Happy, happy days here beneath the dusty rafters — twirly knob-twiddling last night at the Triv Media Control Console yielded much longed-for news. That old cad and bounder, Rakey — Dickie Roxburgh at his impish best — is bed-hopping his way back into town.
Here he is deflowering a Wide Brown Land television sweetheart / girl next door / butter wouldn’t melt type
Honestly, for my lira, the first season of this ABC effort was among the best progs ever to shimmy their way across our Wide Brown Land TV screens.
If you’ve not met our beloved Cleaver Greene, here’s the wrap: he’s a barrister d’un certain âge (i.e., old enough to know better) who lives in a divey flat in Kings Cross, and cavorts with ladies of the night, friends’ wives and occasionally clients, but all with a smile and a heart that’s sufficiently well positioned to ensure he comes off as the good guy.
To his 15-year-old son, he’s the living embodiment of the other day’s George Bernard Shaw quote that it’s better to be a horrible warning to your kids than a good example. (Must consult the Deity Google at some stage on how that worked out for GBS and his Junior Cost Centres.)
“Wasn’t me didn’t do it can’t prove a thing”
And you know how the world really is nowt but a spooky exercise in prescience and serendipity? Well, on Saturday night La was driving locally and stopped at a pedestrian crossing to let a woman traverssimo. And guess who it was?!?
“You’re beautiful, but you might benefit from some ear candling..”
Missy! Or, rather, the actress who played Rake’s prostitutional love interest — you know, the damaged hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold type.
So it’s all meant to be. Can’t wait to see Toni Collette let loose on Cleaver in season 2. Don’t miss out come 6 September.
Enough froth. Onto serious matters: raincoats.
Boden’s latest offerings are lovely. Get in fast as these puppies go like the clappers. Whenever I wear mine to collect the female JCC from school people mow me down with inquiries as to its provenance. Despite that, things are pretty relaxed at our school gates on the fashion front, thank the gods. Unlike elsewhere in the world:
Yep, a feature on a UK website called “School Runway”* that solicits information from school mums on who they’re wearing and who their style icons are. La is in several states of disbelief: there is a corner of a foreign land where women dress this well for drop off? Some women are actually willing to throw some posey shapes outside the school gates? Said women are happy to namecheck the elements of their ensemble: Dries van Noten, YSL, Chloe, Mulberry etc? They wear these labels to school?
Everyone knows Dries should only ever be worn to the GP.
It’s this quote from one of these women that worries La, though:
“When my eldest daughter started school, I felt scruffy compared with other mums in designer clothes and bought myself a few new outfits. I felt I had to up my game. Now she’s in year three, I think I’ve chilled out.”
La Triv is all about making an effort and feeling good about Laself. For me, this has meant ditching the Havaianas, slopping on some slap, buying less but buying better and washing La locks more than once a week.
We often say women are hard on each other, but now I’m over 40 35, I’ve come to believe no-one’s harder on you than you, or me than me. (Suspect web features like School Runway don’t help.) Time to cut ourselves some slack.
After all, no-one’s more rumpled, scruffy and down-on-his-game than Rakey, nor more lovable. That said, he’s a bloke and the world cuts them a hell of a lot more slack.
*Thanks to our woman-on-the-ground in those Great United Kingdoms, Miss A
La Trivialista 