Janey's Blogs - April 2006
Saturday the 1st of April 2006
08:54:51 PM
Death Anniversary…
I am looking after my sister’s daughters for
two nights, Natalie and Victoria. Today Natalie is seventeen years
old. Her birthday is April 1st, which is the same day my mum went
missing in 1982. We assume April 1st is also the day my mum died,
we don’t know the true date, we can only assume as her killer
denied all knowledge of the incident and he himself is now dead.
My mum was a true April fool, believing in a man
who had beat her up before and yet she went for a river walk with
him that spring night 24 years ago and was found dead floating in
the water three days later.
So I put all of that angst aside and took Natalie
out for lunch before I got ready to gig at Jongleurs Glasgow tonight.
The gigs are going well and I am surprised how well
the audiences are coping with the smoking ban…they did disappear
at the break and they all stood outside and had a quick fag before
returning to the second half.
When I came home, husband lifted up the back of
my hair as he hugged me, he put his nose into the back of my neck
and said “You smell really clean!”
I did and it feels great!
Monday the 3rd of April 2006
11:49:25 PM
Men who like pain…
I have a man who emails me called Keith who likes
pain. I have no problem with this as I don’t know him, and
don’t cause him pain…but he wants to be my slave. Now
I have considered letting him clean my home and then hitting him
with sticks, but I get the feeling sex may be involved.
My daughter Ashley is desperate for him to come
here, she says he can clean her awful room and she will kick the
shit out of him and she really doesn’t care how sexual that
is…he is cleaning her room for free!
I have no idea how people got to associate sex with
pain, but I suppose if you were a soldier or a spy it would be a
good thing eh? Imagine getting electrodes inserted into your penis,
that’s hardly a torture if it’s what turns you on?
I personally hate pain; certainly not anywhere near
sex either, if he doesn’t take the weight on his elbows I am
in a strop!
So I am now into day three of not smoking and pain
is suddenly looking attractive, I mean I could easily punch husband
on the head if he irritates me one more time.
I am determined to stay off the fags, as I cannot
cope with standing outside smoking…in the cold…trying
to have a quick fag? That’s not good.
I am slowly getting together the ideas for our Edinburgh
posters, I am stressed out and until they are all approved and sorted
I won’t sleep.
It is driving me mad, as I have to get the venue
to approve them, then get all the different sizes organised for
brochures/flyers/posters and adverts.
I wish I worked in a canning factory now, I wish
my life was simple; I went to work, came home and bought pizza.
I didn’t have to organise travel, hotels or rehearse shows.
But then I suppose I would be boring and Keith the S&M freak
wouldn’t send me such scary emails.
Tuesday the 4th of April 2006
11:23:08 PM
Sex and Pain…again!
Yes who would have thought this subject would come
up again, but get this. Stressed out as I am, I finally fell asleep
this morning at 4am. I was in one of those deep happy warm sleeps,
when I am woke up because my mental husband got out of bed, came
back in, saw my ass sticking out of the covers and decided ‘out
of the blue’ to smack me really hard! Yes….I was awoken
by a random act of violence.
My heart leapt out of my mouth, red rage seethed
and I turned round to see him standing there smiling, so I jumped
up and punched him right in the abdomen….see I can be sexy
too!
I actually wanted to kill him, he was stunned that
I was annoyed…why wouldn’t I be? I have just been attacked
whilst I was asleep.
“I was trying to be funny and you looked sexy
lying there” he gasped in between clutching his winded stomach.
“No, that wasn’t sexy, that was assault,
you fucking nutter” I screamed at him rubbing a big red hand
print on my fat ass.
So there we have it, I do NOT like sex and pain…finally.
I am still in the process of getting my posters
designed and feel that no one actually gets what I am saying; the
lady just looks at me as if I am crazy when I describe what I want
on the screen. So I guess it’s me that fucked today and not
anyone else.
Went out for dinner tonight with Jay, a mate from
London, he is in Glasgow as he manages a top comic (He who shall
not be named) and we had a good old natter, Jay is solid fun.
I am of to Cardiff this weekend and next week I am in London for six days. I am gigging and working on BBC radio 4 Loose Ends. I can’t wait to get back to London, away from the smacking husband and the stressful posters.
Thursday the 6th of April 2006
11:29:59 PM
Bird flu and comedy…
I was so exhausted this morning; I never really
slept last night. I have been worried sick about getting everything
done and organised for Edinburgh. Yet it seems the more I stress
the less actually gets fucking done!
What is wrong with me? At least I am off the fags
and that can only be a good thing but I suspect coming off the nicotine
is actually really hard this time.
Ashley is being ‘Hormonal Hannah’ this
week, she snaps easily, you mustn’t even look at her the wrong
way or you get serious verbal lashings from the prettiest face and
loveliest mouth.
So this morning I got up and got ready to go down
to Scotstoun where Ashley and I were doing our sketches and having
them filmed for a TV company to have a look at. We have never performed
them in front of anyone before; this is the first time anyone has
seen them live. We were both nervous tired and hormonal.
The problem is Ashley makes me laugh just by one
look, honestly she can stand there, lift one eyebrow and I am in
stitches laughing my ass off.
We welcomed the guy who was setting up a huge camera
and helped the woman unload the big sound stick that was to hover
over our heads.
