Some shows I'm doing in Brighton and Edinburgh 2015

“Where you from?” “No, I mean originally?” If you’re an immigrant or a child of an immigrant you have heard this question so much you’ll know the trickiness of it all.  The UK is your home even if it wasn’t when you were born.  And there’s normally an interesting backstory. To talk to an audience to whom all this resonates is what makes The immigrant Diaries so special to perform at.

The joy of the format is that it is a mixture of history, social comment and personal stories that can be powerful to share –it’s a glorious chance to take a walk in immigrants’ slippers, which in some cases will be just like everyone else’s M&S ones and in others might be threadbare or more exotic.

It’s not just for the informative nature of what a lot of people’s anecdotes contain (during my bit people learn about the passage of Iraqi Jews from Iraq to India to the UK) but also the emotions attached. I am a comedian and used to playing things for laughs but the chance to expand on a subject and mention something poignant provides both me and the people listening a whole new dimension.

Being the child of an immigrant has informed my identity in some ways despite the fact I fully identify as one of the ‘bloody British’ my dad used to refer to while I was growing up.  I think these stories should always be told but particularly at the present there is so much anti-immigration propaganda.

When I was in junior school someone found a National Front leaflet and brought it to class. It called Jews ‘Maggots’ and I remember one of my friends saying to me disapproving that that was yukky.  To be fair she was very young and I was a larva. 

What better way to counter all this rubbish about immigration than by laughing at the absurdity of it and answering their ridiculousness square on?

It’s also incredibly cathartic to mention how a teacher at primary school made casually racist comments, because all these years later, I can finally reply with wit and fact without her threatening to make me stay behind or even worse, being chucked out!

Immigration is talked about like some faceless monster, Immigration Diaries shows you its mouth, eyes and nose and how beautiful they are. 

Anyway..come and check out the show which is the brainchild of the excellent Sajeela Kershi. https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/immigrant-diaries-sajeela-kershi-and-guests

 I'm also telling my story of immigration, travel and charlatan spirituality here..

http://boxoffice.brightonfringe.org/comedy/8864/juliet-meyers-the-dog-peed-against-my-family-tree

be great to see you.

DAMMIT!

X

Article about my love for a dog. (appears in Standard Issue Magazine)

http://standardissuemagazine.com/lifestyle/hail-prince-barkness/

Article about why I hate Rom Coms I wrote for Standard Issue Magazine

http://standardissuemagazine.com/voices/10-things-hate-rom-coms/

How many more of these frigging buildings?

Article I wrote for Standard Issue Mag on the rise of luxury flats. I genuinely think it's a massive problem. http://standardissuemagazine.com/voices/flats-pack/

Book review for Standard Issue Magazine

http://standardissuemagazine.com/voices/review-march-women-march/

Clever and cleverer

I find ‘clever’ people very attractive. If I said “I like big dicks and I cannot lie.”, I’d probably be referring to dictionaries.  People should be proud of their achievements, it’s when it turns to blatant boasting and unsubtle humblebragging that it gets ugly, and frankly highlights those people’s insecurities. And I notice it rarely comes from those standing at the top of the podium.

It’s also insecurity when people have to feel clever by belittling the people on Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Jeremy Kyle, despite knowing those people may not have the same opportunities as others; one of them being to change channels. 

TV does have its manufactured twits too. I don’t know if Joey Essex genuinely can’t tell the time but he acts like he’s perfectly happy being a fool. He’s like a sexually-aware Forrest Gump.

I’ve always been interested in the nature or nurture argument. Are you born with a particular intelligence level or does it depend on your environment? Or as a friend paraphrased it ‘Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.’ 

I met a child genius last year. ‘Michael’ was 8 and the rest of the people in his Islington drama class were 12.   The kids had to work in pairs to make up and act out a story with the title ‘Disaster’. I ‘sat in’ with Michael and a 12-year old girl (Lydia).

Lydia: OK, so maybe this space is our house..

Michael: So we’re married.

Lydia: No.

Michael: Why are we living together if we are not married?

Lydia: Ok, we’re married.

Michael: Right, so I come home from work. ..

(pretends to open door) COMMENCE COOKING PLEASE!

