Email from Caro: Edinburgh and NYC

Hey hey, we're back in New York for the 2nd time in as many weeks.  I am such the jetsetter, darlings!

We arrived back in the Big Apple yesterday afternoon and I have to say, within minutes of checking into our hotel, we were out and about; going to my mag shop to get the latest American goss, popping into our deli to get dinner and then off to our wee Starbucks just down the road from the hotel... Well, let me tell you, darlings, I was just ordering my latte, when I had a "moment".

Yes, I saw Nathan Lane in front of me ordering a cuppa and then he 
wandered over to the condiments and got himself a sugar and a teaspoon.  Oh-my-god -another celebrity star moment.   In an all-knowing kinda way, I leaned over to Symon and said "Oooh look, its Nathan Lane, he must be just off to work!"  (He's starring in “The Producers” with Matthew Broderick, in the theatre just around the corner).  We were very cool, in a New Yorky kinda way, 'cos you know, you gotta be cool, gotta have a blase attitude, know what I'm sayin'.  Forgeddaboudit.

For those of you unfamiliar with Nathan Baby - he was Robin Williams' histrionic life partner in "The Birdcage" - my favourite line being "Fairy dust, fairy dust, fairy dust".- He was one of the brothers in "Mousehunt" and Symon also tells me he was a "voice" of the warthog or something, in "The Lion King".

I just love him, he's soooo funny.  And now he's on my list of celebrity star spots along with Sean Connery (who I accidentally swore at on my way to work) Fran and the rest of Travis (where I acted like the total groupie-arsehole all aquiver),  Ali G (who's bum I pinched as he ran up on stage), Tina Turner's Limousine (who nearly ran me and my two pals over after her concert) and David Soul (who sat in front of us at Mika's drag show in Edinburgh).  Truly, I am meant to swan about in such elevated circles!  And now Nathan Lane in Starbucks.  I sooo rock.

So, Symon’s ex-wife Sue and his nephew Luke join us tomorrow and we'll do Nuu Yoik as a family holiday (baseball game, gangster tours, Bloomingdales, Central Park, the movies and hanging around in Times Square, generally).  Then we all head off to Washington, to take in the seat of power, find out if the secret service iron their underwear and see just how people in Washington dress for success.  Is charcoal the new black?  Do they still wear shoulder pads in those power suits?

Sue and Luke go back to the UK on the 20th, and that’s when we head to Memphis and Graceland.  Symon is threatening to book us into some hotel which has a guitar-shaped swimming pool.  Who knows, anything is possible - the cheesier the better, you know us.  And I want to find out just how many Elvis impersonators it takes to screw in a lightbulb.  And do we get to see the actual "commode" where Elvis was about to take his last poo, before he popped his clogs?

OK, so if you have any special requests for American stuff, send us an email and we'll see what we can do -T shirts, CDs or whatever.  It’s funny how we've asked this before and absolutely nobody has a request for anything - even something lame like an "I Love New York" cup or pencil.  Except for Lynsey, who requested her own personal Elvis impersonator, batteries included.  Of course, having said that, I don't wanna open the floodgates, but if you're after a crap T shirt or a divine statuette of the statue of liberty or a replica of Elvis' toilet seat, email us...

So, the weather, here has calmed down since we were here 2 weeks ago.  

It was sooo hot, like 110 degrees (Lisa and I were constantly reminding Symon about how hot we were, how sweaty we were, how makeup is a waste of time in the face of such heat - basically, making the poor guy's life a misery - hard to believe, I know).  Today, it is perfect - there was a huge rainstorm last night and that has taken away all the humidity and stickiness.  Yay!  The blue eyeshadow can be slapped on again without fear of it doing a raccoon thing within 5 minutes of application.

You may have been keeping track of our travelling, so you know we were back in the UK for a week, due to our travel agent and her useless "as a soggy piece of pasta" knowledge about American visas.  We spent a couple of days in London with Lisa, recovering from jetlag and doing mundane things like laundry and harassing her flatmates. 

