Last posts on life

Am so beautiful you all hate Me!

2012-04-05T18:54:38+02:00

Am not really, that was a poke at the recent article (one amongst many) by self promoter Samantha Brick who wrote a column in UK rag The Daily Mail (I know how mad?) about how stunningly beautiful she is and how women hate her for it. She tells of pilots on planes, ordering her champagne, bar men who refuse her credit card and random men buying train tickets to unwanted destinations just to be in her orbit, I think she overdosed on Mills and Boons books as an impressionable girl. By the way her husband looks like he is in a re- enactment of a crime scene standing beside her near the woods in the photo in the Daily Mail. I wonder what he makes of her madness.

I genuinely know a few stunningly heart stopping gorgeous women and I know they would never ‘claim’ beauty and then use their aesthetic luck against other women, coz they are not deluded or mentally unstable. Beauty really is what others see not what you recognise as a talent/burden on your own skin. My husband regularly tells me I am beautiful because he married me 32 years ago and if he keeps telling himself this, he will feel he hasn’t fucked up his original opinion because he as Aspergers syndrome and hates being wrong.

I believe my daughter Ashley is beautiful and I am her mum and will always look at her with awe, because that narcissism is based on what my own cells and vagina made 25 years ago, but she is beautiful to me and thats a mother’s love right there! But she is still beautiful.

Poor Samantha Brick got a torrent of abuse on twitter after her article went viral, but this isn’t the first time she has peddled this deluded bollocks- she has written about this before for other publications. So she must believe it.

Women really can be their own worst enemy, we buy heaps of magazines that show up any fat bits or bad skin on the celebs they beg us to worship and my point is men don’t do that? I had a pub for 15yrs and not once did I hear a man say “she hasn’t blended her make up in and her shoes don’t match” other women speak like that and Samantha Brick’s article makes this situation worse.

Makes you wonder what women like her really think? So Samantha believes-‘ I am stunning to look at it’ - therefore every career issue I have had is down to other women sabotaging my job? No, Samantha I suspect you being an average looking woman who keeps blaming other women for your own failures mean you have psychological issues that need attending.

Life has been tough past few weeks; I went to Boston comedy festival and had such fun. It’s a great city and the women I met there were just cracking funny people to get to know. The downside of Boston was- I contracted some stinky chest virus and coughed my way through the tour and landed in Glasgow so I could immediately head to Newcastle at The Stand comedy club. I cannot tell you how amazing The Stand comedy club is, they really looked after me and so I headed home to Glasgow sick a wheezing pig right into The Glasgow Comedy festival where I had a double bill one woman show to accommodate the volume of tickets sold.

Thankfully Ashley was there and she show managed, introduced and directed my material as my head was too woolly, and lo and behold I got a stonking review despite being so yucky. The audience really did give up so much energy I think I managed to do the shows without looking like a sick martyred comedian- so THANKS GLASGOW!

You can see the review here: Chortle and the clip of my Boston show here: YouTube

Women in Comedy festival Boston

2012-03-27T23:34:34+02:00

Boston hosts an awesome women in comedy festival, now being a comedy festival veteran (14 one hour shows over ten years at Edinburgh Fringe) I was expecting a town under siege – much in the way Edinburgh gets every August but this one is very different.

Firstly it’s pretty small and I mean really small and secondly it is located in just a few venues in the Cambridge Area of Boston near the famous Harvard University. I suppose I was unprepared to just be doing odd slots of 7 to 14 minutes but I did get to attend and take part in their workshops and comedy panels. My favourite part was getting to meet loads of American women comics from all over the US and share our experiences, normally that is done in busy bars as comics come off a show and scream at each other over loud music and warm beer. This way was much nicer, also getting to see a variant of comedic styles, sketches, musical and dance comedy really made the festival an experience for me.

Women comics in one venue in a line up usually eye each other up like wary cats in an alley, or maybe am just used to dealing with lots of egos back stage in comedy gigs, but here the women were very supportive of each other. The organisers of the festival tried their best to include me in lots of the events and were generally well co ordinate and made sure I knew exactly where and when I should be. The upside is Boston is an amazing backdrop to a comedy festival, the city is just breathtakingly lovely and the people were so sweet and chatty.

We stayed in a stunning brownstone apartment/hotel which was so stocked with antiques and original fittings, I felt like I had broken into a museum, who gets to put their knickers in an armoire? I can’t describe how beautiful the place looked.

The downside was after the hot weather slid off to be replaced with a cold front we got mice running the floor and that made comedy seem that much more comedic and scary for me and my pal Shirley who came with me. The enduring memory of a mouse stuck to a sticky trap screaming for death at 5am will stay with me forever, but the hotel did discount us and were profusely apologetic. I have to say the place was stunning and very clean, it’s just old houses will get mice...I wish they had added to the charm and gave us a cat with the room. Then again a cat ripping mice apart might not be a nice memory either.

Luckily my daughter Ashley wasn’t with me on this tour as she would have rescued the mouse knitted it mittens and called it William Shatner.

I can’t say anything bad about this apartment it was just so welcoming, but am hoping when I head down to NZ in mid April for their comedy festival I don’t have to deal with mice.

Boston women in comedy festival will grow and develop nicely and I hope to make a return.

How poverty made my diet better...

2012-02-23T18:53:32+01:00

Everyone nowadays has an opinion on the state of the nation’s diet. The government are worried that people are getting obese and that the generation from the 70s & 80s are feeding their kids too much processed food.

Let me take you back to the 60s when I was a kid and my mammy had to feed her, dad and four kids on a low income. People talk about how poor I was back then when they have read my book Handstand in the Dark, which charts my childhood in the East End of Glasgow, and it was tough- no denying.

Seven days a week, we ate a full plate of potatoes, cabbage, carrots and a tiny bit of meat (which was more expensive) and our puddings were fruit or tinned custard and bananas. We regularly dined on fish, fried lightly in porridge oats or cheap cuts of liver braised in onions with big potatoes and pots of tripe with milky sauce or plates of chunky cheap homemade soup. We ate leeks, mushrooms, turnip and a whole range of whatever vegetables were in season and didn’t really know any different. Sweets and eating between meals wasn’t possible as we didn’t have the money for that kind of luxury.

Back then kids didn’t have food allergies, and I didn’t know anyone who refused to eat greens!

I have just realised that how we ate is now the diet of the middle classes, the very diet we moaned about and vowed to change the minute we were old enough to earn our own money and buy our own food. We ached for deep fried fish and chips, which was a very expensive treat, usually only allowed if someone had died and there was no time to cook! It was pure emergency food NEVER every day consumed convenience food as it is now.

I recently discussed this with the US documentary maker Morgan Spurlock (he of Supersize Me film) who was really interested to hear this as he is making another food based documentary. It seems the poverty diet of the 60s was so healthy and yet we kids couldn’t wait to escape it!

Who here who reached young adult hood in the late 70s immediately started gobbling down Indian take aways and fried crispy pancakes with their own hard earned wages? Anything to escape the dire situation of ‘potted heid’ (cheap meat cuts in jelly) and horrible plates of corned beef and mash! I know I did- and that’s when I started gaining the weight that I would fight for the rest of my life to lose.

I didn’t know then that cheap cuts of meat braised with seasonal vegetables was the best diet in the world for me.

It stuns me when I meet people whose kids won’t eat a vegetable or even try fresh fish- Ashley my daughter has always had a great varied range of fish and vegetables in her diet and is also amazed when friends of hers have never eaten asparagus or savoy cabbage!

There has been medical evidence that kids today eat way too much white pasta as parents know kids love something basically tasteless and squishy will go down well, yet too much white pasta isn’t good for the colon and has links to bowel cancer as lack of fibre is something we all know about. White pasta has no fibre, we can swap it occasionally for potato skins or brown wholemeal pasta!

Unfortunately the previous generation of men and women who passed down hearty food recipes, like homemade soup and liver and onion casseroles are no longer with us or have gave up trying- and we now have millions of children who have never tasted oatcakes or lentil soup or turnip mash and broad beans and thats a shame.

I do understand that for the poorer people in our society that it’s cheaper to buy a big bag of frozen burgers and sausage rolls from Iceland than to start chopping and peeling turnip or getting a pot of soup full of split peas and barley on the go, as some of them have never tasted it, so why should they cook it? Yet it is actually cheaper to eat vegetables than frozen convenience food, it just takes a bit of know how.

I wish that the older people in our community’s could get together with the younger generation at community halls and have cooking lessons and share the knowledge of people who knew how to cook good healthy food on a tight budget.

I know it’s a utopian idea but if pensioner Mary Berry can get the UK baking again with her TV show surely and older person on TV can get generations of people learning how to use pulses and cheap cuts of meat? We need to teach kids today that a meal doesn’t come in a box and maybe bring the heart disease and obese levels down?

I am now back to my old diet of bits of meat, fish, heaps of vegetables and no sweet treats or eating between meals and am losing weight and feeling good. Who knew my poverty diet was the one thing that would crack my overweight issues?

If you have any diet, help and advice or like me pretending to be a life coach occasionally follow me on Twitter @janeygodley

Getting to grips with me

2012-01-23T21:20:08+01:00

“No thanks, am not really into getting my Chakra’s aligned, I have just recently relocated my ovaries thanks” I said to the hippy looking woman who boldly sported a shock of white hair.

She was younger than me but was brave enough to resist Wella number 5 hair dye, am just not ready to ‘come out as grey’ some women can carry it off and their families accept them being grey, not for me, am staying in the Wella number 5 closet.

I don’t look sexy and natural with grey locks; I look like I might milk goats & live in a static caravan site or have walked off the set of a Dickens show set in Newgate prison and am the old woman with two days to live.

This hippy grey haired woman Desdemona (I swear that’s her name or she changed it on Twitter or something similar) met me in a cafe and immediately decided I needed her help getting my aura and chakras sorted out. I really needed a cup of strong tea and a bacon roll.

“Do you have headaches and trouble with your stomach?” she asked sagely as she gripped my hand and massaged between my thumbs and forefinger, making my stomach hurt. Doesn’t everyone have headaches and stomach pains? Come on they must do eh? But her eyes were imploring me to agree with her about headaches and stomach cramps; I stared at the woman making bacon rolls.

The constant massaging on the web between my fingers was making me quite violent.

Turns out Desdemona used to be called Sheila and had been a fish gutter in Aberdeen till she met a bloke at Glastonbury who gave her an ‘experience’. Am not sure if what he did was consensual but she seemed to like sharing her skills. I got up and walked away- starving and determined to get my roots done.

You see I don’t mind ‘alternative therapies’ but there are some I would avoid – like getting hot stones stuck to my back, somehow that reminds me of the shit my big brother used to do to me when I was 7 years old in the sticky summer days in Glasgow.

Some women love spa therapies and it helps them unwind.

They way I relax and it is truly better than any spa ever, is hanging out & staying with my best pals Monica or Shirley. We can lie on the sofa, eat nice food, talk shit for hours and shout at the telly, then sleep for ages and wear nothing but sloppy clothes and not bother to wash hair or wear make-up. Just having great one on one time with my pal and talking, debating, arguing processing issues that bother me is so amazing and ultimately relaxing.

Good pals are better than alternative therapists or personal life coaches. Good pals tell the truth about you horrific dress that you think is lovely, they also refuse to let you leave the house with that eye shadow you think is ‘on trend’.

Good pals can resolve sexual, marriage and career issues better than any single mantra filled nut-job who charges for every single piece of faux advice they batter out.

There’s a bloke I know who pays a shed load of bucks to a life coach who had previously worked with astronauts at NASA- he loved telling me this fact- as the coach apparently personally helped those chosen moon walkers to gain the wherewithal to fly into space.

I asked him “what did he do? Point at the moon and say- go there?”

He was really annoyed and said ‘to fully get the best from a life coach you had to be willing to give yourself up to fate and face the challenge’. That’s what every single newborn does naturally when he slips from the amniotic sac and faces life, isn’t it?

The reason am banging on about this subject is- I have decided to lose weight and try to get myself fit and everyone told me I should get myself a personal trainer, full time nutritionalist and motivator. I don’t disagree and had a great chat with a bloke from Kaizen Fitness in Glasgow and this month and am not ruling it out. But firstly am going to see if I can possibly try to do start it on my own. As at the end of day, if I can’t make myself do it, trust me nobody else will.

If you have any diet, help and advice or like me pretending to be a life coach occasionally follow me on Twitter @janeygodley

It’s 1975 again

2011-11-15T14:30:57+01:00

I love Glasgow and I adore it at this time of year when my dear green place becomes awash with russets, browns and burgundy, when all the trees decide to go on the ‘turn’. So on Saturday I headed into to town to look at clothes in fashionable shops that I can’t wear (they never look right on me) and look at coats that make my small dumpy frame look like a Hitler’s youth camp leader.

So I sauntered into my local underground tube station at Georges Cross and pulled out some change for the automated ticket machine. The 20p coin kept falling right through and finally after four attempts I gave up. I shook my head and huffed as I walked towards the ticket booth and the wee older man behind the counter said “just as well your head is attached to your neck or it would have fallen off shaking it so much at the machine, I bet you if I went to the machine I could make it work. Must be because you are a woman”

I stared at him in astonishment and simply said “A single please?” and imagined what it must be like to work with men who still think it’s 1975, the Bay City Rollers are number one and it’s ok to make mother in law fat jokes and call women ‘fat cows’.

He held onto to my ticket and repeated “must be a woman thing” and sniggered at me. Now normally I would verbally erase his damp polystyrene personality but I merely said “That’s sexist, can you please just give me my ticket?” and then took it and headed down the escalator quite calmly, because I know the best way to deal with this. I twittered it. I found the Glasgow Subway on twitter and included them in the whole debate.

Now I am dealing with the complaint professionally and can then publish the emails online and let everyone know what happened. That’s what I love about twitter and the internet. We no longer deal with shit like this alone, we can include our small world of followers on the ups and down of the service we receive and create a stooshy (Scottish word for trouble) very publicly.

