We all know about the rising cost of living, with official figures last month revealing that consumer prices inflation (CPI) had leapt to 3.5%. But there is another CPI that seems to be shooting up much faster – concert price inflation.
Many long-time gig and festival-goers are paying significantly more than they were just a few years ago to see the same act, or attend the same event – and that's even before the myriad fees and charges are added on.
Perhaps the most extreme example of gig ticket inflation is the cost of seeing Lady Gaga strutting her eccentric stuff. The triple Brit Award winner has just finished a string of UK arena shows, with tickets priced at between £27.50 and £35.
However, tickets for the extra dates in London, Manchester and Birmingham in May and June, which went on sale this week, carry a £50 to £75 price tag. That is despite the fact it is the same tour, visiting the same venues, just three months later. The star's debut album is called The Fame, which might prompt some fans to ruefully recall that famous line in the eponymous 1980s TV series: "Fame costs. And right here's where you start paying …"
But it's not only Lady Gaga. Tickets went on sale this week for the Latitude Festival in Suffolk – a highlight of many a Guardian reader's calendar, which will this year be headlined by Florence and the Machine, Belle and Sebastian, and Vampire Weekend. This is the fifth Latitude, taking place on 15-18 July, and weekend tickets have risen to £155, with day tickets rising to £65.
That compares with the £95 and £40 respectively that punters attending the first Latitude in 2006 paid – quite a hike in the space of four years.
However, while some fans on the festival's forums were complaining, others seemed relatively relieved the cost had "only" risen by £5 since last year (weekend tickets were £150 in 2009, while day tickets were £60). Of course, the granddaddy of music festivals is Glastonbury, which, this year, takes place on 23-27 June and will see U2 make their debut appearance at the Somerset institution.
Tickets were quick to sell out, despite costing £185 each (plus £5 per ticket booking fee, and £4.95 postage and packing) – £10 more than last year, and £30 up on 2008.
In fact, Glasto tickets have more than doubled in price over the past decade; they cost £87 in 2000, when David Bowie was among the acts delivering storming sets. Turn the clock back 20 years to 1990 and you would have handed over £38 to see bands such as the Cure and Happy Mondays.
There are plenty of examples of what some would say are simply crazy prices:
• Aerosmith at the 02 Arena, London, on 15 June – £106 from Ticketmaster (£95 + £11 fees)
• Bon Jovi at the 02 Arena in June – £51.25 to £215 from Ticketmaster (face values £45-£200)
• Paul McCartney "Platinum Package" tickets for Hard Rock Calling in London's Hyde Park on 27 June – £938.83 (yes, that's not a misprint). Includes a champagne reception at Abbey Road Studios, three-course lunch, free bar ("excludes champagne"), VIP seating and other perks.
Standard McCartney tickets are available at £62.50 plus fees. When Bruce Springsteen headlined Hard Rock Calling last year, standard tickets cost a lot less – £45 plus fees. Some might wonder whether the price differential has anything to do with Springsteen tickets selling out in a matter of hours, and many then turning up for sale at much higher prices on resale sites such as Seatwave.
So it is perhaps no surprise to discover that these price rises are officially running ahead of inflation. The Office for National Statistics told Guardian Money that, while consumer prices as a whole were up 3.5% in the year to January, "cultural services", which includes live music, cinema and theatre tickets, were up 5.6%.
For those who still want their festival fix, but can't afford the high prices, the answer is probably to turn to one of the scores of smaller events popping up all over the country. According to website efestivals.co.uk, there are 491 festivals in the UK between this weekend and the end of the year, so there's bound to be something for every taste.
Meanwhile, growing numbers of music fans have been giving the UK a miss altogether and packing their bags for warmer climes. Benicassim, Spain's major festival, is an increasingly popular draw. This year it is on 15-18 July, and will feature appearances from the Prodigy, Kasabian and Vampire Weekend. A four-day ticket costs £160 and includes free camping between 12-20 July, so you can make a holiday out of it. The site, near Valencia, is just a stroll from the beach.
But good weather is far from guaranteed; last year, strong winds caused havoc, forcing Kings of Leon to cancel their headlining slot – which may be why the price was frozen this year.
Responding to the Lady Gaga controversy, promoter Live Nation insists the prices are "comparable and fair" adding: "What was a small arena/theatre production is now a massive, first-rate arena production. Ticket prices for the previous dates were set long before the current Monster Ball [tour] was developed."
The Paparazzi singer's new dates are Birmingham LG Arena on 28 May, London 02 on 30 May, and Manchester MEN Arena on 2 June. She played the same venues earlier this year.
Asked about the price hikes over the years, a spokesman for Glastonbury Festival spokesman told us: "Running a festival for 140,000 people in the middle of the countryside is inevitably expensive, and the costs of things like diesel fuel have risen substantially. We're also always investing in improvements, such as £250,000 this year for a new drinking water reservoir."
He added: "We offer fantastic value for a show you couldn't find anywhere else – five days of fun, something like 2,000 performances across dozens of stages and venues, free programme, no hidden extras plus all the magic that Glastonbury offers – and we still manage to donate £2m a year to good causes.
"The fact that nearly all our tickets for 2010 were snapped up last October suggests our audience agrees."
Another big cost a few years ago was a steel fence installed after a mass break-in in 2000 brought vast numbers of people on to the site.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Internet agog for Lady Gaga's provocative video to Telephone
With some grunts, G-strings, heavy product placement and an enormous amount of hype, the 21st century's take on feminism and social commentary arrived this week with the video to Lady Gaga and Beyonce's duet, Telephone. Within 12 hours of the video being released on the internet it had half a million hits and nearly as many blogs eagerly dissecting the possible meanings behind the nine-minute video.
