Dancing Like The Way You Move

So...the dust has settled enough from my epic night out on Saturday to be able to contemplate it. Yesterday was a total wash out filled with food and much recovering - there was certainly not enough brain power to consider a review!

We awoke hurting and hanging and had just about enough wherewithall between us to put together a fry up - an epic fry up. Every thing with the potential to be fried food went into this breakfast. Twas a feast for kings...and about 30 minutes after we'd finished this my mum phoned to see what time we were coming round for the roast she was cooking. Now, to be fair I'd had ample warning that she was intending to make this roast. In fact, this roast was being cooked in my honour and was stuffed with parsnips and sweet potatoes just for me. I'd forgotten about passing on this vital information or limiting my intake of food so as to leave enough space for said roast. Error.

We rocked up to my parents' house and tried our best to cram in as much of this delicious roast as possible but it was difficult. I didn't even know parsnips could look smug.

Saturday night was a night of two halves. It began with a sedate meal - desperately trying to cheer up a slightly heart broken younger sister. It turned out all she needed was vodka and a jug or two of a drink that tasted like Berocca. We drank a fucktonne of it and quite frankly it did not result in 'me, but on a really good day'. It resulted in me, but on a day where I can't see and am incapable to choregraphed movement.

We finished up our night in a greta new club - the only great club Taunton has ever had, and one that has sprung into being since I moved. Gutted. While in there we realised that the small (now drunken) sister was catnip to local men. Older sister, also giggling drunkenly into a Smirnoff Ice, was a magnet for whorebitches in stilettos who like to bruise people's feet. I, it seems, am a magnet to group dances. macarena? Yes. Just yes.

The taxi home at 3am was definitely good craic. I had the phone number for a lawyer with nice teeth, a sister who was pretty ssure her foot was broken, a sister who probably had the phone number of the 40 odd men who had fallen over their own feet to speak to her and a giant grin on my own face. Now, if only I could remember what the lawyer was called or whether he had any interesting features other than shiny teeth I'd be laughing...

I am too tired for this...

It's just taken me a long time to negotiate a busy road home. Here are my findings from today -

Beeping at me will only encourage me to slow down and scowl.

If I shout 'Bellend' at you it's because you are, in fact, a massive bellend and you should just pull your car over and walk home and stop being such a disgrace to the rest of us.

There is nowhere on the planet you need to be urgently enough to excuse you undertaking in the dark and pouring rain.

There should be 'tourists' and 'locals' lanes on all major roads in pretty areas. Just because I choose to live in the West Country doesn't mean I should have to slow down past Stone Henge and marvel at it's mundane audacity. I would like to zoom on past in the 'I have somewhere to be, this is not a novelty' lane swearing at you and laughing at your bored children who are plotting your deaths for lousing up their childhoods with these 'interesting things' to see on the journey. Get them to a theme park.

Sign posts need to be erected upon EVERY junction between you and your destination because guessing is fallible. Either that or the centre of towns need to have bright lights shooting right up from their centres so you can follow the beam in the right general direction until some useful official puts up a post with a title on it. It cannot possibly be that difficult?

I should never spend 5 hours alone in a car. My mind wanders to places it shouldn't and I have a general hatred of everyone. Including you.

I'm Back In The Shi-i-i-ire

So I've just touched down in Somerset...wha' Zummmmerzet? No fuckwit, that is not how I said it so please do not repeat it back to me like the fact that I've just revealed where I'm from has made you start imagining I have a thick rural accent and a piece of straw hanging out of, my frankly slack, jaw. I do not meet people from India and suddenly start repronouncing Mumbai for them in their own accent in some sort of hideously racist attack. So don't do it to me.



Have been greeted with a new wardrobe from my generous little sister and a chance to babysit my nephew tomorrow morning. This is excellent news as it means I can start forming a set for my Comedy 4 Kids gig next week. I'm pretty sure 1 4month old will be an excellent judge of material. Sure...

Right now we're all gathered round watching old, seriously old, home movies. This would be a really lovely experience if it weren't for that fact that I went through a long phase of wanting to be a boy. I insisted on having a Damon Albarn inspired hair cut and mainly wearing felt shirts. Hideous.

Tomorrow I am out on the town. Taking my new boots out to meet and greet the folks of Taunton town. Taunton's an interesting night out. By rights it should be a little bit crap, and it is, but it's also a little bit amusing. The convenient location of a marine camp just down the road makes it a bit of a slag magnet. So it can be a very amusing place to go and judge people. I'm a massive snob. It's paining me slightly that I intend to wear Jeggings out tomorrow. I've tried quite hard not to let wordsquishes into my general day to day life - I don't follow Jedward and I certainly wouldn't buy tickets to SuBo. But somehow a pair of jeggings have vaccuumed pack themselves to my legs and have chosen to look great with my boots. C'est La Vie.

So I am off to nestle deep into the bosom of my beloved county. It's good to be home.

My Naughty Little Sister

Today's blog is entirely dedicated to my naughty little sister. Or, it would be if I had one. I do have a little sister. Only she is not naughty. She's not really naughty in any way.

She's 5 years younger than me and entirely more mature and level headed than I suspect I will ever be. When my parents had children they carefully chose names that couldn't be shortened into irritating familiar versions of the names they had painstakingly chosen. I completely sympathise - there must nothing worse than agonising for 9 months (or longer) over what to christen your ball of genes only to find his grubby urchin street friends have had a get together, thought 'Miss Lexx you are clearly a fool. We've had a little chat and decided 'Tezza' is a much more appropriate tag for him to take forward into the adult world.'

So for myself and my older sister they settled on Sarah and Laura. These never get shortened. Occasionally some one will attempt to call me 'Law' which results in me adding the 'ra' to the end. This means that these friends don't last for long becuase they inevitably think I'm barking at them and they run for the hills.

So, when it came to my next sibling - what changed in their pattern of thinking? They chose Megan. For one, we are not Welsh, we are a pretty mongrel family in terms of heritage but there isn't really a jot of Welsh, so Megan is an odd choice. We are primarily of Scottish/South African decsent making us stingy with a tendency to aggressively colour coordinate. So the Welsh thing is pretty baffling.

Poor little Megan has learnt over the years to answer to any one of the following nicknames that has been cast upon her;
Meg, Mog, Peg, Peggy, Meggy, Mogwin, Egg, Milly Moggy Moo, Peggity, Peg-a-leg, Megalith, Meggity, Megwin, Pegwin, Mogwyn (the y is important) - and, at family occasions where people like to tell her that the name stems from Margaret, she also has to cope with Margaret (original), Maggie, Mag and possibly worst of all Marge. No self respecting 19 yr old should have to roll her blue eyes, toss her beautiful blonde hair and answer to Marge.

Megan is 5 years younger than me and unfortunately for me we don't look a lot like sisters. We look a lot like a waify blonde model has attracted a needy midget with uncannily similar eyebrows. I have a desperate need for approval from my little sister. Our relationship has always been a little backwards. She often gets midnight phone calls from me wailing about my latest panic and she calmly and collectedly tells me to pull myself back together and go to sleep. She was promoted to department manager in her job after approximately 16 hours on the job. I travel the length and breadth of the country telling jokes and asking people to read my daily outpourings of barmpot. She is altogether a lot more, well altogether than I am. And I applaud her for it.

