The online diary of Caroline Westbrook following her marriage on September 6 1998 to Leslie Bunder.
Saturday May 1 1999
Did the old touristy bit today (when we eventually surfaced from our
slumbers - well, hey, we are on vacation after all), by heading up the Royal
Mile to the Holyrood Palace.
Had great fun jumping on grass you're not supposed
to venture on to, and sitting on 16th Century chairs you're not supposed
to sit on (well, didn't really but it was very tempting), before heading back
to the centre of town. Ended up walking about a mile in what turned out to be
blazing heat - we seem to have come to Scotland on the hottest day of
the year so far. We could have been in some far-flung Mediterranean country
for the sort of weather we were experiencing.
Anyway, got back to the centre just in time for the annual May Day
parade - essentially a bunch of students and charitable organisations heading
through the main shopping areas and beyond on floats, doing wacky stuff.
Reminded me of the carnival that used to go through Staines town centre every June,
same sort of wacky stuff, good fun.
Went for a pub dinner tonight. We found this great place across the
road from our hotel which is a converted bank, serves top food and has
non-smoking areas as well. Afterwards we went on the upward trek to the Castle,
which looks pretty impressive by night even if you can't actually go in
there.
Went back down and was stunned to find the centre of town totally dead at
10.00 at night - even more surprised to find that Bookworld was the only place
open. We eventually sought solace (it was getting pretty chilly by this point
- who would've thought it was so hot earlier) in veggie eaterie Hendersons
before heading back to the hotel room. Can't believe everything closes so
early!
Sunday May 2 1999
Edinburgh Castle! I have vague recollections of doing this place
before, but can't remember when. Still, impressive stuff, lots of hilly stony bits
to wander up and down, great views, very nice cannon which is fired at 1
pm every day (except, just out luck, on Sundays).
Wasn't quite so impressed with the dungeon area, which looked like nothing more than a room with a few bits of straw inside. Rounded our touristy bits off with a quick flit round
the National Gallery (well, it's free and it's cultural), before having
dinner at TGI Friday's in Edinburgh. The Mahi-Mahi pasta goes thoroughly
recommended, as does working your way through approximately 90 per cent of the
cocktail menu.
For possibly the first time ever, our drinks bill exceeded that
of what we had to eat, but it has to be said they were pretty good. My personal
favourite was the Grasshopper, this bizarre mix of crème de menthe and
heaven knows what else which Leslie ordered. Tasted great, even though it
looked as though the barman had merely sneezed into the glass.
Monday May 3 1999
Flitted quickly round Jenners department store and took advantage of
the food hall before heading off to catch the train for our delightful first
class journey home.
We had planned to treat ourselves to dinner on the
journey but, being a bank holiday, the restaurant was closed. Typical! So it was
tuna sandwiches and spicy veggie burgers all the way back to London again.
Not to mention complimentary shortbread.
Tuesday May 4 1999
Back to work, where I was deemed very popular for turning up laden with
biscuits (shortbread, natch). Given that I was one of the only people
in the office today, the temptation to eat it was enormous, but I managed to
resist - sick of the sight of the stuff after my Scottish jaunt. No idea where
everyone has gone - I ended up doing four jobs today, which was not
fun. I hope they get back soon.
Wednesday May 5 1999
Had some assistance today, thank God. Everybody has apparently gone to
far-flung corners of the globe in my absence (presumably not to get
away from me), so the office is very quiet. Not a problem, rather a better way of
getting things done.
Thursday May 6 1999
The Cannes Film festival begins next week so I was be holding the fort
yet again. There's something a bit strange about having to 'run' the office
in everybody else's absence. Still, they can do the same for me when we
head off to Vienna next month.
My mum's birthday tonight, so we headed on over, laden down with
presents, before heading to the West End for pre-nuptial drinks with a
journalistic acquiaintance of mine. Then headed back chez parents for some orange
and almond flavoured birthday cake courtesy of mu culinary genius
sister-in-law. I think my mum was impressed with the gold-plated picture frames we
bought her; she can now put up lots of wedding pictures of her favourite
daughter!
Friday May 7 1999
Can't believe it's a week since we went to Scotland, seems like only a
moment ago (mind you, it is only four days since we got home). Still waiting
for an opporunity to wear my new dresses, but the weather is not obliging.
Still, we have no more free weekends until June 12, so weather or not, this is
pretty good going. We kick off our manic social whirl with sushi tomorrow
night.
