Mr. Jules’ Man Toe.

You’ve all heard of Man Flu.  Mr. J. has gone one step forward (pun intended). It all started with the usual holiday packing stress that Mr. J. suffers from.  Mr. J. needs very few things in his life.  A small carry on case with a few shirts, socks, pants, razor.  (He squats my toiletry bag).  The three women in his life need many things in their lives.  Many, many, things. Electrical hair tools, hair products, brushes, chargers, plug converters and those are just the smaller cases.  His blood pressure started rising when he saw that Sophie-G. was attempting to take her boarding school trunk to Switzerland for the holidays – first argument.  Swearing under his breath about Albanian refugees he then dropped a piece of luggage on his pinkie as he tried to manoeuvre it into the cab.

He refused to talk to any of us on the way to the airport.  He refused sympathy and medication which we all produced from our voluminous bags.  Sophie even proferred her ankle protection.   Nada.  He was incommunicado.  I had visions of having to organise a wheelchair at the airport but he soldiered on, steadily limping ahead and ignoring us.

He refuses to talk to us, the ones who made him suffer, about his Man Toe but discusses it at length with any visiting family members and at the last count, the whole of Verbier.  The many hues of purple, blue and pink are exclaimed at and grown men debate on the efficacy of applying a splint.

So why is Mr. J’s Man Toe a relevant New Year’s posting?  There is a lesson here.  Two things: we should all be more grateful – he has another 9 toes in working order; be careful where we lay blame – look to ourselves first…er hum.  But my New Year’s message is please, don’t sweat the small stuff, think about the big picture always. Which brings me back to my original idea of encouraging a mind set of blue sky thinking in 2012 but then you wouldn’t have heard about Mr. J’s Man Toe.

Jean Nouvel’s Summer Pavillion at the Serpentine Gallery

So into week two or is that three?  I have established a semi-routine but still my days are governed by the comings and goings of workmen.  There are wires poking out of walls, a chip in my granite top and a bath towel replaces a blind at the kitchen window but overall it is liveable.  When not hanging around the tiny flat sharing a desk with Mr. J. when he is in town and suffering his sighs and bitchy remarks about the mess I make, I have discovered the joy of Hyde Park where I go running on alternate mornings.  When Mr. Jules is with me I make him run just slightly ahead of me (which he does anyway) so that he looks like my personal trainer and I look like one of those rich eurobabes who, when not out with their PTs, are taking their Hermès bags for walks around  South Kensington and Chelsea.  I feel a bit of a plonker with my over-size fake Hermès bag but as my friend Martha put it,

“Seeing all that just makes me want to go the other way.”

Quite.  AND how would it look if I turned up at my yoga teacher training next week with a Hermès bag?  I’ve even stopped the French gel manicures but draw the line at under arm hair.

LONDON IS JUST FAB.  I wake up every day excited to be in this city knowing that there is so much to be discovered and so much to do.  Yesterday I took Mr. Jules along to The White Cube Gallery which I love to pop into because it is outrageous. Yesterday’s exhibit was devoted to a video maker who had, for some reason only known to him, decided to film ice cracking from underneath the ice.  It was indeed, as Mr. Jules pronounced, Bollocks so off he trotted to Lilly White’s to stock up on sports gear with strict instructions from me to buy everything in Personal Trainer black. 

When I put Lexi to bed last night I saw that she was wearing mascara. 

“Who put the mascara on you?”  I asked trying not to sound too incredulous.

“Elena,” she replied batting her eye lashes.

Elena is her new BFF who lives around the corner in Thurloe Place and who is on the bus with her in the mornings.  (The bus service is not only door to door but the drivers actually get out open the door for them and wait like liveried staff.  The evening one is an all singing black guy who does a great impersonation of Lionel Richie. When the flat’s buzzer wasn’t working and I was hanging about outside in the street, he opened the bus door and sang:

Is it me you are waiting for?

The morning driver is a pissed off bloke who reluctantly gets out with a  look on his face that says “fucking spoilt brats.” 

