Janey Godley’s Blog

The hotel had a wee single bed which slid along the floor when you sat on it and to top it all the fire alarm screamed us all awake and made us all stand in the sideways rain in our pyjamas, I wanted to burn to death instead.

Touring is so sexy.

I was tired when I hit Aberdeen station to get the train home. There was a big fat steely haired woman in a rail workers jacket at the ticket gate. “What ticket do I put through the machine to get onto the platform? There are nine tickets printed for this journey, I don’t know which one to slide through the machine!”

She sneered and shouted “the one that says journey ticket, why don’t you check?”

The tickets have tiny writing and there are so many of them it really is hard to figure out which one is the valid ticket.

“Listen up fatty, NINE tickets here now tell me which one? They all look alike. What is your job? Staring at pigeons?” I shouted at her.

Just then two really old people came behind me with a deck of tickets (why is there so many wee orange tickets printed out for A JOURNEY?)

“What ticket do we use to get through there are so many?” the wee old stooped man asked fatty fuckwit.

“What do you think? The one that says journey…” she started to yell.

“Ok, you annoying pedantic fat pain in the butt, I will stand here and I will show people which ticket as the TRAIN is LATE I will do your job and help elderly people with the tickets” I screamed. Pigeons flew away in fear.

So I stood there at the gate and pointed out to people who were staring at a fist full of tickets and who asked fatty sarcastic arse for help.

Every time she attempted to use her nasty sneering attitude, I butted in and helped the people. It wasn’t altruistic I was just annoyed at her and bored to be honest.

She then told me to stand back from the gates and I refused.

She got the station master bloke who came over, listened to her moan about me standing at the gate and then came over and told me to move.

I explained that she was ignoring people’s pleas for help and explained the whole situation and the elderly man and wife came over to back me up. Fatty was told off and made to go back to the hut where I hope the chained her to a radiator and let her piss her own fat legs. What a cow.

They put a young Polish bloke on the gate and he politely explained to people who were struggling to figure out which ticket to slide through the machine. Screw you Aberdeen station ticket woman.

The journey home was pleasant except I had a screaming kid on the seat opposite. I didn’t get angry I merely got off my seat and went into first class where the ticket checker let me sit the whole journey for no extra charge, see some people on trains are nice.

I went up to Easterhouse to do my one woman comedy show on Saturday and it was awesome. Lovely to see so many people turn up for comedy and the show went well; Ashley sold 25 of my books for me, what a lovely child!

This week I am off to London, I have some gigs, some meetings and another big audition. Scary stuff but contrary to the rumours, I am not going into the jungle…don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Oh, by the way, buy a toothbrush, I know you have hardly any cash but seriously that stuff they say about decay is right, a toothbrush is important. By the time you are 40 years old you will have paid £2,000 in veneers and bridge work at a private dentist.

Yes, you will have private health care; I know it’s hard to believe right now.

So, get the record player turned off and start staring at school books. Try harder to understand maths and don’t give up on art or English, you will be good at both in future, just try to understand me when I say you will write, paint and you really need to understand percentages when you get older.

I know it’s the 70s but please don’t wear a plaid shirt tied at the waist with your curly fringe hanging over your eyes, and if you do have to look like that please don’t get a Polaroid photo taken in Mr Woods garden, I have seen the picture and it made my eyes water. It is even on the internet, something I can’t quite explain right now, but will be really big in the future.

The 1980s are just around the corner and hair perms get really fashionable. Please DO NOT get a perm, you have really curly hair and it will result in you being housebound for three days, and a hair-do that makes Gladys Knight and the Pips jealous, no white girl should have hair bigger than Diana Ross.

If you are still not convinced of this advice, go to the local library and look up a boxing promoter called Don King and never ever forget that that’s what you will look like if you get a cheap perm in a Parkhead hair salon called ‘Hair Flair’ in 1981.

Also just to save you a lot of time, money and energy, you CANNOT skateboard, play the violin, do yoga, cook soufflé, wear strapless bras, pink eye shadow and you will never enjoy ballet performances.

Oh, by the way, that dream you had about a TV being made into a wrist watch? That actually gets invented. You were a visionary!

So Janey, don’t go into school tomorrow and declare that you are leaving, I know you have a shoe issue, but take up your mums offer to wear her slip on sandals and get through the week. Having no shoes is not good enough excuse to screw up your life.