Already being touted by some as the successor to Michael Jackson's Thriller, Telephone continues Gaga's tradition of elevating her songs with clever videos. This time she and director Jonas Akerlund have created a melange of Russ Meyers, Quentin Tarantino, Thelma and Louise and the brief incarceration of Paris Hilton to make a film about lesbian murderers, set to the lyrics of a woman complaining about people phoning her in a nightclub.
While Beyonce is clearly the more talented, her brand of sexiness looks dated next to Gaga. Bloggers have been decoding the meaning behind the sunglasses made of cigarettes, but one might just as well try to decipher the dress Gaga once wore made of Kermit the Frogs: she does it because it's funny.
Gaga, never averse to ascribing depths to her work where others might see shallows, has claimed that the video's meaning came from "the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology". Her intention, accordingly, was to "turn it into something that was more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are".
For
Forget outrage, just enjoy it
Some taboos are still alive and kicking. Lady Gaga and Beyonce's prison "lezz-ploitation" video has caused outrage, featuring as it does butch dykes, chicks with dicks, horny female prison wardens perusing lesbian dating sites – oh, and a bit of mass murder.
Early in the video there is a scene in the prison yard featuring a lesbian snog between a butch lesbian in leather and Lady Gaga, who is wearing a pair of sunglasses made from burning cigarettes. It's hard to know what to be outraged about first. The answer is, nothing – the answer is just enjoy it.
It's a cross between Tenko, Prisoner Cell Block H, a ghetto-girl Malory Towers and Thelma and Louise, as re-imagined by David Lachapelle and Betty Paige, only this time our heroines don't have to die. Instead, they drive into the sunset in Beyonce's "pussymobile" after Beyonce has turned to her (we assume) lover and said: "You've been a very, very bad girl, Gaga."
Women in prison exploitation movies took off in the 1950s thanks to the influence of pulp magazines with films such as Caged and So Young So Bad. But unlike them, there are no sadistic male guards in this one. While there are obligatory scenes such as the strip search ("I told you she didn't have a dick," says one guard) and the cat fights with the queen bee gang leader, the chicks are all doing it for themselves.
It's a silly, sexy, funny film for a song about the nightmare of having a mobile phone, ridden with product placement from the phone company logo on Gaga's screen to the cans of Diet Coke rollers in her locks, and it feels very zeitgeisty – a big, female power fantasy. These aren't just tough but hot tough chicks who can take care of themselves – like Trudy Chacon in Avatar, the cute Latina helicopter pilot, who's the sort of person you want looking after you if you find yourself in lost in a mad sci-fi jungle.
In terms of "all girls together" videos, it reminded me of Britney Spears' One More Time, only Lady Gaga has moved beyond the lame message of turning yourself into a Lolita schoolgirl, and has instead decided to turn the world completely lesbian – and good on her and her tattooed sisters in their studded leather bikinis, roaming the world avenging themselves on bad people.
Stephanie Theobold
Against
The same old boring sexism
Say what you like about Lady Gaga – everyone else does – but when it comes to colour and controversy she certainly delivers. She's appeared in hats shaped like lobsters, shoes resembling armadillos, dancing in a white latex catsuit in her Bad Romance video. She's regularly seen wandering around with a small china teacup and saucer in hand, apropros of nothing (this last affectation gets no less irritating).
What we get now is a cartoon-ish explosion of sex and violence. It starts with Gaga being taken into a women's prison, led past bra-clad, tattoo-covered inmates, who are writhing against the doors to their cells – and occasionally pausing (as you do) to lick the bars. Gaga is wearing a low-cut outfit, and as she gets thrown into her cell, she's stripped by the guards, revealing just a pair of fishnets and black plasters over her nipples.
When the cell door closes, she throws herself against it, and although her pubis is pixelated, the screen grab enables her to rebuke those tired old rumours of hermaphroditism. "I told you she didn't have a dick," says one guard. "Too bad," says the other.
There follow lesbian kisses, a mass poisoning, and a double act with Beyonce – the two drive off in a lurid vehicle nicknamed the "pussy wagon". Gaga has apparently said that the video was inspired by Quentin Tarantino's work, but the references reach further back to the 1960s exploitation flicks of Roger Corman and Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
These references coat the whole video in a slick film of irony, and make the whole enterprise seem occasionally funny and always ridiculous. But also, strangely, a little bit dull. Because if there's one thing that we've seen a thousand times over the past few decades, it's old-style sexism dressed up as new-style irony. Does the fact that Gaga seems to be winking knowingly at the camera as she dances in a bikini make the vision any less predictable, any less boring, any less reminiscent of sexist video after sexist video that you've seen in the past few years? Nope.
It's a disappointment from someone who seems to be popping with so many ideas. Gaga will do something great, I'm sure. But this isn't it.
Kira Cochrane
Already being touted by some as the successor to Michael Jackson's Thriller, Telephone continues Gaga's tradition of elevating her songs with clever videos. This time she and director Jonas Akerlund have created a melange of Russ Meyers, Quentin Tarantino, Thelma and Louise and the brief incarceration of Paris Hilton to make a film about lesbian murderers, set to the lyrics of a woman complaining about people phoning her in a nightclub.
While Beyonce is clearly the more talented, her brand of sexiness looks dated next to Gaga. Bloggers have been decoding the meaning behind the sunglasses made of cigarettes, but one might just as well try to decipher the dress Gaga once wore made of Kermit the Frogs: she does it because it's funny.
Gaga, never averse to ascribing depths to her work where others might see shallows, has claimed that the video's meaning came from "the idea that America is full of young people that are inundated with information and technology". Her intention, accordingly, was to "turn it into something that was more of a commentary on the kind of country that we are".
