I wonder if romance is dead...

        I wonder if romance is dead

        Or if it’s merely sleeping

        If somewhere in the

        Depths of time

        It slumbers

        Waiting

        For a

        Rhyme

        To shake the torpor

        Dust the heart

        Type the script

        Prepare to start

        Adopt a stance

        A smile

        A glance

        A gentle kiss

        I miss

        I miss

        These things now seem so fleeting. 

        I wonder if romance is dead

        Or if it’s merely sleeping?

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

                                                              ~ John Keats 

Dear Keats. Always fretting about something.   

An exciting development this week! My dear friend Prince Rehman has asked me to co-author an intriguing work of non-fiction. It concerns a lovely chap - we'll call him Johnny for now dears - and a quite torrid tale of military power attempting to quash the little man. 

The pen shall be mightier!

Also, this week, I have received several invitations to join yet another ridiculous virtual social club.  These, alas, I must decline. 

One does become a tad weary of the social whirl here in Internet Land. Not least, of course, because there are no canapés! What sort of party is this? 

All this sharing... c'est n'est pas ma tasse de thé, dears. One becomes jaded. 

And, if one stops to think, one might reason how damaging this Quest to Share actually is. Contemplate the fictional scenarios - those famous tales one knows and loves - and see how this modern desire to bare all would be the death of such! There are few enough plots in life or in literature, but those which resonate eternally are, my dears, invariably those wherein mystery plays its part. 


How, for example, might dear Romeo and Juliet have fared with Facebook, Twitter and Google+? Tell me dears? How would that story have played out? 

Badly, I fear. 

Romeo would not have cared to know how many times dear, sweet Juliet vomited into the toilet bowl after consuming too much Vino da Verona whilst out with the girls. Nor would he have wished to see photographic evidence. Likewise, would Juliet really care to see how her lover "likes" that Benvolio è appeso come uno stallion?

No, dears. She would not. 

It is, as the young say these days, TMI (which in itself, ironically, is too little information for my liking! Has time become so precious that a person cannot type out 18 characters instead of 3? Alas, I fear I am becoming a Curmudgeonly Old Dame - or, as my niece might say, a COD). 

So, there it is, my news. One fears it may be a little rambling... yet one must, I find, take heart where heart can be found. As dear Keats also said (when not penning woes on his fear of unfinished prose) circumstances are like Clouds continually gathering and bursting - while we are laughing the seed of some trouble is put into the wide arable land of events - while we are laughing it sprouts it grows and suddenly bears a poison fruit which we must pluck.

Frankly the man was a few commas short of perfection, but still. The essence is there, dears. One must enjoy what one can, whilst one can, despite it all. 

And, despite it all,

I do remain, as always, yours

Claudette x

Sing me another love song...

... but this time with a little dedication.

This is it, my dears. The human heart. Ugly little beast, is it not?

Puts things into perspective, I find, to view it this way.

Where have you been, Claudette? one might ask, were one remotely interested. Well, dears, I have - as always - been remarkably busy for a woman of my age. I shall be 135 in just a few weeks! Can you believe it? No, neither can I, dears, neither can I.

I spent this morning in the care of my dear consultant Monsieur Mors. Doesn't fill one with confidence, a moniker like that, but he's an awfully pleasant chap. He said Claudette, dear, you have the constitution of one a quarter your age! Though he did tick me orf somewhat for the wine consumption. Goodness these modern doctors have such repressive rules!

He proclaimed me quite sane. Quite sane. Something of a relief as one does tend to question oneself at times and it's reassuring to gain professional absolution, as it were. Acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt, as they used to say in Rome. And, of course, consultants are a modern god, are they not?

He informs me I am merely a tad weary, unsurprising for one my age, and has prescribed a shot of gin and a Latino lover. Incredible what one receives when one elects to go private.

