Janey Godley's Blog

In that stunning apartment in Chelsea, I woke up at 4am this morning. I had no idea why or what got me awake, but it scared me and I was confused as to where I was. I fell back asleep after a while and woke up at 9am. I decided to get my ass outta bed and get packed, drink tea, check the news, check my emails, download some Itunes for my journey home. I downloaded Tom Robinson, Billy Joel, Glen Frey, John Mellencamp and Kanye West. I was doddering about the place, checking and re checking the place was cleared when my mobile rang. It was a lovely TV woman from BBC in London, we have been emailing each other about a project she may want me involved in. She asked me if I could come see her today when she discovered I was actually in London and not Glasgow as she assumed I would be. “Can you come to BBC White City on the way to Heathrow? You won’t miss your flight will you?” She asked me, I did a quick time check and reckoned I could make the meeting and the flight as they were providing cabs. “It will be fine, see you soon” I answered as I started throwing toothbrush and toiletries into my stuffed case, pulled on my coat and trundled the awkward luggage to the lift. I was there in no time really, my hair was still wet, but I had on make up which was a blessing as it was a filmed audition! It seemed to go well I think, you can never tell really, you never actually know what they want to be honest. So I am home, I had dinner, drank tea and finally sat at the computer. Something strange just happened; I was going through the red box that sits on my PC unit. I was looking for an old business card and that’s where they are all kept. Now this collection of business cards dates back to 1996! Anyway I was going through them and came across a plain white card from New York Times. I remembered where and when I got it, I was in New York in 1999; I was doing some open mike nights in Manhattan, in between doing paid gigs for the Irish up in Queens. Anyway I digress, I was at this club run by a guy called Joel, I am sure it was called Tuesday Night Train Wreck and it was near Brooklyn. I recall being there watching acts, doing a short gig and chatting to this bloke, I remember him giving me his card and telling me he was a journalist. I kept it all these years. So ANYWAY his name is Jesse McKinley, now that rang a bell and I realise that this was the GUY who wrote a nice piece about me at the Edinburgh Fringe 2004 in the NEW YORK TIMES. I didn’t realise this was the same bloke I had met six years ago! I thought that was very strange….it is Halloween you know and I am dressed as a werewolf, well I am not really but I am behaving like one to my family as they never got all the washing done. It’s good to be home!

I slept until 1pm today! Then found out it was actually 12 midday as the clocks went back an hour! That is just weird. London is still warm, which is strange, Monica and I walked for ages with our coats over our arms as the warm African breeze was as beautiful as the sun set tonight. Big dappled vermilion streaks slashed through with a baby blue sky with the London landmarks in the foreground making an extremely unusually summer-ish late October landscape. Yet we have to be prepared for the bitter scary winter they keep predicting. I actually like the cold, I fucking hate the rain…but cold is ok. I fly home today I suppose by the time I blog this as its early Monday 1.08 am…I need to sleep soon. My legs hurt as Monica and I walked it from Soho all the way to Chelsea, it was still warm after dark and the walk was lovely. We went past Buckingham Palace and saw an ambulance screech out of it around midnight…we speculated on who may be in need of emergency treatment and decided it was a footman who had been stabbed in the head with a fork by Prince Phillip. The man is fucking mental and probably thought the footman was a wild boar in need of capture. I am convinced he has altzimers disease…why else would he talk the shit he talks? The poor Queen must spend hours saying stuff like “Phillip do let the dog go, it’s not a snake and please stop calling the cook a nig nog…it really isn’t done anymore” I walked past Kensington Palace and thought about Diana and how she was adored and terribly missed, I also thought about how ingenious she was by hiding cute men in her car boot for after hours sex as she drove them into that big empty house. The fun she must have had, fuck I wish I could have been that brave in my lifetime, to sneak cock in to the house my in laws pay for (or rather us actually) and still get away with the whole ‘Queen of Hearts ‘ thing…what a fucking dude she was…wish I had that spirit. That’s what I liked about her, she was getting plenty of cute men the minute Charles fucked her off…even way back in 1985, when she was seeing Hewitt. Good on her! The Upper Classes know how to have a good time I can tell you. Well I am working class and very old and boring, so am off to bed for an early start.

I was nervous this morning as I left the luxurious apartment here in Chelsea. I know the people at BBC were so supportive, but my nerves were gathering like angry wee bees in my tummy and by the time the big smooth BMW car purred into a stop at the BBC centre, I thought my head would explode. I have to say that the guy I was interviewing, Mat Fraser, was so very lovely, he was helpful, intelligent and quite sexy I must add! He was a pleasure to work with. It all went fine and my foray into national broadcast interviewing went good. I have much to learn, but they are giving me more jobs, so therefore I have the opportunity to gain more experience at BBC Radio 4. I love 'em! I met up with Monica afterwards, we haven’t seen each other since July and she was very proud of me for not smoking, and said I had lost some weight as well which pleased me no end. Can you believe how old we are getting? WE used to rush home on Saturdays in London, dress up and grab a cab into the West End to go out on the town, go to some exclusive club, stay out till 4am (once we ended up in some famous footballers flat...fuck knows who he was but he was really rich-remind me to tell you that story sometime)....meanwhile back in the land of old woman’s world-we went to the shops to buy lamb and low fat crisps for our dinner...fucking hell next it will be knitting and menopause classes...I am old and saggy. Talk soon.

