I was in Aberdeen last week doing a show at the Lemon Tree, a storm lashed the Granite City, and sideways rain like a giant fire hose was drenching each street at a specific annoying angle. The new shopping centre was lovely but unfinished and the cash machines gobbled up cards and refused to spit them out, like a greedy plastic swallowing hooker.

 

The hotel had a wee single bed which slid along the floor when you sat on it and to top it all the fire alarm screamed us all awake and made us all stand in the sideways rain in our pyjamas, I wanted to burn to death instead.

 

Touring is so sexy.

 

I was tired when I hit Aberdeen station to get the train home. There was a big fat steely haired woman in a rail workers jacket at the ticket gate. “What ticket do I put through the machine to get onto the platform? There are nine tickets printed for this journey, I don’t know which one to slide through the machine!”

 

She sneered and shouted “the one that says journey ticket, why don’t you check?”

 

The tickets have tiny writing and there are so many of them it really is hard to figure out which one is the valid ticket.

 

“Listen up fatty, NINE tickets here now tell me which one? They all look alike. What is your job? Staring at pigeons?” I shouted at her.

 

Just then two really old people came behind me with a deck of tickets (why is there so many wee orange tickets printed out for A JOURNEY?)

 

“What ticket do we use to get through there are so many?” the wee old stooped man asked fatty fuckwit.

 

“What do you think? The one that says journey…” she started to yell.

 

“Ok, you annoying pedantic fat pain in the butt, I will stand here and I will show people which ticket as the TRAIN is LATE I will do your job and help elderly people with the tickets” I screamed. Pigeons flew away in fear.

 

 

 

 

So I stood there at the gate and pointed out to people who were staring at a fist full of tickets and who asked fatty sarcastic arse for help.

Every time she attempted to use her nasty sneering attitude, I butted in and helped the people. It wasn’t altruistic I was just annoyed at her and bored to be honest.

 

She then told me to stand back from the gates and I refused.

 

She got the station master bloke who came over, listened to her moan about me standing at the gate and then came over and told me to move.

 

I explained that she was ignoring people’s pleas for help and explained the whole situation and the elderly man and wife came over to back me up. Fatty was told off and made to go back to the hut where I hope the chained her to a radiator and let her piss her own fat legs. What a cow.

 

They put a young Polish bloke on the gate and he politely explained to people who were struggling to figure out which ticket to slide through the machine. Screw you Aberdeen station ticket woman.

 

The journey home was pleasant except I had a screaming kid on the seat opposite. I didn’t get angry I merely got off my seat and went into first class where the ticket checker let me sit the whole journey for no extra charge, see some people on trains are nice.

 

I went up to Easterhouse to do my one woman comedy show on Saturday and it was awesome. Lovely to see so many people turn up for comedy and the show went well; Ashley sold 25 of my books for me, what a lovely child!

 

This week I am off to London, I have some gigs, some meetings and another big audition. Scary stuff but contrary to the rumours, I am not going into the jungle…don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Dear Janey, you are probably sitting listening to a Donny Osmond LP on your big record player and dreaming of becoming a Mormon, flying off to Utah and marrying the toothy singer…it won’t happen, stop crying and dreaming of Salt lake City and swoony Osmond kisses, he marries his teenage sweetheart and she has all her teeth, you have nine missing.

 

Oh, by the way, buy a toothbrush, I know you have hardly any cash but seriously that stuff they say about decay is right, a toothbrush is important. By the time you are 40 years old you will have paid £2,000 in veneers and bridge work at a private dentist.

 

Yes, you will have private health care; I know it’s hard to believe right now.

 

So, get the record player turned off and start staring at school books. Try harder to understand maths and don’t give up on art or English, you will be good at both in future, just try to understand me when I say you will write, paint and you really need to understand percentages when you get older.

 

I know it’s the 70s but please don’t wear a plaid shirt tied at the waist with your curly fringe hanging over your eyes, and if you do have to look like that please don’t get a Polaroid photo taken in Mr Woods garden, I have seen the picture and it made my eyes water. It is even on the internet, something I can’t quite explain right now, but will be really big in the future.

 

The 1980s are just around the corner and hair perms get really fashionable. Please DO NOT get a perm, you have really curly hair and it will result in you being housebound for three days, and a hair-do that makes Gladys Knight and the Pips jealous, no white girl should have hair bigger than Diana Ross.

 

If you are still not convinced of this advice, go to the local library and look up a boxing promoter called Don King and never ever forget that that’s what you will look like if you get a cheap perm in a Parkhead hair salon called ‘Hair Flair’ in 1981.

 

Also just to save you a lot of time, money and energy, you CANNOT skateboard, play the violin, do yoga, cook soufflé, wear strapless bras, pink eye shadow and you will never enjoy ballet performances.

 

Oh, by the way, that dream you had about a TV being made into a wrist watch? That actually gets invented. You were a visionary!

 

So Janey, don’t go into school tomorrow and declare that you are leaving, I know you have a shoe issue, but take up your mums offer to wear her slip on sandals and get through the week. Having no shoes is not good enough excuse to screw up your life.

 

Your dad will buy you shoes next week. Go there in your bare feet if needs be as you really need to go get an education, get into university and leave with a degree, if you do that, me getting into jobs later in life will be a hell of a lot easier, people are snobs and TV companies prefer folk with a Uni degree, even if they are shit at the job, it helps on paper.

 

Just on another note, your breasts will grow, I know they look like two moles poking their noses through pizza dough, but they really get big, seriously big and it is amazing how much they get big, have I emphasised that enough? Big boobs Janey will be a nickname.

 

Don’t throw a medicine ball at a guy called Craig Armstrong on your hockey pitches, he is a wee bit older, geeky and likes music. He really becomes the most famous person from your school and is an amazing composer. You will love his stuff and download it (don’t ask what that means suffice to say you will never use vinyl records forever, but do keep them safe anyway). Just avoid hurting him, especially his fingers, they are his life and don’t call him a tweedy fuckwit, its makes him never want to speak to you again. He has a really long memory.

 

Tonight when you watch Sale of the Century on the telly, don’t let your mum slag off Nicholas Parsons, when you get older he will become a nice friend and you will feel bad about your mum shouting at the TV and calling him an ‘English Toffy Nose Bastard’.

 

I know you are wondering what the hell happens later in life, so far I have scared you with dental work, big tits and Nicholas Parsons, but bear with me.

 

Sometime soon, you will get a boyfriend called George; he is really quiet, drinks too much and has deep psychological issues. What you think is a quirky attitude is actually a dark violent streak; he likes to stab men with a knitting needle.

 

He might be a good kisser and doesn’t push you into sex, but he really does get into needles later on in life and they aren’t for knitting with. Who knew heroin would be such a big hit in inner city Glasgow?

 

You will break up with him when he asks you to marry him, one suggestion -don’t laugh out loud, remember the violent streak?

 

He doesn’t take rejection or laughter in his face very well.

Ignore him and walk away. But worry not -you do make a lucky escape.

 

I do really want to warn you about the next man, but if you don’t marry him, go through the scary shit you don’t get to produce a beautiful daughter and become a funny comedian.

 

I suppose you need to tread that crap to be the woman you need to be, but the husband is ok. It’s amazing how annoying he can be, but here’s a clue, don’t talk too much. I think you need to know that the talking thing bothers people, keep some of that inside but if and when you meet your husband’s family and feel like being cheeky, go right ahead.

 

You actually develop a really good repertoire for arguments and you usually win.

 

Don’t worry about jobs, you actually become self employed from a young age and that continues throughout your life, and stick to your theory about not drinking, not smoking and never touching pills or drugs. You were right about that, and in later years if someone offers you something called ‘smack’ you will be right to refuse to smoke it off a foil tube, it kills most of your friends. That sounds scary but trust me it is over in a blink and you eventually write a play about it. Yes, you will write a bit, did I mention that? Just try to remember everything as you need to recall it to write it.

 

Just so you know, you will produce a tall wonderful child, and she will get everything you never had. She will be clean, educated and never need to worry about fresh underwear, your vow for the future of your child to be happy, well fed and educated will come true.

 

Don’t worry about labour pains; they aren’t that bad as everyone tells you and you recover quickly.

 

 

Something else I want to tell you, enjoy your body, you have wee skinny legs, so go show them off. Stop worrying about thinking you are fat, your not, be confident and when those boobs grow take time to watch men stare at them, savour that moment when they are up high and firm, it will feel like a distant memory when you are older…enjoy the pert tits.

 

Don’t wear baggy shirts to disguise them, get a good bra, a tight tee shirt and get them out there, they look amazing (I know I saw the photo’s) but you will suffer from self consciousness over them, try to enjoy them Janey, it’s a time to relish and it passes before you know it and you will spend your middle ages kicking yourself for hiding them when they had looked their best!

 

My last big thing I need to tell you, get to know your mum a bit more. She is a bit scatty, but just look at her; make sure you embed every single facet of her face into your memory. Don’t give her a hard time, hug her. Climb into bed and let her read to you, I know you are 16 years old, but she is a great reader and you grow up and take that skill with you.

 

Breathe in the smell of her, even the strange ones. Touch her face, smile and hold her. She had a crap life and you really want to share some time with her, if possible get that Polaroid camera out and get a photo of you both together. It would be nice, but probably won’t happen.

 

She needs you, you don’t know that, but she isn’t good at saying stuff that scares her. Let her dance with you, get her to sing a musical with you, let her pick which song she wants and get up and dance around the room.

Hold her tight Janey and don’t ever forget how the skin on her face feels, or the thickness of her hair or the flecks of amber in her brown eyes.

 

Most of all Janey, don’t give yourself a hard time for wanting more than she had, so go get shoes, get ready for a bra fitting and always brush your teeth, you have a long way to go and I will be here when you get there!

Yes, Christmas has a particular scent, its cinnamon and spices and supermarkets pump it out discreetly in case we forget what the spending season smells like.

 

I hate being manipulated like that don’t you?

 

Christmas or winter to me smells like wood burning and the frosty bright mornings remind me of the seasons changing, I don’t know anyone who boils cinnamon, makes spiced oranges or who mull wine not from present day nor my past, because I wasn’t alive in Victorian times when Christmas came into its own.

