Monthly Archives: December 2011

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Well, here I am, Christmas morning, totally unable to sleep because apparently I’m six years old. I could roll over and keep trying, but frankly I can’t be arsed – I’ve always been an early riser on Christmas morning, so I figured I send some festive cheer out to you lot and then go wake up Lil Red so we can sneak downstairs and see if Santa’s been.

After the best train journey ever – complete with unexpected and entirely empty first class, free sandwiches and a slightly merry driver singing Christmas carols down the intercom – I arrived in the country and am so chilled right now I may never leave.

Seriously.

Anyway, I shall leave you to get on with your own jolly festivities, and say only this;

Today is the BEST day of the year! Make it a goodun.

Love RitziCx

Fabulous Parties and Irritating Exes

Yes yes yes, there has been a notable absence of Ritzi in the online world of late. Why? Because it’s freakin party season, that’s why. How we make it through this time of year I really have no idea. So far, in the past 22 days, I have managed to stumble my way through;

  • 4 press nights
  • 8 ‘business Christmas lunches’
  • 2 first previews
  • 6 theatre visits (not including press nights/previews…)
  • 4 ‘company’ parties (ie, cast/crew/celebs et al getting smashed post-show)
  • 1 show birthday party (messy night that one)
  • 2 fancy movie screenings
  • 22 hangovers

The problem with this time of year is that you’re so bloody busy celebrating ‘this time of year’ that when you twin that with actual work and plenty of 6am alarms, you reach the penultimate day of work before the West End closes down for Christmas in a sort of daze, surviving only on mince pies and corporate gift wine, looking like you’ve been run over by the very courier that dropped it off.

Thank fuck for dry shampoo.

One particular party night, I relied on dry shampoo rather a lot. See I’d already managed to make it through two Christmas dinners, a first preview and a press night that week. Throw in a VERY tense conference call and the last thing you want to be doing is dragging yourself to a party where you know your ex is going to be in attendance, on the day that he’s just cancelled the end of year dinner plans that you hadn’t particularly wanted to attend in the first place (curse my stupid girlish tendency to never let go of the bastard).

But I am a professional. So of course I went. And it was totally worth it, because I got to do two very notable things.

The first, was save some poor gullible girl from the clutches of the ex’s charms. Alright, so I didn’t intend it to go that way, but when I spotted him at the party chatting up some starry eyes front of house girl, I made damn sure to put my fabulous self into his line of vision and sharpish. Then he did that thing.

“Hey! Ritzi! This is… oh, I’m so sorry, I can’t remember your name…”

Poor girl. I know that move. Fuck knows why it works but of course she goes all giggly – of course the big West End star doesn’t know her name, she’s only a lowly front of house girl after all! I rolled my eyes and launched into a conversation, and pretty soon the pretty girl got whisked away by someone else.

I promise you sweetheart, you’ll thank me in the morning.

Then, a couple of hours later, slightly sloshed, I get a tap on the shoulder while I’m chatting to a very attractive chap who’s apparently in Downton Abbey (I should really watch that sometime) and turn around to see the ex, wanting to include me in some kind of drunken hilarity.

Sorry silly boy… can you not see I’m talking to this dishy star of a popular period drama? Honestly.

Another hour later, I swanned out of there, sending a quick ‘g’night’ his way but absolutely not seeking any kind of drunken physical contact. I awoke (grudgingly) the next morning, feeling all empowered, until around lunchtime, when my blackberry buzzed with a text.

‘Hey babe! Got in at 5am in the end – crazy night! When can I see you in 2012 then?’

I lasted approximately 4 seconds before texting back.

Sucker.

RitziCx

Booze Makes You More Fun… Discuss.

I had my blog birthday the other day. I completely missed that bad boy. Basically I have come to the conclusion that the real reason I started a blog in December 2009 was not heartache but sheer loneliness. It’s almost Christmas and;

•Twinkle’s rehearsing (and opening tomorrow actually… be prepared for Wednesday hangover)
•Irish is in Ireland (doing a play)
•Blondie is off filming some wartime epic
•Flutey is doing Panto
•Maxie is having a baby
•Aussie is picking out puppies back in Australia
•DC is back in the States
•SGF is shagging movie stars in LA
•Eton Boy is slowly morphing into a French duke across the channel

Ergo – Ritzi is one lonely bitch in December.

