29th July 2010

Ok, let’s start with number one, the small feral child.

I was in Boots the Chemist and waiting on husband getting his eyes tested and a woman with a happy baby sat beside me. I love kids so I leaned in and chucked its wee fat chin and the baby quickly grabbed my finger and chomped down hard on the tip. It had teeth, God knows how the mother’s nipples must feel, and anyway I screamed a wee bit and the mother laughed. She was happy it wasn’t her getting attacked by her toothy baby.

Number two was simply me walking out of the local coffee shop and a minister walking back in to get something he clearly forgot whilst holding a cup of steaming hot coffee, he banged into me and the burning milky liquid burnt my tits. “Fucksake my tits are burning” is what I screamed at the Holy man of the Cloth (he didn’t carry a cloth, which would have been good). He stared at me and didn’t attempt to pat my ample boobs; he just apologised and walked off as I still shouted “My tits are roasted here for fucksake”.

Luckily I don’t go to church, so I don’t have to face him again.

The third thing is disturbing me, I keep dreaming about having sex with folk I don’t like, what is that about. I can’t even begin to tell you who it was but suffice to say it wasn’t anyone creepy like Hitler (he is sexy to some people) and it wasn’t a child killer, it was people I know and don’t really get on with or find attractive.

I recall when I was pregnant I had vivid sexual dreams about the man in the park who used to collect the leaves and slept under the bridge eating mouldy bread and had a three legged dog called tripod.

Every other day when I saw him and he would try to piss on my legs (him not the dog) I would scream in horror and run away then scream again when I though about the wild orgasms the man had induced in my pregnant sleep…it haunted me, he was special and wore a round plaster on one eye as it was lazy, like his brain…but in my twilight head…oh he was SEXMAN.

I tried to bring that subject up with the ante natal nurse. I explained to her I was having wild sexual dreams and wondered if it was a pregnancy symptom. She just said to me “Do you know the man you are dreaming about?”

“Yes, I do” I answered

“Have you fucked him in real life?” she asked as she took my blood pressure.

“No, he has special needs and is homeless” I explained.

“Is he good looking” she continued without expression.

“No, he has a palsy of some sort and makes owl noises” I answered.

She stopped at this and stared at me and said “You are sick, that’s terrible and really offensive”

I never got to the bottom of that and the good news is Owl Palsy man died that winter (in the park sadly) and I stopped dreaming about him.

So that means the only way I will stop dreaming about the people I don’t like as I fuck them in my sleep is for them to die.

Life is odd eh?

27th July 2010

My own show isn’t ready BUT it never is, I always leave it to the opening night to decide what the show will be about and it works for me. I could have a well honed rehearsed and well aired previewed show that is match fit ready for the fringe…but that’s not who I am.

Will the flat we have hired be nice? They usually always are nice and for three grand a month it should be awesome…people in Edinburgh can let their house out for one month and that pays for their mortgage for the whole year! The prices in general go up in Edinburgh and we comics alone bring so many people to the fringe and now the Edinburgh council are charging us money to put up each poster on their streets. We cannot put up a poster without their permission or say-so.

Imagine if we just decided to piss off and take our festival elsewhere, we would take about 6 million pounds with us, yet the council still manage to screw us for cash and expect us to thank them for the anal fisting they gave us and charged us for.

I am being bitter, but the Fringe does cost a lot of cash, even if you do it yourself like I do. With some promoters you could sell every single seat on every single night and STILL owe them cash…that’s why I go it alone and do it myself. I make cash every year at the fringe, not GREAT cash, but enough to make me happy and grateful people still come to see me in a good venue.

The reason I go to the Edinburgh Fringe is that I LOVE IT…I love getting to go onstage every single night and enjoy meeting new people and I even enjoy the comedy critics who run about finding out who is the next big thing so they don’t have to think about the reviews, they just need to like who everyone else is liking!

I love getting to see all my favourite comics in the one city, I love getting to see live drama and being part of a big fabulous festival. Just lying in that strange bedroom, on someone else’s sheets, smelling strange aromas and having excited butterflies in my stomach…all anticipating the forthcoming shows.

All the info for my shows can be found on my website janeygodley.com if you are interested, and do remember Ashley and I will be doing number three of the podcast on Wednesday!

Come to Edinburgh and join me in the fun…

23rd July 2010

My past attempts at being sultry and sexy have landed in flat-liner heaven, with me either having stomach pains on a floor trying to shift wind but dressed in Agent provocateur and red high heels, or husband and I having a big fight when we get to the secluded romantic cottage. We can’t seem to time or prepare our relationship for fun and love. It either happens or it doesn’t, it can’t be orchestrated at all.

