Yes I did meet him, he was about fifty years old, smelled like a cats ear and had a beard that owls lived in but he said he was Jesus and I didn’t want to be the Doubting Thomas of my generation, mostly because I am not called Thomas and the other reason was -what if he really was Jesus and I called him a fucking smelly old bastard?
That’s wouldn’t be very welcoming to a man that came along way and expected a party on his arrival would it?
“I am Jesus the son of God” He shouted at me as I tried to squeeze plastic bottles into the recycling bin that husband makes me go to, every time I leave home I have to carry various plastic shapes and shove them into an unfeasibly small hole in the big green wheelie thing.
So I smiled and said “Hello Jesus, you must be glad to get shot of those sandals what with Glasgow being freezing?”
“Yes, I am glad, now have you any money for me?” he snarled through black teeth as a big squawking crow flew out of his beard (that didn’t really happen but I imagined it could, I was bored….Jesus is quite boring and demanding).
“No I am sorry, I gave most of my spare cash to the Catholic lady shaking a can at the end of the road, but since you are Jesus I did indirectly give it you” I smiled.
“She never gives it to me” he shouted and things that I am not sure of rattled in his big dirty over coat.
“Well that’s Catholics for you” I answered.
“She will give that money to the Vatican and they will buy gold shit with it” He growled.
“Yes, I suppose being Jesus that stuff must belong to you then eh? You should go to Rome and claim it back and buy cider with it or give it to poor people” I added.
“Buy cider with it” he confirmed and nodded his big woolly dirty head and rubbed his face with coal miners fingers, all black and grimy.
“They never give it to poor people and I don’t need anymore statues” He spoke as I finally shoved the last green plastic bottle in.
“Well I am sorry Jesus, I am saving all my spare cash as your birthday at Christmas costs lots of money and I need to buy a Playstation 3 for my daughter” I sarcastically threw into the conversation with our dirty Messiah.
He swung round and his dirty big coat let out a reek of piss and booze, he bowed elaborately, pointed one toe and then grabbed my arm and swung me under it singing “King of the Road” at the top of his voice.
People watched- shop keepers peeped through windows and old people crossed the road to avoid me and Jesus having a bit of a dance.
We stopped and I finally inhaled a breath (the smell was rotten; Jesus has very questionable hygiene habits). He kissed the back of my hand and ran down the road with his dirty coat flapping in the cold wind screaming “Fuck off, I want cider”.
Jesus must really like cider and there was us all believing he liked wine…who knew?
I hope he gets a bath before Christmas, he was a nice man, bit smelly and nothing like I imagined him to be, but at least I got to meet him.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
My First Marriage Proposal…
I was 16 and it was 1977, the year of punk in the UK, the year the Queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee. It was 27th September and I was standing outside the Palaceum Bar in my home town of Shettleston in Glasgow’s East End. It was bitterly cold, frost was settling on the pavement giving it a slippy-ness that made old people walk even slower.
That’s where I met the man who asked me to marry him; he was called ‘Barra’ that’s was his nickname, he was born on 24th May 1962.
Let me tell you about Barra.
He came from a big family of Catholic housebreaking robbers (nice eh?) We chatted briefly and recalled how we had known each other as wee kids. I didn’t really fancy him; I didn’t really know what fancy-ing was to be honest. I wasn’t your average 16 year old sexy teenager. In fact I looked like a boy to be truthful and was often mistaken for one. Not that that fact puts a slant on Barra’s sexuality! I was chatty and was interested in loads of stuff, but not sexy or sexual in the least.
Anyway we walked together and he took me by the hand into this close (that’s a long public hallway in the Glasgow tenements) and we kissed for what seemed ages and I got slightly worried because I had to get to work in the morning and I had a curfew of 10pm. That time limit annoyed me as I was working and surely an adult? But my mammy insisted I get home for 10pm.
Time went on and I had to stop the kissing for two reasons.
1) I didn’t really like kissing
2) I didn’t actually know this boy and wanted to look at him but the darkness blurred my vision and every time we stopped kissing, I could feel his face very close to mine and to ease that uncomfortable quiet close scrutiny I kissed more!
We did eventually stop kissing and he brusquely grabbed my hand and led me out of the close and walked off into the cold and left me as if we had never been there in the first place. It was an odd feeling, like when you accidentally catch sight of some school friend naked at swimming class then meet them later standing at the school canteen. You know more about them than you needed to and now there sits that awkwardness that had never existed before. It was kind of like that.
Barra and I had held hands, touched each others faces, lips had met, tongues had been flickered and now we were strangers again. Maybe he was shyer than me?
I walked home in the freezing cold and went over it in my head. It was nice and dangerous and yet oddly I felt disconnected.
Maybe after kissing me he realised I was shite at it and left disappointed? Who knew? Not me!
I went to work the next day and when I got home I ran round to the Italian Café where I hung out with my mates. The Italian Café was our local place to be and there was a man who worked there we called Spock because he really did look like Doctor Spock from Star Trek. His long brown face, sharp arched eyebrows, flat dark shiny hair that came to a point on his forehead made him a real point of attention for us kids. “Spock can I have 20p tub of ice cream?” he never blinked or reacted which made us even more convinced he was a Vulcan. He was the only man who never got the usual two finger salute from us cheeky kids; we always gave him the open palm V sign that made Spock famous on TV!
Anyway my pal Elaine was there; she was two years younger than me and had just finished school.
“Guess who I kissed last night walking home from my sister’s house?” I giggled.
“Who?” She answered.
“Barra” I said.
Before we could react to my exciting information, I turned and there Barra was standing behind me. He looked angry and mumbled something to me and indicated that we go outside with one finger pointing to the door.
I was so shocked, I didn’t expect to see him and now was horrified that he had heard me tell Elaine, maybe he didn’t want anyone to know?
Holy Fuck! I thought…. I am in trouble. I knew he was violent and had heard about him fighting and stabbing people, he had a reputation. Was he going to slap me or something? I was shaken and slowly pushed through the queue and walked outside.
He stood there; around him were a few older guys that I knew were friends of my older brother. They all nodded when they saw me and then carried on chatting.
I stared at my shoes, they were shiny black brogues that were in fashion at that time, women wearing middle classed men’s shoes? Who knows? Anyway I stood and avoided eye contact. The glare of the café lights lit the whole street up.
“Janey” he whispered near my face.
I looked up and saw his very blonde hair, extremely blue eyes and pale skin and secretly wondered if he was actually German!
“What?” I answered. Teenagers can be very monosyllabic when it suits them.
He lifted up my chin and kissed me there in front of everyone. I recall being so embarrassed and could hear people laughing. I pushed him off and expected to see young guys pointing and laughing at me but they were all in other conversations, till one looked over and said “Barra you coming to the pub?”
“I will catch up you go” he said. He could get into pubs and buy beer.
He was only 15 but did look much older, he had a blonde moustache growing and had a weary grown-up face, and also his family’s reputation guaranteed that not many people gave him trouble. They were a just a bunch of petty criminals, though two of his brothers were serving time for robbing a post office in Glasgow.
“Can we meet later?” he seemed so confident and adult now.
“Yes ok” I stammered.
“Where will we meet?” he added smiling.
“Here” I said, I didn’t have many other places to go in Shettleston, it wasn’t like a sprawling metropolis with memorable landmarks and meeting places, it was either the café or the grave yard and I didn’t think the grave yard sounded romantic enough!
“Do you drink?” he asked me as he went to walk off.
“Yes” I replied then suddenly wondered if he meant alcohol, which I didn’t drink but I did drink Irn Bru (Scottish soft drink), and I thought maybe he wanted to bring me a can of Irn Bru as a gift and then all of that sounded mental and I added “I drink but nothing alcohol just mainly water, tea and Irn Bru and sometimes milk”
The stupid words all came out of my stupid mouth and he laughed out loud as he walked to open the pub door next to the café and shouted “They don’t sell milk, see you in an hour”.
I had a boyfriend!
