Dear Jane,
I just have one question about your novel. Do I make you horny? I'm just goofin'. I used to say things like that. I dunno. It passed the time. Actually, what really passed the time was the swinging, baby! I'm just kidding again.
I know. You're not supposed to talk to women like that anymore. I remember when I woke up from being cryogenically frozen in the 90s, and I thought that those years were tough. But back then you just had to watch a video about crossing the line at work. Now you just get cancelled, fired, and you still have to watch the bloody video. So many f*$king videos.
That's why I got out of the spy game. Turns out, my wit and charm were mostly based on sexual innuendo.
Though, I'll tell you, it wasn't for a lack of trying to change. I used to say things like, "I put the grrr im swinger, baby!" I changed. When someone asked if I was up for a cup of tea, I'd be like: "Are you kidding? I put the TEA in equality, baby!" But it fell flat. Sometimes an old dog just ain't gonna chew on nothing but an old psychedelic bone. Not that I dont have fond memories of all those sexual innuendo jokes of the spy game of my day.
Of course, I used to think that all I would have is my fond memories of London in the 60s, but then I read your novel, Sister Stardust, and I went smashing back to swinging London in the swinging 60s, baby! And without the nausea of a VW bug time machine. Those are hard to come by once you quit the spy game, anyway. You need corporate money for that. With your novel, however, I got to go back to London in the 60s and didn't even have to ward off an evil doctor, unless you consider socialized medicine to be evil doctors. Talk about long wait times for thyroid medication. See. I told you. Topical political humor just isn't my bag. Ah well. Can't live forever. Especially with healthcare strikes. Yeah. See. Just doesnt work, no matter how hard I try.
Anywho. You know who reminds myself of...myself is Talitha Getty. That girl has got style, women, drugs, more women, money, partying on ornately pillowed divans on the rooftop of a palace in Marrakesh, Morocco.
And similar to Talitha, I had a lot of people try to keep up with my swinging sixties lifestyle, just like Talitha had with Cece, the little country mouse who moved from small town england to experience the big city of london. Of course, I didn't really have to live that inhibition free, sexually liberated life of the 60s for long, did I? I mean I was cryogencillay frozen halfway through. I didn't have to sustain that hard partying lifestyle for as long as Talitha did, but, I like to think I would have held my own with her.
But the truth is, I was cryogenically frozen. I didn't have to sustain that hard partying london in the 60s lifestyle into my late forties and fifties. They say that if you remember 60s in London, you weren't there, and all I remember is freezing my ass off.
Don't mistake me—I do dig it now in modern times, especially with places like tea at Ting of the Shangri-la hotel, where I can go live an exotic lifetyle, but for like an hour at a time, not an entire bloody decade. Instead of watching the hash smoke billow up from my mouth as I lounge on ornate Moroccan divans, I can watch the smoke from dry ice billowing across the table. Not only is it less of hangover, but it's just as exotic.
Maybe tea at the Shanghai-la isn't the cheapest thing you can do in london, sitting at about a hundo per person, but like London in the sixties, it is a once-in-a-lifetime, special experience, that will come and go, like a wonderful dream. Besides, if you cost average everything you get in this one place, it's not much more than getting coffee, dinner, desert, wonderful conversation atmosphere, and drinks at different cheap places throughout the day. Quality over quantity, baby.
Anyway, thanks for your amazing novel. It was a lovely time machine on an independent, non governmental budget, just like the once-in-a-lifetime experience of tea at Shanghai-la.
Grr baby. Very Grr.
I mean, um, it was a sensational novel, Jane, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Austin D. Powers PS. I wasn't going to say anything, but my therapist says I should be honest with people. Unsaid expectations are just premeditated disappointments. So, I just want to make sure that you know that next time Cece wants to put her evil step-mother in her place by stealing her thunder, and Cece feels like she needs to bring English rockstars to a party that her evil step-mother is throwing in the village hall of a small English country mouse town, feel free to bring me instead, a British man of mystery. You know rockstars turn the heads of younger generations, sure, but a man of mystery, like myself, has more of a mass, multi-generational appeal. So instead of just stealing the thunder from her step-mother by impressing only the youth with rockstars, a man of mystery like myself steals the whole storm: evil stepmother's friends, frenemies, and the youth. I'm just saying.
To pair the novel with tea at Ting of the Shangri-La hotel, see my post here;
https://www.travelwithstephenrountree.com/post/follow-a-johnny-book-travel-trail-map-regency-cafe-to-tate-britain-to-tate-modern-to-shangri-la