I’m desperately attempting to find my ripped up Levi’s so that I can tack some glittery fabric over the holes, stick a few diamontes round the waistband and therefore have something to wear to grandma’s party next Saturday. Yes I do have five wardrobes full of other clothes but I’ve already envisaged myself in these jeans so no other outfit will do and nothing else will go with my pink and scarlet “live forever wild rider” T-shirt with the skull and cross bones on it which Grandma likes (and I’m therefore bound to wear) besides which, someone needs to strike a blow for tacky, inappropriate and OTT and it might as well be me - why change the habit of a lifetime? Somehow going back home pushes me right back into the truculent, sulky teenager I was when I left. But I’d just like to point out now - glittery jeans are not - as they were wrongly categorised on “What Not To Wear” - “Britney jeans”. Glittery, patched jeans are Steven Tyler jeans - he invented them….and though he may now look like Joan Rivers, his ass, his moves, his voice and his songs - when he doesn’t write something for his daughters execrable films (I’m in complete agreement with herebemonsters and Jgirls mum on this one) - are still infinitely better. “Hit me baby one more time”? - sweetheart I’d love to and not just because of your excruciating cover of Joan Jetts ” I love Rock and Roll” - I could forgive Rolf Harris’ version of stairway to heaven but you wouldn’t know Rock and Roll if it came up and bit you ( and how I wish it would)

I know that they (the jeans) are in the apartment somewhere - but I’m buggered if I can remember where. I seem to remember that I did unpack them and then I put them somewhere safe because for the past two years, tackifying them has been something I’ve been meaning and haven’t had the time to do. I’ve even braved the big cupboard - (that’s the big cupboard we shoved all the stuff we couldn’t be bothered to unpack when we moved here) which was a mistake. Of course I didn’t realise that until I actually started to look inside the boxes and bags that were so neatly stacked inside it and if anyone can tell me why - after throwing out three boxes of old bills and two bin bags of old clothes - I was then unable to fit everything back into the same space- I’ll be eternally grateful. Although it wasn’t all bad - X (names changed to protect the guilty from search engines) found a guitar which he thought he’d lost which brings the house total up to eight not counting the Gibson he accidentally jumped on while playing “Anarchy in the UK” with a Spanish violinist the last time he toured Spain (well where else would you find a Spanish violinist?) and is still in three pieces in its case. How you can accidentally break a guitar which has a steel rod as its core I don’t know but you can, so if any readers out there are wondering - its been done - keep yours in one piece. Fenders are much tougher - they can survive being flung through a sheet of soundproofed glass as proven when he got pissed off at one recording several years ago and threw it at the manager who was standing in the control room while he was in the recording bit of the studio. Apparently in order for a Fender to go through strengthened glass it’s necessary to throw it like you would a Bowie knife - that is head first- so that it flips a few times in mid air and hits the obstruction with a fair bit of speed whereas if you want to destroy a Fender on a Marshall you need to hold it by the neck and whack the amp with the side of the guitar so that the body slices through the woven casing bit.

I never minded too much when he broke his other guitars - which was pretty much every gig - because it was usually on band members and in any case of wood versus flesh, flesh comes off worse but the Gibson incident taught me an important lesson which I’ll pass on to any wannabe guitarists out there - never…but never…believe the manager when he say’s “…of course I insured the gear - whaddya think I am… fucking stupid?” However if you are trying decapitate a member of your band then its probably best to do so with a silver guitar - lead singers don’t mind physical violence too much so long as it’s with something that glitters, they’re a bit like magpies in that respect and tend to be mesmerised by anything that sparkles - and even the most static bass player will jig like an Irishman when confronted with an axe wielding maniac - but don’t ever give away Park Lane to your girlfriend during a game of Monopoly with your front man as this will lead to fist fights, finding yourself on the streets of New York in midwinter and a breaking up of the band even if you have a deal to record the title track for a major film. Its a fair bet that if you don’t follow this advice, another band will get the deal instead of you which is worth significantly more than the rent of Park Lane, even with a hotel on it.

It’s a funny thing this relationship between lead singer, guitarists and their girlfriends and one which as the girlfriend of the latter, I ‘ve been privileged to witness over the past seven years. It’s very easy to deal with groupies (and even a cover band will have a couple never mind one that actually has a deal) - personally I always found a stiletto heel ground (after all these venues get terribly crowded don’t they?) between the bones of the big and first toe (about an inch down from the bottom of the digit - you’ll find your instinct will take over and you’ll hit it without any trouble) usually sees them off and if that doesn’t work then just threaten to turn them into wallpaper, but what a middle eight, a flying chorus and an album recorded in Dobley has joined together let no girl put asunder. Much guff has been spoken (usually by ex-wives on VH1) about the homoerotic tendencies between the two - how a lead singer and guitarist have some unspoken sexual tension that reaches it’s climax on stage where the appreciation of the audience replaces the orgasm and that women get in the way of this. This is bullshit.