I worked way up in Castlemilk, which was 10 miles from Glasgow’s East End and attended night school in Barmulloch which was 15 miles from Castlemilk! My nights and days were taken up with public transport and working in an old folks home.
Barra and I would get together two or three nights a week. We never went to my house as he was very shy about meeting my mammy and I never wanted him there as my house was so dirty and poor looking and sometimes the electric had been disconnected. So we spent most of the time hanging around closes, sitting in the cold street, chatting in the café or waiting on him getting a bus back to Easterhouse where he lived.
He would occasionally go to the pub with his brother and I would wait for him to come out, kiss for a wee while, wait for him to get on the bus and then go home. It wasn’t an exciting courtship, pretty boring to be honest and he never really spoke much. The kissing never went further than cuddling up against the cold and that suited me totally. He never asked me or pushed me further into anything more.
One Saturday he came to see me, unusually he was waiting for me at the bottom on my street. I could see him standing there, pacing and chatting to his older brother. I worried what may have happened, maybe yet another police charge for him (he had been pulled in by the police a few times since we had been seeing each other).
I reached him and he was staring nervously at me, his brother was rubbing his chin and stood then stood with his back to me.
“Janey, I fell asleep last night at this girl’s house and we woke up together in bed and I think something happened, you know what I mean” he stammered this out.
I looked at his brother who finally made eye contact, Barra stood there watching my face. I was touched that he had needed support to tell me this, I actually felt odd, because his demeanour required a reaction and I didn’t have one. I didn’t care if he had sex with another girl, I really didn’t and that moment scared me, because it meant he thought more of this relationship than me.
“I don’t care, if you are shagging someone it means you won’t be pestering me” I blurted out.
“I don’t pester you” he shouted angrily.
His brother walked away and Barra let him go. We walked together and got up to the café.
He looked so sad and I kept reassuring him it was fine, I was ok about it. In my naivety, I thought placating him and ignoring his ‘mistake’ was being a good girlfriend – he realised that it meant I didn’t really care enough to be angry. I was NEW to all these dating things remember.
That night as we stood wrapped up in each other kissing in the close he pulled my face close, I could smell the beer on his breath and I hated that, he then whispered “I love you Janey”
I was shocked, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say so I added “Me too” then realised that wasn’t actually an answer.
Barra pushed me out of the hug and spat “Fucksake, do you know how long it took me to say that” and walked away from me out into the cold.
We made up eventually, but we hardly spoke on a real deep level, he mostly sat on a step then got drunk and I chatted away about pop music, people at work, my studies, my latest art project, my mammy, my nephew, my favourite things, my yearning to travel, my political opinion and so much more as he just sat and stared at me.
When pressed he never had an opinion on anything, he had no intention to get a job, had no thoughts on his future, shrugged when asked what he wanted to be when older and over all never made any comments about anything. It bored me to death….I had a million things to do.
One night when we were walking back from the close to the bus stop (we did this every night we met, it was fucking freezing and I worked daily) we met an old friend of his mums.
“Hello Barra, how are you?” she asked in a jolly way.
“Am great Mrs Wilson how’s the boys?” he answered.
“Is this your new girlfriend? Your mammy said you had a new lassie” she smiled at me.
“Aye this is Janey, she is a…..college person” he beamed “She goes to a college at night and does college things” he stammered over his words, he was trying to boast about me but forgot the word for people who attend college.
“I am a part time student studying English and Art” I said.
“Why would you do that shite? You not getting married? I heard you were getting married Barra” the old woman added.
Barra blushed and mumbled something and we walked off.
I was horrified and staring at the wet pavement as we headed for the bus stop.
“Come up to see my mammy tonight?” he asked me.
“I have work in the morning and you’re a bit drunk, are you sure?” I tried to wangle out of it. He pleaded and I agreed.
We ended up on the long dreary bus ride to Easterhouse. The old ramshackle green bus trundled through the dimly lit streets heading out of the city and into the out lying schemes.
Finally we got to his street and walked the short distance to his six in a block 1940’s three bed roomed flats. His home was warm and smelled clean. I had met his wee mammy and dad before, just a regular nice middle aged, working class couple, except his mum looked older and beaten down by life; she had a small thin frame and wispy grey hair pulled back from her face. They had raised seven kids, most of which had ended up in trouble with the police.
I sat there and accepted the cup of tea, his mum smiled and chatted away to me and Barra sat there huddled near the fire.
“Janey will you marry me?” he blurted out.
I was stunned by the remark, he looked at me, his mum looked at me, his dad stared at me and I clenched everything in my body with sheer terror and shock. In the background a clock ticked, a cat stretched and meowed on the chair and everyone waited for my answer.
“I don’t want to get married, I want to go and paint the Taj Mahal” was the only words that came tumbling out of my mouth.
“The Taj Mahal? Is that a restaurant in Parkhead?” Barra said “Why would you want to paint that?”
“No its in India I think, its beautiful and I want to travel and maybe go to Australia, I like kangaroos” I added…words…. just fucking weird words kept coming out of the big hole in the front of my head.
The room went silent, I stared at the flowery cup in my hand, I could feel the glow from the fire on my face mixed in with the utter horror and embarrassment that swept over me, what was wrong with me? Who else mentions kangaroo’s in the middle of a marriage proposal?
“You are only fifteen Barra, I am only sixteen and haven’t finished my studies, we are really too young” the first sensible words came out.
“You can leave college, you said that it costs too much didn’t you? We can get a house near your ma’s and we can have kids, they don’t have to be Catholic” he looked at me speaking for the first time since I had mentioned Indian Palaces and kangaroo’s.
“You have to pay for college?” his mammy asked.
“Yes, its night school but I work all week and can afford it” I replied “I really want to get some qualifications so I can get a good job, I hate kids and don’t want a council house in Shettleston”
“What do you want to work at hen?” his dad asked me.
“I want to…..I am not sure really, but I want to travel” I spoke quietly, annoyed at my own lack of direction.
It was the beginning of the end. As I left his flat that night his mammy took me by the arm at her door and said “Go hen, go do what you want to do, marriage isn’t everything and my boys are bad news, I love them but you go see that Taj Mahal”
Barra and I broke up after that New Year, we really ran out of things to say I think. He was also accused of mugging an old man for his whisky on the way home from a shop and I was dragged into the police office for questioning as the police thought I may have witnessed something. I hadn’t but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted in my life. I never wanted to be involved in police issues. (Well we all know how that turned out! I got charged with possessing guns in our house in 1994- sometimes you can’t avoid that stuff)
I still have a poster of the Taj Mahal.
I never did see it, I still haven’t been to Australia and chased kangaroos, but I did meet another man who was born on the 24th of May 1962, outside the Palaceum bar and I did marry him on 27th September in 1980 (the day I met Barra in 1977). Strange coincidence? Who knows?
But I think I got the right man, last I heard Barra was selling drugs to kids in the street and has been in and out of prison for years now.
That’s where I met the man who asked me to marry him; he was called ‘Barra’ that’s was his nickname, he was born on 24th May 1962.
Let me tell you about Barra.
He came from a big family of Catholic housebreaking robbers (nice eh?) We chatted briefly and recalled how we had known each other as wee kids. I didn’t really fancy him; I didn’t really know what fancy-ing was to be honest. I wasn’t your average 16 year old sexy teenager. In fact I looked like a boy to be truthful and was often mistaken for one. Not that that fact puts a slant on Barra’s sexuality! I was chatty and was interested in loads of stuff, but not sexy or sexual in the least.
Anyway we walked together and he took me by the hand into this close (that’s a long public hallway in the Glasgow tenements) and we kissed for what seemed ages and I got slightly worried because I had to get to work in the morning and I had a curfew of 10pm. That time limit annoyed me as I was working and surely an adult? But my mammy insisted I get home for 10pm.
Time went on and I had to stop the kissing for two reasons.