Saturday May 8 1999
Cannot believe we have just spent in the region of £60 on sushi (and what did we eat, exactly?) Well, you know, it was pretty good for the money. Samara and Richard (boyfriend) seemed to think so too, anyway, and the evening was perfectly topped off when we went for late night drink at the Wetherspoon pub down the road. We have decided we like Wetherspoon-run pubs since our time in Edinburgh, what with their decent food and non-smoking areas (to say nothing of lack of jukebox howling Meatloaf’s greatest hits at all hours of the day). Weather is better, but new dresses still languishing in the wardrobe.
Sunday May 9 1999
Regular relaxing Sunday, not too much to do (except to update the diary of course!)
Monday May 10 1999
Last day of full office before people depart for Cannes, a quiet week is stretching before me. Am making contingency plans to meet people for lunches and try and see some movies (something I haven’t done for a couple of weeks now, it is clearly a quiet time of year).
Tuesday May 11 1999
Top news: Leslie has booked tickets to go see New Radicals on Monday night! Fabulous stuff! Their album is one of the best things I’ve heard in ages so naturally I am hopping at the opportunity to see them (or rather him, for New Radicals consists only of one person, the very bald Gregg Alexander).
Besides, haven’t been to a proper gig for about two years (Supergrass) or, indeed, a nostalgic gig (saw ABC in June 1997, ended up down the front yelling heaven knows what at the stage, but to be honest they were posturing and posing and taking themselves so seriously they deserved it). Monday should be truly excellent.
Wednesday May 12 1999
With the summer film season just around the corner, I can hardly believe that things are so quiet on the film screening front at the moment. I haven’t seen a thing since that variable rash of teen flicks the other week, and am eagerly awaiting the next variable rash of teen flicks. And of course, Star Wars Episode One, which opens in the States one week today and has already prompted enormo-queues outside every major cinema there. Hard to imagine why, however good it is going to be, it is still just a film, which will of course still be there if you don’t get in to see it for the first day or two. Personally I am looking forward to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Thursday May 13 1999
Another lightly-attended day at work. Still, used it to play catch-up and found myself doing plenty of useful little jobs that don’t get done otherwise. Next month will be similar, as we are doing a lot of stuff on Star Wars and our inter-office Star Wars experts have taken it upon themselves to write almost everything. I think I’ll just nip off for a month’s holiday!
Was stunned to discover that New Radicals have cancelled their gig! So much so that at first I thought it was a wind-up, only to discover that they have, in fact, decided they are not playing on Monday after all. This, I have decided, is probably a good thing. After all, I only discovered New Radicals (or Rads as I now refer to them) about a month ago, so had I discovered them, digested the album and seen them live in the space of just a few weeks, the entire novelty would have worn off very quickly).
And besides, I am getting very bored of You Get What You Give’s silly shopping mall set video. It seems to come on MTV whenever I go to the gym (along with Fatboy Slim, some groovy twosome called Phats And Small and – eeeeek! – Boyzone, leading me to believe that MTV only has four videos in its library at the present time – they are on, without fail, every day between 1.30 and 2 pm), and there is such a thing as overkill. The Rads, I am convinced, will return. And besides, I now like The Chemical Brothers much better.
Friday May 14 1999
And today there was nobody in the office at all except for me and one other person. Took advantage of the situation, catching up on things that needed to be done once again. And had a very nice lunchtime session at the gym. Love getting off promptly on a Friday and actually getting to spend time with Leslie, even if the pair of us had crashed out long before midnight.
Saturday May 15 1999
Social whirl mark two, Karen and Edward. This time around they came to us, as we seem to have headed up to their neck of the woods quite a bit recently, and naturally it makes a change. Went to Mamma Amalfi, Italian place in Ealing High Street and was somewhat disappointed with the food – we had enjoyed previous meals at another branch of Mamma Amalfi before, where we were serenaded by opera-singing waitresses and the like – but this one just didn’t cut it. Still, good company and we rounded off the evening with the first showing of our Edinburgh video (well, we have pretty much shown the wedding video to everybody now, time to move on and display some of Leslie’s works).
It came out pretty well, although my attempts to recreate the opening sequence of Trainspotting by running down a large flight of stairs similar to those in the credits didn’t quite have the desired effect (for one thing, I had no idea you could get so puffed out just running down a flight of steps, even after all that gym-going!)
