D-Day for the Subtle Brainwash

There is absolutely nothing special about today at all. Just another day. Another day which I've marked on my calendar (Gustav Klimt - £9.99 from Paperchase). I'm in the office today... got here on the Jubilee line which I was early for - because I had a healthy start with Tesco's own Fruit & Fibre. I sat at my breakfast table eating it with my blonde haired, blue eyed son. He was a new addition to my morning, I won't lie. But I chewed my breakfast happily and left for work.

For some strange reason I just couldn't stop smiling this morning... luckily I use Colgate so my teeth looked awesome as I did. It drew the attention of some passing builders as I left for work. Ha! How amusing. Aren't men silly? They're so easily bowled over by a woman who takes care of herself. I'm so glad I spend as much as I do on products. I just think they're worth it, don't you? I'm worth it. I'm so worth it, my foundation genuinely goes on with a roller. Without a hint of irony.

I fair bounced out of the front door this morning, my hair was so full of volume. Must be something to do with the Pantene Pro-V plus I put on it - it just makes it feel so different you know? You can literally see the split ends somehow magically fusing back together because of the conditioner. How clever. My skin felt shiny and full of the penta-peptides that are packed into my Nivea face cream. I know that winter hates my face, and I'm not stupid, so I use it to help keep my skin soft and supple.

On the walk to work I was really glad I'd taken my Immodium before I left, because when you've got a busy day ahead - the last thing you need is constipation! What fun!

It's a pretty grey day, but I'm looking forward to 11 o clock... the clock is ticking down quietly in the corner to my daily diet coke near the lift. I would drink standard coke, but I choose diet because it's less calories. Oh, and I really like the flavour. I've got a busy day putting the finishing touches to my speech for the conference for the next few days... thank heavens I remembered to bring my glasses. Well, not that I remembered to bring them - obviously, I go to Specsavers so I get 2 for 1... this means I can leave a pair on my desk and have one at home. And, if that weird kid from breakfast turns up and squashes them accidentally, I'm covered. Phew!

I know by the end of the day I'm going to be pretty tired... a long stretch in the office followed by a tiring gig. Gosh, isn't it hard to have it all? Luckily, by the time I get home to my DFS sofa with no interest for the next 3 years and my Dreams mattress that I bought in the winter sale because I was so jealous of my perfect neighbours, my blonde kid will be tucked up in bed and there'll be an inexplicably good looking man on the sofa with designer stubble.

He'll have cooked for me... possibly fajitas, Old El Paso of course, because they're so quick and easy and everyone loves them! It's like a party and a meal! I might mock his hilarious attempts at cookery and sigh when he leaves me the washing up, but really I'm lucky to have a man so I keep quiet and use my fairy liquid. Fairy liquid just cuts through the grease much quicker than ordinary brands. And, it means that while I'm saving up my Park vouchers to buy blonde kid some new toys at Christmas, he's got a fun bottle to play with in the meantime. Bless. What a happy family unit we are. I'm such a good mum I feed him chicken that I cooked in the toaster. No word of a lie.

So there's absolutely nothing Special K about today. Just an ordinary day.

Oh, no... wait a minute. I think the ban on product placement in UK television might have been lifted. The lifting of the ban was made much easier by the use of Maxi-Muscle - packed with protein.

On The Night Bus

Right I have a bout 10 minutes to smash out this blog with know idea what I'm going to write about and a banging headache to accompany my typing noises.

I went out last night to celebrate a friend's birthday, I intended it to be a terribly quiet affair with minimal drinking and an early to bed finish. I crawled home after 3 night buses and a trawl through Leicester Square at 4:30am and decided it would be genius to eat a pot of taramasalata in my bed with a spoon.

When I awoke this morning even my soft toys were judging me.

This week is already chaos and I'm not even into the meaty part yet... I've an audition this afternoon to go and play Puck (mystical horny critter - fucking typecast) and then a gig in Reading tonight. I am gigging every single night this week in and around London and am also supposed to be making a plausible effort to work hard during the day. This could be the death of me.

I'm already tired. Mainly from dancing at Fez (not round the hat) twas a club in Putney which I attended last night. That's right - I went clubbing. I literally and metaphorically let my sodding hair down and it was great... and today I'm remembering why I rarely do it. Turns out ambitions and busy days really don't mix well with a desire to stick your head next to the porcelain pedestal and sing Lionel Richie songs to yourself whilst crying softly into the Tesco branded loo paper.

I have to go. But rest assured, I'm taking the pain with me.

Ouch.

Frustration (Not the Popping Dice Kind)

I've had a lazy morning... Saturdays are the best day of the week because you're not forced to drink your breakfast wine in a Starbucks flask to try and 'fit in'.

However, what should have been a lazy morning that relaxed me, has totally frustrated me and made me entirely angry at the world at large. It's my own fault for switching on the goggle box. I was up happily early, learnt my speeches for today's audition and then thought 'What harm could it do?'...

Well, at first it was fine. I hung out with Sue Sylvester for a while and even the inclusion of Gwyneth Paltrow in my Glee fix didn't annoy me. Slightly peeved that they ended the show on Rihanna as she frightens me intensely and I'm 90% sure she's a robot. But, I was coping?

Then I tried to watch Michael Palin... this is where the cracks started to show. I had to turn it off - not because of the quality of the show... but just because I wanted to be in Japan. I've got really itchy feet at the moment. Of the 'yearning to travel' variety, not the 'athletes foot style'. My top 3 places to visit (at the moment - let's not forget I'm pretty fickle) are -

1. Peru
2. San Francisco
3. Norwegian Fjords

I really don't have the means to go to any of them right now as it would involve taking an inordinate amount of time out of the entertainment world and I'd have to spend all my funds currently labelled 'Edinburgh'. I never thought there would really be a day where I would be voluntarily choosing Edinburgh over the mountains of Macchu Picchu. But here we are. My what a strong maternal cord the stage has.

So I flicked off Michael Palin. Which is a brilliant sentence that everybody should say at least once in their life - try it now... "I flicked off Michael Palin".

But adverts invaded my bubble. Adverts designed to annoy and patronise and shovel more of your hard earned wages out of your wallet onto stuff you've been persuaded you want. I don't necessarily blame the advertisers for being heartless losers - if you don't want to buy something you don't have to, but can we at least be advertised at as though we are vaguely intelligent?

Case Study 1 - Some advert for some skin care stuff for men that starts out with 'Leather dries out... just like your skin. So you need blah blah blah moisturiser to keep your skin soft and supple...'

Um, why do we need the leather bit? I'm sorry... but that, to me, is like saying - "This hay can catch fire, and, technically, so could your hair... so you need...."

Leather used to be skin. Yes. But then it was stripped off the cow. Now, it is leather. It is a shoe, or a bag... your skin is different. By all means, use the moisturiser... but don't use it because leather dries out once it's been treated and turned into a bag. Use moisturiser because you either want or need to use moisturiser. And, probably, you won't need to use moisturiser if you don't start because - news flash - your skin is cleverer than a mangy strip of leather and it can moisturise itself! The only reason it wouldn't moisturise itself properly is if you don't moisturise your body (drinking water) or you ply it with artificial moisturiser so that it no longer needs to produce the levels of moisture necessary for it to be moisturised.

Ok?

Good.

Case Study 2 - "Windows gives me the family that nature never could."

There is so much wrong with this as a broadcast phrase that I barely want to delve. It hurts me a little inside. If you would rather have a family created by Windows than a real one I suggest you pop to Game Station and buy The Sims. Then you can have total control. Leave the real people to folks who deserve them. Because you are a tosser. And you've just stated a preference of a family of dick heads who crash frequently and monopolise large portions of the conversation.


I've turned off the TV now. Back to box sets of shows so I don't have to bore you all with self-inflicted rants on a regular basis.

Information Whore

I've actually been working hard this morning. Next week I've been assigned the prestigious task of addressing a collection of business folk at Earl's Court for a 30 minute presentation on the online video revolution and how to use video to form the sort of relationship with the top of the Google search results that even Katy and Russell couldn't imitate.

30 minutes is a long time to talk about something you genuinely couldn't drum up a mite's penis length worth of interest in. I've been at this job for just over a year and they're giving me a 30 minute paid spot in front of hundreds of people? Hell, I've been doing comedy for 4 years now, stand-up for 2 and I can't guarantee I'll get more than £30 for a divine 15 minutes in front of 20 bored old men in a grotty pub in Ealing. Sorry Ealing, you were just the first place that came to mind. I'm sure all your pubs are clean as a whistle.

But on Wednesday I will be playing Earl's Court. 30 minutes. Now, I've got a good 30 minutes... but I've been advised it may not be quite the right stuff for this crowd. So I've had to start working on a new one. Mainly facts, so far I've been very good and only put a light sprinkling of jokes in.

The thing is... the more I research and write this speech, the more interested I get in the subject. I work in an industry loosely based on search engine optimisation and this morning I've been ploughing through a paper on the history of the internet, the history of the world wide web (they're two different things - who knew? Lots of people probably, but not me), the men who invented it, the ways the search engines shaped it, the ways they shaped the world, and the reasons why it's a constantly evolving beast.

It's fascinating stuff. If you want my reasoned argument on why video is the answer to pleasing both end-users, publishers and search engines then feel free to come and bask in my glory on Wednesday. I won't trouble you with it here.

But, I'm starting to wonder if there's anything on the planet that isn't interesting if you have the attention span to really find out about it? So, before I started this job and this paper - "IT? Men in suits at desks being dull... tapping away at their desks writing code?"

Now I've started this job and this paper -
"Someone had to think up the internet and the web. That's incredible."

"If Google hasn't indexed a page yet (which applies to an inordinate amount of the web) the vast majority of the population will never know it exists. Google therefore shapes the livelihood, possessions and behaviour of vast swathes of the population just based on the algorithm it uses to promote certain pages..."

"Tens of thousands of people work in and because of the I.T. industry... you've got the folk who work on the engines, browsers, computers... you've got the folk like me who placate the whole thing... you've got the businesses that were revolutionised by being able to easily work across different counties, countries and continents... you've got the businesses that can only exist because the internet means overheads can be low enough to turn a profit."