Lydia: (mimes stirring saucepan and putting something in bowls and hands it to him)

Michael: Why have you made soup? It’s the summer. It’s too hot. 

Lydia: Ok, don’t have it.

Michael: Oh no, our house is on fire. Now we must go camping.

Lydia: OK.

Michael: We will sleep here.

Lydia: OK.

Michael: Let’s go back to the house. Look, the fire started because you didn’t turn off the cooking. It’s your fault. Now we have no house.

Lydia: (shrugs) (I like Lydia’s style.)

Michael: You’re an idiot . You should have been more careful. 

I found myself wondering about where he got his intelligence from..and his misogyny. Then the teacher joined us; “Michael’s dad is a famous musician, isn’t he Michael? And has taught Michael to play piano, clarinet and flute already. And they are home schooling him, and he speaks a little Italian because they all lived there for a year .”

Michael interjects, “Yeah, my dad was on the radio three times in France last month and I probably will too when I’m older. And I’ll be really rich.”

I hate and admire his self-belief and cockiness. Looking at his notebooks, he clearly is gifted but so are millions of children, it’s just that he’s being nurtured and told he’s amazing more than most and is being given ambition. Admittedly child geniuses sometimes burn out but in his case he’ll just blame Lydia.


The teacher turns to her,  “Your dad is a musician too isn’t he? Tell Juliet what bands he was in, she might have heard of him. I’m not sure I know him though.”

She looks reluctant but eventually says,  “Um…he was in ….”

She only blooming well casually names one of the most successful groups of the past ten years and then mentions her dad also had a solo career.

I ask if her dad is who I think it is. And she nods.

BOOM!   

'The humble' win. Albeit it momentarily. 


 GODAMMIT!

Clever clogs (although actually they are the stupidest of the shoes)

I just watched the new series of Sherlock. He’s terribly clever, isn’t he? But as Confucius said,  ‘Some are clever. Some are beautiful. Try too hard to prove either and you become neither.'

Actually no, he didn’t say that at all. I did. I just thought it sounded better coming from him. 

I recently went to the French Institute or l’institut Français as some might say. Those ‘some’ being the Brits who insist on making a tragic three-part drama series (one for each syllable) out of saying the word ‘aubergine'.

Anyway, I was last at ‘l’institut’ fifteen years ago to see Au Revoir Les Enfants. It’s set in a French boarding school that hides Jewish boys during the German occupation - the message being that racism doesn’t exist until it’s planted in your brain, and even then, good people will rip it out like a weed.

In the last minutes of the film, the young Jews are discovered by the Nazis and their certain fate is death. As they are led away silently in front of the entire school the kindly priest (and purveyor of Junior Weedol) who has provided refuge is taken away too. As he turns back, he smiles lovingly at his pupils with his kind, creased eyes as some of them sob. He pauses, about to speak, but my friend jumps in, beating him to it and exclaims at the top of his voice  “AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS!!” 

I roll my eyes at the same time as the credits. He’d ruined the climax of the film with his clever-dickness. Mostly dickness. Perhaps he’d just got carried away but he was eternally one of those people who had to tell you how clever he was. And did always suffer from premature ejaculation. Verbally.

How do we measure ‘clever' anyhow?  IQ tests only gauge particular types of intelligence and depend on specific cultural references. They always have the ‘What’s next in the sequence?’ question eg. ‘Salt, tequila…’ a lot of people would pick ‘lime’ next, but I’d be looking for the ‘be sick’ option.  And as for the ‘Which is the odd one out?’ section – racists!

Sherlock would get Trivial Pursuit cheeses for deduction and factual knowledge but is bound to fail on emotional intelligence which is why he is incomplete without Watson. And the programme would be vastly improved if he and others didn't reference how clever he is every fucking minute of the show. Yeah alright Narcissus, get on with it!

He would however be popular with a quizzer friend of mine who is saddened that we carry fewer facts in our heads these days because we can just Google them. Bloody know-it-all computers! (Apart from when they get it wrong).

‘They’ can even beat ‘us’ at chess now. Not that I’ve ever played – the only time I have ever monitored kings, queens, bishops, knights and commoners is watching a royal wedding.  