Can you believe how sunny it is here in UK? I think if the bird flu doesn’t get us the ozone leak will. I mean fucksake it was never this hot in the summer...what is going on...it rained for seven days in a row, now we have sunshine? We are all GONNA DIE! The apartment here in London is just awesome, I mean ...pure luxury, I don’t really belong here, it makes me feel like I should be wearing a black negligee, strutting around smoking from a long cigarette holder and entertaining 'Gentlemen Callers'...I mean I don’t think there are hookers in this building but it is how imagined a 'swanky pad in the city' would look like if I was high class call girl. Clearly at my age I have missed the boat on the whole 'Men would pay to have sex with me' thing. The good news is I have not been sick, so I don’t think pregnancy is on the cards, but that did panic me a little. Still off the ciggies and that has been a challenge and a half to be honest but am getting through it all. I am up early tomorrow to go to BBC and do the interview, am a bit nervous but excited and the people there are so lovely and helpful...so I have nothing to worry about!

I had a ball last performing the play Smack- the Point of Yes at Yoker last night. It sold out and the people were awesome, there were loads of teenagers, and that’s really the first time loads of young people had come to see it. They laughed at the most inappropriate moments, and that’s why I loved them being there!

I was so worried I would forget my lines, but as always the whole thing came flooding back to me the minute I stepped on stage.

So here I am up early and ready to fly to London, except a few minutes ago, as I sat at the PC, I felt really nauseous and vomited into the toilet bowl, this really took me by surprise and now I feel really sick and have to get on a fucking plane!

Why am I sick? I don’t know…please GOD not morning sickness? Oh Holy Shit…I cannot be pregnant…I vomited for 9 months with my daughter when I was carrying her…I am off to prepare to throw myself out of the fucking aircraft!

 

I will talk to you when I land in London and get a connection….

Am off to puke.

There was a great programme on BBC 4 last night about the history of Soho in London. The show took us to all the old haunts and bars where the ‘Bohemians’ hung out. It was really awesome to watch some of the old famous artists/writers on old black and white movie reels. Francis bacon, Jeffrey Barnard, Dylan Thomas, Lucien Freud to name but a few, were all up there drinking, fucking, painting, writing poetry and being anything that made them the misfits of society!.

 

I love Soho, when I first went to London in 1994 it was the first place I stayed. I booked into the Regents Palace Hotel just off Piccadilly. The hotel is Victorian, and some of the rooms have no toilets or bathroom facilities and so you pressed a bell on the wall and a wee gnarled man in a white jacket carrying two thick white towels came and escorted you to a huge white tiled ancient bathroom that housed an enormous claw footed bathtub! It was so odd!

 

I loved Soho at night; if you stood still long enough you could see the creepy, drug fucked, pimps, hookers and various members of the London underbelly shape shift around the dark alleyways and dimly lit cobbled stoned streets that lined the back lanes of the Famous Theatres on Shaftsbury Avenue.

 

The front of the buildings are brightly lit and very photogenic, but just step around the back and watch whole different version of a ‘West End Show’ take place.

 

My favourite hang out was the Atlantic Bar on Glasshouse St, it was the ‘Place to be seen’ in the mid 90’s and I ended up running a comedy club there! The interior had original Art Deco surrounds and became the most used setting for music videos in that period. Madonna shot her video right in the same room where I stood telling jokes! Robbie Williams, Oasis and many more big stars spent late nights in the Atlantic. No comparison to Dylan Thomas and his Boho mates, but it was fun!

 

Late into the night, we would all go to Bar Italia on Frith Street for coffee. The outside tables would be crammed with people even at 3am! Bar Italia has been serving coffee’s since 1932 and the décor has hardly changed since. They used to have a wee strange hairdresser’s shop next door that had one stool, one sink and a real dead stuffed cat on a glittery chair!

The house above Bar Italia is where John Logie Baird first displayed his ‘Television’ to the world!

 

I never knew that fact until last year when I brought my daughter to a late night coffee session at Bar Italia, she leaned back and read the Blue Heritage Plate that told of Logie Baird’s existence in Soho.

 

All those years I had sat there and never thought to look up!

Ashley loves Bar Italia also, she went last year on her own, whilst I was performing at Soho Theatre, she met a bunch of middle aged bikers carrying two angry poodles and a transsexual magician, who had a fight with a street beggar and decked him…then invited Ashley to a ‘biker party’ as long as she brought her own crystal Meth.

 

Now that’s the Soho that would make the old bohemians smile!

Well this week I perform my play Smack-The Point of Yes in Glasgow at Peterson Parkhall. I am currently rehearsing the whole thing again. It is about a woman who stays in a difficult marriage and never takes drugs and how her alter-self does take drugs and how both their lives pan out, I play the two characters. Am bricking it in case I forget the words and the play has currently sold 100 tickets…

 

Meanwhile I get my first go at being an interviewer this weekend on Radio 4 show Loose Ends. I get to interview Mat Fraser who has recently penned and stars in a new show called Thalidomide-a Musical!

I am hoping I keep within the timeframe and don’t fuck up!

So I will be in London this weekend, I am staying in a fab apartment. I was down a few weeks ago staying in friends Lori’s flat in Piccadilly, her place was awesome, all wooden floors and Jacuzzi baths in each bathroom! The downside was in the main living room Lori had a huge white carpet. I mean A HUGE BRILLIANT WHITE carpet.

 

Well Monica and I decided to have dinner in the flat; I bought seafood and a big bottle of red wine. I don’t even drink most of the year, but I thought we should celebrate her new contract.

 

Whilst Monica was in the kitchen, I was in the living room playing music on my iPod; I leaned over to get the volume button and knocked a FULL glass of red wine all over the floor.