"How big could the population have gotten to without the internet?"

My mind is spinning... I have a billion questions and answers and theories and I could research the shit out of this stuff and be busy and happy for days... but I only have one more afternoon left to write this. And there is so much to know.

There's too much stuff. Too much. Seriously, Google 'stuff' and see how many results you'll get... incredible.

There's nothing I can't seem to find fascinating. There's nothing I couldn't sit for hours and read about and think about and talk about and joke about. But there just isn't enough time... there is too much world for me to know enough about. What's the game plan? Know a little about some things? Like, I know Gaddafi has at least two sons, has been in power for 42 years, has been raving about face lifts recently and isn't going down without a fight. I could parrot a very intelligent sounding analysis about the situation in Triploli and how it's been affected by the Egyptian uprising.

But I couldn't hold a debate on comparing the relief effort to Christchurch to the political and monetary aide that will be apportioned to Libya.

Where do you draw the line and stop knowing stuff to go and do stuff? It sometimes causes me great difficulty.

Heavy on the Foghorn

I think I'm more in love with my filofax than most of the people on the planet. Some folks might choose to have a security blanket - I choose my little red leather, heart decorated filofax. I very rarely go anywhere without my filofax and on the one occasion I did leave it somewhere I shouldn't have, I was devastated and had to have it posted to me immediately by an excellent friend who completely understood why I was havign heart palpitations.

My filofax has a few different apps - it's got a diary section, a tube map, a world map (with time zones), an address book and a notes section. It's got a white elastic strap to stop me losing all my data and it has a battery life that pretty much synchs with me... ie, if I'm asleep I can't access my data but as soon as I'm recharged it's ready to go too.

I think my filofax is much more practical than an electric device that could store my life details. It's cosy and quaint and never, ever beeps innapropriately during meetings. Indeed, it can't call anyone... but my faithful Nokia brick does that quite satisfactorily thanks very much. An iPhone 4 might make you seem sexy and give off a vibe that you're wealthy and cool - but, if I accidentally gave off that impression then I'd end up in a ghastly unsatisfactory relationship. Much better, I think, to clutch my filofax on the streets of London and give off the 'anally retentive control-freak' vibe and hopefully end up catching the eye of someone compatible. Or a social worker.

The thing that puzzles me about my filofax is that I've never specified the gender or name of my filofax. This might not seem like a big deal, but I name and gender specify pretty much everything. We've probably covered most of this during our time together but just so that you're all up to speed -

Work Laptop - girl, 'Della' (She's a Dell)

My Laptop - boy, 'Bug Juice' (He's an Acer, which, was the name of a fat blonde boy who cried a lot on an American TV show about summer camp called Bug Juice.)

Cutlery - Knives - Men (Dads), Forks (Women - Wives), Spoons (Uncles), Teaspoons (Adopted children).

Days of the week - (See previous blog somewhere along the line as it's long winded)

Mp3 Player - Current model is a boy (because he's an awkward tosser who tends to play exactly the wrong thing at inopportune moments). My mp3 players are traditionally named after Gods as my first one was a Creative Zen and so was called Buddha.

Bed - Ryan (Boy).

Car - Roly (Because my Dad says he is more like a roller skate than a car. He is right.) Boy.

Teapots - Claude (Boy, French) , Maude (Girl, Not French but in love with Claude), Christopher-Robin (he's Winnie the Pooh decorated), Rodney and Del Boy (not tea pots, actually a set of china tea cups and saucers who are very delicate and therefore it amuses me to name them after such rogues.) Rosie (a wonderful woman, the biggest of my brood and very jolly.)


So... what I can't fathom is why I've not got there with my filofax? I can't force my naming process... or the gender vibes that I get off stuff. It's a very natural process. I feel like she's a girl. She's almost certainly a girl... but what is she called?

I think I might open this up as a competition. Please leave your suggestions for names, perhaps with a reason, and we'll run this like some kind of Blue Peter competition. I actually promise that the winner will get some kind of badge.

If I need to seriously procrastinate during March, there might also be some kind of naming ceremony that the runners up will get an invite to.

Go...

Him and You on The Worst Days

You - I can't deal with you when you're like this.
Him - No one asked you to.
You - Mature.
Him - Seriously, just go.
You - I can't exactly leave you like this.
Him - Why? None of this is for your benefit.
You - Well...
Him - I'm going to feel like this whether you stay or not. You being here isn't exactly helping if you're just complaining that it's hard for you. This isn't about you.

Silence

You - That's the bit I don't understand.
Him - What?
You - Why don't I make it better?
Him - How could you?
You - Why don't I make it better?
Him - Because it isn't about you.
You - But even things that aren't about you, in my life, you have an impact on them.
Him - This is different.
You - This is depression. Why doesn't having me make it any easier?
Him - Maybe it does.
You - Hmm?
Him - Maybe I'd be even worse if it weren't for you.
You - Worse than tears during Attenborough?
Him - Maybe I wouldn't even be here.
You - Melodrama doesn't suit you.
Him - Yeah... true. Let's keep it light.

Silence

You - I am going to go.
Him - Really?
You - Yes.
Him - Right.
You - I need some distance?
Him - Do you find this off putting?
You - Well, I don't want to jump your bones... but I'm not going to leave you over it.
Him - Right.
You - It's pretty fucking hard. You impact on everything I do... everything, is about you. My days have a shifted... a sort of shifted kind of priority or focus or whatever now you're in them. Not because I meant to, but just because the things I do with you make me the happiest so they're the ones I've put to the top. But with you...
Him - I'm the same.
You - No. No you're not... you have all these little insular bubbles that you've chosen to keep me out of.
Him - Well, it's not exactly a fun 'bubble' I've kicked you out of. It's not a bachelor pad, it's...
You - Fine. I know this is different. The depression is different. But you have these safety valves on us. Places you'll still be able to go when we're done. And I don't have those. So, just... right now... just, I want to be able to go. Because I never go. I always choose being with you over doing anything else and this is not the first time I've been a bit uncomfortable with that.
Him - So...
You - No. It's definitely not over. I just want to be OK with walking away from you sometimes.
Him - Right.
You - Will you be OK?
Him - No. But then I wasn't OK before so it's fine.
You - OK. Well, there isn't really a neat ending to this little debacle.

Hind Legs of Surprise

I think it's important to have goals. Not just like inflatable football ones that you've set up willy-nilly across your living room. That's ridiculous. It would also mean that your goals were directly blocking you from achieving most things. You'd be markedly slower at getting around and probably push all your aspirations back by a good year.

If your goal was to get married and have children etc then you might never make it because potential suitors would be so freaked out by all the inflatable goals all over your house. You'd only really be able to procreate with a tiny footballer with a fear of metal who was raised to feel comforted and fertile around inflatable goals.

You'd then have to question how much it was worth carrying their genes further on into this blind route of evolution. I think I'd argue the world probably didn't require the offspring of such a peculiar fellow. But then, one day I'm going to have to make the case for someone impregating me. And I'm well aware that what you're asking there is for someone to make their mark on the world by mixing their genes with those of a neurotic, miniature woman with slitty eyes, sweaty palms and a tendency to think about old hairy Italian men when she should be doing something productive.

Truth be told, I probably wouldn't make much of a case for it. I think getting the over head projector out to show my potential life partner the diagrams would just make things worse.

That is all very much beside the point though. I think it's important to have goals.

I've been trying to analyse what my career goals are today... after an interesting conversation with some comedians earlier in the week. I was performing as the infamous 'open spot' on a pro bill and had a really good time chatting with the other two comedians who were there. One was complaining that someone else he started at the same time with was now on TV... how was that fair?! He isn't even that good... was the familiar moan. The other comedian was complaining that his agent didn't get him the kind of live gigs that he wanted.

After about 20 minutes of (genuinely interesting) conversation, they both stopped. The conversation turned to the fact that they were both being quite down on the achievements they'd actually made. I pointed out that, from my view, one of them was a successful promoter with many contacts and opportunities to gig wherever he liked, and the other comedian was working every night (paid) and could probably take his cracking CV to another agent and get a new lease of life breathed into his career.

They agreed enthusiastically and the whole scene was turning into something fairly meaningful. It felt like the the sort of conversation Jesus might have before magnanimously handing over the parable rights to a hard up apostle.

Then, in a bizarre display of a comedian being able to think about someone else, one of my new friends said "I bet there are tonnes of open spots who'd kill to be in your shoes. You've already done two years, you're getting on fairly good bills, you've got agency interest and you're gigging most nights of the week... even if it is unpaid in most cases."

This was a good point very well made. I was pleased to hear this kind of thing... and it made me want to set some goals down now so that I can measure where I am and what I'm doing in the future. So that it'll be a little bit harder to not see the progress when I'm still not totally thrilled with my current position. The trouble is, once you put goals down, you create the chance you'll never hit them (and some of mine are pretty specific). So, I've picked 5. They're not necessarily my ultimate goals or the only ones... but they are some goals that I'd be sad if I forgot about -

1. I want to be Doctor Who's assistant.
2. I would like to present my own FM radio show.
3. I'd like to play Blanche in a commercial theatre production of Streetcar Named Desire
4. I'd like my surname to one day end in a vowel. (Gandolfini or DeVito are fine examples)
5. I'd like a house in France.


I think these are good goals. However, if I never get anywhere close to achieving any of them I reserve the right to claim I was drunk when I wrote this and will refer you back to the initial paragraph on a living room full of inflatable goal posts and midgets.

Sex or Death. No cake.

Just what is it about the prospect of death and the ability to kill that can turn up the heat so dramatically in our imaginations?

I've spent my morning reading and listening to as much information on the situation in Libya as I can get my hands on. In an ideal world I'd have the time and the insight to write something witty about it here and you'd all stroke your beards and think I was very profound. Sadly however, Popmaster on Radio 2 begins in about 10 minutes and I am determined to get a better score than my father. So, you're just going to have to deal with the tangent my ever untidy mind has gone down.

The Amazonian Guard.