Ashley and I adlibbed a lot of the scenes and we
both were scared to look at the people in case no one had smiled,
you see we don’t really know if the public will laugh at what
we perceive to be funny, but our fears were unfound as the guys
were chortling away as the worked around us with the camera and
sound equipment.
It gave us both a bit more confidence and Ashley
is a great physical actor, her strange walk and mad faces were coming
thick and fast, she really does respond to an audience and I cannot
wait to go on stage at Edinburgh to do our sketch show.
So bird flu has arrived in Scotland, a swan died
of the virulent killer strain and we are now all scared birds are
going to fucking kill us!
I saw a dead pigeon today and my heart raced, I
had to jump over it as I went to the shops. It made me recall how
last year at Edinburgh Festival there were loads of dead birds all
around the area we were staying; I thought the local squirrels had
hand guns and a vendetta against the grey birds of Edinburgh!
So I have no idea if we are all about to perish,
meanwhile I am still laughing at my very funny daughter.
Saturday the 8th of April 2006
05:44:31 PM
Cardiff and no internet...
This city is strange but nice, it has a castle,
it has a river, and it has a lovely exhibition centre but no internet.
I have walked up and down the streets asking people if there are
any internet shops....yet no...So I wander into this really funky
organic looking cafe and ask the man if they had internet. He explained
that they have wi-fi but alas I didn’t have my pc with me,
just then a big guy standing beside me offered to let me use his
PC. He was tall, had a pony tail, hippy looking dress sense and
a strange accent, so I said "Thanks!".
So I have a new friend, he is a computer expert
and is from Bulgaria, he let me sit and write this blog, so therefore
he is KING! He explained he doesn't use Windows or anything Microsoft
or Apple as he has his own programme, he says those people from
Microsoft are the DEVIL and Mac aren’t much better....cool!
I checked into the hotel yesterday really early
as my flight from Glasgow was at 9am, so I begged to get into my
room early. The girl on reception refused, so I burst into tears!
The hotel is called The Big Sleep which is actually
a big fat lie, my room overlooks a railway line and trains go past
loudly every fucking ten minutes.
Husband has been annoying, after being married 25
years, we have a code, a language that only we know and we use by
noting each others tone and double meaning behind every loaded statement
we make to each other. Yet lately he has been really nice and helpful
and I meanwhile have been talking in our well honed 'nasty code'
and he has never risen to the bait...has he forgot our 'code'?
I can’t have him being nice and saying things
like "Janey what is it you really want to say? Are you upset
about something?"
So I say "What do you think?" (In code
that means yes you cunt I am upset now guess why)
So I am scared he has forgotten how to argue with
me....how strange would that be?
Lying in the hotel in Cardiff, trying to work out
what way to argue and rile my husband is not a good way to spend
the night.
By the way Cardiff Jongleurs has a really echo-y
microphone and sound system...so strange but the shows have been
cool.
Speak Soon
Monday the 10th of April 2006
12:18:50 AM
Fights and strange language continued…
Since husband has been very nice and accommodating,
I have become more uneasy. Is he being nice to left foot me? Am
I so far down the line in this relationship that any sign of affection
is seen as conflict in disguise, like some hive of killer wasps
inside a Trojan horse of hugs?
I arrived home and the whole house had been cleaned
from top to bottom. He had cleared out the window ledges, dusted
every DVD and washed the windows, he had hoovered the floors and
totally revamped the welsh dresser. The house smelled lovely, he
smiled and I wanted to poke his eye out.
Husband knows that we trade insults the way small
countries traded wheat, its how we worked.
I don’t know his new language nor can I decipher
it. He speaks kind words with a concerned face-he asks me how I
feel and I want to throw myself out of the top floor window.
He looks at me and tells me he never cared enough
for me and he will always be there…I want back the shouty man
I know how to work, the shouty man I understand…I know his
native tongue and already have the currency.
Who is this alien in my home and bed?
Who is this bloke with therapy speak?
Where is the man who sneers at me and bites back
at every word we have exchanged since 1979?
Watch this SPACE….
Monday the 10th of April 2006
11:25:27 PM
Haircuts and husband being strange…continued…
I woke up this morning with a sore back; husband
had been hugging me all night. I thought I was being suffocated,
but apparently I was only being ‘loved’. Mmmmmmm….
He is still talking ‘supportive’ and ‘lovely’
its making me freak…I will get to the bottom of this. I will
probably open a letter and find out he owes £70,0000 in some
gambling debt, or open the cupboard and find a dead woman in there,
some woman he has killed in a strange sexual accident…who knows…he
must be behaving this weird for some reason other than ‘love’.
Who knows?
Meanwhile my hair is horrid and putting up such
a fight lately, it had overgrown and became unmanageable so I decided
to go to the hair stylist and get a compete overhaul. My hair is
so black as I have been dyeing it myself in between salon visits
and I have no real idea how to do it properly.
I have realised that it needs to go lighter, but
slowly, I can’t really go blonde over night! Well I don’t
want to go blonde actually as I have been dark all my life…but
as we get older we woman all go blonde eventually!
So there I was sitting in a fancy hair salon in
Glasgow’s West End. This was the first time I had been to this
hair stylist.
It was very smart and well furnished; the girl who
took my coat introduced herself and shook my hand (like I was meeting
my bank manager).
Then I met the stylist, who also shook my hand as
did the girl who was washing my hair! It was like being at a meet
and greet!