Your dad will buy you shoes next week. Go there in your bare feet if needs be as you really need to go get an education, get into university and leave with a degree, if you do that, me getting into jobs later in life will be a hell of a lot easier, people are snobs and TV companies prefer folk with a Uni degree, even if they are shit at the job, it helps on paper.

Just on another note, your breasts will grow, I know they look like two moles poking their noses through pizza dough, but they really get big, seriously big and it is amazing how much they get big, have I emphasised that enough? Big boobs Janey will be a nickname.

Don’t throw a medicine ball at a guy called Craig Armstrong on your hockey pitches, he is a wee bit older, geeky and likes music. He really becomes the most famous person from your school and is an amazing composer. You will love his stuff and download it (don’t ask what that means suffice to say you will never use vinyl records forever, but do keep them safe anyway). Just avoid hurting him, especially his fingers, they are his life and don’t call him a tweedy fuckwit, its makes him never want to speak to you again. He has a really long memory.

Tonight when you watch Sale of the Century on the telly, don’t let your mum slag off Nicholas Parsons, when you get older he will become a nice friend and you will feel bad about your mum shouting at the TV and calling him an ‘English Toffy Nose Bastard’.

I know you are wondering what the hell happens later in life, so far I have scared you with dental work, big tits and Nicholas Parsons, but bear with me.

Sometime soon, you will get a boyfriend called George; he is really quiet, drinks too much and has deep psychological issues. What you think is a quirky attitude is actually a dark violent streak; he likes to stab men with a knitting needle.

He might be a good kisser and doesn’t push you into sex, but he really does get into needles later on in life and they aren’t for knitting with. Who knew heroin would be such a big hit in inner city Glasgow?

You will break up with him when he asks you to marry him, one suggestion -don’t laugh out loud, remember the violent streak?

He doesn’t take rejection or laughter in his face very well.

Ignore him and walk away. But worry not -you do make a lucky escape.

I do really want to warn you about the next man, but if you don’t marry him, go through the scary shit you don’t get to produce a beautiful daughter and become a funny comedian.

I suppose you need to tread that crap to be the woman you need to be, but the husband is ok. It’s amazing how annoying he can be, but here’s a clue, don’t talk too much. I think you need to know that the talking thing bothers people, keep some of that inside but if and when you meet your husband’s family and feel like being cheeky, go right ahead.

You actually develop a really good repertoire for arguments and you usually win.

Don’t worry about jobs, you actually become self employed from a young age and that continues throughout your life, and stick to your theory about not drinking, not smoking and never touching pills or drugs. You were right about that, and in later years if someone offers you something called ‘smack’ you will be right to refuse to smoke it off a foil tube, it kills most of your friends. That sounds scary but trust me it is over in a blink and you eventually write a play about it. Yes, you will write a bit, did I mention that? Just try to remember everything as you need to recall it to write it.

Just so you know, you will produce a tall wonderful child, and she will get everything you never had. She will be clean, educated and never need to worry about fresh underwear, your vow for the future of your child to be happy, well fed and educated will come true.

Don’t worry about labour pains; they aren’t that bad as everyone tells you and you recover quickly.

Something else I want to tell you, enjoy your body, you have wee skinny legs, so go show them off. Stop worrying about thinking you are fat, your not, be confident and when those boobs grow take time to watch men stare at them, savour that moment when they are up high and firm, it will feel like a distant memory when you are older…enjoy the pert tits.

Don’t wear baggy shirts to disguise them, get a good bra, a tight tee shirt and get them out there, they look amazing (I know I saw the photo’s) but you will suffer from self consciousness over them, try to enjoy them Janey, it’s a time to relish and it passes before you know it and you will spend your middle ages kicking yourself for hiding them when they had looked their best!

My last big thing I need to tell you, get to know your mum a bit more. She is a bit scatty, but just look at her; make sure you embed every single facet of her face into your memory. Don’t give her a hard time, hug her. Climb into bed and let her read to you, I know you are 16 years old, but she is a great reader and you grow up and take that skill with you.

Breathe in the smell of her, even the strange ones. Touch her face, smile and hold her. She had a crap life and you really want to share some time with her, if possible get that Polaroid camera out and get a photo of you both together. It would be nice, but probably won’t happen.

She needs you, you don’t know that, but she isn’t good at saying stuff that scares her. Let her dance with you, get her to sing a musical with you, let her pick which song she wants and get up and dance around the room.