It splashed across the expanse of the white fluffy wool, splattered up the legs of the antique wooden chair; spread all over the yellow stripped fabric on said antique chair and managed to dot itself all over the pale cream wall.

I stood there horrified, I was frozen in the moment, and it looked like I had just stabbed someone. Monica came in with two big plates of food and screamed in horror “Janey, for fucksake, what happened did you slash your wrists? Do you have some shaky hand disease? How did you manage to fucking do that giant stain?”

 

If I had thrown the glass in an Olympic Wine Throwing Competition, I would have scored gold. We put our food aside, dropped to our knees and started scrubbing, dabbing, cleaning, soaking and sobbing as we tried to lift the dark burgundy blot that was now settling into the whitest carpet in London.

 

It was now midnight and I ran out, grabbed a cab and got him to run around London to find any late night supermarket that would sell ‘Vanish’ and all those other ‘Miracle Stain Remover’ stuff we see on TV.

Other comics were running round London looking for drugs, I was looking for carpet chemicals!

By 4am we had finished the clean up and the stain looked pale and blotty as opposed to dark and red.

By the end of my trip there, I had cleaned the carpet four times.

I decided that if the stain was still dark by the time I left, I would pay full price to get the whole thing professionally cleaned, as it turned out, by the Monday the carpet was fine and Lori came by to pick up the keys.

I explained the situation to her; she threw her hands up to her face, dropped her expensive handbag and bolted into the living room.

She ran to a stain under the side window, fell to her knees and shouted “Janey, it is still a bit visible here, for God’s sake, how will I get it out!”

“Lori, that is not my stain, mine is over here at the door” I pointed to the far end of the room at the door entry where I had accomplished my wine throwing talents.

“Oh yes, that’s right, that stain is where a flower vase fell last year, Janey, (she pointed to where the wine stain was) I cant see any stain over there, in fact the carpet looks very clean, can you do me a favour and get that flower stain out for me?”

 

So there we have it, I have become the oracle on fabric cleaning!

The Sunday papers are full of articles all about “Do we Brits Have No manners?’ or “Are We Misusing the English language?”. This argument about bad manners particularly makes me smile as I believe the middle classes adhered to ‘manners and rules’ as a way of making the under classes feel put down. Where as in fact, when I see some middle class woman berate a shop assistant in her snobby down talking manner, I know that the poorest, glue sniffing junkie I know would NEVER speak to anyone like that in their life, because they were NEVER brought up to speak to people in that manner. The junkie may steal your handbag, but he would never make snide remarks about your bad taste in hats. The most recent mudslinging match in the run for the Conservative Leadership is a great example of middle classes displaying the worst amount of bad manners! The camp behind the prospective leader David Davis, hung out of their windows like Glasgow fish wives telling everyone who would listen that David Cameron took drugs and has a drug addict in his family! Where I come from in the East End of Glasgow, exposing people’s private lives in such a public manner to make sure they never got a job they applied for would be seen as a good excuse for a slap and social exclusion to the next street booze up! I remember getting into trouble at school when I was around 13 years of age. I got my mammy to come up to the school as the teacher had slapped me and I was scared. When my mammy reached the school office, I watched that nasty blonde fat head mistress look down at my mammy’s burst plastic shoes, her unkempt hair and tatty coat. The woman sneered at mammy and put her down with a few sharp words, my mammy was slightly intimidated for a few moments, then regained her composure, stood back, raised her fist and punched the woman square in the face. It wasn’t very good manners on my mammy’s part, but by fuck it was worth the look on that fat condescending blondes face as she fell over a desk. My mammy might have been poor, dirty, unkempt with no manners but she knows how to punch a woman who hits her child. By the way mammy’s language was very un-English, in fact she called the woman a fat, scabby cunt who canny huv kids!

Well I sat and watched it just then on the BBC Scotland and I was very pleased with it, I do have the fattest chin in the country…but the make up was not too visible and that’s what I was really worried about.

I am not joking, it was filmed last night and especially for my big TV performance, my skin broke out in nasty spots, and the lovely make up lady literally painted brown stuff on my face with a wallpaper pasting brush!

 

I was really shocked when I saw my face in the mirror, because under the strip lights in the make up room, I looked like a fucking transvestite air hostess who had let a small, angry, slightly sleepy nocturnal ferret apply make up that was normally used for ‘burns’ victims to disguise direct facial gunshot wounds!

 

Ashley smiled at me and reassured me that under the studio lights, I would look fine and on camera it settles and doesn’t make me look like one of those women in ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ that she thinks I look like, all powdery faced and small bright puckered red lips!

I must say I do hate watching myself as I look so fat, but the good news is I am on a diet so, I didn’t feel so low as I am actually doing something about it as we speak!

 

Also I was chuffed and very proud of the BBC, for they kept in the part of the interview when I spoke about how my paedophile uncle would ‘never be able to hold up his head at the Orange Walk again!’

 

The good news is, I found my favourite black skirt and Ashley had NOT in fact lost it, it was in the back of my wardrobe all the time!

 

EL Presidente were the music guest on the show, well those who know me will know that the guys from the band are good friends of mine and Dante, the lead singer wrote the title song of my play Smack-The Point of Yes’ which I am performing next week.

The guys were very good, so fucking rock and roll!

 

Well I am off to buy a sand blaster to remove the last traces of ‘Ivory Coast’ sheer make up that is still sticking to my fat chin!