The woman who was going to ‘do my hair’
came over, felt a lock of my hair, berated me for dyeing it at home,
was disgusted at the amount of ‘colour on colour’ that
my hair had been through (like my hair was a child whom I had abused…deliberately),
she then got another girl over to mock the dryness and stressed
look of my ‘ends’, she then asked me how often I ‘dyed
it at home’ (she says this accusingly in the same way a social
worker would say “How often do you beat Tommy with a sharp
stick?”).
After I confessed to the horrible desperate habit
of home dyeing, she then proceeded to give me a menu of what she
was going to do to my head, it included ‘foil lights’
a ‘colour bath’ a ‘colour treatment’ and a ‘sharp
cut all over’. I nodded and let her get on with it all.
Three hours later I have a shapely well groomed
head of dark but with all over highlights- shiny healthy hair. I
have promised never to home colour and will make sure I go back
every month to get my roots done and a treatment.
She was a professional bully, but fucking good at
her job.
On the way out I shook hands with the cleaner; she
was surprised, but smiled.
Husband loves my hair, he hugged me when I came home and told me he likes my colour. I want to hit him with a sharp stick, where is the man who laughed at my hair cuts and slagged me off for spending so much at a salon?
Thursday the 13th of April 2006
12:49:47 AM
Well I knew that wouldn’t last…
As always my husband who has been nice and speaking
lovely to me for days, turned into a snarling fucking evil nasty
bastard. He annoyed me, shouted at Ashley and I in turn verbally
attacked him.
I stood in the hall and dragged up five things he
did in 1986 and two fucked up verbal attacks he hit me with in 1979…he
tried to answer but just stood there mumbling. As always I won,
he can’t recall anything I said yesterday, so he cannot even
begin to shout back any reiteration.
I then realised I had stuff to do so in the middle
of the argument I screamed “Look, you cunt I am too busy to
fight, here is the abbreviated version of what I would have said,
if I had fucking an hour to say it, so here is the short version
‘You are a cunt!”.
This didn’t work, we carried on belittling
one another, he was an evil bastard who undermined me since I was
18 years old and he is angry I have a life, I on the other hand
am a controlling bitch who remembers every word in the history of
the world that anyone ever said, and despises being married to someone
who once fucked up years ago….
So after we did this all night, we woke up and carried
on again this morning, all through lunch time and right into the
afternoon we carried on screaming and crying. Then around 3pm we
both looked at each other and he said to me “Are you hungry?”
So we called off the fight to make some lunch, we
actually chatted and laughed as we made bread and cheese, as if
the two angry fighting people were in another room and we were only
shadows of them, we merely inhabited their body when they needed
to fight; meanwhile we are buddies who eat together.
How fucked up is that?
So after a while we laughed and made up and finally
decided to stop the fight.
That’s what marriage is….a split personality.
Friday the 14th of April 2006
12:09:29 AM
Stress and Screaming loudly…
Standing in the street screaming into your mobile
and swearing so loudly in front of small children isn’t how
I saw my life to be perfectly frank.
Older people looked at me with disgust…and
so they fucking should. I looked like a scary woman who has managed
to convince psychologists to let her out of the psyche ward, yet
still had the urge to kill on release.
I will tell you why I am so fucked up and stressed,
the original designer of my posters was so inept at Photoshop I
had to sit with him and talk him through it step by step, this is
fine I hear you say but he was charging me £200 to design
my stuff and he wasn’t actually a designer.
So I then had to take my ideas for my two main advert/posters
that are going into the Edinburgh Fringe brochure at a cost of £1,200
a pop ( How fucking expensive is that?)….I need to get it right
and meet the deadline which is next week and I wont be in Glasgow
to proof it. So it all needs to be done by email and txt messages
which make me mental.
So there I was standing in the street screaming
into my mobile at some unreasonable person who had decided to change
the sizes of the lay out.
I have designed the posters, the one for The Point
of Yes (my one woman play about a woman’s choice with heroin)
I took a photo of my daughter in the street. She was sitting up
against a wall in a dirty jacket, burning what appeared to be heroin
in a bent spoon. As I was getting the shot this older man passing
by shouted at me “That’s a fucking disgrace taking pictures
of that poor drug addict, go away ye dirty bastard”
I tried to explain it was a photo shoot until my
daughter shouted “Help, I am a junkie and she keeps taking
my photos”
The man chased me half way down the street as Ashley
sat there and laughed at me.
So I now have that poster image settled and I am
very chuffed with it, I need to get the other three done.
I am off to London in the morning; I have work down there and will
be catching up with my best mate Monica who has just moved office
to fashionable Chelsea, where she lives. I cannot wait to see it
and share her celebration of her company getting bigger and more
successful.
You can catch me on BBC radio 4 on Saturday at 6.15pm
on Loose Ends.
I will soon have the posters uploaded onto my website, there is also a new live blog on livedigital go there and check it out.
Saturday the 15th of April 2006
06:46:42 PM
London and Life…
Well the flight was fine, I am in London and all
is well. Am staying at the lovely apartments down in Westminster
thanks to Crown Lawn who always look after me!
I have managed not to call husband and fight with
him, we have put our ‘Celebrity Death Squabble’ on hold
as I try to get everything organised for the Edinburgh fringe, and
then we will continue the fight. I am just too busy to argue with
the bastard just now, maybe later. He really needs a toffee hammer
in his eye when he gets like this.