For
Forget outrage, just enjoy it
Some taboos are still alive and kicking. Lady Gaga and Beyonce's prison "lezz-ploitation" video has caused outrage, featuring as it does butch dykes, chicks with dicks, horny female prison wardens perusing lesbian dating sites – oh, and a bit of mass murder.
Early in the video there is a scene in the prison yard featuring a lesbian snog between a butch lesbian in leather and Lady Gaga, who is wearing a pair of sunglasses made from burning cigarettes. It's hard to know what to be outraged about first. The answer is, nothing – the answer is just enjoy it.
It's a cross between Tenko, Prisoner Cell Block H, a ghetto-girl Malory Towers and Thelma and Louise, as re-imagined by David Lachapelle and Betty Paige, only this time our heroines don't have to die. Instead, they drive into the sunset in Beyonce's "pussymobile" after Beyonce has turned to her (we assume) lover and said: "You've been a very, very bad girl, Gaga."
Women in prison exploitation movies took off in the 1950s thanks to the influence of pulp magazines with films such as Caged and So Young So Bad. But unlike them, there are no sadistic male guards in this one. While there are obligatory scenes such as the strip search ("I told you she didn't have a dick," says one guard) and the cat fights with the queen bee gang leader, the chicks are all doing it for themselves.
It's a silly, sexy, funny film for a song about the nightmare of having a mobile phone, ridden with product placement from the phone company logo on Gaga's screen to the cans of Diet Coke rollers in her locks, and it feels very zeitgeisty – a big, female power fantasy. These aren't just tough but hot tough chicks who can take care of themselves – like Trudy Chacon in Avatar, the cute Latina helicopter pilot, who's the sort of person you want looking after you if you find yourself in lost in a mad sci-fi jungle.
In terms of "all girls together" videos, it reminded me of Britney Spears' One More Time, only Lady Gaga has moved beyond the lame message of turning yourself into a Lolita schoolgirl, and has instead decided to turn the world completely lesbian – and good on her and her tattooed sisters in their studded leather bikinis, roaming the world avenging themselves on bad people.
Stephanie Theobold
Against
The same old boring sexism
Say what you like about Lady Gaga – everyone else does – but when it comes to colour and controversy she certainly delivers. She's appeared in hats shaped like lobsters, shoes resembling armadillos, dancing in a white latex catsuit in her Bad Romance video. She's regularly seen wandering around with a small china teacup and saucer in hand, apropros of nothing (this last affectation gets no less irritating).
What we get now is a cartoon-ish explosion of sex and violence. It starts with Gaga being taken into a women's prison, led past bra-clad, tattoo-covered inmates, who are writhing against the doors to their cells – and occasionally pausing (as you do) to lick the bars. Gaga is wearing a low-cut outfit, and as she gets thrown into her cell, she's stripped by the guards, revealing just a pair of fishnets and black plasters over her nipples.
When the cell door closes, she throws herself against it, and although her pubis is pixelated, the screen grab enables her to rebuke those tired old rumours of hermaphroditism. "I told you she didn't have a dick," says one guard. "Too bad," says the other.
There follow lesbian kisses, a mass poisoning, and a double act with Beyonce – the two drive off in a lurid vehicle nicknamed the "pussy wagon". Gaga has apparently said that the video was inspired by Quentin Tarantino's work, but the references reach further back to the 1960s exploitation flicks of Roger Corman and Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
These references coat the whole video in a slick film of irony, and make the whole enterprise seem occasionally funny and always ridiculous. But also, strangely, a little bit dull. Because if there's one thing that we've seen a thousand times over the past few decades, it's old-style sexism dressed up as new-style irony. Does the fact that Gaga seems to be winking knowingly at the camera as she dances in a bikini make the vision any less predictable, any less boring, any less reminiscent of sexist video after sexist video that you've seen in the past few years? Nope.
It's a disappointment from someone who seems to be popping with so many ideas. Gaga will do something great, I'm sure. But this isn't it.
Kira Cochrane
Manchester United ban players from speaking about anti-Glazer movement
Manchester United are so concerned about the increasing success of the green-and-gold protests that the club have effectively forbidden Sir Alex Ferguson's players from speaking about it publicly and imposed a series of other measures aimed at counteracting the kind of publicity generated by David Beckham's endorsement of the campaign.
Beckham's parting statement after United's 4-0 defeat of Milan on Wednesday, leaving the pitch with a protest scarf around his neck, is being described as "an iconic moment" by the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (Must), and senior figures at Old Trafford are worried about the significance of the most famous sportsman on the planet attaching himself to a movement aimed at deposing the ruling Glazer family.
In response the club have already:
• Banned players from discussing the campaign in the media.
• Forbidden the in-house TV station, MUTV, from referring to the rebellion and edited questions about it from broadcasts of Ferguson's press conferences.
• Ejected a supporter from the audience of an MUTV show after he refused to remove a green-and-gold scarf.
• Sacked a steward after 19 years' service for attempting to return a confiscated anti-Glazer banner to its owners.
The club has reluctantly accepted the protests will continue for as long as the Glazers are in power. David Gill, the chief executive, predicted yesterday that would be "many more" than five years.
While Beckham's latest fashion statement has been shown around the world, attracting headlines from the Boston Herald to the Times of India, MUTV has chosen to ignore what happened. Similarly Ferguson's remarks about the protests in recent weeks have been edited out when the rest of his press conferences have been aired in full. One supporter was ejected from the audience of the MUTV show, Red Cafe, when he refused to remove his green and gold scarf, security staff telling him that the colours were not allowed inside the studio, and a steward was dismissed by CES, the security firm employed by United, after attempting to return a confiscated anti-Glazer banner during the home game against Burnley.