Hold her tight Janey and don’t ever forget how the skin on her face feels, or the thickness of her hair or the flecks of amber in her brown eyes.

Most of all Janey, don’t give yourself a hard time for wanting more than she had, so go get shoes, get ready for a bra fitting and always brush your teeth, you have a long way to go and I will be here when you get there!

I hate being manipulated like that don’t you?

Christmas or winter to me smells like wood burning and the frosty bright mornings remind me of the seasons changing, I don’t know anyone who boils cinnamon, makes spiced oranges or who mull wine not from present day nor my past, because I wasn’t alive in Victorian times when Christmas came into its own.

It seems we modern folk can’t have our own Christmas identity; we have to hark back to the olden days to get one. Cards and TV adverts show small Victorian dressed children with rosy cheeks and furry muffs staring through bevelled shop windows as their ankle boots are deep in crisp snow. Is there anyone alive who can recall that? NO!

To me childhood Christmas memories are of musty socks hanging over our old coal fire in the front room and my brothers fighting each other with tangerines in socks as weapons. So keep your cinnamon scented wafts, it means nothing to me Mr Supermarket psychological manipulator!

We will be having a quiet Christmas as always, just me husband and Ashley. I might go see my dad on Christmas day as this will be his first as a widower and I would hate that he was lonely. We don’t do family at Christmas, to be honest I don’t really have much contact with my family and the less said about husband’s family the better!

My own brothers and sister are just busy with their own lives, they have kids and husbands/partners of their own and I rarely see them, which is fine with us all. But when I hear of people who all get together and have dinners etc, it makes me hanker for a big family of love. Which is probably nonsense as I am sure that those big families all fight like hell, and are just being nice to each other, at least my brothers and sister don’t fight amongst themselves ( as we don’t get together!).

Went to the docs today and explained about my colon pain and stuff you really don’t need to know which involves my bowels. He told me I would be referred to a specialist called Dr Dover to which I replied “is his first name Ben?” To which my doctor said “No, Why?”

“It was a joke…Ben Dover...the bum doctor…its funny when you say it all together” I quipped.

“Ah, you are a comedian, I forgot” said my doctor with a sardonic look.

So, maybe I am not a comedian after all, Dr Shaw has exposed my lack of humour right there in the surgery at 10am

So life at Godley’s World is ticking along fine, been busy -had an ear infection, went deaf had loads of work and writing hard and this Saturday I am doing my one woman show at Easterhouse Platform The Bridge at 8pm. Do come along if you want, it will be fun!

Last week, my ears decided to totally block up with bricks of wax. Yes, I produce more wax than a queen bee and my ear then cuddles it all around my ear drum and making me deaf. This was a pain the ass as I had a lot of work this week, you try doing a charity auction half deaf!

The people at the Boisdale Club in Belgravia London really helped me out, they raised hands to pledge cash, love those nice folks, but the tartan carpets were odd though. You always know you are in England when you see hundreds of tartan throughout a building.

I then flew home half deaf picking at the ear, filling it with ear drops (which are more expensive than crack per fluid ounce) I now have a healthy ear drop habit, they don’t work. You know what works? Nothing, just in case you were interested, I filled my gungy ears with that stinky expensive fluid and all that happens was that it all ran onto my neck.

I had warm up work for a sitcom called Life of Riley. I needed to hear; I ran to my doctors to get an emergency appointment and was seen by a woman I have never met before. She was either Latin American or faking a funny accent to add a frisson of excitement to my ear examination…or maybe I couldn’t hear her properly. “Are you Spanish?” I asked.

“No, am Asian, is there something funny about the way I speak?” she snapped at me. I had now insulted a woman who was about to poke a big shiny pointy thing into my ravaged tender ear hole, that will learn me.

Apparently the wax STILL hadn’t softened enough for them to syringe it. The wax in my ear is made of titanium steel and is refusing to let the expensive stinky drops soften it down. Perfect.

 “When will it be ready?” I pleaded.

“Three weeks or maybe never” she shouted at my ear.

Must remember to never get Asian people mixed up with Jennifer Lopez, my ears are doomed. So I went home and syringed them myself, fuck it.

So some wax did come out and I can now hear enough to get by.