1) I didn’t really like kissing
2) I didn’t actually know this boy and wanted to look at him but the darkness blurred my vision and every time we stopped kissing, I could feel his face very close to mine and to ease that uncomfortable quiet close scrutiny I kissed more!
We did eventually stop kissing and he brusquely grabbed my hand and led me out of the close and walked off into the cold and left me as if we had never been there in the first place. It was an odd feeling, like when you accidentally catch sight of some school friend naked at swimming class then meet them later standing at the school canteen. You know more about them than you needed to and now there sits that awkwardness that had never existed before. It was kind of like that.
Barra and I had held hands, touched each others faces, lips had met, tongues had been flickered and now we were strangers again. Maybe he was shyer than me?
I walked home in the freezing cold and went over it in my head. It was nice and dangerous and yet oddly I felt disconnected.
Maybe after kissing me he realised I was shite at it and left disappointed? Who knew? Not me!
I went to work the next day and when I got home I ran round to the Italian Café where I hung out with my mates. The Italian Café was our local place to be and there was a man who worked there we called Spock because he really did look like Doctor Spock from Star Trek. His long brown face, sharp arched eyebrows, flat dark shiny hair that came to a point on his forehead made him a real point of attention for us kids. “Spock can I have 20p tub of ice cream?” he never blinked or reacted which made us even more convinced he was a Vulcan. He was the only man who never got the usual two finger salute from us cheeky kids; we always gave him the open palm V sign that made Spock famous on TV!
Anyway my pal Elaine was there; she was two years younger than me and had just finished school.
“Guess who I kissed last night walking home from my sister’s house?” I giggled.
“Who?” She answered.
“Barra” I said.
Before we could react to my exciting information, I turned and there Barra was standing behind me. He looked angry and mumbled something to me and indicated that we go outside with one finger pointing to the door.
I was so shocked, I didn’t expect to see him and now was horrified that he had heard me tell Elaine, maybe he didn’t want anyone to know?
Holy Fuck! I thought…. I am in trouble. I knew he was violent and had heard about him fighting and stabbing people, he had a reputation. Was he going to slap me or something? I was shaken and slowly pushed through the queue and walked outside.
He stood there; around him were a few older guys that I knew were friends of my older brother. They all nodded when they saw me and then carried on chatting.
I stared at my shoes, they were shiny black brogues that were in fashion at that time, women wearing middle classed men’s shoes? Who knows? Anyway I stood and avoided eye contact. The glare of the café lights lit the whole street up.
“Janey” he whispered near my face.
I looked up and saw his very blonde hair, extremely blue eyes and pale skin and secretly wondered if he was actually German!
“What?” I answered. Teenagers can be very monosyllabic when it suits them.
He lifted up my chin and kissed me there in front of everyone. I recall being so embarrassed and could hear people laughing. I pushed him off and expected to see young guys pointing and laughing at me but they were all in other conversations, till one looked over and said “Barra you coming to the pub?”
“I will catch up you go” he said. He could get into pubs and buy beer.
He was only 15 but did look much older, he had a blonde moustache growing and had a weary grown-up face, and also his family’s reputation guaranteed that not many people gave him trouble. They were a just a bunch of petty criminals, though two of his brothers were serving time for robbing a post office in Glasgow.
“Can we meet later?” he seemed so confident and adult now.
“Yes ok” I stammered.
“Where will we meet?” he added smiling.
“Here” I said, I didn’t have many other places to go in Shettleston, it wasn’t like a sprawling metropolis with memorable landmarks and meeting places, it was either the café or the grave yard and I didn’t think the grave yard sounded romantic enough!
“Do you drink?” he asked me as he went to walk off.
“Yes” I replied then suddenly wondered if he meant alcohol, which I didn’t drink but I did drink Irn Bru (Scottish soft drink), and I thought maybe he wanted to bring me a can of Irn Bru as a gift and then all of that sounded mental and I added “I drink but nothing alcohol just mainly water, tea and Irn Bru and sometimes milk”
The stupid words all came out of my stupid mouth and he laughed out loud as he walked to open the pub door next to the café and shouted “They don’t sell milk, see you in an hour”.
I had a boyfriend!
I worked way up in Castlemilk, which was 10 miles from Glasgow’s East End and attended night school in Barmulloch which was 15 miles from Castlemilk! My nights and days were taken up with public transport and working in an old folks home.
Barra and I would get together two or three nights a week. We never went to my house as he was very shy about meeting my mammy and I never wanted him there as my house was so dirty and poor looking and sometimes the electric had been disconnected. So we spent most of the time hanging around closes, sitting in the cold street, chatting in the café or waiting on him getting a bus back to Easterhouse where he lived.
He would occasionally go to the pub with his brother and I would wait for him to come out, kiss for a wee while, wait for him to get on the bus and then go home. It wasn’t an exciting courtship, pretty boring to be honest and he never really spoke much. The kissing never went further than cuddling up against the cold and that suited me totally. He never asked me or pushed me further into anything more.
One Saturday he came to see me, unusually he was waiting for me at the bottom on my street. I could see him standing there, pacing and chatting to his older brother. I worried what may have happened, maybe yet another police charge for him (he had been pulled in by the police a few times since we had been seeing each other).
I reached him and he was staring nervously at me, his brother was rubbing his chin and stood then stood with his back to me.
“Janey, I fell asleep last night at this girl’s house and we woke up together in bed and I think something happened, you know what I mean” he stammered this out.
I looked at his brother who finally made eye contact, Barra stood there watching my face. I was touched that he had needed support to tell me this, I actually felt odd, because his demeanour required a reaction and I didn’t have one. I didn’t care if he had sex with another girl, I really didn’t and that moment scared me, because it meant he thought more of this relationship than me.
“I don’t care, if you are shagging someone it means you won’t be pestering me” I blurted out.
“I don’t pester you” he shouted angrily.
His brother walked away and Barra let him go. We walked together and got up to the café.
He looked so sad and I kept reassuring him it was fine, I was ok about it. In my naivety, I thought placating him and ignoring his ‘mistake’ was being a good girlfriend – he realised that it meant I didn’t really care enough to be angry. I was NEW to all these dating things remember.
That night as we stood wrapped up in each other kissing in the close he pulled my face close, I could smell the beer on his breath and I hated that, he then whispered “I love you Janey”
I was shocked, I didn’t know what I was supposed to say so I added “Me too” then realised that wasn’t actually an answer.
Barra pushed me out of the hug and spat “Fucksake, do you know how long it took me to say that” and walked away from me out into the cold.
We made up eventually, but we hardly spoke on a real deep level, he mostly sat on a step then got drunk and I chatted away about pop music, people at work, my studies, my latest art project, my mammy, my nephew, my favourite things, my yearning to travel, my political opinion and so much more as he just sat and stared at me.
When pressed he never had an opinion on anything, he had no intention to get a job, had no thoughts on his future, shrugged when asked what he wanted to be when older and over all never made any comments about anything. It bored me to death….I had a million things to do.
One night when we were walking back from the close to the bus stop (we did this every night we met, it was fucking freezing and I worked daily) we met an old friend of his mums.
“Hello Barra, how are you?” she asked in a jolly way.
“Am great Mrs Wilson how’s the boys?” he answered.
“Is this your new girlfriend? Your mammy said you had a new lassie” she smiled at me.
“Aye this is Janey, she is a…..college person” he beamed “She goes to a college at night and does college things” he stammered over his words, he was trying to boast about me but forgot the word for people who attend college.
“I am a part time student studying English and Art” I said.
“Why would you do that shite? You not getting married? I heard you were getting married Barra” the old woman added.
Barra blushed and mumbled something and we walked off.
I was horrified and staring at the wet pavement as we headed for the bus stop.
“Come up to see my mammy tonight?” he asked me.
“I have work in the morning and you’re a bit drunk, are you sure?” I tried to wangle out of it. He pleaded and I agreed.
We ended up on the long dreary bus ride to Easterhouse. The old ramshackle green bus trundled through the dimly lit streets heading out of the city and into the out lying schemes.