When she was little she honestly looked like a cartoon cherub. She had perfect blonde curls, was, well, fat. She was fat. She was a little marshmallow baby. And I delight in this fact because at some point in our lives I have been skinnier than her - even if it did only last a few years. Or until she had control over how much she ate. Actually, my earliest memories of her having control over what she ate were of her controlling several snails and woodlice into her mouth and delightedly crunching and chewing. I don't know if you've ever scooped well masticated snail shell and woodlouse legs out of a cherub's mouth but it really does make you wonder if religion is all it's cracked up to be.

On the few occasions I managed to get her to come to University to visit me I immediately wanted to pack her on the next train home and get her as far away as possible. Not because she was a pest - I am the pest - but because a vast horde of male admirers would be offering to buy me drinks in exchange for an introduction to my sister. I'm pretty sure had she stayed for more than a few days she would be married by now. Albeit to someone far beneath her, but hell, that's what divorce is for.

I like to bother Megan. Bothering Megan is one of my favourite past times, and like a true adult she dutifully puts up with it because she knows this is just how our relationship works. When I've been away from her for too long it starts to show, because I start to bother other people who don't react to it so well and bad things happen. She is like a vaccine or a drug that I am dependent on for release of botherness.

I suppose I don't really have anything to end this on. It's just a little dedication to my eternally wonderful little older younger sister. Long may she sigh and wish I was easier to be around while I am poking her in the back of the neck and marvelling that it is the only place on her body that she has fat. We call her neck fat deposit Carlton. Well, I call it that. Because I'm pretty sure if you shaved her head she would look like Uncle Phil from the Fresh Prince. But I mean if some slightly hidden neck fat is your only worry, you're laughing?

The Invention of Smiling

Face - I just want to be with you.

Hand - It's not that I don't want to be with you. I just can't be with you all the time.

Face - Why?

Hand - Because I've got shit to do. I gotta be shaken, I got to wipe, I got fingers to support. I'm busy. You just sit there all day.

Face - Exactly. That's why I get so bored. I got nothing.

Hand - You need a hobby.

Face - But what can I do? You used to think I was cute. You used to stroke me all the time. Now you're just always busy with buttons and typing and stuff. You don't even moisturise before you come to see me any more.

Hand - I would if I could. But I just can't have you hanging on my every move all the time. You know? You gotta relax. All that frowning - you're gonna be exhausted.

Face - You'd frown too if you had my rotten luck...

Hand - I can't frown and you know it! That was a dirty thing to throw in my palm.

Face - Oh all right then - ball a fist. Whatever. Don't point the finger at me in this argument.

Hand - You're the one always turning your nose up at me! Like I'm not even good enough for you anymore. And I've seen the way you look at my twin.

Face - Oh please! Don't give me that. You couldn't wait to jump on that other girl who came around here the other day. You literally couldn't have pounced quicker. "It was a slap" You said. Yeah, well, I don't see why you had to go. What's wrong with a kick in the shins, huh?

Hand - I ain't explaining myself to you any more Doll. I've had it. You can paint your own eyes and lips from now on. I'm sick of running around after you. Who wipes the crumbs off you when you eating? Huh? Who puts your war paint on so you can go winking at other guys? Who always, ALWAYS washes after wiping so that you ain't gotta wrinkle your pretty little nose when I gets close? Huh?

(Pause)

Face - You think my nose is pretty?

Hand - Sure do. Always have.

Face - I love your cuticles.

Stuff the Manic Wagon

In the last couple of days I've been pretty busy. Good busy and bad busy.

Firstly, I've been trying to train someone at work. This is great because it means someone trusts me with someone else. It also means I have plenty to do in the office and I get to make a new friend. Unfortunately it's showed me that my nurturing side is decidedly lacking.

I always thought I was pretty nurtuting. I like to name inanimate objects and I'm a big fan of looking after things that don't really require looking after. When I was at University I had a pet hamster which I took very good care of. Essentially my pet hamster was only aball of wool which I kept behind a trellis with some glass beads to eat. But I took care of it really well. I used to take it out to the garden with me in the summer (my housemates thought I was barmy). And once, when my housemate Will kicked it's water tray by accident, I made him go and refill it. Will was bemused and tried to say no but I was insistent that it was a hot day and bad things would happen if he didn't. Eventually Will gave in and my ball of wool got new water. I was a good parent.

But my hamster died when another of my hosuemates needed a fancy dress costume. That was a sadder day than most. So, with all this practise, and the fact that I rarely cruelly kill Sims, I thought I'd be excellent. I am not.

My attention span and patience are limited it turns out. I mean, I always knew I was bad at concentrating on things that don't entirely occupy me, but I thought I'd be better with actual people with personalities.

My trainee is delightful. She's dedicated and committed and going to be seriously good at her job. She actually already is. But I do keep looking up when she says my name and thinking 'Oh, you're still here.'

I'm terrifically lucky that she is very patient and a nice person because I'm sure it must be quite alarming to have the person shaping the roots of your new career keep staring at you bug eyed as thought she's not too sure who you are. I think she may have twigged when she came back from lunch break and I said 'Oh!' very loudly and gave her back her chair.

This is worrying me that went I have more dependents I will struggle slightly. Is it ok to put yoru baby down to sleep and go downstairs to watch TV and potentially forget it's there? Go away for the weekend and forget to poke airholes in its crib? Move house entirely and list the baby as part of the itemised contents?

It's probably about time I got a pet. Just a small one. One that I keep tabs on. I sounded out this theory to a workmate in the lift yesterday only I screwed it up slightly by not thinking before I spoke.

Workmate - "You just need to get yourself a boyfriend."
Me - "No, I don't want a boyfriend. I'll definitely take better care with a rabbit."

Sigh.

Chin Up Betty

I did not sleep well last night folks. This has lead to there being a curious pattern to my day so far. Firstly I was super bouncy and bouyant this morning. To the point where I might have used the word 'super' out loud in conversation. This, twinned with my pony tail, had members of the office community alternating between wanting to stab me and get me a job writing scripts for Sister Sister.

I got a hell of a lot done this morning. I was efficient. I was like a laser, cutting through piles of work and watching the smoke rise as I completed things one after the after. Mere mortals would have been shocked into vomiting by the speed with which my hands and brained whirred. I was all over it.

Then I went for lunch. I fed myself. I chose a spicy pizza. This was an error in itself. When you have IBS it's important to learn what is going to be ok and what is going to have you sitting very still in your concentrating very hard on not moving so that the shooting pains in your stomach don't make you whimper like a wet goat in a gale. The spicy pizza was an error which I will pay for later when my stomach starts saying

'Hey, new plan! Let's play hedgehogs.'
"What?" says I
"Yeah! Hedgehogs!"
"I don't know what that means....OW"

And then I'll see that what stomach meant was he was going to curl up in a small ball and feel all prickly. The side effect of my tummy curling into a small ball means that my whole torso has to follow suit. And while I like role play, playing the part of Quasimodo as I walk down Norwood high street is not cool. I fit in fairly well with the other nutters. But it's not ideal for someone as effortlessly cool as me. Ahem.

But anyway, I went for lunch. And now my body is confused. And it wants to sleep. This has resulted in a severe detereoration of attention span. Now, my attention span is not great at the best of times. My brain works a little quicker than the rest of my body and so I get halfway through doing things and I'm bored and so I've stopped and am daydreaming and/or started doing something else. So I'll be drafting an email to someone and then my brain starts thinking, what shall I have for dinner and while I'm busy pondering it my sneaky little hands have gone off to type into google and then all of a sudden I'm on 'What The Fuck Should I have For Dinner' .com and my email is abandoned and I haven't even noticed I've done it. Curses!