These are the 40 or so deadly body guards that Colonel Gaddafi (use any spelling you like here, you're unlikely to have to suffer the embarassment of getting it wrong on his Christmas card) has at his beck and call. For some people, an entire army just isn't enough. Were he from Hampshire we might start to muse on only child syndrome...

What's so weird about having 40 trained body guards who are pretty much brain washed to want to protect you even though you look like a run down David Gest flying the flag for poor eighties eye wear? Surely when you fall so squarely into the 'knob end' sector of the population and have bloody massacres on your hands and conscience, there's nothing weird about having bodyguards?

Well, The Amazonian Guard are all women. And they are all virgins (unless you listen to the rumours from Tania about Martha...)

This is pretty explosive stuff for a devotee of Islam who reportedly invited all of Italy's top models to a party and then gave them all a copy of the Koran. His Amazonian Guard can wear heels, make up, Western clothes and Western hair (overpriced)...they are outside the normal rules for women in that society.

To me, it seems to make perfect sense. There's an air of mystique about an army of women - that's got to give a fairly hefty upper hand in a combat situation? Women are fantastic multi-taskers - able to scissor kick you to death whilst mentally weighing out the correct amount of cheese to keep us under our Weight Watchers points for that day. We also have a fantastic grasp on irony.

Women have fierce maternal instincts, a deep devotion - I would imagine that a young impressionable woman offered a longer reign on strict regulations in exchange for devoted protection of a man she's been taught to adore would fight tooth and nail to hang on to such a position.

It's a very logical kind of an army to have. And the media I've come across this morning agrees with me massively. Because Gaddafi has 40 sex slaves following him around!!! Phwoar!!! Never mind the fact that these women are trained killers - THEY'VE GOT VAGINAS! Don't you get it? He can shag them?!

I mean, yes...theoretically he could probably shag a lot of women because he wields the great power of a man who doesn't mind killing in droves for what he wants. But, you've missed the point. He's got killer women! Shaggable killer women! And they're virgins. This man has it all.

I'm not sure it would work the other way round...if Carla Bruni had 40 whimpering virgin marines following her around, I don't think their abstinence would be such a bonus feature in heightening their allure. We'd probably all be mildly alarmed that friendly fire would result in an awkward conversation afterwards including the lines 'this has never happened to me before'.

But the connection between sex and death seems to exist regardless of gender...why? How have films and stories so convinced us that someone with the power to end us is going to be the generator of the most powerful orgasm under the sun?

I blame Gerard Butler. And if he wants to fight about it, I'll be greasing myself up over here...Gerard?

The Great Big Angry Bullet Between My Teeth

Tomorrow I am going back to my office... I've not been there all week because I've been working from home. But, tomorrow I am going to put on my suit and make a concerted effort to sit at my computer all day being polite to people.

I'm nervous.

Working from home has been great - there is limited commuting time, I can get just as much work done, I don't have to drink tea from a machine, and I can work in my pyjamas. A comfortable account manager makes for a much less snappy account manager in my book.

My temper has been quite difficult to contain recently. Probably due to my ability to stress myself out over the smallest things. I 'lost it' on a train last night. This blog is dedicated to the man I shouted and labelled a complete dick on the tube last night. It's an apology of sorts...but also, a reiteration that you are a dick. But, I realise now that I probably shouldn't have shouted this at you on the Bakerloo line.

The thing was, that we got chatting and I asked him what he did for a living. He said he was an accountant. He asked me what I did, and I said I was a comedian. I know this was wrong of me - not to label myself as a comedian, but to admit it - and he instantly said the four words that are guaranteed to boil the blood of anyone who's ever stood at the mic and entertained a crowd of baying strangers.

"Tell me a joke."

I kept my cool, explained to him that I didn't want to, I didn't really tell one liners anyway and that jokes weren't ever particularly funny in this kind of scenario when it's been demanded of you.

"Well, you're not a real comedian then are you?"

Why was this man doing this to me? I hadn't immediately demanded he tell me what tax I owed or what 28 x 93 was, when he said he was an accountant. I explained I was a real comedian but that I wasn't keen on jokes being demanded as they always turned out awkward and not funny and I didn't see why I should have to prove it anyway.

"Tell me a joke."

Now, I'll admit, I was drunk and he was annoying but that didn't warrant me asking why he was trying to force a joke out of me in a manner akin to verbal jape rape. That was probably being melodramatic. But, as I think I've pointed out - he was a dick.


Perhaps I should have just walked away, but I had a seat on a tube and no truly drunken person would choose to try and stand and keep their four Long Island Ice Teas inside them at the same time. Perhaps I shouldn't have told him I was a comedian, maybe I should have said 'Account Manager' in an homage to my pitiful attempts at enjoying a day job. But it would have killed me a little bit to define myself as being invested in the tedium of my office. It just isn't who I am, and it isn't what I do...it's somewhere I sadly have to go. Perhaps it's worth putting up with tools on trains if it means you hang on to that little bit of sanity about who you are...?

Perhaps I'm hung over and babbling like a woman who needs to hydrate. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

Gandolfini Syndrome

I recently bought myself the box set of The Sopranos as a treat for being...erm, well for being me. I'm now rattling my way through season one apologising left, right and centre to people I'm blowing off so I can spend more time with my second family.

I have a huge crush on James Gandolfini...I even bought Where The Wild Things Are (possibly one of the most miserable films ever to have animated creatures added to it) just so I could have his silky voice in my ear.

I suppose, if we were to group the men I adore into teams, JG would be on the DeVito team (DeVito has been a pin up of mine ever since he lent his voice to the half goat, half human in Hercules). DeVito got there first and is arguable funnier so I suppose he would be team captain but that's not to say I wouldn't give Gandolfini special privileges.

We could maybe set up a hilarious trio that live in a caravan. I would do a lot of cooking for them and they would love me for that. JG would do all the serious business like putting the aerial straight so we can watch films, and DD would be my little laughter bag. The two of us would crack jokes together all day long and have several scripts on the go.

Occasionally JG would get jealous of my closeness with DD, and we'd go out for dinner and have a really nice heart to heart. He's a little funny about letting his guard down but then so am I so we'd have great banter. We drink a lot of wine. The funny thing is that DD doesn't mind. When we get home, he's made something hilarious out of tin foil and JG and I think it's hilarious. On nights like that I suppose it's more like DD is our pet. But a pet that I'd happily marry.

We all have separate bedrooms - this isn't some kinky, freaky set up. DD sleeps in a bed that looks like a race car, JG's chosen a hammock, and I sleep in a pink kennel with a light inside that rotates. JG's favourite meal is chicken and bacon canneloni with lots of cheese on the top. DD likes me to make my famous risotto (I haven't invented it yet so it's not famous as yet but I'll let you know when I've invented it).

When they decide to cook for me we always start with salmon and eggs on toast which is my favourite. Then we have pizza (I never have the one with hot pineapple because hot pineapple is wrong), and then we have fish pie. This happens very rarely...we only have the fish pie when they've been fishing. And since neither of them particularly like the cold, this only happens in the summer. I think JG would go more often if DD just ahd a longer attention span. They're a funny pair.

You can't choose who you love. But you can choose to turn off the DVD. I choose not to.

Lucy My Albatross

Dear Lucy Porter,


I don't really know how to begin this letter. I feel like a young Bennett sister, anxiously scratching away at the parchment with my quill in a desperate attempt to put my pent up feelings onto paper. In my case I don't have a pen and quill, I have a keyboard and unlimited access to the internet. Which is almost a shame really because people keep getting subjected to mind numbingly inconsequential blog posts.

I'm already off topic. But you see, that's your fault...you're just so easy to talk to. You're just so friendly and kind, and pretty and petite, and funny and bubbly.

What I need you to do is just to please fuck off.

In the nicest possible way, I need you to just leave now please. I do appreciate your recent efforts to make room for me on the comedy scene. I appreciate you went to great effort to go and have that baby and take a few years out. I am so grateful - really, I am. I will happily babysit any night I'm not gigging myself it'll help keep you away.

I do apologise for contacting you out of the blue, it's just that I've grown tired of our constant comparisons. You won't know this, but apparently I'm just like you. Every joke I tell seems to sound like something you've already said. In fact, you've probably already written this blog so I don't really understand why I'm bothering. All the funny things that a happy, small brunette could want to say, you've already done it. You've beaten me to everything that makes up my personality.

So, could you stop? I mean, you've been hogging the limelight for people like us for some time now. I'm not asking that you stop doing comedy (but I can set you up on Monster if you need). But maybe you could have some kind of epiphany whereby you realise your persona just isn't working for you? Aren't you sulky and angry about stuff? Why use the nervous energy thing still when you're clearly a success and have nothing to be nervous about?

Perhaps you could come and see me gig. Then you'd know just how similar we apparently are and you might be willing to give me a chance. I, for one, don't see a problem with us both being around...but you are making it increasingly difficult for me to get better bookings. Largely because you exist.

Lucy, I'm not saying we can't be friends. Maybe we just need to come to some sort of compromise? Like, I'll gig Monday, Wednesday, Friday and you can have Saturday and Sunday? Tuesday and Thursday are going to depend on what's on TV and whether you can get a sitter. As for Edinburgh, well...we'll sort that out when we get there. Surely there's some kind of double act one of us can do with Jimmy Carr?


I would just appreciate it if you could get back to me with, maybe just some kind of apology for having been born before me? You see, I'm not mad at you - I'm just disappointed. It's very harrowing to learn that there's nothing unique about you at the age of 24. And I think the healthy option was to write to you and explain my feelings rather than do something rash like make a doll of you and make people heckle it. Besides, the doll looked scarily like me and I didn't have enough come backs to rescue us.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Kind Regards,
Laura

I'm Ok that mine's not movie quality

Gee whizz...I mean, I literally have nothing of worth to say today. Now, the smart people among us would just say "Hey, why not skip writing a blog today?" rather than subject the odd hapless internet wanderer to some mindless drivel that fell out of your finger tips.

But, that would be failing on my attempt to blog every day in the year 2011...and if there's one thing I've learnt in the last few months, it's that I'm anally obsessive about things.

