A Day on a Birthday

It’s Ben’s birthday today. We plan to meet and celebrate with my dear dear friend from Malaysia, Hana. Hana has been living in London for the last one and half years. She is here to be with her 11-year old son, Mika who is studying at Eton. He has another six months until he finishes his primary school.

We meet Hana at Kensington station at around noon.

We both are very excited to see each other. It has been 18 months since she left for London. We both exchange miss yous, hug for long time and can’t wait to hear the latest about each other.

I say I am very good, staying at Ben’s friends’ terrace house in Laughborough Junction in Brixton.

Hana says she is good too but missing Malaysia and friends back home. She says life is very lonely in London and it’s hard to find good friends here.

How about the moms of Etonian kids, I ask her.

She made good friend with an American lady but she and her family moved back to USA. Her husband’s job contract ended. Hana made friend with the American mom a few weeks after she moved to London but three months before the American family was due to return to the USA. Heigh ho.

She doesn’t click with other Etonian moms, she says. They either are too rich, too snobbish or just too bitchy.

She says there is one mom from Thailand whose husband is rich. She is a snob and always comparing what she has and what Hana has (or does not have), comparing her son with other people’s children.

I laugh to Hana’s explanation of the Thai woman because I can almost visualize her with the first 70-minute of Michelle Yeoh’s character in Crazy Rich Asians.

I say to Hana not to give the bitch a fuck. The bitch is not rich, her husband is. She compares what she has with yours but all she has is from her husband’s credit cards. And what you have is from your own bank account because you work hard for it.

I remind Hana that she is in the league above those bitches who happen to marry well.

Hana is a single mother who works her ass off to afford to send her son to Eton. And it’s London, a very expensive city to live.

I joke that she should open an account on Grindr with a heading “Lonely Hag Looking For Fag Friends.” All three of us burst out laughing at the idea. Not a bad idea at all.

We go for a walk in Hyde Park to burn as much fat as possible before going for calories galore later. We went for light lunch at a Japanese cafe which I forgot the name. Then to Harvey Nichols for a pre-drink (whatever that means), followed by high tea at Fortnum & Mason in Picadilly.

After high tea we say good bye to Hana since she has to go home before Mika her son, gets home after school. We promise to see each other again soon before we leave London.

The celebration does not end when we leave Fortnum & Mason and kiss good bye to Hana. It continues on to the night in SOHO. I guess this is the real birthday celebration for Ben. In SOHO. His very old playground. We start off by getting drunk in Duke of Wellington. Then Admiral Duncan where the lovely diva Sandra entertains us with her “wit & charm” (read “vile, racist, sexist & sex-sex-sex-induced jokes”)

So far so ok. This can’t be real. No drama. No theft. No run-in with the security or police. It’s so smooth and trouble-free. But wait. Didn’t they say “Be careful with what you wish for”?

The euphoria of the good day sees us mingling with half-our-age crowd in G.A.Y. Only then the climax of “50th Birthday Celebration of Colin Ben Roberts” starting to materealize. His phone gets stolen in G.A.Y.

Heigh Ho. Happy Birthday Ben 😉