MY VERSION OF BRIEF ENCOUNTER

Watched 'Brief Encounter', that old Lovely Black and white film by David Lean and written by Noel Coward.

Starring Celia Johnston and Trevor Howard.

It really is a fantastic film and so well shot.

Although I cannot stop laughing at the whole thing, poor Celia plays a well kept middle class woman who lives in Bromley (Somewhere like that), her husband is a banker who wears a full three-piece suit at home (including waistcoat) and looks around 67 although he is probably only 26! 

He likes to stand near the open fire dressed in an axminster suit sweating buckets and puffing on a pipe.

They have two kids, a boy and a girl, both have cut glass English accents that I swear to God -Prince Charles would have struggled to maintain, I have never heard such upper class pronunciation!!

Celia also has a cook and house keeper. It seems her only duty is to go shopping for some vegetables and wander round Boots in a tight constricted wool coat with big buttons. 

Sweating lots is a feature in this family.

Can she do this locally? 
NO fucking chance she has to get a train into the nearest town.

In the station there is a proper tea room with a slovenly older woman who flirts with that bloke who played the working class dad in My Fair Lady...him that sang "I'm getting married in the morning" there is a coal fire (there is an open fire in almost every scene).

 The very common people in the train tea room are the only believable characters in the film.

This woman takes a train and picks up some shopping, a few books from 'Boots'?? Then she goes to the 'pictures'. 

The 'pictures' being the movies...this lazy bastard picks carrots, books and a movie...then stares at some local statues round town, then wanders home to eat the cook’s dinner.

Anyway one day it all goes very different.

She meets a doctor by chance at the well frequented train station and gets his attention as she gets a 'bit of dust in her eye'. 

He pokes the corner of a hankie into her eyeball....all being a metaphor for his cock and they are suddenly .....staring at each other.

Before long they are meeting up every week as she goes shopping and then off to the 'pictures' with her new friend.

I have never seen so many smokers in my life as in that picture house, (Jesus the smoke is so thick I am surprised that people can see the screen). It was like a smoking competition.

They start to get excited about meeting up despite both of them being married; Trevor explains that his wife is very small, dark and very frail. 

Which suggests he cannot have sex with her in case she breaks, but he never explains her illness, which is weird as he is a doctor. He could have told us the secretive bastard.

This is in the social era when if a woman 'looked' at another man in any sexual way she gets sent to a mental health sanctuary to get 'electric shock treatment ' Yet despite the social taboos they continue to keep each other company.

They meet up and they go into the country for a walk, have a wee boat ride, in which he falls into the water-then they both go to the boatyard to dry off and of course MAKE TEA (as if to go a whole day without tea would have been insufferable). 

She dries his sodden smelly socks over the hot stove (yet another coal fire) in the boat house as the poor boat house attendant sits in a bad mood as posh people have hogged his heat. 

They fall in love over the steam of wet woollen socks.

He tells her that their affair has driven him to leave England and live abroad as they can never be together. 

He suggests going to his friend's apartment for some quiet time and a last goodbye-(yeah right mate!) and leaves her to think about it when she refuses to come along. Celia strolls around the station debating whether or not to go with Trevor; it was a big dilemma for her.

Her head was saying “Go home bake cakes"

But her pussy was shouting “Eat Me!!”

Eventually she ends up in the flat (which was very swish and YUPPIE-ish for mid- 1940's) and sitting there with her doctor friend, the sexual tension was palpable...Just when you think they may actually touch knees- they are interrupted by the doc's mate (Who incidentally is the gayest man I have EVER seen in my life).

Celia flees the apartment by the back door in a running hysteria (how awful when one has to leave by the service entrance) and goes running through the streets hysterical, dishevelled and ends up sitting in the park smoking and crying pulling Kirby grips from her hair (this appears to be such unruly behaviour in Bromley that even a policeman stops to comment and check on her!)

She eventually phones her husband at home and lies easily about being out so late without an escort, (She should have fucked her doctor, she was a competent liar and could have carried it off).