A few folk have told me as comedian I should have had a sense of humour about the wee old man who is sexist and I did think about that, but then I recalled a good few young men and women work in that booth and imagine the shit he comes out with and they might not have the balls to deal with him. Maybe they wait for the day when the public finally snap and report him, well I just did. The Glasgow Subway people replied to my tweet and are dealing with it as we speak.

So now am in London where the autumnal carpet is gathering and my favourite view across the Thames looking down towards Westminster looks glorious in the late winter sun. Am staying with my mate is just back from New York and has no provisions in the flat but has a glut of ‘organic cleansing bark tree root’ and ‘virgin coconut oil’ and some dried garlic bulbs. Luckily in my bag I had a banana which to me is the world best fast food and can be carried in a handbag until a food emergency rears its head.

I believe that people who don’t have at least a brown loaf in the freezer or some cheese in a fridge must be subjected to getting their tits rammed in a door repeatedly until they remember for future. Of course am joking....I off to the local shops to get some breakfast meats and wish it was 1975 again, as I would buy some cheese crispy pancakes and settle down to watch Swap Shop and hope David Essex will come on live and talk cockney. I would pull on my size 10 tight ribbed polo neck and stroke the flat area where gigantic breasts will eventually grow and shake my snakelike hips to the Bay City Rollers and wonder if one day I will marry Donny Osmond. 1975 you were good to me.

What is wrong with me?

2011-11-07T21:14:00+01:00

“Don’t touch my leg” I moaned to Ashley as she tried to get me off the couch. I have a sore upper bum check and lower leg, I also have a lumpy tender patch under my right ribcage and my left arm aches. I am finally an old woman who hobbles off the sofa in a queer shape like I am trying to do the ‘Lobster’ from Little Mermaid. I hate being stiff and sore. I worry.

I don’t want to be old, I hate seeing the upper inside flabby bits of my arms, my belly is softer than freshly kneaded dough and my thighs wobble. When did I become this old woman? Am a bit stressed with the pains and have had blood tests done and this weekend I get my organs scanned. I have never been ill really in my life, but my brother died 10 months ago and I know he was a long term drug user and had HIV but I still think “what if he had something hereditary and I have it now?” I am a drama queen eh? Maybe am just fat?

Then after worrying needlessly I look around the world and realise people are living with drone planes bombing their kids, folk in Palestine are living in a illegal ghetto created for them by people who used to hate ghetto’s and Greece is struggling under an economic crisis. I need to shut up and deal with the tiny shit that happens in life eh? Then I worry how will Adele write another album unless some man fucks her about again and should we wish that on her for the sake of some nice music?

Husband is being stoic and helpful as I worry about dying and whisper to him at 4am “if I die will you make sure my dad is ok and Ashley doesn’t cry her life away and gets on her feet and please don’t let them play shit music at my funeral and I don’t want anyone but Ashley to speak as she is better at that” then I go quiet and add “I don’t want dressed in my wedding dress when I die” Husband held me tight and whispered “don’t think you will fit into that dress now and I don’t think a sore leg means you are dying, shut up and get your elbow off my arm you are hurting it”

Ashley and I are gearing up for Christmas – I say that – like we have big plans, husband doesn’t like Christmas and we have the ‘tree’ fight every year. He has decided that I take parts of the fake tree and leave them out so the tree year by year is getting thinner and decidedly smaller and lopsided. Last year I didn’t even bother putting it up as he merely offered me a single branch of the tree to decorate and sellotape to the skirting board. This year I might pull the whole shebang out and go crazy with lights and decorate it. It might be my last one if my illness’s engulf me (drama queen again?).

If you are reading this in UK and know what the LIDL shop is then you will be excited as me about their Christmas selection! If you are outside Europe and UK the LIDL is a supermarket with heaps of interesting food and goods and they are really cheap.

I love the weird seasonal decorations, skiing equipment and three bird roast on offer. Firstly if you ski you won’t really shop at the LIDL will you? I get the feeling the LIDL isn’t full of middle class people carousing the aisles for their organic wheatgrass drinks...do you? During the summer the LIDL sold blow up boats and horse blankets and equestrian goods! Who goes to the LIDL for Satsuma’s and pony trekking stuff?

Anyway I get all my blood results and will tell you how my scan went and keep you updated. Meanwhile am off to the Blythswood Hotel in Glasgow to meet my pals, they haven’t been and am excited about showing it off. I love it. Might just stay there for Christmas and give the cooking and kitchen a break!

Big Catch up Blog

2011-10-27T14:24:46+02:00

Have you ever woke up at 4am and realised your skin is swelling up? No? Good on you, coz that’s how I woke up early this morning. Seems prawns really hate me and every time I eat one they squirt some liquid into my blood stream that am allergic to. I know you are thinking, why eat them if you have an allergy to them, but it’s doesn’t happen everytime. It like playing Russian roulette stir fry, but it happens so infrequent I thought I could get away with it. AND it isn’t always prawns! I can eat any fish and get this weird reaction.

So I ended up getting driven through the empty streets of Glasgow as my mouth went fat and thick with swelling. Husband simply kept calm and managed to slip through a stream of green lights as if the traffic gods were on our side and waved us through the worrying journey. Me and my husband couldn’t look at each other in case I saw the fear on his face as he saw the swelling on mine. Good news, I am fine, I got treated and it all calmed down.

So been a long time since I blogged, lots has happened, for instance Gadaffi got killed and we all had to look at his dead body on constant news streams, The OCCUPY movement has gone global. People in over a 100 major cities have started camping out in the streets to show their anger at greedy bankers and the 99% of people affected by the financial downturn. We have an OCCUPY in Glasgow but unlike other cities we had a sexual assault at ours. To make matters worse we also had a suspected homophobic attack on a young man in east Ayrshire where he was beaten and burned to death. Sometimes I feel like the people of my thriving exciting country are going backwards instead of forwards.

Don’t get me wrong Scotland is a vibrant exciting country but sometimes it feels like we harbour and nurture things like homophobia and sectarian hatred- we still have an 80% rise in domestic abuse on the day when Rangers football team play their rival Celtic. Can you believe that families sit in fear of their loved ones who are coming home from a football match in Glasgow? Families still batter religious hatred into their kids, I know- I was told to hate Catholics when I was younger, but I married one instead.

Homophobia is still a dirty cancer on our modern society, people still raise kids with spitting hatred and deep seated prejudice against the gay community, and let’s not kid ourselves, religious bashing alongside to reinforce that theory doesn’t help.

People have said to me “Would you care if Ashley was gay” and the answer is – yes I would care because I worry how she would be treated by others, but not care about her sexuality in itself.

I worry that the next generation of my family, i.e. Great nieces and nephews might have to come out as gay and how they will be treated in a Scotland of the future.

Having said that – a big salute to the many families who raise their kids up to believe religion, creed, colour and sexuality mean nothing as long as you have respect for each other. My nice Ann Margaret has three kids whom I totally adore, aged 5 8 and 14 and all three are brought up to discuss what ‘gay’ is and explore why some hate black people and basic world politics and religion. It isn’t that hard to make sure when you speak to young kids that they know you don’t hate the world and the other inhabitants who are different from you.

Those kids are even encouraged to touch spiders and not kill anything in nature, we are not religious but we don’t want them growing up haters. It isn’t that hard to do.

So now am feeling better and my skin fits me again, please do check out our podcast on janeygodley.com

Life as I know it indeed

2011-10-10T22:41:00+02:00

Husband has Aspergers, everyone knows this and some people are interested in how it affects our marriage and life, if you are one of those people then here’s a thing- if I say something pretty innocuous like “oh look that couple across the road have painted their door”

He will look at me with a weary look and say “It was me who told you about that painted door about a week ago” I look at him and reply “I don’t recall you telling me the people have painted their door, I have just noticed it now, does it matter who knew first? Am just remarking on a thing my two eye balls spotted!”

He stares at me as if I am mad, what would make me think he would let this go? He obviously told me about that painted door last week and to prove that he barks “You and Ashley were on the couch, you were wearing a towel on your head and Ashley was painting her toenails and I said to you both 'The people across the car park have painted their door' it was me who told you this, not you telling me about the door just now, as if I didn’t know about it" I stared blankly at his commitment to this dull uneventful subject.

He then recreated the scene of him telling me about the painted door like a forensic scientist, painstakingly revealing each step of the situation where we were what we were doing when he told us about the painted amazing painted door. I am surprised he didn’t have an overhead projector and slide show of evidence. He was staring at me with agog eyeballs at my forgetful stupidity- how can I not recall where I was when he was telling me important door painting information.

I now hate the painted door and resolve to say in future “That’s right you did tell me about that painted door, why would I mention it as if you knew nothing about it, am nought but a fool?”

These tiny tics in his personality can drive me mad- that and his need to be the original source of any information I have gathered or recently stored in my brain makes me grabby for blunt instruments. The upside is I understand that it is Aspergers that makes him constantly fixate on some daft wee things, that aren’t daft to him but annoying to us.

Having said that I think we all have a wee bit of Aspergers in our psyche, don’t you?

I just hear the words Michael Jackson or Polanski and I am on twitter and facebook getting my dander right up and slightly foamy at the side of my mouth, repeating myself over and over again.

Then again why can we accept that Michael Jackson was an alleged child abuser, yet allowed to get some mates sperm inserted into white women so he can create white children for his own amusement? No social services get in the way? Makes me sick!

My other mildly Aspergers trait is counting steps onstage all across the country/globe and then trying to recall them at a moment’s notice – Nottingham = 3 Glasgow = 2 etc...You get what I mean? Well, I have in my head the number of steps up to the main stage of almost every gig I have ever played worldwide. That’s fucked isn’t it? I don’t think I have any right to talk about husband when I am clearly nuts myself!

I actually said out loud last night to husband “Did you know there are fourteen steps up to the stage area at Brighton Dome” he looked at me and said “It was me that told you that”

He hasn’t been to Brighton Dome, I whipped my head round getting ready to throw this information into his face and he was already laughing at me with a cheeky wink.

Between Heart And Mind

2011-10-06T17:04:00+02:00

Isn't it funny

how life has a way

of smoothing anything

through time

one way or another

if you'll only let it

How it lessens pain

and brings back

your true self

and the willingness

to risk all again

even if you just know

that somewhere

in between the wooing

and the cold indifference

your dreams will lose

the battle against reality

every time

Nevertheless

there you are

tempted to cross burnt bridges

as if nothing ever happened

and wondering why the heart

with such unflagging resolve

never seems to second-guess

Stuff me and my daughter have learned

2011-10-01T22:51:00+02:00

Things I have learned in my life- by Janey Godley & Ashley Storrie- below is a list of things my daughter Ashley and I compiled for your perusal, we have travelled around the world a bit and seen some stuff and shared some experiences and this is our list. Enjoy.

1. Screaming at toddlers when they fall doesn’t stop them crying or bleeding.

2. Asking loud drunk people to be quiet on the train makes them want to hit you.

3. Hugging rabbit’s really tightly kills them.

4. Telling a small girl about age four not to repeat the words Fucksake doesn’t work, she will repeat those words and usually in front of the one begging nun that stands outside a shop.

5. Hoping that the spot on your nose will disappear in time for a photo shoot.

6. Assuming middle class people to be well behaved drunks at a comedy night (they are worse, that self centred sense of entitlement makes them horrible).

7. You don’t have to be white to be racist.

8. False eyelashes rip your own eyelashes out, now you have two problems.

9. Spot cream does kill spots and unfortunately all the skin surrounding the spot way after the spot has faded.

10. Sanitary towels are designed to fold over accidentally and then stick to your pubic hair and rip it out when you pull down your knickers, it’s just in case you aren’t in enough pain already.

11. Walter Matthau and Saddam Hussein is not the same person, never get them mixed up in the picture round of a pub quiz.

12. Crotch less pants are just damaged goods.

13. If you pronounce the word VAGINA with an ‘F’ at the start instead of a ‘V’ it makes it ten times funnier.

14. Standing on stage screaming about a woman that hurt you in a monotone voice doesn’t make you a comedian, even if your drunk pals, told you it was ‘ridonkilously great’

15. Being Jewish/Muslim/Christian/Scientologist doesn’t mean you are right.

16. Never have sex on your friends suede couch...just don’t.

17. Screaming drunken football chants doesn’t make random strangers like your team.

18. Buy hotel internet, its expensive, but then claim it didn’t work and demand a refund- they can’t prove otherwise.

19. Cough loudly and in a sick manner, sweat profusely and moan when on any form of transport to ensure solitary seats, don’t overdo it or they think you have swine flu and don’t let you travel.

20. When on a busy train platform talk to people and create an allegiance so that when crowd surges forward you as a group can get seats for each other.

21. Hide a child’s favourite toy and pretend it went away and it won’t return till they eat cauliflower.

22. Always fart in the bank queue- no reason just do it.

23. If a man comes onto you and you don’t want to hurt their feelings because you don’t fancy them, tell them you are into fuzzy humping (dressing as animals and fucking) or tell them you like sex and pain on a daily basis. That usually works for me (Ashley Storrie).

Few things make me feel tiny and sad and hearing my dad tell me he tried to go to the Transport museum on his own this morning is one of those things. He got on a bus to Georges Square in Glasgow to catch a bus to the museum, but there was a marathon race on in the city centre and he got overwhelmed with the crowds and just headed home. The thought of him being pushed about in crowds and feeling vulnerable makes me feel deeply scared for him.

It makes me sad; because he wanted to go somewhere and at almost 80 years old he didn’t bother asking me and tried to go on his own. He was heading somewhere where there were heaps of families all milling around and he would be that one wee man on his own. Why didn’t I think to ask him? Why did I sleep to midday and not notice his loneliness? I hate feeling like this, this guilt and stupidity when in actual fact he likes going places on his own and feels independent. Having an elderly parent is amazing and also a blessing but don’t get me wrong but I always worry he will die the minute I step on a plane to another country. Paranoid and negative I know, but I also know am not alone with this worry, I have heard other people with elderly parents say the same thing. I just say aloud on here.