The warm up work was awesome and tiring at the same time, asking people to laugh at the same joke on set can be weary, but that audience were amazing. Met the lovely Caroline Quentin who helped me out a few times, by coming over and chatting away to the studio audience, and that helped when they got bored of me talking.

I didn’t have to fly to Southampton this past weekend as the Jongleurs comedy club there has shut. I will miss the gig but Southampton was a pain in the arse to get to from Glasgow, so am enjoying a weekend free.

Well I am actually working tonight in Glasgow and managed to fill in the gigs, but the news I am trying to convey is this- I get to stay at home for a weekend!

I am struggling with the no smoking….well actually I started smoking again that’s how much of a struggle I was having. Now I am OFF them again…wish to fuck I could just kick the damn habit.

Some breaking news, I am now selling my autobiography ‘Handstands in the Dark’ through my website and you can click and buy it there www.janeygodley.com

I love travelling by train, and last week when I headed up to Hamilton to meet my mates mum, my love was reinforced.

As soon as I walked onto the platform at Glasgow central low level trains, I was greeted by a child’s voice shouting “fucksake” really loudly.

I spotted a young mum looking harassed and trying to deal with a wee toddler in a pram. The baby girl was about two years old and absolutely stunningly gorgeous. She had big amber eyes with thick long eyelashes, a mop of curly blonde hair and cheeky dimpled smile, she caught my eye and shouted “Fucksake” really loudly at me and giggled. I never made a move, inside I was laughing as it was really funny to see a baby say this, but I kept a neutral look on my face.

The mum bent over and tried to shoosh the baby, she then stood up and said “I am really sorry she won’t stop saying that”

“Just ignore her, don’t fuss when she says it and just keep talking to me” I replied as the baby shouted “fucksake” over the top of us talking. People on the station started to stare with disdain at the mum.

The young mum explained “my brothers taught her this and I can’t stop her, she shouted it at the woman in Marks and Spencer’s and at the ticket man upstairs, I am mortified”

“The reason she keeps saying it is because you react so violently or there are shrieks of laughter, she does it because it gets her attention, she is performing and knows her best punch line so well and it’s a solid bit of material, I know I am a comedian and that’s what we do” I said.

The mum and I kept chatting and ignoring the “fucksake” that resonated round the station, eventually the baby stopped shouting it out. She then started to point at other things that caught her eye as soon as she realised her punch line was getting no reaction. I told the mum to give her brothers a good kick in the bollocks about teaching a baby to swear and to completely ignore the “fucksake” until the baby finally gives up on it.

After my ‘parent advice class’ I got on the train to Hamilton.

At the station I spotted a poster for a beauty salon called

‘YA BEAUTY’ which made me giggle, and then there was an advert for

‘THREE BABY BEARDED DRAGONS’ which were wee lizards up for grabs. I love local adverts, they are just awesome.

My favourite was an advert for babysitting which stated in bright red ink marker

‘I LOVE KIDS AND HAVE NEVER BEEN FOUND OR CHARGED WITH TOUCHING THEM AND AM AVAILABLE FOR BABYSITTING’

I can’t think of anyone who would let that person near their kids!

To round off my week, last Friday I went up to Montrose to do a corporate gig and had a great fun night. The weather was horrific during the night, the wind whipped the trees bare and the rain battered the south east coastline of Scotland. I was worried sick, as husband and I had to get up early and head back to Glasgow for my flight to London and I hate travelling in storms.

I sat there in the dark of Montrose at about 4am and willed the weather to change, and sure as hell at 7am Montrose was sparkling in the autumnal sunshine! We managed to get to Glasgow airport in time for my flight to London.

I had a wonderful gig at the 99 club in Leicester Square, but woke up in London with my left ear totally blocked. I hate that, it is like being underneath water; it makes me partially deaf and hurts like hell.

I had an audition in London and went along half deaf, I was worried sick they would ask me questions and I wouldn’t catch what they said. It went all right and I am hoping I did get the job.

So am back in Glasgow and still have one deaf ear, husband is pissed off repeating everything, and daughter is now miming things to me and asking me questions in the form of physical theatre and dance. Hopefully my ear will unblock or the doctor will revise his ‘we don’t syringe ears’ policy and help me out OR a car will hit me on the head and my ears will pop.