The initial hope inside the Old Trafford boardroom was that the protests would eventually fade out but the club's attempts to quell the uprising have been unsuccessful. Protests were so widespread during the Milan game that CES had to abandon its usual policy of trying to remove the many banners criticising the Glazers and Gill.
Avram Glazer was at the game, smuggled into the stadium in a car with blacked-out windows and shadowed by a personal bodyguard, and United employees noted how calm and unmoved he seemed.
"Everyone has the right to protest and there was certainly a lot of green and gold there," Gill said at the announcement of a five-year sponsorship deal with Telekom Malaysia. "But this partnership demonstrates the strength of the club. We will be around for the length of this five-year deal and many more in addition to that."
Beckham produced the perfect publicity coup for Must and an organisation whose membership has now passed 130,000 has also been buoyed by the appointment of the Japanese investment bank Nomura to advise the alliance of wealthy United followers who are planning a takeover bid. Nomura will "coordinate and formulate the proposal to be put to the Glazer family" and Must's spokesman, Duncan Drasdo, described the appointment as "hugely significant because it will start to crystallise the offer. We've seen a lot of interest from the so-called Red Knights and Nomura's job will be to organise it."
In the meantime Must has written an open letter asking for other "United legends" to follow Beckham's lead and attach themselves to the cause. "David courageously showed his true colours," the letter says. "The movement for change is becoming unstoppable and we know that David is not alone. From Eric Cantona to Andrew Cole, former players are making their feelings known."
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the club's reserve coach, is a patron of the organisation and has spoken out against the Glazers in the past but the only current player to sympathise has been Patrice Evra, in response to a French journalist who asked why the United end at Wembley was decked out in green and gold. "They are the original colours of Manchester United [as Newton Heath] and the fans wear them because they love this club," Evra said. "They have their reasons for doing it and we don't think that they're crazy."
Otherwise the players have been warned to say nothing. The captain, Gary Neville, was twice asked after Wednesday's match and kept to the party line, saying only: "I'm not getting involved in that."
Beckham's parting statement after United's 4-0 defeat of Milan on Wednesday, leaving the pitch with a protest scarf around his neck, is being described as "an iconic moment" by the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (Must), and senior figures at Old Trafford are worried about the significance of the most famous sportsman on the planet attaching himself to a movement aimed at deposing the ruling Glazer family.
In response the club have already:
• Banned players from discussing the campaign in the media.
• Forbidden the in-house TV station, MUTV, from referring to the rebellion and edited questions about it from broadcasts of Ferguson's press conferences.
• Ejected a supporter from the audience of an MUTV show after he refused to remove a green-and-gold scarf.
• Sacked a steward after 19 years' service for attempting to return a confiscated anti-Glazer banner to its owners.
The club has reluctantly accepted the protests will continue for as long as the Glazers are in power. David Gill, the chief executive, predicted yesterday that would be "many more" than five years.
While Beckham's latest fashion statement has been shown around the world, attracting headlines from the Boston Herald to the Times of India, MUTV has chosen to ignore what happened. Similarly Ferguson's remarks about the protests in recent weeks have been edited out when the rest of his press conferences have been aired in full. One supporter was ejected from the audience of the MUTV show, Red Cafe, when he refused to remove his green and gold scarf, security staff telling him that the colours were not allowed inside the studio, and a steward was dismissed by CES, the security firm employed by United, after attempting to return a confiscated anti-Glazer banner during the home game against Burnley.
The initial hope inside the Old Trafford boardroom was that the protests would eventually fade out but the club's attempts to quell the uprising have been unsuccessful. Protests were so widespread during the Milan game that CES had to abandon its usual policy of trying to remove the many banners criticising the Glazers and Gill.
Avram Glazer was at the game, smuggled into the stadium in a car with blacked-out windows and shadowed by a personal bodyguard, and United employees noted how calm and unmoved he seemed.
"Everyone has the right to protest and there was certainly a lot of green and gold there," Gill said at the announcement of a five-year sponsorship deal with Telekom Malaysia. "But this partnership demonstrates the strength of the club. We will be around for the length of this five-year deal and many more in addition to that."
Beckham produced the perfect publicity coup for Must and an organisation whose membership has now passed 130,000 has also been buoyed by the appointment of the Japanese investment bank Nomura to advise the alliance of wealthy United followers who are planning a takeover bid. Nomura will "coordinate and formulate the proposal to be put to the Glazer family" and Must's spokesman, Duncan Drasdo, described the appointment as "hugely significant because it will start to crystallise the offer. We've seen a lot of interest from the so-called Red Knights and Nomura's job will be to organise it."
In the meantime Must has written an open letter asking for other "United legends" to follow Beckham's lead and attach themselves to the cause. "David courageously showed his true colours," the letter says. "The movement for change is becoming unstoppable and we know that David is not alone. From Eric Cantona to Andrew Cole, former players are making their feelings known."
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the club's reserve coach, is a patron of the organisation and has spoken out against the Glazers in the past but the only current player to sympathise has been Patrice Evra, in response to a French journalist who asked why the United end at Wembley was decked out in green and gold. "They are the original colours of Manchester United [as Newton Heath] and the fans wear them because they love this club," Evra said. "They have their reasons for doing it and we don't think that they're crazy."
Otherwise the players have been warned to say nothing. The captain, Gary Neville, was twice asked after Wednesday's match and kept to the party line, saying only: "I'm not getting involved in that."