 

It seems we modern folk can’t have our own Christmas identity; we have to hark back to the olden days to get one. Cards and TV adverts show small Victorian dressed children with rosy cheeks and furry muffs staring through bevelled shop windows as their ankle boots are deep in crisp snow. Is there anyone alive who can recall that? NO!

 

To me childhood Christmas memories are of musty socks hanging over our old coal fire in the front room and my brothers fighting each other with tangerines in socks as weapons. So keep your cinnamon scented wafts, it means nothing to me Mr Supermarket psychological manipulator!

 

We will be having a quiet Christmas as always, just me husband and Ashley. I might go see my dad on Christmas day as this will be his first as a widower and I would hate that he was lonely. We don’t do family at Christmas, to be honest I don’t really have much contact with my family and the less said about husband’s family the better!

 

My own brothers and sister are just busy with their own lives, they have kids and husbands/partners of their own and I rarely see them, which is fine with us all. But when I hear of people who all get together and have dinners etc, it makes me hanker for a big family of love. Which is probably nonsense as I am sure that those big families all fight like hell, and are just being nice to each other, at least my brothers and sister don’t fight amongst themselves ( as we don’t get together!).

 

 

 

Went to the docs today and explained about my colon pain and stuff you really don’t need to know which involves my bowels. He told me I would be referred to a specialist called Dr Dover to which I replied “is his first name Ben?” To which my doctor said “No, Why?”

 

“It was a joke…Ben Dover...the bum doctor…its funny when you say it all together” I quipped.

 

“Ah, you are a comedian, I forgot” said my doctor with a sardonic look.

 

So, maybe I am not a comedian after all, Dr Shaw has exposed my lack of humour right there in the surgery at 10am

 

So life at Godley’s World is ticking along fine, been busy -had an ear infection, went deaf had loads of work and writing hard and this Saturday I am doing my one woman show at Easterhouse Platform The Bridge at 8pm. Do come along if you want, it will be fun!

Am listening to Jay-Z and I do so love him…Empire State of Mind is awesome…anyway I am sure you are not reading this to find out what music am into.

 

Last week, my ears decided to totally block up with bricks of wax. Yes, I produce more wax than a queen bee and my ear then cuddles it all around my ear drum and making me deaf. This was a pain the ass as I had a lot of work this week, you try doing a charity auction half deaf!

 

The people at the Boisdale Club in Belgravia London really helped me out, they raised hands to pledge cash, love those nice folks, but the tartan carpets were odd though. You always know you are in England when you see hundreds of tartan throughout a building.

 

I then flew home half deaf picking at the ear, filling it with ear drops (which are more expensive than crack per fluid ounce) I now have a healthy ear drop habit, they don’t work. You know what works? Nothing, just in case you were interested, I filled my gungy ears with that stinky expensive fluid and all that happens was that it all ran onto my neck.

 

I had warm up work for a sitcom called Life of Riley. I needed to hear; I ran to my doctors to get an emergency appointment and was seen by a woman I have never met before. She was either Latin American or faking a funny accent to add a frisson of excitement to my ear examination…or maybe I couldn’t hear her properly. “Are you Spanish?” I asked.

 

“No, am Asian, is there something funny about the way I speak?” she snapped at me. I had now insulted a woman who was about to poke a big shiny pointy thing into my ravaged tender ear hole, that will learn me.

 

Apparently the wax STILL hadn’t softened enough for them to syringe it. The wax in my ear is made of titanium steel and is refusing to let the expensive stinky drops soften it down. Perfect.

 

 “When will it be ready?” I pleaded.

 

“Three weeks or maybe never” she shouted at my ear.

 

Must remember to never get Asian people mixed up with Jennifer Lopez, my ears are doomed. So I went home and syringed them myself, fuck it.

 

So some wax did come out and I can now hear enough to get by.

 

The warm up work was awesome and tiring at the same time, asking people to laugh at the same joke on set can be weary, but that audience were amazing. Met the lovely Caroline Quentin who helped me out a few times, by coming over and chatting away to the studio audience, and that helped when they got bored of me talking.

 

I didn’t have to fly to Southampton this past weekend as the Jongleurs comedy club there has shut. I will miss the gig but Southampton was a pain in the arse to get to from Glasgow, so am enjoying a weekend free.

 

Well I am actually working tonight in Glasgow and managed to fill in the gigs, but the news I am trying to convey is this- I get to stay at home for a weekend!

 

I am struggling with the no smoking….well actually I started smoking again that’s how much of a struggle I was having. Now I am OFF them again…wish to fuck I could just kick the damn habit.

 

Some breaking news, I am now selling my autobiography ‘Handstands in the Dark’ through my website and you can click and buy it there www.janeygodley.com

I love travelling by train, and last week when I headed up to Hamilton to meet my mates mum, my love was reinforced.

 

As soon as I walked onto the platform at Glasgow central low level trains, I was greeted by a child’s voice shouting “fucksake” really loudly.

 

I spotted a young mum looking harassed and trying to deal with a wee toddler in a pram. The baby girl was about two years old and absolutely stunningly gorgeous. She had big amber eyes with thick long eyelashes, a mop of curly blonde hair and cheeky dimpled smile, she caught my eye and shouted “Fucksake” really loudly at me and giggled. I never made a move, inside I was laughing as it was really funny to see a baby say this, but I kept a neutral look on my face.

 

The mum bent over and tried to shoosh the baby, she then stood up and said “I am really sorry she won’t stop saying that”

 

“Just ignore her, don’t fuss when she says it and just keep talking to me” I replied as the baby shouted “fucksake” over the top of us talking. People on the station started to stare with disdain at the mum.

 

The young mum explained “my brothers taught her this and I can’t stop her, she shouted it at the woman in Marks and Spencer’s and at the ticket man upstairs, I am mortified”

 

“The reason she keeps saying it is because you react so violently or there are shrieks of laughter, she does it because it gets her attention, she is performing and knows her best punch line so well and it’s a solid bit of material, I know I am a comedian and that’s what we do” I said.

 

The mum and I kept chatting and ignoring the “fucksake” that resonated round the station, eventually the baby stopped shouting it out. She then started to point at other things that caught her eye as soon as she realised her punch line was getting no reaction. I told the mum to give her brothers a good kick in the bollocks about teaching a baby to swear and to completely ignore the “fucksake” until the baby finally gives up on it.

 

 

After my ‘parent advice class’ I got on the train to Hamilton.

At the station I spotted a poster for a beauty salon called

‘YA BEAUTY’ which made me giggle, and then there was an advert for

‘THREE BABY BEARDED DRAGONS’ which were wee lizards up for grabs. I love local adverts, they are just awesome.

 

My favourite was an advert for babysitting which stated in bright red ink marker

 

‘I LOVE KIDS AND HAVE NEVER BEEN FOUND OR CHARGED WITH TOUCHING THEM AND AM AVAILABLE FOR BABYSITTING’

 

I can’t think of anyone who would let that person near their kids!

 

To round off my week, last Friday I went up to Montrose to do a corporate gig and had a great fun night. The weather was horrific during the night, the wind whipped the trees bare and the rain battered the south east coastline of Scotland. I was worried sick, as husband and I had to get up early and head back to Glasgow for my flight to London and I hate travelling in storms.

 

I sat there in the dark of Montrose at about 4am and willed the weather to change, and sure as hell at 7am Montrose was sparkling in the autumnal sunshine! We managed to get to Glasgow airport in time for my flight to London.

 

I had a wonderful gig at the 99 club in Leicester Square, but woke up in London with my left ear totally blocked. I hate that, it is like being underneath water; it makes me partially deaf and hurts like hell.

 

I had an audition in London and went along half deaf, I was worried sick they would ask me questions and I wouldn’t catch what they said. It went all right and I am hoping I did get the job.

 

So am back in Glasgow and still have one deaf ear, husband is pissed off repeating everything, and daughter is now miming things to me and asking me questions in the form of physical theatre and dance. Hopefully my ear will unblock or the doctor will revise his ‘we don’t syringe ears’ policy and help me out OR a car will hit me on the head and my ears will pop.

Today I realised that I had written my 1,000 online blog. It all started in 2004 when I wrote a blog to help me get over writers block when I was writing my autobiography. It turns out I loved the blog and can’t quite let it go. It is syndicated to over 170 sites across the World Wide Web, it gained thousands of regular readers, it enjoys over half a million hits a week across the sites its published on. I have made many friends, learned loads about myself, annoyed people and ended up writing for a prominent Scottish newspaper and got freelance work throughout the world. That’s what happens when you write down all your thoughts for people to read!

 

Whatever site you are reading this on, please enjoy and accept my heartfelt thanks for all the support, here is my 1000^th blog…

 

Nut Brittle and frayed tempers…

 

I love Lidl as the moment, their fresh trout and their low fat frozen yoghurts are the best I have EVER eaten in my food noshing life.

 

“Excuse me do you have nut brittle, I got it here last week and it was in your Greek produce section, where is that been moved to?” I asked a podgy faced man in the fresh veg aisle.

 

He pointedly ignored me and carried on talking about some bank loan he applied for to a wee red haired bloke who was stacking up Christmas cards against chocolate flavoured Santa’s.

“So, I called the bank and they have refused my loan…” he droned. I watched the red haired bloke bend down deeply into the display as if he was trying to hide inside it. Podgy face carried on regardless, his bank conversation needed to be aired.

 

I walked off and decided, rather than do my usual thing and argue with spotty penniless podgy man, I went in search of the nut brittle on my own.

I got absorbed in my wee Lidl shopping experience and as I turned into another aisle I stumbled yet again on the podgy bank loan refused shelf stacker, he was still droning onto the red haired man “So, I then asked to be put through to head office and they kept me…” at that the red haired bloke leapt up and screamed “Shut the fuck up you annoying smelly bastard”

 

The red haired man threw a big tantrum and started to pull down all the Christmas trees and boxes of cards whilst screaming at the top of his voice “Fuck you Colin”. Fat podgy man (who I assume is Colin) stood there aghast, and then decided the best thing to do was run away from the devastated Christmas area and leave red haired man to explain himself to the manager who was fast approaching having dashed from the Polish fish display.