I don't feel very well today - I have a super dooper headached. Caused, I believe, by the new glasses that were the cause of so much smashing angst yesterday. The trouble is, they're a lot stronger than I'm used to and, while that's fine for looking at the computer, as soon as I turn away and look at something more than a meter away the room gets quite swirly. So far I've had to have 4 extra strong paracetamols and half a litre of vodka just to stop the room spinning.

I suppose my eyes will get used to them...eventually? Yes, yes they probably will...or, I'll become an alcoholic with some excellent frames. I'll be the smartest hobo of them all.






This might be the longest it's ever taken me to write a blog...perhaps it's because I'm writing it so late in the day? All the good ideas might have flowed out of me early on and now I'm left with the dregs? I'd be terribly sad to think I'd wasted all my real creativity and energy on my day job. Yikes. How terrifying.

If I was the trendiest hobo I'd really have to work on those scales of working...there's no point doing all your really good begging in the morning when people are busily heading to work as they're too focused to give you the good money. You'd have to really scale your effort to make sure you catch people heading home. If possible, spend the down time hours while everyone's at their office jobs making a banjo out of a flora tub so you can busk a bit.


Perhaps I'm idealess because I'm missing my siblings...I have returned to London town now. There were no whoopie flags and I instant;y regretted my decision to leave the comforts of the countryside. There's something so fraught about the city - I feel like I ought to have make up on and change my clothes every day - little things like that. Yesterday when I woke up in the Shire it seemed fine to have a breakfast of leftover prawn crackers and a satsuma...today I felt like I ought to eat someting fibrous and high powered. I didn't have anything so I tried to poach eggs.

My attempt at poaching eggs looked a lot like I was boiling dish cloths. They didn't look tasty in the pan...however, they were alright on bread. The brea dhad to be avoided as the excess water from the eggs really made the bread soggier than is comfortable to have in the mouth.

I don't really like mushy food. Soup is not a food - it is a wet source of nourishment. Only the addition of croutons or crusty bread makes soup a meal. Equally I don't like sponge cakes that don't have a chewy portion. I would make a terrible pig - eating swill would be a nightmare.

Hmmm....it seems this is the extent to which my creativity runs today. Hopefully it wasn't too bad? I'll try and have something interesting to comment on tomorrow!

Smashing

Sometimes, a word will wind its way into my vocabulary and I'll start to use it in a largely ironic fashion. This has recently happened with the word 'smashing' which I began to use with a real awareness that it is totally overbearing for the vast majority of linguistic situations.

"Here's your tea."
"Smashing."

In this instance you leave the waitress somewhat worried that, actually, you've no intention of drinking your steamy brown beverage. She starts to worry that you're going to throw the cup. Potentially throw the cup at her when her back is turned. She's perturbed. She puts a piece of gum in her mouth to cover her unsettled feeling. Her boss tells her off for being a perpetuation of the anti-feminist expectation that the person serving tea is a woman. The boss is also angry about the gum. The waitress has 3 good reasons to expect an increase in her likelihood of a stomach ulcer. All because you used 'smashing'.

"We'd love to have you back in for a call-back"
"Smashing."

In this instance you're being very reminiscent of comedy that's already been done in the'90s really aren't you? Been watching two spoof radio DJs by any chance? Hmmm? Because it certainly sounds like you have. Not sure we really want to call back a comedy thief. Get an original idea and stop peddalling your plagiarised words here. I mean, we've offered the call-back now and we're British so it'd be embarassing to back-track. But we're not going to take you seriously as you do your repeat audition. We might yawn. If we've got iPhone's we'll tap them, seemingly innocuous, but you'll know you don't have our full attention. We'll be smug. We'll give the part to someone who just said thank you.

"Here's 42 pence change."
"Smashing."

No one is that pleased with 42 pence change. Why are you being so upbeat? Have you stolen something? Take your jacket off. Nothing in there. So, how are you stealing my stuff? Take all your clothes off. Get naked in my newsagents. Do it. I don't care if you have somewhere to be and you only wanted gum anyway. No one uses smashing in that scenario. You're clearly a tool. Unless you were being sarcastic? Oh, I get it! You think I charge too much for my chewing gum do you? Well buy it somewhere else then. I didn't ask you to come in here. In fact, I installed a particularly heavy door and have housed my newsagent's somewhere incredibly awkward to get to. So why are you here? Coming in with your obtuse responses to the 42 pence I'm giving you out of my hard earned float. If you have that much of a problem with it bring the correct change. Now put your clothes on and leave.


There is nowhere you can use 'smashing' without sounding like a toothy horse rider who's got Camilla on speed dial. Unless you're a particular fan of the appalling pun and someone asks you a) how your meal at the Greek restaurant was, b) how clay pigeon shooting went, c) your particular strengths during the last bout of happy slapping you went on.

This morning I used the word smashing over the phone to a bemused woman at the optician. My optimism and joy at being able to collect my new specs did not go unnoticed and there was no way to retrieve the situation as I needed to get off the phone. This just meant that when I went in to pick up the offending items she looked at me with a wan smile as though she knew they were going to disappoint me. "Poor lamb, this is obviously all she's got going for her at the moment.". She did kindly ask if I needed my old glasses throwing away, as though that might be the key to the whole 'smashing' mystery - perhaps the glasses are just that awful, and actually, these new pairs coming in actually is 'smashing'.

Either way, I regret being so lax with my group on my vocabulary and I will refrain from future additions that aren't fully thought through. It's a sad day indeed for those on my short list. Unlucky for you 'vermillion', 'banjaxed' and 'willy nilly'.

The Baby I Love The Most

My older sister has a son...he's delightful. We used to be quite a cynical group of mares (my sisters and me) and then my older sister had this little chap. I must stress, it wasn't a solo effort, she married a bloke and I think he helped a bit but I'm hazy on the details.

Now we have this child in our midst. And we're not entirely sure whether he is as great as we think he is or if we've turned into those awful people who dote and fool and fawn (yes eagle eyes that was a quote from Ursula of Little Mermaid fame) on a child that is pretty average but too close to us for us to see the bigger picture.

Frankly, if there is a bigger picture - I don't want to see it. At the moment the picture involves our hero who, at the age of about 19 months, can -

* Count to three,
* Point out animals and do their sounds,
* Tell you the colour of things,
* Dance like MJ
* Tell you he loves you, tell the dog she's a good girl, tell you when he's pooed. Incidentally, what's more amusing is when he lies about having pooed so you'll check. Child's a genius.

These are just a selection of his glorious attributed. Of course, he has some weird things but then who doesn't? He freaks out about bubbles, he doesn't like mushrooms and he will throw the most almighty tantrum if he doesn't get his own way. But then so do I. And he only has to say my name afterwards and all is forgiven. When you have only a limited repertoire, it seems like learning a few choice names is like having a 'get out of jinx' ability no matter what you've done.

Children can be really great at putting things into perspective. Granted, not when you've only had 2 hours sleep because the damn thing was putting lego up your nose and screaming, but usually they can be a pretty good device for simplifying things.

Could you honestly look at the little pot belly of a baby in the bath and not realise that a body is a body and calories don't matter?
Can you seriously watch a baby pissing himself laughing at making fart noises and saying poo and stick to your guns that only political comedy is funny?
Could you seriously say that the art in the Tate is better than the spittle covered "bonfire" finger painting you've just been presented with? Isn't all art subjective? (Ok, so that last point is ridiculous - as is most of the art in the Tate. But you get my point right?)

It worries me a little than I really like this kid and I can't really see a better one being produced this side of the next millenium. It either means I don't bother with my own or we just all accept from the start that I'm probably not going to like them as much as I should and we're all ok with that.

If you really think about it, it's actually a very economical way of reproducing - for one sibling to have a child and then all the others to dote on that one. It's less food, less money, less clothing, less pollution and a whole heap less emotional aggro when they reach 14. Perhaps we should start some kind of cult where lots of nervous adults just help out raising someone else's kid because it's less daunting than attempting to make a whole one yourself.

The problem with children is that they're permanent...once you've got that little seed inside you, there's no way of getting out of it until you're in a lot of pain and facing at least 18 years of ungrateful payments for stuff. I have trouble committing to one jumper for an entire day or for a TV programme beyond the first ad break. How on earth do you reconcile yourself to the fact that this child is now your sidekick for good? Batman could have told Robin things weren't working out - with offspring, you're scuppered. And, I know you're supposed to have all those maternal instincts which just mean you adore the child because genetically it's just like you, but I annoy the crap out of myself! I don't want a physical version of me wandering around to be more annoying than the voices in my head!

At best my child is going to be energetic, small, witty and determined to succeed. Much like an ADHD Mark Zuckerberg. At worst it's going to be dismally self-involved with a tendency to over analyse and a passion for wine...Dylan Moran in Black Books. Fantastic. Perhaps I'll have twins and they can deal with each other?

Flicking It

To ignore the fact that today's Valentine's day would be like to paint the room grey, fill it with suitcases, reverse my car so that the boot stuck through the door, wear male swim shorts to the party and then refuse to acknowledge all the references to elephant related paraphernalia in the room.

It's Valentine's Day...ok? Cool. Well done everyone. Have I been asked out to dinner or sent a card or a rose? No. Not one. Ok? Are we over it now? What have I done today? I've seen a doctor and an optician. Technically, therefore, I have sat across a table from two different people (one who was dangerously close to my face) and had an awkward interval of about 30 minutes. I'd say that constitutes a date on both cases. And one of them cost me £125 so... brilliant.

How am I spending the evening? Well, I'm going to have dinner with my sisters and watch films. Could it get any better? So, technically on paper it might look like I'm a sad spinster but in actual fact this is far better than my Valentine's Days usually end up.

For the last two years I've had a boyfriend on Valentine's and it sucked more than Rosamund Pike trying to read an award nomination. NO offence to the woman but fuuuuuck did you suck. And you're named after a fish.

So the first year I had a boyfriend on Valentine's Day he managed to wet the bed that night. Never having done it before, he never did it after (to my knowledge) and he certainly had no reason for doing it at the time. IT was the funniest present he could ever have got me (and the only time I've ever been given gold) and I highly recommend every person in the world to try waking up to a completely panic stricken soggy partner at least once in their lives. This is how his nickname 'Pampers' was spawned, and it's not something that I will ever regret.