John Terry, Ashley Cole, Tiger Woods
It's a familiar story by now. Lurid headlines, a disgraced sports star, a wronged wife, and then the mistresses start to appear. In the case of Tiger Woods it was one, two, three, four... the count went up into the teens. John Terry had just the one infidelity, since the start of his marriage; although, admittedly, with the ex-girlfriend of a team-mate. Then there is Ashley Cole: four more mistresses came out of the closet last month, prompting his wife Cheryl to announce their separation.
Of course, there's nothing new about infidelity – or prurience – but watching the coverage I found myself wondering why we feel so strongly. Why do we care so much what goes on in other people's marriages? Sure, adultery seems glamorous and dangerous, but let's face it, it's also as common as dirt. If you know married people, you most likely know people who have cheated or been cheated on at some point, and whose marriages have survived intact, are perhaps even flourishing.
In the summer of 2004, I got a call from an old college fling who had moved nearby. We met for lunch and I was shocked by how inexorably drawn I was to him, how easily he coaxed me back into his bed. At first it was just the sex, which was new, addictively dark and rough – after 13 years in a committed relationship, I justified it as much-needed and harmless extracurricular. I had known my husband Eric almost half my life. We married young, although we'd already known each other for seven years. At the centre of our relationship was a deep understanding. That we knew each other so well seemed proof of a love superior in all ways to all others. If you had told me that I was capable of doing anything that could erode the faith of this most loyal of men, I'd never have believed you.
I was even more surprised, though in retrospect it was totally predictable, when I realised I'd fallen in love with this other man. With D, I was someone different. A co-conspirator. A playmate. Mischievous, sexy, thrillingly amoral. From the beginning, we did most of our flirting and plotting in cyberspace, through emails and text messages that flew fast and furious between us whenever we were apart. Dirty murmurs, teary yearnings, postcoital sighs were all read and tapped out on my BlackBerry's tiny screen, during any moment I could get to myself. (I started visiting the bathroom so often, Eric must have thought my bladder had shrunk to half its former size.) Who knows if my affair would have survived as long as it did without all those secret communiques, but it certainly would not have been discovered so quickly.
A few clicks of a mouse was all it took for Eric to find evidence of my betrayal. Chaos ensued. I broke it off with D, then found myself drawn back in again. Meanwhile, Eric and I wrangled, tearfully and angrily, for months and months about what our next move would be. Many couples would have just called it quits, but instead we cried, drank, watched a lot of TV and went to bed together at night, except when he didn't come home – because Eric began seeing other women, sometimes staying out all night without explanation, trailing home the next morning full of a remorse that was actually something else, a recrimination.
We had a trial separation. D and I broke up many times until, finally, it ended for good. But throughout it all Eric didn't leave. And I couldn't even comprehend the pain of leaving him. At first I thought we would never survive the pain of staying together either. But as we fought and cried and struggled to understand just what, and who, we wanted, we discovered that something between us remained unbroken.
I expected negative reactions when my book, Cleaving, was published. In it, I wrote about this period in my life and how I had acted so hurtfully toward my husband. I realised that the act of writing about this agonisingly personal material could be seen as a second betrayal, as stark as the first.
There was also the fact that my first book, Julie & Julia, which was transformed into a very sweet and popular movie, was about two marriages (mine to Eric, and the culinary icon Julia Child's to her husband, Paul) that could be held up as ideals of the institution. Julie & Julia the book, but most especially the movie, tells two parallel stories of strong, seemingly perfect unions. The kind of marriages that we all seem not only to want, but expect as our right – perfect harmony, perfect understanding, perfect sex. Now, I had dared to acknowledge that this confection of a marriage was not always so pretty. I knew that some would prefer the simple version.
What I was not prepared for was the depth of the anger – a rage that seemed sometimes more akin to terror. The attacks, especially ones launched from the safe anonymity of the internet, were vicious – commenters on my blog called me a "soiled, narcissistic whore" and accused me of defiling the institution of marriage. People questioned my husband's manhood for allowing himself to be "cuckolded", and for staying once my bad behaviour was uncovered. They might as well have put a scarlet A on my chest. It was as if my adultery, and the damage I had done to my own marriage, went beyond a mere selfish act of indiscretion. As if just acknowledging the fact that one woman could love, or make love to, a man other than her husband threatened to topple the very idea of marriage – to ruin it for everyone. As a female friend and fellow philanderer put it, "It's like we're contagious."
In the midst of this moral hysteria, a series of books have been published suggesting that we have lost sight of what it means to make a marriage work: that an affair need not signal the end of love. At the extreme end of this is French psychologist Maryse Vaillant, whose recent book suggests that infidelity is not only unavoidable, but can be beneficial to relationships; that the "pact of fidelity is not natural but cultural". But somewhere in the middle sit figures such as London-based marital therapist Andrew G Marshall, whose book How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, published earlier this year, examines how couples can recover from adultery. The book is primarily for those who have recently discovered a partner's infidelity, and is careful to balance the needs and hurts of both parties. He calls the perpetrator of the affair the "Discovered" rather than the "Adulterer". (The partner who has been cheated on is the "Discoverer".) "It's perfectly possible to turn an infidelity from the worst thing that ever happened in your relationship to the best," Marshall claims. "Couples who have been through an infidelity are always the most miserable but, after they've done the work, they're the happiest. When you've been hurt so much, and want so desperately not to go back there, you're willing to work harder and look deeper."
Kate Figes, author of Couples: The Truth, published in January, maintains a similar belief in the possibility of reconciliation. Like Marshall, Figes starts off from the assumption that lifelong relationships, and the intimacy and stability they provide, are a basic human need, worth working to save and grow. She sees our modern emphasis on infidelity as a deal-breaker – accompanied by our readiness to judge other couples who attempt to work through it – as short-sighted. "A great many marriages and long-term relationships survive affairs," she notes. "But they need to be able to flout strong social expectations to do so."
