Poignant Frontispiece

Madeleine was in my robe, all resplendent and holiday spirit, where insouciance is worn like her new Chanel perfume and she is so casual. It is a casual work Friday, but all the time. I probably should have bought her a plush robe for Christmas and then we could have doubled up and lived like we were at a resort even when just relaxing at home after a hard days work or something. Already the robe has at least one coffee stain on it, which is when the hard face of coffee stains starts to impinge on idyllic holiday dreams you know that it is "not" another day in paradise, even though Sade is seemingly playing all the time.1



Seriously, how elegant is Sade? So unbelievably elegant.

So I opened up the "New York trilogy" which is about the seventh book I have read on holiday because its like a curse when you read all the time, waking up and reading and lying in the spa and reading and lying in the sun, all the time reading. Opened up the book and there was such a poignant frontispiece, it read in casual handwriting:

Christmas 1990
Dear Stuart
Of course you realise you don't deserve this...
Lisa xxx
(The tantalising predicament of Lisa will soon only be fiction)

So many unanswered questions in this poignant frontispiece, obviously the two figures remain vague and obscured by their anonymity and reasonably good taste, hope Lisa was writing this frontispiece while relaxing in a tasteful early nineties living room. On a striped sofa in a faux tuscan living room. But what does this frontispiece mean, is this a break up gift? When Lisa refers to "this" is she actually talking about herself. And ultimately at a uk £3.99 r.r.p it wasn't exactly "breaking the bank." How coy is this Lisa? How perfect a couple, Stuart with his love of Paul Auster who "rubs stories together like pebbles" Independent , Lisa with her acid sharpness, can anyone deserve her? There are no easy answers to these questions.

1. Not trying to suggest that Sade wrote Phil Collins relatively moving song "Another Day In Paradise", relatively moving as in - not really shedding a tear over it but it "makes you think" about issues around homelessness or maybe issues around why Phil Collins needs to sing songs about Homelessness although it's probably better to be a preternaturally balding and increasingly middle aged multi millionaire selling more music than anyone else in the eighties, aside from Michael Jackson, with at least something of a social conscience. Although, a serious moment of self reflection occurred in this interview I read with Collins, where he regretted everything - sitting in his Geneva lakehouse, deafened and vaguely resembling a completely bald King Lear. Phil Collins is the King Lear of our parents generation. To wit, I was just trying to suggest that Sade is the archetype of relaxing-while-on-holiday music.