Apparently computers win when there is a time restraint but given more time humans can still triumph. And even if we can’t, sod it, there’s always Twister. 

Besides, they’re no good with feelings, are they, those smart-arse computers? Actually a few of the little fuckers fake it quite well nowadays by having stock responses to various phrases.  

 Siri on my iphone was quite charismatic when I experimented by telling him I was unhappy. First he offered to tell me a joke starting ‘Two iphones walk into a bar..” (Everyone's a comedian!) And then when I told him again he suggested listening to music and consoled me “Sadness is a part of life, as I understand it.”

Sherlock Holmes and others better watch out, the computers are getting good at being human.

GODAMMIT!

Desperate House (of Commons) Wives

I pissed off a Spanish phone perv once. Language lab tapes at school don’t prepare you for just how difficult it is when you can’t see someone’s facial expression and they sound like they’ve been running for a bus. So when I obliviously and apologetically requested that he repeat the question, but slower, and he obliged, and I still couldn’t catch it, there was a long delay, followed by a massive sigh (several, to be honest). Then, clearly despairing of ex-pats, and with a heavy Spanish accent, the pained voice said in English, “What-Are-You-Wearing?”  

I was genuinely shocked - I had no idea they still asked that. But it’s not just bored men with hands-free phones ‘garnishing their chorizos’ (I’m rubbish at euphemisms. And recipes.)  - the press are just as morbidly obsessed with that question if you’re a political party leader’s wife.

A recent Daily Telegraph front page had a picture of Miriam Gonzalez Durantez after a photocall with her husband Nick Clegg. The caption read, ‘She ditched the sensible Gap Jeans she had worn inside [a school] for a more eye-catching pair of Cos trousers but stuck with the silver shoes from Dune.’

Clearly the Lib Dem conf had just been an infomercial for where a partner in a law company, and mother of three with no official role in the party, who earns her own money, buys her clothes. Did we need the full list of high street retailers or was that released to show us how frugally her husband would run the economy? If this is the rationale, it bodes badly for Samantha Cameron this week. Knowing how hard husband David tries to prove he’s a real boy, there’s a shellsuit with her name on it (literally) on its way to the Tory Party Conference as we speak.

Regardless of what ‘the wives’ do, they can’t escape comment on their look. Michelle ‘Good Arms’ Obama does excellent work campaigning for the prevention of child obesity in the US. When I read Miriam Gonz. Dur ‘had eye-catching Cos trousers’, ‘I’d only heard of Cos lettuces, so I assumed she was supporting the First Lady’s cause by dressing as a healthy alternative to Lady Gaga’s meat dress.  Disappointingly they weren’t made of salad at all, they just had a black and white pattern – quite unremarkable really, but no woman in the public eye can wear anything without a judgemental adjective being applied to it so they had to be labelled ‘eye-catching’ and her jeans ‘sensible’. It’s as if Maggie Smith’s dowager character in Downton Abbey had been drafted in specially for  passive-aggressive duties.

And there are not enough fluffy white dressing gowns and freebie shampoos in the world to compensate for the hell of going to conference when your husband is the party leader.  As everyone overly applauds and guffaws at his and his mates’ speeches with their jokes written for them, all eyes are on you. You sit there mute, smiling and looking demure while people scrutinise what you’re wearing. Then you have to kiss him as if he has just steered a large passenger ship away from an iceberg, so everyone can see how much you ‘love and respect each other’. I may have inadvertently just described some people’s weddings here.

News stories about the pair of you will be widely dispatched, the essence of which will largely be ‘He’s tapping that.’ Every image of you will be dissected, more often than not, by groups of women in TV studios (frequently composed of the self-styled ‘pretty’, ‘practical’ and ‘bonkers’ one). ‘She’s cut her hair into a bob, is that fashionable?’ ‘Very practical for the school-run.’ ‘Is it something to do with Bob The Builder?’  And of course the eternal question about whether you’re supportive enough of your husband’s political career. If it was me, I’d be tempted to confuse them even more by never leaving his side yet wearing one of those T-shirts that says ‘I’m with stupid’.  