Sunday May 16 1999
Headed off to Costco and bought Leslie a tripod for his camcorder. It’s a pretty nifty little thing; he can attach his camcorder to it and do some seriously good quality filming. Of course, Leslie is pretty good with the camcorder anyway, but enhancements never go amiss. And of course you can get some top bargains at Costco, what with massage cushions and multi-packs of Nutri-Grain bars and the like. Shied away from buying a £26 bottle of wine in favour of some less expensive alcohol, and quite frankly it was absolutely fine.
Monday May 17 1999
Had long lunch with buddy Darren and his new assistant at Lexingtons, my favourite West End eaterie. He did of course ask me if I was aware that tonight’s gig had been cancelled (thanks), but I did of course get a rather nice lunch out of him (and his new assistant). Actually, I completely forgot about the hastily aborted gig until about 9.45 pm that night, when it suddenly occurred to be that I should have been air-punching with a bunch of hairy students down the University Of London Union. Only I wasn’t. Did the ironing instead. Listened to the album. Pretended I was at the gig. Didn’t work. I would not have been doing the ironing there.
Tuesday May 18 1999
I have forgiven the Rads and have started listening to their album again. And saw the video at the gym, surprise, surprise. There is clearly no escaping it. Worse still, it does of course incite me to exercise extra-fast (in time to the music, no less), thus meaning I am far fitter but extremely exhausted after about two minutes.
Speaking of which, there is a new machine at the gym which I have become very fond of. Called the Elliptical Edge, the idea is to basically just stick your feet in the footpads and bounce up and down while the machine does the rest of the work. Oh, that it were that simple. It is actually a striding machine, but the effect is akin to bouncing up and down and not actually doing any exercise. Perhaps I need to turn the level up a little higher.
Wednesday May 19 1999
It is a very important day in the history of film, folks. The day that Star Wars: Episode One opens, and the fact that it has had mediocre reviews in the States has not stopped the fans from feverishly queuing outside. Watched Sky News this morning, where they were interviewing people outside the cinema waiting for the first show to start at 12.01 am. This reporter went up to one guy (not the one dressed as a Stormtrooper he had previously spoken to) and actually said to him: “Don’t you have anything better to do than stand around waiting to see a film?”
How rude is that? I’m surprised the guy didn’t flatten him! Went to work this morning very conscious of the fact that after roughly 18 months of hype the biggest film every to arrive during my career at Empire was actually being seen by people. It’s all very exciting. But I still want to see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
Thursday May 20 1999
Star Wars apparently made around $28 million in its first day. Which is not to be sneezed at.
Went to a Virgin Net party tonight and had my first ever taste of absinthe. Let me assure you, it will be my last. It is the foulest stuff I have ever encountered, and four sips was quite enough to convince me, the rest was left sitting on a bar somewhere waiting for some other sucker to drink it. It looked like neat bleach (and to be honest, neat bleach would probably have tasted better, except I would not be sitting here writing this had I sampled that instead).
Friday May 21 1999
Office is nearly back to normal now, thank heavens. It was tough holding the fort (I was forced to sit and watch episodes of The Simpsons at one point to keep things together). Social whirl, mark three coming up.
Saturday May 22 1999
Took the car into the garage to find out why it has been making funny grinding noises every time one of us brakes (I suspect the brakes may have something to do with it). We have rented a car for a few days while ours is being attended to, although our initial plans to get a Ford Focus (very nice) were scuppered by the non-cleanliness of the available car. We have instead opted for a Volkswagen Golf, which is damned nice if I may say so myself. And it gets up to speed like no car I have ever witnessed.
Dropped in briefly to Avril’s birthday party tonight – it had to be a brief appearance given the hectic day we had had. My mother escaped the tedium of the FA Cup Final by coming over to watch The Wedding Singer on video, while Leslie had horrendous computer problems of the kind that keep you up until about 2.30 the next morning trying to put them right. Luckily neither of us needs the machine this weekend. However, we did sit up into the small hours installing Windows 98, which will be very good if we can get the thing to work properly.
Sunday May 23 1999
Went shopping for computer medical equipment, winding up with a copy of Norton Doctor (the equivalent of a couple of PC paracetamol). The thing is still acting up, although it’s better than it was.
