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  • Gwendoline Lamour: With pith helmet and apron in deepest London

  • By Gwendoline Lamour

    Posted: Thu Jun 18 2009

  • International glamour puss and burlesque star Gwendoline Lamour files her Time Out blog

    Gwendoline Lamour: With pith helmet and apron in deepest London

    Eat your heart out, Imelda Marcos © Sarah Ainsley

  • Spring has sprung and changes are afoot at Lamour Towers. Upholstered in a 1950s apron and armed with a trowel, yours truly has been out chivvying the soil and planting an array of growing things. It has to be said that the acreage at the homestead does not amount to a great deal – actually a collection of large terracotta planters and window boxes - but every English woman has a duty to beautify her home, so it was out with the gardening gloves and in with the trailing fuchsia.
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    With this spring-cleaning fever still upon me I ventured indoors to tackle the house. There is, for a while at least, a certain joy to be found in turning out cupboards and scrubbing at the forgotten corners of the house where on-one ever sees. All manner of lost objects present themselves for inspection and lead to musings of ‘how on earth did that get there’, or wishing you’d found the blighted thing a month or two ago when you’d given up all hope and thrown an essential element of it away. And then you get bored, pile things into random boxes and shove it all in the attic where at least you won’t have to look at it.

    The other problem with attempting to create an immaculate home is the annoying habit people have in living in your creation. A friend once told me that every time she visited her mother and gave indications of going to bathe, her parent would look fretful and say – well, if you must, but I hope you’re clean because I’ve just done the bathroom. This is entirely understandable since there is nothing like spotless order for showing up the slightest atom of disarray. My own house veers from the psychotically tidy to something approaching the sack of Troy as I am constantly packing and unpacking for shows and can never find things when I need them. Items presently on the Missing in Action list include a six-month supply of contact lenses (I know I put them somewhere safe) and a bundle of rather essential paperwork (surely it couldn’t have gone out in the recycling?)

    Perhaps I should see what is in those boxes in the attic.

    Gwendoline Lamour's recommended burlesque show A Night of Lamour is this Friday at Madame JoJo's. See listings.

    For more information or to book Gwendoline, see her website.

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