This is how I see it

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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