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!

Edinburger and chips

The man playing the bagpipes outside Selfridges yesterday was a tourist's dream come true: Tartan kilt, Harris Tweed jacket, big socks and a face like a rouged-up pufferfish. It looked like the pipes were gonna blow back down his throat and inflate his duodenum into a failed balloon animal (If I ever form a double act, I want to call it 'Duodenum').

My intestines have developed their own Pavlovian/Midlothian response to bagpipes as a result of doing the Edinburgh Fringe: EXCITED. But a bit sick. Excited. But "Aargh, don't you know any calming whale songs mate?"

40 million sperm travel to the ovum hoping to be the successful one. And that's also what it's like being a comedian doing a show in Edinburgh. Much like a marathon, some train for ages, others turn up, and others do it in a very sweaty costume.

Like most comedians, I'm a glutton for punishment. And for chips. One year I even lived near the ace Chip shop on Broughton Street that does a separate menu for men and women. The Female one might come with salad and the morning after pill. I bloody love the fact it also has a DJ on Saturdays. It's one of those funny and brilliant things I forget about til I see it again, like walking along Canal Street in Manchester and seeing that someone's crossed out the C and the S so it closer befits being the main gay thoroughfare. Edinburgh also used to have a bus pass campaign and the man's name on the mocked up card was Len de Hand. Every year I'd wonder if you could take such diabolical liberties and make up a surname like that? Is it Dutch? Even during the fringe that has to be the most laboured pun ever.

It's hardly Trainspotting but my chip consumption during the festival goes way up. Putting on a show when 3000 others are also putting on a show makes me need to pack in carbs like a mofo. I worry that my heart won't be as brave as i expected. In 2008 I accidentally slipped on one and skated quite far..and then fell over. C*nts applauded.

On the second day of my show in 2008 I had several reviewers booked in to see the show. My promoters respected the fact I didn't want to know they were coming as it makes me nervous. If ticket sales are low, the thing to do is give away free tickets so the room looks fuller. I was chuffed to see so many faces as stepped from behind the curtain and the show was fine apart from every time I spoke to the crowd. People didn't want to answer my questions and shrugged them off - No,they didn't have computers, no they didn't go on holiday, no they didn't watch tv, no they never went to Starbucks... I jokingly asked if they were the Amish. "No." came the reply from one man "We're all homeless," gesticulating to ninety-nine percent of the room. "But a young guy gave us all tickets to come for free to get out of the rain." To be fair they were lovely and every time I walked under the bridge on Cowgate, one of them tapped me on the knee from their blanket to say hi.

My first year in Edinburgh I flyered for myself (i was doing a 2 hander but the other hand was off wanking himself off about how hilarious his joke about a train company was..dont get me started. I complained so much at the time i seemed to become a legend to all the fab members of We Are Klang). Two girls took a flyer off me but said they wouldn't come unless I told them a joke. I told them it didnt work like that but their attitude was I must be shite, my ego took over and I told them a shortish gag about lesbians. One laughed but the other said "I think you just called us gay. Did you call us gay?" I explained that I didn't but there was nothing wrong with that if they were etc. She called me a 'fucking fuckwank'then threatened to hit me. I just snatched back the flyer and tutted, "Fine. Don't bloody come."

My fave audience member ever was a a free fringe show at an absurd venue where the stage was in front of the kitchen so while i did my solo show she would come in and carry out a leg of lamb from behind me. It was like panto with carcusses. Anyway, at the compilation show, while waiting to go on stage, a drunken punter told me and the compere (Lewis Bryan of London comedy circuit fame) she had accidentally cut off a bit of genital with hedge clippers while trying to look nice for her boyfriend. I couldn't do my set cos I was laughing so much.

God Bless the fringe!
GODAMMIT!

Ugly Johnny

Until a few days ago, if you had shown me a picture of John Galliano and asked me who it was, my guess would have been Jack the Ripper in panto.

I only knew John Galliano as one of those people that designs supposedly radical stuff for the catwalk, like a jumper with the sleeves made from a soldier's uniform. Genius or The Narcissist's New Clothes? I'm always suspicious of people using military decor or royal stuff in fashions. It's the same as dressing up as Spiderman in your thirties; adopting 'power' icons simply alerts the world to a certain internal inadequacy.