Monday May 24 1999
My first film for weeks! And it’s another teen one! Never Been Kissed, starring Drew Barrymore, she plays a 25-year-old reporter who goes undercover at a high school – it was surprisingly good fun if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to believe 25-year-old Drew with a hideous dowdy brown dye job, could ever pass for 17. Loved the fact, too, that everybody’s names in the closing credits were greeted with a picture of them at high school – especially when the actual 17-year-olds in the cast appeared. Funny, they looked exactly the same.
Tuesday May 25 1999
Not too much else to report today.
Wednesday May 26 1999
Or today, for that matter.
Thursday May 27 1999
The Elliptical Edge machine at the gym is certainly working! I have never burned off so many calories in one lunch hour, and I have been extolling its virtues to anybody who will listen to me. Funnily enough, they are all avoiding it. My office are now realising the wonders of the gym and have all joined en masse; however we have yet to actually meet there. Probably a good thing.
Friday May 28 1999
Social whirl mark four is on its way, and this time it’s a real good ‘un. Because, yes, it is the Eurovision Song Contest tomorrow night, and quite how I have kept quiet about it for this entire month I do not know. Nonetheless, it is in Jerusalem (on account of last year’s Dana International victory), and who will win? Will it be Sweden with their faux Abba knock-off (if they win, we will know neither judges nor audience, who get to telephone vote, have changed for the last 25 years)?
Will it be Cyprus’ much-fancied Europop (even though Greece are not in the contest this year to give them 12?) Iceland with their equally fancied bouncy Europop? The Netherlands’ rock chick? The French doomsday cult member? The blatant German attempt to win with a song that has Jerusalem in the title? Or will it be boring old UK with the weakest entry for years. Well, all will be revealed tomorrow night.
Saturday May 29 1999
There was almost no Contest when a huge storm knocked out our satellite at about 6 pm and threatened to put paid to our terrestrial telly as well, but it thankfully cleared up in time for the guests to arrive and the contest to go ahead.
Nick, Louise, Karen, Edward, Samara and Judy, as well as Leslie and myself, feasted on popcorn and Pizza, and a near disaster was averted in the first 10 minutes when, after Pizza Go-Go ran out of thin-base dough, Leslie drove round to Dominos to pick up the pizza personally, completely missing the Spanish entrant who come dressed in a stripey deckchair and the Croatian woman who whipped off her top halfway through, to reveal she was apparently wearing the surgical bandages given to patients with broken ribs.
Anyway, as Iceland and Sweden did their bit it was becoming increasingly obvious who the contest would be against, and indeed, true to form, the two of them wound up battling it out for first place (closely followed by Germany and their Moroccan restaurant band). Unsurprisingly, the Swedes clinched it at the last minute. So there you go. If in doubt, always vote for Abba. The Swedes have never won this contest with a ballad in the four times they have done so, and I suspect they never will. Had to pity the runners-up though.
A contest in Reykjavik would have been nice, and who knows when they’ll get a song that good again? Couldn’t feel any sympathy for the UK, though, who came lower than any UK entry has ever come in the whole time I’ve watched the contest. Nor could I pity Ireland, who after dominating for almost four years in a row, actually managed to get themselves in the relegation zone this year (tee hee!) Am already ticking off the days on my calendar to Stockholm 2000. Or should that be Gothenberg?
Sunday May 30 1999
Had a quieter day given the flag-waving excesses of the previous evening. Besides, tomorrow is a bank holiday meaning a whole extra 24 hours off work (yippee!)
Monday May 31 1999
Went bargain-hunting in Bicester Village, a so-called discount shopping mall just outside London. Bought nothing all day bar a Pret A Manger sarnie and an apple/cinnamon crepe! What a waste of time – loads of really promising looking shops, absolutely nothing to buy for anybody over a size 10 (which correct me if I’m wrong, sends roughly 95 per cent of the population home empty handed). What am I, a whale or something, that I happen to take a size 14?
Yikes! Still, got to try a few things on – Cerrutti, Nicole Farhi, Christian Lacroix, Versace – and managed to reject everything on the grounds it was too big, small, expensive, badly cut or falling to bits. Have decided to avoid discount malls from now on, and just wait for the sales to bag designer bargains. Or go to the US. I am still flummoxed that I was unable to buy things in my size there, yet I never have any difficulty securing size 14s in the high street. It is hardly an abnormal size. Leslie and Lorraine wound up pretty empty-handed too, bar the sandwiches and some frozen yoghurt but hey! – made a change from Selfridges.
