but it was an effortless thing to do. All in all a very unrestful weekend. The only good thing is the clocks went back last night and I get an extra hour of sleep and it's lighter in the morning again. Of course, dark at 6pm is not nice. It's been so hot these past few days though it's hard to feel the advance of winter. I'm planning to go to the beach for Easter and if the weather holds will get one last swim in.

The grandstand will disappear when there is no-one there to occupy it*

So Tony Blair is following in Mandela's footsteps in embracing "mad dog" Gadaffi. A hundred years ago or so, when I lived and worked in Libya, one of our favourite past times was collecting translations from Col Gadaffi's "Green Book". In the SPLAJ (Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya), the Green Book was supposed to provide the same political guidance as the Chairman Mao's red book. It obviously lost something in the translation. You could buy quite nice postcards of various folkloric scenes which would be captioned with English translations of quotes from the Green Book: the party system aborts democracy headlined a picture of the Roman remains at Leptis Magna, democracy means popular rule not popular expression above a photo of some tastefully arranged pomegranates. Libyan friends had the running joke "Why is the Green Book like a watermelon? It's green on the outside, read inside, with lots of black spots". A bit of primary playground humour, but with the best will in the world, as a political philosopher Gadaffi is completely incomprehensible. I found more appealing the fact that he delayed the coup that brought him to power by a day since the famous Egyptian singer, Um Khaltoum, was performing in Tripoli and he did not want to spoil her night or enrage the crowds. And despite the human rights record, state sponsored terrorism and the like, Libya is the highest rank country in Africa on the UN's human development index. Say what you like about grandiose visions, Gadaffi has used much of the oil money to fund health and education, and very little on palaces for potentates. Doubtless it will soon figure on Lonely Planet itineraries. We drove once from Tripoli to Ghadames, a town on the old slave route from Timbukto up to the coast. It's now a world heritage site but at the time my girlfriend and I stayed in a small hotel in the town itself. We had a room opening out on to the courtyard. The staff were non-plussed at what to do with two female foreign devils in their hotel. They were very charming and brought us bowls of flowers, plates of sweets and subbuteo. I have an enduring memory of thrashing the receptionist at table football. The women's world was on the roof terraces. There were many mirrors on the walls of the houses to reflect light through the small slits in the mud walls. Our guide was Tuarag, one of the blue people of the desert, their faces stained with the indigo dye from their robes. I met my Libyan boyfriend on that trip. My mother despaired that I was going to marry him. Well, that idea didn't last long. * Muammar Gadaffi, The Green Book, Part 3, Ch 10, Sport, Horsemanship and Shows

Skippy

Miss I was in the shower and I was assisting with hair washing when Miss S came rushing in to tell us there was a kangaroo in the garden. We all rushed out, Miss I, dripping shampoo and water and sure enough a small kangaroo bounced up the front path, across into the neighbour's garden, across the road to the school and off into the middle distance. The cats were huddled on the trampoline looking horrified at the indignity of having that creature invade their territory. There are lots of them in this suburb - they like the great expanses of lawn at the Royal Canberra Golf Club and the shady trees of Government House - but they don't usually venture into the gardens. It made us all happy to have seen it, though. Their movement and speed is still so thrilling to me. Today I went to the car wash twice. My friend, P, is a very orderly person but lately a small baby, working full time, commuting to work and a partner who is in S Africa about half the time has caused some glitches in her routine. Her car had a huge splatter of bird shit on the bonnet and I knew it was stressing her out so I offered to take her car to the car wash while she rushed from meeting to meeting. I bought a large flat white from the Cornucopia bakery and made a few phone calls then drove back to the office. In the afternoon, I went again to take the car she has lent me for the past few weeks while my car has been off the road. The boys in the car wash looked puzzled at my return in a different car. This time, I browsed in a couple of shops and bought some birthday presents for various people. 30 minutes well spent in lieu of lunch.

