017_LS582_cityspeak_Editorial 15/06/2012 15:00 Page 1
CITY SPEAK
Life begins at 70 Ruby Grimshaw on the secret lives of tortoises
T
he escaping skills of my back was turned they obviously tortoises have increased and woke up and put Escape Plan No. given me a serious problem. 26 into action. When I arrived The curious thing is that no one home only two hours later Ernie can understand how they are was on his back on the first managing to climb over their fence terrace, little scaly legs waving in at the very top of my terraced back the air, while Mr T and Brian were garden, negotiate a steep flight of scratching at the back door. steps, pass through a barrier of So I have decided to rebuild their full water cans and heavy flower pen and buy palisades two feet pots, cross a terrace and complete high with extra supports. a further flight of steps to reach Unfortunately my handy man can’t my back door. All without flipping come until next week end so I am over onto their backs – well almost forced to keep the three Houdinis always. Their designe fault means on the cement yard at the back of that if they do lie my house. This on their backs for means cleaning up too long it can after them twice a “Ernie was on squash their lungs day. It is like and be fatal, having to muck out his back on the although my a small pony but tortoise Brian does first terrace, little the smell is much not specify exactly worse. Also it has scaly legs waving attracted a plague how long this is. I shall soon be of woodlice and a in the air...” tempted to find black carpet of out. (Joke, animal them forms every lovers!) morning and One afternoon I watched them evening. It is hard keeping to the for ages to see if I could see how Buddhist principle of not harming they were escaping. It was any sentient beings but I sweep probably a joint effort where one them all up carefully and deposit climbs onto the plastic netting them at the top of the garden. Yes, (which I had to add to make the I suspect they are walking straight palisade higher) which then back down again and collecting all flattens, and the other two nip over their friends on the way. him. This day they just played If my handy man does not come dumb and lay contentedly soon a one-way trip to Raystede sunbathing until I got bored and with all three tortoises is definitely went out shopping. The minute my on the cards.
Will Harris catches up with an old friend
M
y lunch date was Bryony Tomkins, a society journalist for one of the more caustic tabloids. Having known each other for years, Bryony and I shared a complex relationship, characterised by long periods of intense camaraderie followed by shorter periods when one of us refused to speak to the other over some perceived slight. It was a sort of emotional crop rotation, mutually acknowledged but never discussed; these ‘fallow’ periods, we both knew, were necessary for our friendship to continue to thrive. As I approached the table, Bryony regarded me through a copy of the Evening Standard. She appeared to have torn a small eyehole either side of the fold, giving the unsettling impression I was being simultaneously winked at by Didier Drogba and the Duchess of Cornwall’s bust. “Darling, before you say anything,” she said, “there is an explanation.” “Oh God, right. I was at a summer fete yesterday, for the children of the Gambia. Well, the idiot PR had said they were expecting an Ecclestone daughter. He thought it was going to be the one with the legs, which is usually a page five, but of course it turned out not to be either of them but...” Here Bryony dropped the name of a business tycoon whose marriage was on the rocks (rocks that had been carefully researched, verified by Bryony herself little over a month previously).
Teen spirit Tasha Dhanraj looks to broaden her horizons
J
etlag, my old friend. My of shoes. They’re comfy and so you physical reminder that only can walk in them forever if you yesterday I was in another wanted to, but sometimes you city, on another continent, wonder if maybe you should try somewhere else in this wonderful something else. world. Yep, just 24 hours ago I was I’ve done all the touristy things walking along New York’s Highline now and I’ve overcome all the Park and today I’m snuggled up in great challenges, like using the bed watching some programme subway and being able to ask for a where Kiefer Sutherland desperately “bottle of water” without being tries to pretend that he can play met with complete bafflement by someone other than Jack Bauer. the person serving me. One of the It was the fourth time I’ve been joys of going on holiday is the to New York and it was the third challenge of working things out time I’d been in the last year alone. and discovering your new I sometimes think surroundings. of Manhattan as I missed that my spiritual home, aspect of the Big or at least I would Apple this time. “There’s just if I believed in I’ve been spirits. In reality, talking about something about there’s just going to Berlin for the city that fills me over a year now, something about the city that fills but each time I’m with excitement” me with about to book it, excitement and I don’t because contentedness at I want to have the same time. If it enough money for weren’t for all the guns and dodgy my next trip to New York. Perhaps, right wing politics, I would move it’s time to say TTFN to NYC and there in an instant. ‘guten tag’ to Germany. It’s not Having said that, I have been about saying I’d never go back, but there an awful lot. When I’m there, maybe I should leave it for a while if I feel like having some pizza then so that I forget some of the things I know the best place. If I want I think I know and can return with a some ice cream, I know the best totally fresh perspective. I should place to get ice cream. If I want try somewhere new. After all, this some time to myself, then I know time next year I will be a student exactly where to go. New York is and then I’ll not even have enough starting to become like an old pair money to go anywhere.
What, she asked me, would I have done in that situation? This businessman, having clearly seen her name on the guestlist, was hovering by the garden’s only exit, one finger tapping the rim of his champagne in a disconcerting manner. In a fit of desperation, she had looked around and seized upon her only possible route of escape: a stall where children were having their faces painted with flags of the world. “You don’t mean...?” My mouth hung open as Bryony slowly lowered the newspaper. Covering her entire face – faint but unmistakeable, were the triple stripes of the German flag.
“I was being simultaneously winked at by Didier Drogba and the Duchess of Cornwall’s bust” “I’ve tried everything,” she said, hurriedly, “and it is coming off, but this stuff is like bloody creosote. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you slap it on the under-fives. They don’t have to sit through a morning meeting with their editor.” “But...” It took me some time to find the words. “Why the hell did you ask for Germany?” “I thought it would offer the best coverage. You know, because of the black. Please don’t be angry but that’s why I had to break our plans for the Jubilee. I couldn’t bear the looks I’d get. I mean, it’s not even in the Commonwealth.” follow me on twitter
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Photo: Copyright 2012 ImageNet
The grown up
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