He also does tacky shit they sell in Debenhams, like T-shirts with his name in big letters. There's one that looks like it has newsprint all over it, and even then the newspaper headlines say 'Go Go Galliano!'. This could have been a genuine newspaper article this week, but with 'Go, go' being used in the 'fuck off' sense of the word, rather than the supportive sense.

As the story goes; man walks into a bar (ok, a cafe), gets pissed and says 'Hey, why the long (Ok, Jewish) faces? The girls aren't Jewish but because he thinks they are he tells them their grandparents would have been gassed, that they are ugly and that he loves Hitler.

Oh God, yeah, he's a piece of anti-Semitic crap - no shit Shylock! But Hitler wasn't keen on gays either so it was also totally ridiculous - talk about low self-esteem. The man was drunk and was trying to be as offensive as possible so he brought up the subject of Hitler. He lost his job, Natalie Portman metaphorically kicked him in the nuts (hooray), he faces legal proceedings...yadda yadda yadda (to quote various people in Seinfeld, Lenny Bruce and assorted other Jews).

He deserves all he gets, except for the importance given to his words. Yes, in vino veritas. He clearly meant them, but his views on anything apart from the use of tartan with polka dots should not be respected by anyone. After the Hitler and ugly thing, I'm guessing his next killer gambit was gonna be that they were a 'poo poo'. Was it shocking? Aside from childish words coming from a decaying (to address Mr Galliano's insecurities) botoxed face, no. And even that isn't shocking. Mel Gibson did a similar thing.

I mentioned once onstage that my parents were Jewish and a man in the audience shouted 'turn the gas on'. Obviously I didn't like it but he was just an idiot who thought it was hilarious banter and that's all he knew about Jews. It's seen as the ultimate taboo to say. He came up to me afterwards and told me his mate was half-German. I explained that the war was over and that my maternal grandmother was entirely German and that at her funeral, apart from my dad's Mondeo, the car park was full of BMWs and Mercedi (what is the plural of Mercedes?) so the 'German' thing didn't really cut it. I really got the impression he was more of a tool than a genuine racist.

I'm not saying because Galliano was drunk and stupid, his words don't count. I'm aware his twattishness could set the other idiots off. He and Mel G (Anti-Semitic Spice?) were beautiful-looking and successful in age-conscious industries until they were both less so and felt the need to blame something for their fading stardom. But come on, it's so pitiful, it is funny. What you gonna blame for being an arsehole? Yourself? The booze? No, the Jews!

Next week: Katie Price blames the Dalai Lama for another failed marriage.

Godammit!

From rage to middle age

I could never be a suicide bomber.

I have numerous backpacks. Am I being retro? Do they still use backpacks? One of the London bombers had a Fitness First one. I wonder if his gym membership was up yet. Did he want to look buff for the virgins? Wouldn't a Virgin Active backpack have been more appropriate?

If you truly believe you are doing heroic work, isn't that its own reward or could David Cameron sell Big Society better if there were virgins, albeit re-conditioned ones? If suicide bombers are doing it for the 'minge benefits' (have i just become a teenage boy??) they should just go to a Justin Bieber concert and see how he gets millions of virgins screamimg for him (although the music might make the bombers kill themselves anyhow).

I'm asking too many questions here and not answering them - it's too Sex and The City as a style, I'm even using a MacBook. Shit, now product placement, just like the second, dreadful shameful film that makes women look like idiots. It shouldn't, but women, like Muslims all get lumped into one group by some people. This is about suicide bombers.

Anyway, no, I couldn't be a suicide bomber. Yes, I have the rucksacks and an array of wheely suitcases (for the suicide bomber with back pain) that have lifetime guarantees (that can be sadly cut short). Yes, I have the occasional bout of fury, last spotted in the post office this afternoon when the stamp machine wouldn't take my 50p and that gormless man on the poster annoyed me. Only the UK could have a bumbling man who looks like he has never heard of female orgasms or the internet as the poster boy for the national mail distribution network. I couldn't be a suicide bomber cos I lack the focus and the dedication. I admire these qualities, I once went to an afternoon's "Break the habit of procrastination" workshop (was a work thing). The 'trainer' congratulated us on 'making it to the workshop'. We all did sarcastic laughs then she said to stop being perfectionists and just do it. Good advice, especially for the creepy bloke who said he had taken 7 years to choose a new TV. I admire suicide bombers for just doing it. Perhaps I could have done it in my 20's. I was angrier and more spontaneous then.