Usually we end up deciding to get divorced as I sit on high count Egyptian cotton sheets, chomping on luxury chocolates and slugging chilled Champagne in a five star hotel beside a dramatic coastline. Then again, we have sat in a one berth cockroach infested caravanette and been stuck to each other’s flesh for a whole 48 hours as we profess our undying love for each other, then go eat a can of cold beans in utter happiness! What am saying is, concocted settings don’t always work!

So on that thought, husband and I went to Fife for a night, just a romantic one night of spontaneous love, I was being grumpy and he suggested my favourite beach cove at Elie, I love it there.

The wind was down and the coast was warm and the sun was setting, we ate fish and chips then we checked into a wee B&B after walking along the beach and fell asleep on foamy single beds, especially after husband had drunk a few pints of Guinness.

The sun dipped and the pattering rain started, then we literally snored away happily as the coastal storm slashed the windows of our bedroom. We both woke up at 3am, the rain had halted -the silence scared us, then another storm battered the windows and we fell asleep again, we do love noise! We both woke again at 4am and having no radio or any type of background music (we both need white noise constantly to sleep, like a radio or talking book) I decided to pretend I was the BBC world service and spoke in funny accents, making up news stories till we both crashed out again.

We had to leave Elie at 9am the next morning, as there was a severe weather warning throughout Fife and we didn’t want caught up in it. That’s summer holidays in East Neuk in Fife!

It was a lovely wee break and just what I needed to perk me up.

I have stopped smoking yet again; this must be my eight time of stopping smoking, who knows maybe this time it will work?

I like to pick a stressful time to stop smoking, like the Edinburgh fringe!

Meanwhile Ashley and I have done a second podcast and you can hear it here http://janeygodley.podomatic.com/ 

20th July 2010

Spent two nights in Leeds and did nothing more than sleep, and get up for the comedy gigs.

If you know me you will know how much I despise Cliff Richard, and the first thing I saw in the hotel room in Leeds was a photo of him next to my bed, I reckon that’s why I slept for hours after my eyes took in the horror. It wasn’t a magazine, someone just left a glossy photo of Cliff on the bedside table, the chambermaid hadn’t removed it, maybe she was in on the Cliff subliminal movement, I don’t know.

I stared at it, with my suitcase in my hand and I considered moving rooms in case Cliff had haunted it even though he is alive, he can still haunt us, don’t let that small detail fool you. I put the photo in the bin that was after I had shredded it with tiny miniscule movements, almost robotic behaviour, I wasn’t happy till he was tiny shredded squares in the metal bin. I knew when I slept the little squares would pixelate, join together and Cliff once more would be whole and come and get me, drag me onto his big Red Bus and sing about Jesus or dolls into my face. Anyway I got shot of the photo.

The sleeping thing is bothering me; I seem to be out of whack with my normal pattern. I end up sleeping for 17 hours a day and staying awake all night then nodding off…what is wrong with me? And if you think that’s bad am considering hiding in the woodlands with a crossbow and an owl in a shoebox.

Let me explain both, firstly despite trying all manner of ways to get some pre fringe press I am lacking some decent publicity so I reckon if I go mad and hide in foliage with a deadly weapon and small woodland creature- publicity will follow. People will buy tickets to my shows solely to find out why I keep an owl in a shoebox!

Ashley and did our first podcast, which was funny, because some people complained we sounded posh, some people said they couldn’t understand a word we were saying and others said we talked very formal and not relaxed. Trust me; we were so strung out of lack of sleep that the podcast was bordering on libellous, disturbing evil gossip that it took hours to edit. We will get better at it, keep listening please?

We like it (Ashley and I) and if you want to hear it please go to

http://janeygodley.podomatic.com

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16th July 2010

I worked for fifteen years in a skanky bar in the East End of Glasgow and thought it was the best I could do, now I get to travel all over the place being funny and getting paid for talking (something I was ridiculed for in the past- I do mean talking- not getting paid for it!) anyway I love doing what I do.

I just worry I am getting too old and have decided to make myself poor, lonely and sick and live in Paris and become a bohemian writer. I will write stories about a woman who takes a younger lover, smokes too much and stares out of windows thinking about art. Or maybe I wont do any of that, fuck Paris I am off to the festival in Edinburgh that will eat enough of my cash and possibly destroy my soul BUT I will be destroyed financially doing something I truly love. Like the man who was convinced he could invent a perpetual motion machine despite physics proving it can’t be done and scientists mocking him, he made a thing with an elastic band and two lolly sticks – ok that never happened but imagine it did and the man made himself poor and exhausted just by proving people wrong THAT is my point people! Confused? Me too.

I think I am sleep deprived and rambling what do you think?

Ashley and I did a podcast today. You would think after all the technology invented and the sheer amount of podcasts out there it was as easy as pissing on a priest, but its not….the bloody thing took ages to edit. Either we need to be less offensive, stop naming people and their personal gossip or learn to deal with an editing suite and shut up moaning about it. Ashley says some outrageous stuff when a microphone is at her mouth, which is not really a worry but we are doing a kids show together at the Fringe! (Worry not parents I am JOKING).