So in short, I guess what I'm going to need is a reason to stay awake. And so far, I do not have one. Answers on the back of a post card please.

Bug Juice

One of my best friends ceased today. My faithful, beautiful, wonderful, epically loyal laptop, Bug Juice, just stopped working and I am devastated.

Bug Juice - named after an obscure TV show my sister and I used to watch about an American summer camp. Reason for this being there was a fat blonde kid called Asa who used to cry about EVERYTHING. No exaggeration. He was proud of himself for everything -

"I...(sob) climbed all the way to the top of the wall and my mom would have been so prouuuuud (wails)"

"I...(sniffles) managed to do the whole hike today without falling down...I am so proud of myself. But I still miss my mooooooom (full blown dribbling and thrashing)"

"I...(wipes snot on back of hand) managed to go a whole day without eating a snickers...I miss my heaaart attaaaaaaack"

And so on and so forth. He was a mess. And my laptop is/was an Acer and is therefore named after this show that brought us much joy.

Bug Juice is the first laptop I've ever had and he really is my pride and joy. I have a tendency to name everything which does make it difficult when they inevitably break. When my car dies I'm going to sob relentlessly. My car is called Roly, because Dad thinks he looks more like a roller skate than a car. He is small, a bit crap and has orange bucket seats. I adore him. My mp3 players have traditionally been named after different deities/important folks - so far we've had Buddha (a Creative Zen), Hercules and Zeus. My new one is called Bono. I don't really know why. I think it's because he pisses me off just when I think I should like him.

Bug Juice came to live with me the Christmas before last. He was initially perturbed by the amount I played Chocolat on him. I explained I don't sleep well in silence and films I know off by heart work best. He understood. I was concerned by the flashing red lights down one side - Bug worked hard to explain that these were normal and indicated internet access.

Bug Juice and I did dissertations together, we watched hours of YouTube together researching the history of Vaudeville, we went through a lot...and now he is gone. And I am bereft. I now have evening after evening stretching ahead of me where I cannot work on scripts, I cannot surf random crap until even I'm bored of my own procrastination, I cannot watch While You Were Sleeping over and over again until both Bug Juice and the disc are weeping and begging for it to stop. No amount of explaining to Bug how perfect Bill Pullman and I were for each other got him on my side for that one.

I'm not sure I'm going to be able to move on very quickly. I'm going to need some time. Even borrowing my flatmate's mac to write this on feels kinda wrong and dirty. Like cyber cheating. Bug is lying on the floor looking dejected and a little morose. It's like he's in a coma? He can't actually be totally gone can he? There must be things people can do to rescue him? Please?

I miss Bug Juice. And my sanity.

Saturday's Bitchin'

Not going to lie to you folks, it's Saturday night and I'm alone in the flat with an open tin of Roses. This isn't a cry for help - this is a conscious choice on what I wanted to do with my evening. That's just how I roll you know?

I've just got back from the Funny Women Laugh Chance Saloon at the Roundhouse in Camden. Sadly I was not quite funny enough this year to get into the final but I'm genuinely cool with that and very much looking forward to going to see the finals and cheering for Miss Hele Arney who is lovely and brilliant. Seek her. Only seek her gigs though. I don't want anyone organising a mass stalk on my orders.

I had a weird reminder tonight. The MC for the gig went round each of the competitors and asked us all what we wanted to be when we were little. My obvious answer was actress. But then I thought about it. And I remembered that I actually wanted to do something else.

I wanted to run my own Post Office. Or a bank. Or anything with my own stationery. For at least a year I had a fully blown Post Office set up in the corner of my room. Any friends of my parents that came round had to open an account with me. It's a wonder anyone remained friends with them. Who wouldn't want to go and visit their close friends who have a hyperactive runty daughter that keeps pressing them for their middle initial and showing them spreadsheets factoring in interest payments? I guess it was like hanging out with a financially obsessive twiglet.

That was genuinely all I wanted in life - to just have my locals who came in every week and I would be behind the counter with a stack of Rio cans to sell and village gossip to pass along. In my village the post office would likely be better populated than the pub. Whenever there was a thunder storm people would look around each other and then head down to the Post Office for shelter because they know I'll have baked muffins for everyone and have camp beds set up for those who needed them.

I'd know 95% of the villagers of course. And the 5% that I didn't know would come in to the Post Office more often than they needed to, because they desperately want to be 'in' with my crew. I'd sigh at them and ask for their details to fill in whichever form they needed and then eagerly spell out their complicated middle names with emphasis on the silent k's.

My dog will live out the front of the shop. She'll be pretty overweight because everyone always feeds her a little something even though I beg them not too.

I may still plough on and go for this little dream. I feel it would be satisfying and fulfilling. And I really like Rio.

Jaunty Spoof Song, or "I have issues"

Where can you find boredom
Have your hopes and dreams stamped on?
Learn stapler technology
Where can your personality fall through?
On the desk or on the screen
Where can you learn to sleep with your eyes open
Play with a mouse and hard drive
Study pornography
Sign up for the sports team
Or listen to gossip with the obigatory scream
When your team and others meet


In the office
Yes, you can surf the world wide web
In the office
Yes, you can set your mind to blank
In the office
Come on now, people, this is wank
In the office, in the office
Why can't I see your other hand?
In the office
Come on, you know that website's banned!
In the office
Come on and join your fellow drone
In the office
Come on people, have a moan
In the office, in the office, in the office (in the office)


They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit


If you like adventure
Don't even plan to enter
The recruiting office fast
That original thought will be your last
I'm telling you on the level
They're signing you to the devil,
Maybe you are too young
To join up today
You might still have a chance,
To escape a suit lobotomy



In the office
You can use a pen without supervision,
In the office
The highlight of your year is Eurovision
In the office
Come on now, people, make a coffee
In the office, in the office
Try not to staple through your hand
In the office
Come on, admire the hordes of the fake tanned
In the office
Come on and save your precious cells
In the office
Come on people, escape your compartmentalised hells
In the office, in the office, in the office(in the office)


They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit


Who me?


They want you, they want you
They want you as a new recruit


But, but but I'm afraid of fuckwitted boring people who only care about money, channel 4 and where they're going to throw up in their hair at the weekend.
Hey, hey look
Man, I get cold sweats just thinking abotu walking through the glass doors at the front and trying to pretend that a spreadsheet is a challenge and that I always dreamed of being asked whether I thought a red letter head was more interesting than a blue one!


They want you, they want you in the office


Oh my goodness.
What am I gonna do in a pencil skirt and heels all day smiling vaccuously into the space where my monitor was but that is now a grey blur because my eyes have glazed over and I've carved my extension number into my arm with a compass so the mouse has stopped working because it's covered in congealed blood but no one has noticed because we are all to conditioned to the pain of having your soul dripped out day at a time by the monotony of these 4 walls?


They want you, they want you in the office.

The blog of eternal stench

'sup bloggees.

So...I'm really grumpy today. I have no idea why I'm grumpy. I just am. Totally grumpy. I am the gumpus. Grump Grump Grump.

I have tried everything to alleviate it and have now come to the conclusion that those around me are going to have to come to terms with the fact that I am now grumpy. I come in a new version. It's like an upgrade if you like. Laura 3.0 - now comes with added scowl.

