« Ascot, 2002 | Main | About this site »
August 11, 2002
Living with Liv, but briefly
Yeehaw! I counted coup on another celebrity. Vicki and I had a drink with Liv Tyler this evening. It was our fourth anniversary and we celebrated by going for an outrageously expensive meal at The Ivy.
We drank gin and champagne and brandy and ate sashimi and steak tartar and Lobster and Chips and Eggs Benedict and Sticky Toffee Pudding and frozen berries. Yum! The food was good, perhaps even excellent, but paled in comparison to Axis which has been my other big night out in London. The service was almost perfect except for the guy that came around to kick us out of our table.
"Excuse me," he said. "We'd like to free up this table."
"Fine," I said, "we've actually been waiting for someone to bring the cheque."
I mean, what the fuck? Has the dude got no style. He could have almost certainly accomplished the same thing by asking us if we'd like the bill now. And they say North Americans lack subtlety. Chump!
Actually, even that little burble did nothing to diminish my enjoyment of the evening. I just noted it in a kind of academic way: things not to do if I ever become a waiter in a classy restaurant.
I believe there were several famous celebrity types in The Ivy that night but I didn't recognise any of them. The guy sitting next to us did talk loudly (well, loudly enough for us to overhear, anyway) about how his next project was supposed to be a film with Rupert Everett, so he must have been someone at least mildly successful in the movie biz.
It's got a nice ambiance inside as well. The windows are all opaque stained glass which is nice for those of us like myself, thrust into the public eye despite our shyness. And it has plenty of dark wood and cloth tablecloths and utensils made of metal instead of plastic. There is a pleasant buzz of conversation and I honestly can't remember if there was any music. Weird.
But back to the lovely Liv...
After being evicted from our table we sauntered towards the bus stop and happened to pass a swish looking bar. It had been such a lovely evening we decided to prolong it with a final drink and so went in. We sat at a table near the window, Vicki facing the window and myself facing in towards the bar. It was almost empty. There were just five others in a party leaning on the bar itself.
Being as it was our anniversary, we were being rather lovey-dovey and staring into each others eyes and having intense conversations and all that romantic stuff. After a while, Vicki went off to the loo and I stared idly at the group at the bar. There were two youngish blokes that looked relaxed and vaguely, scruffily fashionable talking to a middle-aged man in a rumpled suit who was acting very excited. There was a blonde woman sitting at the bar facing me and talking to a tall, thin, dark-haired woman.
I looked at the two dudes and wondered if they might be someone famous. They looked vaguely rockstar-in-civies-like. The blonde woman stood up and I realised that she was extremely pregnant and was wearing a cool horizontally striped red and white skirt that accented how huge she was. So I looked at her and thought, "she's pretty cool, too".
Then the dark-haired woman took a camera out of her bag and announced she had to take pictures of everyone. What went through my head was, "Oh, she's an American". Then, "Hey, she sounds just like Liv Tyler". She kind of pivoted around searching for a spot to take the picture from and I realised it was, in fact, Liv Tyler.
While we didn't actually converse, I feel we did become best mates by a kind of osmosis. After all there was really just Vicki and I and Liv and her buddies in the bar. The proximity created a bond which I doubt will ever fade.
I am certain just before she left she was on the verge of asking if I would mind taking a picture of her and her friends. I would have done so. It's only polite after all. And I may have been so bold as to ask her to take a photo of myself and the lovely Miss V. in return, pointing out that it was our fourth anniversary.
"How delightful," she might have said. "Royston and I are engaged ourselves, although we haven't quite decided when the wedding will be."
"Oh, sorry, this is my fiancee, Royston Langdon." she may have added indicating a young long-haired chap in jeans and a tweed coat.
"Nice to meet you," I may have said and shook his hand. "What do you for a living? How did you two meet?"
"Rock star. Lead vocals and bass. Spacehog," he might have said.
"Cool. This is my charming spouse, Vicki. She's just finishing her PhD in Gender Studies and Theatre Studies. My name is Chris. I'm actually an alien from the planet Bzorg where I used to run a small light-sabre factory. I'm now a full-time geek."
Liv would have probably introduced us to the other couple, the male half of which was probably also in Spacehog and the female was probably a circus acrobat on maternity leave, although she occasionally pops in to help out but only does the bit where she gets spun around by her hair high above the crowd. She's far too pregnant for anything else. The middle-aged man would introduce himself as the pregnant acrobat's uncle.
After taking our picture, Liv would suggest we pop up to her room so she could download the pictures and mail them to us. And we'd probably make cocktails with the blender she might take with her when she travels. And we'd play games, perhaps strip-spoons (which I have found memories of playing when a teenager). Oh how we might have laughed...
But actually all that happened was I just stared at her like a crazed lunatic until Vicki returned from the loo and they left soon afterwards, no doubt going to a late dinner without us at the Ivy.
Posted by YandaMan at August 11, 2002 11:55 PM
Category:
Journal
Comments
So, then what happened?
Posted by: Wendy at August 15, 2002 1:03 AM
Ok. Added a bit more to this entry to provide clarification.
Posted by: YandaMan at August 15, 2002 2:31 PM