Last year, in a less humorous turn of events it would appear he spent the evening with someone else. Now, I know this because the woman he was with rang me at 4 in the morning... I know what you're thinking, why? I have no idea... but when he turned up 4 hours late to our Valentine's Date with an awful hang over I was unsurprised and really quite grumpy. I wouldn't have minded if she'd had anything interesting to say at 4am... if he was going to cheat on me couldn't he at least have the decency to keep her occupied for the entire night?? Is there nothing I didn't have to do for that man... sigh. It's hard being superwoman.

So this year, gnocchi in Somerset with two sisters, a nephew, medical advice not to play in the roads, a severely depleted bank account and a promise of better eyes in the future seems like a good idea. I will be seeing my optician again in two days to collect my glasses... technically, that's better than 100% of the dates I've been on this year.

Pressure Point

Words can't express how lovely it is to be at home... there's just nothing like coming back here and having the world shift into a pace I'm totally familiar with. It's like comfort on a level with a memory foam mattress with built in speakers playing you Roald Dahl's audio books (read by David Jason) while Judi Dench brings you Horlick's and brushes your hair.

When I'm in London my world is a whirlwind - and that's how I like it (clearly - or I wouldn't do it). I am busy from the minute I get up at 6am and go to my day job, to the second I finish whatever gig/broadcast/rehearsal/audition I had lined up for the evening. It's beautiful but shattering. There seems to be something about London that makes you feel if you're not staring with bloodshot eyes into a Starbuck's mug that you're not really doing it right. If you haven't been on every tube line that week then you've wasted the cost of your travel card. Who's going to do the Evening Standard crossword if you don't? Granted, it's pretty hard when there are no seats on the Jubilee Line but fuck it, that's what other people's backs were invented for.

I find it nigh on impossible to keep any sense of perspective on what is important and what the world is for. The problem with being one of these 'self-employed motivating' types is that there's no manual on when to give yourself a break. You'll get a constant monologue from every one around you that if you want to succeed you have to push yourself and you have to be the best and the most determined... but there's no manual to tell you when to take a break.

So, I've come home...I'm not really doing anything. I've done one gig, I'm going to get my eyes tested and I've spent a long time chatting with an 18 month old who's made me a finger painting of a bonfire and piled a lot of dinosaurs on me whilst roaring. Together we watched Rescuers Down Under and my family told me they were very proud of me but that they were glad I was taking some time off. They didn't say they wanted me to take all my time off with them as I'm kind of high maintenance and they like 'quiet time' WTF? but they have expressed relief that my hair seems to be calming down and looking less like a Helena Bonham Carter character (pick any - they're largely the same. oooh...)

The little one and I are bonding pretty well...I'm a big fan of his work. He's the product of my older sister's matrimonial bliss with her soul mate. Insert gagging noise here. I'm taking as much interest and time with him as possible seeing as it's fairly unlikely my children are going to be anywhere near as spectacular. For one, I find it tricky to meet men that seem worth lifting my head off the bar for, second, if I do manage to reproduce I imagine my level of neuroticism will mean it's less the bliss of producing an angelic child and more like getting a mindight feasting gremlin wet. We think my children will probably come out already wearing eye liner and black nail varnish humming Placebo. Bless.

It's quite a big admission to have to write that I can't do everything. Turns out I've got a limit - doesn't mean I'm not going to be the next super star with all my dreams accomplished on a tidy check list. I will never tire of check lists. I especially like checklists where you actually draw boxes next to the items rather than cross them out. But it does mean it's OK to chill the fuck out sometimes. Nothing has to be accomplished by the age of 25 to make it a truly great accomplishment.

I had a gig last night where the headliner was Ian Cognito. Now, for a comedy geek and massive tool like me - this was amazing. This was watching an absolute master and legend at work...25 years of experience at holding the crowd's attention and playing with your expectations. And. afterwards, I got to go and sit down with him and hear about what it was like MCing for an up and coming Eddie Izzard... a-mazing.

Cognito's set was electric - it was magic to watch. And it made me realise something a little bit more profound than the punch line... he's been in the business for 25 years, and he was at the same gig as me last night. Yes, he got paid and he doesn't have a god awful day job... but, for last night, we had the same experience. I was really achieving something. So excuse me if today I only apply for 6 more gigs instead of 9. It's OK to take a break. If anyone needs me I'll be finger painting and eating mini-cheddar biscuits. And I'll still be a superstar quicker than you'll believe. A day doesn't make much of a difference if your head is going to want to something for the rest of your life.

Chilly Ding a Ling

I received a ludicrous phone call yesterday whilst on the train home to Somerset...I was already in an uncharacteristically bad mood due to having lost my oyster card, credit card, rail card and train tickets somewhere between Canary Wharf and Baker Street...not a happy bunny.

Between Paddington and Reading I'd managed to phone a number of call centres up and down the UK to cancel things, order new things, report somethings and hopefully get some sense out of my mishap of a morning. I have to give top marks to the young woman from TFL who completely saw the funny side of noting down distinguishing features of your oyster card holder - "It has, "Where Is my Fucking Travel Card?" written on the side."

However, upon finishing all of my necessary cancellations and requests, my phone rang -

"Hello" - Says I
"Hi, this is Chico." says a friendly voice.

I fight every urge to say "Is it that time already? Where does the day go..." and I just say hello again.

"I'm calling from one of the top fashion photography companies in the country. We're offering you the chance to come in for a fashion pampering session with us. Usually, this would cost you a thousand pounds... but because you've been recommended by a friend, we can offer it to you for £90 on a weekend, £60 if you come in during the week or just a £40 returnable deposit if you come in before the end of March. How does that sound?"


"It sounds awful." I say politely. There's a palpable silence. I wait patiently - I've got a 2 hour journey ahead of me and have no pressing need for him to move on.

"It sounds awful?"he repeats, sounding slightly incredulous. "Don't you want to do it?"


"Um, no. Not really. No, thank you - is that ok?"
"But you've been recommended...by your friend?" he sounds genuinely dumbfounded and I'm starting to feel a little sorry for him.

"Well," I say, trying to be friendly, "I'm sure she thought I might be interested but I think you're aiming at the wrong girl here. I'm really not into my fashion and the thought of being manhandled into different outfits and photographed looking like the chubby one from B*Witched at my own expense sounds frankly harrowing. I'm very sorry."

"So, you don't want want to do it... you, um, you're actually not interested?" he says again. I was starting to wonder if maybe I was a little crazy... perhaps I'm the first person that's ever turned him down?

"No." I say confidently. "Thank you very much for the offer but I don't want to."

"But, you've been recommended... by your friend... by your friend Jessica Dartmouth?" Hearing him read her name of the screen in front of him and use the full version that she never goes by almost made my  compassion for Chico curl up into a ball and die.

"Well, you tell her thanks for checking if I was interested but I'm not. And, thank you again... she was just trying to be my friendly but, sadly, I loathe fashion, photographs, being touched by other people and I'm really not interested. Thanks, have a nice afternoon, ok?"

"But, we've gone out of our way to offer this to you?"


This, I'll admit, caught me off guard.

"No you haven't... you've just cold called me in the middle of the afternoon?"
"This isn't a cold call."
"Um, yes it is Chico..."
"No, this isn't a cold call. You've been recommended."
"I'm sorry if I'm ruining your self image of what you do for a living Chico, but you've called me out of the blue with no prior communication with me. I don't care if you have scoured your ex-clients facebook friends list for new leads... this is a cold call."
"No, you're wrong... this isn't a cold call."
"Chico, where are you sitting my love?"
"In an office."
"How many other people in the office Chico?"
"Er..."
"Can you name them all?"
"Well, no..."
"Do they all do the same job as you?"
"Yeah."
"And, is that job to keep phoning people until you make a sale?"
"No. They're not 'sales'. It's just getting people to put down deposits."
"Do you get more money, the more people put down deposits?"
"Yeah!"
"Chico, you cold call people my love. I'm sorry... you have a lovely product I'm sure... but you really have to accept this job for what it is. You're very good at it."
"So... do you want to come in now then?"
"Fuck off Chico."

Find My Mug in the Dictionary under 'Mug'

I've just typed and subsequently deleted the line "I slept badly last night".

It's not strictly true you see...when I slept, I actually slept very well...it was just that I woke up even better than I slept. I got so good at waking up last night that I did it every 60-90 minutes.

I blame the can of Monster I drank during the interval of my gig. I have a small body, a small very efficient body that treats sugar incredibly protectively. As soon as sugar hits my body, we go bananas. We have the biggest party you've ever seen - it's like a carnival...there are fireworks, there's shrieking...sometimes there's classical music emanating from an unknown source. Sugar and my body get on like a house on fire. It takes less than no time for sugar to have found it's familiar nooks and crannies in my set up to settle down and wreak havoc.

But when sugar is gone, when my gluttonous body has rinsed it's firy friend for all it's worth...there's a real mourning phase. We hibernate. My body writes endless letters to sugar that start with "I just don't understand...where did we go wrong? When are you coming back?"

My brain will try and cheer my body up, he suggests walks to see some end dolphins but my body is nonplussed. We try all sorts of clever concentrating techniques but my body flicks the V and goes back to vacantly staring out from glassy eyes.

Over the years we've combatted this by only letting body have sugar in the way a prisoner sees their partner. Limited visits, no over exposure and certainly no rolling around naked together... small bursts of the right kind of sugar. You know? To use the prison theme - we don't let the embezzler see a woman made entirely of gold coins wearing a dress made of £50 notes. Similarly we don't leave body alone with some unwrapped fruit pastilles.

It makes night times difficult though. Body is naturally confused having been allowed uncensored alone time with liquid sugar. Body thinks it did well for gigging too, and on the whole we agree. But then when he crashes...brain is too sleepy to have kept a small tuck box by the bed to keep everything ticking over for the midnight hours.