In the same way if you mention any problem in the First World, someone will remind you there are children starving in Africa, I’m aware my references to Samantha Cameron and Miriam Gonz Dur will prompt someone to furiously point out there are UKIP wives trapped behind a fridge. But ask yourself when you have ever seen an article about what Joachim Sauer wears when he supports his wife German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Yesterday’s Guardian demonstrated you don’t have to be a ‘wife’ in politics to be seen as merely the sum of your clothes, you can even be the Home Secretary. Along with the front page photo of Theresa May’s shoes and trousers, deputy fashion editor Imogen Fox’s article states, ‘As she expounded her tough stance on immigration she stood in shoes worthy of the front row at Paris Fashion week.’ And the obligatory price tag info followed.

Fox’s remit is fashion and she positively cheers May’s admirable and bold fashion sense. But why would The Guardian give so much attention to a woman’s trousers and not her words on a subject that is one of the hottest potatoes in British politics at the moment? Can’t women be judged on the contents of their character and not the colour of their cardigan? (with apologies for hijacking and butchering Martin Luther King’s words a bit there)

Needless to say, The Guardian’s coverage of May’s outfit was nothing in comparison to The Daily Mail’s but that’s what the Mail does: make unkind comments about women in the women’s section written by women. There’s no need for the Guardian to start leering at women just because another paper is Charles Manson.

Godammit!

Middle lane swimming

I’ve been swimming three times this week. I have a bad back so it’s all I can do to help it. People have suggested yoga but I would only be able to do pose of a cat, dog or cobra if they were all roadkill. I have even been getting round my flat on all fours cos it’s easier than straightening up. My neighbours opposite can see inside my flat and possibly suspect I have taken my yearning to own a dog a step too far (Or they’ll assume I’m a sexual sub!)

The only ‘drawback’ of swimming is that I can’t get the smell of chlorine off my skin. Despite slathering myself in orange citrus shower gel and moisturising with cocoa butter oil (net result: craving Jaffa Cakes) it’s still there, but I’m Ok with that.

The hint of bleachiness on my arms reminds me of clean floors in libraries and childhood swimming trips ending in vending machine Quavers., And due to all of this Proustian involuntary memory stuff, the whiff of chlorine on a man is kind of sexy to me despite the fact he could have been disposing of women’s bodies all day.

It was a big day for some fish when they sprung legs like dachshunds and could cope on land. I feel the same about my first pair of goggles that don’t leak in the water.  I can stay in for longer (wondering if I would have been able to survive The Titanic) and swim much better underwater, often pretending to be a manatee or some other creature from the deep as Attenborough narrates, commenting on my size to gracefulness ratio.

I love the sound of my own exhaling underwater and of course the main is joy of having my eyes open is looking at the bit of the pool where is it slopes down massively from shallow to deep. I like to glide over that bit with one arm straight ahead so I can pretend to be Superwoman.

Late night visits to a pool is a filthier habit than smoking when you consider the large area of human skin to have been dipped in it throughout the day but it’s the best time to go because there are so few people and they conveniently divide the pool into three. Like the frigging Goldilocks of swimming, I’m not too fast or too slow - I am very much a middle lane swimmer.

But some people don’t respect what lane they should be swimming in. It’s like when someone uses their phone in the quiet carriage – everyone else has agreed on the main condition of being there, but that particular person thinks it doesn’t apply to them. I recently muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ as the guy sat next to me went to make his third call about how he must be allergic to tequila. He got upset and said there was no need to swear. I explained there was and that it wasn’t the no-swearing carriage. Motorway drivers often speak about people driving ‘up their arse’. In a swimming pool, that phrase is less figurative. Some people swim so slowly in the medium lane that they create a human centipede behind them.

But yesterday I witnessed a new kind of ‘pool rage’. The centrifugal dryer spinning thing that gets the water out of swimwear was broken for the second day running.  It’s a good little machine. It makes a satisfyingly loud noise and does sterling work and I like that in a thing. When I first owned a liquidiser, I don’t think I ate solids for weeks, only soups and smoothies cos the power of pressing the squish button was so immense.