Whatever site you are reading this on, please enjoy and accept my heartfelt thanks for all the support, here is my 1000^th blog…

Nut Brittle and frayed tempers…

I love Lidl as the moment, their fresh trout and their low fat frozen yoghurts are the best I have EVER eaten in my food noshing life.

“Excuse me do you have nut brittle, I got it here last week and it was in your Greek produce section, where is that been moved to?” I asked a podgy faced man in the fresh veg aisle.

He pointedly ignored me and carried on talking about some bank loan he applied for to a wee red haired bloke who was stacking up Christmas cards against chocolate flavoured Santa’s.

“So, I called the bank and they have refused my loan…” he droned. I watched the red haired bloke bend down deeply into the display as if he was trying to hide inside it. Podgy face carried on regardless, his bank conversation needed to be aired.

I walked off and decided, rather than do my usual thing and argue with spotty penniless podgy man, I went in search of the nut brittle on my own.

I got absorbed in my wee Lidl shopping experience and as I turned into another aisle I stumbled yet again on the podgy bank loan refused shelf stacker, he was still droning onto the red haired man “So, I then asked to be put through to head office and they kept me…” at that the red haired bloke leapt up and screamed “Shut the fuck up you annoying smelly bastard”

The red haired man threw a big tantrum and started to pull down all the Christmas trees and boxes of cards whilst screaming at the top of his voice “Fuck you Colin”. Fat podgy man (who I assume is Colin) stood there aghast, and then decided the best thing to do was run away from the devastated Christmas area and leave red haired man to explain himself to the manager who was fast approaching having dashed from the Polish fish display.

Just at that moment the woman from Afghanistan who sells the Big Issue outside (she is called Tick Tack- I swear to God that’s what she told me) well anyway her dog which is called ‘Bad Dog’ got off its leash and ran towards the melee and bit the poor ginger haired shouty man, then tried to rape a Christmas tree by humping it hard with it wee pink tongue hanging out.

Chaos ensued, Tick Tack started running after Bad Dog and chased it back out of the store and ginger man had to be calmed down. The Lidl is just so crazy on Tuesdays – I found the nut brittle, it is so delicious you should try it.

So after my Lidl experience I headed up to Easterhouse Platform Theatre ‘The Bridge’ and got some posters prepared for their display, ticket sales are going great and you can come see the show on November 14^th, just call  0141 276 9696 or email them info@platform-online.co.uk for tickets, give them your details and they will get back to you.

Am still reeling about the closure on some Jongleurs comedy clubs after a take over of the company last week, loads of comics, staff and management have lost- jobs, cash and future work and I am just hoping they all recover at this difficult time near Christmas.

Firstly I cannot escape Cheryl Cole’s new single…everywhere in Belfast was battering it out on radio etc…making me insane, though it does sound better after it has been electronically voice tuned - she was shit singing that live. I didn’t recognise the damn song from her military dance display on X factor.

Secondly I LOVE the way Irish people say ‘wee’ all the time.

“Do you have a wee key to your room? Do you want a wee help with your case? Do you have a wee credit card so we can have a wee swipe at it?” that’s awesomely lovely. I also flew on a wee plane called Kevin Keegan (yes it really was called that) and couldn’t stop giggling that I was inside Kevin Keegan and arrived at George Best airport, football players are so big in aviation.

The Ulster Hall was just lovely and I did enjoy the Amnesty gig, all the people were so bloody good onstage.

So after all that I went for a ‘wee’ cup of tea outside Oscars champagne bar in sunny/rainy Belfast. It didn’t look like a champagne bar as it actually sells Danish pastries and breakfast buns. I just sat my arse down on a wee seat when a woman sat opposite and called me a cunt for no good reason. She then told me all about Frank in 1967 and how he was a cunt as well. She had a mullet hairdo and skin that look like crumpled tin foil that had been flattened out but refused to go smooth, I called her Scary Betty. She had the haunted eyes of a woman who could set fire to trees just with her memories. Her continual rant never stopped when my niece Ann Margaret called, in fact she could hear Scary Betty in the background.

“Aunty Janey, I can hear a nutty woman in the background are you sitting beside a Looney?” She asked,

“Yes, I am” I answered, Scary Betty leaned over and whispered “Tell her to go fuck herself”

“She can hear you Ann Mags, you’re not really helping by talking about her” I giggled.

Scary Betty stared hard at me and then a great thing happened, three Asian men sat down. Scary Betty shut up, she knew that shouting at them would be really bad, so went back to hissing filth at me, as me being white could not take offence to her abuse…apparently!