The podcast was good fun, she makes me laugh and I believe that’s important enough for me to expect other people to want to hear it and why not?

The link will be up on ITunes as soon as it generates it or whatever ITunes do to register your podcast, keep an eye on my website janeygodley.com to check if it is up there soon.

Last night I dreamt I was a giraffe and was eating roof tiles from my dad’s garden hut, two pigeons pecked at my eyes. I woke up with a sore neck, am not kidding! You maybe slightly concerned that by reading this I sound slightly mental, but I just haven’t been sleeping well and my brain is a bit like a bag that’s left outside a charity shop and smells funny just now, still thought I would share my madness with you.

I may go to New York and be one of those old women who used to disco dance and hangs around old clubs talking about the ‘old days of disco’ whilst sprinkling crushed valium on my coffee and sniggering at happy couples. Or I may now go to bed as I have to get up and go to Leeds and be funny for people who paid to hear me talk funny…who knows what will happen on the train?

The podcast will be out soon….hope you like it people…good night.

13th July 2010

Ashley has decided that I need more exercise, so much so, she makes me do sit ups on a machine thing that I found in a skip.

 

Ok, you want to know about me in a skip don’t you? Here’s what happened – I often pass a skip and see things in it I can use. Its my old hand me down working class roots coming to the fore, anyway I saw an exercise machine FULLY BOXED and untouched and needing assembled so I took it. Ashley was mortified because she is middle class and can speak French and has been on a pony. I have walked in plastic sandals to school in winter so my attitude is different. I take stuff off the street and out of skips.

 

Once I saw a cracking standing lamp on the Great Western Road and started dragging with me until a man chased me screaming “what the hell are you doing lady?” I didn’t know he was moving house and not throwing out stuff from a student flat did I?

 

I am known for my skip hunting technique, I once found a baby in skip, and how did you think I got Ashley? Ok, that was a joke.

Anyway the exercise machine is one of those sit up curvy things and its good and hurts like hell, I know this as Ashley MAKES me do it and then she does it, but she doesn’t have giant breasts that threaten to muffle her mouth when she does sit ups and I do!

 

My side and back ache like hell and I now wish I had left the machine in the skip.

 

Meanwhile I am getting ready for my Edinburgh shows, as you all know by now Ashley and I are doing a kids show at Pleasance Dome at 12.45pm and I am doing my one woman comedy show at Pleasance Dome at 7pm every night of the fringe which starts on 4^th of August.

 

I have a lovely sponsor for my posters and flyers; she is called Anna at http://www.picodeliq.com   

 

I am very grateful for her help, so if you need an awesome graphic designer do get in touch with them!

8th July 2010

Who knew when we were kids climbing trees and making cars out of old prams that one day we would all be sitting on buses, trains, at work, in bed and even in theatres looking at tiny hand held metal boxes and telling the world in 140 characters what we are thinking?

People like me who grew up in the late 60s and 70s spent our summers playing on the pavements, hiding in tree houses and could only dream of having something that would let us watch the Banana Splits on demand. We ran home from school desperate not to miss our favourite TV shows, and back in those days no one bothered to ask us each morning ‘What are you thinking?’

Now every kid worth its salt has a Facebook account. No one does anything without taking a host of inane photos and showing all their mates what they were doing last weekend. I am guilty of it too.

We needn’t imagine what Steve did when he met an angry bulldog, as we can all see it recorded on an IPhone and posted on YouTube.

Friends are everything on the internet, we gather them on Facebook, Twitter and that old woe begotten wayward pal My Space…remember My Space?

Everyone will either ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ your recent comment, that’s what friends do nowadays.

When I was a kid, friends came round to your house, shared their Toffo’s with you, sang along to Donny Osmond songs and decided which Bay City Roller they would snog first. You waited a full week for photos to be developed and then you would carry them to school to show your best pals and image of you, your mum and dad and big brothers and sister all lined up like a mismatched smiley group beside a tiny rounded caravan as the rain whipped your hair across your happy face.

No one could imagine that a photo could be sent to a whole host of people in a matter of seconds. That’s what the future gave us. But do we nurture those photos and experiences as much as we used to? I think we have become numb to the vast array of content on the web that we no longer nurture a photo of a baby; we no longer stare at an image and wonder what happened next? Or try to envision what the people in the picture were doing as the photo was taken...like we used to.

This all sounds like I am disillusioned with the internet but I am not at all, it’s awesome.

I love that there are so many people connecting across the world, I enjoy reading other people’s blogs and content.

I just feel that something is lost along the way; people don’t pull out a wallet to show a photograph (other than my husband who still carries a picture of Ashley at age 6 and age 20 side by side!) everyone has a slide show of photos on their phone (like me).