The pool is at the gym and when a machine isn’t working there, they put a sign on it that says something like ‘I’m under the weather. Please use an alternative.’ or  ‘I’m poorly. Come back and use me another day’ or ‘Boohoo, I’m injured. My ickle pulley system is all ouchy. Don’t let them melt me down like they did to the rowing machine. I’ve never met my real dad.’  The worst of these anthrofuckingmorphising notices is on a toilet somewhere in Soho begging people not to put hand towels or feminine hygiene down it; It starts “Hello, my name’s Lou..”.  I’d prefer the more upfront ‘It’s broken because some clueless idiot broke it.” 

The dryer at the pool had a sign apologising for not working just above the instructions for use which were of course written in the first person. It’s simple, just put one costume in at a time, not twelve of them. I don’t know if that’s how it broke, I wasn’t there, but I was there when a German-sounding woman in the changing rooms dressed in just a towel, read the notice (at the same time as me, also only wearing a towel), lost her shit, grabbed my arm and said, ‘Come on, we are going to the men’s to use theirs.’ I exclaimed ‘No. I don’t wanna go, I only live round the corner. I can dry it at home. No, I don’t need to see what’s in there.’

She let me off and strode off towards the men’s. She didn’t get as far as actually going in but stood outside while some bemused bloke she had collared did it for her. She came back in and showed me her dry costume triumphantly. I recognised it from the front of the centipede.

Godammit.

Juliet Meyers: wooo-who?

Juliet Meyers: wooo-who?: Someone made me a mix tape for Valentine’s one year. Between tracks they DJ’ed it by chatting away making raunchy comments. It wasn...

wooo-who?

Someone made me a Valentine's mix tape one year. Between tracks they DJ’ed it by chatting away making raunchy comments. It wasn’t creepy because it was obvious we liked each other and we were, as the tape's compiler said, 'on the brink'. It was very exciting.

Last week, an eternity later, a Polish decorator in my flat found the old radio cassette player with the tape in my spare room. When I got home he was humming along to  ‘Baby, it’s cold outside’  (Tom Jones version with Cerys Matthews.) I didn’t bat an eyelid, assuming it was radio 2, until suddenly there was a very clunky clunk and I heard the familiar voice make a reference to the sexual nature of figs. At the time of recording the mix tape alchemist was a fruit themselves, but of the forbidden variety, which made it all the more thrilling.

On hearing the distinctive voice, I expected my stomach to do its Pavlovian rendition of  'lift plunges a hundred floors in two seconds'  but rather unsatisfyingly it stopped on the 99th floor.  In the cold light of day all the innuendo suddenly sounded quite full on.

The decorator was oblivious.  He was listening to the cassette because he didn’t understand the chat on the radio, so thankfully I was safe. (I really was; during his lunchbreak while working for friends, he'd watched a bit of Hound of The Baskervilles. When they asked what he was watching he replied quite beautifully 'Is problem with dog'.)


He kept pointing to the cassette player and saying "Is Elvis, I think". I'd explain that it wasn't but he'd just object, "Singer is Elvis. Song is Elvis." And I'd just smile thinking, "Believe me, that isn't the only thing you do not understand about what you are listening to."

The minute he went home, I removed it, complete with its amusingly-drawn label, but the next day he asked for it back. He bloody adored it and played it over and over and over, like a toddler with the Teletubbies. I'd done exactly the same ten years earlier. 

In the words of the other, and my preferred Elvis (Costello), “My dreamboat turned out to be a footnote.”  Shame. We'd both had day jobs but used to skive off midway between our offices to meet for coffee. I wasn't sure if we were about to embark on a relationship or not. As I listened to all the 'My wife doesn't understand me' type stuff, I felt like a pre-coalition Lib Dem: furious at the current regime of girlfriend and swearing if I was elected in, it would all be different. But also knowing with some subconscious relief that my bold promises would probably never need to be delivered as I was not likely to be chosen. I wasn't sure I could do that to their other half, but what if I was chosen? And then I'd start to worry a little bit on the journey back to my work.

