Thursday, February 22, 2007

Agony Corner

A new service for the lovelorn and the romantically confused of the capital, Tricity Vogue's Agony Corner made its debut at last week's Valentine Hangover gig.

For those of you who were too emotionally exhausted after Valentine's Day to attend, here are the letters Honey Mink read out, and Tricity's wise replies.

And remember, Miss Vogue will be back soon with more invaluable romantic advice, so if you have a problem, if no one else can help, then why not write to Tricity?

agony@tricityvogue.com

xxx



TRICITY,

I WANT TO DRESS JUST LIKE YOU! I LOVE AND ADMIRE YOUR CLOTHES SENSE, AND S W O O N OVER YOUR OUTFITS. WHERE CAN I FIND AMAZING GARMENTS LIKE YOURS, AND DO THEY DO MEN'S SIZES?

"GORDON"




Dear Gordon

The advantage of hand-made original couture like mine and Honey's is that it comes in any size. As a man, you have to potential to look quite striking in an evening gown, having the advantage of height on your side.

However I'm afraid I can't pass on the details of my personal couturier to you. I can't risk you looking better in the gowns than I do.

Yours, Tricity




Dear Tricity
I am planning on seducing my Polish builder. Any tips?
Yours in lust, "Felicity"




Dear Felicity

Fraternising with workmen can be a perilous business, but if you really can't resist, at least make sure he's finished grouting your brickwork first.

I myself am still smarting from an ill-fated affair with an electrician – on our first date he turned up two hours late, didn't have any of the appropriate tools, left the job half-finished, promised to come back another day, and never showed his face again.

If you must dabble with the trades, look for a plumber. And when you find one, give me his number.

Love Tricity




Dear Tricity,

I wonder if you could help me? I have a personal problem. The Transhetrodyne Amplifier on my Servo Relay for the Sub section I am in charge of keeps going into Secondary phasing. What would you recommend, to reverse this trend in a three year old module.

Thanks, Anonymous.




Dear Anonymous

Ask a boy.

Love Tricity





Dear Tricity.

My friend's in love with the guy in the coffee bar. Her problem is she doesn't like coffee. She said "I'll have a tea" - he heard "latte". Now every day she goes in, he gets the latte ready. And she can't say anything because he makes a real effort with patterns in the milk. What does she do? If she tells him the truth - is he going to think she's weird? If they get together ever - will she have to drink coffee all the time?

Yours sincerely. A Friend.




Dear Friend

Probably, yes.

If you don't like coffee, don't look for love in a coffee bar.

Tell your friend to go and hang out somewhere full of things she does like instead – like Tiffany's for example - then she's got a chance of meeting a man who'll make her the kind of love offerings she can appreciate.

Patterns in the milk? What's that about?

Tricity

xx




Dear Tricity

My latest squeeze just dumped me even though he really liked me. I know he really liked me because he said he did – every time I asked him, which was at least once every ten minutes when we were out together. How is a girl supposed to cope when men give out such mixed messages?

yours, Baffled



Dear Baffled

I think I know where you went wrong here.

Never ask a man a question he can't answer. Men will do anything rather than admit their own ignorance – and that includes doing a runner.

In your case, the question 'Do you like me?' was clearly too complicated for the poor boy.

I once made a similar mistake myself when I asked the man I was seeing "Why don't you leave your wife and spend your money on me instead?"

Nowadays I try not to ask men any questions at all if I can help it. It's safer.

Yours, Tricity





TRICITY,

I AM 22 YEARS OLD AND HAVE NEVER BEEN WITH A LADY. I BELIEVE THAT MY WEIGHT AND SPOTS PUT THEM OFF, BUT PERHAPS IT'S THE PICTURES OF WOMEN IN MY ROOM. MY MOTHER DYED LAST YEAR, AND DOES NOT SUIT HER NEW RINSE. I AM BORED WITH LIFE AND WILL END IT ALL UNLESS I FIND A BRUNETTE LIKE YOU. DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND AND WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

CLIVE.




Dear Clive

Although I would love to go on a date with you I'm afraid I'm going to be in washing my hair for the next ten years. However, my friend Honey Mink might have an evening free.

Yours, Tricity






Dear Tricity

I am an attractive 25 year old woman, and I feel time is running out for me. I have a number of male suitors but none of them have the income to keep me in the manner that a woman of my attributes deserves. I think I'm looking for love in the wrong places. How can I find a rich husband?

Charlotte



Dear Charlotte

Has your financial adviser introduced you to the concept of long-term investment? Make it clear to your suitors that you require them to amass large amounts of dosh in order to win your heart, and send them out into the world to make their fortunes, promising them a sound romantic return for their labours.

Then when they trot back to you, wads of cash in hand, you can pick the most loaded to be your lucky groom.

This strategy always works for the princess in fairy stories.

Love

Tricity




Dear Tricity

I went on holiday and met the most marvellous girl. We sat on the beach and she wore flipflops and scruffy clothes. Since I am quite scruffy myself I thought we were a perfect match. Imagine my horror when we returned to London and she started dressing up in the most over-the-top costumes and make-up as a homage to you. I am quite shy and gentle by nature and find her vampishness quite intimidating and unsettling. Please advise.

Liam





Dear Liam

Stop whining and buy a dinner jacket.

Yours, Tricity

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Lying On My Band

We did a photoshoot last Saturday and it was a full-on production number.