Eventually the waitress came out and told her to leave, Scary Betty stood up and told the Asian men that nobody likes their music (which was the least racist thing she could say) I meanwhile breathed audibly and went back to my newspaper. The smell of stale sugar puffs magically disappeared as she left and that was just a bonus.

Bigger news was taking afoot but I didn’t know that, though I was about to find out. Jongleurs comedy clubs had a big meltdown. If you are unfamiliar with Jongleurs they are a comedy chain that hire loads of comics every weekend and huge amounts of staff in their popular clubs.

Apparently, and I am not sure of the entire facts, but the company got bought out and it means that in the hand over five clubs have been closed for good. Nottingham, Southampton, Bristol, Oxford and Bow have been shut. I was gutted as I am booked into Nottingham this weekend, any way my personal grief gave way as I realised that almost 200 jobs have been lost, throughout the company. I will miss all those lovely people who made me welcome and who always checked my happiness levels before I went onstage. Bless all those poor folks who have lost their jobs, I wish I could do something for them. I am thinking of you all as Christmas approaches.

So therefore I have the weekend free, and will have some weekends to fill but am not that fussed as I am a comedian and will pick work up anywhere.

On another note, I am looking forward to Christmas as I am going to be home this year and near my dad. I love him and he will need me this year as he is alone, it will be nice to share it with him.

Also have a big audition coming up in London and will need all the luck I can get for that one!

Speak soon.

As I was walking through sunny scary hotbed of terror that is Leeds, I sat by the little river and took in the view. A man approached wearing inappropriately short shorts, you know what I mean, over 40s mens shorts should be below knee, under 20s men shorts can be showing some clam if they want, they are young and their skin still fits them. This man was in his 50s and was grossly over weight, the shorts were disgustingly tight, and I couldn’t stop staring at his crotch which is disturbing to say the least.

Of course saggy ball man sat right beside me on the lonely tow path, what else do you people expect?

“Lovely day isn’t it? Do you like robin red breasts?” he shouted into my face, I realised he look a bit detached and possibly slightly special needs.

“Erm…yes they are nice” I stuttered.

He then pulled out a Christmas card with a robin on the front and shoved it in my face. “Nice” I said and prepared to leave. He grabbed my arm to sit back down; I looked anxiously around for some help as tight short baggy ball man might throw me into the river.

“My name is Barry and my mum is dead” he whispered.

Now, in my head all I could think was ‘has he just killed her?’ or is he disturbed because she died years ago?…I was getting scared by the minute…I always imagined how I would die, but I never thought I would end up in the river at Leeds by a fat man wearing shorts wielding a robin red breast Christmas card.

“My mam died years ago and she gave me this card” he said as I sat back down and his arm was gently now resting on mine.

I suddenly didn’t feel scared, I felt sad for him. We chatted for a while and he told me things about his mam and how she used to sing to him and after she died he lived in a big home and made pottery.

His speech was rather stilted and childlike and I didn’t feel threatened. Then we just sat in the quietness and he had a wee sleep! Yes, he napped as he clutched a Christmas card in his hand. After about half an hour I heard a woman shouting at us along the pathway. She hurried up to us as he jolted awake.

“Barry, what have you been told about wandering off?” she shouted at him. She wasn’t being angry more concerned and I explained he had been sitting with me chatting. Barry was all confused and stuttering out sentences trying to explain himself.

“Barry was having lunch with us at the river side pub along there and just disappeared, didn’t you Barry?” she calmed down, but still looked harassed.

He got up and staggered a wee bit, I think he was tired. The woman just took his arm and walked him off. They got about 30 feet away when he turned and shouted “Bye Katherine” at me. Nice to know he paid attention when I told him my name! I hope Barry had a nice day.

I walked slowly back to the flat and noticed that Leeds has its Christmas decorations up in the town centre.

IT ISNT EVEN HALLOWEEN PEOPLE!

Either that town is obsessed with Christmas or they want to shove Christianity down everyone’s throats and wipe out their reputation as a town that breeds bombers of the Muslim fundamentalist nature.

Now don’t everyone comment and write hateful things about me slagging off Leeds, just don’t shoot the messenger, by the way as an addendum to that four counter-terrorism detectives have been arrested for allegedly abusing corporate credit cards to claim up to £120,000 in fraudulent expenses while gathering intelligence after the 7/7 bombings.