When I’d get back to my desk, there would be a Post-it with an absurd message stuck on my computer. My 'admirer' was highly amused that the receptionist wouldn’t bat an eyelid at whatever she was asked her to pass on; often calling and asking to speak to ‘Munchkin Meyers’ to which she’d simply say, “It's ringing for you”. It might not sound much but it made me laugh. They made me laugh. They loved that I laughed. They'd often tickle me when I laughed, just to squeeze out any residual laughs that might be left in my belly and it worked. In retrospect, my role might have been to be amused and admiring while the poor girlfriend got to see the more shadowy sides of their personality.

Never before or since has anyone worked so hard to ‘woo’ me. The constant playing of the tape forced every detail of our failed firework of a relationship to come flooding back. 

Mercifully the decorator finished the job in 3 days. He left his Stanley Knife behind but he took the cassette.

godammit!

Bon Govey

It's 2002, Jennifer Lopez’s arse is massive and I'm working as an editor in teenage publishing. We are supposed to be partly educational in attitude so I occasionally paraphrase an interview a teen idol has given and write something like "Bon Jovi says 'Stay in school!'".

The new CEO didn’t know anything about adolescent tastes but his neighbours’ kids had said they liked J.Lo.

At his first planning meeting, he declared I should put J.Lo into all the magazines. I mentioned that I had indeed already featured Jennifer Lopez on the cover of each of our 5 titles.

“Yes,” he snapped, “but we should have J.Lo. The girls next door think she’s great. AND she’s Latino.”

Me through gritted teeth: And for all those reasons we have already put Jennifer Lopez everywhere - too much probably.

Him through nicotine-stained gritted teeth: But I’m not asking for her, I’m talking about J.Lo.

Then J.Lo and behold! I saw on his list of things to discuss it said ‘Jay Lowe’ and the penny dropped. He hadn’t a bloody, cotton picking, public-school confidence misplacing, photocopier jamming, powerpoint presenting, smug-smile wearing, MBA quoting, fucking clue.

Previously I’d only bumped into him when he had demanded the IT department change his email address. The company style was first initial then surname so I was jmeyers@ohmygodyouresoembarrassing.com. The company wasn’t called that but I can’t tell you what it was called for legal reasons. Neither can I tell you what my boss was called but his first initial followed by his surname made it sound like he was a lady who ran a brothel. Someone more secure might have carried it off but not him. Publishing is full of slightly prefecty but clever women and he hated being corrected by them.

His predecessors at the Acne Gazette (it wasn't called that either) were no better. The rollerblading years were the worst. The endless whacky pictures of rollerblading postmen, rollerblading dogs and for the Valentine’s Day issue; a dated picture of a French boy and girl holding hands while they rollerbladed in front of the Eiffel Tower.

I held teenage focus groups and geekily researched teen trends but it was no good telling my boss that the craze for in-line skates had passed because a. He would have said "I’m not talking about in-line skates, I’m talking about Rollerblades." b. He was so convinced he was right that he refused to listen.

But all that was 'back in the day' as I believe the kids today might say, so why mention it now? Michael. Gove. Like every single one of those bosses at ‘Puberty publications, Gove swooped in from Up-his-own-Arseland thinking he knew better than the grassroots people who had immersed themselves in the practicalities and issues of the job.

I know the education system has flaws and needs to adapt to a changing world but let’s just say if Gove becomes Secretary of State for Health, many hospitals will be taking delivery of a heck of a lot of leeches to fight MRSA.

He changed his mind about the EBacc this week and I credited him with facing facts and doing a 180 of his own accord. But apparently not. Like a U-turn in a driving test, examiners forced him to do it.

I don’t disagree with everything he has ever suggested; learning a language at primary school seems a good idea. I wasn’t sure about learning poetry by rote but some educationalists have claimed that reciting things word for word can be both comforting and inspiring in later life. And I guess it helps politicians regurgitate the party line on Question Time.

But why does Michael Gove seem so keen to change things in the face of what people tell him is actually required? Some cite his own face of course. (Is it me or does a lot of topical satire at the moment hinge on the words ‘ugly’ and ‘posh’?) Some people will say it’s because he’s a Tory which seems a lazy explanation. There was a lot of dumbing down caused by Labour in my opinion. But there is a large dose of ego and careerism at play with Gove and it isn’t helpful. There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ and perhaps there should be no Gove in Government.