Finally we got to his street and walked the short distance to his six in a block 1940’s three bed roomed flats. His home was warm and smelled clean. I had met his wee mammy and dad before, just a regular nice middle aged, working class couple, except his mum looked older and beaten down by life; she had a small thin frame and wispy grey hair pulled back from her face. They had raised seven kids, most of which had ended up in trouble with the police.
I sat there and accepted the cup of tea, his mum smiled and chatted away to me and Barra sat there huddled near the fire.
“Janey will you marry me?” he blurted out.
I was stunned by the remark, he looked at me, his mum looked at me, his dad stared at me and I clenched everything in my body with sheer terror and shock. In the background a clock ticked, a cat stretched and meowed on the chair and everyone waited for my answer.
“I don’t want to get married, I want to go and paint the Taj Mahal” was the only words that came tumbling out of my mouth.
“The Taj Mahal? Is that a restaurant in Parkhead?” Barra said “Why would you want to paint that?”
“No its in India I think, its beautiful and I want to travel and maybe go to Australia, I like kangaroos” I added…words…. just fucking weird words kept coming out of the big hole in the front of my head.
The room went silent, I stared at the flowery cup in my hand, I could feel the glow from the fire on my face mixed in with the utter horror and embarrassment that swept over me, what was wrong with me? Who else mentions kangaroo’s in the middle of a marriage proposal?
“You are only fifteen Barra, I am only sixteen and haven’t finished my studies, we are really too young” the first sensible words came out.
“You can leave college, you said that it costs too much didn’t you? We can get a house near your ma’s and we can have kids, they don’t have to be Catholic” he looked at me speaking for the first time since I had mentioned Indian Palaces and kangaroo’s.
“You have to pay for college?” his mammy asked.
“Yes, its night school but I work all week and can afford it” I replied “I really want to get some qualifications so I can get a good job, I hate kids and don’t want a council house in Shettleston”
“What do you want to work at hen?” his dad asked me.
“I want to…..I am not sure really, but I want to travel” I spoke quietly, annoyed at my own lack of direction.
It was the beginning of the end. As I left his flat that night his mammy took me by the arm at her door and said “Go hen, go do what you want to do, marriage isn’t everything and my boys are bad news, I love them but you go see that Taj Mahal”
Barra and I broke up after that New Year, we really ran out of things to say I think. He was also accused of mugging an old man for his whisky on the way home from a shop and I was dragged into the police office for questioning as the police thought I may have witnessed something. I hadn’t but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted in my life. I never wanted to be involved in police issues. (Well we all know how that turned out! I got charged with possessing guns in our house in 1994- sometimes you can’t avoid that stuff)
I still have a poster of the Taj Mahal.
I never did see it, I still haven’t been to Australia and chased kangaroos, but I did meet another man who was born on the 24th of May 1962, outside the Palaceum bar and I did marry him on 27th September in 1980 (the day I met Barra in 1977). Strange coincidence? Who knows?
But I think I got the right man, last I heard Barra was selling drugs to kids in the street and has been in and out of prison for years now.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Extreme sports people….
Yet again two men have been found after being lost in the Scottish mountains and died later of hypothermia, it’s really sad but I have a theory and possibly the answer.
Big frozen hostile mountains in Scotland are not MEANT to be climbed by human beings especially in the WINTER TIME!
If you really want to get an adrenaline rush, then lock yourself into a two bedroom flat that is occupied with two mental unstable needle wielding junkies and a starving Alsatian dog, cut off the electricity and stay there until you find the exit. The worst that can happen is- you may get jagged with a dirty needle and bitten by a tufty mad dog, but the excitement will be awesome AND the air rescue people won’t be involved.
I reckon when God (if it was him that made the earth) designed our world- he did it in a certain way that people can live on the flat safe bits and scary animals like bears and wolves can live in the high frozen bits, same as the sea….we don’t have the capability to breathe underwater so we STAY on the safe flats bits and don’t get eaten by sharks and killed by sting-rays or other underwater predators that live there. It just makes sense.
I don’t really understand people who pack stuff into a wee bag and decide to brave the elements and climb up a sheer snowy cliff face….doesn’t make any sense at all to me. It’s not as if there is a prize at the top?
Glasgow is freezing just now and if I could go to the shops with a feather duvet wrapped around me and tied at the waist with a rope then I would! I fucking hate the cold.
My idea of extreme sports is going to the local video store without wearing a bra, or peeing with the toilet door open, or having sex without brushing my teeth in the morning.
If you really need an adrenaline rush then buy adrenaline in injection form from a crooked nurse and hit up in your toilet, keep off our fucking frozen KILLER mountains……you will die!
Big frozen hostile mountains in Scotland are not MEANT to be climbed by human beings especially in the WINTER TIME!
If you really want to get an adrenaline rush, then lock yourself into a two bedroom flat that is occupied with two mental unstable needle wielding junkies and a starving Alsatian dog, cut off the electricity and stay there until you find the exit. The worst that can happen is- you may get jagged with a dirty needle and bitten by a tufty mad dog, but the excitement will be awesome AND the air rescue people won’t be involved.
I reckon when God (if it was him that made the earth) designed our world- he did it in a certain way that people can live on the flat safe bits and scary animals like bears and wolves can live in the high frozen bits, same as the sea….we don’t have the capability to breathe underwater so we STAY on the safe flats bits and don’t get eaten by sharks and killed by sting-rays or other underwater predators that live there. It just makes sense.
I don’t really understand people who pack stuff into a wee bag and decide to brave the elements and climb up a sheer snowy cliff face….doesn’t make any sense at all to me. It’s not as if there is a prize at the top?
Glasgow is freezing just now and if I could go to the shops with a feather duvet wrapped around me and tied at the waist with a rope then I would! I fucking hate the cold.
My idea of extreme sports is going to the local video store without wearing a bra, or peeing with the toilet door open, or having sex without brushing my teeth in the morning.
If you really need an adrenaline rush then buy adrenaline in injection form from a crooked nurse and hit up in your toilet, keep off our fucking frozen KILLER mountains……you will die!
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Children in Need singing…..
Craig Hill and I were part of the SPEX –Factor charity singing competition live on BBC Scotland on Friday night. It was all for Children in Need! We were up against TV presenters Julian Sinclair and his brother Cameron Stout, and the BAFTA award winning actors Kate Dickie and Ian Robertson. We were all doing The Proclaimers songs and GOD they are hard to sing without shouting!
I have never been that excited in my life! There I was all dressed up in a wee kilt, a new bra and top (The bra did make my boobies really high and scary but too late to go back now) and I stepped onto the huge stage set with my lovely singing comedy pal Craig Hill. I had to hike up my short legs onto the tall stool and sing my heart out and meanwhile my bladder felt like it would burst!
Craig can really-really sing and I am not too good but I did my best and we made a great effort, we even had a wee waltz at the end. The studio was mobbed with loads of fund raisers and guests, the air was full of flying cameras and strong lights and I was so happy we sang well.
The atmosphere was wonderful and we all knew it was for charity so we were all very supportive of each other and full of nerves. Craig is the consummate professional and never once made me feel nervous and encouraged me to sing my soul out…I LOVE him.
It was a phone result and after the votes came through Craig and I were knocked out first….we laughed our asses off and did breathe a wee sigh of relief because the next song we had to sing ‘Letter from America’ was so bloody hard we kind of relaxed that we didn’t have to go through with it, but it was such good fun that we all enjoyed the night.
There was such a party atmosphere backstage and God knows how that BBC Scotland staff managed all those people and all those kids and all those bloody short takes in between dealing with network BBC was amazing! I was impressed.
Husband called me and told me he was very proud of me and said I had ‘sexy legs’ on TV, dad called me and told me ‘You sat really nice on that stool’ (nothing about my singing obviously) and Ashley was DJ-ing in a club and said she could see me in silence as they kept the big screen on in her club and she clapped as she saw me walk on.