Last night I went to the Beauberry Restaurant over
in West Dulwich, my old mate Ibi owns it. You really need to see
this place to appreciate the architecture. It’s an amazing
old building that used to be a stately home. The outside is totally
white and over looks a beautiful park at the back terrace. The interior
was so sharp and classy with cutting edge dynamic design (I think
I could be a restaurant critic eh?)
The chairs in the main dining room are the brightest
most startling orange you can imagine and they are flocked (fuzzy
covered fine texture) this is set against the cool whites of the
walls!
Ibi and I had dinner together, it was lovely to
see him and eating with the owner in any fancy restaurant is always
a delight!
Ibi picked the ‘black cod’ for me. Apparently
this is the signature dish that made Nobu restaurant famous.
The fish lives under thick ice and has no fat or
thick skin. It is marinated for three days and then roasted….it
was heavenly. I cannot tell you how delicious that fish was, and
washed down with expensive champagne…I was in heaven.
Ibi and I chatted about old times, I knew him ten
years ago when he worked alongside an old mate of mine.
The restaurant really is of the highest standard,
I cannot wait to go back there, it has two other bars and upstairs
has two separate rooms, one which I may be organising comedy for
in late 2006. How exciting! Comedy and good fish!
So today I went to BBC to record the radio show
‘Loose Ends’ I was interviewing TV presenter Ashley Hames
about his new TV show on Bravo called Mans World.
The show takes him all over the world as he takes
part in some of the most dangerous jobs on the planet including
Narcotics Police patrol in Colombia and Tree felling with the Heli
loggers in Canada.
He was a really funny and interesting guy, the show
is truly fucking funny and addictive so go check it out on Bravo
UK. My daughter is a big fan of his and was chuffed that I had chatted
to him.
So here I am sitting in on a Saturday night getting
ready to go out, trying hard not to admit my eyesight is fucked.
I was in the shower and tried to read the back of a shampoo bottle,
but I just couldn’t make the words out, I concluded it must
be the stuff in my eyes, but when I got out of the shower I tried
to read it again and ……there is no chance my eyes can
make out the words so I am old and that’s the end of that.
I am off to get knitting patterns and collect pictures of kittens.
Monday the 17th of April 2006
05:00:58 PM
A Poem for My Daughter
Knowing You.
Never had I felt alive, never had I even knew how to really breathe
till I knew you
I knew what my arms and legs were meant for, but never used them
truly till I knew you,
Until I sat in the spring morning of 1986 and watched your baby
mouth move and smile as you recognised me, did I know what my eyes
were really meant for,
I never knew what being me was until I knew you.
Knowing you meant I finally knew me.
There are no days nor no nights I sit back and hate the world, because
I know you,
Sometimes I get scared you will be hurt, as if some twisted fate
hates me having you in my life, like it is jealous because I know
you,
Growing older and watching you becoming you has made me know me
more,
I know you and I know what love is for, it’s just for knowing you.
Monday the 17th of April 2006
05:04:31 PM
Memories!
It was 27 years ago today that my husband aged 16
years old, proposed to me and we got engaged. That was 1979, it
was a beautiful sunny spring day, we sat round the back of his dad’s
pub in Shettleston near where I lived and he pulled out a small
brown box from his trouser pocket. I jumped off the silver beer
barrels where I had been sitting and opened it up to look at my
very first diamond.
It was a simple diamond solitaire ring set in 18
carat gold. I was so chuffed and happy I thought I would burst with
happiness. I kissed him, slipped it on my wee grubby finger and
ran all the way home to show my mum.
I met her standing at the bottom of our street,
she was waiting on Peter (the boyfriend she had who eventually killed
her in 1982).
“Look mum what my boyfriend gave me, we are
engaged” I blurted out as I put my finger up to her face.
“That’s a lovely ring Janey, I wish you
health to wear it” She smiled. Her face looked distant I remember
and could see she was distracted and worried about something.
“You ok Ma?” I asked her.
She smiled and told me she was fine, just need some
money for fags and Peter was coming along soon and I could show
him my new ring as well she added.
“No, I don’t want to Ma, I really don’t
like him” I said.
“Janey, don’t start this again, he is
really ok and you cause trouble when you argue with him, if you
cant keep your mouth shut go away and I will see you later then”
She snapped.
I walked away, felt the ring on my finger inside
my jeans pocket and wandered up to my house. I sat in the dirty
old room I lived in, wondered if my life would always be like this,
waiting for something to happen or would I end up like my mammy,
aged 45 and dating a violent man who gets you fags.
I couldn’t have ever imagined my life where
it is now, I could never have sat in the filthy house in Shettleston
back in 1979 and foresaw that I would be 45 years old and sitting
in Westminster in a smart apartment that overlooked Big Ben and
was working as a stand up comic and writer.
All those years ago when husband and I were teenagers,
that night in 1979 when we lay in is big bedroom in his dad’s
house, we both wondered if we would last forever.
“Will you always love me like this? Will this
feeling always be here?” he asked me.
“Yes, I will, I cant imagine not loving you
nor ever wanting to be somewhere you weren’t, lets never fight
and lets never ever spend a night apart!” I naively but happily
suggested.
Twenty seven years on, we have spent many nights
apart, we have spent many days wanting to be where the other wasn’t
we have screamed our hate and vile threats into each others face….but
this morning he rang me sleepily and before I could speak he said
“Will you always love me like this? Will this feeling always
be here?” I could not believe he remembered, but he did and
he sounded like the sixteen year old boy whose skinny arms and long
legs used to wrap round me and hold me till my limbs got pins and
needles.