I can’t blame him.  Somewhere deep inside I can hear the same voice but…well what is the BUT?  The but is a whole other blog about choice and life paths and not looking gift horses in the mouth.  I can write this without feeling smug or pompous because Mr. J. and I are self made – or does that sound even more smug? 

Anyway, who cares.  Back to Alpha girl Elena, the quick witted Chinese American who invited Lexi last night to Vogue Fashion Night with her mum.  This is when the whole of London has a party and invites you to preview the autumn collections.  I was invited by Joseph in Bond Street (Mr. J. tried to hide the invitation) but elected to go  check out a yoga class on the Old Brompton Road instead.  It was the De Rose method which claims to have its roots in yoga.  It DOES NOT . It takes its roots from an OAP’s exercise class at the local WI.  Whilst I was being led through the boring static poses by a Brazilian who called me Hulia (Julia) and really should have taken more English language courses -instructing us to give ourselves internal messages (massages)- I kept thinking of the champagne and canapés I was missing and got hit by a tsunami of clothes lust.  I cursed myself that I should have known it would be rubbish as only two others turned up for the class.  Both I suspect were only there because they had a crush on the Brazilian.  This is London and yoga classes are massive with sweating gorgeous people fighting for every spot…but not in the Old Brompton Road obviously.  Ah well I got to do a headstand and felt pious for not spending any money.

Lexi got back after me and told me that she had bumped into Gwyneth in Stella McCartney and Pixie Lot in Top Shop.

Me hiding from all the workmen in the park in one of Jean Nouvel’s hammocks.

It is a slight stretch, in fact it is a Boarding House reach out of Mr. J’s comfort zone.  Used to crunching numbers and problem solving, his right hand creative brain lying dormant under layers of dust, has been punched bagged into action.  

Each photographer has to take four photographs from each of the following three themes making a total of twelve.  These will then be framed and sold for a few gold coins:

Cemetery

Station

Simplicity

Now the first two are left hand brainers where you just set the GPS and turn up and shoot but the last has been causing all sorts of problems to poor old Mr. J.’s under-used right side.  In desperation he acknowledges that we females of the race really do have some good qualities and he has been sucking the three women in this house dry for ideas:

Here’s a typical conversation that has taken place all summer with Mr. J, the three women in closest proximity, visiting relatives and even Marlyse the dog walker:

“What shall I do?  What does this mean this SIMplicity?”

“It’s your interpretation not ours, it has to come from YOU (duh).”

Again: “But what does it mean?”

“What you THINK it means is what it means.”

Mr. J. looks crestfallen and way-befuddled.

Females sighing:  “It has to be evocative.”

Mr. Jules looks wobbly.

“It has to stir something in the viewer.”

This then sparks an animated conversation between the present females on the subject.  Mr. Jules’ eyes glaze over and he quietly leaves the room.

Below is the invitation, please come along and view the photos and have a glass of wine with us.

I N V I T A T I O N

3 Guys – 3 Cameras – 3 Visions

 Join us, bring a friend -
and share a glass of wine during our
upcoming Photographic Exhibition.

PLEASE SAVE THE DATE
Vernissage
6PM to 9PM
Friday 3^rd of September

Quadrum Gallery
17, rue du Nord
1180 Rolle,Switzerland

Stefan, Ralfonso, Pierre

All Proceeds will go to the Charity “Action-Sabrina”, http://www.action-sabrina.ch/ .

Back in the UK , pre-volcano, we waited like naughty children in a glass and steel edifice on The Strand watching the Koi in a Japanese inspired pond.  Don’t be fooled by the modern architecture,  the British banking system is still Dickensian, in fact I think it may even be governed by medieval law, only appearances have changed.  I had to bite my tongue several times as it wanted to say “Please sir, can we ‘ave some money?” as we were led to a wood panelled room and I sat trying to shake off the feeling of being back in the Headmistress’ Office.  The Headmistress/Banker had beautiful manners and was highly skilled in the art of retrieving information through inane conversation.  It was a marvellous performance with excellent timing but  alas minus the laughs.  He kept coming back to my whereabouts between the years 1986 and 1990 – a kibbutz perhaps, terrorist cell? his intonation implied.  My vague reply of “travelling” without further elaboration made his eyebrows knit together and I silently chalked up a one on my side of the table. 