One of the judges in the studio was Lamar the sexy black UK soul singer and he was so nice and gave me some lovely compliments…..cute black man…mmmm…the Sugarbabes were live in our studio also and they were so gorgeous and tiny and sang like sexy angels!
I had such a great night and may give up comedy to pursue a career in pop music now...AM JOKING, thanks to all who voted and supported the charity.
I have never been that excited in my life! There I was all dressed up in a wee kilt, a new bra and top (The bra did make my boobies really high and scary but too late to go back now) and I stepped onto the huge stage set with my lovely singing comedy pal Craig Hill. I had to hike up my short legs onto the tall stool and sing my heart out and meanwhile my bladder felt like it would burst!
Craig can really-really sing and I am not too good but I did my best and we made a great effort, we even had a wee waltz at the end. The studio was mobbed with loads of fund raisers and guests, the air was full of flying cameras and strong lights and I was so happy we sang well.
The atmosphere was wonderful and we all knew it was for charity so we were all very supportive of each other and full of nerves. Craig is the consummate professional and never once made me feel nervous and encouraged me to sing my soul out…I LOVE him.
It was a phone result and after the votes came through Craig and I were knocked out first….we laughed our asses off and did breathe a wee sigh of relief because the next song we had to sing ‘Letter from America’ was so bloody hard we kind of relaxed that we didn’t have to go through with it, but it was such good fun that we all enjoyed the night.
There was such a party atmosphere backstage and God knows how that BBC Scotland staff managed all those people and all those kids and all those bloody short takes in between dealing with network BBC was amazing! I was impressed.
Husband called me and told me he was very proud of me and said I had ‘sexy legs’ on TV, dad called me and told me ‘You sat really nice on that stool’ (nothing about my singing obviously) and Ashley was DJ-ing in a club and said she could see me in silence as they kept the big screen on in her club and she clapped as she saw me walk on.
One of the judges in the studio was Lamar the sexy black UK soul singer and he was so nice and gave me some lovely compliments…..cute black man…mmmm…the Sugarbabes were live in our studio also and they were so gorgeous and tiny and sang like sexy angels!
I had such a great night and may give up comedy to pursue a career in pop music now...AM JOKING, thanks to all who voted and supported the charity.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Getting ready for my big BBC singing appearance…
Singing is something I am not very good at it, I cant really sing very well but am giving it my best shot for BBC Children in Need slot. I bought a lovely wee kilt and smart jumper to wear. Craig Hill is my beautiful singing partner and BOY can he sing he is just bloody amazing!
So Craig and I rehearsed and it seems to be good, we are singing the Proclaimers song ‘Sunshine on Leith’ and if we get through to the second round we are singing ‘Letter from America’.
So after the singing session I popped over to see baby Abi, her new baby sister Julia and their mother (my niece Ann Margaret). Abi is now aged three and the funniest wee creature in the world. I was amazed how big wee baby Julia had grown; she is no longer a wee ‘prawn’ newborn…she is so cute and her eyes are huge!
Ann Margaret went off to the shops and left me in charge.
I was cradling the baby and Abi said “Aunty Janey, can I face-paint myself?”
I agreed and carried on snuggling the wee new baby, then minutes later Abi came running into the room completely blacked up! Her entire face, ears, neck and hair were a deep shiny black!
All you could see were the whites of her dark eyes!
It was scary and funny to see a toddler do an ‘Al Jolson’ (Old US singer who blacked up and sang…very politically incorrect nowadays). I pissed myself laughing and decided to teach her the old Al Jolson song ‘Mammeee’ complete with blackened jazz hands.
When Ann Margaret came back from the shops Abi came running into the hall singing ‘Mammeee’ waving her wee fat black chubby hands, Ann Margaret screamed and dropped the shopping and shouted “Aunty Janey, what the hell have you done, she is doing a Black and White Minstrel show!”
I did explain that Abi did the make up, I only did the choreography!
So today I got Ashley up at 4pm, she had been DJ-ing last night and was out very late and went off to do my workshops. I am looking after a bunch of 12-16 year olds teaching them comedy as a form of reinforcing self confidence. Yesterday they were treated to an exclusive Q&A with an amazing BAFTA award winning Scottish Comedy Actor who will remain un-named, he is an old mate of mine and came along at my request… the kids were hysterical with excitement that he came to chat to them. I will forever be in his debt for coming along at such short notice and being very humble. I have good friends!
I am off to sing my songs….talk soon.
So Craig and I rehearsed and it seems to be good, we are singing the Proclaimers song ‘Sunshine on Leith’ and if we get through to the second round we are singing ‘Letter from America’.
So after the singing session I popped over to see baby Abi, her new baby sister Julia and their mother (my niece Ann Margaret). Abi is now aged three and the funniest wee creature in the world. I was amazed how big wee baby Julia had grown; she is no longer a wee ‘prawn’ newborn…she is so cute and her eyes are huge!
Ann Margaret went off to the shops and left me in charge.
I was cradling the baby and Abi said “Aunty Janey, can I face-paint myself?”
I agreed and carried on snuggling the wee new baby, then minutes later Abi came running into the room completely blacked up! Her entire face, ears, neck and hair were a deep shiny black!
All you could see were the whites of her dark eyes!
It was scary and funny to see a toddler do an ‘Al Jolson’ (Old US singer who blacked up and sang…very politically incorrect nowadays). I pissed myself laughing and decided to teach her the old Al Jolson song ‘Mammeee’ complete with blackened jazz hands.
When Ann Margaret came back from the shops Abi came running into the hall singing ‘Mammeee’ waving her wee fat black chubby hands, Ann Margaret screamed and dropped the shopping and shouted “Aunty Janey, what the hell have you done, she is doing a Black and White Minstrel show!”
I did explain that Abi did the make up, I only did the choreography!
So today I got Ashley up at 4pm, she had been DJ-ing last night and was out very late and went off to do my workshops. I am looking after a bunch of 12-16 year olds teaching them comedy as a form of reinforcing self confidence. Yesterday they were treated to an exclusive Q&A with an amazing BAFTA award winning Scottish Comedy Actor who will remain un-named, he is an old mate of mine and came along at my request… the kids were hysterical with excitement that he came to chat to them. I will forever be in his debt for coming along at such short notice and being very humble. I have good friends!
I am off to sing my songs….talk soon.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Missing in Action as usual…
Am so sorry my blog has suffered by being so bloody fucked up busy. I lie in bed and imagine I am writing my blog, I have all these great things to tell you, then wake up, ignore my laptop and jump on the tube to the next gig.
In my defence, I have written two articles for newspapers back in Scotland and have been gigging like a nutter, no excuses for ignoring my blog…I KNOW!
So here is a rundown. I had a wonderful time performing my play in Oxford on Tuesday last week. John Fleming (my Manager) and I caught the bus up to Oxford early and we wandered the beautiful tree lined buildings and streets.
I cannot begin to tell you how amazing that city looks in the weak winter sun. We went to Christchurch University and strolled around the grounds. The place is so startlingly awesome. Imagine being a student there? It made me wish I had was 18 again and instead of getting married in Glasgow’s East End I was studying in that ancient and gorgeous city. It wasn’t something that was considered when I was a teenager, going to Oxford? No…. going to prison…YES…getting pregnant…YES…getting a flat in Oxford to study law…NO!
I stood on those cobbled streets and watched all these wonderful young people, ride bikes, chat in groups and lunch beneath 14th Century Monuments and secretly wished I had had those opportunities….but then again maybe I would not be me now if I had been them then….does that make sense?
I suppose knowing that those educated and privileged people had taken time out of their night and paid to see ME perform a play that I had wrote did give me a sense of wonderment that I secretly enjoyed! I am not an uneducated failure after all!
The wonderful and talented actor Beth brought her boyfriend to come along and watch and that made it lovely for me, you have no idea how it feels to have a professional actor watch your stuff….so nice, I love her for supporting me like that.
I took some nice pics of Oxford and will post them soon.