In many years to come, there wont be boxes of photos on top of wardrobes or in closets, they will all be stuck in someone’s hard drive or archived on various image hosting websites.

I don’t see photographs proudly hanging on walls anymore, constant images of smiling kids staring from flowery papered walls- that will soon be all gone.

Yet we do get to see more photographs through the web, we get to see a baby’s first steps and your kid’s graduation live as it happens, that’s all amazing stuff.

So, I am off to print off some photos and start putting them in boxes and the good news is, maybe in years to come someone will find them and wonder who they are!

4th July 2010

So I headed down to Union Station, the sun was burning hard, remember this place is hot as Mexico (which technically it is all but for a border line!) anyway my misplaced geography aside, I was covered in factor 60 which is basically a Burka.

Union station is awesome and old. I have been there years ago when husband, Ashley and I once took a train trip to San Diego. The great hall of the station is beautiful and very reminiscent of the ‘olden days’ as I like to call things when am not sure of their age nor can be bothered googling for your information.

Anyway it really does look stunning and of a day when train travel was afforded the name ‘elegance’ and not hundreds of people squeezed into carriages.

I walked from the station and onto the Mexican bit where the oldest street and museums sit. It’s called Olvera Street and if you like Mexican wrestling gimp masks, fried things, Jesus beads; taco’s and Hello Kitty things then you are in heaven! If like me you don’t like any of that stuff, you start walking in the opposite direction and go find the museum which basically tells you that the house belonged to Mexican people then American people turned up and made Los Angeles their own and left the Mexican people to clean their houses or become bad drivers….or any other stereo type that American comics like to bang on about.

Further along the street there was a protest about Americans not letting Mexican people live in Los Angeles and also a big speech about stereo typing Mexican people, but they were drowned out by Mexican people selling chewing gum, Jesus beads and a group of Mexican people dressed as ancient Inca’s doing a tribal dance to drums. It was awesome.

I got bored with that and headed back on the train to Little Tokyo which was really cute and they had hundreds of Hello Kitty stuff and waving golden cats. There is only so much of that you can look at; it’s a bit like walking down Princes Street in Edinburgh and thinking ‘really more tartan?’

I headed back on the train where a drunken man fell on his back and pissed himself, am convinced the stain was in the shape of Hello Kitty, or maybe it was just me.

Finally I decided to get off the train at MacArthur Park, I loved the song so I must love the park eh? I didn’t know that outside the station were at least 80 Mexican people trying to sell food that looked incredibly odd, and came out of a vast array of boxes, bags and wheelie bins. They thrust this stuff into your face as if smelling it would make you want it. I didn’t like it but I come from a country that eats haggis and deep fried pizza so am not one to mock. Yet again the Jesus beads came thrown at me….Jesus? What is it with the beads?

Anyway MacArthur Park is a park in a town with squillions of old weather beaten Mexican men who gamble at concrete tables, I tried to get near them to see what the game was but they shouted at me. I don’t know what it was they shouted but in unison it was basically ‘Fuck off’ so I wander off to get a seat in the shelter.

I didn’t know sitting down meant “please try to sell me beads, fried crispy wormy looking things and shaved ice with neon coloured liquid” I managed to beat off the constant food vendors (who needs that much food in a park?).

I spotted a skinny tanned looking boy with a ghetto blaster walking towards me; I thought ‘maybe he has fried goods in that music box, I wouldn’t be surprised”

He sat beside me smiling gently, he was followed by a tall thin Chinese/Asian guy, and they both looked about 20 years old at a push.

The brown faced boy smiled and said “hello”

I said “hello”

He said “I am Israel”

I said “really? This seat is occupied”

He never got the joke, he sat down, the tall Asian boy stayed standing, I noticed he was clutching a bible.

Israel said “How has your day been going?”

I said “Fine what do you guys want, if its Jesus am not up for crazy, am all done on crazy today”

Israel smiled and said “Have you read the bible?”

I lit up a ciggie and said “yes, are you going to quiz me on it?”

The Asian boy and Israel started telling their good news, it wasn’t really good news to me, but I didn’t want to appear unfriendly so I sat nodding and smoking and watching the Mexican men gambling in the distance.

“Don’t you like God?” the Asian boy (I think he was Chinese or Asian, not am not sure…he could have been some other race…I wish I had paid more attention now am trying to tell you the story).

Anyway I said “I don’t like that bad people might be in this heaven you speak of”

This gave them grist for the mill; they were now desperate to get into this.

“Don’t you believe in forgiveness?” the standing boy said as he rubbed the cover of his bible.

I took a breath and said “well, its like this, if Hitler at the last minutes of his death begged for forgiveness and gave his heart to God and was truly sorry then according to your bible he will be in heaven and I don’t want to go there in case I meet him, coz I will have an issue with that and might start a fight, would you like to die and go to heaven and the first person you met was Hitler?”

“Then that would be Gods will” Israel said.