So we have battles like last night...where my body and brain are fighting like cat and dog. Only Jo Frost or Dr Tanya aren't there to put us back to bed constantly and teach us about boundaries.

The long and the short of it is, I'm a bit tired today.

A Cautionary Tale

I feel very strange today...like there's a really delicate balance that I don't want to upset by feeling any emotion too strongly.

And that, Lords, Ladies and Gentleman, is how you open a blog if your target demographic is 12-18 year olds with self-esteem issues.

But, it's also kind of true. It's ok, I'm not going to go spilling all my inner most feelings and then text you after with lots of emoticons and a message about how I'm really glad you're there for me. I just feel a little weird. Which is certainly not as good as feeling a little beard. I have a very odd sensation (and it might seem even odder once I've tried to explain it) that I want to have nothing to look forward to for a while...now, stay with me on this one folks. Please don't abandon hope and think I'm dreaming of a life where I have nothing to live for. This is not what I mean.

What I mean is...I'd just like to be able to live completely in the moment for a while. (I mean really Laura, what are you writing about? If this carries on you are actually going to have to move to California.) I would like to have no potential surprises (good or bad) or things to rush to because of the excitement. I'd just like to trundle for a while...just, be. And be ok with being. (Please notice the fact you are turning what is usually an amusing and completely irrelevant blog into a tirade on your desire to live in a bubble with no potential disasters? Please notice and shut the fuck up immediately.) Perhaps now's a really good time to start just doing things that feel like they ought to be done just because... (like laughing at old people?)

I've done several things so far today which suggest to me that my mental balance is somewhat off kilter... (starting with writing your blog in a semi-schizophrenic fashion where you're talking to yourself using brackets and bold lettering?)

1. I tweeted Danny DeVito to tell him I'm in love with him. (Shit, yes...I remember that.) Now, this might seem like quite a superficial thing to have done. He probably won't read it, he probably gets it all the time, he might have seen my Facebook status about it a few weeks ago anyway so it won't even be a shock. But, to me, it was something I just had to do. I was suddenly absolutely overcome with a desire to tell him that his trollfoot photos make my world go round and I have a really intense love for his face. It's a huge weight off my mind to be honest.

2. I've listened to my collection of Disney music twice. Listening to Disney in the office isn't a bizarre thing to do at all...in fact I do it all the time. But today I did it purely because I want to listen to Mrs Potts' voice. Then I want to scoop up her and Danny and for us all to go to Adventureland togather. Adventureland was the nearest theme park to me when I was a wee lass and was the home of the first death slide I ever went down. ( I have nothing scathing to say here. We're actually both quite big Disney fans. I like Ursula more than Potts though.)

3. I've booked tickets and been counting down the hours until my train pulls out of Paddington station tomorrow evening and I'm thundering my way back to the West Country for some rest and peace with my family. (I must admit I've still not quite fathomed why the skinny writing voice appears to be in charge in this scenario while I'm the amusing asides. I clearly have a better grasp on how to behave in polite society right now.) Usually I'm quite excited about going back (this weekend's excursions include a trip to the gym with my sisters and some finger painting with my nephew). I'm also gigging in front of a home crowd for the first time ever. Spazzam. (Spazzam, that's right ladies and gents. She's using 'Spazzam'. Sectioning?) So, the weird thing here though, is that I actually, physically can't wait to go. I keep finding myself day dreaming about being on the train. In my day dream Danny is there too and he's offering me a finger from his KitKat. He's wearing a red and white checked shirt and reading the Telegraph.

(Are you wrapping up soon? I think I need to take you home.)

So...this really is a cautionary tale that extreme mental and physical tiredness, a devotion to a small, hairy American man, and one of the most boring offices in the world will inevitably spawn a dual personality syndrome and a wittery blog that no one particularly enjoyed. (Good work, dickhead.)

My First Joke

Both the hot drinks machines in the office are out of order today...you can have no real grasp on how much this is disrupting the flow of my usual day. I chain drink tea...I don't mean I get a cup and then send 15 round to piss off people I know...I just drink it cup after cup after cup until my heart sounds much like that of a hummingbird.

With the drinks machines out of action I not only can't have my tea but my delicate balance of time management is also totally out of whack. Usually within any hour I will drink 3-4 cups of tea. This obviously takes about 10 minutes out of hour. It also causes me to pee once an hour. This takes about 4 minutes out of the hour. So at least 1/4 of my time is spent imbibing or outbibing my tea. I have no idea what to do with this extra time.

Thinking about it, potentially this is a cruel trick by the management team to get a little more out of their smallest employee. But, logically speaking if they wanted a work horse they possibly shouldn't have hired someone who did a 4 year drama degree and lists winning King Gong on her CV. It's not rocket science is it? But then neither is my job.

So far, my lack of tea has resulted in a small headache and has potentially impacted on the creation of one of my first ever "jokes". I wrote a joke today. I rarely write jokes...I find them very difficult to do on purpose and to be honest it's a wonder people keep giving me a microphone. Are you ready for my joke? Here it goes...*clears throat* -

You can tell a dyslexic's really happy because they hide and go to Devon.

It's quite difficult to put into words how pleased I am with myself for the creation of this joke. If I could turn my happiness into a dance it would probably be the Rhumba with overtones of the macarena. If it could be a song it would be a Bette Midler live recording of Wind Beneath My Wings. If it was a man, it'd be reminiscent of a young Clarke Gable and would be making me a cheese toastie and a cup of tea whilst ordering roses to surprise me. If my happiness were an animal it'd be a teacup pig riding a llama.

In short...I am pleased with myself. Perhaps caffeine's been the thing holding me back all along? Maybe if I got off the bagged up leaves of brown joy I'd be spewing out wordplay witticisms left, right and centre? I think it's unlikely...I think I'd end up on some other stimulant just to try and keep my eyes open. But a girl can dream right?

In other news, I went to the ever awesome Fat Tuesday at The Compass last night. It's run by Tiernan Douieb who's a cracking comedian (never struggles with punnery. Dick) and has somehow created the loveliest gig in the word which happens quietly and brilliantly every other Tuesday in Angel. If you're a comedy buff you've just got to go and see what I'm talking about. Last night I saw John Robins and Johnny Sweet and they made me cackle my ass off.

And then Andrew Maxwell hit the stage. He might as well have plugged me into the mains - the electricity of his performance was incredible. The timing, the topicality, the jokes, the opinions. His performance has a delicacy that looks effortless and yet you feel like you could easily sit down and have a chat with him after the show. Consider me blown away.

In the shameless plug section of the blog, I'll be on the radio tonight trying to be serious and shit and interview people so have a listen to London Festival Fringe if you like and we can all laugh at me together tomorrow. Cool.

Me out. I'm off to go and suck a dry tea bag and see if it has the same effect...I somehow doubt it.

Totting Up Black Birds

The office is delicately spinning and humming today...more due to my excessive champagne intake last night than any whirr of productivity emanating from my desk sadly. For some reason all of my worst hangovers seem to occur on Tuesdays - there's something so devilishly delicious about being a little worse for wear on a Monday that makes me not care overly that Tuesday will be a write off.

I can't say that it's helping matters that Google has decided to celebrate Jules Verne's birthday by turning the Google symbol into a steerable submarine portal...so far this morning I've opened a lot of emails, not responded, found some treasure, paid my bills, spotted a narwhal, drank three cups of tea and crashed into a star fish. Whilst not directly assisting my attempts to earn the money I'm being paid or keep the room on a horizontal level, it is helping me to feel happy. I am Captain Laura of the Good Ship Desk and I'll be steering myself through the trials and tribulations of the day with my trusty mouse and my squinty little eyes. I have forgotten my glasses for the second day running. Actually, toss that - let's just admit it - I've flagrantly lost my glasses and haven't attempted to find them and so can barely see the screen of my computer anyway. What the hell does it matter? It appears you can ram a narwhal umpteen times without it even attempting to swim away. What a bell end.

So...why am I hungover? Good question. Because I went out for dinner with some old friends from University last night and the cocktails at the restaurant were two for £6. This is a dangerous state of affairs when champagne cocktails are included and delicious. Hence my predicament this morning.

I've got to say that although dinner was delightful (salmon - thanks for asking) and the company was great, the absolute highlight of the whole thing was driving home. We'd left the car in Sainsbury's car park but found when we went to leave that the whole thing was closed, the ticket machine wouldn't accept our 'We're Leaving Card', and there was nowhere to pay for our parking in the car park.

After several studious laps of the car park and attempts to force feed the 'We're Leaving Card' into the ungrateful machine we gave up, moved the cones from the other lane and escaped. "Freedom" I may have shouted through the open window and into the Southern Bromley sky.

At this point a red car in front of us stopped and a woman got out. Now, this woman had not been in the car park, we had not seen her before...she had materialised in the road. She got out of the car and came over to our car...

"Did you just come out of the car park?"
"Yes."
"Did you get out ok?"

Now...I'll be honest...this is where alarm bells started ringing. Of course we got out ok...the car still had four wheels, we'd not lost any limbs in the procedure and, as indicated by our answer to the first question, we were out of the car park.

"Yes."
"You didn't just drive under the barrier did you?"
"Er...no."

Now...I'll be honest...I was struggling to keep a straight face while this exchange went on with mystery missus. We were in a Ford Fiesta that would have lost a battle with a barrier. Even if the barrier was made of Weetabix. We were also normal people. Normal people don't randomly smash their way out of Sainsbury's car park on a Monday night due to a brief moment on supermarket car park induced rage.

"How did you get out?"
"Well, we moved the cones...the machine wouldn't take our card."
"You moved the cones?"

It was at this point I started to worry that this woman might have given birth to the cones as an expression of sheer devotion to her beloved Sainsbury's car park.

"Yes...the machine wouldn't accept the ticket and so we had to get out. There was no where to pay."
"Have you still got the ticket?"

No. We burnt it in protest at the fascist state of Southern Bromley Sainsbury's car parks.

"Er, yes."
"Can I have it?"
"Erm...who are you?"

At this point she starts wildly tugging her coat off one shoulder. Mildly alarmed for a second in case we were about to see some crazy street nipple, I looked away. When I turned back she was actually showing us a name badge.