 

There is nothing worse than having your own husband teach you how to cook 25 years after you get married to him…I mean, it’s a bit fucking late eh? He never gives up trying to show me stuff…. I remember in 1979 he tried to teach me how to use the brand new pressure cooker he bought me. I was horrified at the noise it made, this seemingly innocuous stainless steel pot turned into Stephenson’s Rocket and began hissing and spitting like an angry swan. I was so scared I ran out of the kitchen, we shared the house with my old Grandpa…it also scared the shit out of him and he served time during the war in Burma, he saw dead people and shot people, yet was scared of a hissing pot as well. Pressure cookers are scary objects and I don’t care how quick it can cook beef, it made my blood pressure so high I had indigestion and cooking fucking eat the speedily cooked cow meat! So husband was showing me how to cook today and I now know how to make mince and vegetables. This lesson was a waste of time really, as when I am not living at home; I live in hotels or apartments and don’t actually cook. I live like a messy teenager when I am away, I don’t understand this really, coz at home, and I need everything tidy. When I am in London or where ever, I throw all my clothes on the floor, I sleep in a woolly jumper, hair in a big pony tail, face full of make up and eat biscuits under the sheets! On another note, I was in the big department stores looking at perfume and make up stuff. Is it just me or are you people sick to fucking death of ‘Celebrity Endorsement’ fragrances? Honestly…from Beckham to Beyonce, they all have a scent ‘just for you’. What utter shitty bollocks! What the fuck does David Beckham know about ‘top notes of bergamot’? And if he does know…why does he know? What kind of man who is supposed to be consumed by his sport and family has time to ‘sniff out woody scents?’ David explained it was his ‘Signature Fragrance’ and it would let people relate to how he smells and what he likes…we all know what he likes…skinny anorexic women who DON’T smell of chocolate! Just another reason to slap that man when I meet him. We all know that the celebs have no real input whatsoever in the perfume process; I would like to see real people get their own signature fragrance and the smell would remind them of you like… Jodie Marsh- her scent could be called ‘Clubz an Tits’ and it would have top notes of sperm with a hint of Marlborough lights. Tom Cruise- His scent would be called ‘Straight Man’ the base notes would be footballers sweat with overtones of lube. I am sure you could all add to this list.

I cannot find my favourite skirt to wear on TV this weekend. It is my favourite black/chiffon short flirty skirt that I love. Ashley had it last and I know that I will never find it if she has thrown it into that quagmire of a room. Her room is like the Amityville House but without the nice paint and good times, there is a heap of dark looking clothes that just lies there on the floor in a heap and I am sure its actually alive and when other clothes get thrown in there, that scary ‘Steven King’ type seething man made fibre mass on the sticky floor gobbles them up and slowly but evilly ‘burps’. Ashley denies all knowledge of the black skirt and swears I had it last…I know this is not true, she is the one who loses everything, she came home from school when she was 15 and had lost a shoe! How the fuck do you lose a shoe? Well I am no longer the smelly, smokey fat slutty girl, I am chubby clean and smiling at strangers and smell delicious! I am up to my colon in pineapple, carrot and ginger ‘smoothies’, my intestines are slowly being scraped by wholemeal lentils/barley/brown rice and pine nuts. Fucking pine nuts! Do you know how much they cost? They are actually £5 for a small bag! Crack is cheaper than pine fucking nuts! Heroin is cheaper than pine nuts…I can hire a man for the night, who will erect a bathroom shelf, paint the hall, clean out the scary daughters room, tidy my knickers’ drawer, fuck me and turn into a pizza for the price of a big bag of pine nuts! I personally think Jamie Oliver and that insidious Scottish pretend doctor harridan of healthy eating Dr Gillian McKeith have land-locked acres of pine nut forests (or whatever the fuck they grow on…is it actually pine trees?) and they are raking a fortune on selling them and endorsing them constantly on TV. They are the ‘drug barons’ of healthy snacks. Let’s kill the fat tongued one and the ginger pinched faced skinny bitch! So I went out to my favourite cheap clothes store Primark, it sells really cheap funky clothes. The one thing that ALWAYS freaks me out in a funny way is the amount of Asian men who avidly search the women’s clothes racks and load up on skirts and tops, they don’t just browse in that nonchalant type of man way…but really really searching in amongst the clothes like a right lady. I have started to watch for them now and there is a huge abundance of them in Primark, not any other shop I have been in, just Primark. I came to the conclusion that the Muslim men are either transvestites who are getting togged up for the weekend, and that’s what they wear under the Burrka? Or they really are men who shop that good for their wives? By the way that is NOT a racist statement; in fact it is very NON racist to make sure we include Muslims in the whole transvestite/ gay thing. Ok that’s evil, I am sorry. I had a fun night tonight, I went to the local newsagents/Spar supermarket and sat down and read all the newspapers and magazines. The young Asian blokes ( all wearing mens clothes) who run it, just leave me to get on with it and never bother me as I pull stuff apart and open up new magazines! They even give me free sweets as I sit on the staff steps reading all the broadsheets…I had to refuse as I am on a diet! You would think they could offer me some yoghurt covered organics pine nuts? I am happy as I just sat and watched the whole first season of the ‘Gilmore Girls’. This is a US sitcom that I saw in Los Angeles in 2001, Ashley and I fell in love with it back then and finally got the DVD’s from USA as we cannot get them here in UK, but my DVD player plays US DVD’s, so I am happy and I love the show. I am going to get the other five seasons and lock myself up for three weeks to watch them all back to back! Hurrah….all I need now is a video of Gillian McKeith and Jamie Oliver both choking to death in silo of pine nuts!