 

Just at that moment the woman from Afghanistan who sells the Big Issue outside (she is called Tick Tack- I swear to God that’s what she told me) well anyway her dog which is called ‘Bad Dog’ got off its leash and ran towards the melee and bit the poor ginger haired shouty man, then tried to rape a Christmas tree by humping it hard with it wee pink tongue hanging out.

 

Chaos ensued, Tick Tack started running after Bad Dog and chased it back out of the store and ginger man had to be calmed down. The Lidl is just so crazy on Tuesdays – I found the nut brittle, it is so delicious you should try it.

 

So after my Lidl experience I headed up to Easterhouse Platform Theatre ‘The Bridge’ and got some posters prepared for their display, ticket sales are going great and you can come see the show on November 14^th, just call  0141 276 9696 or email them info@platform-online.co.uk for tickets, give them your details and they will get back to you.

 

Am still reeling about the closure on some Jongleurs comedy clubs after a take over of the company last week, loads of comics, staff and management have lost- jobs, cash and future work and I am just hoping they all recover at this difficult time near Christmas.

Firstly I cannot escape Cheryl Cole’s new single…everywhere in Belfast was battering it out on radio etc…making me insane, though it does sound better after it has been electronically voice tuned - she was shit singing that live. I didn’t recognise the damn song from her military dance display on X factor.

 

Secondly I LOVE the way Irish people say ‘wee’ all the time.

 

“Do you have a wee key to your room? Do you want a wee help with your case? Do you have a wee credit card so we can have a wee swipe at it?” that’s awesomely lovely. I also flew on a wee plane called Kevin Keegan (yes it really was called that) and couldn’t stop giggling that I was inside Kevin Keegan and arrived at George Best airport, football players are so big in aviation.

 

The Ulster Hall was just lovely and I did enjoy the Amnesty gig, all the people were so bloody good onstage.

 

So after all that I went for a ‘wee’ cup of tea outside Oscars champagne bar in sunny/rainy Belfast. It didn’t look like a champagne bar as it actually sells Danish pastries and breakfast buns. I just sat my arse down on a wee seat when a woman sat opposite and called me a cunt for no good reason. She then told me all about Frank in 1967 and how he was a cunt as well. She had a mullet hairdo and skin that look like crumpled tin foil that had been flattened out but refused to go smooth, I called her Scary Betty. She had the haunted eyes of a woman who could set fire to trees just with her memories. Her continual rant never stopped when my niece Ann Margaret called, in fact she could hear Scary Betty in the background.

 

“Aunty Janey, I can hear a nutty woman in the background are you sitting beside a Looney?” She asked,

 

“Yes, I am” I answered, Scary Betty leaned over and whispered “Tell her to go fuck herself”

 

“She can hear you Ann Mags, you’re not really helping by talking about her” I giggled.

 

Scary Betty stared hard at me and then a great thing happened, three Asian men sat down. Scary Betty shut up, she knew that shouting at them would be really bad, so went back to hissing filth at me, as me being white could not take offence to her abuse…apparently!

 

 

Eventually the waitress came out and told her to leave, Scary Betty stood up and told the Asian men that nobody likes their music (which was the least racist thing she could say) I meanwhile breathed audibly and went back to my newspaper. The smell of stale sugar puffs magically disappeared as she left and that was just a bonus.

 

Bigger news was taking afoot but I didn’t know that, though I was about to find out. Jongleurs comedy clubs had a big meltdown. If you are unfamiliar with Jongleurs they are a comedy chain that hire loads of comics every weekend and huge amounts of staff in their popular clubs.

 

Apparently, and I am not sure of the entire facts, but the company got bought out and it means that in the hand over five clubs have been closed for good. Nottingham, Southampton, Bristol, Oxford and Bow have been shut. I was gutted as I am booked into Nottingham this weekend, any way my personal grief gave way as I realised that almost 200 jobs have been lost, throughout the company. I will miss all those lovely people who made me welcome and who always checked my happiness levels before I went onstage. Bless all those poor folks who have lost their jobs, I wish I could do something for them. I am thinking of you all as Christmas approaches.

 

So therefore I have the weekend free, and will have some weekends to fill but am not that fussed as I am a comedian and will pick work up anywhere.

 

On another note, I am looking forward to Christmas as I am going to be home this year and near my dad. I love him and he will need me this year as he is alone, it will be nice to share it with him.

 

Also have a big audition coming up in London and will need all the luck I can get for that one!

Speak soon.

Leeds was sunny and I love autumn, isn’t that something? The drive through Ilkley and Skipton and all across that area with the trees and foliage turning bright gold to vivacious red was awesome. That’s officially me getting old, I am a leaf peeper! But I have to say the Midlands countryside is just stunning to see at this time of year, and Leeds looks so quaint, who knew it was hotbed for terrorists? It looks so peaceful and nice as well!

 

As I was walking through sunny scary hotbed of terror that is Leeds, I sat by the little river and took in the view. A man approached wearing inappropriately short shorts, you know what I mean, over 40s mens shorts should be below knee, under 20s men shorts can be showing some clam if they want, they are young and their skin still fits them. This man was in his 50s and was grossly over weight, the shorts were disgustingly tight, and I couldn’t stop staring at his crotch which is disturbing to say the least.

 

Of course saggy ball man sat right beside me on the lonely tow path, what else do you people expect?

 

“Lovely day isn’t it? Do you like robin red breasts?” he shouted into my face, I realised he look a bit detached and possibly slightly special needs.

 

“Erm…yes they are nice” I stuttered.

 

He then pulled out a Christmas card with a robin on the front and shoved it in my face. “Nice” I said and prepared to leave. He grabbed my arm to sit back down; I looked anxiously around for some help as tight short baggy ball man might throw me into the river.

 

“My name is Barry and my mum is dead” he whispered.

 

Now, in my head all I could think was ‘has he just killed her?’ or is he disturbed because she died years ago?…I was getting scared by the minute…I always imagined how I would die, but I never thought I would end up in the river at Leeds by a fat man wearing shorts wielding a robin red breast Christmas card.

 

“My mam died years ago and she gave me this card” he said as I sat back down and his arm was gently now resting on mine.

 

I suddenly didn’t feel scared, I felt sad for him. We chatted for a while and he told me things about his mam and how she used to sing to him and after she died he lived in a big home and made pottery.

 

His speech was rather stilted and childlike and I didn’t feel threatened. Then we just sat in the quietness and he had a wee sleep! Yes, he napped as he clutched a Christmas card in his hand. After about half an hour I heard a woman shouting at us along the pathway. She hurried up to us as he jolted awake.

 

“Barry, what have you been told about wandering off?” she shouted at him. She wasn’t being angry more concerned and I explained he had been sitting with me chatting. Barry was all confused and stuttering out sentences trying to explain himself.

 

“Barry was having lunch with us at the river side pub along there and just disappeared, didn’t you Barry?” she calmed down, but still looked harassed.

 

He got up and staggered a wee bit, I think he was tired. The woman just took his arm and walked him off. They got about 30 feet away when he turned and shouted “Bye Katherine” at me. Nice to know he paid attention when I told him my name! I hope Barry had a nice day.

 

I walked slowly back to the flat and noticed that Leeds has its Christmas decorations up in the town centre.

IT ISNT EVEN HALLOWEEN PEOPLE!

Either that town is obsessed with Christmas or they want to shove Christianity down everyone’s throats and wipe out their reputation as a town that breeds bombers of the Muslim fundamentalist nature.

 

Now don’t everyone comment and write hateful things about me slagging off Leeds, just don’t shoot the messenger, by the way as an addendum to that four counter-terrorism detectives have been arrested for allegedly abusing corporate credit cards to claim up to £120,000 in fraudulent expenses while gathering intelligence after the 7/7 bombings.

 

Is everyone corrupt?

 

Either way I had a great weekend in Leeds, and I had fun.

Luton has no place for me; I know this because its transport system basically shouted it at me. “Battersea, I don’t think so love?” Luton guffawed and left me standing trying to work out the myriad of buses and trains that get you to fuck out of its small town.

 

Luton is the kind of place where you land and run away from as fast as you can, but I couldn’t get a flight into Heathrow Terminal 5 which I adore and love, it has a tube station that takes me practically to my door when I stay in Central London.

 

My mate John came and picked me up and drove me out of the orange Easyjet painted hell hole.

I saw newly arriving Eastern Europeans take one look at the place and pour petrol over themselves and go up in flames with despair in the outside smoking area “this is what we gave up our shanty but happy homes for?” they said in a language I couldn’t understand but could tell from their actions, that’s what they meant.

 

Guantanamo bay has a better vista and more interesting facilities than Luton, the mere fact that everyone who asked me where I flew into does a Lorraine Chase face and shouts ‘Luton Airport’ in a Cockney Accent cements my opinion of the place.

 

Anyway I made it into London and had a great weekend. I was performing at The Groucho Gang Show which was just amazing. I sat on an expensive carpet and watched The Feeling, The Alphabeats and The Waterboys (technically it was A Waterboy as the band wasn’t there -just him) sing live! They were great and I love the Gang Show.

 

Later on I met David Thewlis who is a very interesting and lovely bloke who adores comedy! Then my mate Monica turned up with Heston Blumenthal (she owns her own PR Company) and I got papped outside hugging the lovely chef as we made our way in (I was outside waiting for them to arrive). We had a good old giggle as the gang show wound down; Hamish and the Groucho House band are just brilliant musicians and they had the place jumping.

 

 

 

 

I got home on Monday night (after suffering the horror of getting back to Luton fucking Airport 2 trains and 2 buses to be precise) and promptly fell asleep at 8pm and didn’t wake up until Tuesday at 10am. I am like a baby who ‘is going through the night without waking up for a feed’ its awful -who sleeps that long? Coma victims that’s who!

 

Husband watched me trying to get dressed today for a meeting and said quietly “Do you know there is a big clip in your hair sideways at the back?”

 

“Yes, I do, its fashionable” I retorted.

 

“It’s sideways and makes you look like Susan Boyle who can’t see the back of her head and clips random hair accessories without checking” he answered.

 

“Well you fuck a woman who looks like Susan Boyle so the jokes on you fella” I said as I struggled to get the clip out of my tufty mane, it got caught and eventually husband had to use nail scissors to free it out of my head. I now have a bald patch, that’s how fashionable I am.

 

I brushed my hair up and tried to put it in an up-do and managed to look like Chaka khan on crack, am sure the woman at the BBC meeting didn’t mind me looking mental. I am whacky and funny, that’s what I do!