In Central London there are tons of newsagents that sell souvenir postcards, including one I still find pretty horrible but in my 20's it enraged me; it is a photo of naked boobs that have been drawn on with marker pen on so they look like mice (the nipple's the nose etc) and it says something like 'squeak, squeak'. So i would go in the newsagent's and choose tons of magazines, soft drinks, chocolate bars, pens, maybe ask for lots of packets of fags..shit loads of stuff piled on the counter, then just as I was about to pay, I'd casually ask, "Do you sell those cards?" They'd say "Yes", then I'd say "WELL THEY'RE DEMEANING TO WOMEN, I'M NOT GONNA BUY ANY OF THIS NOW!" and storm out.

I bloody loved it but did it help? And this is the thing with suicide bombing; it may be 'admirable' but the 'middle-aged' (i'm not sure i need the inverted commas) me sees it as just petulant. If swearing is seen as having a limited vocabulary (is it?) what about suicide bombers?

OXBRIDGE WANKER DEBATING BOFFIN-TYPE: ..and that concludes why I believe A-levels should henceforth be made harder.

SUICIDE BOMBER FOR OPPOSING TEAM: ***KABOOOOM!!***

Godammit.

Fuck you Tatty Teddy!

One of life’s major skills is apparently the ability to make quick decisions. Just bloody decide. Unless you are cutting a wire on a ticking bomb, what the hell does it matter?

Should you shoot down a hijacked plane with people onboard if it prevents it from crashing into a major city? You could call me on my mobile in the women’s pyjama department of M&S and I could give you an answer INSTANTLY.

But it turns out I wouldn’t then be able to choose a pair of pyjamas. Nothing to do with having just killed a planeload of people rather too hastily due to an innocent bearded man leaving his seat, but because M&S make violence-inducing pyjamas.

The Deranged range mostly has Tatty Teddy on it. Tatty isn’t so much tatty as almost dead. He’s got stitches like Frankenstein’s Monster’s all over him. I always rather sexistly wondered if Dr F’s monster had absurdly big stitches between his head and neck because Dr F was crap at sewing. I imagined his hemming must be appalling but having seen Tatty’s surgeon’s work, I realise Dr F was pretty good.

Tatty even has a spine problem on one of the pyjama tops and is engulfed in a giant snowflake. Sometimes he has tartan love hearts coming out of his head like thought bubbles and sometimes he’s asleep on a red polka dot cushion with the caption ‘Dreaming of you’. I don’t want him to dream of me. I don’t want to be infantilised by my pyjamas. Tis the season to be jolly but a snowman with a gingham scarf? Snowmen don’t barn dance.

I did a gig in Bridlington recently and the donkeys giving rides up and down the beach looked so sad I wondered if I could buy their freedom or claim I needed them to work in my factory (I’d been watching Schindler’s List). Donkeys are cute but I still don’t want a pyjama top with a giant E for Eeyore on. What is it with women’s pyjamas and animals that are a bit thick or injured? At least if the animals were bolder with more purpose – King Kong or shagging rabbits or banned dogs.

M&S also have a Poncey range. The Autograph range. Ooooh, maybe the designer has signed them. The website shows a very tall woman in a black satiny judo suit type thing with white piping on the sleeves. She looks good – sophisticated, chic, assertive..I tried them on and looked like a stunted bell-boy/end. The website and the label on them does state very categorically they are part of their exclusive range. Exclusive? Who exactly is being excluded? Who has been told they must await authorisation? I don't like being patronised by my pyjamas.