I had two whole days of feeling very bleak and down. I have no idea how it happened and I am not so sure it’s actually gone to be honest. I am into week one of my detox diet and have not smoked at all and am not doing nicotine therapy and am feeling slightly spaced out. I have never really been depressed before so I am not too sure if that was what it was, but I was awful. I slept too much and even when I woke up I made myself go back to sleep rather than face the day or my family. That’s not good. So I got up today, made myself get ready and walked for about an hour. I finally made it to the bank so I could put in my cheques and then I wandered slowly home and gradually somewhere along the way I started to feel less dark. I popped into my local café and chatted with some friends, drank tea and forgot about the smoking thing (which was good!) and felt good enough to get home with a smile. Husband was scared to look me in the face in case I was still in ‘Myra Hindley Mode’, he simply smiled and hugged me. I never said anything and let him take off my coat. “I feel a bit better” I told him. “Good, I missed you” he answered. So there we have it, I am all ready for my big TV appearance this Friday on BBC One Scotland on the ‘Craig Hill’s Out Tonight’. I think it can be viewed on Sky 941. I bought myself a new top and a semi see through top for underneath, as soon as I put it on Ashley screamed at me “Mum please cover up your cleavage, your tits are huge and I don’t want everyone at Uni to watch your tits and talk about them like they did when you were on Kings of Comedy”. Last year I was on a ‘reality type comedy show’ and in one episode I was caught on camera pushing up my boobs into my bra from a camera directly above me pointing down and it was a HUGE TIT SHOT…I still go red thinking about it. So I will cover up and look respectable.

We were in the car, all packed and listening to the radio. I was very bored and decided that each record that came on I would give my husband my original memory of how I recall hearing that song in the year it was a hit…like this. ‘Sister Sledge/ He’s the Greatest Dancer’…me in a brown pair of cord dungarees (I was a bit lesbianish in my teenage dress-wear but NOT sexuality) I am wearing brown Kickers (big chunky shoes), my hair is in two side combs and I am very new to pub and disco world as I am only 18 years old. I am told by my mates to put £4 in for the kitty, I didn’t think you could buy a cat in a pub, turns out that’s the ‘cool’ name for clubbing together to buy drinks. I have drunk two vodka’s, my hair is sticking to me and now I don’t want anymore alcohol and ask for a refund on the £4 kitty cash. Turns out I cant get a refund, but I can now drink cola, this annoys me as I now know I am subsidising their alcohol…still I keep my mouth shut as these are Glasgow drunk woman I am dealing with who can fight like fuck. ‘Vogue Madonna’…I am wearing a white fitted shirt tucked into high waisted black pinstripe shorts held up with red braces and a huge thick bejewelled belt! I am wearing a big purple brooch pin at the top button of my shirt, black opaque tights and knee high riding boots (this is actually all back in style!). I am starving as I am living on 330 calories a day, my hair is huge and the lipstick is bright red and sexy. I thought I look fab, I saw pictures of me back then and I look like someone who got has on clothes that must never fall down, what with the belt and braces? This game went on for ages until I came across a memory of when he was a huge cunt and made me cry, I saw myself holding my knees up to my chin, sitting in the back-shop of the bar we used to run, hearing Annie Lennox in the background, recalling how he had screamed into my face, trying to work out how to leave him and raise my daughter alone. It’s weird when those memories happen, you find them in your head like an odd sock you forgot you ever bought and wonder where the neighbour to it is… they pop up like a scary jack in the boxes, when you are looking for happy things, it explodes into your emotional viscera and throws hot fat on the happy feeling that you have managed to sustain, despite your brain telling you in a sneaky whisper that bad shit did happen. So on that thought I went tell tale quiet…he knew. He looked at me quickly and his head went straight back to the road and he spoke faintly “Was that a bad thought, was I bad when that song played? Tell me good things please? Tell me how happy I made you when I sat at the wishing well in 1979 and asked you to marry me, tell me that was good please?” I looked at the short grey hairs that flecked around his ears; I could see his soft brown eyes flicker as he steered safely along the dark rainy road. His knuckles gripped the steering wheel, I could tell you a story for every mark, every scar on those fingers, and how those fingers held my face, held our new born baby, how they grabbed me hard and hurt me, how they rolled heavy barrels, how they punched threatening men, how they once held a diamond for me and how they washed me slowly and gently, rinsing blood and sweat from my torn and used body after childbirth. We arrived in Sheffield emotionally drained…fuck music does take it out of you eh? The show went well, I was MC for Funny Women on tour and the gig was just great. The hotel was extremely odd… it was Travelodge, so say no more! The remote control on the TV did not work and when I asked the spotty blonde wearing the “My name is Kat, ask me for help” badge, if they had WI/FI internet connection, she looked at me as if I had spoken Elvish or Hobbiton, so I let it go. I went to get a shower and was horrified to see that a huge electric fan was stuck on the tiled wall right beside the shower head and it was gaping open exposing naked wires… conveniently near enough to let water splash onto it…why? Here is the picture,

I got two emails today from my blogger pals asking me ‘How fat are you?’ Cheeky bastards! Fat enough to tell everyone I know I am on a diet- is how fucking fat I am!

 

I know it is crunch time as all that fits me round the fat ass is the old purpley linen cropped trousers I bought last year and to be honest its not really cropped linen trouser time…the fucking rain tells me that.

 

Guess what? It’s stopped raining and the sun is here…hurrah just in time for me to wear my cropped purpley things for the last time this year! I know I am extra fat as none of the bra’s I bought will encompass my overflowing fat boobies…not a good look.

