Stay alive.  Never give up.

     

 

      Lady Nancy Astor, by Sargent.  She had a little Daniel Day-Lewis inside her.

 

Life has so many lessons, it's hard to know some days which one to pick, isn't it?  Like being in the lunch line of the school cafeteria and hesitating over the Ambrosia salad or the jello fruit cup.  Which says more about your mood, your inner being, your true self, you wonder, as that pushy cheerleader's tray starts bumping yours.

 

It's times like this, Dear Reader, I think back on how Daniel Day-Lewis always had a line for the movie trailer that he'd shout out in that inimitable hoarse and dramatic delivery of his.  For example, when he's an Indian ("Last of the Mohicans") and he's being hauled off but he cries out to the comely female captive, "Sty Aloive!  I will Foind Yoo!  No Mattah how Long it Tikes!  No Mattah How Fah!" Or the one where he's Irish and the British don't believe he hasn't been blowing them up and he has to go to prison for ages and ages, "I Will Foight On!  I will Nivah Give Up!  In the Noime of the Fathaah!  In the Noime of Trooth!"  He probably shouted something in that one when he played the gimpy crippled guy with the girl's name too.

 

You see, the Astors did that.  Just look at Brooke.  And Nancy?  Divorced a bad choice back in the days when you were usually stuck with him forever, went off to England, married Waldorf and ended up in a fabulous English Country house and in the British government.  Talk about staying alive.  Swing those paint cans girl!

An appealling young man said to me yesterday, "I don't get your blog."  He did not mean his subscription had lapsed. "I like, tried," he continued, "but it was like, you know, about Virginia Woolf?"  He has this endearing way of making everything a question.  I chuckled as if to say, ah yes, the Virigina Woolf fiasco.  Quel desastre.
"But who," he began to ask, and I knew before he said the words what the question would be --
 
"Who's Didier?"

Oh Yes, Gentle Reader, if Didier did not exist, I would have to invent him, n'est-ce-pas?  How can Virginia Woolf hold up against such competition? Who cares about art and literature when there's physical perfection right here, right now, on the cover of a magazine...
 
"Just somebody," I answered as evasively as I could, slipping a certain well-thumbed periodical from his hands in what I hoped was a gesture of bored disinterest.

Easily distracted, my young friend looked around us.  "Do you like, read all these books?" he asked, no doubt trying to grasp the very concept of such an undertaking, let alone the desirability of attempting it.  I have, as they say, a few books.
"Do you go to the gym a lot?" I asked in return and with the same note of skepticism in my voice.  It worked.
"Dude, I do like a thousand crunches every morning," he replied, his demeanor brightening.  He pulled up his t-shirt to display the physical evidence.  
 
Never give up, never die, is my new motto.  Oh of course, I allow myself the occasional distraction, but make no mistake: 

No matter how long it takes, no matter how far -- Didier, wherever you've gone, whatever you may be up to?  I will find you.

PS: Darlings, Get Mummy's Purse has posted a promotional trailer for Marc Almond's new album, and I urge you to brighten up your day -- his cover of Petula Clark will pull you in.  Justin says it's enough to make you book a flight to Manchester.