“And you would be cool with that? Spending eternity with a really contrite sorry Hitler?” I asked him. He struggled for an answer.

They changed the subject “Do you want to hear our good news?”

“if your good news is that Hitler is sorry and is waiting for me to be sorry so I can spend eternity with him, then no, that good news better be more interesting than that” I said. (I will decide when this subject is closed)

The standing boy tried a different tack.

“Were you raised in Christianity?” he asked.

“No, poverty” I answered.

Then I said “Do you believe that homosexuals are evil?”

Israel got excited at this “I used to be gay…”

Before he finished his sentence I gasped “Used to be? Come on don’t tell me you were gay and found God and you are heterosexual now!”

Israel smiled beatifically and said “Yes”

“No Way! You poor lamb, surely God didn’t make you straight, you are gay and that’s cool, God is forgiving remember? He gave us Lady Ga Ga” I shouted, it startled the Mexican gamblers.

“God made Adam and Eve” the boy who was standing butted in…

“Ok, so God can forgive Hitler but not homosexuals?” I shouted again.

This wasn’t going as planned.

The standing boy added “eighty five percent of gay men were raped by homosexuals as children”

Israel added “I was raped as a boy that made me gay” and then he nodded.

I hugged his arm and shouted at the standing guy “That’s bollocks total bollocks, gay men are the smallest percentage of child abusers, I was raped by a heterosexual man, so that means I was destined to be a lesbian and God had me raped so I would be heterosexual…GOD saved me from homosexuality? Is that what you are saying?”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

I turned to the ‘used to be gay’ boy and touched his wee cute face and said “Mate you are gay, its nothing to do with abuse, accept it, stay away from brain washing Christians, go out and there and embrace your life and…dress better again and give Kylie songs another go, for the love of GOD Lady Ga Ga is here, that’s a sign surely”

He laughed a loud lovely chime of a giggle, hugged me and said “I wasn’t happy as a gay”

“That doesn’t mean your not gay I know lots of gloomy gay men, they aren’t supposed to be happy all the time, but they don’t need to deny their true self and find God to please others, God made you according to your bible, stop being something you are not” I said.

The boy standing said “he doesn’t want to be gay, he heard God’s voice”

I switched my head round to Israel and said “maybe it was a chemical imbalance? Maybe the voices were schizophrenic and it wasn’t God just a mental illness, buzzing poppers could have done that, you can still be gay” I just didn’t want the team to lose one, is all am saying.

He smiled and hugged me, I genuinely warmed to him but then I do love most gay men in general.

They continued talking to me about their tolerant God and all I could think was- what God hates gays? That’s not a forgiving man is it?

They then bowed their lovely shiny heads and prayed for my soul. I sat there staring at the grinding poverty of the wee Mexican women selling funnel cakes with four dirty toddlers at their feet and wondered if God was sitting there in MacArthur Park with us, maybe he was sorting out the gays from the straights or maybe he was going to perform a miracle for the kids who would grow up in an unfair society or maybe tell the Pope to allow contraception…or maybe he would whisper into Israel’s head that being gay was fine by him and let that young man live his life his way.

The boys got up, and I said to Israel “Maybe in years to come you will wake up and say ‘that crazy Scottish women was right, I am gay and that’s cool’ and you will be free to live your life as you want and God will still love you”

Israel said “Maybe one day you will wake up and remember me and take God into your own heart and go out and spread the good news yourself”

I laughed and said “I think you will find Kylie before I find God but thanks lovely man, go in peace”

30th June 2010

My nose looks like someone took a blow torch to it and the back of my neck is looks basically like a burn that occurred when a chip pan was thrown at me. I won’t ever sit near a burning ball of fire called the sun ever again.

The good news is I love LA and have met loads of awesome people, even the couple who had a big screaming domestic fight on our street (how dare they- we are posh) – but anyway this man and woman had a bust up.

How, I don’t really know as she owned a car and he was on a silver scooter, not an electric one, the kind you push with your feet and should give up doing when you hit puberty. She was a feisty big black lady and he was a skinny dreadlocked black man, they screamed at each other.

At first I thought she had hit him accidentally with the car but that’s wasn’t what happened- anyway they were on our street, him on his scooter and her in the car. I had to stand on a brick fireplace and put my ear to window and shoosh the kids to hear them, I wasn’t really interested but it was a slow blog day.

There is only so much sunburn you can write about.

She got out of her car and shouted at him, he grabbed her car keys and scooted off, she stomped about angrily and then the car sat on the road with its emergency lights flashing, then they both came back, made up, he put his scooter in the boot and the drove off with ‘All the Single ladies’ blasting out the stereo. I love Beyonce; she makes people love each other again.