John and I caught the late night bus back to London and husband was awake and had tea on the table for us arriving at 1am. What a guy!
Oxford has become my regular haunt, as on Friday I was back there to compere the Jongleurs club in the city. I caught the 5pm train from Paddington on my own, IPod at the ready; coffee in hand and instead of having a leisurely journey to my fav town….I was beaten near to death by the scrambling rampage of fat suited businessmen trying to get home for the weekend to their stone cottages and country piles in Oxford.
I have never seen so many badly behaved professional men in my life…..politicians and bankers by day, fucking fat rugby tackling passenger kickers at the weekend…I shoved my way onto the train but lo and behold it looked like a scene from those awful trains of death that shunted prisoners from camp to camp in the Second World War! I was imagining me sitting there listening to music and leisurely sipping tea reading a newspaper….OH NO! I was crushed with my face into the back of a fat man wearing a damp duffel coat outside a toilet in the corridor of the train….if they transported lambs like this, the public would have an outcry and vegetarian militant lesbians wearing oatmeal cardigans reciting placenta poetry would throw themselves on the track in protest. Why do we suffer this horror?
So I got myself into the first class carriage.
It was like a Gordon Brown convention, loads of smart dressed overly coifed men in cashmere coats and bright pink ties….the kind of men you suspect are living with their boyfriends in Dolphin Square and work in Westminster and go home to their bored wives in Oxford at the weekend. Ok I know that’s a generalisation but when they saw this scuzzy frazzled Glaswegian sit near them, they visibly grimaced. How dare scum enter their streamline clean first class carriage?
I ignored them; they peeked over pink Financial Times broadsheets at my damp face and frizzy hair. The ticket man came waddling down (do they ever do anything other than waddle?)
“Your ticket is not first class miss, you are not allowed in here without a first class ticket” he shouted as he looked at my crumpled rail ticket.
The men in pink ties smirked as a group, grey haired with shiny faces, all enjoying the one moment in their week…..the poor person had been caught, oh how they knew I never held a first class ticket….they sat in combined silence and nodded the nod to each other that rich people do when a common person has stepped into their oak smoked- cashmere-leather briefcase world without permission!
I looked at the ticket man and said “Look mate, there are NO seats on this train and I am not paying £18 to stand in a fat man’s armpit outside a toilet in a corridor for an hour, so I am taking this seat, I refuse to be dangerously rattled about on this shaky shit train, so deal with it”
“I can call the police and have you charged” he snapped with bristling authority.
The newspapers moved, eyes peeked out, Blackberry’s were ignored, laptops were clicked shut for better viewing purposes, creaseless shirts on well fed bodies leaned nearer, no one spoke….silence in the First Class carriage.
“Look, I really don’t give a flying fuck if you call the Queen, call the FBI, call your mother, I am not moving, I refuse to be treated like a refugee begging for air on your shit train, so jail me…I am stand up comic and its all material as far as I am concerned, I cant imagine all these nice politicians and bankers are going to appreciate you stopping the train and getting the police on for a woman who wanted a seat, do you?”
The ticket man smiled and moved on. I won.
Just as I settled into my warm comfortable seat, the crispy white shirted man leaned across and spoke loudly “You know madam; you have to pay the correct fare”
I looked him straight in the eye, I was aware his compatriots were staring and I said “No mate YOU have to pay the full fare, I don’t, I argue with people and stand my ground and you have probably paid enough for both of us, so thank you, now please don’t interrupt me anymore, I want to listen to some hard core rap on my IPod”
I don’t know what the collective noun is for a bunch of fat rich business men but I think it’s ‘wankers’.
London is great, the gigs have been awesome -husband has been good, annoying but good…we go home tomorrow and I am looking forward to seeing Ashley. Talk soon.
In my defence, I have written two articles for newspapers back in Scotland and have been gigging like a nutter, no excuses for ignoring my blog…I KNOW!
So here is a rundown. I had a wonderful time performing my play in Oxford on Tuesday last week. John Fleming (my Manager) and I caught the bus up to Oxford early and we wandered the beautiful tree lined buildings and streets.
I cannot begin to tell you how amazing that city looks in the weak winter sun. We went to Christchurch University and strolled around the grounds. The place is so startlingly awesome. Imagine being a student there? It made me wish I had was 18 again and instead of getting married in Glasgow’s East End I was studying in that ancient and gorgeous city. It wasn’t something that was considered when I was a teenager, going to Oxford? No…. going to prison…YES…getting pregnant…YES…getting a flat in Oxford to study law…NO!
I stood on those cobbled streets and watched all these wonderful young people, ride bikes, chat in groups and lunch beneath 14th Century Monuments and secretly wished I had had those opportunities….but then again maybe I would not be me now if I had been them then….does that make sense?
I suppose knowing that those educated and privileged people had taken time out of their night and paid to see ME perform a play that I had wrote did give me a sense of wonderment that I secretly enjoyed! I am not an uneducated failure after all!
The wonderful and talented actor Beth brought her boyfriend to come along and watch and that made it lovely for me, you have no idea how it feels to have a professional actor watch your stuff….so nice, I love her for supporting me like that.
I took some nice pics of Oxford and will post them soon.
John and I caught the late night bus back to London and husband was awake and had tea on the table for us arriving at 1am. What a guy!
Oxford has become my regular haunt, as on Friday I was back there to compere the Jongleurs club in the city. I caught the 5pm train from Paddington on my own, IPod at the ready; coffee in hand and instead of having a leisurely journey to my fav town….I was beaten near to death by the scrambling rampage of fat suited businessmen trying to get home for the weekend to their stone cottages and country piles in Oxford.
I have never seen so many badly behaved professional men in my life…..politicians and bankers by day, fucking fat rugby tackling passenger kickers at the weekend…I shoved my way onto the train but lo and behold it looked like a scene from those awful trains of death that shunted prisoners from camp to camp in the Second World War! I was imagining me sitting there listening to music and leisurely sipping tea reading a newspaper….OH NO! I was crushed with my face into the back of a fat man wearing a damp duffel coat outside a toilet in the corridor of the train….if they transported lambs like this, the public would have an outcry and vegetarian militant lesbians wearing oatmeal cardigans reciting placenta poetry would throw themselves on the track in protest. Why do we suffer this horror?
So I got myself into the first class carriage.
It was like a Gordon Brown convention, loads of smart dressed overly coifed men in cashmere coats and bright pink ties….the kind of men you suspect are living with their boyfriends in Dolphin Square and work in Westminster and go home to their bored wives in Oxford at the weekend. Ok I know that’s a generalisation but when they saw this scuzzy frazzled Glaswegian sit near them, they visibly grimaced. How dare scum enter their streamline clean first class carriage?
I ignored them; they peeked over pink Financial Times broadsheets at my damp face and frizzy hair. The ticket man came waddling down (do they ever do anything other than waddle?)
“Your ticket is not first class miss, you are not allowed in here without a first class ticket” he shouted as he looked at my crumpled rail ticket.
The men in pink ties smirked as a group, grey haired with shiny faces, all enjoying the one moment in their week…..the poor person had been caught, oh how they knew I never held a first class ticket….they sat in combined silence and nodded the nod to each other that rich people do when a common person has stepped into their oak smoked- cashmere-leather briefcase world without permission!
I looked at the ticket man and said “Look mate, there are NO seats on this train and I am not paying £18 to stand in a fat man’s armpit outside a toilet in a corridor for an hour, so I am taking this seat, I refuse to be dangerously rattled about on this shaky shit train, so deal with it”
“I can call the police and have you charged” he snapped with bristling authority.
The newspapers moved, eyes peeked out, Blackberry’s were ignored, laptops were clicked shut for better viewing purposes, creaseless shirts on well fed bodies leaned nearer, no one spoke….silence in the First Class carriage.