Is everyone corrupt?

Either way I had a great weekend in Leeds, and I had fun.

She emerged recently looking paler, thinner and was slightly alarmed that the world had still turned despite her having nothing to do with it for three weeks.

Ashley got up this morning and asked her dad if he could go get her a ‘Fat Toosh’ he thought it sounded sexual and hid behind the toilet door till she stopped speaking, turns out a fat toosh is actually a ‘fatoush’ which is toasted Lebanese bread with salad, the local take away had shoved a brochure through our letterbox. She also got Ian Rankin’s new graphic novel shoved through the letter box, she was excited and even danced a wee bit.

I on the other hand have been suffering some deep self loathing; I need to lose weight and its not happening fast enough. The non smoking is going great, but my will power falls flat when it comes to stopping eating fatty food. So my weekend at Jongleurs Bristol was dominated with cottage cheese and cold meat, as that was all I would allow myself to eat. Low calorie and minimum carbs was the call of the day.

I have realised that I am the same weight that I was the day I gave birth to Ashley! So I am now walking about carrying that big lump of weight around my body, I could hardly walk when I was fully pregnant with Ashley and now that’s the body fat I live with. I hate myself now.

The good news is I have lost half a stone since I started really hating myself. Maybe I will really hate myself enough to lose another three stones and then I will look slim but full of deep tortured self deprecating low self esteem and develop borderline suicidal tendencies. But fuck it, I will look good eh?

Husband is ill prepared for this recent mood swing and has been staring at me in the dark in bed whispering “Are you ok Janey?”

“Why do you think I am fat? Can you feel the bed dip at my end?” I snipped at him.

“I am scared” his voice was like a thin shadow veiled with fear.

“I am fine, when I get thinner I will be finer” I shouted and broke the hush.

Bless his wee soul, he thought it would cheer me up if he got up at 5am and danced and sang a song at the side of the bed…naked. He didn’t know it made me want to take a toffee hammer to his eye. Sometimes I don’t think he knows me at all.

I think I may be going through a mental mid life crisis.

He admitted having sex with a minor. He drugged, sodomised and raped a 13 year old girl, but hang on, don’t forget the man is an auteur, he won an Oscar for fuck sake, Woody Allen is crying for his release – we cant possibly jail this man, he knows Harvey Weinstein and Harvey is going to speak to Schwarzenegger to get these insidious charges dropped. Its just a load of rich famous people excusing child rape, even women’s rights campaigner Whoopi Goldberg said “ it wasn’t rape-rape”  really? There is such a thing as rape-rape? I never saw that kind of rape in the film the Colour Purple did you?

Speaking as a woman who was raped as a child, I am aghast at the attitude of people who can excuse this behaviour. The man who raped me told people I was promiscuous and coerced him into it; I was five years old at the time. His defence in court was that I was often seeking his attention, my uncle got three years in prison and people screamed ‘Rapist’ at him, but then he was a lazy, wife beating, debt ridden ex Orange Walk flautist and not a Hollywood pal of Tilda Swinton, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese. If only my Uncle Rapey had friends in high places, the attitude towards his child abuse would have been different. (The abuse continued into my teens- I was 13 years old when it stopped, which was just the prime age for Polanski)

I read an astounding article by Michael Deacon in The Telegraph newspaper in which Deacon said “I reread an extraordinary interview Polanski gave to the novelist Martin Amis in 1979, the year after Polanski went on the run.

The interview originally appeared in Tatler and is collected in Amis’s excellent book Visiting Mrs Nabokov.

Here’s a section of the first quote it contains from Polanski.

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

It doesn’t astound me that Polanski would say this kind of thing in public; it just amazes me that people view that kind of behaviour as acceptable if the person in the frame is famous!

We just need to look at the Michael Jackson debacle to know the veil of stupidity people drag over their morals when a ‘hero’ is involved.

Friends of Polanski have screamed out in his favour that his family were murdered in the Holocaust and his wife was killed in a horrific attack, so he should be left alone now!

That is a terrible insult to the families who died at the hands of the Nazi’s, and a slur to men whose wives were murdered, to suggest child rape is part of the recovery from such atrocities is just plain daft, and don’t get me started on ‘it was years ago, lets forget it’ as we all know that’s just begging the comment- so was the Polish Ghetto’s but you didn’t forget those did you Mr Polanski, and quite rightly so. Traumatic events do not fade with age and neither does their legalities.

