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Cooper Brown: He's Out There

'Victoria asked me to come to the spa, but I had this vision of a plastic pipe pumping goop out of my ass'

Thursday 03 April 2008 00:00 BST
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I got really stressed this week because I was looking after Humboldt-Fog while Victoria spends some "me" time in a top health spa in Thailand. She's gone with the hideous Trinny, and they have a full week of pipes being shoved up their asses all mapped out. One wonders what exactly there is left to take out of Trinny, and Victoria is not far behind, but this is not my concern. Somehow, this is what makes chicks happy – so good luck to them.

Victoria did half-heartedly ask me whether I wanted to come and I had this brief, hellish vision of being bent over some Thai bathtub with a plastic pipe pumping goop out of my ass while some half-wit plays crap music on an ethnic wooden banjo. I obviously declined and took the H-F option, solo to boot, as we're not allowed any au pairs as part of our new pre-marriage agreements. I did suggest to Victoria that I could probably find some quack to stick a pipe up her ass in our bathroom, I could go down to the local Thai takeaway and we could make do with that – and then she wouldn't have to abandon her child. That didn't go down too well. If the truth be told, she's probably wanting a little time away from me before we get hitched and she knows that a spa is a sure-fire Cooper deterrent.

When we first met in Santa Monica, we headed off for a dirty weekend at a place near Palm Springs in the middle of the desert. It sure was dirty – it was one of those places where they cake you in mud that looks like frog shit and then you have to lounge around in huge tubs wallowing in the stuff. It stank real bad and you just couldn't get it off, however hard you showered. If this wasn't bad enough, the place seemed to be quite a big gay hang-out and I got constantly hit on by well-buffed B-movie actor types who all thought I was a movie exec. I finally got some action with Victoria but only for a while as she was so "blissed out" and just wanted to sleep.

They didn't have a TV, so I ended up sitting out on our desert terrace listening to a couple called Larry and Peter have a huge bust-up in the cabin next door. This actually turned out to be the most entertaining part of the weekend. As far as I remember, Larry had slept with two friends of Peter when he had been away in Lake Tahoe. Not only that, but one of Peter's friends had since told Peter that he was HIV-positive and now Peter was worried that he might be. With me so far? It ended with Larry being bashed around the head with some sort of bottle by Peter, and the spa security, which consisted of a hippy called Steve turning up and trying to sort it all out.

I couldn't wait to get back to the sanity of Los Angeles and we left early the next morning, despite protestations from Victoria, who was keen to try the hot stone treatments. All the way back I could just smell that frog shit, and had to have my car valeted four times before I could breathe properly in there.

To be fair, the whole spa thing is just like the way us guys make sport totally uninteresting for chicks – loads of rules, weird clothes, drinking and rituals so that we're allowed to go off on trips on our own. Chicks have just hit back with the whole spa thing. It's like when I'm in the doghouse and have to go buy a peace present – I head for somewhere I don't understand like Aveda, where I go in and just point at several things that make up about £200. It's mostly things like candles and they smell of... frog shit again. I hand them over and get five minutes' brownie-point time, but we have to have the things lit all over the house and to me it just smells like someone is burning a frog wrapped in my money. I can't be alone here, right?

So I'm home alone in the Cooperdome with no smelly candles – just me and H-F. I take him to the Electric for the first time and we have a really nice breakfast together and the place is full of yummy mummies who all coo over him and give me wonderful views of their full bosoms. Then we go and see a matinée at the cinema. Sadly, I pick Horton Hears a Who. I love Dr Seuss, but it scares the crap out of H-F and we have to leave within 20 minutes because he's howling his head off. This is after I've dropped 20 quid on popcorn, drinks, hot dogs etc. I pay £4.50 for a fucking hot-dog!!!! What the fuck is wrong with this country? I start an argument with the spotty moron behind the counter, but he doesn't give a shit – nobody does. We go to Whiteleys shopping centre and wander around a toy store before ending up at Starbucks, where H-F has a blueberry muffin and I slot myself into a caffeine drip. I feel better, but H-F falls asleep and I have to carry him all the way home and he slobbers all down my Jil Sander coat. We get back to the Cooperdome and I put him to bed and crack open a fat bottle of bourbon. I'm so tired, but I'm still happier than being in Thailand next to Trinny with a pipe up my ass. It's all relative, huh? Cooper out.

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