We’ve developed a sort of comedy routine now with those wielding the power.   Mr. J. is the serious one, razor sharp on-the-button with the figures handling all the papers.  I am the dipsy sidekick whose precise role I have yet to determine.  The most I can say is that I provide a bit of light entertainment and humanise Mr. J., who can be a bit frightening in his manières Suisses. Note to British Bankers: the Swiss don’t understand polite, inane questions or euphemisms they only state facts and answer all questions directly and honestly.  Yes I know it is astonishing, even marvellous as you say,  AND  BECAUSE OF THIS they (the Swiss) get a smidgen impatient at times.  (I noticed that at one point the Banker’s coffee cup was shaking as the steely blue eyes of my Swiss man bore down on him waiting for him to catch up.  I know how powerful that look is as I occasionally get it when I baffle him).

I have begged not to come along to these meetings as my neck aches from nodding knowingly at well timed intervals and I fear my eye balls may permanently glaze over but Mr. J. explained that as I will be a co-owner I have to, apparently, show up and sign my name on lots of pieces of paper in my best handwriting.  There was one suppressed snigger moment when Mr. J. had to provide a personal code and he used the dog’s name.  I mean here we are in Coutts, on the Strand, in a wood panelled meeting room drinking out of bone china cups  and he writes not chuchichäschtli (Swiss German for kitchen cupboard pronounced hooheehayshlee, as you know) which would have given them something to think about or even the regal sounding Jungfrau,  just plain old Molly.  That’s the Swiss for you,  nothing bloody bollocks about them at all. 

 When we were leaving we were politely asked as to our plans for the rest of the trip and Mr. Jules, fooled again, answered honestly and enthusiastically that he was going to queue up for tickets for The Comedy Store.  I wanted to kick his shins but desperate for a laugh at this stage I threw my hat into the ring and said I was going off to a Vinyasa Flow yoga class in (stinky, full of hippies) Soho adding in my intonation that yes there would be incense and, heaven forbid, even a bit of chanting.  The Banker’s eyebrows knitted together again and I gleefully upped my one point to two.  I could sense we  had disappointed him by not having a appointment at Sotheby’s followed by lunch at Claridges but ho-hum.

As a treat I told Mr. J. I would come with him that night to the Comedy Store so he went along and queued up for an hour to get the door tickets.  (I only huff and hum about going so he offers to do the queuing while I go back to the hotel for a nice shower and to change out of serious would-be-first-time-buyers gear: pearls, cashmere sweater, Hermès scarf and Tod’s ballerinas to girl about town: leather jacket, jeans, pony tail).  It is rather sweet that he loves English stand up comedy, lui, mon homme Suisse.  The last time we were there too many girls were squeazed into too few clothes wearing bunny ears and standing around drinking pints. The women still drink masses (mostly pints) but there were more properly dressed females this time.  I even spotted some families up from the home counties and worried that maybe they had got the wrong venue and were supposed to be across the road watching Mama Mia.

You’ve got to know where to sit at the Comedy Store.  When our friend Young Dave was last there he was late back to his place in the front row after the interval and the comedian spent the rest of the session picking on him.  The fact that he is a chartered accountant probably didn’t help either.  I always make Mr. J. sit a few rows back as the answer of Switzerland in an accent heavy with German undertones to the question Where are you from?  would be the equivalent of winning the stand up comic’s lottery to them.

Ever since I wrote the posting The Swiss Male – Who is he?  I am often contacted by women asking for advice about Swiss men… I seem to have become the go-to agony aunt for lovelorn women around the world who have fallen for Swiss men and are very confused.  WELL THERE’S A SURPRISE. 

I know that it is all too easy to fall into the stereotypical trap here and confuse character and culture but hey you are getting this from the horse’s mouth. I am reporting from the coal face of 25 years of life with a Swiss man which should give me some credibility and a smidgen of insight into what makes a Swiss man tick.