Roman Polanski needs to serve the sentence he deserves. Apparently he is married with two young children; well let’s hope they grow up safe from the predatory eyes of a sexual beast who likes his victims ‘young’.

So now I have gotten that out of my system, I want to talk about Nick Cave. I didn’t really know who he was, but my niece Ann is dotty about him. We knew he was appearing at Borders Bookstore in Glasgow, so Ann and I headed off to the Rogano restaurant for our usual outside table for Oysters and tea. I love the Rogano, husband and I celebrated our 29^th wedding anniversary there and the place is just lovely. Anyway we sat outside, she smoked and I bit my finger nails and made yukky noises as she slurped on oysters (I really can’t do food that you can’t chew) anyway, we hatched a plan to see Mr Cave.

We both ignored the long queue of people who had official tickets (we had none) and we barged past security (We had determined looks on our faces) and we stood near the table that Nick Cave was signing books.

He is a slight wee man with terribly odd dyed black hair.

“God, why are they playing whale death music over the crowd Ann?” I hissed. Of course that was Mr Cave’s music; I was too stupid to know that. It sounded like the tapes you get free to help with child birth.

The security man came over and said “if you don’t have a ticket or his latest book with a receipt then you don’t talk or approach or get anything signed”

Mr Cave is very snooty about these things and what with the whale music and his tiny peanut head dyed very black I wondered why people liked him. Apparently he nearly drowned Kylie, so he can’t be all bad eh?

Ann got all hot and excited and stared at him longingly as I chatted to an extremely agitated autistic man in his 30s.

Yes, I met an autistic man who was trying hard to find out where the blonde girl assistant who was ‘stood there, right there with her arm like this’ had gone to. He staged the scene for me by being ‘him’ and then ‘her’ and how she stood and how she looked. Then he blurted out “My jacket melts in the heat and it this isn’t yellow its citrus colour” as he pointed to a yellow bit of his flammable top.

He was getting agitated and the crowd who had come to see Mr Cave started staring at him. “What is it you need to know?” I asked him.

He rocked back and forth a bit and stared at me wide eyed, I didn’t look away. “I need to know where I can get a magazine called Shortlist; this book has pictures of it”

He thrust the book into my face and there were photographs of a magazine called Shortlist, I recognised it. “You get them free in airports”

The man nodded and wrote down ‘airports’ in a book and then slapped his two hands over his ears and shouted “this music is making me sad inside”. I could only nod in agreement.

He then spotted a Borders assistant and ran after him in a sideways run with arms flapping, scaring the Mr Cave fans, who hadn’t seen a man in flammable fabric run sideways in their lives possibly. I giggled and Ann said quietly “Why do you always find Aspergers or Autistic people no matter where we go and why he is running about mad?”

I shrugged and quite liked the odd man in the bright jacket and was sad to see him go; he was infinitely more interesting and accessible than Mr Cave.

Ann and I decided to leave; we headed back to Rogano and watched the local Big Issue seller get photo shoot after he had had a make over and new suit. He was dressed like a proper toff and given a lobster dinner to celebrate a birthday of the Big Issue campaign. The bloke sits outside the Rogano for years and is well loved; he looked amazing in his suit and his shiny shoes. It made me gulp back tears as he stood there drinking champagne, but somehow underneath it all, I felt he was being patronised and said so to the photographer.

“Well, he got a new suit and some good food” he snapped.

He doesn’t need a new suit and the chance to drink booze with the people he normally begs off, he needs a home and it’s appalling to know he had been homeless for 18 years and got a suit for good behaviour outside the Rogano.

I suddenly felt odd and wanted to leave, there was a sad feeling inside me when the homeless guy was walking about suited and booted, he looked happy but discontent at the same time. I couldn’t quite process what I was feeling and kept thinking things like- how can he beg in a suit?

Where will he keep it when he sleeps on the street? Will it be harder to lose it now or was it easier for him not to have the nice clothes in the first place? I didn’t know the answers and no matter which way I formulated them in my head it all felt wrong.

So, to top the day off Frankie Boyle came into the Rogano and we had a wee chat, he is looking a bit better after being unwell lately.

Ashley is getting better and wants to thank everyone for sending her love.