The curate's egg

Today was a mixed bag. On the good side, I woke up my children in the house which is always a better way to start a day. Miss S declared that she had a "sore tummy" that catch all phrase to describe that all is not right with the world. I sometimes wonder what my boss would say when grilling me on some unfinished task if I said "but, Alan, I have a sore tummy". Another good thing was going to have afternoon tea on the terrace of the National Library with my friend and work colleague, M. We also discussed a lot of business while we were doing it but it was pleasant to be out in the afternoon sunshine. I had a pot of earl grey tea and a piece of coconut and raspberry cake which was delicious. We talked about how tiresome some of our male colleagues are and how it gets in the way of just getting on with our jobs. Also good was cancelling a meeting tomorrow which would have involved a lot of the above tiresome men droning on about how marvellous they were. Extra good was a telephone call with a colleague in Singapore who was amazingly helpful and gave me lots of good ideas to discuss with one of my clients. We were talking about public health outbreaks and how technology can support management of them and she was telling me about some research which pulled together data on things like orange juice sales in the cafeteria, number of calls made to medical centres, absenteeism rates and sewage output (eeewh) to predict outbreaks of flu 24 hours ahead of other monitoring means. Of course, what you do with that data - how do you issue public health alerts, how do you manage peaks in service loads (everyone wants to make doctor's appointments, etc) are much more difficult policy issues. And what was really great was how open she was with her expertise and her willingness to help. I met someone today that I last saw on the other side of a piano at a posh English wedding reception in Hampshire in 1992. The person who was getting married that day sadly died a couple of years later but I recall the reception as being very 4 Weddings like with excellent french champagne, quail's eggs with celery salt and little chequerboard sandwiches with smoked salmon and caviar in a marquee in the garden of some beautiful house in a picturesque village. The bride was a florist and there were the most divine blue and white flowers everywhere. Anyway, this man was visiting our office in Australia which is another one of those small, small world stories. He looked the same as he had 12 years ago. I hope I looked better since at the time I was very pregnant with a shocking short hair cut. My company intranet phone book allows you to add your photograph to your entry. My pal, H, and I are conducting an informal survey on the physical profile of senior executives in our company. Our hypothesis is that no senior male execs have facial hair and that they are all tall and beefy (ex athletes). For women, the profile is more to do with body size - no-one over a size 12 (which I think is size 8-10 for any Americans). No really bad things but some tedious posturing which wasted some time and treacle-like response times on my computer today. Tonight we watched McLeod's Daughters. I've been maintaining that this is Saddle Club for grown-ups and blow me if Miss S didn't tonight spot that the newly returned love interest vet is none other than Max the stable owner from Saddle Club. We are, of course, only watching it for the horses just like I have to take Miss S and Miss I to see Hidalgo on Friday so we can admire the horses. I've seen some trailers and have to say that as attractive as he was as the broody and magnificent Aragon, Viggo Mortensen looks pretty weedy in this movie. Hope the horses are good. Happy Birthday to my sister, Diane.

My dentist, the marriage guidance counsellor

I got my second crown fitted today. After the unfortunate discovery of gum disease, Ray (the dentist) had packed me off to the peridontist for expensive consultations. The peridontist prescribed a course of 4 sessions where they will scrape clean my gums. The very nice dental nurse also pointed out how I must try harder in cleaning my teeth and waved me off with all sorts of implements to clean between my teeth. Anyway, although I have not had the expensive and excrutiatingly painful gum scraping yet, the peridontist declared that I should still get my crown fitted. Except it didn't fit. Since the gum disease had changed the lie of my teeth since the crown was measured. So I had to go back again. Anyway, that's the short explanation of how I ended up back in Ray's miniscule consulting room this afternoon. I'm comforted that the money I'm paying him is not going on a fancy waiting room. No glossy House Beautiful or Vogue here, this is strictly Women's Weekly territory. So this time the crown goes in a treat, he gives me a cup of tea to make the cement set quicker and while he has me trapped he gives me the lecture. My teeth have deteriorated badly in the past 3 years. I have to concentrate on reducing stress and stop grinding my teeth. How's your marriage, he asks. So I tell him it's over. And he tells me I either need to reconcile or find a nice new boyfriend else I'm going to spend a lot of money on dentistry over the next 20 years. Now, that's what I call a lifestyle prescription.