Life has been hectic, of course. One's friends have a tendency to evaporate as one ages, so one must maximise Life whilst it's willing. Recently I did meet up again with my dear and oldest chum, Prince Rehman, and we had a wonderful evening - drinking tea! Yes, I hear your laughter all the way here in France, darlings, but when the company is good, tea is surely all one needs. Prince Rehman is always a positive force, I find, and I do love him so for that quality.

Paris was the usual heated frenzy over the summer. Ghastly tourists - Texans mainly - crawling over the place as though it were a specimen to be examined and not an oasis some of us dearly call home. Autumn now beckons and, with it, comes a slowing of pace.

Though frankly if Georges slows any more he'll stop. Really the man is insufferable, but what can one do? Having exhausted himself with the plumbing works, as previously mentioned, he has discovered the internet and mainly now spends his time engaged in war battles with imagined enemies. I fear this modern vice merely brings those destined to Lost Cause to their point of arrival so much sooner. Alas, it is both travesty and tragedy.

I haven't heard from dear Dapphers. One suspects the medication is keeping her subdued. Visitors are, apparently, no longer permitted at the clinic and thus we must wait - if not with bated breath, at least with decorum - for further news as and when it's available.

And Claude... what can I possibly say, dears. That was a rhetorical question, by the way.

We return to the heart. Its ugly, brutal and quite pathetic form. We'd eat it, were it not for social constraint.

And so I remain
Yours in eternal optimism for Life,

Claudette xxx

this boat is sinking...

One is often told dreams are the mind's way of organising one's thoughts - making sense of Life's little happenings and confusions.

Last night's slumber was dreadful and whilst it is a terrible bore to recount one's dreams, I cannot help but share for my own sanity. The subconscious mind may make sense of one's Life, darlings, but the conscious mind needs an opportunity to make sense of one's Dreams too - a potentially endless cycle, of course, but what else is there?

I was on a sinking ship - a glorious beast, filled with party-goers, all of whom were having the most tremendous time and seemed utterly ignorant of the seawater washing around their legs. I, on the other hand, was horribly aware the ship was sinking. Rushing between decks, aft and fore, I searched for my darling Claude, from whom I'd become separated, and yet caught no more than glimpses, a momentary touch of fingertips, before he was repeatedly consumed by the tiddly masses who continued to laugh and party as though on dry land. 

It wasn't dissimilar to the von Schrotim boys' disastrous bash in '96 when some bright spark connected a fire-engine hose to the delightful marble fountain in the hall and cranked open the pump - an ill-thought-out jape which cost von Schrotim senior two Picassos, a Collier and the ongoing services of a Harley Street shrink for his aged mother-in-law who had been sleeping in the room directly above.

But what does it all mean, dears?

I called my dear friend, Gloria (previously Benjamin 'Beaky' Davieson, winner of the 1980 Four Quarters Yawl Challenge), to seek advice. She said it was sexual, that all dreams are sexual, that we are, in fact, each and every one, unwitting slaves to our wanton and primitive subconscious desires between the hours of midnight and dawn. 

Frankly, dears, she hasn't been the same since they completed her transformation and it's the last time I shall seek her advice on any matter. 

On a more positive note, my darlings, I hear from the clinic that Dapphers has progressed onto solids and is gobbling up vodka jellies as though the morrow may never come! Hurrah for fortitude of spirit! One cannot keep a Dunkirk veteran down!

Histoires Tragiques

What a day of mixed happiness and woe!

This morning I was delighted to receive a lovely letter from my dear lost love Le Comte, Claude, who still writes with dedication and devotion, as and when they'll permit him sharp objects.

In shaky but firm hand, he had lovingly copied out a gorgeous poem which I shall now share with you here:


        Le Pont Mirabeau ~ by Guillaume Apollinaire

          Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
          Et nos amours
          Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
          La joie venait toujours après la peine.

          Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
          Les jours s’en vont je demeure

          Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
          Tandis que sous
          Le pont de nos bras passe
          Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

          Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
          Les jours s’en vont je demeure

          L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
          L’amour s’en va
          Comme la vie est lente
          Et comme l’Espérance est violente

          Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
          Les jours s’en vont je demeure


Isn't that just exquisite?

