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“Maybe some women aren’t meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free till they find someone just as wild to run with them.” Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City.
I’m on a private Concorde, ensconced in luxurious comfort of mahogany leather and white suede upholstery, caressing a tall crystal flute of chilled Moet et Chandon. Black six inch Manolo Blahnik stilettos (yup, I can do a fox-trot in them); a Donatella Versace mini summer dress in pale ivory; bed hair unclasped; a huge emerald rock on my little finger; a Louis Vuitton handbag carelessly thrown on the settee giving the over-enthu strictly six-abs-and-no-flab flat-board male cabin crew a sneak-peek of my Christian Dior `Audacieuse’ sun shades, my digital satellite Sony pocket diary and 18 carat gold cased iphone which is in beep overdrive. A dozen gleaming platinum credit cards are dying for their next fast and furious swipe, I am idly twiddling a Mont Blanc fountain pen languidly between my fingers, while the other hand is busy caressing keys to the summer villa overlooking the bay at Monte Carlo. I am looking forward to a soiree in the South of France with an appointment card for high tea with Sting. I like Rock stars. And Ferraris. After the interview, followed by a 20 minute appearance at the Vogue Fashion Awards in Los Angeles, Sting promises to party with me till dawn…
A nine hour flight is too much time for a girl like me to sit around doing nothing. So, I pull out my Sony compact laptop and do notes on the venom barbs I’m going to shoot at aging Mick Jagger when we meet for cocktails at posh Bungalow 8 in New York. Get him drunk and photographed with a Brazilian madam, accompanied with a nasty juicer in print (how we settle old scores!). Must remember to send a copy to his ex, who had recently cooed in print, `The only time I displayed good taste is when I dumped him.” Smart women do have a weakness for emotional slobs. Roger that.
We hit an air pocket. My Mac eyelids blink double fast with a reflex bite into my Kylie Jenner lip stain. Travel is soo stressful…Have to re-check my one day session at the Hideaway Spa in Hawaii. Do a double-check on pretty Pierre who simply loves doing my toes and divine milk soaks I’m completely hooked on to. Then, mint herbal tea with Richard Gere at the sauna…. Now here’s a man God made, then retired.
My pocket diary flashes. You cannot discount the privileges of satellite technology. There’s an email from His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Says the dharmashala needs publicity because the Chinese are cutting off his funds. `Could I be kind and do a karma re-adjustment with my pen?’ Yeah, I could do some closet cleaning, so I reply back. Probably get supermodel pal Christy Turlington do a bikini shoot in his dining hall….Hmm! Then leave, karma adjusted, to Australia for the Grand Prix Formula One. The all new Schumacher wants to cook Italian pasta and discuss the stock market. Old habits do not disappear with the white light…
The cell jumps buzzing… “Hello!” “Jay Z?” I would be delighted.” Disconnect cell. How on Earth does he manage to find time to launch a special edition T-shirt series despite a world tour with Mrs Carter? Beats me. Flash SMS: Bieber caught at a Brazil bordello, again. Tsk, tsk, he don’t get it, does he?
There’s another phone shrill in the distance….“What!!” “Declined?” “But that’s not possible…I paid a ransom for those ladies?!” `Manuel?’ `Who is Manuel?’ `I want my Manolo`…

REALITY BITES
A rude shoulder shake wakes me from my reverie.. Ahem…The noise hits like a tsunami. There is no jet. But there is a visibly upset Manuel Gonsalves staring hard at me. I’m on a boring date that caused an instant brain shutdown, right in the middle of ISL game. Firstly, Manuel needs to` get it’ that not all women can be tamed like a filly with a saddle, who has subjugated herself with no escape plan. I’ve sat through hours of brain muscle flexing on the ancestral escapades from Mozambique to Karachi and the exploitation of land tillers plucking mangoes from his great grandfather’s backyard in the dead of the night… Ho hum… I can see the ice disintegrating in my Single Malt letting out sighs as water meets ethyl, dissolving into oblivion. Very much like some of the voices of our politicians suffering from a `foot in the mouth’ syndrome. If you watch Donald Trump, yeah, you get the drift.
Far from pulling out a referee whistle in the middle of TV debates, I realize it is up to us women to make our stand very clear. We should take no bull. Surely the Manuels need to understand that women who wear Manolos know the difference between an original and a fake? The price of being a thinking woman!! Manuel rants about how he cannot `get me.’ The date, as I predicted, is a disaster. Hello!! This filly has bolted the stable, so fetter your mules elsewhere, I tell Manuel. A girl in a Manolo, is a gale in motion. Our male species had better take note.
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