I miss him today and I miss my mammy, she never got to see my daughter who will turn twenty in two days time.
Tuesday the 18th of April 2006
08:37:40 PM
London, Gigs and period pains
The gigs have been great fun, I really enjoyed the
radio show on BBC Radio 4 Loose Ends, Ned is a great entertainer
and it’s awesome to learn from someone so experienced. I have
still not got the adverts finalised for the fringe brochure as I
am still waiting on a time confirmation from one venue, hopefully
they will tell me tomorrow as the deadline is Friday!
Last night I did a storytelling gig with Noel Faulkner,
he owns the Comedy Café over in London’s East End. Noel
is a great raconteur and fabulous storyteller, check out his show
on May 8th and 9th at Comedy Café.
I went along to One Word radio studio’s to
record a show that goes out this Saturday; I was talking about my
five fav books.
1- The Shipping News
2-Candide
3-The Family at One End Street
4- Behind the Scenes at the Museum
5-Madame Bovary
So today I woke up and have a womb like a cluster bomb. It has imploded
and I feel as though two rabid Alsatian dogs were ripping apart
my fallopian tubes as a small angry clown banged on my ovaries with
a claw hammer.
I love being a woman.
I am off to Bristol on Thursday, so I have two more
nights here in lovely Westminster.
I am going to miss my beautiful daughters 20th Birthday tomorrow,
I am in London and she is in Glasgow. This will be the first birthday
I have ever missed and it hurts.
Can you believe she is 20? I cant it felt like only
yesterday she was two and was playing with a wee plastic horse.
Where did it all go? I was married at her age and running a bar
in Glasgow’s East End, she has her whole life to go places
and have fun.
I won’t die on her like my mammy died on me,
I will be there to see it all and will always be on hand to help.
I am lucky; you should see what I made 20 years
ago! She’s tall, intelligent, talented and very pretty and
won’t get married by mistake, won’t give up her dreams
to run a bar, won’t accept second best in life and will always
be my wee baby.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEY
Thursday the 20th of April 2006
09:49:54 PM
Leaving London and Edinburgh Fringe Deadline
I was out a bit too late last night. I was celebrating
Brendon Burns’ birthday; the lovely and lively Aussie comic
has the same birthday as my sparky daughter. Brendon is a good mate
and he had a good old bunch of mates in the rib joint in Soho last
night, sitting around enjoying his company. I ate so much meat I
almost had a heart attack.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement, this morning
as I headed with luggage and belongings to the NZ High Commission
to get my work permit that I forgot to get before I leave London
(I am old and very forgetful), I passed three Arab looking dressed
men outside a café and as I lugged my huge case along the
streets of London, they smiled and muttered something to me.
Stupidly and I mean Fucking stupidly I stopped and
asked him what he said as I thought it was rude of me to ignore
what the man in the white robe said to me.
His dark eyes flashed, he rubbed his moustache and
smiled then said “My friend wants to finger you”.
I stood there for a second, all hot harassed and
sweaty and looked at him, they all laughed and hissed at me!
I let my case rest on my leg as I put up one finger
and replied
“You mean finger me the way your mother fingers
Allah?”
That wasn’t what he expected back I suppose, but then he never
considered checking who he was insulting…certainly never anticipated
an angry tired Scottish shouty woman who laughed loudly at her own
retort!
The three men shouted and caused a big situation; one stood up and
screamed at me as I was getting my case into roller mode to walk
away
“You must never take Allah’s name in vain,
how dare you!”
“Well mate you insult me, I insult your God, trust me I do
it with Catholics, Jews, in fact any religion…I am not fussed,
you annoy me I hurt you back, I am Scottish that’s what I do,
now get fucked and take your big misogynist face out of my way or
I will tell you how I think Allah is gay”
I left them shouting at me as I laughed loudly all the way to the
NZ High Commission building to plead quick passage to my favourite
country in May.
I got on the train to Bristol, it’s about two hours away from
London, I am here for three nights working at Jongleurs Comedy Club.
The four star Thistle Hotel in Bristol does not have broadband internet!
I have to dial up some shitty number and pay something like a pound
a minute for internet! How shit is that? I am so fucking sick of
big hotels that charge expensive rates for shit landline charges
on the web! I mean their internet is more expensive than a flight
to LA fist class pound for pound!
I hate that, when are big hotels going to suss that
business people will start leaving their hotels in search of some
places where they can access the web?
So here I am three days away from home, I cannot wait to get there
and thank husband for driving all the way to Edinburgh and hand
delivering my adverts safely to the Fringe Brochure people to beat
the deadline tomorrow night. Thanks big guy…I love you.
Friday the 21st of April 2006
06:30:14 PM
Bristol is awesome…but….
The architecture here in Bristol is absolutely breath
taking and I said so to the driver who was taking me to the BBC
this morning for a radio interview, after a sleepless night of which
I will tell you later, I was gazing at the most stunning tall houses,
with ornate balconies and intricate stone gargoyles and the driver
told me that whole city was built on the ‘Slave Trade’
money of past centuries! There was even ‘White Lady Street’!
So maybe I was apprehensive about staring at them
now and enjoying them as I imagined all those poor African’s
being dragged from their beautiful sun kissed lands and being sold
to build White Lady Street.