She then walks to the railway station soaking wet and sad and meets Trevor in the tea room (he had been looking for her all over the statues and benches of Bromley frantically) and now is saying his final goodbye as he is going to emigrate to South Africa (Hopefully not to buy a farm coz that will surely end in tears, posh English farmers don’t fit in well, especially with a weak sick wife).

They are interrupted by a 'beastly but kindly? Woman friend (who talked too much-that would be my role in that movie!) 

Therefore, they don’t get to say goodbye properly! (they drink four cups of tea; I am convinced it's all the fucking caffeine that's making them so highly strung).

Trevor simply squeezes her shoulder as he leaves the tea room to catch his train home to his frail skinny wife with a nameless wasting disease.

Celia gets so upset she dashes onto the platform. The express train comes hurtling through and she contemplates suicide! 

But she can't do it as she is too posh and English also she knows there are dishes to arrange for summer picnics and socks to mend by a roaring fire.

(seriously lady -go home and touch yourself woman, get a grip)

Finally she goes home to her husband who is still wearing a three piece Wooster thick tweed suit sitting trying to do a crossword in a house with a roaring coal fire...(fuck he must be sweating & dying to strip off and sit in his vest like a Northern unemployed man that he has read about in the newspaper).

Celia sits and darns socks as she looks kindly at her fat woolly husband and thinks to herself...."I am just an ordinary housewife in an ordinary house...how did this happen to me?".

I will tell you why, you fancied another man, the thought of sleeping in twin satin covered beds with a man who is clad in wool and smokes a pipe who cannot fucking finish a cross word without interrupting your private thoughts was KILLING you. 

You wanted a blonde skinny dashing doctor who loves the movies, smokes fags and seems to work a three day week for the NHS and had time to hang out on boating lakes, and took you for champagne lunches, he even had a fancy Pied- a -Terre and a snappy gay friend....it's OK to admit it!

I think I will watch "To kill a Mocking bird " next and give my version of that?

Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc.

In 1979, I recall walking into work in my boyfriend’s dad's pub in the notorious area of The Calton in Glasgow. There seemed to be not many street lights outside and it felt very dark. The pub was full of drunk, young and old men. The only woman in there (other than me) was an ancient old prostitute who sat alone singing into her glass as the guys looked on laughing.

This was the same bar in the early 80s where some of its regulars had gang raped another drunk vulnerable woman and after getting bored with her, slashed her flesh so much that she almost died. Nicholas Fairbairn the infamous politician had to resign as he declared her gang rape and assault as 'not worthy of a trial' as she was a 'damaged woman'. It took a kind hearted lawyer to bring the first civil law suit to jail my customers and they served prison time. It was the Carol X case. Her rapists were guys who drank in my bar.

What am trying to say is some of the Glasgow men back then in The Calton didn't really respect women much. I witnessed this every day in that bar. Women were treated with utter disdain, abuse and I even witnessed women running away from the 'grabbing' men who all laughed heartily at their 'attempted assault'. The guys openly discussed the size of my breasts and sometimes when I ventured out into the main bar area to clear up they would make an effort to curtail their behaviour as my boyfriend's dad was not to be messed with, so I effectively was 'off limits'. I was safe.

Yet I was constantly shocked at the way they spoke about women, for example I had a guy in our bar who used to say he "Tarzaned" women, which was a reference to Tarzan grabbing a woman and swinging her away. 'Tarzaned' can be equally read as raped. Things slowly changed, the area changed, lots of those original guys became heroin addicts and were now not so cocky and either died or faded away or just gave up on life.

The 80s came along and new customers with families and jobs and self employed business's started using the pub and they weren't as 'grabby' or sexist or misogynistic as their predecessors.

But there was still an element of old school sexism in the air. Good news was - it was changing.

It's 2014 and we now have Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc in the media telling us how to grab women by the throat for a dating technique or  openly laughing at women and asking to 'smell their gash' and generally being demeaned by men in groups. I thought that was done.

 I had hoped the term 'Tarzaned' was an isolated Glasgow urban myth....but its back and people now pay to hear it. Maybe I should open a 1979 theme bar and have men grabbing women as blokes laugh at the hilarity and we can have Dapper Laughs Vines on a loop, girls can giggle as they are throttled near the juke box and women can scream with pleasure at being noticed as they try to hide the smell of their gash near the boys!

