LIZ JONES’S DIARY: ‘Who takes a cheese board to an open-air cinema?’ I hissed…
On Friday night, I went with Nic to an open-air screening of Dirty Dancing in the glorious parkland of Raby Castle.
The atmosphere reminded me of my one trip to Glastonbury, though this time I was not standing on a square of bin bag, holding in my wee like a camel.
It was a perfect, hot summer evening and so nice to see Patrick Swayze ‘like, really, really big’, according to Nic, who will never land the post of film critic.
I once stood behind him in the queue for the Elton John post-Oscars party (his forehead was improbably smooth) and the security man demanded to see his ID. ‘It’s Patrick Swayze!’ I told the stupid idiot. ‘Nobody puts Baby, etc! Ditto!’ Patrick tried to look pleased at my support but failed. On Friday, every time he and his trousers came on screen, women on deckchairs screamed as one.
In front of us was a couple, clearly on a first date.
They kept snogging. The woman was trying to make a good impression, having lugged a cold box, from which emerged numerous picky bits, a huge quiche Lorraine and, to my horror, a wooden cheese board, on which she placed several triangles of M&S cheese, biscuits and grapes. I hissed to Nic: ‘She can’t plan on having sex! It’s like swimming – you can’t do it after food. And who takes a cheese board to an open-air cinema?’
‘Well, you would,’ she said.
Which is true, given I have:
- Erected a fully decorated Christmas tree in a Soho hotel suite ahead of a date.
- Returfed my lawn, before the Osama Bin Laden lookalike, Kevin, came to my house for the first time, as I wanted everything to be perfect. It was late, and pitch black, and he didn’t venture outside as ‘it’s cold’.
- Had a facelift having met perfect photographer Nigel on assignment, except I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN.
- Learned to drive and bought a Mini Cooper (shared with my sister) so I could give David 1.0, the boy next door, lifts. After a game of squash (I’d done a crash course, as I had lied I could play), he merely gave me his racquet to ferry home as he had a hot date with a Filipina air hostess.
- Hurriedly moved into The Vicarage though it wasn’t ready, as Neil, the serial cheater, announced he was coming for the weekend. I really should send him the dry-cleaning bill for my poppy-red Atkinson blanket.
- Took my future husband to Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica, only for him to draw all the blinds to watch the Euros. I took David 1.0 to the Plaza Athénée in Paris, only for him to order 30-euro espressos and complain they were cold. I took my future husband to Dublin, only for him to spill coffee on the only pair of trousers he’d packed and stay in bed for two days. I also took the big lump to Babington House in Somerset, made a million phone calls to ensure we got the room with a terrace and a hot tub, only for him to say he wouldn’t go in it as ‘it’s too windy’.
So, I reluctantly admit: a wooden cheese board at a screening of Dirty Dancing isn’t so extreme after all.
Why do women try so hard, when men can’t be bothered to remember we’re vegan, that the door can’t be left open as our reactive dog will escape and that, as Carrie said to the Russian, we need a little (oat) milk in our espresso, so please try not to be so bloody harsh?
An addendum: I was saddened to hear of Ann Widdecombe’s murder. I visited her home on Dartmoor in 2013. Her hallway was lined with every newspaper cartoon, framed, however harsh: she had a sense of humour, while hate mail was ‘water off a duck’s back’.
Like me, she had battled bankruptcy, was childfree, unmarried (she said of her only love, Colin: ‘The day after we broke up, I thought, what shall I do with my free time?’), and lived alone in a remote rural location.
I was saddened to hear of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, writes Liz Jones
What struck me was what she said when I asked why she gave up everything to care for her dying mother: ‘It was the most natural thing in the world.’ Was she ever afraid, I asked, in that Dartmoor bungalow, of people turning up with machetes? ‘I am never scared, or lonely.’
Jones moans… What Liz loathes this week
A text from Octopus Energy (I’m still paying £200 a month to settle my £10,000 end-of-tenancy bill at the cottage): ‘Thank you for your time with Octopus Energy. We would like to remind you your final bill for £4,652.26 is now due’. Whaaaaaa?
