Please, God, let him telephone me now. Dear God, let him call me now. I won’t ask anything else of You, truly I won’t. It isn’t very much to ask. It would be so little to You, God, such a little, little thing. Only let him telephone now. Please, God. Please, please, please.’
I lost count of the number of times I thought of Dorothy Parker’s short story, The Telephone Call, about the agony of waiting for a call, when I was part of the dating scene. We keep hearing how tough it is out there now but really it’s not any worse than it used to be.
While life on dating apps brings its own complications, communication back then was reliant on landlines, which meant being physically near a phone. Waiting for a call could be so agonising before we all had mobiles.
In my 20s, I moved into a flat which didn’t have a phone for a few months, so my flatmate and I paid for an answering service. This involved hanging around the local phone box, waiting until it was free, then dialling into the service and hoping to hear the message you were yearning for.
Of course it was impossible to know when such messages might arrive, if they were sent at all, so more often than not I’d leave the telephone box with nothing and returned home for a night of baked beans alone.
It’s probably true that the addictive scrolling of dating apps causes all kinds of nightmares but they do allow people to meet someone who might never have known of each other’s existence.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the possibilities were largely confined to work or friends of friends. At least on apps such as Hinge there is a seemingly endless choice.
Waiting for a call could be so agonising before we all had mobiles (stock image)
It’s probably true that the addictive scrolling of dating apps causes all kinds of nightmares but they do allow people to meet someone who might never have known of each other’s existence (stock image)
In the 1970s and 1980s, the possibilities were largely confined to work or friends of friends. At least on apps such as Hinge there is a seemingly endless choice (stock image)
Admittedly, once you’ve met someone, the horrible moment of being dumped is just as grim now as it was then. And it’s true that we didn’t have the torture of seeing their Instagram post from Amsterdam (it always seems to be Amsterdam!) with someone new.
But in the old days, they would have simply vanished. Ghosting is the excellent modern word but having a good term for it doesn’t make being heartbroken by some rotter who just disappears any the less painful. Not now, not then.
Oh Bridget, you’re now sad and needy
This leads me on to the new Bridget Jones movie. Of course it does. All roads lead to our Bridge with the new release of Mad About The Boy – from the resurgence of big pants (yes, they’re back in fashion) to the ‘younger man older woman’ debate.
I was all prepared to write how much I loved this Bridget. She was, after all, my alter ego in her Chardonnay-drinking, singleton days, waging war against the ghastly smug marrieds.
I was geared up to say how well she has aged. To applaud creator Helen Fielding’s message that women shouldn’t be portrayed as having lost their sexual allure as the years pass. Heavens, I even booked tickets two weeks in advance, so eager were I and two female friends to snuggle down with Bridge for a few much anticipated hours.
I was all prepared to write how much I loved this Bridget. She was, after all, my alter ego in her Chardonnay-drinking, singleton days, waging war against the ghastly smug marrieds
I loved Bridget’s liaison with 29-year-old Roxster, played by Leo Woodall
But she didn’t do it for me this time. The whole story just seemed a bit soppy.
Naturally, I loved Bridget’s liaison with 29-year-old Roxster, played by Leo Woodall, the now sexually objectified love object of middle-aged women, and I was a bit sad about the ghost (a human one) of Colin Firth hovering around looking tragic.
But whereas the younger Bridget, in her search for love was so funny, this older version, is too miserable.
Rather than giving us an empowering version of an older women’s sexual appeal, she just seems desperately sad and needy.
By trying to give us an upbeat message about women and age, the ending is simply too predictable. And surely, by now, she would have ditched those short floral dresses.
Don’t forget human side of Ukraine war
It’s now almost three years since Andrii and Violetta, a young Ukrainian couple, came to live with us to escape Putin’s invasion.
They have managed extraordinarily well in this strange land where they knew no one and Andrii spoke no English. Both found work only weeks after they arrived, they’ve married and are now attempting to buy a flat.
It’s now almost three years since Andrii and Violetta, a young Ukrainian couple, came to live with us to escape Putin’s (pictured) invasion
As US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth (pictured) chucks a grenade into Ukraine’s hopes of joining Nato, and Trump is planning to help Putin retain control of annexed territory, it’s easy to forget the countless individual human stories in this war
It would be an optimistic story were it not for the fact that, though settled here, they are cut off from their homeland and family.
As US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth chucks a grenade into Ukraine’s hopes of joining Nato, and Trump is planning to help Putin retain control of annexed territory, it’s easy to forget the countless individual human stories in this war.
Andrii and Violetta may be thriving, but they’re having to listen to Trump and Putin discuss their country being sliced up like a Christmas cake, while London, even with all its opportunities, will never really feel like home.
My builders’ radio is driving me ga-ga
We have builders in the house and RMF, the Polish radio station of their choice, blasts out all day.
This is terribly noisy and somehow particularly intrusive as I can’t understand what is being said.
But it seems too rude to ask them to turn down the volume when they have crossed London at dawn in the freezing cold to repair our house where we greet them still in our warm dressing gowns. It’s a First World etiquette issue.
All fur coat and no real appreciation
A friend turned up for dinner the other night in a magnificent black fur coat that was once her grandmother’s.
Where once we would have gasped with admiration at her full-on Gina Lollobrigida style, we, the assembled, felt we had to have a tedious discussion of what kind of fur it was – and where it rated on the scale of evil. Sable? Mink? A fox collar?
I don’t think any of us were especially exercised by animal rights, but even so, inculcated with contemporary morals, we weren’t able to just admire someone wrapped in fur without dealing them the guilt card.
