Travel & Hotspots

MAY’S LONDON DIARY

‘London calling’ was brought to us a bit too literally today. After we had spent a lovely evening at the bar of restaurant Sexy Fish (I had a spicy gin and tonic, Anouk had something that looked like blue smurf snot but tasted perrrima according to her), we were looking forward to a long night among the Egyptian cotton.

The makeup artist Jonathan was only coming at nine to get Anouk ready for her interview, so the alarm didn’t need to go off until half past eight. That was not meant to be. At six o'clock, the TV turned on. Spontaneously. I clicked it off (after first searching for five minutes for the right light switch to then find the remote control which of course was just next to me) and went back to sleep. That lasted exactly ten minutes. Then that *** TV turned on again. Luckily, I now knew where the remote was, but I was in an advanced state of wakefulness. And so was Anouk. And she had to be on camera soon.

I called 0 for the concierge to discuss this problem. He suggested unplugging it. I had already thought of that myself. Really. But there was a designer cabinet built around the TV so that didn’t work. “Do you want me to send someone up?” asked the extremely polite concierge. After all, we were staying at Claridge’s, one of the chicest hotels in London. You can expect a bit of service there. Since a strange man didn’t really seem conducive to further sleep, I declined that offer. Or was there something he could do for us.

“I’ve at least negotiated our breakfast,” I said to Anouk when I hung up the phone and we went back to sleep. That worked pretty well until I heard a loud “OH F*CK, NO.” next to me. Anouk. Something with panic. Anouk had to record a video for Koffietijd. She thought this could happen later in the day (read: after the visit from makeup artist Jonathan), but they needed it now. As in: in five minutes now. And we were far from ready.

Anouk showered and set the world record for blow-drying and doing her makeup and I jumped in right after. I filmed her in the hotel lobby, but Koffietijd wanted it just a bit differently. But then Anouk was already in her bathrobe. No problem, we’ll do it again. Anouk put on her sweater and tied her bathrobe around her waist. You wouldn’t see that in the video. But the other hotel guests would of course. We did about ten takes because I was doubled over the stairs laughing seven times.

Then makeup artist Jonathan came with a dozen juicy stories (including the one about Naomi Campbell who almost set her hotel room on fire because she left her Jo Malone scented candle burning and has been on the hotel’s blacklist ever since) and we dove into the secret room for an interview with an A-list star.

More on that later, but the moral of this day: if you see photos on Instagram that seem to show everything going perfectly and under control: nothing is what it seems.