I’d been in M&S for what seemed like an eternity pleading with myself to just fucking decide, questioning whether I genuinely might have a meltdown. I gave myself 40 seconds to choose or just forget it. I finally grabbed something..from their Shagging range. It’s M&S shagging so it’s really the ‘bit lacy, not overly racy, can go in washing machine at any temperature’ range. The colour is quite muted and my flat gets quite warm so it’s practical. Jesus, I cant believe I'm justifying my choice..
Godammit!

you had me at "goodbye" part 1

My Blackberry buzzed yesterday with the message “Ha ha, we are freed slaves!” The sender was a 62-year old funster to whom I will refer as ‘Uday Hussein’. Alcoholics have birthdays based on when they last touched a drop of booze. Uday and I celebrate from the day when we last had a 9-5 job, which was 7 years ago exactly.

A month before our ‘birth’ I brashly told my sister-in-law I was going to hand in my notice in 11 days’ time. It was my first and only proper job. They'd recently promoted me and i was stupidly flattered. It came with a grand job title but sadly that's how much the payrise was too. Their view being that I was privileged to work for a trendy media company in Soho. My flatmate said I was like a prisoner dying to escape but gullible enough to hang around simply because I had been picked for the 5-aside-football team.

As I said goodby my sister-in-law goodbye she wished me luck for 11 days’ time “Why? What’s happening?” I asked. I’d already forgotten. I was clearly full of shit. But nine days later an email summoned me to a star chamber-like meeting to discuss ‘changes in company structure.’ Word on the street was that meant redundancies and I prayed the rusty axe with a diamante handle would land right on my head. Fuck me, it’s one of the few times my prayers have been answered.

My boss was trembling as he explained he had to read off a piece of paper to get the wording right. I developed an unexpected cockney tinge in my voice as I replied “You do what you need to do, matey mo. I’ll be fine.” It felt like being hosed in the face with freezing water on a boiling hot day.

His non-committal, placatory, patronising remarks and enquiry whether I wanted to play for the bigger job (that mine was being scrapped for) made me feel like a contestant on ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ Except that I was already sure of my answer, I'M OUTTA HERE! unless the question was ‘Who is the bigger twat – my boss or Chris Tarrant?’ “Hmm. Let me think. Tarrant has the answers written on his monitor in front of him but mocks the people struggling to work it out for themselves. My boss prints endless spreadsheets in 6 point without drawing any meaningful conclusions from them whatsoever.”

I must have been the company’s least painful eviction ever but I still felt a flicker of fury at the company’s ingratitude and inevitably began to question my ability to do the job and what the difference truly was between being made ‘redundant’ and ‘sacked’. I looked up redundant in a dictionary and it said ‘See Wikipedia, fool! No-one uses dictionaries anymore’. I’m a fan of progress, I knew the company needed to make cuts but it still hurt to think I’d worked so hard for a company that wanted to replace me with ‘The Jules 2.0’ or even worse and more likely - a ‘Nothing like me’.

Uday’s case was different. She only had a few years left till retirement having worked there for over 31 years, loyally. She was the one who employed me in the first place. For her 30th anniversary the company gave her a cut-glass decanter with the company’s logo on it. It looked like something from ‘Terry and June’, although her Terry, to whom she had been married, loyally, for 25 years, had recently told her he saw no future in their marriage and asked her to leave their home in leafy Surrey. She had to be the one to go because the house was tied in with his job 'of local importance'.

Uday stood to lose her daily network of friends and an income. She told them she’d do any job and begged to stay on even if she had to clean toilets. While my productivity and commitment plummeted, she continued working efficiently but with the saddened pink eyes of a cornered mouse,. Then suddenly after a few days something happened – she became a giant mouse. On hind legs. With boxing gloves. And two fingers held up inside them. And a massive hard-on! Perhaps the realisation that she stood to get a nice tax-free lump sum helped. Or simply relief she didn’t need to be around for the final cut-glass monstrosity.

Side by side we signed on the dotted line and personnel got permission to fire off the emails announcing our departure. A few in the company already knew due to the office Big Mouth (who was later laid off herself).

The notifications reminded me of a film about anti-apartheid campaigner Steven Biko. Biko suffered a major head injury while in police custody, and was chained to a window grille for a day. Police then loaded him in the back of a car naked and drove him to a prison hospital 740 miles away where he was pronounced dead (thanks Wikipedia.you are sure better than any dictionary!). The authorities issued a statement saying he died because he refused to eat. He was the 20th person to die in custody in 18 months . Many of his friend’s deaths were explained away with ‘they tripped and fell down the stairs.’