"I work there, I work there. I work in Sainsbury's. Ha! I'm not just a crazy woman on the street..." 

Raised eyebrow.

"No, no, no. I work there. You shouldn't have parker there you see?"

Her earnest eyes are drilling into mine now. Daring me to give a shit.

"You're not meant to park there at this time...you must have got there just before 8pm? Do you see? Because you're not meant to park there this late...you must have got there at about five to 8?"

No. No, we got there at 7:13pm.

"It's the only way you could have beaten the system. Let me have the card. It's ok I work there. Let me have the card. There...that's better. I've got the card now. I'll sort it. Now you moved the cones you say...?"

And with that, she trundles off into the night to go and take care of her beloved offspring. But where the hell had she come from? I can only assume she patrols the street at night waiting to catch unsuspecting car park philanderers like us. What a way to get your Southern Bromley kicks.

Get It Down You Zulu Warrior

I'm having a bit of a nostalgic morning here at the desk of dreams.* I've been listening to the three albums that I most closely associate with my first year of University...these are -

1. Hot Fuss by The Killers
2. Inside In/Inside Out by The Kooks
3. Costello Music by the Fratellis.

It was obviously a time when bands were hot on using 'The' in the hope it made them sound like they were friends and not some money bagging manufactured enterprise.

I'm not by any means suggesting these were the best albums of the year 2005-2006, or the albums that will define that particular time when we look back in a few decades. But, for me, these are the three albums that stand out. I can't listen to them without being instantly flung back to my tiny little bedroom in Bossenden Court at the back of the student village.

We were the first of the Kent students to ever live in this accommodation - it was fresh built for us and, in my case, came with your own personal set of builders to fix the myriad issues that had not been solved during the building process. It was little things, like the windows opening. It took them a week to get my window open. In hindsight, we probably should have left it shut. I certainly didn't open it a lot after month 2 at University when a slightly crack addled 4th year climbed through it at 4am as I snoozed. That was an alarming evening. Thankfully it didn't occur to either of us to commit any sort of crime...we just stared at each other for a while before both apologising and him leaving. Back out through the window because I didn't want to disturb my housemates.

I loved my little room. In the infinite wisdom of University types, the doors were bright, lime green, the furniture was that deep blue of cheap office furniture and one wall was orange. It was almost like they were daring you to drink - Go on fucker, try and have a hangover in this environment... I combatted the issue by having an equally alarming green bedspread that neither matched the door nor the carpet. It all ensued to give you a calm feeling of nausea unless you were asleep. Perhaps that was the point? You must either be asleep or reading a book or you will vomit.

My housemates in the first year were brilliant people. I lived on an international corridor and my housemates were all from different countries in Africa - I have never smelt so many different foods that completely confused my nose. My brain was telling me it was food as it was on the hob but my nose was complaining bitterly that it didn't seem like anything we'd ever had before. We tried a whole heap of it. Me and my nose. Soem of it we loved - some of it we loved and my tummy hated. Some of it we just hated. It was a great learning curve. The beautiful thing about international students, in my experience, is that they tended to arrive with siblings and so you met the whole family at once. There were perpetually nine more people in the kitchen than lived in there. One of my favourite memories was singing Busted songs with a 6foot4 guy with dreadlocks who I found in my kitchen at 4am...

It is now unfortunately lunch time so this reminiscence must come to a halt. Hope it was enjoyable for you. If not, it won't happen again.







* Dreams generally consist of stapling people's fingers to their nipples while I paper cut them to death. Either of that or I am rescued from the dreary boredom of office life by Barney the Dinosaur dressed as the Count de Monte Cristo who puts me in Iggle Piggle's boat and sails me away to live with David Bowie.

Gunning Down...

It turns out Top Gear has gone from being quite an interesting show about cars to a thinly veiled platform for middle aged pricks to massage their egos. Utter bullshit.

I'm not going to write about that though because I already saddled you with a miserable blog yesterday so on this Sunday night I'm going to beef up the chirp (not a euphemism) and totally be a happy bunny.

I've had a pretty eventful weekend...yesterday I went out shopping and bought myself a delicious bottle of my favourite perfume. Perfumes were put on this earth to cheer me up I've decided...I'm a big fan. I have a large selection of perfumes and the one I wear always depends on my outfit and my mood...they have to match. It's difficult to define exactly what it is about a smell that matched the colours and the feel of the outfit...but they definitely exist.

If I'm feeling like a bit of a sexy beast monster type lassy I'll either wear my Euphoria (Calvin Klein) or my Sex 212 (Carolina Herrera). It's potentially that both of these perfumes are pink. Not that I would ever wear pink if I was trying to look like a sexy lady. I'll be honest, I generally wear black or blue. I'm a very boring dresser. By dresser I mean 'someone who dresses themselves, not like a wardrobe. Unless by wardrobe you mean the one who comes to life in Beauty and the Beast - she is awesome.

If I want to feel classy and like I'm a superior woman of worth I wear my Coco Mademoiselle (Chanel) and pretend like I was brought up in Hampstead or Surrey or somewhere like that. I find it difficult to wear this perfume without heels and (to my knowledge) I've never worn it unless I'm wearing a skirt. Is this slightly messed up? This might be slightly messed up. It's getting harder and harder for me to tell if I'm honest.

My everyday perfume that just smell like me is Diesel (standard and limited edition). These are the ones I wear most often...they smell warm and can be worn with a multitude of different outfits. But I would really like to wear them when I get my motorbike. Perhaps if I stop spending all my money on perfume I'll have enough for the bikes. Clever girl. It would probably cause quite a big issue with my organisation of things that need organising though if I rode a petrol bike whilst wearing Diesel. Sigh. Will my trials ever cease?

Hugo Boss Deep Red and Ghost are ones that I've been wearing since I was about 16 and I'll put them on for days when I've been feeling a little bogged down in the fact that I'm a mid 20s ball of chaos. It's kind of like covering up a maniacal laugh and a bunch of cats with a loud of Elvis CD and a throw rug.

DKNY woman smells very clean and I will wear that only with a white top, a dress or if I've recently done something I regret and am hoping I can pretend it didn't happen. Makes sense in my head. Anyone that wants to use this blog to get me committed is really on to something tonight aren't they?


So...what perfume did I buy at the weekend then? Well, I'll tells you. My favourite perfume of all time. The one smell I never get bored of, the smell I could happily curl up and die in?

Ralph Lauren - Romance.

This is the smell of unicorns. It's the smell that emanates from Tom Selleck's moustache which I hope to one day experience as we smoke cigars together and re-enact the merry go round scene from Mary Poppins (ultimate fantasy).

It's the smell of peace in the Middle East. It's the smell of star fish (when they've bee washed). It's the scent of the red stripe of a rainbow. It's the aroma that whatever they banned from blue smarties emits. It's the smell of beautiful ladies with long hair and expensive pants.

I love it.

The Wee Bit of Sense He Had

It's been a big week hasn't it? Self-assessments, Egyptian riots, Sally Bercow in a bed sheet? All making a combined effort to put you off reading the papers ever again. And, in the case of Sally Bercow, from ever watching the Speaker of the House without dry retching slightly.

I have to admit right now I am in a foul mood...I had a pretty shit gig last night. Now, I know I'm probably supposed to smile through this and probably not publish it so that when promoters find my blog they'll see a shimmering list of successful gigs and book me instantly. But fuck it - it's absolute bull shit to even suggest that a comedian with only 2 years experience is going out and rocking it every single night. Last night I didn't really rock a thing. Except my self-confidence. We won't go into details. But if you were a 'lad' tanked up on Carlsberg at the gig I did last night and you sat back down at your table and said in full earshot of me, "Well the bird was shit wasn't she" and then drank the Doritos out of the bowl on the table...I'm ok with you not finding me funny. I'm ok that my sense of humour differs from yours. I have to admit I didn't find your repeated grunting funny, or the time you said the c-bomb. We shall agree to disagree. Because you're a massive tool and I'm hilarious.

I've discovered two things in the last two days -

1. Aromatherapy literally means healing (therapy) with smells (aroma). This had never clicked before. It caused much judgement from my peers.

2. On my run this morning I noticed that the rugby players who train at my local park play football as a warm up. This got me thinking. Cricketers also use football as a warm.

I've come to the only logical conclusion from this information - Football is a such a piece of shit excuse for a game that proper sportsman use it as a warm up. I have never, ever seen footage of footballers in a scrum, playing rugby to warm up or grabbing tennis rackets and just getting into the groove before they start off on their 90 minutes of excruciatingly over rated toss.

Torres (so I'm reliably informed) was bought/sold/manicured for £50m this transfer season for being the best person at playing the warm up game. What a fucking travesty. Some English tool has even confused football insiders by being sold for £35m...which they say is a little much?

A LITTLE MUCH?

£35m for being a fairly adequate person at playing a sport that other sportsmen don't even consider worth putting on their CV because it's such utter drivel? In a few years time is this sliding scale of mediocrity going to reach a point where Sports Personality of the Year will go to the person who was best at 'Doing Funny Sidesteps Round Cones' for hours on end. His speech being -

"Yeah, a lot of people technically have criticised me for winning this on the basis of it being a warm up. But for years we've been celebrating the achievements of men who do little more than the average 6 year old in a playground. Obviously, footballs harder to do because not only do you have to concentrate on the game but you've also got to remember the name of all your team-mates' wives so that when you're balls deep in them and coked up to your eyes in your Essex mansion's night-club in the basement you don't have a huge Faux Pas. That probably isn't as easy as it looks. It's quite hard to train solidly when you're getting paid more than the average hospital yearly budget...I mean when are those poor lads even supposed to splash out on some granny minge? Some of them have been faithful this year. That's why I wanted to stick to my cones - you know?Just keep it simple. I think it's going to get better and better and pretty soon we'll have sports like 'Putting Your Trainers on to do the warm up for the game that's actually only a warm up too'. I'm really proud of this country."