 

So here I am eating stuff like buck wheat, lentils, millet and hemp…I know! - How much does that sound like the stuff you feed a fucking scary owl?

 I have an owl’s diet…no doubt I will get ‘bird flu’.

I read in the papers today that we have to watch out for dead birds…when I was in Edinburgh at the Fringe; there were dead pigeons out on that back court daily, it was either bird flu or angry killer rats that ran a protection racket which saw the ill-fated pigeons fail on a payment and end up on the pavement. Hey I know rat lingo…!

 

So having eaten food that sounds like Japanese torture techniques, I must have lost some weight this week eh? Failing that I will turn into one of those middle class hippy type people who un-wrap an organic cucumber on the tube and nibble it between stops as I tuck my organic hemp, hand dyed skirt under my hairy thighs and wrap up my unruly grey hair (dyeing it is unhealthy) and go off down the platform looking for sick birds to rescue and tuck into a shoe box that used to contain non leather organic tofu sandals! That will be me.

 

I will go on weekend retreats that involve bead making and mung bean burgers stalls and teach myself re-birthing and pull a mini fat Janey made entirely from reclaimed cat fur from my vagina as ex-beaten housewives bang drums and chant tunes from dolphin dreams. After that we can all sit down to a big treat of lemon and dog eye herbal tea and talk about the wonders of the birth canal.

 

Ok that is never going to happen, but the strange thing is…I know that shit goes on somewhere and I am missing out on the fun of it all…

 

Am still on my diet, which means NO sweets or choccies whatsoever and it is killing me, don’t forget I stopped smoking again two days ago…I know-my life is fucking evil hell. I am not on any substitute nicotine or anything, I am simply gnawing the legs off my table and thinking of the various ways to slowly kill husband as he sits there eating crunchy chocolate biscuits. I have had chick pea and rice with roasted salmon for lunch and went out with my old pal Janette for dinner. We ordered haggis, neeps and tatties…my dish was burnt and the haggis was all crunchy and decimated. Who the hell can burn our National dish? How hard is it to heat up haggis? I could not even eat it and then I refused dessert.

 

Yet husband eats crunchy biscuits….covered in chocolate…AAARRGGHHH!

I am making ‘high energy smoothies’, ginger, pears, natural yogurt and nutmeg….MMmmmm yummy!! All we need is some crack in there to give it a lift!

 

I want real food, chocolate and 40 fags a day…but then again I hate the fact my knees hurt, I cant breathe and there is layers of flab that sit on my back with no real anatomical reason for being there, except of course to make me look even more like an Oompa Loompa in a small tight dress.

 

So now I am detoxing and will be slim and sexy, I want you all to wait patiently for the alluring enticing pictures of me…fuck! Kate Moss has been sacked maybe I can be next ‘face’ for Chanel? Yes…can you see me in a tight black sexy dress, lounging on a chaise long, whilst I wrap my taut thighs about the fit back of some young boy with blond floppy hair, dirty mouth and the type of guy who’s skins still fits him…Grrrrrr? Rock On.

 

After the copious amounts of ginger/chick peas/ whole rice/ lentils that have been stuffed down my throat, I am scared to go to the toilet…I mean all that whole food with husks…Its not going to be pretty, what is going to come out of there?

 

Let’s not dwell on that. Talk soon, I am off to dream of chocolate covered fags.

It’s making me blue, all this rain. I know that’s selfish in comparison to other natural weather disasters, but I feel sick with the rain…every day …every hour…rain and more rain. The streets look slick, the sky is constantly dark throughout the day and the incessant noisy ‘swish’ as car go driving through the wet roads beside my flat backed up with constant drip, drip from the skies is making me crazy. I had to go out today and I HATE going out in the rain, Glasgow is so dirty and mixed with the deep puddles and fucking manky rain, my clothes smelt like mould, my jeans were soaked up to the calves and fucking filthy sky water had stained my jacket…I hate it. AAARRRGGhhh…… I want to be on that beach on Great Barrier Island, just off the coast of Auckland, I wanna be there…sitting on the white sand watching dolphins play in the cove. I had such fun and peace there, why the fuck am I in the city of RAIN? Life goes on in the dark city streets, I complain but at least I don’t have to live on the wet pavements, like some people who are homeless, so I must stop whingeing! I am off to Sheffield this Friday to work; I have never been there before and am looking forward to seeing how that city looks in the rain! (It will rain trust me…its fucking following me) Decided to eat healthily today and cooked whole grain rice, lentils and chick peas…fuck it looked awful but tasted really nice! I crumbled a chicken stock cube into it and that made it taste better. I need to lose weight and get off sugar and fats, so I am eating whole foods that are less processed, I am not sure how evil a stock cube is, but it can only be better than my normal daily intake of chocolate/jelly sweets/cakes and ice cream. I am determined to get fitter and eat less crap. Who knows I may just look better after six weeks of lentils and rice? Then again, I may end up a farting machine….