So where does that mob mentality come from? Why can't we acknowledge that we aren't always perfect? That, as Eric and I used to say to one another in our darkest moments, no one can know what anyone's marriage is really like.
Back when I was in the grip of my own affair, I read Laura Kipnis's amusing and thought-provoking Against Love: A Polemic, first published in 2003. It proved to me a sort of life buoy at a time when nothing seemed certain and everything grimly serious. With her tongue firmly in her cheek, Kipnis celebrates adulterers as rebels kicking their heels in the traces of an institution engineered to keep people docile and dedicated to the status quo. At a moment when I felt oppressed by my guilt, Kipnis's book allowed a brief moment of levity, breathing room and, yes, a bit of self-justification. I gave copies of it to both my husband and my lover, maybe to expose something of what I was thinking, maybe just to give a much-needed laugh.
Seven years later, Kipnis is not quite so light-hearted. She wonders if perhaps the jolly tone that allowed her to talk of adultery without taboo also allowed her to let go mostly unacknowledged the very real pain of those who have been hurt by a partner's indiscretions. It's easy, and perhaps correct, to criticise contemporary marriage as being built, unrealistically, on the idea that one person can fulfil all your needs – as lover, co-parent and best friend – for all time. But, she says now, that's where we are today.
Once there was a world of arranged unions and marriage as politics and finance; now, in a world of sexual independence, relative gender equality and an increasingly frayed social fabric, we have marriage as intimacy. "It's a double bind," Kipnis says. "Adultery is more of an issue now, because we are closer."
But still it happens, all the time. I think of one friend who wrote to me about the aftermath of her own affair: "I was being really quiet one day in the car, and whenever I'm quiet he gets worried. Rather than ignoring my distance, he asked me what I was thinking. I told him that I wondered if he ever wished I hadn't told him. Amazingly, this is what he said: 'I would go through it all over again to know that we would be here, so much closer and more honest than ever before.'"
There was a time when I thought infidelity was without excuse or redeeming value. And I'd never deny the hurt my actions caused, to my husband, to me, maybe even (who knows?) to my lover. But the fact is that as we stood amid the rubble, Eric and I looked at one another and saw things we hadn't seen before. That hurt, but it also made us realise that everything had collapsed for reasons we'd been ignoring, and that we valued what remained enough to try to build a new home for it.
So we went to counselling. I remember the first day, as we sat in that office together. I thought, if I open my mouth, if I voice what I feel – that I didn't know what I wanted, that I loved someone else, that I hurt – the pain of it will end our marriage. But I spoke. And when I stopped speaking, we were still standing. And here Eric and I stand now, on a far shore, closer than we were before, and stronger. So, no. To those who want endless punishment, who want me in my scarlet A, I cannot comply. I cannot say that I regret.
Of course, there's nothing new about infidelity – or prurience – but watching the coverage I found myself wondering why we feel so strongly. Why do we care so much what goes on in other people's marriages? Sure, adultery seems glamorous and dangerous, but let's face it, it's also as common as dirt. If you know married people, you most likely know people who have cheated or been cheated on at some point, and whose marriages have survived intact, are perhaps even flourishing.
In the summer of 2004, I got a call from an old college fling who had moved nearby. We met for lunch and I was shocked by how inexorably drawn I was to him, how easily he coaxed me back into his bed. At first it was just the sex, which was new, addictively dark and rough – after 13 years in a committed relationship, I justified it as much-needed and harmless extracurricular. I had known my husband Eric almost half my life. We married young, although we'd already known each other for seven years. At the centre of our relationship was a deep understanding. That we knew each other so well seemed proof of a love superior in all ways to all others. If you had told me that I was capable of doing anything that could erode the faith of this most loyal of men, I'd never have believed you.
I was even more surprised, though in retrospect it was totally predictable, when I realised I'd fallen in love with this other man. With D, I was someone different. A co-conspirator. A playmate. Mischievous, sexy, thrillingly amoral. From the beginning, we did most of our flirting and plotting in cyberspace, through emails and text messages that flew fast and furious between us whenever we were apart. Dirty murmurs, teary yearnings, postcoital sighs were all read and tapped out on my BlackBerry's tiny screen, during any moment I could get to myself. (I started visiting the bathroom so often, Eric must have thought my bladder had shrunk to half its former size.) Who knows if my affair would have survived as long as it did without all those secret communiques, but it certainly would not have been discovered so quickly.
A few clicks of a mouse was all it took for Eric to find evidence of my betrayal. Chaos ensued. I broke it off with D, then found myself drawn back in again. Meanwhile, Eric and I wrangled, tearfully and angrily, for months and months about what our next move would be. Many couples would have just called it quits, but instead we cried, drank, watched a lot of TV and went to bed together at night, except when he didn't come home – because Eric began seeing other women, sometimes staying out all night without explanation, trailing home the next morning full of a remorse that was actually something else, a recrimination.
We had a trial separation. D and I broke up many times until, finally, it ended for good. But throughout it all Eric didn't leave. And I couldn't even comprehend the pain of leaving him. At first I thought we would never survive the pain of staying together either. But as we fought and cried and struggled to understand just what, and who, we wanted, we discovered that something between us remained unbroken.
I expected negative reactions when my book, Cleaving, was published. In it, I wrote about this period in my life and how I had acted so hurtfully toward my husband. I realised that the act of writing about this agonisingly personal material could be seen as a second betrayal, as stark as the first.
There was also the fact that my first book, Julie & Julia, which was transformed into a very sweet and popular movie, was about two marriages (mine to Eric, and the culinary icon Julia Child's to her husband, Paul) that could be held up as ideals of the institution. Julie & Julia the book, but most especially the movie, tells two parallel stories of strong, seemingly perfect unions. The kind of marriages that we all seem not only to want, but expect as our right – perfect harmony, perfect understanding, perfect sex. Now, I had dared to acknowledge that this confection of a marriage was not always so pretty. I knew that some would prefer the simple version.