Yet I always feel I should be doing more, since my step mum died over two years ago he has been doing well, and he doesn’t want me to feel like I need to look after him.

Still imagine you were at the transport museum and saw a wee man in a beige jacket with a slight limp and a skip hat walking round alone, would you look at him and think ‘that’s a shame he is on his own, where is his family?’ or would think ‘look that wee man does things himself?’ I don’t know but it makes me feel sad that I wasn’t there to help him today.

I was asleep after being up half the night as I got stung with a wasp on the ankle that sneaked into my bed at 3am. All those years of avoiding wasps and screaming through worldwide parkland areas to get away from the dreaded sting and the thing finally got me at my weakest, asleep and tucked up in bed. How did a wasp get under my duvet? Why?

So now am all healed up after my screaming fit in the middle of the night (I am sure the neighbours think am a battered wife) I am going to organise a trip for dad out to the transport museum. In fact, I am signing off this blog and going up to see him now.

”Heard The World”

2011-09-01T10:01:00+02:00

"Heard The World"

I just heard the world, is breaking down into bits again.
Tell me what am i to do?
And you just want me to stay, here.
So i'm just gonna stay, here.

Home, the last resort.
Build a castle with an iron door.
Lock the window, pull the shades, the hazed out sun won't help anyway.

If the world is crumbling down, I don't wanna be alone.
NO, locked up in this place.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

Fear, is holding me here.
The television got me seeing unclear.
Bravery, my neighbor, moved away.
Cause I don't need to be courageous today.
If the world was crumbling down, I don't wanna be alone.
NO, locked up in this place.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

Nothing's gonna save me.
I'm hanging from the nearest tree.
Nothing's gonna save me.
I'm hanging from the nearest tree.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

I heard the world up, late night.
Holding my breath tight, trying to keep my head on right.
There's a chill in the air, nobody could care.
How you're caught up in the fight of your life.

World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night
World up, late night

Stuff and words

2011-08-29T01:58:14+02:00

Just back from London and I have to say I love the Soho Theatre more than ever, now it has moved downstairs to the cabaret space. I did miss Edinburgh Fringe which I unexpectedly fell in love with all over again by NOT doing a one woman show. I am sure I have bored you all about my happy time at Edinburgh.

London was buzzing last week and I did miss all my comedy buddies and the vibe of the fringe, but I do also adore Soho and its unique blend of madness. I saw my favourite transvestite, the man who dresses as a milk maid on Saturday but is a traffic warden during the week.

The past week in London was cracking fun, me and my pal Shirley caught up with my dear pal Monica and all my circle of pals in my fav city. The last night of Soho run I ended up partying very late and managed a disco night which included some awesome dancing with Bill Murray my favourite American actor – I know how bizarre? He was charming and a pretty good mover!

I also met an awesome wee guy called Starbuck Coleman who works for an MP and who carried a book called CHAVS and who was passionate about how the working classes are demonised by the word. He was so lovely, posh and so caring and was everything the name Starbuck wasn’t! I just loved that he cared about not labelling people and his name will stay with me always. Bless...his parents must have been back from Morocco and pretty high the week he was born....Starbuck!

Anyway on my last night in Soho, I decided that I would stay up very late, pack quickly at last minute and head to Euston train station at 7am and not worry about lack of sleep, so that’s what I did. All sounds so easy doesn’t it? Throwing computers and knickers into a case and dragging it through London! But me and Shirley arrived safely at a busy and cramped train station. The platform was announced and the crowd surged forward.

The problem was my friend has some mobility issue with her hip and when we got dragged en masse down onto platform at Euston we somehow got separated. I had jumped onto the first available - first class carriage and Shirley ended up way down front of train which was mobbed out and chaotic.

The seating plan went tits up and it was first come first served, so even my carriage was now heaving. So my pal Shirley was effectively isolated without a seat and yet I had two seats secured, so we called each other on the phone. Turns out she couldn’t walk down the train towards me here at the back of the train for two reasons, one- the train was over booked and people were all over the floors and two- the trains were separate trains that were hooked together up the front and no way you could walk through and so she had to physically come out of her carriage to get to mine.

So, after the scramble for seats, the train also broke down. I waited till the train set off again, checked Shirley was ok (she was sitting in the guards box up the front train) and I set off to ask the guard at the back about getting Shirley down to her seat.

“Where is she?” the guard barked at me.

“She is up the front, we got separated and someone is in our official seats, but I have seats for us both here” I explained and pointed to my seats. “She is disabled, so when the train stops at Milton Keynes can you make sure she will have time to walk down from the top train to here?”

“As long as she doesn’t doddle” he added.

“We don’t call it doddling, she is disabled, and we call it walking slow and carefully” I stated.

“How long will she take?” he infuriatingly asked.

I sighed out loud and said “well we haven’t timed her lately, we did mean to get round to it but we haven’t done it sorry” my sarcasm didn’t escape the bloke who was the train cleaner standing beside the pedantic guard. He snorted out loud and giggled.

“Well, we will see what we can do” said the train guard.

“Look, I need you to get to the point where you will say, ‘yes we will aid your disabled pal best we can for her to get from one over crowded carriage to this one’ can we do that?” I snapped.

Finally at Milton Keynes the train stopped, I jumped off and ran down the platform under the watchful beady eye of the guard and managed to help Shirley up to our part of the train, then at the last minute he indicated by shouting and pointing that we ‘get on there’ which was the door before the one we wanted to board. So we clambered onto the train with a suitcase and landed on top of heaps of people on the floor.

A baldy tall angry man and his wife glared at us, the man wiped his hand over his sticky forehead and shouted “There are NO SEATS in there” and he pointed at the carriage where I had two seats secured with my luggage and coats. I supposed he assumed we had just boarded the train at Milton Keynes and that we had no knowledge of the crushed train from hell and to be honest I couldn’t be bothered explaining. So he just watched me and Shirley board that train, climb over their cramped bodies and luggage and walk to a miraculous empty seat – let me tell you that annoyed him the whole journey and at every chance he got, he quizzed me about my seat. I never fully explained and left him seething.

I tweeted Virgin trains and explained the whole situation, they have suggested we get a refund and that’s exactly what I will be doing. Train journeys do make up a big part of my blogging and train companies need to know we have power at our finger tips, the prices we pay for trains and the general way we are treated is abhorrent and we should all complain!

A Territorial Thing

2011-07-26T15:12:00+02:00

The garden gate is banging

back and forth in the wind

A bunch of starlings

startled by the noise

fly up and down the pear tree

twittering and tweeting

like they are being skinned

They spook the other birds

that found sanctuary

here as well

and our garden

that seemed so peaceful

a minute ago

now has changed

into a regular noise hell

They all seem to re-tweet

the same message of fear

and before you know it

the whole garden's thrown

into commotion

with a crescendo

of high-pitched sounds

that harass the ear

Cats attracted by all the twitters

and flapping of wing

have left their sleepy hideaways

to launch an assault

against the noisy lot

while any time now

the dogs will come barge in

and turn this into a territorial thing

Plagiarisms

2011-07-01T10:00:17+02:00

I have discovered and much to my own annoyance that people don’t want my opinion. Who knew? Not me. Standing last week in a bookshop (my favourite place) I offered to give a rundown of what books are good to read to a woman standing staring at the shelves. You see, always travelling or being bored or being married for 30 years I find reading lots of books helps me to stop killing the people who I live with.

This apparently doesn’t pass as a reading expert – as the woman who told me to shut up proved. Therefore my point is, we might think what we have to say is riveting but most times it’s flawed or unwanted.

Celebrated Journalist and former Iraq war supporter (what a screwy mistake that was) Johann Hari who writes for The Independent newspaper in the UK got caught plagiarising other people’s words and opinions (not mine – clearly or the Iraq War piece would have read differently) and he had to serve up a big apology which wasn’t really an apology, just an explanation of why he did it- (a bit like my cousin saying I stole your purse coz I wanted booze).

Hari faced a cluster of fresh copying allegations on Wednesday, as bloggers uncovered several examples of where the Orwell prize-winning writer appeared to have inserted quotes into interviews that looked to have come from elsewhere. (I plagiarized this from Guardian writer Dan Sabbagh in the spirit of this article- but defeated the purpose by explaining who wrote it, which makes me a better more honest writer that Johann Hari)

The world of twitter went into meltdown as a bunch of other smug journalists went on a rampage of abuse as Hari was self flagellating on his column about his apparent ‘mistakes’.

Which brings me back to me to the bookstore incident and back to the woman who told me to shut up as “you are just reading what it says on the back cover, thats not your opinion, thats other peoples words” although I did offer up my synopsis, with finger puppet theatre, noises and funny voices – she still wasn’t interested, she stomped off on search of a manager to get me thrown out of the Richard and Judy book corner.

Two things here, don’t tell things you find interesting to folk you have never met before and always make sure its original if you do, as random strangers are picky about those details. As were the public over the Johann Hari incident.

Talking about plagiarism, it’s a risky business and in comedy it’s difficult to prove, there have been recent incidents with comedians having big hissy fits and quite rightly so over complete newbie’s getting up on TV talent shows across the globe and ripping off club comics material. It’s also known in the business that TV writers go round the clubs and ‘lift material’ for their latest project. Poor comics know nowt until they hear their prized funny material coming out of the gob of a ‘comic actor’ in a TV sitcom or TV stand up show!

The worst case recently was Jim Tavare’s unique musical act allegedly being duplicated right down from his musical style to his bald head by an so called impersonator, I won’t name him but you can see it all if you Google Jim Tavare and read his blog, then make your own decision.

The problem with plagiarism in comedy is that other people CAN think of stuff like you and do it onstage, nothing really is unique and it’s hard to prove. Single subject topics cannot be exclusive to one comedian - imagine male wanking stories were only allowed to be allotted to one boy comic? Imagine only one person was allowed to talk about being fat or working an Iphone? The circuit would die. But when you blatantly rip off a comic’s routine word for word or their entire image and genre of comedy then you are a tit and will be shamed on the internet, especially if you do it on live TV like would be Aussie comic Jordan Paris did last week and was slammed when he tried his own material and died on his stupid ass. You really do need other people’s material if you are a really bad comic like him though.

Besides plagiarism, I wanted to mention my recent TV appearance on BBC defending the Palestinians and railing against the Israeli’s. Now I know a 20 minute public debate with me getting shouty won’t solve anything but the level of emails from Israeli people threatening and screaming at me, has been quite annoying and to that man that shouted at me in the Glasgow I Cafe- screw you mate ‘It’s an illegal occupation’ or as I like to call it plagiarising a land – now leave me alone. I am off to write a new book about a girl who sells matches in her bare feet in London around the time Oliver lived; it’s going to be a cracking best seller.

I am bringing the house down

2011-06-12T18:25:41+02:00

WHY is it that when one appliance in my home packs in, the rest of the house joins in? Just before I flew to London last week, my entire home in Glasgow went into meltdown and began a systematic assault on me.

The dial that controls my washing machine decided it had been twisted enough in its lifespan and fell off in pieces. On hearing this tragic news, the electrical element in my storage heater threw a hissy fit, blew a fuse and refused to heat the living-room.

I ran to the wardrobe to pull out a cardigan and the mirror doors jammed in a sock that lay itself on the runners like a crumpled soul, so then the door came off and clattered on top of me.

This horrifying news about the suicidal sock got spread to the bathroom by means that I am not entirely sure of, and the toilet pan seat slammed itself down in anger and broke in half.

The shower head (which hates to be left out of any drama) decided to pack up and started spraying water in all directions like a deformed penis. The last toilet roll got soaked in the process and dripped sadly on to the carpet.

The roller blind in the bathroom came out in sympathy and fell off the window and hit my glass jar that sat sleepily on the ledge. The glass jar didn't take the assault well and broke into six pieces.

The hallway must have felt very bereft, as it had housed the glass jar in the past, so its grief made the clothes rail in the hall-entry pop a few pegs and all the coats got jammed behind the cupboard door. The noise resonated throughout the flat, and the coats looked like dead people in heap.

At that point, the lock on the outside door made a terrifying noise as a key was inserted into its hole. The lock cried "rape" – it broke and jammed half a key inside its dark belly, refusing to give it up.

If this wasn't enough, a scented candle on my window ledge hissed oddly, let the wind pick it up and tossed it out of my top-floor bedroom window, taking a tub of talcum with it, and smashed dangerously on to the car park beneath, scaring the wee boys who smoke out the back court.

The mixture of melted splattered blue wax and white talcum looked intriguingly artistic. Fifty more yards into the West End and that would have been a community art installation and a European grant would have secured the site. Despite its potential as a future Turner Prize winner, I had to go down and clean it up.

The broom took one look at the situation and promptly lost its head. The broom can be temperamental and has been known to be incredibly idle in the past. It houses a family of spiders and takes pride in not disturbing them.

The fridge in the kitchen (which has always been a known self-harmer) managed to break its plastic door shelf and blew a light, just for attention.

The oven ignored the cry to arms and stoically radiated heat from its fan, but then got too excited, overdid itself and blew the thermostat. We had to eat cold lasagne, because the microwave is working on a defrost-only basis since I ignored the constipated noise it was making at Christmas. It has been trying hard to get some attention, but I declared it cheap and stupidly said aloud one day: "We can buy another one for thirty quid."

On hearing this, the microwave gave up trying to please me. It felt cheapened and dirty.

On realising there was a domestic appliance revolt on my hands, I quickly ran to the sink and shoved bleach down the plughole, as it is usually the prime dissident in the ranks. I caught it just in time, as it was slowly attempting to choke itself on rice crispies and red kidney beans, but I force-fed it hot water through a funnel and it relented. For now. But I know that it's planning a second assault and is patiently waiting on thick porridge oats coming down to help it out.

The rest of the flat stayed quiet. I was too scared to open a door in case it slammed back and jammed my fingers.

