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This fortnight saw me finally go see the SEX AND THE CITY 2 movie with all my girl friends. We had purposely avoided it until one of us returned from L.A so we could all view it altogether as we had always done so. So one sunny lunchtime we booked ourselves into the marble arch Odeon and had a private screening as not one other person was there. We were all dressed as our favourite SATC2 character complete with cute frocks, corsages and vertiginous heels and made a day of it at lunch knocking back pretty cocktail’s, talking about shoes and discussing men!
Next Adidas bigwig Paola Lucktung sent me a VIP box to go see George Benson. Yes, you heard correctly. Often I get sent a pair of show tickets from my record industry pals but Paola likes to do things big. So I was sent the whole Adidas corporate box and so I rolled down to the 02 Arena with some friends and we watched a living legend sing classic old skool hit after hit including ‘’nature boy’’ and ‘’never give up on a good thing’’. The Adidas box was a great barometer of how well our UK acts have done on the major platform internationally as huge photo shot pictures of Estelle alongside David Beckham adorned the walls. I felt really proud of the gigantic leaps and bounds young British talent has made recently. The George Benson audience meanwhile were expectedly a little older than my usual crowd and the volume, amusingly seemed a lot quieter which made me smile and imagine my mums voice saying ‘’turn that volume down’’. George had a tight little band that at a couple of moments seemed he was threatened by them running away without him so he reined them in again. The set was very old skool disco- like and the vibe was lovely-like a christening/wedding atmosphere.
Next I did my part for the community when I helped organise the first ever Paddington Festival for the west London area. I’m a west London born and bred gal and so when I was approached to help put together the line up and event for this year I jumped at the chance. I’ve learnt in life that its just as important to do things that aren’t always part of your daily remit and to give back and the more you give the more you receive. So on Saturday morning as the weather decided to give us a heatwave I called my mates KAT (MTV/CHOICEFM) and music artists Bashy and Akala to jump onstage at the junction of Harrow Road and Elgin Avenue where a stage had been set up. Alongside them were local dance group Hypnotik and local MC Cortex. Kat had the crowd rolling and entertained all day whilst the acts did their thing. Acts like Bashy and Akala are truly inspiring to the young, local audience. Their intelligence, lyrical dexterity and not even trying to be fly natural swag oozes out in bundles. Even the older crowd in the audience sat up and paid attention to them. Young kids had their faces painted and a lot of Caribbean and African food was going around. At one point the festival bigwigs wanted to pronounce the event officially launched by having K at cut a plethora of helium balloons and have them fly into the sky. The joke was that the balloons were tied to the roof of the stage and Kat had to climb up there to cut them off! Health and safety!
Puffy came to Europe again last week to promote his music and new group Diddy – Dirty Money, who released their new single Hello Good Morning last Monday. Now, having worked on numerous occasions with the bad boy for life I can tell you that he has a massive machine around him that ensures as part of their job that he causes pandemonium wherever he goes. Calls will be made to arrange model types and pretty chic’s prepared to wear nearly nothing to flank him as paparazzi both real and ‘’prepared’’ flash those bulbs. His bling will be ostentatious, his sunglasses will not be prized from his head and assistants will scurry around him whispering and hyperventilating to ensure the correct amount of gravitas is surrounding him-(nicely mixed with an erroneous amount of Sean John fragrance and perfectly moisturised lip balmed lips). Did I ever tell you a few years we held up a shoot so puff could summons his stylist to grab Vaseline for his lips and insisted on a mirror to show every corner of his mouth was not dry before continueing!. It used to make me laugh when I first noted the machine of fame at work but now it’s a given that I enjoy observing.
Puff arrived in the morning on Eurostar from Paris and as expected caused chaos as he descended on London’s St Pancreas station a pair of statuesque ladies either side of the Diddy. He was later whisked off to the BBC to film Jonathan Ross where even more narrow corridors were crushed up with men in black in sharp suits-you know how Diddy does!. He then topped off his London visit by partying the night away at London’s Whiskey Mist nightclub and was joined by Drake, M.I.A and Kelly Rowland as well as the usual wanabees hoping to get lucky for the night. The music stars were all clearly having a blast as they ordered over £20,000 worth of the infamous Gold bottles of Armand de Brignac Champagne-the current top champers of choice having kicked Dom P and Cristal to the kerb. Of course with all the half naked chics, sparkling bottles and DJs Manny Norte and DJ Nikki on the decks it wasn’t long before Diddy started dancing on the table and showing London clubbers what partying is all about! I gotta hand it to him, his parties are always on another level from his infamous white parties, his crazier than crazy MTV AWARDS parties and his parties on private jets- Sean Combs is a party guru!.
I’ll have to keep those memories at the forefront of my mind as its world cup time! Now I need to find friends for the next month as the football has taken over my crib and guys attention. Maybe I will spend all the extra time in the gym…..or a meet a man in there that doesn’t like the footie LOL!