What I was not prepared for was the depth of the anger – a rage that seemed sometimes more akin to terror. The attacks, especially ones launched from the safe anonymity of the internet, were vicious – commenters on my blog called me a "soiled, narcissistic whore" and accused me of defiling the institution of marriage. People questioned my husband's manhood for allowing himself to be "cuckolded", and for staying once my bad behaviour was uncovered. They might as well have put a scarlet A on my chest. It was as if my adultery, and the damage I had done to my own marriage, went beyond a mere selfish act of indiscretion. As if just acknowledging the fact that one woman could love, or make love to, a man other than her husband threatened to topple the very idea of marriage – to ruin it for everyone. As a female friend and fellow philanderer put it, "It's like we're contagious."
In the midst of this moral hysteria, a series of books have been published suggesting that we have lost sight of what it means to make a marriage work: that an affair need not signal the end of love. At the extreme end of this is French psychologist Maryse Vaillant, whose recent book suggests that infidelity is not only unavoidable, but can be beneficial to relationships; that the "pact of fidelity is not natural but cultural". But somewhere in the middle sit figures such as London-based marital therapist Andrew G Marshall, whose book How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, published earlier this year, examines how couples can recover from adultery. The book is primarily for those who have recently discovered a partner's infidelity, and is careful to balance the needs and hurts of both parties. He calls the perpetrator of the affair the "Discovered" rather than the "Adulterer". (The partner who has been cheated on is the "Discoverer".) "It's perfectly possible to turn an infidelity from the worst thing that ever happened in your relationship to the best," Marshall claims. "Couples who have been through an infidelity are always the most miserable but, after they've done the work, they're the happiest. When you've been hurt so much, and want so desperately not to go back there, you're willing to work harder and look deeper."
Kate Figes, author of Couples: The Truth, published in January, maintains a similar belief in the possibility of reconciliation. Like Marshall, Figes starts off from the assumption that lifelong relationships, and the intimacy and stability they provide, are a basic human need, worth working to save and grow. She sees our modern emphasis on infidelity as a deal-breaker – accompanied by our readiness to judge other couples who attempt to work through it – as short-sighted. "A great many marriages and long-term relationships survive affairs," she notes. "But they need to be able to flout strong social expectations to do so."
So where does that mob mentality come from? Why can't we acknowledge that we aren't always perfect? That, as Eric and I used to say to one another in our darkest moments, no one can know what anyone's marriage is really like.
Back when I was in the grip of my own affair, I read Laura Kipnis's amusing and thought-provoking Against Love: A Polemic, first published in 2003. It proved to me a sort of life buoy at a time when nothing seemed certain and everything grimly serious. With her tongue firmly in her cheek, Kipnis celebrates adulterers as rebels kicking their heels in the traces of an institution engineered to keep people docile and dedicated to the status quo. At a moment when I felt oppressed by my guilt, Kipnis's book allowed a brief moment of levity, breathing room and, yes, a bit of self-justification. I gave copies of it to both my husband and my lover, maybe to expose something of what I was thinking, maybe just to give a much-needed laugh.
Seven years later, Kipnis is not quite so light-hearted. She wonders if perhaps the jolly tone that allowed her to talk of adultery without taboo also allowed her to let go mostly unacknowledged the very real pain of those who have been hurt by a partner's indiscretions. It's easy, and perhaps correct, to criticise contemporary marriage as being built, unrealistically, on the idea that one person can fulfil all your needs – as lover, co-parent and best friend – for all time. But, she says now, that's where we are today.
Once there was a world of arranged unions and marriage as politics and finance; now, in a world of sexual independence, relative gender equality and an increasingly frayed social fabric, we have marriage as intimacy. "It's a double bind," Kipnis says. "Adultery is more of an issue now, because we are closer."
But still it happens, all the time. I think of one friend who wrote to me about the aftermath of her own affair: "I was being really quiet one day in the car, and whenever I'm quiet he gets worried. Rather than ignoring my distance, he asked me what I was thinking. I told him that I wondered if he ever wished I hadn't told him. Amazingly, this is what he said: 'I would go through it all over again to know that we would be here, so much closer and more honest than ever before.'"
There was a time when I thought infidelity was without excuse or redeeming value. And I'd never deny the hurt my actions caused, to my husband, to me, maybe even (who knows?) to my lover. But the fact is that as we stood amid the rubble, Eric and I looked at one another and saw things we hadn't seen before. That hurt, but it also made us realise that everything had collapsed for reasons we'd been ignoring, and that we valued what remained enough to try to build a new home for it.
So we went to counselling. I remember the first day, as we sat in that office together. I thought, if I open my mouth, if I voice what I feel – that I didn't know what I wanted, that I loved someone else, that I hurt – the pain of it will end our marriage. But I spoke. And when I stopped speaking, we were still standing. And here Eric and I stand now, on a far shore, closer than we were before, and stronger. So, no. To those who want endless punishment, who want me in my scarlet A, I cannot comply. I cannot say that I regret.
Restaurant: Zilli Green, London W1
When it comes to the teething troubles that almost invariably plague new ventures, sweet-natured reviewers such as myself lean towards the charitable. Aware of the technical difficulties, and sensing any sign of good intentions and improvement to come, we pull our punches. But when those early dental difficulties suggest the root canal-tormented love child of Shane MacGowan and Esther Rantzen after a tasting session at the spinach farm, what's a chap to do?