How awful?
I suppose that’s the Empire for you, the sun
may never have set on the Empire but the shame did.
So to tell you more about last night, I got a call from husband
telling me there was an important email from NZ and so I grabbed
my laptop and headed off into the night streets of Bristol trying
to find any where that had WI/FI, but there was literally no place
to be found, honestly, I was walking about the wee winding streets
clutching a silver laptop waiting to be mugged!
I was so fucked off and angry I stomped back to
the smelly room and tried to sleep.
Which brings me neatly to the sleepless night, I
hear you thinking…Oh no Janey not a nightmare story…No...
It was noise, fucking irrepressible noise that did it. Firstly,
the hotel walls are made of papier-mâché, the room
smells like old ladies pants and the room overlooks a city street,
never mind that the room is also so small it would make Ann Franks
house look like a Palace.
Then to top it all at 5am a shop alarm went off,
I lay there silently hoping I could turn into our Scottish Lord
Watson and just set fire to the place. (Lord Watson is a Scottish
MP who is in prison for wilfully setting fire to hotel curtains,
maybe he was pissed off it had no broadband and was noisy?).
Then I finally fell back asleep only to hear a pecking
noise at the window, I got out of bed and there in the sunny day
break was a smelly arrogant pigeon pecking at my window! Who the
fuck lived here before? Mary Poppins?
I opened the window… (As if it would actually
tell me what it wanted, I looked at it with anticipation). It simply
cocked its bird flu head and flew off…even the pigeons are
here to irritate me!
Today I wandered the city, which honestly is really
beautiful and so trendy YET no one had wi/fi…I was beginning
to feel that anger creeping back into my blood stream, even the
BIG internet centre had no wireless connection!
I finally gave up and felt so low and desperately
frayed, then I spotted a guy in a café with his laptop, I
rushed to him excited the way Dr Watson must have greeted David
Livingstone in the dark jungle and blurted out “Do you know
where I can get wireless connection? Do you get it here?”
He told me there was a great place called the Watershed
down on the water front that does woderful food and free wireless….so
here I am and they DO!
I love this place….still hate the slave thing but I love the watershed in Bristol.
Saturday the 22nd of April 2006
05:42:02 PM
I am going home tomorrow
Yes I am…I cannot wait either. I have missed
Ashley’s birthday and my husbands cooking…and love -I
suppose. I had a good gig last night, Jongleurs went well, Bristol
is nice and I got some nice comments from people who have lived
in Bristol telling me interesting places to visit when I am here
so thanks all!
I listened to ONE WORD radio show this morning,
I was on talking about ‘My Life in Books’ it really was
good fun and I love doing radio shows, well I do have the face for
it.
On another subject I am losing weight steadily now
and I need to go buy jeans today as I can no longer hold these one
up, the ass part is falling down and I look like one of those wee
black gangsta’ rap kids showing off my knickers except I am
45 and my lacy black ladies knickers are ludicrous being on display!
I got a lovely write up in the METRO Bristol, am
looking forward to coming back here, but will certainly move to
another hotel.
My stress levels are down as my posters and ad for
Fringe have beaten the deadline, I just have the Square Street poster
to design and that’s almost done. Square Street is the sketch
show Ashley and I are doing together, I think a mother/daughter
sketch show will be fun at the Fringe and I am so excited.
Ashley performed at the Fringe in her own comedy
show in 1999 when she was 13-years-old; she was in fact the youngest
EVER to have her own show in the history of the Fringe!
Now she is going back a woman, fully grown and ready
to have fun.
I cannot wait….
Monday the 24th of April 2006
09:33:17 PM
Home and Away….
Being home is good, I am so glad to get into my
own bed. Feels better and I slept well, I even made a few funny
pics and put them on my Livedigital website.
I had such a silly situation at the NZ High Commission
in London, I realised that I did not have a special document from
Equity Actors Union in NZ that allows me to get a work permit. That
has now been resolved and now on the day of travel to NZ (May 8th)
I have to go to the NZ High Commission and pick up the permit, I
know that’s cutting it a bit fine….but you know me, nothings
worth doing unless we have a drama ensuing.
No doubt Ashley will be there with her camera, as
I run to the place and sweat and beg to get the last minute documentation.
I am such an arse for forgetting it.
Ashley and I will be attending the BAFTA TV awards
the night before on the 7th of May, we will both not really be partying
too hard as we do have the permit to pick up and a long haul flight
to deal with.
I am not looking forward to that, she is a moany
bitch when she is tired and she is tall and will not fit into the
seats all that way, so if anyone is reading this and they work for
BA please upgrade us?
I made a few funny satirical pictures about George
Bush and posted them on my Livedigital site and the amount of patriotic
US citizens that gave me hell was so funny and surprising, but I
suppose there must be some supporters or he would never have got
voted back in?
I have no idea what to wear to the BAFTA TV awards
this year, Ashley bought a pair of high heels today, which will
now make her seven foot tall! I mean she already is very tall, why
she needs heels I will never know? I need stilts to make tall enough
to wear any clothes that look good.
At least I have lost some weight, but my boobs are
still humongous and now I look strange. I would love to be thin
enough to wear a really sexy slinky black dress that clings in all
the right ways, but sadly I must adhere to the - all - over –
blousy- black - look- that covers me up.
