Hello and how are
you!
HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO! HERE WE GO!
I have 67 shows before Christmas day -- 38
VAMPIRES ROCK and 29 WICKED QUEEN in Sheffield, 2 premieres for THREE TO TANGO
and nowhere to hide!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It will be great fun but I've already had to
compromise on my footwear! I spend my life running around and somehow I've
managed to develop a bad groin strain, so my 10 inch heels, the 8 inch wedge
platform boots and the spiky stilettos are in retirement until I can address
this minor hic-up.
No one has really noticed and everyone takes
enormous delight in telling me……….'aren't you small?'………….yeah, I am, but I'm
also extremely vicious, like a little piranha not very fast at the moment, but I
have a bite people tend to remember, especially young men who venture into my
dressing room to borrow my lipstick without asking.
They soon exit after I command them to participate
in my new charity “SNOG A GRANNY OR DIE,” most decline but VAMPIRE's drummer
Nickki Millar stands there thinking about it for two minutes before running to
Steve Steinman's dressing room to seek advice….”she's asked me for a shag,
because she's famous does that mean I have to?”
These little episodes are also helped by the fact I
text Nickki my hotel room number around midnight most nights telling him………”15
grand if you get here in ten minutes”. (even though I'm not at a hotel, I'm
usually home in bed!)
Yes I know it's harassment in the work place of a
20 year old but believe me you hit your 50th decade and no longer give a F---
about Political Correctness and I love the fear on Nickki's face when my
wonderful husband visits and asks him “has my wife been good to you this week?”
Robert knowing full well what I have been up to because most nights I am
laughing my head off under the duvet about the latest Nickki Millar wind up.
Oh, the joy of being with the youth of today.
I always view autumn as 'celebrity reality show
audition month'. Yes, September is the month that the crazy ideas arrive on my
desk, I can't tell you all of them because I will never be trusted with an idea
again, but ITV alone snaps up my every spare hour with meetings, auditions and
discussions about 'will this work? What do you think? Would you do
it?'
“Honey if there's a fee I would study
the art of origami for it, haven't you heard, 'the other side' doesn't employ
women over 50. They just establish millions of viewers through them then sack
them! ”
A rule of these meetings is you have to play
the victim or they're just not interested in you. You should see their faces
when they hear about THE HUMANS tour, the 14 date arena tour I've just been
offered for next August (a conceptual rock extravaganza with the choreographer
Arlene Phillips, GO GIRL!), also the lead in a polish soap for next April and
the growing business empire.
These TV execs cant stand that you might have a
life, because when it comes to reality TV they are waiting to film the first
suicide, so I play along and then tell them they'd have to fit around my
schedule.
Two weeks ago I managed to fit in a trip to
Seattle. A three day trip between Vampire shows. Because the HUMANS work
schedule means extended stays in Seattle, I'm in the process of buying a home
there. Bill Rieflin and I drove around Bell town and Down town eventually
finding a fabulous condo, but because I was only there for three days and I
needed to offer a deposit Bill had to have 'power of attorney' for me to put a
bid in on the property, a week after I'd have left for Blighty.
Bill is a stunning musician, a great and loyal
friend, a wonderful cook, a man of unique ideas and opinions, living proof that
God has better days than others, even if Bill does walk into the occasional door
and black his own eye, but I really tested his metal with this one!
He said suddenly he felt he was in a David Mamet
play surrounded by shady characters with money as he bid in a property auction
on my behalf.
While I was still there we where invited to see
Porcupine Tree, the HUMANS now share the same manager. It was a stunning show,
they played the whole of their new album for the first time and it was
tremendous. Great visuals on the screen behind them. I hope the Humans can
achieve this too in the future.
I returned to England for one day, then over to
France, where I live in Menton. My dear, wonderful husband, who has been a
mountain of strength to me this year, needed a good rest. I took him to the
Westminster Hotel for a glass or two of champagne. We often go to this rusty
classic to watch the tea dances and generally misbehave. (I can never get Robert
to get up and waltz with me). On the way home we bumped into Tina, the
percussionist from the Here and Now shows who also works with Van Morrison, Tina
lives in Menton too. Robert and Tina got so damned SMASHED, on about 3 bottles
of cava!
Back home he was falling around the bedroom
knocking over glasses of water, tables, pulling the curtains down like a bad
dancer at a wedding! I have never seen the legendary Robert Fripp so
totally pie-eyed and as we live on the 8th floor I locked all the windows just
in case he had a tumbled out of one!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What really amazed me………the next day……….he was as right and as bouncy
as a newborn lamb! But he did utter those immortal words “never
again!”
I hope to see you on the road.
BE PROUD, BE LOUD, BE HEARD.
LOVE
TOYAH
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