Thank fuck the transfer window is shut. Maybe the entire football chorus can shut up too. And while I'm on my soap box - WHY ARE YOU ALL SO BALL-BREAKINGLY SURPRISED THAT FOOTBALL COMMENTATORS SAY INAPPROPRIATE THINGS ABOUT WOMEN?

Look at them. The man in the scenario is a fat, bald, ugly man who has a well paid job commentating on the show. He turns to his female co-worker and jokes that she should tuck something into his trousers. Look at his female co-worker - does she look like she plays football? Trains people? Has had an avid interest in football since she was four? And even if she does, is that what you fucking notice?

No. She looks good in a skirt and is wearing more make up than I have in my entire arsenal. Screw shoving the bloke out for being a massive tool - what do you sodding expect when that's the way you present a woman on TV? Shove the entire media industry up it's own gaping arse for not having the decency to admit that it's their own fault for trying to convince us that it's OK that only attractive women are ever used. The whole thing is rotten.

Tess Daly & Bruce Forsyth
Kate Humble & Bill Oddie
Christine Bleakly & Adrian Chiles
Cheryl & Danni vs Simon & Louis

Any more for any more?

Slut

Happy Friday my brethren.

The first thing I need to do is say that I saw a brilliant performance last night at The Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham. It was The Shape of Things by Neil Labute, directed by Ross Drury and starring Rachel Savage, Kett Turton, Stuart Robinson and Jill Rutland.

The script itself is great and is one of the few non-pretentious explorations of 'what is art' I've seen in a long time. I've got an incredibly short attention span and I managed not to get bored - which, although it might sound like limited praise, is pretty impressive.

Having absolutely no qualifications for reviewing I'll now blind on and tell you exactly what I thought of it with all the finesse of an erotically charged hungry flamingo trying to get through a cat flap. I thought Turton produced a spell binding performance - it was a beautiful duet with Savage. Her energy and kinky sense of expression drove the temper of the show and kept me happily ensconsed in the world of the show. It was nice to be presented with a piece of theatre that didn't try and convince you that being uncomfortable and challenged was the ultimate goal. I enjoyed the performance, I want to watch it again - that, to me, seems to be what theatre should always be aiming for.

Speaking of reviews, I woke up to a Google alert informing me of one of my own. At my gig on Friday I apparently gave "a rather flustered performance of a woman on the edge of a mid-20s breakdown."

Brilliant. Why do I even fucking bother?

It wasn't a 'performance' you mother fucking eejit. It was a cry for help. I am on the edge of a mid-20s breakdown. What about publishing this on the internet do you think is going to help my fragile mental state?

This afternoon I am going to go and play dolphin derby on Brighton pier. Dolphin derby is a wonderful game where you flog the shot out of a dolphin until it wins you a scabby cuddly fish. As soon as you've won the scabby fish you're no longer interested in it, but it doesn't mean you won't play the dolphin derby again. It's like smack.

Usually I'd be against animal exploitation, but I don't really like dolphins so I'm ok with this one. Plus, they're not real I don't think so I don't think the race actually hurts them. And anyway, even if it did, if dolphin's are so sodding intelligent they can just shape up and do something about it. Until there is a dolphin uprising I refuse to believe they are the super animals that everyone would have you believe.

I'm also going to ride on a waltzer until I'm sick. Brilliant. Edge of a breakdown? Let's find out if waltzers push me over the edge...

Rockafella Skank Ate My Fist

I feel like a child on Christmas Eve today...this is a necessarily short blog as I'm about to jet down to Brighton as quickly as I can to catch a play by some fabulous folks who live on the South coast. I am taking a 3 day weekend. Oh yeah!

Mixing it up like a proper pro I am. What's that Saturday and Sunday? No. No you're not enough for me this week...I need more. I need Friday. I'm taking Friday, wrenching her from the clutches of the weekday coven and adding her to my fun bag of weekend delights. Incidentally I have gendered all of the days of the week.

Monday - male, wears a suit, works in I.T.
Tuesday - female, reads paperback books and wears suede shoes.
Wednesday - female, large with glasses and an irritating voice.
Thursday - female, likes red wine, has cats, is quiet.
Friday - female, slut.
Saturday - young boy, wears shorts. Athletic.
Sunday - older man, bearded, secretly likes watching Britain's Got Talent. Probably a Grandfather.


I'm taking my slut tomorrow and smashing up the dolphin derby on Brighton pier, then I'm jetting up to Cambridge (I say jetting - I'm going in a vauxhall) for a gig, back down to London for a party, over to South West London for an audition and then hopefully cramming in some sleep somewhere along the way. Sleep? Ah, yes sleep. I miss sleep. Sleep is that thing where your brain shuts off for a while. Delicious.

Had an awesome gig last night down with the lovely people of the London Festival Fringe Radio...gigged like a proper demon and got asked to come back on at the end and do the lovely crowd a bit more material. Stupendous. What more could a girl want? To be asked back as the presenter for the next week's show? Well, good job that happened too than isn't it. What a way to spend a booming voiced owl lady day.

I'm about to go and find my train - if any of you are waiting for me at Victoria with a skinny hot chocolate, no cream, then I'll know today's been brilliant. If you aren't then I'm blaming the fact that I recently changed my conditioner and my hair is now epically static and constantly stuck to my face. Either way not my fault.

PS - (and this has been bugging me for 20 hours or so now) to anyone who was in the audience of my gig last night - my breasts are definitely real. What on earth was I thinking?

Him and You 3

You - I'm tired. I feel awful.
Him - You look tired.
You - Thanks.
Him - Don't do that.
You - Sorry. I'm grumpy.
Him - Are you hungry?
You - No. Not at all.
Him  - You're looking slimmer.
You - Thanks.
Him - It's not a good thing.
You - Yes it is. You wouldn't love me if I was fat.
Him - True.
You - Really?
Him- Ha! You're so predictable. Yes, it's true.
You - You shallow twat.
Him- I wouldn't love you, because if you were fat you wouldn't be you.
You- I'd be me in a fat suit...
Him -No, it would mean there was something fundamentally different about you. That you were lazier than the you I love. And that you didn't do all the things that you do during the day.
You - What if I was fat because I was pregnant?
Him- Is it my baby?
You- Erm...yes.
Him - Well then I love both of you.
You - Lovely. Sorry for calling you a shallow twat.
Him- That's ok. Sorry for not loving a lazy version of you.
You - That's ok.
Him - I'd be friends with lazy you.
You - I'll tell her.
Him - I don't think you'll ever meet her.
You - Maybe not. I'd love lazy you.
Him - I'm a pretty lazy guy.
You - No...laid back.
Him - Well, this is a very flattering conversation isn't it?
You - Would you like to have a row?
Him- No. But I wouldn't mind some chicken.

A Small Rant on Etiquette

Dear Fat Man in the Revolving Door,


I couldn't help but notice today that you seemed to set yourself the task of getting all the way round the aforementioned revolving door this morning without touching the handle. At first I could only assume you were being careful about germs but then I noticed you sneezed long and hard into the wide blue yonder without need of a tissue and without worry at wiping the protruding green slime on the back of your hand. It was at this point that the idea settled in my mind that perhaps you are a tad lazy? Could that have been your motive?

I don't know if you'll remember me, I am a small brunette thing who happened this morning to be your doorman. I weigh about 8st (your leg) and have the upper body strength of an anaemic shrew. Nevertheless I managed to get us both through the atrium safely (ish). I haven't received your note of thanks yet but I can assume this is because you have failed to enter a building with note paper due to your extreme laziness. If you like, we can petition David Cameron for a nation of automatic doors so that we can scrap these 'arm' things all together and only use them for their primary purpose of stuffing more cake into our faces.

Perhaps you were tired, and/or, had skipped breakfast in your hurry to get to your all important 'I work in a sky scraper in an ugly suit' job? Could this be the reason for your shirking of door based responsibility? I think it might be worth pointing out to you that the effort of pushing the door to get everyone through it will use up a minimal amount of the precious calories you pump into your body. I think it's safe to assume the grease from the KFC on your fingers of a weekend would be enough to power that little push.

That's the beauty of the revolving door, you see? It's a team effort. I realise you may have a slight issue with concepts such as this - perhaps Communism really freaked the shit out of you too? But, I think that it's something you might need to open your mind to. If we all push the door together it does mean I don't get out of breath and I don't start an ill advised rant in my (usually chirpy) blog to a walrus in a suit with a mobile phone glued to his lard encased ear.

Please don't think I'm being cruel to you because you are a larger gent. I am being cruel to you because you're a lazy, egotistical, self-involved twat who shows in small acts like this morning that you think everyone else on the planet should be helping things run smoother for you. How long have you been a Tory?

Now, you may have noticed this morning that the glass door collided with you at an alarming pace. This was part of your education that if you leave a spiteful young woman to haul your carcass through the spinning wonder mechanism, she may well stop pushing and exert an action we call 'pull'. If she pulls the door, it won't get forward anymore, it will go backward. If you are still tumbling through space in the same motion, oblivious to the expletives being uttered in the compartment behind you, you will find your jowels pasted across the carefully polished Canary Wharf glass.

You probably didn't like that part of your morning very much. I did. I enjoyed it immensely but you might not have noticed that because my 'Oh shit, I'm so sorry I didn't realise you weren't pushing too...how did that happen?!' face was so convincing. At that point, it would have been nice if you'd helped me get the door going again, and you're lucky I was running late or we might still be in those tiny glass prisons and I would be writing this letter in my own blood on the partition between us and possibly inspiring the next Danny Boyle film.

You didn't help did you? You probably just explained to the person on the phone (Ronald McDonald? Jeremy Clarkson? Any other twat?) that a girl behind you seemed to have motor troubles and was causing a nuisance to your day. Perhaps you commented that I may be pre-menstrual and/or poor. Aren't those the causes of most of the world's discontent in 'other' people?


So, I've taken the time out of my day so far to smack you with a door and write you a (fairly polite) letter explaining my actions. I hope I have some impact on you and that tomorrow you find the inner strength to embrace your social conscience and help us all work together to go through doors, sort out carbon emissions and be less of a dick to each other.

Kind Regards,
Venomous Little Cow Who Fucking Hates People Who Don't Push Revolving Doors