 

I know I am not fashionable as I did comedy for an event last week where women who were really rich, successful or married to footballers bought handbags for £400 a piece. I nearly gagged on my champagne when I saw the cash flow for HANDBAGS…but it was all for charity so that’s ok, but seriously I couldn’t cope with the pressure of a fancy bag, I throw handbags on the grass and sometimes sit on them. I have been known to keep a Greggs pasty in a handbag for emergency steak bake moments.

 

Ashley got a £2,000 Bottega Venetta handbag as a graduation gift from a lovely rich friend and I get scared just looking at it.

It knows am from Shettleston and shouldn’t be near it, the bag shudders visibly when I pick it up. It literally vomits when I open it to look in.

“Get your grubby council house hands of my exclusive Italian leather you spam sucking caravan dweller” it whispers when I finger its clasp.

 

I am ok with an Asda long life plastic bag, don’t give me expensive leather or designer couture – I get nervous and burn it accidentally or spill red wine onto it.

 

Anyway the hand bag event was at Loch Lomond Golf Club and honestly the place is awesome, you should see the spa there…I was gobsmacked and one day I am going to save up and buy a bar of soap from that place.

 

I am joking, but go to www.lochlomond.com  and check this divine place out for yourself, its just spectacular.

 

Click on Spa and tell me that doesn’t look heavenly?

 

I think we should have a ladies blogger day there what do you think?

I was on the tube in Glasgow (yes we have a tube system, its two wee trains that go round in circles, called the clockwork orange, don’t ask) anyway I stepped onto the train and there was a young teenage boy with an older woman hugging him. She was running her hands through his sticky up blonde hair and whispering to him, he giggled and pulled up his baggy jeans onto his skinny bony frame. You could see the elasticated band of underpants showing, boys do love showing their big man pants off!

I thought it was nice that a young teen boy would let his mum cuddle him like that in public; Ashley would punch me if I stroked her head in front of people at that age.

Anyway the mum had her arms around him from behind and was rubbing her head into his, then they kissed fully on the mouth and I stopped thinking it was nice. Then I realised it was two lesbian lovers, who were happy as hell and I was a freaky onlooker who mistook the small lesbian for a 13 year old boy. I was annoyed at myself for judging them as a mother and son, but truly that’s what they looked like, am sorry if this offends anyone writing about this. It was heart warming that they could love and kiss in public and we in Glasgow are not homophobic and open minded, but I mistook the blonde girl for a small boy, so what does that make me? A creepy fuckwit I assume!

 

I have also discovered something about people today. I am stunned by the written language and the way younger kids use the internet. Let me explain, there is the tragic story of two young girls who killed themselves by jumping off a bridge near Glasgow. Now the minute they died, their mates all went to their Bebo networking site and started to leave messages on the deceased girls’ pages.

 

The thing that struck me was the text language used by teens as they left messages for the girls who died. I read this on one of the girls Bebo page “Hunni, ets pure rbish that yer deed, a dinny know yay were hinnking aboot dain that”

 

Which is translated as “Honey, its pure rubbish that you are dead, I didn’t know you were thinking about doing that”

 

There are loads of messages in this text speak and it was quite compelling to read them, it is like a code that you start to understand slowly. Hunni= honey, gr8=great, Geeiz= give us.

 

Writing messages to the deceased is a relatively new phenomenon; it’s a bit like when people wrote on the memorial books for Princess Diana when she died, except its people writing on a website to dead people as if they can still read the messages.

I recall my mate waiting hours to sign the condolence book for Princess Diana and she wrote on it “It’s a shame you died just when you got your hair looking nice” which is fine, because the dead don’t really read the messages do they?

 

I believe that leaving messages like this does help the grieving process, and people feel they got to say something after a death that they couldn’t express elsewhere, I am just aghast at the spelling and language used on today’s networking sites by teens who have invented their own lingo.

 

Does that make me insensitive? I don’t mean to be, I hope the kids involved in those two deaths find peace as do the families surrounding the tragic girls.

My daughter Ashley is better; her swine-flu has finally left her body. I didn’t enjoy her swine-flu period, there were no surrealist paintings or amazing art work- it just made her grumpy, whiney and her hair grew five inches in depth as well as length during her bedroom internment. She looked like a big woolly snot ridden mammoth.

 

She emerged recently looking paler, thinner and was slightly alarmed that the world had still turned despite her having nothing to do with it for three weeks.

 

Ashley got up this morning and asked her dad if he could go get her a ‘Fat Toosh’ he thought it sounded sexual and hid behind the toilet door till she stopped speaking, turns out a fat toosh is actually a ‘fatoush’ which is toasted Lebanese bread with salad, the local take away had shoved a brochure through our letterbox. She also got Ian Rankin’s new graphic novel shoved through the letter box, she was excited and even danced a wee bit.

 

I on the other hand have been suffering some deep self loathing; I need to lose weight and its not happening fast enough. The non smoking is going great, but my will power falls flat when it comes to stopping eating fatty food. So my weekend at Jongleurs Bristol was dominated with cottage cheese and cold meat, as that was all I would allow myself to eat. Low calorie and minimum carbs was the call of the day.

 

I have realised that I am the same weight that I was the day I gave birth to Ashley! So I am now walking about carrying that big lump of weight around my body, I could hardly walk when I was fully pregnant with Ashley and now that’s the body fat I live with. I hate myself now.

 

The good news is I have lost half a stone since I started really hating myself. Maybe I will really hate myself enough to lose another three stones and then I will look slim but full of deep tortured self deprecating low self esteem and develop borderline suicidal tendencies. But fuck it, I will look good eh?

 

Husband is ill prepared for this recent mood swing and has been staring at me in the dark in bed whispering “Are you ok Janey?”

“Why do you think I am fat? Can you feel the bed dip at my end?” I snipped at him.

 

“I am scared” his voice was like a thin shadow veiled with fear.

“I am fine, when I get thinner I will be finer” I shouted and broke the hush.

Bless his wee soul, he thought it would cheer me up if he got up at 5am and danced and sang a song at the side of the bed…naked. He didn’t know it made me want to take a toffee hammer to his eye. Sometimes I don’t think he knows me at all.

 

I think I may be going through a mental mid life crisis.

I am spitting nails about Roman Polanski and the cock sucking Hollywood deadbeats who are calling for this child rapist to be released. He raped a 13 year old girl and then hired a fleet of expensive lawyers to keep up with the extradition laws of the all the countries he could visit as he fled the US to avoid a prison sentence.

 

He admitted having sex with a minor. He drugged, sodomised and raped a 13 year old girl, but hang on, don’t forget the man is an auteur, he won an Oscar for fuck sake, Woody Allen is crying for his release – we cant possibly jail this man, he knows Harvey Weinstein and Harvey is going to speak to Schwarzenegger to get these insidious charges dropped. Its just a load of rich famous people excusing child rape, even women’s rights campaigner Whoopi Goldberg said “ it wasn’t rape-rape”  really? There is such a thing as rape-rape? I never saw that kind of rape in the film the Colour Purple did you?

 

Speaking as a woman who was raped as a child, I am aghast at the attitude of people who can excuse this behaviour. The man who raped me told people I was promiscuous and coerced him into it; I was five years old at the time. His defence in court was that I was often seeking his attention, my uncle got three years in prison and people screamed ‘Rapist’ at him, but then he was a lazy, wife beating, debt ridden ex Orange Walk flautist and not a Hollywood pal of Tilda Swinton, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese. If only my Uncle Rapey had friends in high places, the attitude towards his child abuse would have been different. (The abuse continued into my teens- I was 13 years old when it stopped, which was just the prime age for Polanski)

I read an astounding article by Michael Deacon in The Telegraph newspaper in which Deacon said “I reread an extraordinary interview Polanski gave to the novelist Martin Amis in 1979, the year after Polanski went on the run.

The interview originally appeared in Tatler and is collected in Amis’s excellent book Visiting Mrs Nabokov.

Here’s a section of the first quote it contains from Polanski.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

 

It doesn’t astound me that Polanski would say this kind of thing in public; it just amazes me that people view that kind of behaviour as acceptable if the person in the frame is famous!

We just need to look at the Michael Jackson debacle to know the veil of stupidity people drag over their morals when a ‘hero’ is involved.

Friends of Polanski have screamed out in his favour that his family were murdered in the Holocaust and his wife was killed in a horrific attack, so he should be left alone now!

 

That is a terrible insult to the families who died at the hands of the Nazi’s, and a slur to men whose wives were murdered, to suggest child rape is part of the recovery from such atrocities is just plain daft, and don’t get me started on ‘it was years ago, lets forget it’ as we all know that’s just begging the comment- so was the Polish Ghetto’s but you didn’t forget those did you Mr Polanski, and quite rightly so. Traumatic events do not fade with age and neither does their legalities.

 

Roman Polanski needs to serve the sentence he deserves. Apparently he is married with two young children; well let’s hope they grow up safe from the predatory eyes of a sexual beast who likes his victims ‘young’.

 

So now I have gotten that out of my system, I want to talk about Nick Cave. I didn’t really know who he was, but my niece Ann is dotty about him. We knew he was appearing at Borders Bookstore in Glasgow, so Ann and I headed off to the Rogano restaurant for our usual outside table for Oysters and tea. I love the Rogano, husband and I celebrated our 29^th wedding anniversary there and the place is just lovely. Anyway we sat outside, she smoked and I bit my finger nails and made yukky noises as she slurped on oysters (I really can’t do food that you can’t chew) anyway, we hatched a plan to see Mr Cave.

 

We both ignored the long queue of people who had official tickets (we had none) and we barged past security (We had determined looks on our faces) and we stood near the table that Nick Cave was signing books.

He is a slight wee man with terribly odd dyed black hair.

 

“God, why are they playing whale death music over the crowd Ann?” I hissed. Of course that was Mr Cave’s music; I was too stupid to know that. It sounded like the tapes you get free to help with child birth.

The security man came over and said “if you don’t have a ticket or his latest book with a receipt then you don’t talk or approach or get anything signed”

 

Mr Cave is very snooty about these things and what with the whale music and his tiny peanut head dyed very black I wondered why people liked him. Apparently he nearly drowned Kylie, so he can’t be all bad eh?

