Open letter to Anne Boleyn

Dear Anne Boleyn,

Is it the August full moon and the retrograde Mercury?
Or is that you are having the same effect on me that you had on everyone that ever came close to you?
I can't get you out of my mind and today I don't feel like writing like I usually do.

I saw a play about you at the Globe. It’s an Elizabethan theatre built during your daughter's reign. You should be so proud, she was amazing. They named a whole age after her; it was a Golden Age for England.

I’m writing to let you know that very little has changed since you’ve been gone.

In this century women think they are liberated but they are not really. We wear trousers and have jobs and drink and fall about the place like lowly men but when it comes to sex, society is put off by women who have an appetite for it. They are still called whores. It is often more delicately put, I grant you.

You used it to advance. Your daughter Queen Elizabeth “withheld” it to be respected. Did you know that? They called her the Virgin Queen.
When King Henry VIII fell in love with you in 1526, you refused to sleep with him for nearly seven years while negotiations with the Pope went on to secure the annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine.

How did you do it red-blooded Anne? You didn’t really fancy King Henry the oaf did you? Was it the throne you fancied?
I understand. A person must always make the best of life and advance accordingly if the opportunity arises. Love is not always found, it sometimes grows in the most unlikely places.

There are still many myths about female sexuality. I’ve often been informed by men that our kind don’t like sex that much.
And the age old tale about the male instinct to hunt is still around. What is left for them to hunt and conquer? Women apparently.

It’s not very sexy is it? It makes me feel like a stag that's about to get its head cut off and hung over a fireplace. I think you know better than anyone what I mean.
Where are all these unwilling women that give it up like damsels in distress to the hunter-gatherer male? I’ve never met any yet all the men I know insist they have.

Little Elizabeth was brought up to believe that she had something that everybody wanted, the disciplined withholding of which could bring her power and respect.
There was more at stake for little Elizabeth. She got to rule England. Maybe she was the exception as she literally sat on a fortune. What’s my prize for pretending to be someone’s trophy?
Is it “The fool” that will think me his conquest?

There is a woman in Iran called Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtianithat who has been sentenced to death by stoning and the charges are: Adultery (although the incident occurred after the death of her husband) and plotting her husband’s murder (she has retracted her confession to this crime, claiming it was made under duress).
Exactly the same as the charges that had you convicted and beheaded. 1536 is not that different to 2010 after all is it? Same scenario, different time and part of the globe.

Can you see beyond the ages Anne? Do we ever understand that we are born and shaped by the same society? Do we ever stop expecting to be different and accept each other as equals?

Can you break your silence and let me know?

I’m Willing to Lie about How We Met ©

Stage four of being single is when your nearest and dearest get fixated on you finding Mr. Right or at least Mr. Right Now.

It turns out that all my friends know someone that has met his significant other on the Internet. Are these people real or are they urban myths?

Fact! Six thirty on Friday evening, outside any major Tube station in London there are countless “couples” meeting for the first time with the assistance of this new baby Cupid.
Take a closer look. They shake hands; women do the bashful downward looking smile and men scan their date’s body when they think she’s not looking. The daring ones share a kiss on the cheek. They’re obviously not British. The British will attempt a kiss later with the courage “firewater” brings about.

Most of these encounters will go no further than a fist date. Some of them might become stories people share in the pub. Their friends will laugh and volunteer the obligatory: “Noooooooo??? Really? Who does that?”

If, however I was to consider this electronic Matchmaker there was only one question that concerned me: “Where did you two meet?”

I’ll never be able to say: “Deep Sea diving in the Caribbean.
I was coming out of the water holding some rare shells I just collected, singing “Mango tree”. There he stood, bronzed and gorgeous underneath a coconut tree at the water’s edge.
He sang it back, we locked eyes, felt a current of electricity run through our bodies and in that moment we knew it was meant to be”.

Don’t put your eyes up to heaven! Some little girls grew up reading about Prince Charming coming to rescue them on a white charger. I grew up watching James Bond. Far handier in a sticky situation. He packs lead (I couldn’t help myself), is athletic, well travelled, drinks Dom Perignon and looks like Sean Connery. He has a funny accent but I decided long ago that this is something I'm willing to overlook.

You have to admit its better then: “He “winked” at me on the dating site we were both members of and then he invited me to join him on a chat portal”

I finally had to cave in when Athena, Artemis and Ira all came to my house and tricked me into posting my profile on one of these sites with the power of Martini cocktails (shaken not stirred).
They argued that it’s not where you meet but who you meet. And hey, if I did find Mr. Right we could go to the Caribbean together. Right?
Hell, I could even buy Ursula Andress’s Dr. No bikini. Apparently it was on the news that she had just found it in her attic after all these years and would be auctioning it off.

I have to admit it was a very funny night and it helped to have semi-drunken people around while I wrote the little paragraphs about my ideal partner and me.
One thing they could not change my mind about was my user name.

I registered as: I’m willing to lie about how we met.

The Language of Pleasure ©

Spring, early morning.
You’re woken up by the scent of bread baking in the boulangerie below. Still half asleep you progress from the bed to release the double shutters.
You close your eyes momentarily until you feel confident they can adjust to the sun’s glare. You open them again to take in Le Marais.
The most beautiful neighbourhood in Paris.

It’s bursting with ateliers, museums, and petit decadent shops selling every imaginable form of luxury.
You start mapping out the day’s itinerary in the picturesque cafes and eateries that are full of delicate, colourful little treasures made of sugar, milk and flour.
Pleasure is everywhere because it comes from the language that created all this beauty you see around you.

There is an ongoing debate about which is the ultimate language of pleasure.
I don’t think it should ever be settled. When we speak of important issues such as pleasure each person should be allowed to feel and experience according to taste.
For me it is French.

In the film “Dead Poets Society”, Professor Keating reveals to his delighted students that language was developed for one endeavour only and that is............. to WOO women.
I take it one step further. If you can command language you can rule the world.
Humanity has often looked upon certain Leaders favourably because of their skill in rhetoric.
Do you think they might have wooed us?
Words expertly used are like magic.
You set them free to go forth and create life as you decree.

Language is born of the environment and conditions a tribe of people find themselves in during a specific time in history. Then the very words they have created begin to shape them.
Language determines our facial expressions and mannerisms. It even influences how we are perceived as a nation.

When I watch French women speak it fascinates me. They could be talking about the most mundane subject but if you block out the sound and watch their face, it speaks only of sensuality. Every few words the lips come to a suggestive pout and there is a lovely intensity in the eyes that is kept throughout the conversation.
Off course as you delve deeper into the language these beginner's observations are washed away and replaced by the righteous pursuits of syntax, grammar and meaning.

To me French will always be the language Valmont and Merteil used to seduce their “victims” in Dangerous Liaisons. Cyrano De Bergerac made Roxane fall in love with Christian through the power of little French words, perfectly composed.
Irish playwright Samuel Beckett chose to write his plays in French and spend his mornings with coffee and cigarettes, people watching, at the Deux Magots in St.Germain. Though it might not be so obvious on the page, Beckett’s life was full of the pursuit of pleasure. Look it up.

These are some of the reasons that as a newly single Venus in London I choose to spend my Saturday afternoons at the Alliance Francaise learning French.

Of course there are other more base motivations like meeting new people. By people I mean potential dates. There comes a time when a single person becomes obsessed about meeting someone. It’s a phase.

But let me tell you, it’s exactly the sort of energy that is going to bring no one toward you.
So if you ever get the feeling you’re in that place, find something you absolutely enjoy and devote yourself to it.

Just remember, the only thing that will be quick to bring forth pleasure is pleasure itself.