hilary clinton

For goodness sake, give me five minutes sojourn from travelling, and celebrating my birthday in order to write a newsletter.

I thought you’d all be glad of a rest from all this drivel, but I have been reminded more than once, that I hadn’t written anything in ages.

This has meant that I have had to break off from my Bacchanalian feasting long enough to press fingers on keys and give my own peculiar take on world events.

My birthday; if you were not aware occurs on All Saints Day, this was a source of mirth for one or two of you. Moi the third Duke of Pimlico in a vineyard in Bordeaux at 3am with my reputation?

But my thoughts are drawn to current affairs…. No, the news, not my private life. For heaven sake, do you have to look at everything from a juxtaposition? I tried it, my back has only just recovered, and I know there are some of you who will go home and try this tonight, I warn you it’s not what you think, so don’t blame me.

Politics on both sides of the Pond is starting to look like a really bad haircut, with politicians fighting for attention, like Donkey in the Shrek movies, pick me, pick me. Waiting for Simon to press his Golden Buzzer.

Unfortunately it seems our politics have never been more polarised and the speeches are being made from the wings each playing to their own gallery, too scared or unable to understand how to take the centre stage.

The Washington and Westminster villages are starting to look like bubbles where the people on the inside are the ones wielding the pins and seem set on trying burst them!

I leave it to the Bard to Prologue the scene:

Two households, both unalike in dignity,
In fair Parliament, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean….

After Shakespeare.

Jingoism Unchained, the people are set free, we are all headed for Candyland.

Europe meanwhile, has been enjoying an Indian summer, et ego quoque.

I decided that this year the celebrations would mirror those of Bacchus, but only after I had returned to the white isle for one last swim. I have a small secluded beach I run to, where I can guarantee that I will not be troubled by people requiring my sartorial advice, where I can be at one with nature.

S’estanyol

Even in the middle of October the water in Ibiza was warm enough for me not to require a layer of goose grease, anyway it would be a terrible waste of foie!

Neil was on sparkling form, we were going to cycle together now that we have formed the Inkadelic Cycling Club, but a short, sharp shower put paid to that and Neil decided that I required a little more work. Raoul my ‘waxer’ was mortified, but he does scare easily and Halloween was just round the corner. He just kept muttering, is that blood, real blood?

It was my intention to post a photo of Neil at work, but it has been censored following several complaints after I had posted it on Facebook.

Inkadelic Cycling Club Ibiza

Neil has finally put down some serious roots on the island, and is looking forward to moving into his new pad in D’alt Villa next year.

We both made a new friend this year and our thoughts are with this new friend and his dad after Shifty came off worse in an altercation with a car. Shifty is a miniature pinscher and those of you who are that way inclined can follow him on Instagram ‘Shiftys_world’.

Instagram shiftys_world

My life is full of rich experiences, whether someone is chucking pound coins at me and demanding that I dance, perhaps this is what it is like being at a West Ham game (it transpires that the rent on the Olympic Stadium is less than I pay for the shop, how does that happen?); or an older lady telling me how much she admires how I fill out my clothes, it appears I’m on to a winning streak!

Bordeaux by night

My birthday celebrations took place in Bordeaux and Saint Emilion, swanning, not swaying round a couple of Chateaux.

My private tour was organised by ‘Bordeaux with Elodie’.

http://www.bordeauxwithelodie.com/

I cannot recommend Elodie and Laetitia highly enough.

They organised two wonderful days around Bordeaux.

A marvellous tour of two vineyards in Saint Emilion, Chateau Guadet, which is one of only two Chateau in the centre of the village, full of history and eerie limestone tunnels.

http://www.chateau-guadet-saintemilion.fr/

This was followed by a tasting of some magnificent wines, and before you ask, that is a bottle of Chateau Angelus, and yes we did taste 8 wines. Hic!

If I must!

And I may have bought the odd bottle.

This was followed by lunch and a visit to a more modern set up, at the newly renovated Chateau Tour Saint Christophe, set in the beautiful rolling hills around Saint Emilion. Wonderful wines with a different structure.

www.vignoblesk.com

Laetitia drove us back to Bordeaux, via all the Chateaux of the area. The sun went down to end a perfect day.

Sunset over Chateau Angelus

The next day was spent at the Dune du Pyla, where I imagined I was Lawrence of Arabia… I can but dream, but by all accounts I have strange imagination and do not live in the real world.

Dune du Pyla

And lunch…… You can see the weather was kind.