 

Ann got all hot and excited and stared at him longingly as I chatted to an extremely agitated autistic man in his 30s.

 

Yes, I met an autistic man who was trying hard to find out where the blonde girl assistant who was ‘stood there, right there with her arm like this’ had gone to. He staged the scene for me by being ‘him’ and then ‘her’ and how she stood and how she looked. Then he blurted out “My jacket melts in the heat and it this isn’t yellow its citrus colour” as he pointed to a yellow bit of his flammable top.

 

He was getting agitated and the crowd who had come to see Mr Cave started staring at him. “What is it you need to know?” I asked him.

 

He rocked back and forth a bit and stared at me wide eyed, I didn’t look away. “I need to know where I can get a magazine called Shortlist; this book has pictures of it”

He thrust the book into my face and there were photographs of a magazine called Shortlist, I recognised it. “You get them free in airports”

 

The man nodded and wrote down ‘airports’ in a book and then slapped his two hands over his ears and shouted “this music is making me sad inside”. I could only nod in agreement.

 

He then spotted a Borders assistant and ran after him in a sideways run with arms flapping, scaring the Mr Cave fans, who hadn’t seen a man in flammable fabric run sideways in their lives possibly. I giggled and Ann said quietly “Why do you always find Aspergers or Autistic people no matter where we go and why he is running about mad?”

 

I shrugged and quite liked the odd man in the bright jacket and was sad to see him go; he was infinitely more interesting and accessible than Mr Cave.

 

Ann and I decided to leave; we headed back to Rogano and watched the local Big Issue seller get photo shoot after he had had a make over and new suit. He was dressed like a proper toff and given a lobster dinner to celebrate a birthday of the Big Issue campaign. The bloke sits outside the Rogano for years and is well loved; he looked amazing in his suit and his shiny shoes. It made me gulp back tears as he stood there drinking champagne, but somehow underneath it all, I felt he was being patronised and said so to the photographer.

“Well, he got a new suit and some good food” he snapped.

 

He doesn’t need a new suit and the chance to drink booze with the people he normally begs off, he needs a home and it’s appalling to know he had been homeless for 18 years and got a suit for good behaviour outside the Rogano.

I suddenly felt odd and wanted to leave, there was a sad feeling inside me when the homeless guy was walking about suited and booted, he looked happy but discontent at the same time. I couldn’t quite process what I was feeling and kept thinking things like- how can he beg in a suit?

Where will he keep it when he sleeps on the street? Will it be harder to lose it now or was it easier for him not to have the nice clothes in the first place? I didn’t know the answers and no matter which way I formulated them in my head it all felt wrong.

 

So, to top the day off Frankie Boyle came into the Rogano and we had a wee chat, he is looking a bit better after being unwell lately.

 

Ashley is getting better and wants to thank everyone for sending her love.

 

This blog is in conjunction with the Red Card Campaign on Twitter.

 

Scotland’s domestic abuse statistics rise by 80% after a Rangers and Celtic football match was reported by assistant Chief Constable Neilson of Strathclyde Police. During an Old Firm match serious and violent crimes can double.

 

After one football game back in February this year, police were called out to 185 incidents of domestic abuse- a jump of 52% compared to weekends when a match is not being played.

 

Assistant Chief Constable John Neilson said the force arrested more than 550 people on the day of the match - all of whom were drunk.

 

Officers also had to contend with a rise in the number of attempted murders, assaults, and breaches of the peace.

 

 

And such incidents have peaked during the past Old Firm showdowns during this year.

Now with the league match next Sunday at Ibrox the bigoted wife beaters need to feel the might of the football clubs. Punching the wife is a serious as punching a fan, yet a violent thug will only be refused entry to a match for fan bashing, and wife beaters will still get welcomed into the terraces. This needs to be addressed. Men who beat their partners and have been prosecuted should never be allowed into a football ground for life.

The clubs should be highlighting this situation, it can’t all be blamed on alcohol and if the clubs are seen to be doing something, it can only help.

 

 

Sectarianism has been being tackled with some success.

But thugs have basically swapped one form of abuse for another and yet again women get the brunt of their pent up frustrations.

 

 

These cowardly thugs, are restricted from bottling other football fans who wear a different coloured scarf on the streets by the police have now found an outlet for their drunken spitting hatred. They can now do their beating in private.

 

 

It is shocking to realise that women and children recognise that when their father’s favourite team gets beat, then so will they.

There has to be some sort of solution to this issue.

 

 

Police have warned pub and club owners to reinforce their responsibility towards customers and to make sure that drunks will not be served.

 

 

Booze is not always the cause for post match wife beating, it’s not as prevalent with other Scottish premier league clubs, it is mainly connected with Rangers and Celtic fans, and so that rules alcohol out as the sole instigator in this issue.

 

 

There is something that runs deeper with the psyche of the Old Firm fans, why do they become so vehemently angry? What makes an Old Firm football attendee kick his wife in the head when his team gets beaten?

 

 

Someone somewhere needs to come up with an answer and my opinion still sways towards football managers and committees to come out and talk about Old Firm violence.

Sectarianism isn’t Scotland’s dirty secret- Old Firm Wife Beating is.

 

 

Please support this campaign on Twitter, do all you can to highlight this issue. Thanks Janey Godley

 

Ashley has been really ill; we didn’t know what to do other than kill her quickly with a firm pillow pressed against her sick face, but husband offered another option, how about we take her to hospital? I am the kind of person who if I cant fix it- I will kill it. I am sorry I sound cruel but I am crap with sick kids and sick people/things in general. If you don’t believe me I used to have a hamster that had eczema and a goldfish that swam sideways. They are no longer here.

 

It turns out Ashley may or may not have Swine flu…I think she has a viral infection but then am the woman who drowns fish so what the hell do I know? She has been told to drink plenty fluids and get bed rest and this she is really good at doing, so that’s a relief, though she is really sick, I am being sarcastic and I do worry.

 

She gets really hot then shivery and cold then I get bored listening to it and hide in my room. When she was a tiny baby and used to vomit all down my back when I picked her up I felt like squashing her wee cheeks hard, though I never did that- I merely wiped up the vomit and hugged her till she felt better. But I thought it would be honest to admit that sometimes your kids can make you insane. People underestimate the power of sleep deprivation, it is used a torture technique during interrogation and yet babies can induce sleep deprivation and people – usually mums suffer it in silence. I am not saying I am about to snap, am just saying it can happen.

 

Luckily Ashley was a sleepy baby, but once or twice when she did scream in her cot at 4am and I had a 17 hour shift in the pub to get up to, it was horrendously annoying.  She wasn’t wet or hungry- she was just determined to get me to lift her up and I showed my mothering skills off by ignoring her and sleeping through the throat wrenching screams. She never really did make it a habit. I have little patience for that kind of behaviour.

 

The same goes with my patience for husbands Aspergers, I no longer care about his deeply inconvenient syndrome, he has been a tad screamy and insanely picky the past month as he is going through his Aspergic episode – a pillow to his face might happen soon as well. Did I tell you all I have stopped smoking? I am loving it and feel I may have passed the worst of it now…but I think I am slightly short tempered.

 

So I woke up today to discover that all the electricity in the surrounding area has been cut off. It was like the power strikes of the 70s, I walked about the house trying switches, as if some magical power had stayed in one wall and would give me light! I called people, I moaned, I worried about my frozen foods and I huddled under the covers with Ashley and told her about the dark days when I was a kid and our electric got cut off, how we sat with candles, how we walked about with blankets to keep us warm, she got bored and fell asleep. I woke her to continue the story, she was ill, what else did she have to do but listen? The bitch…anyway she got a fever again and I got heat off her back. So sometimes a viral infection can be good.

 

I am off to London this week for a bunch of meetings and a few other things and then off to see Monica and Elaine my buddy’s. I am doing a one woman show at The Platform in Easterhouse on November 14^th.

You can call BOX OFFICE 0141 276 9696

I want to stop eating bucket loads of biscuits and stop smoking without actually harming someone. Life is odd at the moment, I saw a woman with a funny black hooded hat scream at a cat in the street, the cat stared at her and basically gave her a cat sneer, and ignored her. I love cats, they really don’t give a flying fuck about people, if they were humans they would be either mentally retarded folk who are unable to recognise feelings OR upper class foppish Oxbridge bedwetters who believe the world owes them a living. They have a disdainful look about them and people end up serving their needs which apply to both the mentally retarded and Oxbridge bedwetters.

 

Anyway this woman screamed at the cat, her voice reached whistle range and the cat merely licked a paw and wiped its face. Ok, the woman was wearing a Bhurka, and she was scared of cats, I never explained the full story, I omitted she was a Muslim lady in devout looking dress and was terrified of the cat. A man came running out of the Mosque across the street from me and he screamed at the cat as well, the cat licked its other paw and wiped its ears. The man was also scared of the cat. He paced round it, tried throwing stones at it and then finally flicked it with his foot; they needed the cat to move away from the woman’s front door. I was annoyed at the cruel way they were treating the fat tufty cat, so I walked over and lifted it up and placed it in the garden opposite her door.

 

This leads me to wonder if people with Asian/Muslim origin don’t like/hate cats and if they do, then we are missing a huge opportunity in the war against terror don’t you think? Maybe that’s why the Muslim fundamentalists wanted to blow up the bar Tiger Tiger in London, it wasn’t the ‘loose Western Women’ they were after but anything that represented big cats!

 

Maybe we should be allowed to carry cats onto planes and if another terrorist hijacking situation comes into play we just throw cats at them?

 

Anyway that’s how my brain is working as I stop smoking and try to stop eating. I have HEAPS of work and auditions/meetings etc…and I need to focus and stop getting involved in cat/Muslim situations and get my head into work.

 

I am off to see The House of Barnarda Alba at Citizens Theatre this Thursday to see the show. I wrote the foreword for the programme and am excited that Siobhan Redmond who plays the lead character cited my autobiography Handstands in the Dark as an influence on her playing a woman in a gangster family.

 

Lastly I am excited about Susan Boyle’s new song Wild Horses, which is awesome, though the press in the US citing her as the world most famous Catholic, made me giggle, surely that would be the Pope? Not Jesus as some people originally believed to be the most famous Catholic, as we all know he is the worlds most famous Jew. I still find it funny that Catholics pray to a dead Jewish man ….ok…don’t get all stroppy and start sending me hate mail.