In so many regards is Zilli Green a total shocker that it's hard to know where to begin. So let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) by observing that in choosing Valentine's Day for its opening, the TV chef Aldo Zilli showed a gift for savage irony. Half as romantic as genital warts, this is the ideal destination joint for anyone planning to surprise their beloved next 14 February with divorce papers and the news that the locks have already been changed.
In so many regards is Zilli Green a total shocker that it's hard to know where to begin. So let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) by observing that in choosing Valentine's Day for its opening, the TV chef Aldo Zilli showed a gift for savage irony. Half as romantic as genital warts, this is the ideal destination joint for anyone planning to surprise their beloved next 14 February with divorce papers and the news that the locks have already been changed.
Sebastian Vettel edges out Ferraris to claim Bahrain grand prix pole
Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel will start the first race of the 2010 season on pole position after edging out the Ferraris in qualifying for the Bahrain grand prix. Last year's championship runner-up put in a stunning lap in the closing 10-minute qualifying session at the Sakhir circuit to beat the Ferrari pair of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso into second and third, with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton fourth and the returning Michael Schumacher down in seventh place.
Vettel, who finished the 2009 campaign by winning two of the final three races, was brilliant throughout all three sessions, finishing second in the opening 20 minutes, before topping the middle 15-minute stint and then coming out on top at the end. The young German ultimately finished with a lap of 1min 54.101sec, with Massa 0.141sec adrift and Alonso a further 0.4sec down.
"It's a big surprise," said Vettel. "In winter testing no-one really knew where they were, although it was clear we were pretty strong, but close to each other. Yesterday wasn't as good as we hoped, so it was a long night for the mechanics, but everyone was keen this morning to push. I knew we had a great car, but you have to get it together, so I'm very happy to be on pole. It's a very nice feeling."
Hamilton won his first battle of the Britons with team-mate Jenson Button at McLaren as the world champion struggled during the course of the afternoon and will start eighth directly behind seven-time champion Schumacher. The 41-year-old, on his comeback after three and a half years in retirement, was again bettered by his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, as he was in all three practice sessions.
Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber starts sixth, with Robert Kubica in his Renault ninth behind Button, and Force India's Adrian Sutil a fine 10th.
In the dying moments of Q2, Button managed to scrape his way into the top 10, edging out his Brawn team-mate from last season in Rubens Barrichello, now with Williams, by 0.162sec. Behind the veteran Brazilian will be Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi and the second Williams of promising German rookie Nico Hülkenberg, who was only half-a-second down on Barrichello.
The Saubers of Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi will start 14th and 16th, with Toro Rosso's Sébastien Buemi splitting the Spanish and Japanese drivers. On his debut, Renault's Russian rookie Vitaly Petrov knows the task he now faces after seeing team-mate Kubica's performance as he will start 17th, finishing a yawning 1.7sec behind the Pole at the end of the session.
It was no great surprise to see the three new teams occupying the bottom six positions come the conclusion to the initial 20-minute session. And it was Virgin who were best of the newcomers thanks to Timo Glock, and that after seeing a wheel roll off his car in final practice earlier today due to a loose nut. The German will start 19th, edging the Lotus Racing pair of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen into 20th and 21st places, with just 0.6sec separating the trio.
Glock's team-mate Lucas di Grassi was a further 0.2sec adrift, leaving Hispania Racing's Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok bringing up the rear of the now 24-strong grid.
Vettel, who finished the 2009 campaign by winning two of the final three races, was brilliant throughout all three sessions, finishing second in the opening 20 minutes, before topping the middle 15-minute stint and then coming out on top at the end. The young German ultimately finished with a lap of 1min 54.101sec, with Massa 0.141sec adrift and Alonso a further 0.4sec down.
"It's a big surprise," said Vettel. "In winter testing no-one really knew where they were, although it was clear we were pretty strong, but close to each other. Yesterday wasn't as good as we hoped, so it was a long night for the mechanics, but everyone was keen this morning to push. I knew we had a great car, but you have to get it together, so I'm very happy to be on pole. It's a very nice feeling."
Hamilton won his first battle of the Britons with team-mate Jenson Button at McLaren as the world champion struggled during the course of the afternoon and will start eighth directly behind seven-time champion Schumacher. The 41-year-old, on his comeback after three and a half years in retirement, was again bettered by his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg, as he was in all three practice sessions.
Vettel's team-mate Mark Webber starts sixth, with Robert Kubica in his Renault ninth behind Button, and Force India's Adrian Sutil a fine 10th.
In the dying moments of Q2, Button managed to scrape his way into the top 10, edging out his Brawn team-mate from last season in Rubens Barrichello, now with Williams, by 0.162sec. Behind the veteran Brazilian will be Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi and the second Williams of promising German rookie Nico Hülkenberg, who was only half-a-second down on Barrichello.
The Saubers of Pedro de la Rosa and Kamui Kobayashi will start 14th and 16th, with Toro Rosso's Sébastien Buemi splitting the Spanish and Japanese drivers. On his debut, Renault's Russian rookie Vitaly Petrov knows the task he now faces after seeing team-mate Kubica's performance as he will start 17th, finishing a yawning 1.7sec behind the Pole at the end of the session.
It was no great surprise to see the three new teams occupying the bottom six positions come the conclusion to the initial 20-minute session. And it was Virgin who were best of the newcomers thanks to Timo Glock, and that after seeing a wheel roll off his car in final practice earlier today due to a loose nut. The German will start 19th, edging the Lotus Racing pair of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen into 20th and 21st places, with just 0.6sec separating the trio.
Glock's team-mate Lucas di Grassi was a further 0.2sec adrift, leaving Hispania Racing's Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok bringing up the rear of the now 24-strong grid.