(originally written for and published in Scotsman newspaper)

My dad knows new words

2011-05-30T20:29:29+02:00

There are two things I know for sure- One is- everything changes and the other is -my dad doesn’t change. Dad is currently running a battle with his new digi box and satellite dish that despite leaps in modern technology- it lets a tree distort its service. The satellite man told us that was the problem. This doesn’t salve dads temper and his need to argue about everything concerning his telly.

Dad calls me every day to use his new word ‘pixelated’ he wasn’t to know that since the 1940s there would be new words to insert into his vocabulary, he thought all the words had been invented- so did we- but what we didn’t know is the new words he discovered he would use more than the old ones. It is as if he needs to wear them around his dentures to get a good feel for them and then they will settle sufficiently into his mouth.

“I think that’s a Beta service we are getting as the picture is pixelated again, they need to experiment more with nanotechnology” he rattled on like that irritating middle aged hip presenter on BBC’s Click techno programme.

Dad likes to impress me with his latest garnered knowledge and usually calls me at 8am to tell me stuff. What he doesn’t know is that I had been up till 4am watching box sets of DVD’s and don’t want to be told about RFID- radio Frequency identification which is being used in license plates to identify and charge cars as they drive through Congestion Charged roads, toll bridges and toll roads, without them stopping. I don’t know where he gets all this info; he no longer has the web. We got that taken away before he tapped into NASA or kept wakening me up in foreign countries via Skype and not checking the time difference.

I think there is a bunch of wee old men dressed in elasticated slacks talking bollocks to each other in cafes and sharing information and then passing it onto their stunned and over tired kids. Why is he up at 7am? And what makes him think I am?

Despite my grumblings I love and adore my dad more than anyone can guess, of course I do.

He makes me laugh like nobody can, his quirky outlook on the world will always astound me and his adoration of Ashley knows no bounds. I cherish these days with my dad, knowing full well these days won’t last and there will be a day when he won’t call at 7am and that will be the day when I will sit and will it to ring.

So on that note, I am pleased to tell everyone that I am having a proper holiday this year. Me and Ashley are going off to British Columbia in Canada to a wee place called Salt Spring island. Husband hates travelling as a family and doesn’t want to come, and Ashley deserves a holiday after the whole month of work she done in Adelaide at the festival. We can’t believe we are going somewhere, getting off a plane and NOT going straight to a theatre to work or flyer or do press – just a holiday!

SSI is an amazing wee nature reserve/hippy enclave where my mate Sarah lives. We met in Toronto where she was working in comedy and she is just an awesome chick, she has organised crabbing as well for us, and am good at crabbing, though am not sure it’s the same one am thinking of. Ashley is inordinately excited about crabbing; I had no idea that she liked killing things with exoskeletons and eating them. Sarah is just amazing for having us both over. I am lucky to have nice people in my life eh?

That will be July sorted meanwhile this coming week I am in London and having a drinks party for my belated 50^th at my fav club organised by my mate Monica. Am excited but worried, the last birthday party I had was in 1981 and my then brother in law sabotaged it and threatened everyone not to turn up and so I sat on my with a cake (hubby was working in the pub and was horrified to find me alone). I was 20 years old and confused as to why no guests came to my house. I gorged on cheese and pineapple and went to bed feeling stupid and hopeless with an unnatural fear of birthday parties. Am hoping this one will be better!

Holidays and hotels

2011-05-23T16:32:00+02:00

I am old enough to really appreciate the internet, years ago in the dark days of pink and grey striped wallpaper, big perms and China in our hands (the 80s) we booked holidays solely based on the glossy photos in a holiday brochure that got sent in the mail.

You picked your hotel, town and free weeks and looked down a chart to see what the price was based on two people sharing and then got a big train ticket all the way to Cornwall only to discover the bed was made of sticky foam, the sheets were pink bri-nylon, the TV in the bedroom had a slot pay-to-view box and the sea view was nonexistent. They had your money, via a cheque sent in January and the Hotel Kon Tiki in St Ives was nothing but a rip off. It was the 80s we didn’t have 360 degree images on the laptop, we couldn’t drag a wee yellow man onto the street in Google maps to see the location nor could we check various other peoples reviews of the place.

I recall having to share a breakfast of cold ravioli (for breakfast!) with a dull couple from Durham who were made to share our table at the Hotel Kon Tiki. Hubby and I quietly slipped away from the table, packed our cases, spoke to the manager, got our deposit back and got to the famous Headland Hotel in Newquay.

It was a beautiful Victorian castle type building, old fashioned and with a huge dining room that required a tie and a very 1980s dress code- husband and I have photographs from that holiday where we both look very dressed up and old for 24 year old kids. And they didn’t serve ravioli for breakfast nor did they make us share a table with a woman wearing slacks that worked in a pottery factory and liked Cher.

The bedrooms were still Victorian but adorable, it had a huge claw footed chest of drawers, a giant wooden framed luxurious bed and a solid brown wardrobe that would have survived a bombing campaign during WW11 (which it did) and the bay windows looked out to the rugged Cornish coastline. We had such a great time there that we conceived Ashley in that room....she just couldn’t be conceived in a room with manmade fibres, bad lighting and cheap food. I came home relaxed and pregnant from Newquay.

Anyway, nowadays we go online and stare endlessly at the destination we are going to, we can get 360 degree views of the toilet we will be using, we can see the view we will see from the window and we can check every bus, train and bar open within 3 miles of our door! The internet is good....but I still recall with affection the surprise I felt when I opened the door in The Headland Hotel and saw the amazing room....something’s are worth waiting for.

On the other hand times have moved on and hotels are no longer exciting for me. Especially lately when I went to Newcastle, I love Geordie land but the city is now a destination for drunks, stags and hen parties so it feels like one big giant wobbly fairground ride at the weekend. Like almost everyone has stepped off the waltzer and can no longer cope with walking or talking straight at all. They both dress up in various outfits including men as women, cowboys, babies or sailors and the women dress in pink cowboy glittery hats, or as cats and in one case 80s wrestlers...it’s all very strange.

Late night coming home from the comedy gig, my stomach is in knots as I zig zag behind big staggering groups of men in the city centre, am not scared of them but I worry one will fall and bang his drunken head in front of me, a phobia I have had from my years in a bar in The Calton where I once saw a man’s head split open like a deep red coconut as it smashed off the concrete outside the pub. I never want to see that again.

I also get really nervous as I watch drunken walkers all over the road, it makes me anxious but the worst feeling is when they all come back to the hotel I am staying at- the budget chain that the comedy clubs book for me- and the stags and hens run riot all night. This is adult men and women on a drunken weekend, they feel they HAVE to have something happen, and get up to all sorts of shenanigans late at night as the booze seeps in. The clubs and police keep them basically in check as the night progresses but when they are let loose in a hotel corridor, they seem to go ape shit mad and make sure other guests don’t get much sleep.

They bang on doors, scream and giggle in the corridors and fight in rooms until I basically wake up exhausted in the morning. I think there should be dedicated Stag and Hen hotels so folk who don’t like Simply the Best screamed at 4 am in the doorway can go elsewhere.

Yes, I complained to the hotel, yes they apologised and offered compensation, but it doesn’t change anything. I want to go back to the 80s when hotels were genteel and suits had to be worn for dinner not drunken men and women screaming in pink glittery cowboy hats or with plastic penis dangling off their heads throwing bread rolls at each other and pissing in the lift.

I am whiny today aren’t I?

Thoughts of me

2011-05-17T22:37:00+02:00

Last week I was laughing as my daughter Ashley paused a TV show we were watching to check IMDB (internet movie data base) to find out what previous movie the actor had been in. Ashley does this a lot, personally I don’t care, she cares and must check and chat about these entire movie related facts and trivia. It’s her thing.

My mammy used to do that back in the 70s - back then we couldn’t stop a programme or pause anything, and we had to have huge interruptions whilst my mum nattered on about “what was she in before she was in Crossroads? What was that guy called who was in Poldark who was married to that woman from Onedin Line?”

If my mammy had lived long enough to see 150 channels on her TV and had seen how you could pause a TV show and check the internet IMDB at the same time, it would have blown her mind. Of all the things I am sad my mammy missed, this is one of the biggest! Besides meeting Ashley that is, my mum would have LOVED her. Both of them love US TV shows, Liza Minnelli, Hawaii 5-O and both of them had huge crushes on James Garner and William Shatner (how odd?).

My mum also loved Star Trek and loved Captain Kirk (Ashley’s favourite character), mammy hated Spock and was convinced he was a Catholic, though explaining to her he was a Vulcan meant nothing- anyone she didn’t like was relegated to Catholic (she wasn’t really into sectarianism she just used catholic as blanket of hatred and she was a bit mental). This was a woman who thought King Billy was cute and had many images of him- he was like a latter day Beiber- everyone in my direct family had photos and plastic images of him. Mum was not even a protestant she just wasn’t a catholic and that means something to some people of Shettleston. She never attended church and often sneered at nuns, it was just how she was brought up.

Funnily enough when she ran out of valium her first port of call was a wee Catholic woman called Kitty who lived up the back road. Her hatred of Catholics didn’t extend to drug dealings...obviously. Ashley isn’t into King Billy or Catholics so they do have their differences I suppose.

Yet mammy loved the TV and Ashley loves the TV they both love musicals and both adore old movies, and am sure if my mammy had met Ashley they would get on so much. Both of them are funny, smart, mentally nuts and sharp witted all rolled into one and Ashley does have a similar sense of humour as my mother. When I told Ashley this she wept big tears and told me how she wished my mother has seen me onstage doing comedy “She would have loved you doing comedy” so then I wept big tears thinking about everything mammy missed not being here.

We miss people who pass away, today I just found a text from my late brother and it said “saw you on BBC news sis, you were funny, miss you x” Miss my mammy and my bro.

Life, Cats and Great Scots

2011-05-08T16:55:01+02:00

Being away from home and arriving expecting adoration does put a little strain on a relationship. When my daughter Ashley and I got back from Adelaide in March, I was shocked to see that husband had not only grown his hair sideways out and bushy up top with a huge greying beard, but he had another daughter in place. It was like whilst we were away he got a replacement, had he stolen a girl? No- it was of course Ashley’s close pal Bobbi, she is a lovely girl same age as Ashley who had moved in as she was in between homes and jobs and possibly blokes. Husband and I have known her since she was a teenager and Ashley had of course agreed to have Bobbi stay, it was just slightly unsettling to see husband looking like a tufty bushy father of another girl fussing and making dinner for her. Husband possibly had plans for a whole month of freedom from Ashley and I, where he could walk about in his pants or even naked, pee the floors round the pan and clean it later, live on chocolate biscuits and watch racy online movies as he drank bottles of cold beer and threw them in a pile on the floor for a full six weeks. It’s a middle aged man’s dream, he could eat cheap cuts from Lidl and not face our gloomy stares over unbeknown Eastern European cans of strange soup, he could watch back to back episodes of Family Guy and CSI without me asking him to turn it off, he was basically planning to emulate an Oliver Reed type holiday but Bobbi arrived and pyjama bottoms and fresh milk were now his agenda.

Having another girl in the house is good fun, except I am starting to boss her about like I do my own daughter and am questioning her about where she is going, what she wants from life and can she please stop eating crisps in bed...I think she will move on soon, bless her wee soul.

My other daughter type relationship is with my god daughter and niece Ann Margaret, she has three kids Shaun, Abi and Julia. She also has a mouse, a rabbit and a very evil sneering house cat called Squeak.

Squeak has managed to resist all attempts to ‘be a pet’ it’s practically OCD and has anger issues concerning everyone in the world. I have never known a cat that can slink and sneer at me at the same time. It visibly hates me; maybe I shouldn’t have taken its two front paws and shown it how to scrape its litter tray as it used to shit in the box and then claw all the woodchip wallpaper of the wall beside the litter tray ignoring the shit and just staring intently straight ahead like a victim of some deep dark experiment from a Russian laboratory. Now when it sees me it gets flashbacks and runs sideways like a stilted hobbled demented gymnast and lets out a deep horrid meeeooow, it doesn’t sound nice at all. Even Julia who is only four years old knows the cat is calling hates me “Squeak called you a bad name” Julia can interpret all the cats meaows, and is scarily accurate. “Squeak is evil and wants the mouse to die and land in her mouth” Julia added. She was right Squeak was standing by the low cage patiently waiting for a cage malfunction to occur or her maybe the mind messages she was emitting to Julia would come to effect and the kid would open the cage.

The good news is the mouse has a flinty look in its eyes and I believe the cat maybe in for a fight, meanwhile I am hoping Julia’s next pet doesn’t have a personality disorder.

So back to this past week, Yes, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, I was recently nominated Great Scot at the Great Scot awards at the prestigious Boisedale Club in London and had to attend wearing blue or tartan then as the night progressed I had to spend heaps of time stopping Roland Rivron from shouting at Annie Lennox whilst he was blabberingly drunk and watch Lorraine Kelly be a better Scot than me and win the award. The same night Willie Carson the jockey and Sir Jackie Stewart the racing driver shared a ride in a lift with me and comedy writer Danny Wallace, it was the first time I had been taller than two other men since I visited a panto, anyway Mr Carson mistook me for Danny Wallace’s wife- that was after everyone assumed I was Roland Rivron’s wife since I was containing his drunken madness.

That week I had been called a polymath by some amazing Rangers fans, then BBC called and asked me to be a commentator on Scottish football and the Scotsman newspaper asked my political opinion...who knew anyone was interested in anything I had to say? In my house am the person nobody actually cares to answer, in my family am the least opinionated person in the alpha female group I move amongst I am not called on anything for advice as it is generally known that I will make a joke before I will take anything serious.

The other good news is I gained heaps of new followers from Rangers football club websites, it would appear that I am so blue to the bone and popular with them and then Celtic football club followers came on board, it was nice to see sectarianism put aside and people coming together to share a chat and a joke!

The Royal wedding made me slightly uneasy, we paid for a big party and not one brown face was in that royal line up! The whole gamut of white Anglo Saxon Germanic history was there in full display! How can a modern family today not have some colour in it? I do...I have a half Asian Nephew on my husband’s side and am sure on my mother’s side there is a half man half goat uncle we try not to mention. I am hoping Ashley will bring some diversity into the gene pool when she starts reproducing, a big brown baby with my curly afro hair would be awesome.