 

Ok, on that odd note I am off to not smoke…speak soon.

M&S charge you for a plastic bag to carry your food home, yet they don’t charge you for a plastic bag to carry your clothes home after purchase. They also don’t charge you for all the plastic that they wrap around the food unnecessarily either, I wish they would make up their minds.

 

I now have a ‘shopping bag’ which I take to the shops and put my food in to bring home. I recall years ago that my mum used to have a special shopping bag, like all Glasgow mammies had. It was brown, plastic, deep and smelled of potatoes and tobacco with an occasional Embassy fag coupon floating about the bottom of it. Your mammy made you carry it to the shops with a list of stuff to get and then you had to lug it back home again, feeling the handles strain against the weight.

 

My daughter was aghast to hear that us kids -back in the 60s had to go to the shops and carry a wee bag of coal and some sticks on our shoulders all the way back to our home!

I recall the day when I was considered ‘big’ enough to get the coal from Joe Lafferty’s in Shettleston Rd. He had those big tin posters of Cherry Blossom shoe polish, with wee kittens sitting in shiny boots right beside the coal stack. He helped balance the bag full of coal on my shoulder and watched me walk precariously out the door, all proud to be old enough to carry coal!

 

The chopped fire sticks would dangle on a string beside your legs and give you skelfs (splinters) as it bounced off your thighs and later you would have to dig them out of your skin with a hot sterilised needle! Shopping was different back then!

 

We used to wait the queue in Curley’s which was a big grocer shop; they sold all the cold meats, butter, cheese, cans and household cleaners. The floor was covered in black and white tiles and the staff wore white aprons then you had to go queue at the local butchers to get the butcher meat.

 

So we are back to the days of proper shopping bags, and that’s a good thing in my eyes! I am hoping shopping trolleys make a come back as well, as I have a tartan one in the cupboard.

 

Ok, some news about Glasgow -seems John Friel, an old gangster died last week. I recall him from 1979 when he parked his jaguar car outside my (soon to be) father in law’s bar in Shettleston; he managed to clip my leg as he backed up. I didn’t know (nor care) who he was, all I saw was a tall balding man wearing a beige camel coat getting out of the car and ignoring the fact he just hurt me. I ran towards him and lifted one big blue Kicker clad foot and kicked him squarely on his spine; his beige coat had a big muddy footprint on it.

 

“What the fuck?” he shouted twisting his coat round to look at the stain.

 

My prospective father in law laughed loudly and nodded at Mr Friel “that’s my son’s girlfriend”

 

“She needs to stop kicking people” Friel snapped.

 

“She probably wont” My boyfriend’s dad laughed again and the incident was over as quick as it started.

 

We did meet up years later and he was always absolutely courteous and lovely to me, though once he told me to get out of a nightclub I was in as he was annoyed that the women I was socialising with worked as prostitutes and he knew them.

 

“You should be at home with your husband and not out here with these working girls” he snapped at me. This was in the dark days of 1980s East End Glasgow, women back then weren’t allowed to vote, speak loudly or read at that time, unless accompanied by a female tutor or virgin/spinster companion. 

 

Me and John Friel argued for about half an hour until he conceded defeat and accepted that I was allowed to socialise with anyone I wanted, especially after I threatened to penalty kick his spine again!

 

I recently read that he was involved in some spy ring, the IRA and a host of underground activities; I always thought he had kind eyes and a nice smile. RIP Mr Friel…may my footprint for ever be on your coat!

 

I am living on apples; they stop me from smoking and give me something to do with hands. I am back from the brink, no more fags…yet again.

 

So last week I had some very interesting meetings and am very happy with the outcomes of them. Tide is turning in my direction for a wee change! It’s all swings and roundabouts as we all know but am enjoying the new stuff I am working on and Edinburgh provided great breaks for me, though I remain unconvinced that it was their -‘BEST SELLING EVER FRINGE’.

 

The sheer amount of act selling 2 for 1s right up until last weekend was frightening, and even some of the comedy award nominees never sold out on their last Saturday, that’s shocking!

People need to remember that 2 for 1s and free tickets given away COUNT as sold tickets in the final round up countdown, so it is misleading.

The last two weeks of the Fringe were very quiet and I witnessed some big promoters pull shows near the last weekend, I saw TV named comics struggle getting a sold out on that board and I know heaps of poor comedy bastards that will loose serious cash this year, fucking shame all round, especially when the venue and promoters get their cash off you upfront and NO MATTER HOW BADLY your show sold…I am glad I did it all myself and don’t leave Edinburgh Fringe owing anyone cash. In fact I did make a good profit this year, and am glad I took the risk again, especially with the TV and radio work I got out of it.

 

Onwards and upwards is the name of my game! I am off the fags and working like a wee Scottish devil, that’s what life is all about.

 

I went back to The Calton where I used to live in Glasgow’s East End with Michael Portillo (I know -how odd?) to take part in a documentary about the area. I sat outside my old pub and stared at the old red bricked building above it that was my home for 15 years, it was where Ashley grew up and where I started out in married life. It was rather emotional especially when you consider how we left it in 1994.

 

It looks really bad, despite being renovated. There is so much filth and clutter round the side of the building and the brick work looks dull, the windows look filthy, there are parts of the balustrade up on the roof missing and the pub itself looks like it was transported back to 1975 in a pub time machine. And I don’t mean the good part of 1975, I mean the awful drunken fucked upness of 1975.

 

There were a whole collection of drunken people all dressed in stone washed double denim, all who looked like some evil familial DNA had robbed them of the possibility of a chin since time began. Seriously no one there had a chin, the chubby faces all dissolved into their necks with out the interruption of a chin type facial structure to halt the journey southwards. I even stared into my make up mirror in my bag, to check I do have chin, turns out I have three chins, but that’s fine, the evil chin monster hasn’t stolen it the way he did to these poor people. He even took their teeth as well, people in the Calton outside that pub, lacked teeth and chins….that’s fucked up.

 

I don’t recall swathes of customers without chins or teeth back in my day!

 

A black youth walked past me and as he headed across London road I heard a chinless denim clad man shout “there’s Bobo the darkie” and other deformed faced denim clad men giggled. I clenched my teeth and stared at the ground. I hated the cunt faced man and hated that this was where my child grew up and hated that old men were actually not old really and smelled of beer and piss and I come from those people. I hated everything, I tried to remember good times in the Calton.

 

So I sat on the red fencing pipe opposite the bar and reminisced about Ashley learning to walk on that pavement, just as my golden glow of memories were over taking my brain, a car drew up, the man rolled the window down and he asked “You looking for business?”

I forgot about the kerb crawling bastards who surf the Calton looking for hookers, this man didn’t have a chin either, that disturbed me more.

 

“Fuck off chinless weirdo” I shouted at him as I waited on the camera crew arriving. He actually spat at me and drove off; to think I had glowy memories of this fucking street, what was I thinking of?

 

A wee drunken man from my old bar came wandering across to ask me inane questions that I can bear to write down or repeat as the dullness of the conversation was only saved by the fact he didn’t have a chin and I got to look close up at the chinless facial structure of this creature. It was amazing and really worth staring at.

 

Then Michael Portillo and the crew turned up and we all got microphones clipped on and started the shoot. The chinless man in double denim came out of the bar and walked purposely very close to the camera and shouted loudly “Don’t put me on camera, I don’t want on camera”

 

“Fuck off out of the shot, go back into the bar and don’t come fucking near a camera is the way to cure your worry about being caught on camera isn’t it you chinless fuck?” I shouted back coz I used to live there and I recall that’s how people spoke to each other.

 

Michael Portillo merely stared at me and then carried on regardless as though nothing had happened. I think politicians are good at pretending shit hasn’t happened and can smile through any storm, and he must know that as he was a Tory when Scottish people hated Tories and were allowed to cull them legally in honour of stolen milk and miners or something like that, I can’t totally remember!

 

The day brightened up, we finished the shoot and wandered home. All my glowy memories of the Calton were shot to fuck, people were nuts, double denim is SO HUGE in the Calton and I don’t want to go back there, all the good people are dead and the useless chinless cunts are left behind.

I had to stop; there were scary chest pains and breathing difficulties during very casual sexual activity. Seriously, just moving my leg gave me pain and husband had to stop leaning on my body for fear it would stop functioning, that’s bad.

 

I model myself on the youthful appearance of Demi Moore, except if you minus all the surgery she has had and the Botox and skin plumper’s. I look how she would look if she had a fatty evil Scottish food and hundreds of fags pushed into her lungs and a series of childhood infections based on poverty and poor diet, if you take that into account Demi and I are practically identical.

 

Except my daughter doesn’t have an insurmountably large jaw line and a penchant for hanging her arse out of jeans, so what I am saying is, me and Demi Moore have fuck all in common but I wished I had the cash and balls to have extensive surgery to look beautiful, I cant even bear to get a filling in my tooth far less synthetic plastic pumped into my lip line! Ashton Kutcher is seriously hot though, I bet Demi makes him do things to her and he is scared in case she shaves her head again and starts beating him with pottery wheels or whips?

 

Anyway I have stopped smoking again. This is possibly the ninth attempt. Who knows? I am determined to go at least six months before I become an addict again. Give my wee lungs time to heal a bit.

 

Life is ok at the moment; husband and daughter are ignoring my rather snappy, biscuit eating, ear picking, and ranty, bitey moods as I detach myself from nicotine.

 

I am having a week off before I start comedy gigging, though am doing some filming for a documentary in the Calton next week. Then am back on planes, trains etc, I am in London soon for an audition and a few post- Edinburgh meetings. I am going to be calm and nice about things as my body detoxifies.

 

Am walking more and that’s good for me, had a few celebs on twitter show me some non smoking support, am determined to get fit, lose weight and stop smoking before the year is out. My daughter Ashley is on a health kick as well, she is eating better and exercising and that just encourages me to keep it up as well.

 

Just discovered a nice noodle bar up The Great Western Rd called WU-DON and the food is so yummy, I love thick noodles and Dim Sum, so I treated myself to some nice fare and walked home in the drizzling rain, picking up some charity shop books on the way. I do love buying novels in charity shops, the best way to buy a book as far as I am concerned.