Those that know me well will miss old features like constant chattering, singing along to the radio, smiling at passers by, turning simple things like walking into games and playing 'Conversational Jukebox' where you have to sing a phrase from a song that relates to the last thing someone said. In place of these outdated features we now have;

* using 'fucking' as a negative description to everything and everyone,
* refusing to suffer fools gladly
* partaking in gladly watching fools suffer
* openly tutting, rolling my eyes and sighing at people
* flicking people in the head that repeatedly piss me off
* inhaling chocolate at a faster rate than is technically either healthy or 'eating'

We at Lexx Enterprises hope you enjoy our latest modern model and think you'll find it a refreshing change to the moronically chipper, let's face it, slightly irritating, version of old. For those of you interested in the live shows, you'll find in place of flights of fancy and whimsical considerations of 'whether poo has personality' will be improved with the addition of screaming fits at the front row and painstakingly detailed analysis of why everyone who is not on my wavelength should be disposed of. Slowly. And creatively.


We've installed these changes just at a point where you'd got used to how to handle the old version and were perfectly satisfied with the way it fitted into your life. What you'll find now is that a prickly version of the modern classic will now be a permanent fixture in your life and you'll be at a loss for how to respond to continual whining and kicking in the shins.

There may be teething problems at the outset but we foresee you'll either start screening your calls and reading text messages through a squint or you'll enjoy having another pessimistic bugger in your usual crew to throw sticks at small children and complain that no one is good enough to sit in the same coffee shop as them.

With all the spare time I will no longer be wasting on looking for the positive things in life, I will have much more time to read the tabloids and come to the conclusion that celebrities are knobs and that xenophobia is a must-have for the winter season.

Whistling into an egg cup.

I am wearing some wonderful boots to work today. They are wonderful for many reasons - mostly that they make me feel a lot like a superhero - some kind of ninja type creature with a svelte figure and incredible balance.

I have never been svelte. I've been many things. But never svelte. I'm so un-svelte in fact that I had to look it up to see how you spell it because I've never had need for it before. Now I've used the word svelte too many times and it's lost all meaning. I once did this with my sister's name and by the time I got off the bus and through the front door I was convinced she wasn't actually called Megan. She was too confused as to how this could happen to be angry at me properly but I knew she was hurt by my profound stupidity.

I am small and a bit curvy in both the right and wrong places but I'm certainly not svelte. I'm also not balanced in any sense of the word. I fall over a lot and have a tendency towards neurotic episodes that some might called mentally 'un-balanced'. In fact, only the other day in my office one of my co-workers oh so casually asked 'Laura, have you ever been diagnosed with bi-polar?' indicating that if I said no he would immediately do the honours. I decided not to reply and just went back to painting my desk half rainbow, half skulls.

So the fact that my boots make me feel like a ninja is excellent. They are blue and yellow and black with swirly lines and funky heels that are a bit high but not too high. I can walk around the office giggling that no one by the printer has any idea I fight crime by night. I don't really fight crime but I do hide from hammer murderers so well that I don't even come into the room I'm in.

Dressing for the office is hard at the best of times because no one wants to be totally frumpy, but no one also wants to be the young pretender who's half dressed to work and half dressed to stop the men folk doing their work. So my new boots fit the bill perfectly. They are a little bit 'ooh' whilst also being a little bit 'I'm far too zany to actually sleep with you without probably having to have haveyour complete medical records first'. Which I feel is a positive.

I think I will find a place to go this weekend where I can really test out the boots' capabilities. I won't be jumping off buildings to check the jet pack, or hopping out on muggers to see if they have a super kick. I'll just be walking around town looking haughty and clever and seeing if this stops people doing crime. I have a feeling my test will be very effective and if it is I can put this forward to the government to counter the cuts in spending they are making to the forces. Foolproof. Proof, fool.

Thing That Go Bump In The Night

Last night I was happily settled into futon, contemplating my early morning train to the North and happily waiting to slip into unconsciousness so the resounding pain in my jaw would cease. I dreamt about the tiny man in the bonjela adverts that lives inside an ulcer. I find this man funny because he's utterly ridiculous and not even the most over active imagination would ever assume there were tiny men with prickly hands living inside mouth ulcers. And this is coming from someone with a firm belief in numskulls and mermaids.

But then I got woken up. Woken up at about 2:45 by someone hammering. Now this, I thought, was a little odd. First I thought, maybe I live above the author of the song 'If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the..." and someone had finally bought them a hammer, and they were following through on their promise. Then I thought, why would anyone pick 13th September as the day to make that person's dream come true? Seems a bit of an odd day. No one does stuff like that on a Monday. So why are the hammering?

Then, the part of my brain that watches too much TV kicked in and I decided that someone downstairs was trying to inneffectually lock up a crack addled Phil Mitchell a la Billy Mitchell in the absurdly melodramatic 'Queen Vic burning down' episode of Eastenders that I caught last night. Then I realised Phil Mitchell doesn't live below me - it's a family who always seem rather pleasant. So I thought maybe that wasn't it.

Was someone locked out and trying to get into the building? Well, we have buzzers...and a sense of social decency so you'd hope that their first approach to trying to get in wasn't waking up the entire building and scaring the living nightlights out of them.

Which really only left me with one option. Some mad guy with a hammer was going to kidnap me, just like Kim Bauer (massive tool) and I was going to have to fight my way out of it like the true heroine that I am. I was ok with this plan. I'm pretty feisty and decided that my plan of action would be to launch the dining room table at the intruder. However, this would have involved getting out of futon and going and crouching behind said dining room table until my would be kidnapper came into the room. And I didn't know how long that was going to take. And it was much more comfortable in my futon.

So, I stayed in my futon. Concocted new plan. Play dead. This always works with bears. And who wants to kidnap that? A borrowed corpse is very difficult to get a ransom on. But then I realised holding my breath tends to give me hiccoughs so I thought I'd struggle to convince anyone brighter than Donna Air that I was dead. Troublesome.

So only one plan remained. To let myself be kidnapped and then to cause havoc once they had me. The sort of havoc that they couldn't possibly keep me kidnapped. I'd be upsetting paint pots and kicking people and singing non stop and generally being a nuisance. And they'd be furious.

So I settled down to wait. But, they must have gotten wind of all my planning because they never turned up to retrieve me. I'm thinking THAT is entirely down to my projected air of feistiness. Take that hammer man.

Wisdom Schmisdom

So, I am in agony and hence this is a really short blog because I'm going back to my painkiller induced coma.

My wisdom teeth are causing more pain than you can imagine so I have decided that I am going to prepare some questions to ask these wise things so that the pain is worth it when they are out.

1. Will I ever get to re-enact While You Were Sleeping with Bill Pullman as my leading man?

2. How many times will I promise myself I'm never going to eat cheesecake out of the tin again and fail?

3. Is it possible to get a pilot's license if you are 5 foot, quite silly and lacking any navigational skills?

4. Why are dogs so much better than cats?

5. What would the world be like without F.R.I.E.N.D.S?

6. Will the fact that I'm completely neurotic about most things lead to a total failure to reproduce?

7. What is technically the BEST film in the world?

8. Why are shiny things so damn appealing?

9. Why do we have cuticles?

10. What's the best cure for wisdom tooth pain?

What's With The Chimp And The Bug?

I am writing today's entry from deep in the luxurious basement flat of two of my very favourite people in the world. For I am in Brighton. Ah, sweet Brighton.

Brighton is one of my very favourite places in the world and I thought I would also explain why. I would however like to point out how painstakingly difficult this blog is to write for me because I am using a mac and I am far from mac savvy so I keep pressing the wrong buttons and shooting things all over the place. I am enjoying the mac a bit however - I really like that the buttons light up. Surely this should be an essential feature on any keyboard? Good work apple.