The week was topped off by the scary news that Jack Bauer from US TV actually killed Osama Bin Laden and we saw squillions of Americans foam at the mullet and scream “USA” at the White House in case Obama forgot where he was. There is something distasteful about watching folk celebrate the death of an enemy. Anyway as I speak Osama is working his way through 70 virgins, which must be hard work, all that screaming and bleeding can’t be fun.

Two things happened this week, the first being my daughter Ashley broke some bones in her feet dancing to Tinnie Tempa which isn’t technically a real name but he does good music, I myself have thrown a few shapes to Tinnie. She is feeling better and has vowed never to dance near a SLIPPY vomit covered floor in our prestigious dance halls here in Glasgow, the second thing is SNP swept the board at the election and despite what misprint the newspaper stated; I like SNP, good on them!

Am excited about my shows at Soho Theatre in August so do come along and check out our weekly podcast, me and Ashley have such fun making it and we are up to week 43 check it out on iTunes or my website www.janeygodley.com

Sunshine in London

2011-04-25T19:50:01+02:00

I have had an excellent weekend, arriving in London in time for its mini heat wave and long bank holiday! I got to lie in Battersea Park and enjoy the weather, though the incessant noise of gurgled screams of kids did drive me a bit mental. Kids don’t really like parks, adults like parks, kids don’t like sitting on a blanket and staring at a bee for ages. They arrive in a park and suddenly require a selection of cold treats, a bug free seat, a three wheeled cart that you lie down and peddle and possibly a magician to keep them entertained as you try to read an article in the Sunday Times about how Princess Diana would love the upcoming wedding and would probably outshine the bride and Carole Middleton. I need some shit Royal gossip written badly I don’t need someone else’s whiney child irritating the wasps into a bad mood near me. I had served my time with a kid in the park; Ashley was duly dragged to picnic blanket hell many times in her childhood and spent hours poking a Rhododendron with a stick for fun as I devoured the latest pile of pretend lies from Jeffery Archer.

People need to know babies who sleep a lot like the park, babies who are learning to walk like the park but every other child from two upwards to twelve hate the park unless dogs get into a bloody foaming mouth fight, and that’s something they can stare at. It’s a boring hot sticky toilet deprived place is the park in the blistering heat...and yet adults don’t get that. In their mind they will drag some chairs, some food and a wine cooler and they can enjoy the summer haze. Not if you have kids, then it will be hell for you and people sitting near.

So, I moved far away from the annoying people but still managed to meet a stupid twat of a woman whose dog’s slabbered and leapt all over me, which meant she and her friends now had the right to ask me questions. I think it’s called socialising but it felt like interrogation ...with dogs. “Do you live round hear?” the tall lady in the elasticated jungle print maxi dress drawled at me. Her accent was one that Katie Middleton’s mum was hoping to attain- she was old money and very posh (I knew this as she had on odd sandals and it wasn’t irony).

I chatted to her and her pony trekking horse faced friends for a few minutes, I told them I was staying with my mate and then I told them I was a comedian. The circle of chinless Oxbridge bedwetters went silent, their crystal decanter and tall glasses were sending twinkling shards of light like a glitter ball all over the grass. Who brings a decanter to a park? Alcoholic rich people that’s who. The woman in odd sandals leaned her head to the side and her eyes became flinty, like she was trying to understand what a female comedian was, then she stepped forward and the bottom of her strapless elastic maxi dress was trapped beneath a dogs ass and her bra-less left tit slapped out and just hung there- nobody said anything. Maybe if you are rich enough to own a decanter and take it to a public park, you can have a tit hanging out and that’s ok. It was a saggy limp tit, like a small bag of cold porridge or one of those balloons that have slowly deflated behind a chair, days after a birthday party.

Am not saying my tits are awesome but they are huge and well firm, and I don’t let one flop out in full public view. Anyway the woman hadn’t noticed her tit was hanging out, her friends said nothing, nobody giggled or came to her rescue and so I continued the conversation. “Is being a comedian actually a job?” tit flap asked me and a few of the men and women smiled and sniggered at this. “I mean how does one become funny? Do women actually get a laugh?” she continued.

I stared at them, I bent down stroked a dog, I looked up and stared at her flabby tit hanging out of her sundress and I said “Your tit is hanging out of your dress and that makes me laugh and I am going to tell heaps of people about this, so trust me yes, women do get a laugh”

I don’t think it bothered her, rich people can take sherry to the park in crystal, they can wear odd sandals and let a tit hang out, but they can’t wind me up, I just accepted everyone is weird in their own way. I would be mortified if my tit came out in public, but wasn’t, she just folded it back into her frock and kicked a dog off her skirt. Life in the park is like that.

Big Tom

2011-04-19T00:58:14+02:00

“There he is, the Mauler of Maryhill Road” my neighbour spoke quietly. We both stared at a big fat ginger tom cat with dirty socks on each leg, flinty eyes and a split ear that waved in the wind. “He cruises the car park at night servicing the hormonally charged female felines and fights with other cats, it’s like a scene from West Side story down there at midnight”

I could only imagine the dance scenes with cats running wild between the cars under the fuzzy moonlight of the west end of Glasgow. But recently we did have an influx of cats that didn’t seem to belong to the people in the flats around here. They hung out near the bins and sometimes one or two sat on our car bonnet after the engine had been turned off and enjoyed some lasting heat. I had spotted two black and white cats that seem to enjoy sitting near the Aga Shop and had a haughty look on their face, like they were lending to the countryfide image by hanging about a posh shop. On the opposite side of the road there was an angry looking skinny cat who hissed at you as you passed the Asian vegetable store. I imagine he had issues and hated people in general.

I look across the car park and spotted Big Tom, he looked over as if he knew we were talking about him.

The big cat came over to me; he head butted my shins, his giant solid head cracking off the bone demanding attention. I am sure he winked at me, I was being flirted on by a big fat man cat and it was strange to say the least. He stared at me, expecting me to bend down and rub his bulging cheeks, I could hear his purring and he actually strutted in front of me, showed me his balls then came back and glared at me for attention. I stood there looking at him, and then I heard a high pitched scream and the sound of sandals clacking on the ground. It turns out the women from Afghanistan who love picnics in the garden of number 90 hate and fear cats! I didn’t know this but by the screaming, burqa flapping and jangled arm waving, head holding and foot stamping I now know those women don’t like cats. Big Tom stood his ground he had been here for years and owned a harem of lady cats and a bunch of squealy women weren’t going to shove him off his well earned patch. That cat looked racist and sneered at them through slitty sneaky eyes, licked his lips and strutted towards them.

Big Tom merely walked over to the big brown car that belonged to the women and nutted the wheel trims with his hard head and slinked towards the screaming group who were now lifting babies and toddlers away from the big ginger cat who had no fear and was clearly coming to eat them all.

“he won’t hurt you, he is just a cat” I tried to reason, but Big Tom didn’t need a lawyer to represent his intentions, he was about to duck beneath the flapping cover of a burqa and slink around the ankles of a poor woman who was now pinned to the wooden fence of number 90’s garden. She stood silently but with a scream on her face as she clutched the wooden posts for stability.

The old horrid man who writes notes about the exclusivity of the number 90 garden watched on with glee, he hated the Afghanistan women and their penchant for sitting in the garden and was egging on the fat cat by sniggering and nodding vigorously. I began to think he was in cahoots and could control the cat by his evil mind powers. Then the cat meowed loudly.

At that moment a wee brown faced cute boy with big chocolate button eyes, dipped out behind his mum, bent under her black burqa and picked up the giant cat. He walked over to the grass and put big Tom down and walked back to the women who cheered and clapped their small hero. The cat sat on the grass, spotted a stupid sparrow and immediately leapt on the dumb bird and sat punching it with a fat paw. It was the circle of life. Big Tom now stalks the far end of the car park, you can hear him at night grabbing female cats and pulling them into the bushes for some cat screaming sex, it doesn’t sound like fun, but then how weird would I be if I enjoyed the noise? Circle of life indeed.

Why am I so sleepy and my Irn Bru day out

2011-04-14T11:25:00+02:00

Am starting to worry, I sleep till midday and don’t have jet lag and have a dull ache in the side of my head and am now convinced I have a big brain tumour, that’s what I am like! It can’t just be stress or a headache it has to be a dangerous illness. I am going to shut up now.

So life has been busy, the one woman show at Oran Mor was just a delight, I did about two hours and the place was packed to the gunnels, so lovely to have that many people come see me despite me not being on telly! The problem with doing live shows and not having a TV presence is that people don’t know you enough and assume if you are not on telly then you are not worth coming to see! A few comedy mates who are brilliant are suffering the same issue, they have small tours on but folk won’t attend, unless Michael McIntyre has validated you, you are not worth watching....it seems.

Anyway Oran Mor was a triumph and I loved being there and Ashley got up and did some warm up for me, I am so chuffed that she is that confident and funny. Doing the podcast with her has been awesome and it is going from strength to strength, if you read this and don’t know how to get to the podcast just Google Janey Godley’s Podcast and you will be there in a click.

We had a lovely husband and I, we went down to Balmaha which is on the shores of Loch Lomond where my niece Ann Margaret was camping with her wee brood of kids and I got some lovely pictures of Abi, Shaun and Julia, three wee city kids who stood for hours trailing a fishing net into shallow waters whilst tucked into ill fitting welly’s but happy as Larry! They didn’t ask for shots on the Iphone or moaned for a DVD player, they all happy ran about in the snappy cold or sat in the tent eating crisps. Husband managed to organise all their food, cooking utensils and gas equipment into a neat row beneath a folding table he brought, as Aspergers and camping do sort of clash. He doesn’t cope well with chaos and Ann Margaret, her husband Rob and the kids do chaos very well. Husband managed to sort things into size ratio and keep it that way whilst he was there. The kids don’t care about his oddness and couldn’t wait to get big warm hugs and a sit on his knee wrapped in his special blanket that husband keeps folded in the back of his car.

Ann Margaret is such a good mum, Shaun is 13 and at that age where every single thing he wants or says is loaded with conflict, yet you should see him love his wee sisters. He is so tender and caring and adept at getting them on and off swings and he guards them like a lion near bigger kids and he is better than a life guard when they stood on the edge of the loch. You can see the photos on my facebook page. Shaun is at that age where he is waiting to be a man, arguing with everyone and yet is still capable of holding wee Julia age 4 round his waist and loving her with all his big heart.

Abi is seven and knows everything and everyone in the world it seems, there is little she doesn’t understand and what she doesn’t know she makes up but tells it with complete conviction that you are convinced she will be a politician in at least six months time.

It was good being with the kids; it always brightens my day to be around them. But I need to get back to work and back to writing, which I am procrastinating about. It feels as though I have jetlag again for no good reason, you can’t get jetlag after driving half an hour to Loch Lomond can you?

This week was brightened up by Irn Bru (for non Scots Google it and find out about our real National drink) anyway the people at Irn Bru have made a new summer advert and its really good, it’s a pastiche of a jolly summer postcard image set in Scotland with awesome animation. The music is of course Paolo Nutini and I loved it, the Irn Bru adverts are legendary, so watch out for this one. We also got some nice freebies! Thank you Irn Bru.

Children get older and so do parents

2011-03-22T14:53:58+01:00

Being away so often makes you forget your actual role in the family and the world in which you inhabit. When I was in Australia I was so busy trying to work hard that Ashley really did become my carer for a while and was checking I was eating, sleeping and resting enough. Much in the same way I do with my dad, who I am always worried sick about when I go away. Parents notoriously die the minute you step on a plane to leave the country, well old ones anyway!

My wee da is fit and healthy though especially for his age, he gave up smoking when fags went up a ha’penny in 1955 and hasn’t drunk since 1981 and despite having a heart op and small stroke in the late 90s and suffering the death of his beloved wife two years ago, he is actually fighting fit for an old Glasgow man. Though the older he gets the more racist he seems.... weird that eh? He is like a geriatric insane Jerry Sadowitz but without the irony, ticket sales and ability to shuffle a card deck.

When we were going over the census form I can’t even begin to tell you the stuff he said, so am just leaving it there. Suffice to say he doesn’t have much respect for people who encourage women to wear Burkhas “Imagine I tried to tell your mammy what to wear, she would have kicked my knackers and quite rightly so, women shouldn’t be told how to live”

He then went on about how odd it is I leave my husband to go round the world doing comedy, yet he prefers I leave husband as he looks after dad....I can’t win can I? The other thing dad loves is clear spray sun block factor 30 somehow he loves this product, it’s not as if we get a lot of sunshine in Glasgow but on the days it comes out, he liberally sprays his baldy head and hugs the can. He is odd and has been known to drown squirrels accidentally in big bin down near the fence that gets full of rain water (I promised him we wouldn’t talk about that again).

So am back from Australia and back in the game, I have decided to NOT go to Edinburgh fringe (I was kindly offered a paid show with all expenses covered) but I don’t want to go this year. Instead I have other plans in the offing. I will doing Soho Theatre in last weekend of August and I will be writing a new play and a radio thing and have some very interesting meetings coming up this week. Things are pretty exciting and even if they don’t work out- I don’t care, am not being tied to Edinburgh for a whole month!

Life feels ok, it’s been a hard start to this year- my beloved brother Jim died suddenly on New Year’s Eve and was alone in pain prior to his death which haunts me. I never even called him over Christmas and that haunts me...I have been very fucked up about this and then I never got to go to his funeral. Things felt odd, but am looking onwards and upwards.

So here I am watching friends daughters grow up and get married, watching Ashley look after me, try hard to look after dad and all the while try hard to remain 22 years old inside my own head. It really is just the early 80s inside my body, am still hoping George Michael will Wham me at some point and I still dance to Fame when I hear it on the radio.