The guitarist hates the singers girlfriend either, because (despite the fact she sounds like Kermit the frog) she is convinced she’s the next Janis Joplin and should be in the band and is withholding sex from the lead singer until she achieves her goal or, (and it’s usually the ones with blue jeans, no make up and white T-shirts you have to watch for here) she’s trying to convince the singer that someone of his towering genius doesn’t really need a band and should really go solo (with herself as the manager) and is turning up at all the rehearsals (a cardinal sin) where she will veto any idea which doesn’t originate with the singer thus ensuring that in any four hour rehearsal there will only be about twenty minutes of actual playing (instead of the thirty-five they usually have before disappearing to the pub to hold a band meeting.)

The lead singer (having that killer combination of insecurity and egoism without which he wouldn’t be a lead singer) hates the guitarists girlfriend because she’s taken his new best friend away from him and is convinced that the reason she’s stopped them going out on the piss together is because she knows either of the plot to put the singers girlfriend in the band, or for the singer to go solo (she does - she learnt it from the bass players girlfriend whom the singers girlfriend confided in after a drunken argument with the singer, although the reason she’s stopped the benders is that after paying for all the bloody uninsured guitars they’re skint), is staring at the guitarist and not the singer during the shows (and what’s more is bringing her friends to the shows to stare at him too) - or, she’s better looking than the singers girlfriend and isn’t falling at his feet (which his ego can’t deal with), has a sneaking suspicion that she’s laughing at his lyrics (she is) and has already worked out that there’s a plot afoot which will ensure that the singer gets all the publishing royalties (she did).

Aerosmith broke up the first time over a glass of thrown milk (thrown by one girlfriend over another), the Beatles were never the same after Yoko, Van Halen never recovered from Eddies marriage to Valerie thingummyjig, Whitesnake had to endure Tawny Kittten (or however the fuck she spells it ) gyrating all over their video’s before finally doing the decent thing and splitting up, Fleetwood Mac survived (barely) by making sure that the band consisted of all possible permutations of partners while the Stones (apart from Charlie Watts) shared and shared alike.

Machiavelli would have ripped up The Prince as being too obvious if confronted by band dynamic’s. Me? well since it looks like I’m going to be thrust back into the middle (eight) of it all - I’m jenning up on Sun Tzu and the Art of War.

The house is resounding to the sound of loud guitars again which is great. You get to miss widdly widdly after a while and though I love (most of) the stuff F does as a composer/producer (and definitely welcome the cheques it brings), I can’t really get my head around all this dance/trance/garage/techno/pop stuff and classical (with the exception of the fucking miserable Russian violinists whose name I can’t spell and Wagner - for the timpani’s and women in metal bra’s) tends to leave me cold. Nah…give me a Gibson ( Les Paul Standard 1959 - go look isn’t it gorgeous) or a fender strat (red of course), ladle on the flange, add soupcon of wah wah, stick in a middle eight that sounds like a freight train to Kashmir, turn it up loud and I’m happy. My rock chick tendencies do tend to upset F who’s a lot more eclectic than me and likes any and all good music (which definition also includes anything that’s been well recorded) and despairs of the fact that my musical tastes tend to span 1968 -74 (stones not beatles) with a brief reprise during the LA scene circa 83-86 (but not including Warrant, Bon Jovi, Europe, or grunge), but he can’t really complain as I don’t tend to tell him to turn it down when he plays guitar.

Anyway the reason for the riffin’ is simple. Now that the webcams set up again we’re back in contact with London. Which means many of the ne’er do well degenerate musicians and producers (who seem to be doing quite nicely now thank-you) we knew down there are in the flat. Admittedly they’re sharing space on the monitor rather then lounging around, pitching their tent in the loft or putting the unwashed dishes in the back garden ( now that’s being organic) but you can’t have everything. Apparently F is able to work with them in real time (forget latency-this is broad band) rather than just recording and then emailing the tracks or ftp’ing things all over the known universe. It beats the limitations on file size. Or at least I think that’s what he said - I could have got it all wrong cos when he starts getting into technical stuff about what he does I tend to glaze over. I can open his programmes - I know the basics of how they work but one abortive attempt to make a dance remix version of the devil went down to georgia using the drum solo from van halens hot for teacher and one of Bill Hick’s monologues, fatboy slim does not me make.

I’m kinda ambivalent about this webcam thingy though. While I admit that on the one hand its great to see the people who otherwise I wouldn’t see except for a biannual visit (and Jgirl your looking tired - you aren’t eating properly are you?) and it does make me feel a bit like I’m in Bladerunner, on the other hand I fucking hate the web cam. OK, I’ve just switched from ambivalence to dislike but really there isn’t much difference between the two- if your ambivalent towards anything it’s because your gut instinct is hatred and you’re just too polite to say so.

The reason for this hatred though isn’t because of the musicians, nor the fact that even with the computer switched off, the monitor covered in a dark cloth and the camera unplugged and hidden under the mattress, Bill Gates can still monitor your every move. If I was worried about people seeing into my home I’d have curtains. It’s because I’m vain. In fact I’m inordinately vain.