Good work apples should be introduced to schools as a way of blandly praising small children for doing their work. They wouldn't be happy but after a few generations people might start to consider apples a really nice treat and then we might be somewhere closer to getting common sense back into the way we live. Side point.

Erm, so BRIGHTON!

1. The sea. I love the sea. The sea is amazing. I'm sure I've blogged about this before at some point. The sheer vastness of the sea makes me feel ever so peaceful. Like, whatever you're worried about the sea will always be bigger and more powerful than anything anyway. So never mind. And even rocks get pumelled about by the sea. So when the rocks are worrying they should think about the sea too. I like the way light reflects on the sea. I like the way light reflects on any watery surface. Before I moved to London I used to make a point of always going to the Southbank whenever I was there and dreaming about living there and seeing the lights on the Thames every day. And now I still do it whenever I can and it hasn't lost any of the magic. Simple things.

2. The people. A lot of my very favourite people live in Brighton. Sadly, a lot of them are leaving soon and so I will have very little reason to come here. So I am making the most of being here now while they are. Even the people I don't know are great here. I was lucky enough to spend last summer working down here and just had the time of my life meeting fun people and all my workmates were fantastic fun. It's lovely to come to a town where the general vibe is so subimely friendly. A testament to how friendly it is; I left my car window open all night yesterday and it is fine. I did apologise profusely to Roly (my car) and we are ok about it now. I don't recommend everyone do it - I'm just wondering how that would have gone had I done it in Charlton.

3. The colour changey bench. The colour changey bench outside the theatre is an amazing piece of seating and should be maintained forever. It is next to the Max Miller statue should anyone from round here wonder what I'm talking about.

4. I have tonnes of fond memories of Brighton. I was very much in love here and because of here and I think any other place would have lost its shine once the love died. But not Brighton. For some reason it's better than that. And for that it is great. I think this may be the fact that it has a fabulous cupcake shop that I love more than anything and a pier. Piers are wonderful. Completely bonkers that you are more than willing to go to a shabby, overpriced, grimey funfair just because someone has built it on a half done bridge. Humans.

So last night I was greeted with oodles of alcohol and some lovely chit chat with friends and I think tonight might not be so different. This is excellent. It also may include some Articulate - which is a magical game which causes arguments equal to the amount of laughter in induces. I don't think I could ever get bored of playing it. It helps that I'm exceptionally good at it too. I enjoy being good at things. Immensely.

If I was ever to build a town I would somewhat model it on Brighton. It has some excellent hotels and was the first place I ever really stayed in a proper one. It has wonderful architecture and a real sense of 'Fuck You' about it. Black taxis? Fuck You. We want green and white. Perfect.

I would make sure my town had much a much smaller draw for hen and stag nights however as they are horrendous and tacky and ruin the Fuck You vibe with a 'hey, the tourism trade needs it' vibe. Which I don't like. One day I will get back to my plans to move to Brighton, I feel this will be in a few years and I'm excited about this. Brighton is like my trashy romance novel where they are necessarily parted early on but you know she'll show up at the end all soaking wet and throw herself into his arms. I'm hoping this will translate into me showing up a bit confused and buying a house and settling down - not just actually wet and face planting on pavements. But you never know. Peas.

Beethoven in a beach hut

I am having a massive life crisis. Not that I have a massive life and this is the crisis. It's not the size equivalent of a mid-life crisis. And I seriously hope it's not a mid-life crisis because I definitely don't want to die at the age of 46. I am a big fan of old people and I hope to be an excellent one in a few decades.

My crisis revolves around all the pressure that gets lumped on you between the ages of 16 and 25 to choose what you want to do with your life and make very good choices to get yourself there. It's like being a piece of rock under lots more rock. Only there are bigger rocks yelling at you to be the best rock. And rocky you is thinking 'Well, how do I know if I'd rather be igneous or sedimentary?' and the big rocks are yelling 'YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE IGNEOUS - EVER SINCE YOU WERE A PEBBLE' and you're thinking in your rocky head 'True, and I still would. But do I have to do it all now? I had no idea there was even the possibility of just being sand or maybe even glass so I could look into that for a few years whilst still keeping a bit of my mind in the Igneous stream but if it doesn't happen right away is that the end of the world?'. And the bigger rocks are saying you'll regret it if you don't stick at it and they might be right but the temptation to just dabble in being a bit of lava for a while is pretty huge and the trouble is that once you're igneous you can never really go back to before - it's just it forever.

And you thought life was simple for rocks. I tell you it isn't.

So the problem is that I am dying to go back to Lapland. Absolutely dying. And I can't go. I can't go because it would involve quitting my job, pausing comedy for another few months while I am out of London and not booking and going rusty again. But a big part of my head is asking why the hell I'm tying myself to comedy anyway? I'm pretty young in comedy terms, would it being a nice slow process really be such a bad thing? Will I get anywhere anyway? Wouldn't tonnes more Lapland material be a good thing? Wouldn't seeing the world give me a much better perspective on comedy? ARGH!

To top it all off I got offered a different job this week. They want to pay me a lot more to do the job I already do. I turned it down because I'm more interested in keeping a job with lovely people than havign the money. But this caused another rock style head debate where I thought - well, hang on. If the day job is just to support comedy then surely a hell of a lot more money is the best option? Why are you turning that down in favour of a day job you prefer? Curious. I'm sure my life isn't as complicated as the life of a rock but it is a lot to think about.

Poor rocks. And we thought the worst thing that happened to them was an irate camper furiously smashing tent pegs into their heads as they while away the hours on a campsite. And then the damn camper has the cheek to be furious at the rock for being there. Where else would you expect to find a rock? Where exactly would you like them to go camper? Would you rather you had a really easy time putting your tent up and then came home to find all the rocks in your bath? Well. I wouldn't.

I particularly like it at craft fayres when you find people who have adopted rocks and stuck goggly eyes on them and painted them in to things. These are terrifically useless items that no one has any use for, they don't look great but they are cute in a painted rock with goggly eyes sort of way. It would be the sort of thing the Dragon's Den would laugh out of the room and yet year after year they sell for £s at school fetes and church halls all across the countryside.

Maybe if it all goes terribly wrong for me with my life choices debate I'll just set up a stall selling those? Right in Canary Wharf. And bankers will walk past, look sneeringly at my stall and judge me. Then, they'd go to walk away and find that something was plucking at their heart strings...and it would be me. I'd be murdering them with tweezers. And then I'd get arrested and go to jail and teach classes on how to make rock people. My classes would be so popular I'd get promoted and allowed to look after the library. Then I'd get let out early for good behaviour and write a comedy show about my time in prison. I'd win the newcomer award and my comedy career would be failsafe.

Foolproof. Screw you big rocks. This pebble has foundations.

How much is that froggy in the bimbo?

Well blog folks, I'm stupidly tired and there seems to be no pause in the frenetic workings of the world for a small bean such as myself to curl up in a ball and catch a few zzzzzzs.

Incidentally I'm now mildly more awake having just switched on my mp3 player and had Razorlight blast WAAAAY too loud after I turned up the volume to listen to some stand-up earlier. Side note.

It may not show, in fact it definitely doesn't show, but I usually plan what I'm going to write in my blog space for an hour or so before I start so that it has a narrative structure. Today I haven't. Not that I usually expect my narrative structures to be too coherent as I want my blog to be an accurate reflection of me, but I usually try a bit.