I asked husband the other day if I still look like the 18 yr old girl he married and he looked at me and said “No, you have bigger boobs and more fat on your ass and you talk better and you believe in yourself more and you read better books” that’s what happens when you ask an Aspergers man his honest opinion. But it was true am older, better read and much fatter than the girl who dressed in a £58 wedding dress and let a priest tell her how to love a man back in 1980. (Turns out the priest was an IRA sympathiser and fled the country when he got involved in cash for arms -we don’t know if we are legally married and if he was legally a priest)

“Club Tropicana drinks are free.......”

Festivals and me

2011-03-05T19:33:01+01:00

I had a weird moment at the Town Hall Adelaide this week. They had a photographic exhibition up and one of the main images was a huge colourful picture of Edinburgh during the festival in August. I realised how much people here in Australia love to go, and are eager to talk to me about it. I am pretty over the festival in Edinburgh and don’t praise it much now. Performers and people alike gasp at my nonchalant attitude to the biggest arts festival in the world.

I recently did a Skype interview with a Scottish journalist and basically slated the Edinburgh fringe festival as I have become jaded by the big companies that manage to make so much cash from wee people who put up their hard earned money to make their hopes and dreams come true. I am not taking back any of my well documented comments and everyone else thinks much the same anyway. My point is, I hate that no longer want to go, I hate that I no longer dream of the excitement of that first night. I recall my first Edinburgh show with the intensity of my first adult kiss.

I can tell you the smells; I can describe the feeling seeing my face on a poster on the wall outside the old Gilded Balloon on the Cowgate in 1998. I knew I was the bottom of the artistic food chain, but my heart still pounded as I held out that first flyer and turned an eager face to a passerby. I was doing a three hander with two blokes who didn’t really care much about the show. I was as enthusiastic as hell and flyered everyday and begged people to come in night after night. Not many people came, yet my dreams soared higher.

I watched the big names get all the press, I never even got a review and after three more years I still never got a review. The press ignored me until 2004 then I got about 20 reviews in one week!

I recall going to the Underbelly venue in 2002 down in the Cowgate and looking at the crumbling old ancient bricks pass off as a comedy room. The two guys running it Charlie and Ed were posh English guys making the best of a bad job and I was part of the team. They encouraged me, they backed me up and they took all our suggestions to fix the mistakes in the building, we all did a great job that year and I fell in love with Edinburgh and did a one woman show for a ten day run. I loved the Underbelly and came back the next year with a hand written play and new show. I got a book deal, and a near comedy nomination and I felt so creative and full of comedy love. Edinburgh smiled at me, the castle winked and the lights on the street illuminated as I walked and I spread my magic through the night time alleys with my smile alone.

Somewhere along the years from then to now, I lost the passion and patience for Edinburgh. I stopped looking up at the castle in the sunset, I stopped sitting on the cobblestones and watching the buskers, I gave up running my palm along the smooth bricks that stood there for over 400 years and feeling the pulse of the building through stone. I stopped.

It all became tough work, Edinburgh is a hard secret lover, it makes you feel excited, dirty and like no other entity can stir in you but the price is high. It loves other people more than you, it is nicer to others and can ignore you- it can make you hate it and despite being addicted you have to extricate yourself from its grip and stop going back time and time again to see if it has any love left for you. It doesn’t. I am not going back. I am too old, my gown no longer shines, my hair no longer glints in the Edinburgh sun, and the city turned its back and felt ashamed of my neediness. I will miss you Edinburgh, we had good times, we laughed together, we raised my daughter together, we watched her grow thank you now go shine for others now.

To What End

2011-02-25T18:14:00+01:00

Do not ask to what end to live, for the only end to live for is death; the only end there is in life is its own.

Crashing waves...

2011-02-13T02:31:00+01:00

Imaging sitting near a large cliff by the ocean..isn't that sound amazing!! As the waves crash into the jagged rocks and the water sprays up making a beautiful mini-rainbow as the breeze blows little droplets of salt water onto your feet which dangle over the edge.

As beautiful as the sound is it is only produced by the wave hitting or running into something that stops it and sends it back to it's place...only to try once again to return...over and over as if with the next try the wave will some how win this eternal battle against the cliff.

Tomorrow a very dear friend of mine was supposed to get married. She had everything ready...the honeymoon set, the apartment rented and furnished and a beautiful dress hanging in the closet pressed and prepared.

But alas...her beloved groom called off the wedding. Granted they had only known each other for 5 months and of course everyone would say.."Oh, my that isn't enough time." But it was still quite a painful blow...like a wave being hit against the rocks.

You know that she'll come out of it and heal from the pain, but just as every time the waves hit the rocks another little piece of the rock is worn away..I suppose the rocks can either become jagged or smooth.

The waves of life will come no matter what...it doesn't matter to the wave if you are just a peaceful little rock minding your own business...it will hit you and hit you hard. You just have to make a choice...do I want to be polished by the wave and made smooth or do I want to become jagged.

Jesus was called the Rock of Ages...and he took the beating for each of us...call on Him when the waves of life seem to be overwhelming you...the waves will still keep coming but you can hold on to the Rock that will never let you go!!

God bless you and keep you...Grace

The Fire In My Eyes

2010-12-12T16:21:00+01:00

I wish I could lift this incessant tiredness

that has wrapped itself around me

like a heavy winter cloak

From now on not feel the pain

that has rendered my body rigid and weak

and left it on the wrong side of hope

To go back to the way I was

when no burden could hold me down

strong and with such an appetite for life

it frightened everyone around

Just to find some kind of comfort

if only for a while

but long enough to rekindle my spirit

and bring back the fire in my eyes

O how I would enjoy

such a pittance of time

never waste a second

just laugh and love and dance

and not once fall behind

nor take for granted

how it feels to be fine

What Made Life

2010-11-05T16:11:33+01:00

Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (biology) from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate.

In biology, the science of living organisms, life is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter. Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means. A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and the properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information.

In philosophy and religion, the conception of life and its nature varies. Both offer interpretations as to how life relates to existence and consciousness, and both touch on many related issues, including life stance, purpose, conception of a god or gods, a soul or an afterlife.

[Untitled 2]

2010-11-03T22:51:00+01:00

As humans, we never learn from our mistakes.

26 April 2010...5.29 a.m.

This evening paper, Advanced Civil Procedure? I am DEAD.

Today

This morning, Advanced Civil Procedure II? I am DEAD.

Exam mode * 2 more to go…

2010-11-02T22:46:00+01:00

I was quite busy [and lazy] this semester that I did not update my blog since last month. I make it a point to update my blog today as my life as a student is going to end soon and I'm sure that my blog will be abandoned [hopefully not] by me when I've started working. In fact, I'm afraid that even if I update my blog when I've started working, the 'tone' will not be the same.

I'm having my exam this week. My final final examinations. Started last week with Evidence II on Monday and Advanced Criminal Procedure II on Wednesday. Yup. Two 'killer' papers with a gap of just one day. On Sunday I had my Bahasa Melayu Undang-Undang paper. And tomorrow will be Advanced Civil Procedure II. My last paper will be on next Tuesday, that is Ethics.

By the way, I am panic right now. Really panic. But I wanna play it cool. I haven't slept since last night, thought want to study [yes, I lied] but ended up watching football, movie, and internet-ing. Last night, I read a couple of pages for my civil...two the most. I don't know why but I just want to finish the exam as soon as possible. I am getting tired of looking at the books, hearing the names of the cases. Honestly, it sounds easy to read law, but it's not that easy when it comes to the exam. Even if it is an open book exam. Trust me.

[caption id="attachment_810" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Photo from http://lawyerist.com/clearly-the-answer-is-not-obvious/ "][/caption]

Notes from a broad

2010-11-01T20:39:48+01:00

Things have been worrying me deeply. I have been looking up the internet and trying to figure out if I have either- eye, bowel, lung or brain cancer, turns out am old and have nothing like that.

I have stopped smoking and so has my wonderful daughter Ashley, the feeling of her supporting me has been awesome. I really feel its time to get fit, lose weight and get off the fags.

I am not going to be one of those women who starve themselves, this about me trying to feel better about myself.

But I have been having strange pains and boils again.

I just get random pains then go search them on websites, years ago when you had random illness’s an old granny or a woman in your street who kept cats and made gooseberry jam would diagnose your illness in the absence of a doctor.

I recall we had a woman just like that in our street, called Maggie who made flowers out of twigs that she shaved at the end into chrysanthemum heads; it was amazing how she did it. Anyway we called her Maggie Make-believe as she told fantastical tales about ships, pirates and past lives. She also made poultices and gave out herbal type medical advice to anyone who would listen. She also drank home made nettle tea way before the bored housewives of Chelsea discovered its healing properties.

There was an old woman called Auntie Jean who lived in Maggie’s bedroom, Auntie Jean was completely ancient, she looked like a skeleton in a crocheted matinee jacket, her white hair haloed in wisps around her angular white face. She whispered and waved when I came to visit her, and smelt of talcum powder and death.

I never wanted to see this woman who really wasn’t my Auntie Jean, even at eleven years old I knew that was a wee woman waiting to die as Maggie Make-believe made chrysanthemum flowers in the living room and dipped them in blue food dye to sell. But my job was to go shopping for Maggie, she loved me and would bring me in, let me make a disfigured flower then usher me into the talcum room of death to sit by Auntie Jean who looked and sounded like a ghost.

The worst thing was when Auntie Jean asked me to sing a wee song for her. I couldn’t sing and was constantly aware that my shitty voice might have been the last thing she heard on earth. So then wee fat Maggie would come into the room and sing so loudly I was worried we would miss Auntie Jean’s last breath, it just didn’t feel right to be belting out a Tom Jones song to a frail dying woman.

Maggie was a gypsy-ish woman, I suspect. She was a fat as she was tall and wore big flowery dresses and spoke funny. She really loved Auntie Jean and took great care of her.

Maggie’s house was immaculately clean and I am sure she looked after Jean better than any medical staff at that time in the 1970s. I have to say I was relieved when Auntie Jean finally died, as I was worried that she would die during my frequent visits and I didn’t want that to happen.

Maggie was serenely accepting of Jean’s death, something I hadn’t witnessed in my family or my life at that time. She didn’t believe in God, she believed in fairies, woodland earth or something to do with nature reclaiming its own and sang a big song when Jean died with the windows open flung wide (to let her spirit go free). She put the radio on full blast and we both danced to a Marc Bolan song as Jean’s dead body lay in the next room, I was freaked out at first but Maggie assured me Jean loved music and happiness. I was either helping a wee hippy celebrate death or I was enabling a mental person…either way it was ok and felt quite good at the time.

I was thinking about Maggie the other day and decided to write this blog about her, for back up info I called my brother and asked him “do you remember Maggie Make-believe who lived in our street?” Well he didn’t and I am starting to think I imagined her! If anyone out there recalls a lovely cuddly wee woman called Maggie who lived in Kenmore Street in the mid 70s and who made wooden flowers and could cure verrucas and made her own cough medicine and pain poultices, do let me know.

Going insane

2010-10-30T10:52:02+02:00

Been a tense time in the flat, Ashley and I have stopped smoking. I am so proud of her, I have done this before and she hasn’t, so I can see how tense she is. She is answering every question with a screechy voice and her stomping feet about the flat must be making the downstairs neighbours insane. The upside is, every morning she gets up her nose isn’t blocked anymore, and that’s been a problem for years. Every morning she used to stand in the loo and snort, breath and make dragon noises with her nose that drove her mad, trying to breathe through it.

So good positive signs eh?

I am also on a diet and a keep fit regime, which is on hold as I have antibiotics for an ear infection and a suspicious angry weeping boil on the crease of my leg near my ass. It has to be the most inconvenient place for a boil ‘right on the crease’ it hurts when I walk but it will go soon, I cant even see it and need a selection of mirrors and strategically placed spotlights to see the fucker. The doc says it’s a symptom of the infection in my ear, and to expect more boils.

My snoring has stopped which is an awesome side effect of stopping smoking and I am going to be 50 soon, so I need to take care of my body more.

I don’t want to be 50, and still breathing like a ragged out hack and I don’t want to be this fat anymore.

I went running the other night, I haven’t run in 15 years and it was a good feeling to be doing it again. But it will be ages before I can manage a decent run at all.

I spoke to a personal fitness trainer but Ashley was aghast and said “Mum, don’t do that, I see those men out in the West End screaming at fat people to run faster then make them do lunges outside the all night Asian shop, its humiliating, just get dad to shout at you, its cheaper and he knows how to do it good”

I am not sure about a personal trainer, but I do need some help.

Have been worried about my dad lately as well, I haven’t seen him much since I have been travelling and working. I always feel incredibly guilty when I don’t see him; he doesn’t make me feel bad. It’s me who does that to myself. We talk every day on the phone and I go see him when I can, but I just hate the thought that he is sitting in his house alone and sad. Having said that, I am so lucky as my step sister is an awesome daughter to him and she visits often and loves him to bits. Dad is out every single day as well; he meets his pals every day and goes for a natter with them. In actual fact my dad has a better social life than me and Ashley!

It’s a queer time for me, this approaching 50 years old; I am taking stock and yet not slowing down. Ashley and I are off on a wee world tour of LA, Adelaide and hopefully NZ right after my birthday in January.

I love going away with her, she makes me laugh and is such a good mate to hang out with. I wish my mum had been alive when I was 24, though I don’t think I would be accompanying her on a comedy tour. I do miss her so much, especially as I have now outlived her- she died at 47. I suppose this is why me and Ashley are closer, is we are aware how fragile and flippant life can be. Though she never knew my mum, she was born four years after mum died.

By the time I am fifty in January, I will be a stone lighter (at least) my lungs will be clean and healthier and I will look better and feel better than I do right now with a boil on my arse and stuff leaking out of my ears.

Its early here as I write this, I couldn’t sleep as husband was up and down all night for drinks or a piss, he is in his late 40s and still cant sleep right through the night. Shit eh? Pity he wasn’t breast fed, well it aint my job now to fix him, I am fixing me and I hope you will all be here to support me!