So other than that I found a cracking sports bar near us and ate a hotdog, drank a beer and sat with big burly redneck looking men and screamed for The Dodgers. I pretended I was American and made wild gestures when things happened at the baseball game on the big screen. I didn’t know what was going on, but it’s easy to copy people when you are with them, you can become them and think like them. That’s probably how Bush got elected so many times; people just drank beer and copied each other.

It was great fun, I kinda want to grow a ponytail and own a flat back truck and swear at baseball on a regular basis, it may help when my menopause kicks in. You know how some women change when they go through their change of life; you know how some women take to knitting jumpers with fluffy tabby cats on the front and grow a small beard? Well I am going to start drinking beer and wearing plaid shirts and punching walls when am full of beer!

Other than that I met up with Gina Yashere who is a wonderful black female comic from London and we know each other from the UK comedy circuit. She is doing awesome in LA she has a regular slot on Jay Leno show and has had a Showtime comedy special, she is amazing. We had a cracking vegetarian lunch, that’s about as LA that I get…eating vegetables.

So I am off to have big adventures this weekend before I go home….watch this space.

28th June 2010

On the 702 bus there was big fight between a wee man with a walking stick and a driver who wouldn’t ask young Japanese students to get off the disabled seats.

The lame man screamed at the driver “I hate communicating with strangers, you tell the fucking gooks to get off the seats meant for disabled people”

The Japanese students sat en masse passively, they didn’t even blink when the disabled man screamed again at the driver “Tell those impolite fuckers to give me a seat I fought in Vietnam and these fuckers remind me of the gooks”

I sat there gobsmacked.

The driver tried to pacify him “Sir, you have to stop that racist screaming, just ask the kids to move, it’s not my job to tell people to give up their seats”

The disabled man with the stick fell onto the floor of the bus; the Japanese students took pictures of him on their phones. That made him much screamier than ever. Finally an older man who was with the load of Japanese students came down and told them to move, but they wouldn’t move off the seats, they clutched their Hello Kitty purses and big bags tightly refusing to budge.

I got up (of course I did) and helped up the shouty Vietnam Vet (if he was that) I gave him his stick and got him to his feet. I grabbed the tee shirt of one big student on the disabled seat and pulled him off, he didn’t resist, and he glared at me and took a photo of my angry face close up. I stood on his ultra white sneaker. At this point you may ask ‘how did you know they were Japanese?’ which is suggesting am racist, but they had a big tourist banner with them which said ‘Japanese Student Group’ and that cut out the guessing for me.

The students then all moved as one big group and trundled up to the back of the bus, their impoliteness annoyed me and most the girls were wearing mini kilts…why? I don’t know is the answer.

The Vietnam man with one eye and a penchant for casual racism shouted ‘Gooks’ at them. “Hey man stop that” I said to him. He looked at me and screamed “lesbian Scottish bitch”…apparently all Scottish women were lesbians and if I didn’t believe him he said “just look at Martha Stewart!”

 I didn’t know she was Scottish or a lesbian but I know she’s been in jail, so what the hell do I know?

Either way I made it to Venice Beach after a 2 hour train/bus trip and then sat on the beach sweated off my factor 30 sun block and managed to burn my face and the back of my neck. I look like a chip pan melted my face.

I spent a whole night swathed in Aloe Vera and that stuff is magical, then I swapped to Sudocreme and now look less toasted and more burnished.

26th June 2010

I passed a beautiful house and outside they had a yard sale, I have never seen one and decided to dive right in and pick through some nice stuff and believe me the dresses were cute. Just then a young skinny woman in a tight tee shirt and tiny denim skirt came rushing over shouting “What the hell are you doing lady?”

“Er…I thought it was a yard sale?” I said slowly replacing a white dress onto the coat rack.

“This is a film set and those are props, didn’t you see the big van and the lighting crew?” She screeched.

“No, am sorry I didn’t” I sloped off.

So, I presume some white picket porn was taking place and as usual I get in the way of some good sex.

The next day we headed down to Big Boy’s Diner which is a traditional burger joint that has an event every Friday, where classic cars and old fashioned vehicles line up to show off their ‘classic-ness’.

It was amazing, and there were rows and rows of proper old Americana blokes, with fat stomachs, grey pony tails and yard chairs watching people watching their cars.

It seems to be a whole community of folk who turn up to kick wheels, check out old cars and show each other what’s under their bonnets. I have never seen such clean engines, they are all impeccably smart.

One bloke watched me taking some photos and said “You like the cars?”

“Yes, they are pretty amazing eh?” I replied.

“This has been going on since 1958 round here and you know this is the place to pick up guys” he smiled. He was about sixty odd years old with a dyed quiff and a small Chihuahua on a lead.

“Really, this is a hot pick up joint?” I smiled trying to be cool.

“Yeah baby look” he said and with a flourish of his hand he showed me a bunch of really old men in giant denim dungarees with bad hips leaning on walking frames, propped beside cars that were vintage but not as old as them.

“Yeah….but the buffet is hardly fresh is it” I laughed and moved on taking more pictures.