“Look, I really don’t give a flying fuck if you call the Queen, call the FBI, call your mother, I am not moving, I refuse to be treated like a refugee begging for air on your shit train, so jail me…I am stand up comic and its all material as far as I am concerned, I cant imagine all these nice politicians and bankers are going to appreciate you stopping the train and getting the police on for a woman who wanted a seat, do you?”
The ticket man smiled and moved on. I won.
Just as I settled into my warm comfortable seat, the crispy white shirted man leaned across and spoke loudly “You know madam; you have to pay the correct fare”
I looked him straight in the eye, I was aware his compatriots were staring and I said “No mate YOU have to pay the full fare, I don’t, I argue with people and stand my ground and you have probably paid enough for both of us, so thank you, now please don’t interrupt me anymore, I want to listen to some hard core rap on my IPod”
I don’t know what the collective noun is for a bunch of fat rich business men but I think it’s ‘wankers’.
London is great, the gigs have been awesome -husband has been good, annoying but good…we go home tomorrow and I am looking forward to seeing Ashley. Talk soon.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
My Topless gig on radio Kerrang!
Yesterday was just as mental as possible. I left my Chelsea apartment at 3pm and headed up to Borehamwood to meet with John my manager who would be driving me to Birmingham for my gig there at 9pm.
As soon as I got off the train at Kings Cross I saw the message posted on the wall explaining that the train I wanted had been cancelled and I had to go through Kentish Town instead. So I dragged my tired arse up to Kentish Town, came out of the station and was crushed by around 8 million drunk pissed antipodeans who were mostly all wearing a sweater that said “Church”.
That confused as me as what Sunday Church serves that amount of alcohol? A turn out Church was a club! Silly old me.
I managed to get to the right platform to get the train up to Borehamwood and came upon a very young boy, spectacles hanging off his faces, wearing a Railway uniform, cheap tie askew shouting through a megaphone some mumbled words as hundreds of people jostled and shoved him around trying to find out where the replacement train was.
A big baldy headed man dragging a giant awkward Alsatian on a thick chain ran towards the young befuddled train boy. The dogs nails were skidding and its legs scattering all over the concrete walkway, its tongue hanging out and breathing madly – it managed to mount the young man’s leg as he tried to cope with multitude of frustrated commuters. The place was chaos.
I gave up and called John to come collect me from Kentish town and drive straight to Birmingham from there. We hit the road at 5pm and even before we got to Milton Keynes the traffic had slowed to a complete standstill. The dark skies were full of magnificent fireworks bursting over the beautiful red slashed sunset that fell over London. Still the cars never moved.
I started to panic, time was ticking, and we were doing 3 miles an hour for over two hours. I was due on stage at 9pm and it was now 8.50pm. We could not work out why the traffic was so slow then we came upon four huge lorries lying on their side, windows smashed, glass everywhere mixed with blood on the dented windscreen and suddenly my anxiousness to get to the gig was replaced with utter horror at the gnarled machines that had crashed on that road ahead of us. It really did put my petty stress at being late into perspective!
The gig was really cool, a lovely gay gig at the Nightingale bar. The audience were such good people and had waited patiently for me to arrive. I appreciate that.
After the gig I was off to be a guest at Kerrang! Radio, live in the studio, Tim Shaw is an amazing shock jock, yet he handled the interview about my past life and my comedy with amazing sensitivity and asked me outright questions no other live radio presenter had dared…..and whilst we were discussing child abuse, my mothers murder..Etc….the two glamour girls in the studio stripped naked! It was so very funny.
I was sitting with naked girls and having the best laugh ever.
Then Tim and I decided to tell the audience that I was going to go topless…I called husband live and asked him what he thought of my tit shot on radio and he just hung up laughing (he was annoyed that I even needed his opinion on this! If I wanna strip for another man then that’s my prerogative!)
Anyway Tim set it up for the listeners and I pretended to get my baps out…of course I didn’t it was a joke….but my brother was listening in back in Scotland and called me this morning horrified that I had got my boobs out on radio!
My daughter Ashley is mortified yet again, she loves Kerrang! And can’t believe I spoke about my breasts and even suggested getting them out with her fav DJ.
I am never going to grow old gracefully am I?
As soon as I got off the train at Kings Cross I saw the message posted on the wall explaining that the train I wanted had been cancelled and I had to go through Kentish Town instead. So I dragged my tired arse up to Kentish Town, came out of the station and was crushed by around 8 million drunk pissed antipodeans who were mostly all wearing a sweater that said “Church”.
That confused as me as what Sunday Church serves that amount of alcohol? A turn out Church was a club! Silly old me.
I managed to get to the right platform to get the train up to Borehamwood and came upon a very young boy, spectacles hanging off his faces, wearing a Railway uniform, cheap tie askew shouting through a megaphone some mumbled words as hundreds of people jostled and shoved him around trying to find out where the replacement train was.
A big baldy headed man dragging a giant awkward Alsatian on a thick chain ran towards the young befuddled train boy. The dogs nails were skidding and its legs scattering all over the concrete walkway, its tongue hanging out and breathing madly – it managed to mount the young man’s leg as he tried to cope with multitude of frustrated commuters. The place was chaos.
I gave up and called John to come collect me from Kentish town and drive straight to Birmingham from there. We hit the road at 5pm and even before we got to Milton Keynes the traffic had slowed to a complete standstill. The dark skies were full of magnificent fireworks bursting over the beautiful red slashed sunset that fell over London. Still the cars never moved.
I started to panic, time was ticking, and we were doing 3 miles an hour for over two hours. I was due on stage at 9pm and it was now 8.50pm. We could not work out why the traffic was so slow then we came upon four huge lorries lying on their side, windows smashed, glass everywhere mixed with blood on the dented windscreen and suddenly my anxiousness to get to the gig was replaced with utter horror at the gnarled machines that had crashed on that road ahead of us. It really did put my petty stress at being late into perspective!
The gig was really cool, a lovely gay gig at the Nightingale bar. The audience were such good people and had waited patiently for me to arrive. I appreciate that.
After the gig I was off to be a guest at Kerrang! Radio, live in the studio, Tim Shaw is an amazing shock jock, yet he handled the interview about my past life and my comedy with amazing sensitivity and asked me outright questions no other live radio presenter had dared…..and whilst we were discussing child abuse, my mothers murder..Etc….the two glamour girls in the studio stripped naked! It was so very funny.
I was sitting with naked girls and having the best laugh ever.
Then Tim and I decided to tell the audience that I was going to go topless…I called husband live and asked him what he thought of my tit shot on radio and he just hung up laughing (he was annoyed that I even needed his opinion on this! If I wanna strip for another man then that’s my prerogative!)
Anyway Tim set it up for the listeners and I pretended to get my baps out…of course I didn’t it was a joke….but my brother was listening in back in Scotland and called me this morning horrified that I had got my boobs out on radio!
My daughter Ashley is mortified yet again, she loves Kerrang! And can’t believe I spoke about my breasts and even suggested getting them out with her fav DJ.
I am never going to grow old gracefully am I?
Meeting the World’s most amazing director…
My London trip is going amazingly well. Other than walking miles with husband who just ‘loves walking’ …I do enjoy the strolls through Hyde Park but we almost got into a fist fight with a cyclist. Husband knows how scared I get on busy roads and held my hand walking across High Street Kensington pedestrian crossing. The green man flashed for us to cross and the red light kept the traffic at bay, yet a cyclist ignored the light and peddled straight through and almost knocked me on my ass. He then slowed down and mounted the pavement and got off his bike, and started to walk off.
“What are you doing?” shouted husband.
The man in tight bright Lycra cycling outfit turned round and shouted to my husband “Do you have something you want to say?”
Husband rushed towards him, me in tow.
I spoke first “Look mate the red light was on and you….” I started to say
The guy looked at me with disdain and butted in “I was dismounting”
Husband let go of my hand and threw himself at the man shouting “You fucking lying arse, the lights were red, you went through them, you almost hit my wife and now you fucking stand there trying to justify it by saying you were getting off your bike, I will fucking wrap your shite bike right around your skinny bright green legs”
The man jumped back on his bike quicker than you could say angry Scottish person and sped off almost knocking people like skittles on the pavement and shot off into the distance.