Or men like Dapper Laughs and Julien Blanc can grow the fuck up and people who pay to see them can realise that one day their own daughters, sisters and female pals will suffer from this perpetuated 'lad syndrome' and maybe one day if things change WOMEN ONE DAY can walk into a bar without fear or humiliation from badly raised stupid men.

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.

Sorry my blog's have been less regular than promised...been hectic.

Swearing

Picture the scene, I walk out of a gig at Edinburgh fringe, it's raining and am laughing and saying goodbye to some folks and I get straight into a cab as someone shouts "Loved the show Janey" and the taxi driver asks "Are you a comedian?" I reply quite proudly "Yes I am" and I forgot in my elation that I usually don't speak about comedy in taxi's as I know what he is going to say next...I forgot and before I could think another thing I heard him say the inevitable "Do you swear?".
 

I have my stock answer "I don't swear anymore than the male comics or less than the local priest".
 

That usually makes them look into their mirror and then I hear him say "Ah...your one of those feminist women" as if the only way I could possibly answer them back is because I have a political agenda and some buckwheat sandals that I wear as I breastfeed foundlings on my lactating pendulous braless titties.
 

"No more a feminist than most of the male comics but usually more than the local priest, have you ever asked a male comic if he swears?" I add and hopefully this will end this painfully awkward corner we have talked our way into.
 

I just pull on my headphones (always great to get out of these situations) and nod to music as he mouths some shit I cannot hear but his eyebrows look knotted and angry.
 

I don't know why 'swearing' is something that female's have to be told not to do. Is it really that bad? Has anyone ever really hated Kevin Bridges, Frankie Boyle and Billy Connolly's language onstage to the point where they discuss with a pursed mouth?
 

Dara O'Briain says the word 'Feck' live on television, we all know it means 'fuck' does Dara get belittled for being an uneducated ill-informed swearer? No, he doesn't he is one of Ireland's most intelligent funny men.
 

So it is a class issue? I have seen very well spoken middle class English women swear in comedy and somehow it is more acceptable, especially if said by 'apparent slip of the tongue' or by the medium of a 'puppet' (see Nina Conti's filthy mouthed Monkey).
 

Does my swearing sound worse because I am a working class Scottish woman?
 

If I was a Oxbridge graduate swearing onstage would it be seen as 'urban and gritty' like a hipster getting angry at a flat tyre but in my accent does it sound really harsh and filthy and all you hear is a slovenly washer woman taking us back years with her filthy language?
 

Recently I attended a "Vote Yes" event for Scottish creative's.
 

All lovely people, authors, musicians in a Glasgow basement.
 

The male author swore, the musician had some choice language in his songs and not a word was spoken, but the female (who spouts the values a gender equality independence group) got up to introduce me she told the audience...
 

"Next up is comedian Janey Godley, she might use offensive language so if you are easily offended, please bear this in mind".


I walked to the stage so angry. I know she didn't do it to hurt me but despite being part of a gender equality group she was hardwired to apologise for a woman before that woman spoke. She never apologised after the men onstage swore. I never got that chance. The audience were told I was probably going to be offensive.
 

One day this will end.
 

So thanks for reading, if you want follow me on twitter @JaneyGodley for updates and daily shenanigans.
 

Janey Godley’s Podcast Episode 205

(Please be aware that this Podcast Contains strong language)

In episode 205 of Janey Godley's Podcast the comedy mum with her stand up daughter Ashley Storrie get into the World Cup, crime, Tony Blair and all things football. 


They both discuss feminism and answer many questions. Ashley has gone stir crazy as she tweets every game played in the World Cup and hasn't left the house in days. Janey does her Horrorscope this week is Pisces.


Mother and Daughter comedy team get to natter and the world gets to hear it on Janey Godley’s podcasts, expect some bawdy language and home truths, as Janey Godley and Ashley Storrie lead you down the roads less taken in their fantastic weekly podcast. Listen as mother and daughter banter, bait and burst with laughter.


Janey Godley Podcast at: Episode 205


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