La C(o)rniche

We have many new projects afoot including a 360 degree view inside the shop on both levels. Just drag the little dangly man on Streetview over the shop on Google Maps and by the power of the interweb you are beamed by Scotty straight onto the ground floor, press the lift button and the basement beckons.

There will be a new website, it will be attached to this blog and also as a separate entity and much more impressive presence on social media.

And if you have read all the way to the end, there will be a wine tasting soon, including some of the wines I brought back.

Is everyone as excited as I am about the Royal Wedding? Like Dave, I camped in The Mall for Chas and Di, but I’ll probably be a bit too busy to be there this time.

The meeting with the accountant was a little disappointing. He strongly advised me not to try and slip one or two trifling things past the taxman. So it will be arrivederci to Damian my personal photographer (he never made me look as bad as Nick Clegg), Mandy my stylist (once I dress up, she and I are one so she’ll never really disappear), and it’s adieu to Nils (nails), Carmen (waxing), Ricardo (the other waxing), Twinkle (Twinkies) and Mai Lee (who has daily struggled to pull the condom over my head to keep me looking as smooth-skinned as Dave or a baby’s bottom. There’s not much in it, to be honest. If, as I suspect, you’re not regular Guardian readers or otherwise left-leaning (professional tailor’s term), do check out Steve Bell’s cartoons. Oh and Jacob… only joking.

I let Neil snipe me for Tony Blair’s nail clippings, which were amongst Cherie’s various wacky offerings on ebay this month. Neil says they’re an aphrodisiac lure for the pigeons, but Neil, I‘ve seen the skulls and voodoo stuff in your shop, and suspect you have a far more sinister motive in mind.

Next it will be Elvis’s sweat, Maradona’s pacemaker, Berlusconi’s phone book, the children’s round-nosed scissors Lord Sugar uses on his beard and Madonna’s conical bra. By the way, I have a replica of that I like to wear at weekends when I like people to call me Mandy. But as Neil would say: “Peace”. He’s off to India, and I needn’t say more, if you are keeping up.

Pink, once he’s escaped sciatica and Charlene, has been touring Europe tattooing anything with a pulse. My friend Martin, love god of Ibiza’s Sa Trinxa, is also touring Europe for not entirely different reasons and also insists on a pulse and a fit body. Martin makes his first appearance in this newsletter so I can ski for free in Verbier where he’s guesting this winter. Eugenia wanted to add more but even in this rag of a newsletter I cannot repeat her thoughts. Close your mouth, dear.

After receiving October’s newsletter, Sunil texts from the world capital of taste and refinement that is Dubai, to tell me we share an experience with last month’s celebrity rock chick. Serendipity, or pity us both, depending on your thoughts on the matter. It was a very long time ago, and neither of us is Steve Tyler and don’t want to be. Well apart from that bit in the elevator.

This month has also seen Ireland accept a large donation of European overdraft as a result of maxing out the credit cards. Also the Koreans are hurling slightly more than insults at each other. I intensely dislike the thought of Kim Jong Il willy waving, but that thought has revived a long-time Volpe favourite; those people stood naked at the foot of my bed saying they are ready for fun. So perhaps I should start the list with world leaders.

But before I do, here’s a mention for all of those of you who begged to be mentioned. Don’t worry, you asked not to be named, but you know who you are. No, I don’t understand that either, but the customer is always right, or so you think.

1: Bill Clinton – just ask Bob

2: While we are at it…Hillary

3: Vladimir ‘The bare-breasted Siberian cat-strangler’ Putin. Yes, those rare tigers are safe in his hands.

4: Dave Cameron. The condom-on-the-head look doesn’t make the policies any smoother, safer or easier to swallow. And I don’t want him offering Nick Clegg to sweeten the deal

5: Katie Price (aka Jordan. NB not the country). Doesn’t she look like she might explode one day like an angry carrot?

6: Ann Widdicombe. A rumba in the jungle is off my dance card.

7: Gordon Ramsay. This is the man who never needs an excuse to get his shirt off in front of the camera. However I’m starting to feel slightly sorry for him with his in-law problems.

8: Mickey Rourke. See Katie Price except like an explosion in a cheek filler factory

9: Jocelyn Wildenstein – see Mickey Rourke and Katie Price. I mean, if I’d wanted a cat…

10: One for the wife’s many obsessions – Harvey Keitel. A formerly good-looking man of a certain age who’s morphing into an elderly lady. It happens. See also: Mickey Rourke, Oliver Reed and David Hemmings.

Volpe

Tag Archives: hilary clinton

Better late than never – Bacchanalian celebrations continue

November 2010 – Volpe Newsletter