Sharon Feinstein

I’m not one for musicals. For me they conjure up tedious infantile stories, superficial songs and too much trivia. Sorry to sound haughty but I far prefer a rock concert or jazz in a basement club with lots of raw atmosphere and red wine  But this was a treat for someone else and I knew I could drift off and think of other things for 2 hours while making my big sacrifice.
Never did I expect to be totally engaged, profoundly moved and silently weeping.  Stephen Sondheim’s, A Little Night Music, is full of bitter-sweet regrets, lost chances, and distant memories, the score set in that beautiful, haunting waltz time, as a lawyer meets his former mistress and both realise they’re still in love and that their new partners are entirely wrong for them.
Maureen Lipman, don’t we just adore her, plays the acerbically witty Madame Armfeldt  who explains to her granddaughter that the summer night smiles three times at the follies of human beings. The first smile is at the young, who know nothing, the second at the fools who know too little, the third at the old who know too much. It’s set on a dreamy Scandanavian summer’s night, which is really a perpeptual twilight, and the highlight of course is send in the Clowns, so sad, desperate, just makes you crumble.
Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, You in mid-air. Send in the clowns. ………. And later, Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late In my career? And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns. Don’t bother – they’re here.
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Gary Lineker once observed that football was a simple game in which 22 men chase a ball for 90 minutes and then the Germans win. The same is true of the BBC. 28 million people pay their TV license fees and Jonathan Ross starts laughing. What does he do with his £6 million annual salary do you think? That’s considerably more than the gross national product of my home country, Zimbabwe which has a population of 11 million, or used to have before they started dying  from starvation, cholera and Aids.
The population of Jonathan Ross’ home is a mere 5 humans, a couple of pigs, dogs, cats and other wild life, but I can’t imagine it takes £6 million to keep them happy, fed and clothed. Of course he does have every single Apple computer in the world 10 times over, sounds systems in each room, a lot of zany clothes, a home in Florida, hairdressing bills for his increasingly pink looking wife, and classic cars, sports cars, family cars and just plain gas guzzling cars. But £6 million in 12 months, quite unimagineable, even for my ever-fertile imagination. That’s more than £115,000 a week and he can’t even play football and doesn’t so much as attempt to look like Ronaldo. I think we should all suggest a reasonable compromise – we’ll pay our TV license fees if Ross shares his salary with needy Zimbabweans, and tip the balance just a little bit.

I have to say I am a bit concerned about Amy Winehouse. I interviewed her before the full-on drink and drugs and she was spunky, talented and rather different to the norm of 20-something singer song writers I was used to talking to. But now she’s holed up in St Lucia, alone, lonely, and drunk, with a swimming pool outside her villa and a deep end at one side.
Lots of daily alcohol, minimal food and a swimming pool don’t go well together. Where are her parents, one asks? Her brother?  I understand she’s a grown woman, an adult, a person with her own strong free will. Yes yes, but if that was my daughter, Lara, I’d bloody well be there come hell or high water.
I remember how funny she was, and how she desperately wanted to become successful and famous. Now she can’t find a place that’s enough of a refuge, she’s huge in America, and even the Far East. When I was in Thailand last year her face as plastered across billboards and her CDs were sold on every street corner. Now that MJ’s dead, from drugs, irresponsibility, sadness and emptiness, maybe we need to pay some attention to the very isolated and needy Amy Winehouse, who may very well  be rapidly hurtling towards a similar fate, I feel. She told me that when she was a mere 14 her mother moved into a new house and gave Amy the basement room so guys could climb in and out of her windows without disturbing the household. I nearly fell off my chair and smashed the tape recorder, and I also wanted to give her a very big motherly hug, something I felt had been severely lacking in young Amy’s life.
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Its been a race to finish the book for the bookclub dinner tonight. The Shadow of the Sun is reportage about Africa, its brutal, sweltering heat, tribes people with their peculiar customs and folk lore; the coups, wars, inter tribal death as with the genocide in Rwanda. It ends with a lone elephant coming out of the African bush one night and thundering round the camp in a clearing in the bush, deciding what to do while people’s lives hang in the balance.
The scene brought it all back to me. I was 17, and my mother was driving the two of us to a friend’s wedding party in the game reserve, through miles of bush under the sweltering, dripping heat. We took a wrong turning and got lost, running out of water and valuable sucking sweets. I had my head in my hands, weak and faint, when I realised my mum had stopped the car. Drive mum, I feel sick, we’ve got to get there. I can’t, she said softly, and I looked up to see the ultimate African elephant, world’s largest land mammal, around 6 tons, standing in our path right in front of the car. We both froze, as he watched us, his giant ,grey wrinkled legs higher than the car, big ears flapping and trunk swaying.
Those moments are imprinted on me forever, the terrifying eternity in the baking car, waiting for the elephant’s next move. Whatever made him decide, he moved off, and disappeared into the shimmering distance. We drove on, and you know what, I now wear a silver elephant round my neck when I feel I need some luck.

