twenty years younger.
Who'd have thought age would be such an abstract concept. You'd think you just got older and looked older, but no. It's clear that no one is quite what they seem, age wise, or indeed in any way. As if to remind me of this, my balding companion with the tufts of hair shooting out of his nose shifts his foot a little higher and is now rubbing with a fury verging on the painful against a spot somewhere just below my knee. I knock his foot away sharply and attempt to pull my legs round to the other side, but he's not a man who gives up easily, and soon the foot is back there, pushing against mine.
This is clearly one of the downsides of looking better than you've ever looked in your life before and, I have to confess, it was something I hadn't predicted. Not at any stage in the hour that Elody spent, working her magic on me earlier today, did I think, 'Better watch out – there'll be a randy pensioner at the party who'll take a real shine to you.'
Elody turned me from frumpy to fabulous by squeezing my wobbly bits (the bits that Rufus likes but that the skinny stylist can't stand) into 'shape wear' (these rather hideous, really tight, really big knickers in an unflattering pale flesh colour). She then draped and layered, pulled in, flared out and floated dresses over my newly squeezed-in form until I looked like a goddess of the sea.
'It's Cindy Crawford meets Jane Russell,' she squealed as a team of make-up artists appeared out of nowhere (I have a feeling she keeps them in that huge bag that she carries around with her). They painted gunk onto my face in quantities that would cover a wall in the average sized semi. My head weighed twice as much by the time they'd finished. Jewellery was added so that my ear lobes and neckline twinkled like stars in a midnight sky, and my beautifully polished toenails were slipped into the softest, most elegant and most searingly high shoes I've ever seen. I felt about nine feet tall when I stood up, and most unbalanced. 'These are not shoes to walk in,' said Elody with a straight face, when I complained that getting up and walking across the room without falling over would be a feat of quite monumental proportions.
The hairdressers then took over and my hair was coiffed and teased and sprayed and thickened until I looked like I had twice as much of it. It had never looked so glossy and shiny.
Now I'm sitting here and though there's no question that I've never looked more like the girlfriend of an international film star in my life before, on the inside I'm struggling. They're having debates about the cultural role of the media in modern Britain, and assessing the true impact of Shakespeare not just on the theatre but on mankind's very sense of himself (what does that mean?) and I'm feeling like a total idiot.
'It could be argued,' says Isabella boldly, 'that Shakespeare's contribution to the world of literature has had the impact of redefining our very understanding of ourselves as conscious beings.'
Yep, indeed it could, I think to myself, wishing that Sophie and Mandy were here. It's not that I'm stupid – I did really well at school – it's just that this sort of talk makes me want to run screaming from the room shouting, 'Help, help.' Would that be appropriate behaviour? I'm thinking probably not, so I smile and nod and think, Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Now which one was he?
'His plays are certainly the only ones ever written which don't date,' says Rufus, and I feel a rush of pride that he knows which one Shakespeare is. 'You feel that as an actor.'
Oh yeah, watch him go. My money's on Rufus.
'What about Oscar Wilde?' asks Jan James, a small, slim and rather mumsy-looking woman at the end of the table. She's married to Rock James, the huge rock star, but he's not here. He's on some world tour and, if the papers are right (and I happen to know now that they're not always right, so that's why I question it!), he's sleeping with half the girls in the world on
Who'd have thought age would be such an abstract concept. You'd think you just got older and looked older, but no. It's clear that no one is quite what they seem, age wise, or indeed in any way. As if to remind me of this, my balding companion with the tufts of hair shooting out of his nose shifts his foot a little higher and is now rubbing with a fury verging on the painful against a spot somewhere just below my knee. I knock his foot away sharply and attempt to pull my legs round to the other side, but he's not a man who gives up easily, and soon the foot is back there, pushing against mine.
This is clearly one of the downsides of looking better than you've ever looked in your life before and, I have to confess, it was something I hadn't predicted. Not at any stage in the hour that Elody spent, working her magic on me earlier today, did I think, 'Better watch out – there'll be a randy pensioner at the party who'll take a real shine to you.'
Elody turned me from frumpy to fabulous by squeezing my wobbly bits (the bits that Rufus likes but that the skinny stylist can't stand) into 'shape wear' (these rather hideous, really tight, really big knickers in an unflattering pale flesh colour). She then draped and layered, pulled in, flared out and floated dresses over my newly squeezed-in form until I looked like a goddess of the sea.
'It's Cindy Crawford meets Jane Russell,' she squealed as a team of make-up artists appeared out of nowhere (I have a feeling she keeps them in that huge bag that she carries around with her). They painted gunk onto my face in quantities that would cover a wall in the average sized semi. My head weighed twice as much by the time they'd finished. Jewellery was added so that my ear lobes and neckline twinkled like stars in a midnight sky, and my beautifully polished toenails were slipped into the softest, most elegant and most searingly high shoes I've ever seen. I felt about nine feet tall when I stood up, and most unbalanced. 'These are not shoes to walk in,' said Elody with a straight face, when I complained that getting up and walking across the room without falling over would be a feat of quite monumental proportions.
The hairdressers then took over and my hair was coiffed and teased and sprayed and thickened until I looked like I had twice as much of it. It had never looked so glossy and shiny.
Now I'm sitting here and though there's no question that I've never looked more like the girlfriend of an international film star in my life before, on the inside I'm struggling. They're having debates about the cultural role of the media in modern Britain, and assessing the true impact of Shakespeare not just on the theatre but on mankind's very sense of himself (what does that mean?) and I'm feeling like a total idiot.
'It could be argued,' says Isabella boldly, 'that Shakespeare's contribution to the world of literature has had the impact of redefining our very understanding of ourselves as conscious beings.'
Yep, indeed it could, I think to myself, wishing that Sophie and Mandy were here. It's not that I'm stupid – I did really well at school – it's just that this sort of talk makes me want to run screaming from the room shouting, 'Help, help.' Would that be appropriate behaviour? I'm thinking probably not, so I smile and nod and think, Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Now which one was he?
'His plays are certainly the only ones ever written which don't date,' says Rufus, and I feel a rush of pride that he knows which one Shakespeare is. 'You feel that as an actor.'
Oh yeah, watch him go. My money's on Rufus.
'What about Oscar Wilde?' asks Jan James, a small, slim and rather mumsy-looking woman at the end of the table. She's married to Rock James, the huge rock star, but he's not here. He's on some world tour and, if the papers are right (and I happen to know now that they're not always right, so that's why I question it!), he's sleeping with half the girls in the world on
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