I taught stand-up comedy to kids with anger issues for a few weeks. They were amazing but I was a novelty and they were actually encouraged to express their frustrations. Every morning I sat in the staffroom with the real teachers; mostly women, who dealt with having 30 kids in a classroom, all with different needs at the same time, every day. And the crap they have to put up with.

If you think the world’s leading martyrs’ website is Al-Qaeda’s, you’re wrong. It’s Mumsnet. Many on there, along with hack comedians will point out the long holidays teachers get. But teachers have to be robust and dedicated for concentrated periods of the year.

I don’t know any more about raising educational standards than the boy Gove. If it was left to me I’d say make TV more challenging. Teaching seems to be like going on X-Factor, there are some naturals but there are a lot of idiots who think they’d be brilliant at it without actually knowing how hard it can be or ever doing it. These are the types of people that say things like “Those who can’t, teach.” Yeah, right, or become The Secretary of State for Education.

GODDAMMIT!

Not my tribe darling.

So i was in a pub in Leicester last Saturday having a Diet Coke - no ice, although a slice of lemon might have been nice Mr barman, when a lot of men in bad supermarket jeans came in. The local news started and these lads, as if they were all being controlled by some Dr Who mind-control device, started chanting "E-E E-D-L". Part of me wanted to say "Actually, it's the B-B B-B-C" but i was too busy thinking "F-F Effing Hell, it's the bleedin' E-E E-D-L" They all got close up to the screen and tried to find themselves in the crowd - tricky when they all have the same ferrety look - a sort of 'Where's Wally? With his Wally-ish friends of course'. But presumably they like looking the same as it adds to their tribal feel and group anger. Some started telling stories of not being treated as well in prison as their more ethnic brothers. (Admittedly they used neither 'ethnic' nor 'brothers')

They bang on about not wanting Sharia law. Neither do I, but these guys haven't even obeyed British law. They don't like the burqa; me neither, but it's so hilarious when they try to sound all feminist about it. They want to protect 'British Culture' but I can't see any of these guys on Mastermind on the subject of "Shakespeare, British history..." Whenever the EDL speak on telly it's like an episode of 'Kids Say the Funniest Things' with the word 'Muslim' at the bottom of the screen and one of them saying "Um..i think it is a verewee scarewee man who is verewee naughty."

Meanwhile, while the EDL may want to stay 100% 'British' I'm personally surrounded by trendy lefties desperate to assert that they are not, or can at least prove how culturally dynamic they are. Some people slip bits of Yiddish into their conversations with me (I often have no idea what they are saying), mention their fury about the Holocaust or worry about my kosher needs (NONE.) A friend of mine who seems to eternally listen to 'World music', recently found out she was a sixteenth Jewish and emailed me to tell me, like I'd email back and say, 'There's a handshake we will teach you.' A sixteenth seems nothing but she's a homeopath so she's used to very weak dilutions. One year ww went to India together and she wanted to buy a sari so she made me try one on as well. I felt uneasy as it's not my culture but did it for curiosity (and cos the sari was v pretty). She tried a white one on and by her own admission looked quite a lot like a prawn cocktail wrap.
Godammit!

Edinburgh flat

It’s about this time in the festival that a lot of comedians start to get homesick. I’m not. Even the steep walk up to my venue is getting easier although I do believe Edinburgh should have installed Stannah stair lifts on the hills rather than invest in a tram.
My flat in London is very small and this Edinburgh flat is amazing. The living room is the size of a stately home. You could swing a lion in there – I feel like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. The only quite creepy thing is the main picture in my bedroom. It’s of ‘Billy the celebrated rat killing dog performing his wondered feat of killing 100 rats in 5 minutes’ in 1822. Nasty. Although ‘a hundred rats in 5 minutes’ does sound like a fast fringe event. The audience watching is largely posh men in top hats. Is it petty that I counted exactly how many they had in? (Answer 31, but I like to think maybe some got in on 2 for 1s).
The flat has lots of antiquey bits and bobs, including an old hard hat that looks like it was worn to colonise Africa. It ‘s the kind of thing that people put on in films and suddenly get transported back in time to lift the ‘curse of the cobra’. To cure slight cabin fever caused by the rain and to cope with pre-show adrenaline, I put it on and tell my flatmate to hit me on the head as hard as possible. `Wow the hat's good!