Soon I am going to Venice Beach, my favourite place. It takes almost 2 hours on public transport but I don’t mind as a taxi cab is about $100 from the Valley and that’s just one way! You would think we were miles away from the coast but we aren’t – its just the traffic is so heavy.

Los Angeles has a crap transport system- the problem is there are no dedicated bus lanes to enable the buses through the city. The Metro trains which are awesome and cheap only go downtown (basically half way into the city) they trains don’t go down to the beach or anywhere near the coast. Which means you need to get the bus and it drags slowly through the city behind all the traffic and takes forever.

That’s my fault for not driving is all I can say but why does the city encourage everyone to drive? They don’t make it easy NOT TO!

The other night I went out to see Paul Provenza do his podcast at a small theatre, he is a cracking comic and has a book out called Satiristas! You must check it out. The same night I bumped into my old mate Rick Shapiro, I haven’t seen Rick in ages and he has good news about getting some acting work, in fact its awesome news and I will leave it to him to announce it.

Either way I am enjoying my time and still have adventures to take.

24th June 2010

On landing in LA you have to wait ominous queues to get through customs and every second woman was a wee Indian lady in ethnic dress with no command of English and the Americans just pissed themselves with excitement holding them back and shouting out “Can anyone speak Urdu?”

A woman from the back of the queue came forward and translated. I laughed, as it doesn’t take high intelligence to understand that if they are using passengers on the same flight as people to translate the potential ‘immigrant liars’ then…who knows…isn’t this an old plot line from 24?

Anyway more queues happened. We then had to line up to get out of the airport and get more immigration checks. My mate Daryl was on the other side waiting on me as he was driving me to my friend’s house. I couldn’t call Daryl as there is no signal to use phones in immigration.

Anyway I finally got out of the airport and INTO the HEAT of LA.

Daryl and his lovely girlfriend and I had a leisurely drive up to my mate’s house, which by the way is amazing. They have a pool and I have a new swimming costume…what’s not to love?

So I have had a full nights sleep, had some nice food and am now sitting by the pool deck writing a blog. By the way I heard England managed to score a goal….is that actually true?

21st June 2010

London was awesome and I am now home. I stayed in the Groucho club which has rooms and they are awesome. It really isn’t as noisy as it used to be since they redecorated, and the beds are just…dreamy!

Staying right in the heart of Soho has its plusses and negatives, for one you are so central your name could just be called LONDON the down side is the madness that you witness going for a midnight stroll.

When you live in Soho you have to accept the place and not be too snooty about what you see with your own eyeballs.

For one, the homeless who beg on your doorstep will engage, harass and bug you and blame you for being ON THEIR PATCH…and I fully accept that. They were there before you. They need money and you clearly have it…so come on fat lady pay up! I don’t give cash anymore to the people who beg, not because I am some snooty up my own ass capitalist, but because there is a credit crunch on and they don’t like pennies being foisted on them. They look at your petty change the way Prince Phillip looks at Chinese people but without the casual racism.

“Can you give me £4 to get into a hostel?” one man asked.

“No, sorry I can’t give you four pounds, would you like fifteen pence?” I replied.

“You Scottish tight fisted fuckwit” he snapped at me, his dog even sneered.

I was insulted, spat at and harangued by a fake poet who claims to be the ‘Bard of Soho’ I have to give him cash for his really shit poems, apparently he couldn’t make a rhyme out of my suggestion of ‘I am paying ten grand for a fringe show why don’t you give me cash for my art’.

He kicked me on the back…yes…he lifted his heroin abscessed leg and booted my back, leaving my white linen shit filthy. I accepted the mark gracefully and wore the boot stain with pride. I felt accepted.

Now before you think am giving Soho a bad name, there is the amazing side to it. The sheer buzz, the noise, the lights, the fabulous west end shows, the gay men who promenade, the children who play footie in the street, the ‘models’ who ply their wares with gusto and the total London vibe with of all manners of life sitting cheek by jowl with the fancy restaurants, private clubs and sex shops. I love it.

I love watching the black cabs trying to run down the ‘illegal unlicensed uninsured’ rickshaws that peddle their business in central London. Taxi cabs HATE them and if you ever want to hear a taxi driver swear talk about them….they go MENTAL…its fun.

The Groucho club itself is awesome, but you are not allowed to talk about what happens inside it; finally I feel like I am a mason and have a secretive code to abide by. You can’t take photos or mention famous people or twitter about them or give information about what happens inside, to be honest nothing bad happens, its not Sodom and Gomorra…its just famous people having drinks with non famous people like me sitting about.

Suffice to say I met a musical hero and called him by the wrong name, I am crap at being amongst very famous people. Two things happen, I either think I know them personally because I have seen them on telly or I don’t know them at all and get them mixed up with someone I went to school with. I am no Perez Hilton. I am more ‘Magrit the over friendly cleaner’.