The email explaining my leaving to the rest of the company said I was taking a career break. Uday’s one said she wanted to spend more time in her garden. With 3 offices and a fire door between us, I heard her scream “I don’t even have a fucking garden. I don’t have a place to live, you fucking morons.” Twas as absurd as claiming strong young South African men who hate apartheid had legs like defective slinkies.

I quite relished the feeling that we were public enemies to the system, and on our final day, the headline was that an American 'Intelligence' Agency had obliterated a major threat to Western civilisation by killing two of Saddam Hussain’s sons – Uday and Qusay. The names just stuck. The more trivial news was that 142 directory enquiries was being replaced by the heroic moustache heroes 118 118. It was clearly a day for getting rid of old regimes. In the middle of our farewell party where I made a speech citing Fidel Castro (“History will absolve me.”) and Uday was acerbic but cleverly diplomatic just in case she needed a reference, it was announced that my boss’s boss (my Grand-boss) had just been made redundant too. Apparently the order to reduce the people in my team had come from him, but then his boss (my Great grand-boss) had made him redundant because he didn’t really have much of a team to manage anymore. Ha! hoist by his own petard. People were getting whacked everywhere.
Godammit!

Taking the piss

I'm a regular person, toilet-wise at least. I have no need for weird products like Dulco Ease with women on ads being cagey about what the actual problem is or the product's for. "Things in the bathroom" the twit in the neck scarf says eerily. Huh? Oh you mean the psychopath behind the shower curtain!

So many ads for things aimed at women are bad rip-off's of Sex and The City but with the women being coy, overly excitable arseholes. Aside from anything, don't men need Dulco Ease? In these ads even pooing is an excuse for a mock gender war; at the end of the ad one of the women mentions getting rid of a pain so then her friend quips that she's better off without HIM. HIM! Get it? Not it, but HIM. SHE'S TALKING ABOUT A BOYFRIEND!! Then they all laugh like it's the funniest thing ever with their mouths wide open and their eyes shut like they haven't a care in the world - yeah, except she couldn't even say 'constipation' so it doesn't bode well for "things in the bedroom" "things at work" or "things" at all.

But anyway, regular, regular, regular, that's me and also the size of coffee I have at Costa. Drinking coffee, along with standing in bookshops, makes me need to go to the loo again and FAST! Sorry for this detail, despite my hate of the Dulco-Ease lady and wanting women to call it like it is, I'm not a fan of huge scatterlogical detail. Though I am chuffed I used scatterlogical in a sentence cos for ages I thought it just meant something to do with general untidiness.

My mother does scatterlogical detail big time (No time to explain this unless you have a couch I can lie on.). When I see my parents I am subjected to UKIP opinions from dad (an immigrant himself) and a 'pooing report' from my mother. Neither listens to the other properly and mention of Yakult's probiotic culture is likely to get Dad irate that Britain should have only one culture.

So after going to Costa today, I used the loo in Hammersmith Broadway, where the tube station is. I got my 30p ready to go through the turnstile thing and saw it said '50p'. FIFTY! FIVE-OH. You can buy a whole new kidney for that in..(insert place to offend). I don't wanna get all Victor Meldrew on your ass but come on (Eileen). This would have been the one and only time I could have staged a dirty protest. I didn't. Obviously. But i couldn't help myself saying something facetious (faecitious!?? sorry, this isnt turning into the social comment blog I envisaged) about hoping the toilets were made of gold.

At that particular moment in time I would have paid £1 cos i really needed to go, but how can the price jump from 30p to 50p? How can the cost of going to the toilet have gone up so much in 2 weeks? Is this a result of quantitative easing? Or Dulco-easing now fewer women are constipated?

I'm getting a receipt next time. I considered writing a letter of complaint but life might be too short and even if I got a reply it would be bollocks about the recession. I did a gig last year that I had in my diary as paying £100 in a gay nightclub on a rough estate in East London. The day before the gig, the person who booked me said it was only £50. When i queried it, she said it was because the pink pound had plummeted. Really? My gay friends assure me the 'whoopsie index' has not fallen that far.

Godammit.

this is a test

of the non nuclear kind