Ashley told me today how she got chatted up by a
cute guy, but she describes her feelings as ‘A hedgehog whose
prickles come out all over and she rolls into a ball’ with
embarrassment when guys talk to her, yet on stage she has the confidence
of kick-boxer on speed. So strange, yet so normal I suppose.
I did a gig in London last week, after I came off
people chatted to me and I get ever so uncomfortable with strangers
especially after I come off stage, this one woman tried to talk
to me and I mumbled something and she then said loudly “You
are so rude, I was telling you how good you were and you just ignore
me, you are a pompous bitch stuck up your own ass”
I was horrified and tried to explain that I am shy
with complete strangers but as there was no where else to go I was
thrust into the audience and had to talk to people. I would rather
meet them outside comedy and then I can chat ok, its hard to explain
but I must come across as really off - hand and difficult or a real
prima donna, which I am not. I can talk for Britain, but not with
audience members after a gig for some odd reason.
In suppose I don’t really have confidence at
all, all I have is a stage persona that’s bigger and more confident
than my own personality.
I am sorry this blog is a day behind but I have been so lazy. Thanks all
Wednesday the 26th of April 2006
03:08:02 PM
Multi tasking woman…..
I have finally got the poster designed for Square
Street. That’s the sketch show my daughter Ashley and I will
be performing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. I am amazed
at the amount of people who are aghast that I am doing three shows
a day, I am producing them and performing them also and I will be
on for the full three weeks.
People also forget that I used to run a bar 15 hours
a day for 15 years, even during pregnancy!
I am woman hear me roar!
So I have designed the posters and am now getting
everything organised for our NZ trip. Though I have had a lot of
help from John Fleming who does manage to keep tabs on all deadlines
and manages my schedule, which is wonderful. God knows how he has
patience with me, when he sends me stuff to be done and I lose it
amongst all my emails then find it a day before the deadline and
write it, then forget to send it! I do eventually get there though.
I know I can multi task as I was sitting in Ashley’s bathroom
having a pee, during that urination I managed to wipe down the skin
with a bleached sponge, organise her magazine rack and arrange tampons
into the a small box in her bathroom cabinet that sits beside the
toilet bowl, and take a phone call! I did remember to wipe and wash
don’t worry.
I have become the woman who knows where everything is in my entire
household.
It really annoys husband and Ashley, they cannot begin to open and shut drawers or cupboards if I am around as I demand they tell me what they are seeking and I can tell them where it is…this irritates them.
Don’t ask me why, I would be happy to have
someone like that around.
Even though I am not always living there, I still know where
everything is. For example the other morning I was lying in bed
half sleep and heard Ashley opening the pine dresser drawers in
the living room, then another drawer and then another. I began to
shout
“What are you looking for?”
She replied with anger “Nothing, I am looking
for nothing…..do you hear everything?”
I shouted back “Yes, now fucking tell me what
you are looking for and I will locate it”
Ashley called back exasperated, as if telling me
was a problem, maybe she would rather spend more time looking for
stuff? Finally she shouts
“Ok I am looking for nail clippers if you must
know”
“In the white box in the double cupboard on the third shelf
in the kitchen”
I sleepily call out.
Husband whispered “How do you know where everything
is in this house? You don’t actually live here full time, do
you know where everything is in all the places you stay?”
“Yes, I know where everything is in the world;
go ask me where Osama bin laden is?” I answer.
“Ok where is he?” Husband resigns himself
to taking part in my early morning humour.
“He is in the wicker box, under my wedding
dress that’s beneath the curtain bag in the top shelf of the
hall cupboard, behind the boiler” I add and try to go back
to sleep.
Husband turns over looks at me, smiles and replies
“Do you think he hears us shouting and having sex?”
At that point Ashley has come into the room, holding out nail clippers for me to do her right hand
“Ewww…who hears you fighting and having
sex?”
“Osama Bin Laden” Husband answers.
“Ok, you two are freaks, I have no idea what
you are speaking about” She says as I sit up and clip her long
pointy pinkie that resembles a cocaine dealers favourite fingernail.
“He is in the wicker basket underneath mums
wedding dress in the hall cupboard” husband adds.
“Who? Osama Bin Laden? Dad shut up, mum please
put him in a home, this is the kinda shit he talks when you are
not here and it scares me” Ashley stares at him.
“It’s a joke” I add trying to stop
my lovely daughter from stabbing her dad with nail clippers.
See I can multi- task; by the way Osama is small spider who lives
in my cupboard, in case anyone was worried that I had a beardy fundamentalist
Muslim sitting in a wedding dress, beside my boiler.
Thursday the 27th of April 2006
11:35:43 PM
Scary Videos
I have been watching some short videos on Livedigital,
I love watching the home made ones, like my own live blogs or people’s
self made short sketches. I can’t believe the amount of short
videos that people download from TV and upload onto the site. I
don’t want to watch snippets of TV shows but then I also am
horrified at watching some horror films as well. They are the kind
of ‘real’ films I don’t want to see. For example
I inadvertently watched part of a ‘Real train death’ and
a ‘real suicide bomber’ I was skipping through various
films and unwittingly watched them! I was fucking traumatised for
a whole day afterwards.
Who watches that stuff? Who wants to upload it and
look over it? Should it be there?
Then I realise that my opinion is no issue, we have
the freedom and rights to watch and listen to what we want. It scares
me though and I mentioned to Ashley to be careful in case she watches
them by mistake as well and she told me that she is of the internet
generation and has saw all that stuff before and has no worries,
at all. I should be more careful she told me!
