On Planet Gorgeous we surround ourselves with beauty and bright shiny things that make one go “aahh!”. What is more beautiful than a string of fairy lights lighting up a tree on 5th Avenue in New York City, feathers and sequins on a showgirl’s costume, a Swarovski crystal encrusted calculator, Freddy Mercury’s voice, white flowers in a garden, Brad Pitt’s body in Fight Club, Impressionist paintings in the Louvre or the Aston Martin DB9? Pretty much nothing.
Now let me make this clear, I have never owned an Aston Martin and I have never driven one, but the fingerprints and the drool on the windows of the Aston Martin showroom at the Cape Town Waterfront? Those are mine. And if I owned a TiVo, it would be filled up with car shows like Top Gear. But since I can’t record a million episodes on a nifty electronic device, I buy the DVDs, read the books by Clarkson, Hammond and May, own the Top Gear Driving Songs CD and belong to The Stig fan club. I love a man in costume.
One of my dreams has always been to be in the audience of a Top Gear taping or, better yet, to drive around the Top Gear racetrack with the Stig in the passenger seat. Swoon.
And then I got the best news: The Top Gear Live Show was coming to town! I bought my tickets months in advance and then I immediately started worrying about what I was going to wear. Thousands of Rands and a few worry lines later (Dr. Price!) it was finally time for The Big Show.
Getafix and I arrived about three hours early, because they had an exhibition tent with all the shiny new cars and I wanted to take my time savouring the metallic beauty of every triumphant creation. My heart was already pounding in my chest like a seventeen-year-old girl at her Matric Dance when I saw it. There, in an enclosure to ward off overenthusiastic onlookers, was the silver Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
My knees trembled as I gasped for air, nearly falling off my stilettos. I knew that I was in the presence of greatness, so I did what every civilized human being would do: I brushed my hair, applied some lip-gloss and curtsied. I wanted to propose to this genesis of perfection. I wanted to have little Aston Martin human/machine hybrid babies. Standing there, mesmerised by the smooth lines and toned George Clooney-esque body, I could have sworn it winked at me with one of its diamante-framed headlights.
Getafix, very politely, tried to get my attention by softy whispering something about how the show was about to start, but he should have known better than to wake a sleepwalker.
“I’m breaking up with you! I’m leaving you for Aston!”
I shrieked like a deranged Tourette’s syndrome sufferer. Getafix put his hand on my shoulder and I, now woken from my fantasy of a villa in the south of France with the Vantage parked in the driveway and little Aston Martins playing on the lawn, realised the object of this excursion: The Live Show.
And oh! What a show! What a production! This is what show business is all about! Lights! Fire! Pyrotechnics! Lasers! Smoke! Music! Stunt driving! Supercars! Drama! Comedy! Dramady! Jeremy on a bicycle! The Hamster with bad hair! The Stig in a funny little car doing a loop-de-loop stunt on a rollercoaster-thing! Cars playing soccer with a giant ball! The Cool wall! Motorcycles in a cage trying to kill Hammond! (They should kill his hairdresser instead.)
Throughout the show I was whooping and whoo-ing and screaming and shouting. I left the arena with major vocal chord damage, haematomas on my hands from applauding while wearing too much bling on my fingers, and covered in cheap beer that the shell-shocked idiot in front of me kept spilling every time there was a loud explosion. I didn’t have a single drink the whole time and I still walked out of the show drunker than anyone there purely because of the amount of alcohol I absorbed through my skin.
I always imagined falling in love with a prince on a white horse who would swoop into my life and make everything better, I just never imagined that the object of my desire would actually be the horse…a silver horse…with the power of more than just one horse…with the power of 420 horses.
But there I was, limping to the parking lot with a sprained ankle from falling off my stilettos, drenched in beer, speechless and with red swollen hands. I might have looked like shit, but I didn’t care.
I was in love.