So that drama over I had a great sleep last night and arrived at BBC Radio studios this morning to take part in ‘Loose ends’ on BBC radio 4. The amazing actress Rachel Stirling was a guest and also the most wonderful director Sir Alan Parker, he of Evita and Midnight Express fame, oh and Fame the movie! He was so nice to meet and chat to, I was overwhelmed but he put me at ease! How good is my job getting to meet such interesting people?
The other astounding guest was Derren Brown; he is UK’s foremost mind bending, stunt magician.
During the radio show I shoved a note over to him that read ‘ give me the lottery numbers now’ and there was a wee drawing that I had done of me sticking an axe into his head in a mock threat….and HE sent back the note with six numbers on them! So we will see!
We went to the pub afterwards and Sir Alan Parker sat there for a while having a good old chinwag, I adore his work and feel privileged to get to know him a wee but more.
He told me that my comedy stint was wonderful and remarked that comedy in such a small room to such a small amount of people must be the hardest job in the world and I made it look easy! How nice!
I was out last night at Groucho with best mate Monica. We sat and ate chips and talked shit for ages (that’s what we do) and finally caught up with each others gossip. She is so busy nowadays and it was really great to just sit down and be together without phones or work or staff or managers or comedy people getting in the way!
I did bring along Easy Living Magazine as this months issue (December) has a great article inside about me! (It’s always about me me me) the photo shoot was lovely and I do look nice in it, except I seem to have loads of make up on! I will upload the pic as soon as I can.
Must go - Aspergers man is asking me what kind of Apple pie do I want? Apple Sponge-Apple Crumble-Apple Puff? Cold Custard or Cream?
It’s making me crazy….I just want pudding!
“What are you doing?” shouted husband.
The man in tight bright Lycra cycling outfit turned round and shouted to my husband “Do you have something you want to say?”
Husband rushed towards him, me in tow.
I spoke first “Look mate the red light was on and you….” I started to say
The guy looked at me with disdain and butted in “I was dismounting”
Husband let go of my hand and threw himself at the man shouting “You fucking lying arse, the lights were red, you went through them, you almost hit my wife and now you fucking stand there trying to justify it by saying you were getting off your bike, I will fucking wrap your shite bike right around your skinny bright green legs”
The man jumped back on his bike quicker than you could say angry Scottish person and sped off almost knocking people like skittles on the pavement and shot off into the distance.
So that drama over I had a great sleep last night and arrived at BBC Radio studios this morning to take part in ‘Loose ends’ on BBC radio 4. The amazing actress Rachel Stirling was a guest and also the most wonderful director Sir Alan Parker, he of Evita and Midnight Express fame, oh and Fame the movie! He was so nice to meet and chat to, I was overwhelmed but he put me at ease! How good is my job getting to meet such interesting people?
The other astounding guest was Derren Brown; he is UK’s foremost mind bending, stunt magician.
During the radio show I shoved a note over to him that read ‘ give me the lottery numbers now’ and there was a wee drawing that I had done of me sticking an axe into his head in a mock threat….and HE sent back the note with six numbers on them! So we will see!
We went to the pub afterwards and Sir Alan Parker sat there for a while having a good old chinwag, I adore his work and feel privileged to get to know him a wee but more.
He told me that my comedy stint was wonderful and remarked that comedy in such a small room to such a small amount of people must be the hardest job in the world and I made it look easy! How nice!
I was out last night at Groucho with best mate Monica. We sat and ate chips and talked shit for ages (that’s what we do) and finally caught up with each others gossip. She is so busy nowadays and it was really great to just sit down and be together without phones or work or staff or managers or comedy people getting in the way!
I did bring along Easy Living Magazine as this months issue (December) has a great article inside about me! (It’s always about me me me) the photo shoot was lovely and I do look nice in it, except I seem to have loads of make up on! I will upload the pic as soon as I can.
Must go - Aspergers man is asking me what kind of Apple pie do I want? Apple Sponge-Apple Crumble-Apple Puff? Cold Custard or Cream?
It’s making me crazy….I just want pudding!
Aspergers Man is making me mental…
For those who don’t know, my husband has mild Aspergers Syndrome. Since travelling with me the last few days, he is so mental he makes Rain Man look like Al Gore….he is driving me to madness. Since we have been in this flat in London he has moved around the furniture, colour co-ordinated my clothes and re arranged my toiletries, I have Tampons all in a small box, lined up pointy ends facing out.
I was sitting writing this blog and he managed to move sofa’s about and slide tables around as I sat still. It was like that scene from Amityville Horror, I looked round and there were chairs stacked on top of each other on a small occasional table!
I was just about to go into the Groucho Club for a quick pre gig drink when he called me “Janey, when will you be home?”
Me-“I don’t know, I may stay out late”
Husband - “Do you have an estimated time of arrival?”
Me – “No. Why?”
Husband- “Its just I want have supper all ready for you”
Me-“It’s a fucking salad, there is no cooking, you can have it ready when I get there”
Husband- “Do you want a bacon roll for breakfast?”
Me (exasperated) - “I don’t know yet as its just 8pm, I have no idea what I want at 8am”
Husband- “Well if you want bacon I can put it at the front of the fridge and when I open the door it will be nearest to hand in the morning”
Me (now convinced he needs to die) -“Are you that bloke from ‘Sleeping with the Enemy?’ Am I going to have to dye my hair and fake my own death?”
Husband (completely unperturbed)- “So that’s a yes to the bacon?”
It’s been like this for days now. He constantly needs to know everything I may want in the next fourteen hours so he can get it prepared in advance. I am so used to travelling on my own I am not used to someone asking me what I want to eat next Tuesday.
To top it all, I woke up this morning with a big knotted elastic band in my bushy hair, I could not work out why my hair looked like a special needs person, husband saw me trying to unravel it, he smiled smugly and said “Last night your hair touched my face so I got up and tied it into a pony tail as you slept, that why you have a strange side bunch”
That man is re arranging my hair in my sleep that is grounds for divorce.
Today I also have a nasty head cold, it makes me feel ill. I have snotty stuff coming out of my beak and I want to remove the bowling ball from my brain!
I was sitting writing this blog and he managed to move sofa’s about and slide tables around as I sat still. It was like that scene from Amityville Horror, I looked round and there were chairs stacked on top of each other on a small occasional table!
I was just about to go into the Groucho Club for a quick pre gig drink when he called me “Janey, when will you be home?”
Me-“I don’t know, I may stay out late”
Husband - “Do you have an estimated time of arrival?”
Me – “No. Why?”
Husband- “Its just I want have supper all ready for you”
Me-“It’s a fucking salad, there is no cooking, you can have it ready when I get there”
Husband- “Do you want a bacon roll for breakfast?”
Me (exasperated) - “I don’t know yet as its just 8pm, I have no idea what I want at 8am”
Husband- “Well if you want bacon I can put it at the front of the fridge and when I open the door it will be nearest to hand in the morning”
Me (now convinced he needs to die) -“Are you that bloke from ‘Sleeping with the Enemy?’ Am I going to have to dye my hair and fake my own death?”
Husband (completely unperturbed)- “So that’s a yes to the bacon?”
It’s been like this for days now. He constantly needs to know everything I may want in the next fourteen hours so he can get it prepared in advance. I am so used to travelling on my own I am not used to someone asking me what I want to eat next Tuesday.
To top it all, I woke up this morning with a big knotted elastic band in my bushy hair, I could not work out why my hair looked like a special needs person, husband saw me trying to unravel it, he smiled smugly and said “Last night your hair touched my face so I got up and tied it into a pony tail as you slept, that why you have a strange side bunch”
That man is re arranging my hair in my sleep that is grounds for divorce.
Today I also have a nasty head cold, it makes me feel ill. I have snotty stuff coming out of my beak and I want to remove the bowling ball from my brain!
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