Its a genetic thing. A hereditary illness. The symptoms manifests itself in various ways, Mum doesn’t ever have her photo taken. Dad’s fatherly advice to his kids consisted of telling us that there were only two things in life you had to watch out for - the tax man and gravity and that there were loopholes you could use against both, while my brother has a fascination with his own image which means that getting him past any reflective surface is like trying to peel a barnacle off a rock. My thing is camera’s. It’s a family joke. Show me a camera and you can’t get me down with a gun. The merest suspicion of a lens will cause me to drop a hip, bend a knee, incline my head slightly to the left (the best shaped eyebrow and my beauty spots that side too), tilt my body slightly to the right, suck in my stomach, tighten my ass and angle my arms so that my waist looks non-existent, flash a smile and widen my eyes. (I can do it in the time it takes to press auto focus)

Which would make you think that I would love web cams. But I don’t. It’s too disconcerting to have to hold a conversation while watching the other person and your reaction to what that person’s saying. You don’t believe me - next time you’re on the phone put a mirror in front of you. You see - you stop having a conversation and start watching yourself having a conversation. Extremely ironic and post-modern don’t you think? No matter how hard I try, my attention is hijacked by my image and it doesn’t make for scintillating conversation. I bet Wilde never had to produce his immortal epigrams while trying to decipher whether or not his cheekbones were well enough defined and Saki certainly never delivered satire while attempting to determine whether his skin looked blotchy. It’s OK for F “I eat once a week whether I need to or not”P and J “I look like a 30’s starlet even on a bad day”girl…With the sort of cheekbones you usually find chopping breakfast on a mirror, there’s no such thing as bad lighting for them. If its bright they look good if its dim they look like Nostradamus - but since I know for a fact that it takes two tungsten’s and an overhead spot to define my face properly then what chance do I have with a web cam and a table lamp.

I know I shouldn’t be. I know that it’s what’s inside that counts, I know that women have thrown themselves in front of horses, chained themselves to railings, gone on hunger strikes and burnt their bra’s in order that women aren’t judged by appearance but I can’t help it. I’m vain and I’m proud of it. I don’t think that I’m the most beautiful person in the world - I honestly believe that everybody is beautiful-but I’m certainly not going to be ashamed of liking the way I look and since once you hit 45 ( unless you run 13 miles a day) everything goes south then I’ll be damned if I don’t make the most of what I got while I still have it. Does your brain disintegrate if you wear make-up - well that’s a chance I’ll have to take - but I haven’t noticed that it does. Do I mind being thought of as attractive by guy’s. Well not as much as I’d mind being blanked by them. Does playing a helpless female demean me? Not if it means I get what I want.

If feminism is about reclaiming the power of women then lets be radical - let’s propose that loving ourselves (and no I certainly don’t mean that in any touchy-feely workshop way - cos lets face it some things are just better shared) and wanting to look our best is a big part of reclaiming ascendency instead of hypothesising that letting ourselves go means that in some twisted parallel universe we’re actually being true to the sisterhood. I mean do you think any one would have taken any notice of Germaine Greer if she hadn’t been gorgeous, rebellious and clever.

Lets be honest. The feminist movement was the worst thing that ever happened to women. (I can hear the boo hisses from here) Sorry (well not really) but it was. I ask you? Instead of being (as clever women were) the power behind the scenes which is much the best way to be - all of the power and none of the responsibility- feminism just meant that we won the right to slog out our guts in a day job, come home and do the cleaning and obsess about the fact that we don’t have a significant other in our lives. Whinging, self obsessed lightweights like Bridget Jones and the characters in Sex in the City have replaced role models like Madam de Pompadour, Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, the Bronte sisters, Colette (and you know what, I wouldn’t mind if F locked me in the bedroom if I produced prose like hers) Emily Dickinson… The list goes on and on and on. (Most) men no longer open doors for us, give up their seats on buses, hand over their pay packets, feel that they need to support us and their children which we bring up, respect us enough to marry, let us run the household (do you realise that in the past the housewife was the undisputed ruler of the home because she and only she had the keys to the spice cupboard and spices were worth more than gold - after all New Amsterdam now known as New York was given to the English in return for an island that had nutmeg trees on it). But no. In a feminists eyes - being equal to men is vastly superior to being…well to being superior to them. Before you start the backlash I know, (and all together now…) before feminism women were exploited, patronised and forced to stay in loveless marriages of convenience, they were treated as chattels and society was not set up to protect them or their rights. Things have definitely changed haven’t they? Women are still not paid as much as men but men no longer feel the need to subsidise our income. I don’t notice domestic violence decreasing since feminism took over, in fact I’d hazard a guess that since we emasculated them, men are more violent towards women than before and as far as loveless marriages go - well you’re right staying with someone you don’t really love but will treat you with respect or at the very least cold courtesy is way better than living in some dingy council flat with screaming brats and a host of casual lovers who will fuck you but won;t respect you enough to make a financial or emotional commitment. Women definitely have parity now- C’mon girls, look up your pay schedule and check. Can you tell me where the liberation is in that? We conveniently forgot that men are ruled by their dicks and gifted them with brains and they certainly wouldn’t have thought of themselves as oppressors of women if we hadn’t put the notion in their pretty little heads first.