Of course I can only talk about the Eastern Swiss Man, those hailing from the German speaking parts with, usually, a Protestant background.  But here is my take on Swiss Men and please feel free to agree or disagree in the comments below:

- Swiss men are parsimonious with their praise.  They do not compliment or praise unless by accident.  They won’t notice when you have been to the hairdresser’s or whether you are wearing a stunning LBD.   The flip side to this is that they don’t criticise or complain either.  I could go out to dinner in a bin liner for all Mr. Jules cared.  Only once has he said anything faintly critical as to my attire and it was a neutral but clever,

 ”Er, you’re not going to like the way that looks from behind” 

And because he says this and not “Jeeeesssssuuusssss!  Are you kidding me?” I am rather fond of him.

- Swiss men are not cuddly.  Don’t expect a cuddle, ever.  You might get a pat on the shoulder or a derrière squeeze at the moment when you least want it but that’s it.  There’s no smooching in front of the telly or public shows of affection.  He’ll willingly take your suitcase from you when you arrive off the plane but that is the nearest he’ll get to intimacy in a public space.  (Note:  If they start calling you odd names like chatzli, minou, etc. which the Swiss Germans deem as a sign of affection, put a stop to it at once.  It is a huge turn off.)

- Swiss men only have the left side of their brains working.  Hence they are brilliant bankers, brokers, negotiators.  Anything that involves logic is right up their strasse and if they have developed a brilliantly creative design concept alongside a brilliant piece of engineering or software for example, you’ll usually find there’s an Italian involved.

- Swiss men do not like emotion.  They are happy to analyse using logic until the cows literally come home but as their right side brain has no neural pathways having shrivelled up through non-use, feelings and emotions are something they cannot fathom.  So to Sofia in Argentina the reason he hasn’t written a letter of explanation is that he has no idea he has hurt your feelings. A Swiss man is very unlikely to give you closure although logically he knows he ought to – good manners and all that – he is incapable of writing “stuff” in an expressive heartfelt way.  Eyore’s dumbfounded, woebegone face in Winnie the Pooh springs to mind here. 

-Swiss men are perfectionists.  They can be a bit pernickety about their homes, cars, the food on their plates.  This is a country of high standards and they are used to upholding them.  To be fair they all work extremely hard and return those high standards in their work.

NOW THE GOOD STUFF

-  Swiss men are funny.  You will laugh at them (a lot) but also find that like the Brits they have a very dry, sense of humour and can also be extremely silly and childish.  They love British and American Sitcoms such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Fawlty Towers etc. Mostly because they are so law-abiding that they wouldn’t ever dare do anything as naughty and anti-establishment so watching other people doing it, even if only pretending,  is absolutely thrilling.

-Swiss men need to marry foreign women.  They need to be shaken up out of their robotic thinking patterns, forced to let their hair down, spend time away from a landscape of mountains and lakes and eat something other than cheese and sausage.  (When Mr. Jules and I lived in America he would get lost every night on the way home from work.  Without a mountain or lake as guidance he was completely flummoxed by the grid-system).  I think all we foreign wives should receive a special allowance from the government.

-Swiss men will never let you down.  Your bills will be paid, your car will be serviced, your health insurance will be up-to-date and he’ll even put his loose change into your car so that you never run out for the parking meters.   They are never late, always do what they say they will and are extremely fair-play. (Apart from when partaking in family board games). 

-Swiss men are the best travel companions.  They never get stressed or nervous or angry when flights are delayed or hotel bookings lost or any kind of disaster strikes.  In fact they are good to have around in any kind of  emergency as they are so level headed – no emotions just the facts – which many put down to the compulsive military training they all undergo and of course the lack of a right sided brain helps here.

Marry one if you want to.  Preferably a Catholic from the sunnier, southern parts (the food’s better and they tend not to wear white sports socks with leather shoes), but wherever they hail from they are intensely loyal and easy to train if you go about it in a logical way and keep all the touchy feely stuff under wraps.