All I’ve been able to think about is food. Big succulent juicy tomatoes, a cheese board, olive oil, brown bread, on and on. I haven’t taken leave of my senses, in case you’re wondering. I’ve been on a fast and still am. All I’ve had is coffee, tea and a carton of squeezed juice since yesterday morning. This is in the name of self-discipline, motivation, and a bid to lose those extra few pounds we all want to shed.
You may have noticed that there’s a preponderance of wine in my life, dinners spread out over long, luxurious evenings out, restaurants popping up all over the place, and general sybaritic excess. So this is a bid to rein myself in and get a grip, as they say. I thought it would be a doddle, a mere lightness of touch, just one of those things you do in the background while going about your day. So I still did my 2-hour Monday work-out, attempted some work and had a big leatherback turtle campaign meeting.
But the truth is I had this gnawing, distracting, edgy thing going on all the time, not in the background as suspected but very much in the foreground. Food, please give me some. Can you imagine what it is really like to have no food if this is how I’m feeling after one day, and I haven’t even gone to sleep yet so there’s no knowing how long I’ll be able to avoid that big blue Smeg fridge winking away in the kitchen.
In Zimbabwe, where I was born and grew up, at least 70 per cent of the population are fortunate if they eat one meal a day, of around 600 calories, and that’s if they have access to food aid. That’s as obesity here rises, and magazines are packed with diet tips. Something to think about. Must go now before I gnaw through the keyboard.

The two of them fought like animals to the death.
Federer the graceful black panther, lean, sleek, darting round the court with absolute elegance. He’s clearly a style queen with that dash of gold on his headband, socks, and collar, all matching, colour-coded and part of his smooth lustrous image. His soft black curls were never out of place and his chiselled face barely glistened with sweat.
Roddick, on the other hand, was like a big burly rhinoceros, lumbering up to serve his bullet-like aces, diving across the court, and taking a couple of big, bull-like tumbles.
Federer is as precise and ordered as a Swiss Rolex, and looks like he is fed on a diet of lean meat and salad. Roddick is more chunky, the all American jock who probably likes his McDonalds and chips. But when it came to feelings it was Roddick who was the more human, a gracious, choked-up, emotional loser. He had me choked up too even though I’d been cheering and screaming for Roger to win because he’s handsomer and kind of more mysterious. But I really felt for Andy Roddick when he had the decency to pay such a generous tribute to his opponent’s play and perseverance, his voice breaking with disappointment, and to acknowledge former champion Pete Sampras in the audience.
Federer was overcome with pride and had his jacket ready with 15 emblazoned on the  back in  gold, 15 grand slam winners. There it was lying in waiting, wrapped in the celophane, ready to come out when he made that final winning shot. Interesting that photograper Annie Leibowitz has photographed him as the legendary King Arthur, the British king who defeated the Saxons and established an empire.

You know I could bullshit you that I’d been reading the book club book, The Shadow of the Sun, which has to be read by next week. Or practising my sax. Or phoning my mother or daughter, or organising the trip to Thailand. But no such thing.
Was out with a very old, precious friend and yet again sittng in a restaurant, this time in Victoria Park in Hackney, drinking more than one bottle of chilled white wine, discussing our chidhoods, our children, work and failures.
It was the trip back which did me in. I was a little bit tipsy and emotional, but what kept me going was listening to African music, that drum beat and chanting and high pitched cry which resounds through the ages. It’s the heart of Africa and I realise that I am an African in the deepest parts of me and not even decades of living in Engand’s green and pleasant lands, getting a degree from a university here and spending more than half my lifetime in this country, has altered that. Give me the big African skies, the cry of the hyenas and that wide open plain and it will feel more like home than my Georgian house in London ever could.
Had another great night in the warmth and glow of this incredible London summer though, and what fantastic friends I’ve got, for which I am eternally grateful, no matter where I belong.

Two young Americans came to stay last night and we went to dinner in Marylebone, and then took the hood down on my convertible and drove along the river, an orange half-moon, the National Theatre glowing sapphire blue and pink, the Houses of Parliament glinting gold in the distance. I suddenly felt very proud of this city, which always looks better after a glass of red wine and good food of course, but it was a lovely balmy night and the boys learnt about London through Dickens and were really enjoying it. Wimbledon’s on, the weather’s terrific, pubs are full and restaurants bursting onto the pavements.
Who needs the bloomin’ Riviera when you can hang out in London. It took my breath away seeing the dome of St Pauls in the distance, largest cathedral in England, and so majestic as we turned back to drive home to Islington. Lovely boys, great night, proud city. And I’d almost forgotten that side of life sitting in front of the computer every day. Sometimes it takes people from outside to show you what’s all around you.