Mp3 player is now playing frizzling sounds at me. I am at the point where I'm not sure whether to find it and skip the track or just let it play out...and now it's back at music - just as I was reaching for my bag. Dickhead.

So today is quite unplanned as I'm tired and busy and can't really think of anything of great interest that has happened to me lately. You could count last night where I fell asleep on the last train back from my gig in Shoreditch and slept all the way to Croydon. No, I haven't moved to Croydon and I was pretty sad to be there. Never one to be kept down by the failures of my own awake juices, I booked a taxi and asked them politely to take me home. The man on the phone was more than happy to do this and fairly shortly my taxi arrived.

I opened the door to the taxi and the smell of incense hit me like the untracable smell of vomit you get when you go into certain nightclubs; everything looks normal but you know it must be there somewhere.

The train I'm on now smells very strongly of garlic. Very strongly. I hope it isn't me.

But the incensey smell was weird because he had a magic tree which should theoretically have made everything smell like magic tree. But no. Now, I have come to accept that either I have blinding luck getting nutty taxi drivers or that all taxi drivers are seriously interesting people.

Of the 3 taxis I went in yesterday; 1 driver was perfectly lovely and nice, the 2nd had some sparkling thinly veiled racist comments about London which he followed up with an excited spiel about his upcoming trip to India which I thought oxymoronic at best and in all senses of the word. But this 3rd, and quite unexpected driver, was totally interesting. He was very inquisitive about how good the service had been so far - when I remarked that it was quite perfect thank you he responded that they were always 'at my service'. He then continued to repeat the words 'at your service' all the way to my flat...at first I smiled, then I got a bit worried, then I started trying to think of other services I could put to him to help me in my day to day life. I struggled a bit as the smell of incense was overpowering and at least 70% of my brain was trying to block out the fear that I was goign to die shortly in some sort of butler/taxi death trick.

I did not die. Miraculously I paid and got out of the taxi, closed the door, opened the door again to retrieve the part of coat that I'd shut in it and then went home to futon. I am in a love hate relationship with my futon at the moment. I love the fact that replacing the word futon with bed makes me feel I am grammatically incorrect. For example -
I climbed into bed = fine.
I climbed into futon = a bit wrong sounding.

I hate the fact that I wake up every morning feeling a bit runover.
I love the fact that the lack of bedhead or futonhead, if you will, means I can sleep either way round in my futon and it doesn't matter. Adventurous says I.
I hate the fact that everything being so low to the ground makes it hard to keep tidy. This may also be the fact that I live out of a suitcase and have done for the last 2 months. It is desperately difficult to keep your posessions neat in a suitcase.

Well, there's a lot of futon based facts for you. And for those of you that didn't even know I sleep on a futon - what a day it is for you! Seriously off the charts exciting.

Hmmmm...it turns out a lack of planning for a blog doesn't actually seem to make too much difference. And as I have no means of measuring my readership levels and enjoyment of content anyway I suppose it doesn't matter. I have all the control. And all of the futon. Ah futon.

Duck Duck

Well who saw that coming?! Not me! That’s for sure. The train I was on earlier was driven by a goose – AN ACTUAL GOOSE. I was waiting at Poole to go back to London and when the train pulled up at the platform and slowed down the goose poked it’s head out of the cabin at the front and looked me square in the eye before pulling it’s windy neck back in through the window and settling into its chair.

Do you have any idea how scary that is for someone with a massive phobia of birds? The idea that your life is in the hands of some preppy dickhead with white feathers and big feet? At first I was umming and ahhing about whether to get on the train at all but I had to really because I needed to get back to London. I picked a carriage somewhere near the front, figuring that if the goose ran into difficulties then I would at least be on hand to help out. And it would need someone on hand because it only had wings.

I settled down into my seat and was amusing myself with texting etc and didn’t really think much of it, but it was pretty weird! Then, about half an hour later I was waiting for the ticket conductor when the carriage doors open at one end and a goose comes through with the confectionary trolley! I was absolutely bricking it but I stayed calm and when he came over to my seat I thought I’d try and be polite.

Goose – Would you like any hot drinks madam?

Laura – Yes please, could I have a tea?

Goose – Yes, that’ll be £1.30 please.

Laura – Thanks, that’s very cheap. By the way are you a goose?

Goose – Yes. Why?

Laura – Just wondering. So, is this train entirely run by geese?

Goose – No. I’m the only one.

Laura – Oh. It’s just I thought I saw one driving the train earlier.

Goose – Yeah, that was me.

Laura – Oh. So, is it someone else’s turn to drive now?

Goose – No.

Laura – So, who’s driving now?

Goose – Well, no one. There was a straight bit coming up so I thought I’d get the drinks done.

Laura – Oh, well that sounds fair...wait a minute. NO IT DOESN’T YOU CRAZY GOOSE! So no one is driving this train?

Goose – Don’t they just drive themselves?

Laura – Not that I’m aware of.

Goose – Oh bugger.

I have literally never been so pissed off in my entire life. I had to carry on doing the tea round while the dumbass goose went back to driving the train. By the time we got to Waterloo I was so angry I marched straight to the help desk and asked to lodge a complaint.

The swan behind the desk was less than helpful and broke my arm with its beak to prove a point. I am so livid with the whole railway system it’s unreal. They think they can just get away with all this stuff and no one is going to do anything about it? Well. Here beginneth my campaign to get birds out of the transport system. Because they are wankers.

Have a Pun-T

Tube strike did not affect my day at all today. I got to work on time happily and discovered I've actually been going the long way to work all along. Dumbass.

I'm lying. Of course the tube strike has affected my day. I have spent most of the day coming up with tube strike based puns to satiate my incredible need for bad jokes. These are my top efforts so far -


Consumers face the big question; Tu-be or not Tu-be?

A certain wookie would like to appeal for the cesation of his beatings. This is not a Tubeacca strike

Requests for brazillians go up ten fold as confused commuters face the prospect of a pube strike.

TfL bowling team set to ace 2012 olympics after extensive time off for strike action


How do you like them apples, huh? Well I'm pretty pleased with myself even if you are disgusted.


Funny Women semi-finals totally happened in a happening way last night. Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to pass straight on through to the finals. However, I have been put through to the curious 'Last Chance Saloon' at the Camden Roundhouse on the 18th. This seems like an odd concept to me but I'm perfectly happy to have another shot at getting my ass into that final line up. I have to say though that sitting in that dressing room last night among some damn funny women was a big enough reward in itself. Was crazy how good the company I got to keep was. Happy bunny was I. And then afterwards out to dinner with all the ragamuffins I'd dragged along to see the show. Aces. Chinese. Was Chinese food and our traditional Chinese waiter had a name badge on saying 'Barry'. I can't help but feel his parents were as experimental as parents from Hackney that call their kid Sitting Bull. It's nice to cross borders.

Pretty tired today but off gigging in Kingston tonight to try out some new material that I would like to get into general usage eventually. I've never been to Kingston before, I imagine it'll be a place where people are very friendly and constantly cursing the fact that they fucked up at the estate agents and didn't actually buy at the heart of the Jamaican capital. I may well be disappointed when I arrive. Time will tell.

I'm very content today. I think it's the lingering effects of the tube strike. The world really does take on a special sort of glow when there's a crisis for us to moan about. I think it speaks volumes about the mundanity of our lives that even a really irritating variation on everyday is welcomed with open arms. People are really enjoying having something to talk about and it's a flaming godsend to poor old Coleen Rooney who has been bumped from several precious column inches to make way for lambasting of Bob Crowe. Fa la la la la.