 

Am off to sponsor Eddie Izzard on his marathon runs, you can keep up with him on Twitter and see pics and updates of his epic running journey, such a worthwhile charity, so go help please?

 

Speak soon!

“Janey, my lungs are killing me, my HIV is playing up, and my cancer might be back and am worried about swine flu” my brother called to tell me, then added “Am thinking of buying bagpipes”

 

“Jim, you have 3 guitars, two tambourines and possibly a cello and you can’t play any of them, maybe its time to stop buying musical instruments” I replied.

 

“Do you like Kings of Leon?” he ignored my advice and carried on about music.

 

“Yes, I love them Jim” I said.

 

“Me too, I might try and go see them, are they Mormons?” he asked.

 

“Not sure, but I know the Osmond’s are Mormons if you are looking for a religious type musical group” I replied.

 

“Do you remember that time I toured with U2 and showed Bono how to wear a hat?” he asked.

 

“No, I don’t recall that but am sure it was fun” I giggled.

 

My brother Jim is basically nuts and makes me laugh and snort tea through my nose. I miss him and his insane ways, he used to have a dog called Cooper who tried to rape your legs every single visit to his home. Cooper also loved to try to bite the Hickman line that was attached to Jim’s chest during his chemo regime, the dog thought the red stud on my brother’s torso was a clothes peg and Cooper loved biting clothes pegs. It was a rather disconcerting time every time my brother stripped off his jumper in front of his crazy dog. Yet he survived, as always.

 

Much like me, we are survivors of all things medical is my odd family. My other brother is currently housebound as he jumped off scaffolding due a steel bar coming at his head and has now got two broken ankles. My elder sister has a plethora of complaints health wise but seems to be hanging on, I forget what is currently ailing her, but try hard not to think of her as an episode of House on the telly. She is a medical mystery.

 

I don’t have anything medically wrong with me actually, I do get things go wrong when am on tour, I write them down and promise to give it to the doctor when I get home, but by that time the symptoms have gone and I forget what it was that was wrong with me. I will probably die soon, due to a long ignored brain tumour which I mistake for a headache; I am given to deep paranoia about my headaches. Occasionally I get an upset tummy or really sore heels when I wake up, but that called ‘getting old’ and nothing to be scared about. My knees make a noise when I go downstairs; I suspect am in for Arthritis.

 

Other than that am all set to get back on the road again and flying off next week to Barcelona, then around the UK at weekends to do comedy stuff.

 

Am glad to be home at the moment though, Edinburgh was fun but can be tiring; I also did the New Zealand comedy festival this year, so it’s all been hectic and living out of suitcases. It’s lovely to pee in my own toilet.

 

Am also writing stuff for radio and I love doing that, it excites me no end, and I am glued to my laptop like a keyboard junkie.

 

Went up to see my dad yesterday and it was great fun to have a natter with him. He really is an inspiration, despite being widowed this year, he is perky, cheery and trying hard not to fall asleep on his sofa and lie awake all night. He has become nocturnal and can’t seem to shake it off, I told him to come up to my house during the night as Ashley stays awake during the night as well and they may all be vampires.

 

Had a nice laugh when I got home from Edinburgh as it turns out I was a clue in the Daily Record Quickie Crossword! It said 32 across ‘Comedian ----- Godley’ that made me smile and on this coming Sunday I am on the repeat of Just a Minute on BBC radio 4 if you are interested.

 

So back to reality and life, it is time to be me again, I suspect!

 

The gigs are all going well, we are near the end of the run, I got Three Five Star reviews, two three stars and one two star, now that’s a show! I have to admit that this show is my favourite one in ages and the most successful as far as future work off the back of it.

 

After my publicity stunt at the McTaggart Lecture, I got heaps of telly people come see me. I stood outside the lecture hall and said “I might have the idea that saves your career” folk gawped at me then I whispered “There are secret camera’s watching to see who takes the flyer” and even Murdoch took my one off me, everyone snatched them and took them into the McTaggart lecture for me. Only one bloke knew I was lying he sniggered “There are no camera’s are there?” I said “no” and he laughed out loud and took a bunch of flyers off me and took them into the hall. I liked that man; he is lovely and waited for me after my show came out for a chat! I didn’t know who he was, now I do. Edinburgh is good for that kind of thing.

 

This fringe has been harsh as well though.

 

The venue owners always say ‘Record breaking sales’ but they fail to tell you that 2 for 1s and free tickets are included in that count up, also there are more shows on, so the audiences were spread thinner across the board.

 

The first two weeks were great and these last two weeks have been pretty quiet for the majority of acts. People who have their PR/agent etc…with them this year will be scratching for a profit, its all swings and roundabouts. Without your manager/agent/pr you miss out on good press opportunities and will be missing the chances of some top TV people coming to your show. But it really shouldn’t be like that, why do comics need a manager to push the TV people their way? Isn’t it the TV scouts job to go find them? Do they need talked into it?

 

The Edinburgh Fringe has grown a huge industry of folk to ‘help’ your show become a success, none of them actually stand onstage and do the job but by fuck do they get their share of the profits!

 

The big hyped shows do sell well, but most of the cash (if not all of it) barely touches the hands of the performer, but then Edinburgh Fringe isn’t about what happens at The Fringe but what happens AFTER it, and that’s where the agents/pr/managers come into their own. I have always been naive, I always believed my shows would stand up for themselves and I wouldn’t have to line the pockets of swathes of folk to promote/publicise and manage me, surely it will always work out ok in the end and the talent is the thing that gets you work….but then I always believed in fairies as well!

 

In the Sunday Mail, there is an article about Scottish actress Siobhan Redmond, she explains about how she read my book Handstands in The Dark to help her prepare for the role as a gangster’s wife in her latest play The House of Barnarda Alba, you can read it here http://tinyurl.com/nm6xox

I also wrote the foreword for the Scottish National Theatre’s programme and the play opens at Citizens Theatre on September 15^th in Glasgow.

 

The good news is all is well in Godley’s World, I will leave here with a happy heart and excitement and anticipation in my veins…I love The FRINGE and nothing can change that!

After the fiasco of having food poisoning and still managing to do my show’s am excited it’s all nearly over…not my life, the fringe!

 

We are on the home run now people! Had some lovely people come to see my show, some Glasgow Celtic players (who I don’t know), Dean Freidman, Jimmy Carr and Roland Gift, his wife Louise and the actress Diane Quick, all lovely!

Though Jimmy Carr’s distinctive laugh had me giggling throughout my own show, it really is infectious! The crew from BBC Scotland’s comedy department came in as well and we all went off for drinks. They are awesome now that they are under the helm of a new head of comedy and it seems they like me…how unusual! Took an English woman to introduce them to me! Maybe one day I will make it onto the Fred McCauley show (he did keep promising, but it never materialised) never mind I was on BBC radio 4 this week with my Comic Fringes Short Story and I did a Just a Minute on BBC radio 4 as well!

 

I spoke to the previous producer of Fred’s show and he said “Maybe they couldn’t have you on because you swear” that made me giggle as I must be the ONLY comic to swear onstage in the world! I am truly unique indeed, but am glad BBC radio 4 don’t worry about such things, they must be really cutting edge is good old radio 4, especially as I have NEVER sworn on radio or telly in my life.

 

Have had such a good week numbers wise as well, I never succumbed to giving away free tickets or gave up 2 for 1’s either, people come to see me because I am a decent comic and NOT a bargain cheap away day ticket! I feel that it can demean the festival when big acts are giving away tickets this late in the run; it creates a cheapening of the entire spirit of the festival in my own opinion.

 

I would rather play to 60 full paying punters during the week than half full of uncommitted punters who don’t really invest in your show mentally; full payers also tend to value the show more as well.

 

The 2 for 1s and free tickets also discourages full payers coming in as they know some people in there got in for free and that annoys them, I know this coz I asked my audiences how they would feel knowing they booked in advance for a show at full price and then found out had they waited they could have got the tickets 2 for 1 and they agreed with me that it was insulting to them! I think am right which what I always think when I am having conversations with myself!

Have some great radio and TV work in the future as well, which made me happy, the Fringe isn’t about what happens in Edinburgh but what happens AFTER it all and therefore this one has been a huge success. I got more FIVE star reviews this year than ever! Though I might be wrong as 2004 garnered a huge swathe for Good Godley as well, am too tired to go check my website! That’s the other great thing about talking to yourself; you are under NO conditions to correct yourself!

 

Well technically I am talking to you lovely people but because I am quite tired it feels like am talking to myself and you inadvertently get to listen in! But I like that as well.

 

It was my husband’s birthday during the week and we never got to share it. I did call him up and remind him how I recalled every detail of his 17^th birthday back in 1979 and how we shared that, I recall that I made him spaghetti Bolognese and we ate it on our knees in my grandfathers back bedroom. Then we went straight to work in his dad’s pub. Was that really 30 years ago? Did we ever think that 30 years later I would be performing comedy and he would be celebrating his birthday alone as I stood onstage making people laugh? I don’t think we could have ever foreseen that!

 

Life is good; I have stopped being sick and made new friends!

 

I am MC at the Malcolm Hardee award show on Friday night, the man behind it all is John Fleming who sponsors the show, and he was a good mate of Mr Hardee. Come see my show at Pleasance Dome 7pm every night till Monday 31^st August, no free tickets but you get to see a five star show!

Just told my pal Monica “I need to write a blog, so you must ignore me”

“Easy done” she sniggered. She will suffer for that remark, when I start vomiting again and she has to hold a pot for me to puke in. that’s what friends are for.

 

My illness started on Friday night, I did my show, it was great fun, Monica clapped loudly, Dean Friedman (my lovely friend and musical hero) laughed loudly and we headed out of the venue. Monica and I walked up to the Gilded Balloon loft, I had some tea, Monica had a gin and immediately I got horrendous cramps in my lower abdomen. “Ok, maybe I need a poo” I said to Monica and headed for the toilet, the cramps continued, I broke out in a hot sweat and I decided it was time to go home. Poor Monica was on holiday and I just cut the night short by organising diarrhoea and stomach cramps. 

 

When we got back to the flat at around 9pm as we are total rock and roll, I stripped half naked and headed for the loo. I sat there for ages expulsing everything from both ends whilst Monica mopped my brow.

