DIARY
RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN Achange in my domestic circum- stances has put me in a delicate position. Last month I moved to a first-floor flat in Clapham — and very nice it will be too when £10,000 falls from the heavens with which I can civilise it. My worry is that such a sum is probably within reach, inasmuch as my drawing-room window looks straight into the bedroom of none other than Paula Yates, the houri of Hello!, daughter of that creepy man on Stars on Sunday who played the organ, estranged wife of Bob Geldof, inamorata of rock star has-been Michael Hutchence etc. Tabloid paparazzi have been knocking at my door and although I have so far resisted all offers I could indeed tell them a lot.
This is what I see. Miss Yates's three beautiful little daughters, adorably prim in their sensible navy-blue uniforms, look as though they might have walked straight out of the Madeleine books. Their nanny is plainly a jolly good thing, solid and depend- able: she is holding the whole show togeth- er at this difficult time. Bob comes around occasionally; he wore a rather swish sheep- skin coat last Wednesday and took the girls to school. Michael, on the other hand, looks a bit of a Charlie. One freezing morn- ing about two weeks ago he pranced out into the road barefoot and started making a home video; I did not care for his ridicu- lous, bright yellow, baggy trews. Paula who is tiny but rather magnificent in her crazy, Vivienne Westwoody way — has hung some new, white, spotted curtains in her bedroom this week. Other windows are still covered with blankets, and the hideous anti-peeper fence which surrounds the house is the subject of much complaint in this highly respectable road. I could tell you more about the comings and goings, about the Labrador, about the minicab drivers, about a bald man eating a sandwich.
So there I sit like James Stewart in Rear Window, a voyeur in spite of myself, with my unique perspective on the situation and in desperate need of a few bob for some double glazing and a bathroom suite (Paula's finances, I gather, are similarly overstretched). How much is such informa- tion worth, I wonder, as I lie awake fret- ting? And would I be transgressing all codes of neighbourliness, let alone selling my soul, by betraying it?
Aletter published in this magazine last week from Mr A.N. Wilson calls for me to be dismissed from my position as opera critic on the grounds of my failure to share his exalted view of a production of Han- del's Semele. Well, good old A.N. — a Booker Prize judge this year — is a wise bird, and I am happy to defer to his far- reaching, in-depth, on-line and out-of-sight knowledge and experience of dramma per musica. Who am Ito differ? The good news is that I may well be able to oblige him in his desire to see the back of me, as I am currently suffering from a debilitating ner- vous condition which could end up disqual- ifying me permanently from entering any place of theatrical entertainment. These are the symptoms. I am enduring a not very good performance of, say, Rigoletto. A familiar aria — 'Caro nome', perhaps — is being delivered with 0-level competence. My watch tells me that there are still two hours to go. Suddenly, I start sweating. The questions pile in nightmarishly. What is this nonsense? What am I doing here, sitting in darkness and discomfort, watching this unattractive, over-dressed person making irrational noises in front of an arrangement of paint, canvas and cardboard? The whole clumsy, fragile apparatus on which the illu- sion of opera is based seems to totter, and I can no longer suspend my disbelief. Out- side, people are starving, homeless, drug- addicted and evil. What, exactly, is the point of this parade? The panic passes, but I don't have a confident answer. As a mem- orable passage in War and Peace suggests, Tolstoy was a fellow sufferer from this syn- drome. I only hope that A.N. Wilson, author of a fine biography of that great man, will one day understand how terribly painful and difficult it is being an opera critic.
What I most resent about my expen- sive private education is the way that the daily torture of competitive sport turned me against all physical exercise. For 20 years, I could scarcely be bothered to peel a grape, but lately I have discovered a jumpy and jerky side of myself, I swim almost every day, ski badly, ride a bicycle, run up escalators and walk the hills and dales. Now I even have a personal trainer, the wonderful Charles Aniya, who is initiating me into the arts of weightlifting, boxing and muscle-toning. It astonishes me, but I quite enjoy the whole business and will bore for England about the improvements in my physique. Better this than Handel's Semele, I mutter, as I pump iron on the pec deck.
Incipient signs of middle age obsess me. One London rake notoriously claims to have felt the pinch when he looked down at a woman he was making love to and remembered being in precisely the same position vis-a-vis her mother. Nothing so thrilling has happened to me. Instead, as my hair thins and my face creases, I find myself inexorably turning into an old fart. It's like a disease: I can't help myself. Out- rage fills me when an article in the Observer's literary pages fails to distinguish between 'principle' and 'principal'. Juvenile delinquents wantonly drop their sweetie- papers on the pavement and I hand their litter back, enjoining them to 'Keep Britain Tidy'. I quiz my poor ten-year-old godson as to his knowledge of the classics and am appalled that he doesn't seem to know his Scylla from his Charybdis. Worst of all, however, is my manic impatience. I cannot wait two minutes for public transport with- out stomping about in a fury, and yesterday I found myself initiating an unpleasant slanging match with a woman faffing about in front of me in the post office. The psy- chological subtext of my permanent hurry is pathetically obvious — what I'm actually saying is: I'm over 40 and worried that I might die any minute. So hurry along there please; there's no time to lose.
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