When we arrived at Gatwick, we were fighting for our luggage round the concourse with a load of "Brits Abroad" who just arrived back from Kavos - glitter and T shirts (with pictures of themselves naked emblazoned on the back) and orange tans all the way.  And cheap sandals, too.  While we were waiting for our backpacks, I suddenly realised I was surrounded by people coughing, spluttering, sniffing, hoicking....whingeing....oh god, we're back in the UK...  Such a smack in the face.  And I have decided that Londoners are the biggest arseholes in the world.  Period.  After being in New York where people are supposed to have serious "attitude" and Vegas where people are supposed to be flashy and quick on their feet taking you for everything you own (even your flip flops) and Montreal where French-speakers are supposed to be vile about everything, it has to be said, we haven't had any problems so far and Londoners are the bloody worst.  Up their own orifices and emulating Posh and Becks fashion.  However, it has to be said, there was an air of familiarity about it all as well.  No big stress.

We then train-ed up to Edinburgh to stay with Sue for a couple of days.  As we could have predicted, it "pished" with rain, and people on the streets looked as miserable as ever.  Aaaah – a sense of relief and relaxation washed over me.  I actually had warm fuzzies about being back.  Very cool.  I really want to come back to the Big E now and get a flat and go shopping and hang out with all my pals again. 

But I digress, whilst in the Big E, we hung out with the cats, Ripley and Dusty, who used to live with us.  We did even more mundane things like going over our tax returns and sorting out our papers that Sue has been handling for us while we've been away (she's a star), do more laundry and catch up on UK tv. 

We purposefully didn't tell anybody we were coming up to Edinburgh, as we would then feel compelled to go see everyone and go out and spend money and race around on a tight schedule.  Although we love you all dearly, there is something about arriving in the Big E that relaxes me to such a degree, I just can't be arsed!  There I admit it, I was just being lazy!  It was part of trip we hadn't planned on, so if no one knew we'd be around, then if anyone got missed out, we wouldn't feel bad.  Does that make sense? 

We did, however, pop round to Jim and Mechelle's for a coffee and to ask if we could crash at theirs for the weekend when Lisa Brown visited.  It was the best reaction to a surprise, ever!  I tell you, I should have had "Candid Camera" with me -it was braw!  Needless to say, of course, we could crash at their place for the weekend, and that was exactly what we did.  Lisa, Mechelle and I stayed in our pyjamas, gossiped, read mags, buffed nails, tormented the cat and ate loads of food.  It was just what we needed to recharge our batteries.  We feel invigorated again.

We also took lunch and the paper round to Carol and Pete's place, to investigate the goings-on at Roseburn Place and make sure we had a bed for our return.  It was an afternoon of hilarity, stories and having a nosey round their garden.  It did feel weird, though, being in Edinburgh, but having no fixed abode, the shops are all different.  I noted the new big Superdrug, the new Gap store and the numerous Starbucks cafes all over the downtown area.  I was very relieved by the Starbucks as I have become addicted to their lattes.

Now, I hear all you "Lefties"  banging on about sweatshops minimum wages monopolies ra ra ra and I know they're like corporate monsters, along with Gap, but you know, good coffee and great fitting jeans are bloody hard to find, and I reckon those comfy sofas on the corner of George/Hanover Street could be my new hangout when I return, when I'm wearing my fab low rise superflared distressed denim jeans...my "Central Perk", if you will.

I was delighted to spend an afternoon restocking our supplies, wandering around Boots.  Boots rocks. I spent a good couple of hours in Wimbledon's Boots and Superdrug, playing with all the little bottles of stuff, while poor Symon grew more afraid with each addition to my shopping basket, reminding me we were spending "pounds" now not "dollars".  He has learnt that small bottles are far scarier than big bottles, because they inevitably cost more.  Although, it has to be said, America leads the way in miniature bottles of …well, everything.  It’s a travellers dream.  It was just nice to be able to buy things that were familiar -like Charles Worthington hair stuff in those "Takeaway" sizes.

Anyway, that's all the goss so far, and we have now located "Easy Everything" just round the corner on 42nd street (Times Square) with like 5,000,000 computers, and email is only a whopping $1 per hour. Hurrah!  Geez, makes a change from the usual $18-20 per hour -Fascists!  So, we can chat more often. Yay!

Big hugs and still star spotting..

Caro.