Someone commented that it took more work than when we went into the studio. For some members of the band, having their faces made up and their outfits styled for them, then being invited to show off to a man with a big camera in his hand, was a voluptuously pleasurable experience. For others (mentioning no names) it was akin to being sent down the mines, then being expected to dig for coal with their bare hands because someone had nicked the pickaxes. I may have mentioned before that organising a jazz band is like herding cats, and, as Earl Mysterio observed, some extreme feline herding was required for Saturday - but not only did we successfully capture all seven members of the Slinktet in the photos at the same time, with barely a limb out of frame, we got some Very Slinky Shots Indeed.

I'll stick them up on myspace as soon as the final photoshopping has been completed (I'm not getting anything airbrushed out. Honest.). Meanwhile a big thank you to:

Sean Gibson for taking the photographs
Timo Hebditch for being camera assistant
Stephane St Jaymes for styling
Mabel Flores for helping him
Elaine Amielle and Charlie James for make-up
and a big thank you to Tryg and Lost Society for letting us pose on their property. Hope we can come back and shimmy onstage for you soon, by way of a thank you for your hospitality.

and finally

Thank you to Honey Mink, Connie Vanderlay, Sir Fitzroy Callow, Earl Mysterio, Trousers Mercedes and Bobby Fresh for submitting yourself to the camera lens for hours. I won't make you do it again, I promise.

...At least not for a while.

As for me, my favourite shot was the one where the whole band carried me, and I lay across them in my turquoise gown with my tassels dangling and a big grin on my face.

I trusted you not to drop me guys. You never do.

TV

xx

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Old Unlit Flame

Remember that guy you used to be hugely, desperately in love with before you ever had a real life relationship that involved actual bodily contact?

Imagine if you saw him again after years and years and he actually remembered your name.

It happened to me last week and I actually got hot flushes. He's still got the same wide eyed puppy dog thing going on, the same sticky uppy blonde mop of hair (all of it), the same bright, enthused way of talking. Whereas I have adopted a different name and whole new identity... but the starry eyed ingenue I used to be, is, to my own astonishment, still buried underneath the hardbitten glamour after all.

Once upon a time, I auditioned for a college pantomime, and got the part of Principle Girl. Which meant, the pantomime being Jack and the Beanstalk, that I played the Harp. In fact, I played a damsel in distress tied to a harp. Hot Flush Guy was one of the three writer/directors - but he was the only male one, and thus the one I decided to fall in love with. And when the first night came it was the HFG's job to tie me to the harp before the curtain went up.

Virginal creature that I was, this experience was the closest to sex I had ever come in my life. And the bondage overtones weren't lost on me either. I suspect that HFG felt more faintly embarrassed than turned on by the whole routine, but he dutifully re-enacted it every night that week before the curtain went up.

I think the pantomine was quite successful as well.

Two other shining moments of romantic obsession gleam out of the fogs of memory. One was when Sara, one of the girl-directors (who, incidentally, once lent me her red lipstick and consequently changed my life forever) brought the HFG with her to my room, so he could listen to me sing and play the guitar (back in those days I was modelling myself on Tanita Tikaram). I remember that playing and singing for him was like being in heaven. I could imagine no one else I'd rather have listening to my songs - which were, of course, almost entirely written about him. I think I may have had the good sense not to reveal this at the time. After I finished playing (on becoming dimly aware that he was shuffling a lot and eyeing the door) he said I was really good and I should get myself a manager and try and make a go of it as a musician. I asked him if he'd like to manage me himself, and he said "no" very quickly. But it didn't take the sheen off the first half of the conversation.

The other shining moment was Valentine's Day. I'd been unsubtly bemoaning the fact that I had never ever received a Valentine's Card to the entire cast and crew, and in my pigeonhole on the morning of the 14th, there it was.

The card itself was fairly generic, but inside was a little drawing of a harp and the inscription "Happy Valentines Day Harpie" (yes, the cast and crew called me Harpie. I was deeply touched to have a nickname of my own.) I knew it must be from him. I glowed all day. I showed it to everybody.

Then the next day I was browsing in a bargain bookshop and I saw my valentine card in the remainder bin for 10p.

Then it occurred to me. The card wasn't from him at all. It was from one of the girl directors who had taken pity on me because I'd never been sent a Valentine's Card.

It was a Mercy Card.

At the time it didn't occur to me what a kind and thoughtful gesture this was by the other director - she'd taken the trouble to buy a card for me and slip it into my pigeonhole (in between my hourly checks), knowing it would bring me joy. But now, looking back, I can appreciate her generosity.

Back then, I was too busy being heartbroken.

And then last week I went to watch a puppet cabaret show based on the low-life writings of Charled Bukowski, and at the very end one of the puppeteers stood up to make an announcement and I realised who he was.

Hot Flush Guy.

I hovered around him in the bar for about ten minutes and eventually he was unable to ignore my presence any longer and said hello.

And remembered me.

He told me that until a year or so ago, that pantomime was possibly the most successful production he'd ever staged.

I'm glad I was a part of something so important in his life. And I'm glad I saw him again so that I could see - and delight in - what he's doing now.

And I don't even mind that he won't be sending me a valentine's card this year either - because Beloved will (I've made it very clear to him what my expectations are in that department, I can tell you).

And if, as my friend so wryly remarked on the night I re-encountered HFG, I did indeed neglect to mention to him that I was now happily coupled up with my dream guy, and co-habiting to boot, it wasn't out of any lingering romantic thoughts in his direction, but merely because, in a crowded theatre bar, with so many other, so much more useful, networking contacts vying for his attention, our conversation was necessarily far too brief for the subject of our personal lives to come up at all.

Funny how it's sometimes the flames that never get lit that burn for longest.

TV

xx