So I need to get used to the fact I no longer need
to keep protecting her from the world. I don’t think I can
get used to that, but I should try to. She is more capable than
me at times dealing with stuff.
I recall times when she did need me to look after
her, I miss doing that.
I remember taking her aside when she was 14 years
old and explaining why the girl in her class was bullying her, there
was no actual violence, but this girl made everyone else in this
all girl class ostracise her. This girl was jealous of Ashley and
made sure she had no friends to turn to; it was a small class so
that made it worse. I sat there and watched my daughters eyes fill
with big fat sad tears as she told me how this girl ensured she
sat alone at lunchtimes and was cruel to her privately.
I wanted to go into that school and stab that 14
year old girl in the eye with a screw driver.
Ashley was a stand up comic at 11 years old and
did her own show at 13 years old at Edinburgh Fringe, this girl
felt threatened by Ashley’s confidence and went about trying
to dismantle it.
I encouraged Ashley to ignore her and laugh loudly
any time the girl walked past and after a while I taught my daughter
how to smirk secretly when the girl came near and yet keep a straight
face when questioned by the nasty girl. Slowly Ashley built up a
wall of laughter and silent giggles until the girl was hysterical
with anger as to why Ashley was happy or laughing at her, Ashley
denied this last accusation because such was the covertness of her
smiles the teachers couldn’t understand why the nasty girl
was upset at Ashley. To be honest laughing and smiling isn’t
really a crime.
I suppose I taught my daughter a form of silent
psychological warfare, something that makes the other person feel
victimised and distraught, yet with no real actual harm to them,
just making yourself look happy is enough to annoy them as your
sadness is more important to them.
It did work, the girl did leave Ashley alone and
even to this day that nasty girl has problems with Ashley, I know
this as they met last week in a night club. The nasty girl saw Ashley
and snubbed her as the group was introducing each other; Ashley
recognised the snub and whispered something into one of the other
girl’s ear and they both laughed loudly. The nasty girl saw
this and screamed at Ashley “Why are you always laughing at
me? You always laughed at me at school as well”
The nasty girl’s friend turned and said “Ashley
wasn’t laughing at you, she just said that she loves watching
the Pakistani boys talking ‘street and rap’ wishing they
were really black and dangerous and not rich young preppy boys trying
to look rough, it was funny!”
Ashley stood there smiling, raised her eyebrow and
pulled herself up to her full height and said “I never laughed
at you, weren’t we friends at school?”
The nasty girl shouted, now losing it “No we
weren’t friends, everyone in the class hated you didn’t
they Selina?” She turned to a brown haired girl standing beside
Ashley.
Her mate looked at her with disgust and said “No
we liked Ashley, she was always funny, you were a cow to her, you
told us never to talk to her, but we liked her, grow up”
You can never be there to protect your kids all
the time; you can only give them skills to handle the hard times.
Laughing at them may just work.
So there we have it, sometimes bullies can be laughed down.
Saturday the 29th of April 2006
01:06:21 AM
The Real Janey Godley
I spent the whole night writing stuff that meant
nothing on my blog, and the real truth is I felt quite down today.
I don’t really know why, I had one of those days when I ended
up reflecting on my life a bit for no reason and then felt a bit
down.
I don’t know how that happens, but it does
I am sure.
I know I should be happy as I have so much to loom
ahead to, like going to NZ with my daughter to what looks like a
fun successful tour and then I get to go to London to perform at
Soho theatre and then I go to Edinburgh Fringe with my adorable
daughter Ashley and before all that I get to dress up nice and go
to BAFTA TV awards…but somehow I felt flat.
I suppose part of me is worried I wont miss my husband
when I go to NZ.
I know that’s sounds odd and am hoping he sticks
to his rule that he never reads this blog; coz I think what I will
say will hurt him.
I have spent an entire lifetime with him, since
I was 18 to be precise and way back then I was besotted with him
as all young brides are. I would lie awake to watch him sleep; I
lay there in the darkness and would kiss his face gently.
After I wrote my autobiography I know that I exposed
our very turbulent and difficult marriage to the world, he never
read it. He promised he wouldn’t and I am glad, but after all
the press and radio stuff I did, he heard plenty to know that I
had told our innermost problems to the listener ship of BBC Radio
4 and possibly the world.
So anyway, in the past ten years of doing comedy
I have been away so much that I no longer miss him as much as any
wife has the right or at least decency to do. It scares me.
I know that any relationship involves compromise,
but when you compromise yourself too much, you end up infringing
on your own personality and values, its like cutting up your own
nation and adopting a new language and trading with a hostile country.
Some of it is worthwhile but some of it makes you want to throw
out the illegal immigrant values and become racist….well racist
against HIM.
The last four years he has become a whole new man,
the man I wanted in 1986, not necessarily the man I need in 2006…so
where does that leave me?
I have managed to change or at least help manipulate
a bastard into a decent bloke and now I am not sure if that’s
what I want.
I sometimes look in the mirror and don’t know
who is staring back….have you ever done that? Not recognised
the person you see? That’s what I do.
So today I walked around town, all of these thoughts
milling around my wee head and I worry that I have compromised too
much and have ended up with someone I am not sure of and have a
person inside of me that I don’t know.
So I am not sure who I am today, maybe tomorrow I will know me….but tonight…I am a stranger.