The following extracts are translated from whatever language Shakira does her thinking in...
TUESDAY
Oh, what a beautiful day! I decided to go out for a walk to help myself find inspiration for some new song lyrics, and I've come back brimming with ideas. Really, I feel like a gazelle tripping majestically through the fridge and skipping through the meadow of clotted cream - whoops, mustn't waste all of my good ideas here. I've got an album to write!
Before I got halfway down the street the milkman called me over to ask if I still wanted those extra two pints of semi-skimmed for Friday, and five minutes later I'd already written my new single 'Milkfloat' in my head. I'm not going to put the whole thing up here in case someone steals my brilliant ideas, but the second verse goes "oh, she is like a milkfloat / Taking the churns of your love / Away from the dairy of my heart." I love writing songs in English, there are so many lovely lyrical words to play with...
That's just the beginning, anyway. When I got into the town, I stopped to pass the time of day with old Mr Jenkins who was waiting in line for his pension. Suddenly I felt another rhythm run into my head, and before long it turned into "na da da, I want to be your pension book, together when we're old, in a warm and cosy nook". I think that's got tons of potential. See, I don't understand why other singers need people to write their songs for them when there's this much material just lying around out there!
I thumbed through the dictionary when I got home and found the following words that I'm going to use in my next song: artex, gregarious, quixotic, fallacious, ubiquitous, sanskrit and nanoscience. Such pretty words! Oh, and I saw that signpost pointing to Aberystwyth, so I've got to get that in there too. 'Fallacious Aberystwyth' is a great title, right?
TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Just got back from a meeting with my record company. They're such lovely people, such sweeties. They're just the tallest hydrangeas in the garden of my music...hang on, just getting that down... Anyway, we talked all about launching my new album in English, which is very exciting. I love English because it's got all my favourite words in the world, like drainpipe and ecumenical. Anyway, they told me that everybody loves all my ideas, but they just want to make a few small changes.
Apparently the original title, 'The Encyclopaedia of Honey' is a bit too wordy when you translate it into English, so they've gone with 'Oral Fixation' instead. I don't know what that means, but they've told me it's more-or-less a word-for-word translation, so that seems fine. Anyway, more pretty new words that I can add to my collection when I look them up, so yay!
WEDNESDAY
I filmed my video today. When I got on set the director took me to one side. He is such a sweetie! I'd like to gently stroke his cute tufts of chin fluff, his man shaver and his skin exfoliation products. He said that although everyone loved my treatment for the video where I sit in an animal shelter and play with kittens, it wasn't quite the look that the management wanted.
I wasn't sure about their new version that involved me writhing in a shower with a hot male model and crushing cars, but they explained to me that it's just a giant metaphor about feminismism(ism?) and stuff like that, so that's fine. I came up with some amazing choreography - the men on the shoot really loved it, they were all pointing at me and blushing with pride and panting and pulling at their collars - I'm sure that's the French way of showing you're into women's rights, isn't it?
THURSDAY
Photo shoot for the single sleeve. A bit of an accident, actually - I was eating some honey on toast and sitting in a deckchair made of lilies when a really angry wasp landed on my lip. I wasn't scared, obviously - I've stood in the middle of a bunch of stampeding horses for a video before - but I was very scared that I might accidentally hurt the poor thing.
Anyway, I asked the photographer to help me remove it, but he got very excited and started taking pictures, saying this would be perfect for the single cover. Apparently it makes me look "fierce" and like I "don't take any crap" (not sure what that word means, but it sounds LOVELY), even though I was really hoping we could just take some nice flowery pictures in a meadow. Oh well, he's the professional; I suppose he knows best.
The best part was, it gave me some more inspiration for lyrics, like "I wish I could be a wasp on your lips / Not to sting you, just to spread my nectar / And maybe have someone take my photograph." So I wrote a song and I got taught some new words, and it really was the BEST DAY EVER! Yay!