Good job it’s party season then!

Swooping in to save me from a world of corporate gifts and vacuous drinks events was the Maestro. As per last year, he’d gotten in their first, reserving the last Saturday before Christmas as his very own Chiswick Christmas was back in October. Last year, he provided us with such quality tidbits as;

‘I was going to get a chef in, but they wouldn’t let me’

And, upon smashing a glass;

‘Nobody move! Where the fuck does the cleaner keep the dustpan and brush?!’

Well this year was just as outrageously brilliant. New flatmates, more RSVP’s and one other addition…

‘Ritzi, this is Pierre. Well, he’s not really Pierre, he’s Mark, but I didn’t think that sounded ‘chef’ enough…’

Oh yes, this year, the Maestro got a gourmet chef in to cook his Christmas dinner. Dear lord was it good.

At the table, I found myself wedged between an actress and a phone salesman, both of whom I’d apparently met at Maestro’s birthday dinner earlier this year.

Right. If you say so… (cue Ritzi’s inability tom remember a face unless she’s seen it at least ten times).

‘You’re much more fun tonight,’ the phone salesman announced, very unflatteringly, as we awaited the main course.

‘Am I? Oh thanks,’ at this point I’m a tad bored talking about the one show I work on that they’ve actually heard of, and considering accidentally throwing my wine in this dudes face to break the monotony.

‘Yeah, I don’t know what it is, you’re more… I don’t know… Chilled out.’

‘Right,’ maybe last time I met this guy (if indeed I really did) he carried on a conversation like this. I’m sure that would be enough to wind me up.

Annoyingly, the guy didn’t let it go, and then the actress joined in.

‘I can’t believe it’s almost been a year since Maestro’s birthday dinner!’ She said, after agreeing that I was apparently something of an ice queen at our last meeting.

Wait… almost a year?

‘Maestro, when’s your birthday darling?’ I asked.

’16th of January love!’ He shouted back. Quite loud actually, considering he was but three places down. I think he’d had rather a lot of the vodka cranberry sauce.

Ah… that would explain things. Of course I was a bitch last time the phones4u man and the actress met me. I was stone cold sober in the middle of a January detox.

It appears everything’s more fun with a bit of alcohol (okay, a lot of alcohol) involved. Dinner with strangers, one night stands, late nights in the office… to name but a few.

Are we really at that point when we can’t be interesting without being sloshed? I think it’s a sad but true fact that maybe we are. Remember the Cosmo blogger party with the fake booze? So not fun. The pizza and wine date followed by pub soon after? INFINITELY more amusing.

Can we save sobriety? Or should we just give up now? This seems like the sort of question it’s a little unfair to ponder in December, with more than a hundred potential corporate units lined up in my diary this week.

Are you fun, sober? Think about it. Apparently I’m not.

Well, not when faced with a dinner date with a phone salesman anyway…

RitziCx

Bitch – Get Your Own!

You know that person from high school? (Or college, or uni, or drama school, or brownies) The one who wasn’t exactly openly nasty to you, but for some reason they managed to make your life difficult, and the day you left all your friends for pastures new, the fact that you would never see so-and-so ever again made it just a little more bearable.

Imagine if that bitch showed up in your world again, in your place of work, charming the socks off your superiors and acting (on the surface) as though the two of you have always been bosom companions, all the while betraying a secret rivalry and deep rooted resentment behind the eyes.

This is exactly what has just happened to a friend of mine.

The problem with this situation is if you make a fuss, or acknowledge the nostalgic hatred you know is there, then you are the one being unreasonable. It doesn’t matter that this person spent three years giving you a complex and knocking your confidence, or that you managed to get over it and build a life and a career for yourself only for them to show up and turn you into an uncertain fifteen year old again. All that the bosses would see is a long serving colleague being a bitch to the newbie.

So instead, you suck it up and carry on, and make peace with the fact that you will never again look forward to going to work, just like you never looked forward to going to high school, and all the while you’re thinking in the back of your mind; ‘bitch – this is my life. I’ve worked hard for it. Couldn’t you have gotten your own instead of stealing mine?’

It’s a conundrum. What would YOU do? I asked this question to my tweeps this morning and there was a resounding reply of ‘slap the cow in the face’ but I think this is less sound advice and more a reflection of what my followers are like before their morning coffee…

RitziCx