I felt so guilty that this was her holiday and I was ruining her day with my personal colon problems.

 

I must have eaten something crap and my stomach rebelled. I really didn’t need that on a Saturday morning. I hardly slept a wink due to cramping and shitting my skeleton out, but I had to go do the Breast Cancer Pink comedy show.

 

When I walked out on stage I noticed that there were two wee kids sitting there, Jenny Éclair had been onstage and done some pretty adult material, swearing and rather sexual content. I can’t swear in front of kids, fair play to Jenny, she is a top compere and the other mostly female comics weren’t prepared to face toddlers, yet they still put on sterling show and made the gig shine like a perfect beacon, but believe it or not, I just can’t be ‘nasty’ in front of small kids.

 

So I held in my vomiting and got the wee girl up on a chair and the whole audience got to hear about her albeit very short life, she was 3 and ¾ and wanted to be a vet when she grew up.

 

I love entertaining kids and adults at the same time. I did six comedy for kids show in NZ and it was a huge success. So the audience had a lovely time with me playing up to the kids, I even got a nice email from the organisers thanking me for my patience with the babies, that made me very proud of myself.

 

I am a bit sick of being labelled a ‘vulgar’ ‘sweary’ comic when in fact when it comes to it, I can do a whole hour without any expletives at all and small kids don’t throw me off the mark.

 

So after that I went back to some expert shitting and some sleep before my own show at 7pm, which was just awesome fun. I managed to stay out late and not vomit or deface any Edinburgh toilets with my nasty colon.

 

Though I did manage to embarrass myself when I chatted to a man who I thought was an old pal of mine called Ashley, who wasn’t the bloke Ashley at all -but Stephen Merchant! I am such a knob, I don’t know who he is as I have never seen Extra’s or anything he is in, and I really don’t watch much telly. He was gracious and we giggled and I walked away still semi convinced he was my mate Ashley from London! Maybe all that vomiting had expelled some of my brains. Life is ok, I feel better, I got rave reviews, I got great houses and I am not longer squeezing yellow bile out of my throat.

 

The good news is I feel better, and due to the illness may have lost some weight there is always a positive side to Dysentery.

Friday is awesome; I got another FIVE STAR review today and that’s my third they all came from these sources (Scotsgay-one4review- The Mirror) and got named as number four in the top ten comedy blogs in Britain! I am chuffed to bits.

 

During the week, I recorded Just a Minute and Comic Fringes for BBC Radio 4, the comic fringes was a short story I had written and read out to a live audience. The short story is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm on 25^th August 2009. Hope you like it!

 

Life at the fringe is ticking along wonderfully, my twitter followers alert me to any press they notice and they send other twitterers updates about me, who needs PR? I love Twitter!

 

The show has been going great guns, I did a whole show without swearing which was nice, as everyone likes to point out how much I swear (but never mention the boys, because this is still 1953) So I proved I can be funny without being ‘cursy’. I was going to dress in a floral frock and bake, but I guess that’s been done to death.

 

I love the fringe -Though the stinking rainy weather in Edinburgh makes me want to blow up the castle and kill all the happy jugglers. The folk who stand still dressed as statues fill me with hatred and vile- my brother used to down methadone and he could stand staring at a dead fly for eight hours after his dosage, we didn’t call it art, we called it a ‘habit’.

 

But today the sun is shining and we all know tomorrow is set for a tsunami of epic proportions as the puddles overwhelm the punters in the street. Why can’t we have the Edinburgh fringe in Barcelona? That would be awesome. Why do we have it in a city where we need a canoe to get to the venue?

 

In my show I talk about being on a train when a man gets killed, and funnily enough my mate Monica is late getting into Edinburgh as a man died on the line during her journey today, she is like that, she copy cats everything I do. (Ok that was a rather heartless remark about a death, I am sorry but I have a headache today and feel somewhat nasty, forgive me).

 

Ashley is still in Amsterdam and husband is still at home in Glasgow, he is happy without the constant madness of the Fringe, I know how he feels when I hear loud comics projecting their voices saying “My sitcom in LA is awesome, the writers just cant believe my life when I explain stuff, seriously, I am so off the chart edgy, anyway one night I was with these models and they were so into me…blah blah”

 

It can make your cranium vomit blood…The best fun to be had is getting a reviewer to tell you what she has been to see, then hear the gossip about whose show is 30 minutes long and who is repeating old shows and who is boasting about sell outs when ten people are in the room, its evil but funny and am sure I will go to hell for giggling.

 

Life is mental in Edinburgh, I still haven’t drunk a drop of booze, as I am not really a drinker and keep planning a late lie in and getting scuppered as people keep asking me to do things early in the morning.

This week I am going to take it easy, life is good!

Edinburgh loves its rain and it likes to mix it with wind. The weather has been a bit iffy but we are storming through it. I am past half way through the fringe and I have only had one review. It was a five star review but one nonetheless.

 

PR companies are good at getting reviews in for comics, they meet the reviewer for a drink, chat with them afterwards, explain parts of the show that deserve five stars in case the reviewer didn’t get it and then let the reviewer go as soon as they have secured a date for it going to press, preferably early on as it helps numbers.

 

Well, I don’t have PR and am relying on the reviewers coming to my show, not drinking my cash but enjoying what I do and then heading off without so much as a by your leave from me, but hopefully happy with my work!

 

My audiences have been just wonderful and the numbers have been great. Some people are still doming 2 for 1s and/or cancelling their show on the night due to low numbers. The fringe is screaming ‘best ticket sales ever’ but that includes all the free tickets printed and there are more shows across the board this year, so it does appear to be more ticket sales but there are just more shows!

 

I am lucky that despite practically no reviews and no pr I have a core audience that come to see me, I love chatting outside on the wee wall after my gig, come down for a natter!

 

I did an episode of Just a Minute and it really is funny and scary at the same time. Sue Perkins is a genius at the game as well as Paul Merton; I was just constantly repeating myself over and over again, as if repeating was the real object of the game.

 

Ashley and I are having good fun, I love having quality time and a good old nattering with her. Her love of all things geeky astounds me; she is obsessed with William Shatner, Podcasts about sci-fi and listens to some ancient station podcast about Sherlock Holmes which is constantly interrupted with adverts for tonic wine! Its proper old and makes me giggle when I hear Basil Rathbone’s plumy tones.

 

The late night gigs have been fun as well, Girls with Guns at Gilded Balloon are just awesome and if you have time in the afternoon go see King of Everything at GRV, just some recommends from me!

 

Edinburgh is cold but my best mate Monica is coming up from London and spending the weekend with me! Hurrah!

Am missing husband and Ashley is off to Amsterdam this week, so all things are go. Come see the show, if nothing else just to be astounded at my interpretation of a church name in Maryhill, Glasgow. It even makes me snort out of my nose.

Pleasance Dome 7pm every night till 31^st August.

I have been very sleepy lately. This always happens when I am at a festival, I get knackered, and I eat too much or too little and then hunker down in the duvet and snore away my life. Only getting up to perform or go to press things and then slotting my life into units where I can squeeze some more sleep in! I am possibly turning into a hedgehog.

 

Ashley is SO OVER the fringe and spends her nights watching TV on her laptop and making tea for me. She has given up on hanging out with disenchanted malfunctioning comics, that was so exciting when she was 17 years old at 23 she thinks me and my fellow performers are fully functioning freaks. Though I am not one of those!

 

The palpable power of the reviewers makes me feel vomity, I am sick of reading that some of my fav comics are getting slated for either making loads of people laugh (but not the reviewer) or having a hot room that the reviewer feels the need to blame the comic for!

 

I still haven’t yet had a review printed though I did have some TV/radio people in and sealed a few deals and week two isn’t even over, so that’s good news and the reviewers cant stop that from happening nor can they MAKE that happen, that’s all down to my and my show. I love this year’s show more than I have in ages, it’s not about my childhood, my past, my family or anything sad, it’s all about strange things and funny incidents that occurred.

 

I haven’t seen any shows yet either, as my units of sleep would be disturbed if I started to do that stuff!

Had a great chat with Anthony who runs the Pleasance and he is such a good dude to hang out with, he did nothing but praise me up and make me feel welcome and lovely, what a nice bloke! He enjoys the fact that he and I always make cash at the fringe, and we share that common bond!

 

The other thing I love about my Edinburgh run is the sheer amount of regulars who come to see my year after year, that actually makes me cry a wee bit when I see folk make a huge effort to get to Edinburgh come see me and then go home! Many just come to see me! That is touching!

 

I am also having great fun with Ashley as I missed her terribly when she was in London and its good hanging out with her. I have had a few late nights up at the Gilded balloon loft bar and met loads of kind folk, nice people who aren’t creepy or too sycophantic. My mate Monica is coming up next weekend and I can’t wait to spend time with her, she is just a big fucking bag of love and fun for me. When we are in London she is always too busy as she owns her own PR Company and looks after famous chef’s like Heston Blumenthal and other giants of cooking, so we never get a minute to ourselves, now we can PARTY in Edinburgh.

 

We can eat burgers and giggle, that’s what we do…yes I know it sounds exciting doesn’t it? Well to us IT IS!

 

Had a laugh the other day when I jumped in a taxi to get to Nicholas Parsons show where I was a guest, the cab managed to mount the pavement and almost kill a man. That man was Steve Bennett from The Chortle website, he is a big reviewer and it made me laugh. When Steve jumped out of the way of the cab, I hung out the window and shouted “Next time Bennett!” I am sure he got a fright and that made me laugh yet again!

 

I am still well into Spotify though now that it is very popular the irritating adverts on it are getting more frequent and longer than ever, so I have developed new finger skills to automatically mute the sound when the incessant Paulo Nautini music advert comes on and especially when that awful Amy McDonald advert appears, am so glad my mute button is handy and I switch to ITunes library when the fucking long adverts kick in….that was tip for people like me who hate adverts! Just put your ITunes library on a new tab and switch!  

 

 So, things are going well my big giant 175 seater venue with aircon and disabled access and are selling well and that is good. The show is going great guns and do come and see me? Pleasance Dome 7pm (it’s just beside the big upside down cow) come say hi.

 

By the way if you feel like voting for your favourite comic go to this link register and do so! http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/447325