It has now rained for exactly 12 hours here in Glasgow. I am waiting on Ashley coming home from Uni and I know she will be soaked through and that drives me mad…like me, she never wears a heavy coat and NEVER carries a brolly. I went shopping today to buy something nice to appear on BBC Scotland’s Craig Hill show, I settled on a red long cardi-thing, it looks warm and nice and may hide the fattest ass on television that week, with the exception of the fat chic on Good Morning breakfast show. If you are in Glasgow and want to be part of the audience click on this link HERE I seriously need to adapt myself to a crack habit to shed the lard, I am crap at dieting, and so serious measures are required. I just hate the thought of sitting watching breakfast TV whilst freebasing cocaine. It’s not really an ‘Autumn’ look, yes I know it’s a kinda Chelsea/Kings Rd Kate Moss vibe…but I can’t really get away with it. It will probably cost me ten grand in drugs and ten grand on rehab…not a fucking good idea eh? The fashion shops are full of thick tweed suits, starched white shirts and Victorian looking fitted jackets…now on the very young and very thin that look is awesome finished off with a pair of dark copper leather knee high boots…on me I look like a fat tweedy Miss Marple in kinky boots. So freebase cocaine here I come…or maybe I can just quit chocolate and save myself a lot of cash and prospective prostitution? I am looking forward to performing at the M74 JAM, it’s a night of protest and stuff and I will be reading from my book, here is a link to the website HERE its not an organisation that makes boiled fruit preserves whilst listening to the music of the seventies! Try it.

Firstly, I got very bored and tried in rainy Manchester so I booked myself in for a beauty massage. I waited outside the salon and had a hot chocolate in a smart coffee bar. Beside me was this very old, yet extremely poised elegant lady. She was smoking those pastel coloured cigarettes Sobraine, so I leaned over and said “Wow, I haven’t seen those fancy fags in years”. The elderly woman smiled, flicked the pink ciggie and replied in the poshest Queens English “Actually I buy them from Harrods where I used to live, but now I live here near my family and there is only one shop in Manchester that sells them”. She then went onto tell me her ENTIRE life story, how she won the Burma Star for services as a nurse during the war and how she ‘Will never buy anything Japanese as they are a dirty evil cruel race”, then she told me how her two grand daughters are training to be barristers…by this time I want to talk, but she is a professional talker and sussed me out as scum, therefore knowing my station I let her talk…Fuck I was frustrated, but NO, I cant talk as she is TALKING and has photo’s. The most surprising piece of information was that she told me the latest news about ‘That gay chap, pop star George’ I answered “George Michael?” “No…not him, the fat common George who dresses with very down market hats”. “Oh Boy George!” I exclaimed. “Yes, apparently he thought his apartment was being burgled, he called the police to his place in New York and the found copious amounts of cocaine and he is now facing 15 years in prison” She added. Well, can you credit that? I knew nothing…and an 85 year old Dame was giving me drug and pop news all at once. Anyway, I left got my massage and had a great gig coz England won the match….thank God! So this morning I woke up really odd and sad as I had been dreaming about my mammy all night. I saw her, I held her and hugged her near…it broke my heart, to leave her and wake up. The ache nearly killed me, I walked slowly to the train station, got on the train and sat down and wrote my mammy a letter. I know that sounds mental, but it felt right as I had no other way of expressing the pain as I faced a five hour journey feeling so low. My mammy was murdered in 1982 by her then boyfriend Peter, he killed her and left her in the river and he even escaped charges. This year after much searching for Peter, I discovered that he had himself been murdered back in 1996. So here is the letter I wrote on the train today. Hope its not too sentimental tosh. To my Mammy, Dear Mammy, I am nearly the age you were when you died. I find that hard to believe that you were in fact so young, yet I thought you were so old back then. It’s true that youth is wasted on the young. I dreamt so clearly about you last night mammy and it was so strong, I smelt your hair. I was in a Thistle Hotel in Manchester, all alone. I don’t work in the pub anymore, that pub was where I was when I heard you were in the river in 1982. I am now a stand up comic and writer mammy. Remember how we used to listen to Billy Connolly LPs on the old Dansette record player and we would laugh? Do you remember how I used to say “I want to do what he does and make people laugh” Well that’s kinda what I do, but not nearly as good as Billy Connolly. It may please you to know that the press (Yes! I know people in the press, a lot of things have changed since we last saw each other) well the press and critics say I am the ‘female’ Billy Connolly! I am not sure how he feels about that or even if he has heard it, but it is a strange image eh? In the dream a few hours ago I looked at your short grey hair and saw how unruly it looked, your piercing eyes were staring at me and you wrapped your cardigan tightly around you, then you tap danced perfectly, then shuffled your feet, moving like Ginger Rodgers in an old Hollywood movie. I loved watching you dance, you were truly magical. I wish I could move like you-graceful yet sassy! I spent my 42nd birthday in Hollywood a couple of years back. I was alone there as I was coming home from New Zealand on a comedy tour that I had done. Your birthday had been days before. I went into the Hollywood hills to look at those big letters that you so wished you lived beneath, when you had those big dreams of being a dancing star! I then went into the Hollywood walk of fame and left a bunch of flowers in your memory and imagined you were up there with Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. Now I don’t know if women from Glasgow get into “Hollywood Heaven” but I am sure your gift of the gab and sheer pzazz would have gained you entry into the velvet rope area of dead stars! Just to keep you updated, I am still married to my husband, him of “Two left feet and canny dance for neither love nor money” fame. We are 25 years together now. You were right way back then- we were too different, I talk too much and he stares at things that aren’t there and never utters a word of interest….but we have made it now. It has been very hard mammy, he hasn’t been the easiest person and to be honest I should have left many times…but strangely I wanted to change him…some women do that with men eh? If scandal can pass through “Heaven” and the freshly dead can bring up the news to you people, then I am sure you will have heard from recently deceased pal Katie McGregor (she died last month) –that I have had my autobiography published and told everything about our family, secrets and all. Yes. I told about your beloved brother David sexually abusing me mammy…I told them. I am worried how you will feel about it all and knowing your pal Katie, in her ghostly manner and insistent gossiping, she will give you a shit version of the book, as I knew she hated me writing it. She told me so when she was alive! I wish you could read it mammy and let me know how you feel about it all. If you are angry, you will have to wait a while to tell me off as I intend to outlive everyone…Still I hope you like it as you always loved reading and passed that love of books onto me. Remember how you would stay up all night to finish a book, then tell me the whole plot and what you thought of it? I do that as well and have passed that onto my daughter. Yes I have girl, you never got to see her, she is called Ashley and you would love her mammy, she has so many of your characteristics and loves Musicals. She can dance and sing. She has your attitude and spirit, she could talk the birds out of the trees and is so tall and beautiful that sometimes I think I am so blessed to have such a happy girl I feel guilty. Ashley is 19 and is off to University (she made it mammy I never!). She is studying filmmaking and screenplay writing, she does my all my press and helps me when I am performing comedy. She swears she is going to make it and go to Hollywood. Wonder where she gets that from? You would love her, as she is one of your kind, the kind that laughs at life, the kind that always sees the best in everyone and is ready to take on the world. Like you once were, like I imagine you were at 19 years old. What became of that young woman you once were and when did you get to be the old woman with grey hair and no teeth? When did you give up and become the woman who let a man hit you and eventually kill you? I know that’s a bad thing to say, I am sorry mammy, I love you and miss you dearly and would sell my soul to sit beside you again and count the golden flecks that would light up the pupils of your eyes. Do you still have nine in one eye and four in the other? Remember you let me count the unique wee sparkles that made your eyes dance? Mammy, I am 44 years of age now and I have made some awful mistakes that I regret. Sometimes they keep me awake, is that normal? Do you forgive me for all that I have done? God can wait for his apology, he never heard my prayers, so it’s hardly likely he will hear my sorry-ness, I want you to forgive me and share your wisdom. I ache and yearn for that. Am I someone you are proud of? I am trying not to cry as I am on the train and I hurt thinking about you and how much we have missed together, I really needed you sometimes. Things went very wrong in my life and I had no one to share that with...I am sorry. So here it is. I wrote that book to the best of my ability, I told the truth and you are very much a part of that. I don’t regret anything I wrote about you mammy. You were a good woman who never made it as a dancer, who never got the right chances, who never let disappointment soak your soul, even when you knew life was fucked and men would never save you. I am sorry you died alone in that water, but mammy you need to know this…life, men and loneliness will NEVER screw me up, not now and you gave me that. Keep coming back in my dreams, I cherish those moments of peace I have with you. Keep watching me mammy, go and dance with Elvis, Frank and your beloved Judy; they will be in good company. Your daughter Janey.