In other news, the best way for a quick self-esteem boost is to leave your phone at home I have discovered. I arrived back to find my phone on my futon with no less than 20 messages awaiting my beady eyes. Of course they were largely defunct given that I only saw them 6 hours later but I must admit I felt good. On tomorrow's agenda is to get a life.

Tent Hurdles

I have approxiamtely 5.5 hours to go until the Funny Women Semi Finals and it's safe to say I'm officially nervous now. Not nervous that I might not go through to the finals - because due to the nature of my sneaking into the semis I'm ok with resting here and being amazed at how far I got. I'm also not nervous that I'll die on my arse because I think it'll be a friendly crowd and I've heard great things about performing at the Leicester Square theatre and I have lots of people coming to watch that I don't want to disappoint.

I'm nervous about my material. I've chosen to wear only felt and velvet and this choice of material is seriously making me doubt how well I will do. It was bad enough sweating on the tube this morning and worrying about the strange looks I was getting - why did I think this would be a good idea for a gig? I'm pleased I opted for the cape as I think a certain level of swishiness always adds good things to visual gag. And the hat, well, someone would say it's too much but I happen to think stuffed animals are cool so I'm going to go with my gut. The trouble is I have IBS and therefore going with my gut is often shit. Crude but honest. That's the way today is shaping up.

I'm also worried about my other material. I have a big dilemma. The difficulty is that this competition is called 'Funny Women' and there is a big hooha and to do every time anybody starts talking about gender difference in comedy. Personally, I think it's both twaddle and true which leaves me baffled as to what to do personally.

Performing my strongest material tonight will mean I need to end the set on a frank discussion of my sexual inadequacies and use the word clitoris. This will get good laughs as it's material I perform often and it got me into the semi finals. But there's a voice in my head asking whether I should be performing this kind of material at a competition where there are only women performing. It's my voice in my head so I'm fairly certain it's barmy (not least because I just tried to spell cerain surten...oh faithful red wiggly line). But, by talking about sex am I -

a) Confirming everyone's worst fears that all women can talk about is their shit boyfriends and periods?
b) Subverting the expectation by talking about it from a different angle?
c) Performing honest material that I wrote and like and have every right to perform but am worried about doing so because of the afore mentioned expectations and the stigma they hold?

My theory is that a single woman doing comedy can be, and often is, just as funny as a single man doing comedy. They can be just as unfunny too. The difficulty lies in the material choice. We are used to men doing comedy and being everywhere as we are still dealing with the remnants of a very male orientated society. There was a time when 'blue' comedy was difficult to accept and people struggled to find it funny, but we got there. But we only got there with 'male orientated' blue comedy I think. We are now ok with men talking about themselves and sexual subjects. We're not 100% there with women yet. It's still been done badly and for shock value too many times and there's not been enough exposure to get people to accept that there isn't 'comedy' and 'female comedy' there's just 'comedy' or, if you really want 'male comedy' and 'female comedy'.

My worry tonight is that I'll either be totally generic and not stand out despite it being good material. Or I'll try something newer and slightly off the wall and feck it up completely because I'm in a tizzy. Is it better to bow out doing strong but not exciting stuff or to be exciting and know the material isn't ready yet? It feels delightful to even be worrying about this because it shows I'm in this competition far sooner than I should really be anywhere and so I have many years to contemplate it. But all this lack of penis really does both complicate and improve (because I don't want a penis or any other dangly bits thank you) any attempts you might make at being a funny person.

So, my dilemma remains. Perhaps I'll just put a bucket on my head and sing them a song.

Back In My Head

Sometimes my head is not a comfy place to be. I was all set for a fantastic blogaroo tonight in anticipation of a week of excellent gigs coming up but I've just had a small panic attack driving home from Somerset and the world is slightly out of skew. So apologies now if my grammar and general through track waiver in this here diary entry!

Had a beautiful weekend back in the shire. One of my favourite things about going back recently has to be my little brother. Out of my 3 siblings he is the only boy and he is also the youngest; this makes him a very interesting thing to observe as he gets older. I went through a phase of coming home and looking as his funny little form and worrying a bit that one day he would be taller than me and able to beat me up. I went home this weekend and my scrawny little rag of a brother is now a hench thug who, at 9 years younger me, is a good 4 inches taller and, it turns out, capable of pinning me to the living room rug for hours on end.

He also has a girlfriend that he refuses to introduce to me on the basis that he doesn't trust me not to mock her...he may have a point there. But I'm sure she's lovely and I wouldn't say anything too mean, at least until I'd worked out her boundaries for banter anyway.

By far my favourite thing about him at the moment is that fact that his voice is breaking. It is insanely fun. All of a sudden he's lost control of his vocal range completely and it's brilliant. Having lost all the higher ground on anything I might have been able to do to him when I could physically over power him I am clinging to the superior knowledge that I'm totally certain what pitch my next sentence will be in.

I've taken to asking him surprise stuff and then seeing exactly how high I can get his voice to go before he's comfortable again and the pitch grumbles back down to this new found low. Utterly stupendous. It's a bit freaky for me because he is my little guy and he is slowly turning into an adult. He had a haircut recently and has gone from looking like a sincerely grubby boy to a tanned teenager. Perturbing.

Does this mean I'm also getting old? Well, no. Because obviously I go home at weekends and fight him and mock puberty. Maybe I should grow up? Er, no. Because I always want to be able to go home and fight him and mock puberty.

So what if being this immature is holding me back from holding down a steady relationship or putting my heart and soul into a job, or buying a house or pushing my life in a general direction. So what. I get to eat gummi bears in a series of interesting ways, talk to my car and make interesting things out of napkins when I should be sitting quietly in a restaurant. So deal with it world. Maybe I am neurotic and mental and slightly too unbalanced to always understand totally but at least I am the world's best older sister. In my opinion. Probably not my brother's.

Homecoming Queen

So I'm back in the shire for a weekend that promises to be 50/50 fun and wondering why the hell anyone loves their family as much they do. Brilliant. I flaming love coming home - I love the smells, I love the people, I love being cooked for and I love the fact that there's very little different any time I venture back here. However, if anything has changed you can be sure my mother will take one of the two options -

a) If it something different about the house you will have it described 19 times before you've got there and then intensely pointed out and explained once you have arrived.

b) If it is something different about mum she will keep schtum about it until sufficient time has passed that she is allowed to point it out and then sulk that you didn't notice.

This time it would have been difficult not to notice what was different about the house as I arrived home at approximately 10 o clock to find my Dad in the front garden with a tile cutter and tried to go in the front door but then found we didn't really have a hallway floor any more. Hence; Dad with the tile cutter. By this morning he had laid all the tiles and then Mum paraded into room with the rug she intends to put over the new tiles. Have you ever seen a man die a bit inside? I have.

At present it is T-minus 6 hours to party and we still have no grout, no carpet on the stairs and no will to live from anyone left involved in the house improvements. So, why the party I hear you cry...well, my parents have somehow managed to spend 30 years married to each other. 30 years.

30 years is a bloody long time. I have not even been alive that long. For the moralists among you thinking - about bloody right; fair play, it probably is a good thing my parents have been together longer than I'm alive. Big society and all that.

But it is a little worrying that I struggled to sit through Inception without wanting to go and look at something different and here they are after 30 years, just not bored yet. They just wouldn't think about leaving each other. Bizarre. I love the idea of eternal commitment but I just worry I'll never be able to do the same. I've never stayed faithful to a boyfriend and this leads me to believe that I should either just admit that I'm not really the committed kind or I should work harder at looking for whatever it is that turns people into lobsters.