Thanks again for listening to me and Ashley’s podcast, you can go to my webpage janeygodley.com and click the link Janey Godley’s podcast and become a subscriber

if it pleases you! Speak soon.

Business and Fun

2010-10-28T20:02:30+02:00

Was in London for a whole week, was great staying with my best pal Monica, she lives in a beautiful flat in Battersea, her apartment is basically a spa. She has an awesome bathroom and power shower with the BEST products in the world on French polished drawers that zoom in and out silently. I am not really a product junkie but Monica does have amazing stuff and I get to use it….that’s what pals are for. She owns her own PR Company for high end restaurants and I get to eat the most amazing Michelin starred grub and all I can offer her is some blokes swearing about masturbation in a dimly lit comedy club. She hates comedy, she says the majority of comics I have made her sit through are basically dysfunctional humans with personality disorders and mother issues. She hates female comics who go on about cakes, eating too much, being fat, being divorced/single and their lumpen naked bodies to a paying audience. My mate Monica is very opinionated on such matters and don’t even start me on how she reacts to ‘whimsy’.

“If I wanted to see a slide show of tortoises, chatter about cats and a poem about an asymmetric rug, I would have joined a help group for people with brain injuries” she quipped when a famous whimsical comic was onstage before me at Edinburgh.

“That woman needs to fix her hair, who cut her fringe? A meerkat with wooden spoons?” Was what she actually said loudly.

The upside is her job is amazing- one of her clients won Best Restaurant in the World! You can’t beat that can you? No…you simply can’t.

In between gigging, auditioning and smearing expensive cream on myself in London, I had some time out to go see stuff. I chose to go see Gauguin at the Tate Modern Gallery. It wasn’t until I was halfway through the exhibition did I realise what a skanky paedophile Gauguin actually was. He infected small girls with syphilis in Tahiti and beyond, I hate him now and can’t believe I didn’t know he was a bloody kiddie fiddler. The Tate described him as a ‘story teller’ I can only imagine the stories he had to tell and its amazing that if you have a talent the world forgives your paedophilic tendencies…for example do I need mention Polanski one more time?

Anyway for the record I walked out. I didn’t pay and that made me feel slightly better and his work is a bit shit. Am glad Gauguin died with heart problems and suffered horrific pain with syphilis, is all I am saying.

So am back home and am off the cigarettes yet again and have taken up an exercise regime and diet so I can lose some fatty arse flesh and look good for my up coming 50^th birthday.

I need to look after myself a bit more, and there is no time like today to start! Ashley has joined me in stopping smoking so am so proud of her.

Sorry the blog was late….do remember to check our podcast episode 16 is out. Search Janey Godley’s podcast if there isn’t a link on your site or go to my webpage janeygodley.com and click there.

Status update required?

2010-10-19T11:39:06+02:00

Still alive... still breathing... somehow!

The world’s laziest woman

2010-10-16T16:06:03+02:00

I am well aware that the blog is late, I was lying in bed last night, thinking “I haven’t written a blog in ages” and then felt guilty and fell asleep tangled like a pretzel, woke up and have a squinty squashed tit. Hope you are all happy now then eh?

Last week was stressful as I had to get millions of forms filled out to apply to the Adelaide Comedy fringe, seriously there must be an easier way to do that. I can’t even imagine how people went to festivals and organised them before the internet was invented, all that posting forms and videos must have been hellish. But I can tell you that I hate E-Forms that decide they can’t take information for no good reason other that being bastardish and that’s a word I just invented for E-Forms that refuse information.

Meanwhile my flat has decided to sabotage me. The shower got angry and premenstrual and stopped providing hot water, the shower then whispered passive/aggressive abuse to the toilet pan and in a fit of pique it dislodged its toilet pan seat and loosened the screws so that when I sat on it – it all fell apart and grabbed my flabby arse flesh and hurt it.

The carpet in the toilet saw the revolt happening and soaked itself with water that we have no knowledge of the source and is now damp and smelly. A small curly insect of no known origin stuck itself to the toilet roll and I touched it with my finger.

The kitchen cupboards heard the commotion, got insecure and wobbled off its hinges. At that exact moment two big boxes of paper work in my wardrobe had nervous exhaustion from all the tax information it held and burst at the seams, then slid out in an avalanche of slippy plastic folders all over my bedroom floor, jamming up the sliding mirror door.

The kitchen got worried it wasn’t getting enough attention and all the big kitchen spoons and bread knives decided to make a pyramid team and jam themselves into the drawer and refused to open. No amount of cajoling would get it reveal its hidden cutlery, they all sat in their in a big bad mood and spoons curled round each other like emotional teenagers screaming ‘don’t touch me’. We have been using chop sticks from the drawer that houses the take away menus and the thing that fits into the food processor.

I stood exasperated and smelly in my hallway and screamed at the house loudly, it answered me back by letting go of the screws that held up the washing pole in the cupboard and disdainfully let my wet towels land on the Hoover. It’s been that kind of week. If houses have a personality then mine reflects ‘Carrie- the possessed years’.

To top it all a pigeon flew in my bedroom window, smacked my head and flew out shitting on the curtains.

I may go live in a tent soon.

On a happy note the podcast is becoming a roaring success gaining thousands of subscriber’s daily- THANK YOU PEOPLE!

Ashley and I went on BBC radio Scotland and spoke about the podcast and had fun chatting with Janice Forsyth on her Comedy Café radio show.

By the way if you have any questions you want to raise about the podcast or anything you want to add just twitter me @JaneyGodley and we will include it in the podcast.

I am off to London next week for work, meetings and fun with my mate Monica. I do miss her.

I will have to win the lottery soon to pay for all things that have gone wrong with my flat, so if you have the winning numbers tweet them as well!

This is how I see it

2010-10-09T17:58:23+02:00

Have you ever read a book that was so bad, you screamed and threw it at a hotel wall so hard that the manager calls your room to complain about the rumpus? I read Harlan Coben’s ‘Play Dead’ and to be fair he does say in the intro that it was his first book and it isn’t that good, I should have fucking listened- it suspended belief so much you almost feel like voting David Cameron back in with a majority and go hunting for unicorns in Bexleyheath.

I hate when I invest time in a book and you just spend the whole time picking fault with the story line and basic facts. Who are you to critique a book? I hear you say – well I wrote a book, albeit my autobiography and even I didn’t suspend belief that much and I’m a bit mental!

Anyway I was in a hotel in Leeds over the weekend, doing comedy and throwing books at walls. I recall when going to hotels was sexy, I remember getting out seductive nightwear for me and husband to have a dirty weekend at a hotel, I revelled in the wee fancy bottles in the bathroom, the big white bed and enjoyed the feeling of being in a new room. Now I hate it. Its not sexy, it’s lonely and boring and the only good thing is having a bath and making someone else clean it.

Nothing stops me loving comedy though; I won’t ever get bored of that.

I do like Leeds though, tell what I don’t like…is this new fashion for patterned opaque tights for young women, three times I stared at young girls legs and thought Leeds had a plague of impetigo – ok, camouflage splattered sheer tights makes me think you have a violent boyfriend who kicks your legs, the lacy ones with chevrons are hideous and look like skin cancer and the flowery ones are just plain weird. Yes I am fashion critic as well as literary today. This from a woman who wears an O’Neill snowboarding coat circa 1994 and a ‘Simon’ top from C&A circa 1987.

Am not vintage funk, am old and that stuff isn’t ironic on me, I look homeless and angry.

My husband must look at me think “what have I done?” I always talk about the imaginary wife he should have married; she would have been called Sally or Sophie with long straight easy to manage blonde hair. She never got stretch marks during her three easy pregnancies (unlike my sick, deathly one) she would cook, wear tight body hugging dresses, do yoga, bake and make jam. They would attend literary festivals, do beachcombing and enjoy walks in the park, she wouldn’t stand on stage talk about heating up her fingers with a Gregg’s steak bake and touching herself in the toilet, she would never throw a book at a wall in a hotel or eat stale biscuits at 3am and suck milk out of tiny plastic containers.

Then again maybe she wouldn’t love husband the way I do and make him laugh by trying to do the splits on the carpet and accidentally head butting the Hoover as I did when I tried that. She wouldn’t wake up at 3am and try to invent a Velcro carpet hair cleaner with rollers and gaffer tape nor would she like his bare arse sticking to her thigh during sleep. So he maybe is better off with me?

Have fun on 10/10/10 – it’s a date we should all remember!

I don’t know stuff

2010-10-04T13:24:15+02:00

Husband asked me to stop arguing with him “do you have to correct everything I say or argue with almost everything I say?”

“Yes” I replied “because this is a relationship and not North Korea, if I just agree with everything you say and never argue about a point, it’s a totalitarian regime and not a marriage”

“You can’t just let things go, you always have to correct me or have the last word” he snapped back.

“Yes, because you were wrong” I added, that was the last word and that’s how that works.

This is ironic as I was just doing to him what he does to me constantly.

I have realised something, if I do the stuff to husband in a sarcastic fashion that he does to me, then am not actually pointing out how much it annoys me, I am just confirming his behaviour that its ok to be an annoying dick. So when he constantly goes to great lengths to show me I did something wrong or to make sure that when I made a mistake and he needs it pointed out to me, me doing that to him all the time just makes us go round in circles and snipe at each other.

But he has Aspergers Syndrome and he has an excuse for being the man who has to stop a conversation to point out a small detail of what you are saying is either mis-information or plain wrong, I have no excuse for secretly planning his slow painful death by suffocating him in his sleep.

I won’t do it but I do think about it. I wonder how many women out there are married to a man who has Aspergers Syndrome and almost every day of their lives they concede defeat in a situation, despite being right they have to accept he has to say this shit because if he doesn’t he will get agitated and we have to witness the day being screwed up. The only way forward is to allow him to patronise, snicker and talk down to you about something that is totally wrong, or make him insane by proving you are right.

What do you actually win? The point? No…because he will go to further lengths to explain how he is right and we will be stuck in an anger cycle of frustration and at the end of it the answer is he has Aspergers Syndrome.

The down side for me is I tend to agree with stuff am not agreeing with just to get past this situation. OR we can debate, argue and he can constantly repeat his point, because men with Aspergers Syndrome assume if they just repeat the thing they are saying over and over again, it will win over everyone eventually. (it usually doesn’t but exhausts everyone)

I feel disloyal writing this down as my husband doesn’t mean to hurt me or wants me to be an ‘agreeing person’ it would shock him if he knew I felt like that sometimes, then it would no doubt cause another argument which would be catastrophic as he now wont be sure if I am agreeing to shut him up or agreeing because he is right and we all know how he needs to feel he is right!

The upside is I don’t have Aspergers Syndrome and neither does Ashley and we can have arguments that don’t end in Groundhog Day like tendencies.

So if you have arguing with someone today, think of me.

Oh, did I mention what started the argument? We bought a Behringer mixing desk to make better podcasts and it doesn’t work with Windows 7 and that made him slightly mental and set him off on a big Aspergic trip of jaggy anger. Yeah…if I could meet Mr Behringer today I would punch him in the balls.

The Anniversary Blog

2010-09-28T20:33:45+02:00

The past month I have been down on my hunkers with a nasty flu, Ashley my daughter got it as well and she was worse than me, it felt like a TB ward in my home. Husband didn’t get it which is good as when he gets flu, it’s like he has had a stroke and paralysis of the torso, but not in his moany mouth.

I almost had to cancel comedy gigs, but instead just went along, stayed away from everyone and shouted random words into a microphone in a funny fashion…I hope.

Husband and I celebrated our 30^th wedding anniversary, we didn’t go away to a swanky hotel as we decided to have the argument at home, we always argue on important dates. I can’t believe we have managed thirty whole years together, I was only 18 when I met him and he was 16 and half years old, then we got married when I was 19 and he was just 18 that month. We were just bloody kids, yet people allowed us to get married, that’s a lack of parental guidance as far as I am concerned.

So here are, running headlong towards middle age, we have both been through our teens, twenties, thirties and forties which makes us sound like brother and sister, and that’s creepy. I don’t think it’s normal to remember when your husband first shaved, or to witness his school leaving party, and a man shouldn’t really recall when his wife had her first period…should they?

Unless they are cousins and its Hicksville USA!

People ask how we have lasted so long and the simple answer is…we openly hate each other quite a lot and that’s healthy and we have angry, bitey sex…but no dogging.

I love my family, talking of family; I went up to see my dad and his latest malapropism made me wet my pants a bit. He actually shouted in the supermarket “Janey, get me some fresh poonanny” People stared, kids giggled and I corrected him by shouting back “yes dad, I will get you some Panini”

On other news the podcast that Ashley and I do has been going great guns, loads of people have subscribed and we are well chuffed with the support its been getting, just check Janey Godley Podcast on ITunes if you want to hear it.

This month I will be doing a big charity event called ‘The Hottest Night of The Year’ where I will be doing a big comedy night. I will be tutoring four prominent business people in Glasgow to do stand up for five minutes. I have to say that the poor people who have volunteered are apoplectic with fear at the prospect of getting up doing comedy.

But they are all coming on well and I am very proud of them and their efforts and it will great on the night. Do come along if you fancy cracking nights out on October 7th at Glasgow Hilton-Tickets are available through kylie.forrest@klevents.co.uk

Nothingness

2010-09-21T22:42:00+02:00

Nothingness is the center of all things, for it is the only thing that amid all change is always constant, and from it all things come, and to it all things return. It is the only center of the universe. Once aware of nothingness we are in our center, in balance between life and death.

Who does that?

2010-09-18T19:40:27+02:00

At Highlights comedy club in Edinburgh a stag party proudly announced to me as they walked in the door “We hired a dwarf” and pointed at a little person dressed neatly in a police uniform. Everyone guffawed and the little person or as he liked to call himself ‘Dwarf for hire’ pinched my bottom and wiggled his bum.

The small policeman sat at their table, pinched a few cheeks and left after an hour as he is only hired by the hour and they had only paid for an hour. He was grumpy as well and I don’t mean Dopey, Happy and Bashful weren’t available I mean the small person was actually grumpy, what’s the point in hiring someone who is banking on their ability to be laughed at, being grumpy when laughed at?