Ex-pat twat

Clive is coming to stay tonight. In England he a loveable twat but in Greece he is a GOD - a frickin God. Soon you will see images of him on ornate water jugs wearing his Leeds United top. He was a veritable deity in Spain too. It's like one of those HSBC ads: pic of snake in England and caption 'scary'. A pic of snake in China 'delicacy'.
Clive in Greece: 'Phwoar'
Clive in England: 'Shoulda gone to Specsavers.'

In Greece (and Spain) he is catnip for girls and popular with boys in an 'ungay' way (He's a bit sexist and homophobic but can't see it himself). He doesn't even pick up foreign languages easily: By his own admission it took him ages to grasp a sandwich was 'un bocadillo' in Spanish and not a 'une Bodaeccia'. He actually used to refer to Spanish as 'Gibber'.

He wipes his teeth with a napkin after he has a Ducado cigarette with an espresso, but non-English girls still touch their hair when he is around, giggling coquettishly and saying 'Really, Clive?'hanging on his every word. I have finally worked out how he does it - ridiculous confidence and people hoping he might be like James Bond.

Cultural differences can make the person seem so much more glam and people often can't get over their pre-conception of a particular nationality so they just see the stereotype. It took Madonna eight years to finally realise Guy Ritchie was NOT a Cockney geezer and that he wore a flat cap because he shot grouse, not because he swept chimneys.

I was Clive's flatmate in Madrid for a year. He cooked occasionally and some women thought he was the new messiah for doing so. They'd point at me and say "She didn't cook for you?" He didn't need Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to spread the word about what a genius he was with a loaf (it was only sodding garlic bread!), he was his own publicist at every possible opportunity.

Sometimes he did chilli con carne but with Baked Beans because his mum gave him the recipe and she made it that way cos he hated kidney beans despite having never tried them. Clive regularly had people bring him his supply of Baked Beans, Marmite and Viz from the UK. He wasn't even adventurous with Spanish food when at people's houses, but still the adoration came as girls and their mothers (the girls still lived with their families until they had a husband) cooked him fried eggs to go with his Patatas Bravas. Then after the meal, while the girls' dads went and had a whiskey and a cigar they'd invite Clive to come too but he'd decline and offer to help 'the ladies' wash up. BING! He was suddenly covered in shimmering pink lipstick from the girls and vicious purplish out-of-control lovebites from their mums!

To be fair, women in Spain are cool and feisty. Gender expectations have changed since Clive and I lived there 12 years ago and I'm sure the same is true of Greece. He may soon have to move to Saudi to have the same effect on the native people of a female persuasion.

To add to his mystique of 'The Englishman abroad' Clive teaches people idioms that nobody in England actually says. His last Greek girlfriend, told me she liked Obama because he "knows his onions". I've never met a person learning English yet who doesn't love "It's raining cats and dogs." Al Qaeda may hate the West but they love that phrase. If they could just be on Clapham High Street when it's tipping it down and be able to turn to someone in a bowler hat and say "It's raining cats and dogs" and the man say "Yes! by jove you're right." the world would become more peaceful. England is bloody disappointing for visitors; Nobody says 'spiffing', we don't have pea-souper fogs, and we don't even call policemen 'Bobbies' (another overseas favourite).

USA has Disneyland. We should have Downton Abbeyland. I detest the programme, it makes me want to vomit 'un-femininely' on Julian Fellowes' fat peanut of a head with its glorification of the class system, the proper way to behave if you are a woman, servant or 'other', and patronising Noblesse Oblige. I cannot stand all the quaintness of strict traditions like 'what horse goes with what pair of shoes?' and 'Good lord, one must never the port to the left in one's hand if one has a hook.' All these petty rigmaroles and rituals, is it quaintness or OCD? Either way, people outside the UK seem to want more of it along with other fool's gold exports Clive, old idioms and Sarah Ferguson (Yes Sarah Ferguson. Sorry Oprah, you're a genuine hero of mine. I wanted to break the news to you gently.)
Godammit!