Manchester is heaving, the whole city is gearing up for the big England versus Austria football match tonight, and the city is being hammered by relentless rain. I am here to emcee Jongleurs and last night went as good as. I love the Manchester club, there is something about it that gives it that 'bear pit' feeling, which can be scary but is more often just fun.

So here I am sitting waiting in an internet shop, wondering how the night will fare, if England get beaten, do they happy people turn up sad? Probably.

 

Wish I had more interesting stuff to say, but to be honest I am wet, cold and in Manchester....maybe tomorrow I will have loads to say, maybe by then God will have stopped talking to George Bush and turned his attention to me. I cannot take on board that God had a chit chat with that wanker...I have to say when Bush hammers on about the danger of extreme religious fundamentalists…I find that very ironic, as you don’t get anymore extreme that saying GOD told you bomb innocent people.

Why doesn’t God talk to people and tell them to take up knitting for the poor, or talk to chav's and tell them to clean up graffiti?

Who knows...talk tomorrow?

I have realised that over the past 25 years I have managed to manipulate or as it is called in upper class circles managed the art of ‘House Husbandry’. Below are some tips passed down to me by various women who used to drink in my bar years ago…they are fucking scary… 1. Always pretend not to be able to cook, burn everything you touch, (this way you will never have to cook EVER). This is good but I suppose dropping a baby to avoid nappy changing is a bit too far. 2. Spend months being lovely, pliable and amiable and at the drop of a hat, scream into his face that ‘You don’t understand me, I hate seafood’ 3. Tell him you are a twin and your twin died at birth, then explain that was just a joke. Three months later cry about your lost twin, burn down the house and say you were hearing your twins voice. (An old pal told me that one, scary and a bit extreme). 4. Refuse sex for weeks, then in the middle of the night wake him up and demand powerful jungle sex, bite and scratch and demand three orgasms. 5. Buy loads of clothes on a joint credit card, when the huge bill arrives, cry into your dress and weep about your poverty stricken childhood and threaten to cut off all your hair! 6. Pluck out his hair when he is drunk and make him feel sad about baldness. 7. Put Ralgex heat cream inside a condom and make him think the burning on his cock is his badly managed thrusting and his quickness at sex. Ok I have NEVER done any of the above, because it just seems like too much effort, I prefer to use my secret powers of passive/aggressive personality to weaken him slowly. I could never pretend all that shit above and try to get away with it, it takes a lot of ‘play acting’ to carry out the above and I would never fucking remember if I was supposed to be Mary Poppins or Myra Hindley and possibly get both mixed up and that’s not good when you are dealing with children! I just want to be me and I am happy with the man he has become, its better than the 16 year old he was when we got engaged, he was arrogant, annoying, immature and I was perfect! (Well nearly). Jerry Hall told us we had to be a whore in the bedroom and chef in the kitchen. I was neither. I don’t intend to wear red peep hole bra’s, suck cock and make quiche. Life is too short.