I think marriages would last a lot better if you could have a sort of 'wild card' month after the first 10 years - so the first 10 years starts as standard and then after that, one month per year is allowed to have a bit of extra dalliance in it. Fair. That way, you can expel all that curiosity that's built up without it having consequences and you'll quickly remember why you're with the one you're with. The worst thing about being cheated on is certainly the lying and the feeling like you weren't good enough for them; so if you were both in on it and understood why it was happening and that it wasn't a big deal - problem solved, no?

Maybe not. But either way congrats to the parents! 30 years is a blinding effort!

On being an elf

We had ears of green...red noses too,
Made balls of snow...threw them at you,
You thought to yourself...what a wonderful world.

I saw skies of, well, dark... and snow of white...
No bright blessed days, it's always fucking night...
And I thought to myself...what a curious place to choose to work for someone with SAD.

The colours on the faces, of children going by
Are also oddly symptoms, for serious hypothermi...(uh, don't point that out to the guests please Elf #2)
I see elves wrapping presents, outdoors by the hut...
They're really thinking....bastard paper cut...

I hear babies cry...what can you do?
Who brings a toddler out in minus 32?!
I see parents spoiling kids saying, 'Sleigh ride honey?"
They're really saying, "We've got SO much money!"


(Instrumental Break - cue 50 tone deaf infants warbling the only song you can be bothered to teach them)


I hear babies cry...parents try warming tricks,
More money than sense... indulgent pricks

And I think to myself...what a wonderful job...

I think to myself...Santa's a complete...joy to work with.


(Probably makes more sense sung? Will aim to perform it at a gig near Christmas...now, who wants to help me learn guitar?!)

A tiny squishy cactus

Brilliant news has been flooding in to my lug holes over the last 24 hours. In no particular order they run along these lines -

1. I am a semi-finalist in the 2010 Funny Women Award Competition. This is sincerely epic.

2. The lack of alcohol in my system seems to make my hip less cantankerous - is this due to less drunken mishappery or because the alcohol affects the joints? We don't know. We are not doctors. Nor are we multiple personalities so I should have just used I.

3. I have amazingly supportive friends from all areas of life.

I had a realisation yesterday that I'm very pleased with the way I've handled friends and social responsibility over the years. I don't mean like I've handled them well in that I can grope and innapropriately touch well. Although I can. Fondle champion - that's me! When I got the good news re FWA yesterday I immediately sent out the obligatory text to my nearest and dearest asking if they could come and support and sharing the good news...what was really nice, was that replies came back from all stratas of my life so far. twas kind of like drilling down through different types of rock and finding a person from each level. I'm not going to take lots of rocks to the show though. Sedimentary in the first row would probably laugh significantly less than my giggling hordes.

There were positive responses from old school friends, college people, university friends, old workmates, current workmates and people I just know because I drink too much and this leads to a loose tongue. It was a really awesome feeling that I've kind of gathered all these awesome people up like a ball of selotape gathering dust under a sofa. Pretty cool. The thing is I really like all these people, and it made all the effort it takes to hold on to good friends totally worth it. They
may not feel the same at all but I care not - the point is that my phone beeps regularly and this means I am popular. I think. Or that I don't know how to switch off my alarm...

Ok. Gushing done. But it was a cool feeling and I urge people to take a peek through their phone book and remind themselves how cool all the people they've collected are. It's a bit like having top trumps or football stickers of your favourite things. It's funny because it was only yesterday I was looking at Facebook and looked at the number '737' as the quota of friends I've gathered and honestly wondered if I could 737 people I'd ever met - let alone ones that had bothered to electronically tag themselves (as a friend, not a criminal). Facebook is weird.

My friends really make me happy. I'm a complete people person. People are what make my world go round. I was making a list of things that make me happy and it's pretty much just people. I divide my day up into which radio presenter I'm listening to because I like their personalities, I then listen to stand-up rather than music because it's more interesting and then I spend my evenings socialising because I'm not thrilled about alone time.

I'm terrible if I've been on my own for too long - I get horrendously bored and this either results in me getting verbal diarrhoea as soon as I see someone I do know or I end up thinking too much and this can be very dangerous. Thinking too much for me is a regular and destructive passtime as it results in massive over inflating of issues.

For example -

"I really enjoyed the Edinburgh festival...can't wait until next year...mustn't wish my life away...I'm already 23...by next year I'll be 24...and I haven't even been to Asia yet...what with global warming I might have already left it too late for Asia...plus with the IBS I'd probably get ill if I went...so even if the world survives long enough for me to go to Asia I would poop a lot...probably better to not go...so there is very little point in anything as it'll all end one day...no point even looking forward to Edinburgh next year...might as well just eat pringles on the sofa until I'm sick...but I wouldn't be sick, I would get stomach ache...because I have IBS...which means I can't go to Asia...and the polar bears are dying...and I'm not going to still be alive this time next year..."

And it's a terrible cycle of melodrama. Terrible.

So I keep people around to talk to. Keep them in jars. Not really. But I probably would if I could.

Bang went the girl

Well, my joy at today lasted a stupidly short time...I arrived in Swindon for my 11am meeting only to find out that the man I was meant to be meeting is on annual leave. What a kick in the teeth to be told, as a person who has just come back from holiday, that the people you need to speak to are now still enjoying their holidays. Gutted. So, I'm now in Swindon with not enough internet connection to do any realy work and not enough money to buy any more coffee having just spent £40 getting to my non-existent meeting.

The problem now is that I'm in a lot of pain and don't have anything to distract myself. My body is literally falling apart - who knew a person could exist on solely adrenaline? As the morning has gone on the walking has reminded my hip that it is obstinately intent on remaining nomadic. Dickhead.

The recurring back strain that I so gloriously avoided during my Edinburgh runs is back with a vengeance and I've now decided it's largely due to carrying a laptop around and sitting on trains all the time. For this reason I've decided to stop carrying a laptop and going on trains - which is going to make my job hard. But not too hard because chances are the right folk wouldn't have been at my meeting anyway.

But now, what new pain is this dear body? My throat has decided that it wants to swell up ever so irritatingly but seemingly only down one side. I have that bastardly annoying thing where you feel fine until you swallow (shut the fuck up gigglers I'm moaning), and then all of a sudden you realise that the Numskulls have been giggling and have inadvertently mowed up parts of your soft squishy throat that should have been left clear alone. I have now gone from hopeful to grumpy - leaving me with the belief that "yes" getting up early in the morning is euphoric and beautiful, but you should definitely go back to bed before every other irritating fucker gets up.

This must be why Edinburgh was so good - I was nocturnal. And drunk. Perhaps it is the lack of alcohol and the dawning realisation that I am many many years off being a full time comedian talking, but I am grumpy.

So I thought I would make a list to cheer myself up - a list of things that are upcoming that I am excited about.

1. Going to Somerset this weekend to see a small boy and a big family that I love.
2. Going to Brighton the weekend after to see many friends that I love.
3. My birthday. No party plans as I hate clamouring 'IT'S MY BIRTHDAY, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY' but I really enjoying being able to think quietly in my head 'it's my birthday' and know that it's only true for that one day a year.
4. Back to Canterbury to see in another Fresher's week with LOADS of friends that I love.
5. Hallowe'en. I like playign with pumpkin pulp.
6. Fireworks night. I FUCKING LOVE FIREWORKS MORE THAN IS HEALTHY.
7. Many more things before Christmas.

I feel better.