On a slightly less fortunate note, my dearest friend Daphne du Nord has once more been committed to The Priory. Strong and solid though she may be of body, dears, her mind grows ever fragile and it is for her own safety, as well as that of the public at large, that she be restrained and medicated. Please keep Dapphers in your prayers, darlings. I shall post updates on her progress as and when I can.

Breakfast in Paris

Quails' eggs for breakfast is dreadfully passé, dears. The current big thing in Paris when breakfasting with friends is oeufs d'autruche, shared like fondue. It certainly makes one choose carefully with whom one spends the preceding night.


And on that note, all change on l'étape d'amour! Such a restless night, darlings, pondering dear James and Sebastian - their weaknesses, their little flaws - whilst poor Georges tossed beside me. One must be realistic about these things. A man who collects stamps at fifty nine, and who assumes one is remotely interested in this sticky foible, is surely a man who, at sixty five, will bore the pantaloons orf one with mumblings of woe over the elusive gaps in his collection. The stamps that might have been. Quite. James must go, dears. 


Sebastian is, for now, reprieved - although if the tiresome man mentions the 4000 radio stations he can pick up on his digital receiver just one more time, it'll be the orf button for him too! One gets ruthless at my age, dears - one's tolerance levels begin to diminish around fifty and by eighty five if there's a trace left it is but as a wistful memory and quite quite intangible when one tries to grasp it.  

Sweet love, sweet thorn

One never seems to have time or, indeed, inclination for the incessant public flaunting of oneself expected in this modern epoch. Yet it is clear the advice of one such as I (134 long and rich years on this earth!) must be invaluable to the masses. And so one is compelled to sacrifice Time, that most precious of things, to share with you all a little of this Wisdom Gained. 


Spring has sprung here in Paris. A classically glorious time for lovers - man and beast - for optimism, for renewed purpose, darlings. Frankly, I cast orf the winter gloom almost before it had begun on the realisation - on my 134th birthday last October - that time was Of The Essence.


As many of you know I've been married to my seventh husband, Georges, for forty years and things have been, shall we say, a little more desert than oasis for the past two decades. A woman does come to understand how burning passion within cannot be left to ebb peacefully into death like an old sleeping dog, how one should grasp the mettle whilst one still has control of one's digits and, indeed, the mental cohesion to know what to do with said mettle once grasped. 


And so I have, dears! I have harnessed the Internet Beast, have branched out, socially speaking, to find myself not one Lover, but two! Hallelujah, God bless Cyberspace and all who sail her murky waters. So much easier than having to suffer another of dear Hugo's match-making balls.


I shall tell you more about the Fortunate Two in due course, but for now it should suffice to offer a word of warning: yes, darlings, the internet is a wonderful invention for those weary of tromping the high street, but when shopping for Lovers one must remember here in Cyberspace ebay and Fortnum & Mason sit cheek by jowl in a fashion which would never be tolerated in Real Life. Be warned, my dears.


Personally I struck lucky in finding James and Sebastian. Both utterly charming men and absolutely besotted with yours truly. The decision to take two Lovers, I should point out, is not borne of greed but SENSIBILITY. One Lover is dangerous. This I know only too well as my heart was stolen by Le Comte some eight decades ago and I have been but a shell of myself since. But the heart is a strong organ and I have to say it does repair in part - one with The Will To Live does not rest upon her chaise longue indefinitely. One pulls up one's stockings and one GETS ON. Yes, a solitary Lover is dangerous. Two is far more sensible, dears. It is impossible to fall in love with multiple men simultaneously - a universal Truth.  


Alas, I must end this here for now. Georges, for some strange reason, appears to have been struck himself by spring's springing and verily doth the sap rise which, given the addition of not one but two Lovers, does now present me with a rather tiresome problem. 


Mais, as we say here in France, à l’impossible nul n’est tenu..!