NEWS - Monday July 16, 2007
JASMINE'S JUICE: B-DAY PARTY, THE BOMB
Millionaire Alexander Amousu held his birthday party at a private
club in Chelsea where he showed off his latest ventures, pure gold
iPods and cellphones which were paraded around the party by models
wearing white butler like gloves, so as not to tarnish the
merchandise. Also on show were a pair of pure gold car rims that
needed no security as they were so heavy not even two men could lift
them, so there was no danger of anyone trying to run out of the venue
with them. During the night, rapstress Estelle, TV host Reggie Yates,
ACLT'S Orin Lewis, and others toasted Alex. Music legend Omar blessed
the mic with a few tracks including his classic There's Nothing Like
This. The best thing about Alex is I remember meeting him when he was
a mere student years ago at an exhibition at Earls Court. He told me
he was an entrepreneur and two years later I heard he'd made his first
million with his company R&B Ringtones. Now that's a positive black
role model.
Next in my diary were gigs, video shoots and parties by Kano and
Craig David, Wu Tang, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent and Timbaland as well
as music's biggest event of the year so far - Live Earth. They weren't
in my diary for long though. They were all nixed (except the Kano and
Craig David shoot in L.A as that was for work and mama always tells me
work comes first) as soon as I was invited by Mariah to join her on a
boat in Capri.
The journey from los scandalous to Capri couldn't have been fiddlier.
I flew L.A to Heathrow, then had an hour to get through immigration,
collect my luggage and race from Terminal 2 to 1, then jumped on to a
flight to Rome, then jumped on to a flight to Naples, then raced from
Naples Airport to Naples port to catch the last speedboat over to
Capri Island. Gosh... I'm exhausted just writing that. Finally, I
stepped on to the cobbled streets of Capri to be met my MC's security
who whisked me off to MC's boat.
I say MC's boat but it was actually courtesy of Italian designer
extraordinaire Mr. Roberto Cavalli. In fact, once you were on the
boat, it was obviously Roberto's boat as his leather and animal print
furniture, designs and presence were everywhere even down to the
luxurious cavalli products in the bathrooms. Every available cupboard
was stacked with RC goodies that smelt heavenly. Bed sheets, table
cloths, china - you name it, it was designed by Roberto, darlings.
I climbed all three decks to the top where I found Princess Carey
reclining on the plush white lounge sofas in a .y as you like
Cavalli bikini and matching green and gold necklace-looking like a
straight out of Vogue itself. The boat is called Baglietto and
was full of exquisite, gracious staff ready to execute our every
request. Also in attendance were MC's family Shawn, Rae Rae, Maryanne,
and the uber manager Benny Medina.
We boarded the smaller tender (boat) to get to a remote cliff top
restaurant where we ate under the moonlight on the cliffs edge. Just
as we finished dinner, we were surprised with hundreds of fireworks
that were let off in front of us in the middle of the ocean; did I
mention that it looked like the boat caught fire? No, I shouldn't talk
about that little mishap. After he scuttled away, we continued
debating the merits of the movie Norbit.
Next day, even though we were but metres away from each other in
adjoining bedrooms "pon de boat" MC paged me: "Hey lets go to the blue
grotto today." Of course, even though I had my blackberry with me, I
had my "Out of office" message on in case any of my MTV folks were
trying to get a hold of me. So my out of office message pings back to
MC who is irritated and confused 'cos now she doesn't know what that
message is about. I then had to explain the process of the OOO for MC
who's never spent a day of her life in an office, bless her.
On day 3 it hit me that being on a boat comes with even more issues
than driving a car. Boat people have their own private snobbery club,
so it was a good thing we were on Roberto's boat which is I'm told
"really fast for a boat of its size". The yacht parking issues got us
each night. We would be having so much fun out at sea jumping in and
out of the water, racing around on the jet ski and doing water
aerobics that often we would leave it too late to get a space in the
dock or it would be too dark to enter the dock. Anytime a cruiser
comes in to dock, a million crew members run around carefully placing
fenders (huge balloon like missiles) in place to protect their vessel.
Issues of the biggest, highest boat were being discussed everywhere.
In fact, nearly as much discussion was about Eddie Murphy who was on a
neighbouring boat. When I told my friend back in London that Scary
Spice's baby daddy was metres away from us she texted me back "OMG.
Stay away from The ...inator!"
(The Voice)
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