Folk are weird eh? I didn’t know you could hire small people in various costumes. At least they have stopped hiring strippers and moved onto people with other talents.

Yesterday I went out to get milk and slipped on a dead pigeon, its guts all squirted out and my hand landed on its squished wing, then I spewed up all over the street outside the Shelter charity shop. It was like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino film, except it wasn’t, it was my life. I couldn’t get the bird blood and guts off my sleeve and I spewed all the way home. I wasn’t fit for a dead bird event as I am already sick.

I have been laid low with a flu virus for over a week and it has made me feel awful. It’s as if I am snorting molten sticky lava through my nasal passages and drawing hot coal dust into my lungs. Am hoping that goes away quite soon.

I Must tell you that the podcast is taking off great guns, we have had heaps more downloads and Ashley and I really have fun doing it, though I end up talking over the top of her constantly! Who knew I did that?

On other news I am doing my one woman show at Kirkcaldy Comedy festival on 30^th September and here is the link to get tickets should you want them http://www.kirkcaldycomedyfestival.com/ShowDetails.aspx?ID=14

Playing For Keeps

2010-09-13T14:37:00+02:00

I listen to your old songs

and for the first time

your words strike a chord

and touch me deep

never realized before

just how much

you were playing for keeps

I guess I never listened with my heart

to what yours bled in every line

the bittersweet regret

in each refrain

was never mine

My heart breaks like your sweet voice

and for the first time

I feel your pain

and it makes me weep

never realized before

just how much

you were playing for keeps

Just me writing stuff

2010-09-12T20:41:27+02:00

Been a quiet but happy week, I think I might have a mental illness, as I sat on the sofa and chewed the ends of my hair, then got the hair into a knot and ripped it out my head. That’s not normal is it, unless am slowly turning into a cat. Soon I will cough up a fur ball.

Been gigging all week and writing and booking flights, then un-booking them as some comedy promoters and other people can’t make up their minds where am meant to be. So, here is the rule of thumb in comedy, don’t book stuff in advance for cheapness and seat security, leave it till last minute as you wont be going to that destination at all and some travel companies hit you with a cash penalty for changing your mind. Just leave everything till last minute and pay a bit more, cheaper in the long run but fucking annoying. Just thought I would let you know that.

I also need to go buy new high heels, as the ones I had have been donated to the Marquis de Sade museum of torturous pain. I actually threw them over a wall in Soho last week as they hurt my feet so much I just lobbed them in the dark night, am hoping some Tory MP with small feet finds them and uses them to dress up as a hobbled hooker at weekends.

So I now have the hunt for the comfy heels, that’s on my list of things to do.

I don’t like shopping, am not one of those Sex in the City women who squeal and orgasm at the sight of a shopping centre. I don’t take hours poring over ‘sexy heels’ or stroke, kiss and covet them nor do I pay more than £40 for shoes I wear occasionally. I don’t subscribe to the noughties mantra that shoes are better than men. I don’t want a spiky heel in my tenders and have no interest in pretending I do. Nor do I believe a good handbag and dress makes you more interesting, I look old, and quite fat, I don’t look sexy but I get laid well and often and in my life time I have actually beaten cock off with a stick, despite having no dress sense, a thick waistline and mangled hair. Eat that Cosmo girl.

Having said that I do wish I was skinnier as buying clothes that fit my giant tits would be easier.

Husband and I are fast approaching our 30^th wedding anniversary and we debated about going away to an expensive cosy cottage by a windswept coastline. We were going to hire this awesome place with a big four poster bed, a log fire with the sea literally whipping at our three hundred year old stone walls, but I decided not to go.

Despite how lovely it looked, I just wanted to stay at home, eat chocolate on the sofa in my pants and not have to wear a bra for three days.

He agreed and we are planning to just have the fight at home, which is what we always do when we go away together. I can sulk better in my own bed.

September is my favourite month, I love the seasons changing and Scotland looks great at this time of year.

I have also started my annual moan about not having a cat. Husband won’t let me have one as I am always away and he says it would be his job to clean up after it. So am planning on having a really big fight which will culminate in divorce talk which the only way our marriage can be saved is if we get a cat.

Am joking – that’s a horrible thing to do to get what you want, see…I may chew my hair but am not really mental at all!

Am off happy high heel hunting!

Sunset Reverie

2010-09-01T15:47:00+02:00

I have a cigarette on the fire escape

while I wait for you to stop by

Jimmy’s ‘Castles made of sand’

coming down from the roof

takes me back to better days

like summers in Grand Isle

Hasty cars rush by on the avenue below

while their fumes climb up the stairs

The sun slowly sinking

behind the skyline

backlights my summery thoughts

with his dying flares

Why all our dreams back then

died such a painful death

I’ll just never understand

Two sharp honks they’re my cue

and as I rush down

those old memories slip my mind

castles made of sand

Sorry am late but I have an excuse!

2010-08-26T18:05:03+02:00

Am STILL at the Edinburgh Fringe…its seems like ten weeks instead of four let me tell you. I have bonded with the white Scottie Dog called Hector who lives in our cobbled stoned mews area, he has a floppy ear and wee black button eyes and chases squirrels and loves cuddles. I am addicted to the dishwasher in the three floored mews we are staying in and I adore the juicer.

The shows have been awesome, I have bitched and whined about the McEwan Hall which seats over 1,000 folk sucking in all the punters but the basic truth is, people just want to go see people they have seen on the telly…I am not on the telly, so ergo people have no real interest in me, except the people who are fans of my comedy.

Though the numbers have been fabulous, I am aware that the glut of footfall has been avoiding the small shows, the interesting theatre and the fantastic musical shows. It kind of rings like a death knell for the fringe if the punters just want to go see people off the telly…that’s not a fringe that’s a TV comedy festival!

Ok, done moaning about that.

I am knackered just being here and it feels like some alternative life I am living, though getting to see loads of cracking comedy pals has been awesome, and making new pals is worthwhile.

Ashley is bored with me tweeting or reading in her company, she has gotten into an attention seeking vibe, much like when she was five years old. “Put that book down and talk to me Mum” she whinges…we have been together too long here in Edinburgh. She needs her own life back; she needs her room, her computer and her own pals.

My mate Monica calls and we can’t have a decent natter coz I am either in a show or going to a show, coming from a show or asleep.

The people coming to the show and chatting afterwards have been wickedly nice, how cool to meet people who like what you do?

Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general have changed the way comedians interact with their audiences, they now can let you know they are coming, they can arrange a gab afterwards and all those people you wished happy birthday to on the internet, or commented on their baby photos can now contact you and we get to know each other more. That’s awesome.

When I first came to the fringe in 1995 things were different, there were no 60 foot posters or faces on a taxi. A young long haired Ed Byrne was cutting a career out, a bouncy manic Brendan Burns was screaming at people in Late and Live, Johnny Vegas was crippled with nerves driving through with me from Glasgow and comedy was dependant not on telly appearances, or internet campaigns or adverts but on people making choices about what they fancied. Mobile phones weren’t that common,

how they hell did we survive? How did we know a gig was running late and who was next on, how did we contact venues about ticket sales, promoters tickets without email and text? No one held up a phone and took pictures of Ross Noble crowd surfing and let millions view it instantly on the web! It was the old days when word of mouth was king.

It was the days when people used watches to tell the time, but progress is an amazing thing people and it helps with comedy ticket sales.

Am looking forward to getting this weekend out of the way and getting back to normality, sleeping in my own bed and not checking stars on my reviews, there is a life outside Edinburgh and apparently it is dominated by a woman who threw a cat in a wheelie bin…that’s all the news I know…has anything else happened in the world since I have been here? No…didn’t think so.

Come see my last weekend at Pleasance Dome 7pm nightly.

Death and Life

2010-08-23T04:09:00+02:00

The other day I was floating in the pool and a whole school of quail came trotting into the yard. One by one just hopping over the fence following some invisible line. Each quail had a mate and then little kids that followed along.

I was wondering...as I often do *smiles* about why is it that most of the time quails walk everywhere. Don't they realize they have the amazing ability to FLY!! I remember as a child standing on top of a chair and moving my arms up and down and really thinking if i did it fast enough i would be able to fly around my living room. (My mom always encouraged me to just keep trying. I now know that it was so I would run out of energy) Heheheh...if I ever have kids i think i will try that tactic as well.

I also was just thinking about the beauty and harmony that there is in nature and how these little families stay together. My family right now is going through some things that are tough. My mother's first husband has cancer and is fading fast. Their oldest two daughters have gone out there to see him, which i think it really nice.

My mom's dearest and best friend is also dying of cancer, and my mom might have to go out there and be with her in a couple weeks. This is a hard thing as my mom would rather remember her friend healthy and as she was. But at the same time dying is something that we all have to do and just like every other stage in our lives it's always nice to have a friend to walk through those hard times with you.

Another very very dear friend of mine is pregnant and has found out recently that her baby will most likely survive only an hour or less after birth. She is still carrying the baby to term and will see what happens, but I can't even imagine how traumatizing it must feel to basically be carrying around a corpse...knowing that the baby that is growing inside you will not survive. Well I just have no idea at all what that must be like, nor would i ever want to.

My mom's always said that her mother told her that death comes in three's if someone you know dies then soon two other's will follow. I suppose that it is true in this case. Unless of course God decides to heal all three of them, which is what I will pray for until their last breaths. I suppose the best thing about all of these situations is that all of these people will go straight into the arms of God in heaven.

Family is so important. I know that I don't take mine very seriously, i should. I hope that i can improve on this, this year.

One more note about the quail...perhaps you are wandering around...not realizing that you have the ability to fly! God has amazing plans for you and wants you in his family. Perhaps the line may seem invisible sometimes, but He's always there for you.

Well another beautiful Sunday here in little Bullhead City.

God bless you all thanks for reading and for your prayers.

Grace

FIFA delegation's visit to Russia 'formal but friendly' - sports minister

2010-08-19T23:50:49+02:00

Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Thursday that the visit of a FIFA delegation to Russia to consider the country's bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 was "formal," yet friendly.The delegation arrived in Russia for a three-day visit on Monday."It was a formal visit but it had a very friendly atmosphere," Mutko said. "The team (FIFA delegation) is made up of professionals so even such a short visit was enough for them."

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"Now we want to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cups in Russia more than ever," he added.Russia's rivals in the bid are England, Australia, the United States, Spain and Portugal, and Belgium and the Netherlands. Japan, South Korea and Qatar are bidding for the 2022 World Cup only.Under a FIFA rotation policy, the 2018 event will most likely be held in Europe, with Russia appearing as a serious contender as the Kremlin has pledged billions of dollars.FIFA will appoint hosts for both World Cup dates on December 2.

Things in life

2010-08-16T09:46:08+02:00

A man dressed as King Henry the Eighth eating a kebab, a unicyclist falling and hurting his head, a woman abandoning her baby in a pram to scream in excitement at Stephen K Amos (barking up the wrong tree love), a BBC Tee Shirt clad assistant vomiting into the barbeque at Gilded Balloon, a critic loudly slag off a female comic who was standing right behind her, a female comic tell people my show has been getting no stars as I was standing behind HER (two five stars and a four, love, watch your back), and a wee woman calling a flyerer an ‘inconsiderate cunt’….these are a few of my favourite things so far at the fringe!

The week has been great, amazing audiences and lovely reviews, am happy people; I also had a few good meetings and a cracking audition, who knows what next?

My flyering team have been super sexy and fun, so good on them.

Ashley has been so wonderful and feeling so much better, I am blessed with having her around. Who else can do Alan Partridge impersonations at 4am to make me laugh? Who else can do owl noises and catch spiders like she? No one that’s who!

Meanwhile I have mastered the spoons, I know you have all been waiting with excited anticipation but I did it, I got two big spoons, clacked them off my knee and can now do the whole of the song ‘Seven Tears’ by the Goombay Dance Band….on the clacky spoons, Ashley accompanies me with a tambourine, we are thinking of starting a band. I am thinking of organising a three thousand seater venue or even Wembley for the first night, but suppose I should extend my repertoire to more than one song.

I never knew I was that musical.

My late night shows at Late and Live and Spank have been awesome, and the Late and Live gig has become quite a story as a skinny blonde girl from Oxford threw a stool at me as I walked on stage and challenged me to a fight, now as you all know I have been waiting years to beat a skinny Oxbridge bedwetter to death with a three legged seat, but I declined and let her live, we do need more law students and god forbid she doesn’t get to ski this winter. The audience band there feet shouting “kill her Janey” but I didn’t, she got thrown out and I never hit her coz am a feminist.

The fringe is in full swing but why don’t other flyerers know not to try to get people with venue passes on to buy a ticket for their interesting play about a one eyed boy on a boat? I don’t know?

There are amazing plays on and I try to go see them, I did go see Tony Tanners one man show ‘Charlatan’ at Assembly on the mound and it was stunning, just an awesome piece of theatre.

The other good news is, the flat has a juicer and am devouring six carrots, four apples and some organic ginger every day in a glass; soon I will be eating aubergine paste, starting a macramé class and offering wheatgrass workshops to the women who love cats and croc shoes.

So if you are reading this and coming to the fringe come see me at The Pleasance Dome at 7pm every night till end of August.

Ya Allah, please gimme strength...

2010-08-16T09:45:00+02:00

I need strength. I’ve been lazy since last week. Out of date Out dated notes, messy desk, and I realized that I easily fall asleep during classes. I need to change. I have to change. But it must come from the inside. With help. Ya Allah, please help me. Please give me strength. Don’t let me fall asleep during classes. I jotted down notes when I fall asleep but I can’t even understand what I wrote. A waste of ink.

Semangat-semangat mari datang kepadaku…~

huhu.. ;p

LL.B 2B July 2010...

2010-08-15T12:31:00+02:00

Video shown during Carpe Diem July 2010 [Induction Day] to introduce our class, LL.B (Hons) 2B 2010…