Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly.  I’d like you to join me on a trip into your imagination.  Imagine me, your writer, in my flat, late one night in the past week, writing this column, my love letter to you.  Do you see me as a mock ingénue city girl, prancing round my apartment in my underwear before returning to my bed to tap out this week’s moral on my corporation sponsored laptop?  Just try writing like that and you will soon see just how ambitious a position that is, even for a yoga-lete such as myself.

No.  Instead, see me more as I am.  I sit at my well appointed desk, back straight after years of deportment classes and beatings from well finished Swiss ladies, swathed in a jade kimono and caressed by violet smoke from a rather magical cigarette delivered mere hours ago by a small man from Chinatown named Yuen.  Not so much Chasing the Dragon as dipping my eyes to him and hoping he’ll follow me back home.  I have spent the last hour in a scalding hot bath that faded to merely luke warm, tending to aching muscles.  And now I sit with a pleasant mellow wine in a large glass.  It has been a long week.

Screening, party, party, premier, gala, screening, party, party.  And that was just Monday.  Centred as I am in the depraved heart of London, there are more opportunities for fatuous film events than any where else.  And you are only as good as your last party.  Forget slaving over the second act turning point of your latest family in crisis super-drama, the real work begins when you set foot out of the door and into the night.  Choosing which to attend; knowing where the real players will be is all part of the fun. Last night I spent two hours being door stopped by the filmmaking equivalent of a Jehovah’s Witness… the wannabe producer.  So passionate about the script he had received in the post from Scarborough after advertising for writers on one of the million online notice boards, he proceeded to take me through it scene by badly written scene. After too long of this I had to take him in well manicured hand, I told the boy it was shit.  He followed me around like an abandoned Labrador pup all night, thinking he had finally found a real player.  I abandoned him at King’s Cross Station. Surely some kind heart will take the poor boy in and give him a good home.

Honesty is a rare commodity in this world of fragile dreams.  In the original dream land, LA, everyone has spent the last few weeks preparing to become an actor for the night.  From the make up artists to the producers, everyone has practised their rictus smiles of congratulation for the bastards who have taken the little gold man that they spent the last three months kissing arse and sucking cock to win.  I had planned to spend the night in, recording the show so I could watch it back at leisure, freeze framing on the very moments when you can see their fragile egos crushed and the pretence of happiness begin.  But my good friend Edie invited me to the screening of the awards at Soho House and not having been to a party for at least an hour or so, I agreed.  It was like being in the stable before the Grand Nationals… not only were the familiar smells of sweat, fear and piss in the air, but the women looked like horses.  But like a good little girl I took my seat next to the Brits who hadn’t been nominated and make the usual comments about the outfits, the jewels and the ‘do’s.  And that was just the men.  Several hours of my life later I knew which films a few thousand spoilt people thought were any good, and swore never again to take half an E before watching Chris Rock… or maybe to take the whole damn thing.  I won’t bore you with the results, but if you were one of the wannabes who went out there to try their hand at networking with the big boys, shame on you.  Stick to Cannes, at least there you have a chance of tearing a hole in the back of a pavilion and sneaking in. 

I walked the few steps back to my crooked little flat on a crooked street, in a crooked part of town, Soho.  I have been in my pied de terre now for more years than I care to mention and from my bedroom window I can watch the brothel workers hang up their pants to dry. I sometimes take a seat outside a coffee shop opposite one of the many discreet doors leading to ‘models’ and freak out the customers by staring intently at them as they tried to perfect the art of invisibility before and after their rendez-vous.  But now every man and his horse has bought up the brothels to host ‘new media’ companies, or loft apartments.  The council forces out the ladies using draconian laws and instead of colourful characters we are left with yet another dot.com failure.  The gangsters are leaving, the city is less blue… where are all the heroes gone?  Occasionally the salt of the earth fights back and one more 21st Century Yuppie decides that Notting Hill or Hampstead is a better bet, but the day G-A-Y or Madame JoJos goes, so go I.

You may not be surprised to know that sex is often at the fore front of my mind.  Never more so than since Valentines Day.  Let me explain.  I believe that there are three things a woman should never be afraid to do alone: Live in a flat, go to the cinema, and make love.  The latter I leave to your well rounded imaginations (still seeing me in that kimono?  Good.  No if I could draw your attention to the slender thigh revealed by the fall of the silk.  Oh, you noticed that already.  How observant.) .  While you were probably sat opposite your beloved in an Angus Steak House not talking because someone forgot to make a booking at a suitably “romantic” restaurant, I went, on my own, to see Closer.  Braving the sarcasm of the ticket girl (“One ticket? Just one?” – well at least I am not imprisoned behind Perspex and in a polyester uniform on V-day) I bought my ticket and joined all the couples who had bizarrely decided that a film about people being bastards to each other was perfect lovey dovey viewing.  What were they thinking?  While I smirked with glee, they glanced askew at the ones they had given their hearts to, wondering if one day they would one day find that very same heart being trodden under foot.  Of course they will.  But consider this.  In Closer people seduced each other, cheated on each other, fucked each other and it was awesome.  And it was all off screen.  You never saw the heated moments, never saw Jude take Julia on the couch, never saw the gorgeous Natalie in the same way that Clive’s character saw her on the table.  But it was by far the sexiest film I have seen in a long time.  Compare now, if you will, Closer to 9 Songs by Michael Winterbottom.  We see penetration, groins, money shots.  And yet…And yet. You see where I am going.  There is something far less satisfying in seeing it all.  And the word penetration leaves one simple cold. So I thank you for being so kind and joining me on this little trip through your imagination and I promise never to show you everything, only smoke and mirrors.

Was it good for you too? I know I need that cigarette now.