This weekend was good. Saturday I went to Pilates. I always like to go early and feel virtuous for the whole weekend. I've been doing Pilates for about 18 months and it's made a huge difference to my body shape which has sort of stretched. Sounds odd, but I guess that working all those small muscles has improved my posture all round. I tried yoga but couldn't get on with the insufferably smug yoga teacher I found. I shoud try a different teacher. My Pilates teacher knows everyone in town, the best gossip, the best divorce lawyer, the best house painter, best place to buy a bike and anything else you want to know. Then I cleaned my house which was not very dirty and went out to do enjoyable shopping. I bought new sheets for myself and Miss I. I did the kind of enjoyable food shopping like olive oil and lemons and tridosha salt. This is the most fabulous range of flavoured salts from a company in bangalow in northern new south wales. I first tasted it when I was up there at the Byron Bay Blues Festival a few years ago. Their "native spice" blend is great on almost everything. In the afternoon, I worked in the garden tidying up and picking some figs. I bought a new sprinkler for the hose and watered my roses. In the evening, I went to dinner in Bungendore with friends. It was very enjoyable but I slept badly and had the teensiest hangover Sunday morning. I have little capacity for alcohol anymore - which, on reflection, is a good thing. I'm better able to listen to what my body is telling me. After some coffee Sunday morning, I went to see Under the Tuscan Sun. Enjoyable hokum though Diane Lane has some annoying mannerisms of biting her lip and tossing her head to demonstrate embarrased confusion. Inspired by this "escape to tuscan countryside" nonsense, I bought (on Jacqui's recommendation" this book. There are some interesting things in there. Yesterday afternoon, I cooked for the week - salmon fishcakes with coriander and chili; brown lentils with ginger, garlic, coriander and chili; polenta to make a grilled polenta, fig and prosciutto salad for tonight (jacqui's suggestion again); brownies; and peach and coconut muffins - the latter, I just measured the dry ingredients since I mean to take them to work this morning to help us through a tedious meeting first thing and they are baking now. I went to the late (for me, 9pm) showing of The Missing last night. It was the only time it was showing and I didn't get out until 11:30. I dunno, usually Ron Howard movies leave me cold but I liked this movie. It's helped by the amazingly gnarled Tommy Lee Jones and I am disposed to like Cate Blanchett on citizenship grounds. I'd like to see her play more than anguished all the time though - I guess, Bandits showed a wider range of her talents. I slept very badly last night and am feeling a bit fragile this morning. Yet another trip to the dentist in store today. Let's hope the crown fits this time.

Much ado about nothing

I know it was only a four day week, but this work week has flown by. Nearing the end of first quarter, we've been frantic with numbers. Wall St rules my life at the moment. I was even on the phone in a restaurant tonight talking about how we got the price right for a deal we are trying to close on Monday - how lame am I? In a sick, perverted way, I quite enjoy this time. I've always enjoyed working under pressure more than day to day predictability. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like it to be like this all the time, but it's a bit like being a good exam taker (which I was) - I operate well with a deadline and like pulling all the pieces of the puzzle together to make the whole picture just in time. My children are with their father this weekend. I miss them already. I had got to a page in my small filofax today where Miss I had written "I love you alout". I love her alout as well. I thought about just hanging out at home but then decided to go out and buy a magazine. Then I decided to have dinner at the Indian Vegetarian restaurant. I had this amazing paneer with a sort of tandoori paste on it. Quite dry but delicious. Then I went to see Pieces of April. I fidgeted a bit for the first ten minutes but then got completely entranced and had tears streaming down by face by the end. Katie Holmes and Patricia Clarkson were outstanding. This weekend I'm tidying up my garden, baking and making lists.