The worst thing is-when you pop out for a ciggie and chat to some anonymous bloke and the paparazzi turn up and flash into his face, blinding you and leave you wondering who the hell you just spoke to!

But all in all Soho is an amazing place and if I ever wanted to live somewhere it would be right there, so I can understand why the homeless like it so much. Like the late Robert Palmer once sang ‘It takes every kind of people’.

14th June 2010

I think am not a bad daughter, I try hard to make sure I get to see my dad and talk to him most days. He has been widowed for over a year now and he is a bit lost. Last week I popped into town, I had called dad but he wasn’t in, he goes out most days. Just as I walked down Buchanan street, I spotted him on a street bench and he was talking to a wee old woman.

They were nodding and chatting, they looked like strangers talking but still they were at ease with each other. As I approached him, my heart thudded as I thought “My God, he is so lonely he is talking to a strange wee lady, it’s my fault he has no one to speak to, I never visited him enough”

“Hi dad” I said and he got up laughing and said “this is my beautiful daughter, what a surprise, I didn’t know you were in the country”
My dad is used me not always being in Scotland, despite me telling him constantly my movements, he still gets surprised even when I land on his doorstep.

The wee woman smiled and got up saying goodbye, she made room for me to sit with him.

“You ok Da?” I asked him.

“Yes, I needed a wee rest, I was meeting up with my buddies earlier and fancied a wee coffee and sit down, the weather is good eh?” he answered.

“You are not terribly lonely are you?” I asked him nodding towards the wee lady who trotted off down the street.
He looked at me and said “I did speak to people before you were born, I know how to chat to folk, and no I am not that lonely I have taken to harassing pensioners”

I laughed and he laughed and we sat there in the street catching up with each other. I miss him and worry terrible that I am not with him enough or doing enough. He has an adorable step daughter who visits him and looks after his shopping needs. I am grateful to her beyond belief.

“Are you still a comedian?” he asked me, (he does this all the time, it’s our private joke)
“Yes, I am and are you still an old man obsessed with wheelie bins?” I replied.

“Aye I am” he sniggered.

Today I called him and we chatted again. I thought what it would be like not to be able to see him in the street of be able to call him up. I think about him all alone in his house or sitting in the dark missing my step mum and I get so upset. I hope I am a good daughter, I hope he doesn’t think I have no time for him in my busy life.

I was once told that the best thing you can give an elderly relative is your time, they just want some of your time to spend it with you.

I am lucky I have a good dad and am going to see him tomorrow.

Meanwhile life is consumed by all things Edinburgh Fringe…getting posters made, hiring a flyering team and making sure all is well with my to-do list. I dream about the to-do list as husband makes me add and amend it constantly. His Aspergers makes him wake up at 5am and say “Did you write down that thing I told you to” and I stare at him in the dark and say “What thing?” and then he starts switching on lights and fumbling with a pen. Yes, my life is truly awesome.

Am off to London this weekend to work and to catch up with pals, if you fancy a peek at my show listings for Edinburgh here are the links.

The Godley Hour At: http://tinyurl.com/35kubr4

Tall Storrie Wee Godley At: http://tinyurl.com/32cad3p

10th June 2010

Meanwhile things are getting ready for Edinburgh Fringe, I will be organising stuff all this week, don’t ask me which stuff, but husband made me write a to-do list and I am trying to stick to it.

I love organising the fringe, most people get other people called promoters to do it and that’s cool, just not for me. I am a control freak and like doing it myself. Then I know it’s done the way I want it done.

It’s not a nice side to my personality and I am sure it irritates the hell out of my family, but that’s who I am.

There are many ‘not nice’ sides to my personality – many of them I keep deeply hidden, like my need to pick stray hairs off the carpet in an almost obsession like fashion, the other is my need to chew my hair spit wee bits out. I am basically mental.

I am sure my husband wishes he went for the tall skinny girl in the floral dress that fancied him in 1979; she wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night to sleepwalk and drink the last of the milk, would she?

 I suspect that skinny girl with the untangled hair and sleek body is right now working a good steady job and is good at making scones, everything my husband likes in a woman. But he got me, the hair collecting woman with dreadlocks and tugs in her scalp with a penchant for growing ear infections better than anyone else.

I wonder what happened to my first boyfriend- George. He is probably either in jail or dead I suspect, we went out with each other for a few months in 1977. He never went to school and graduated to petty theft and drug dealing in the 80s, and he was a crap kisser. But I bet you he would have let me keep a cat AND a rabbit. But I bet he would have had a dangerous dog and made me breed…not the dogs…I mean ME, he would have battered 6 kids out of me and not cared for any of them…so I suppose I gave up an animal lover for a child nurturer.

Maybe I need to stop looking back and go brush my hair and the collect the stray ones off the carpet as they fall out of my head.

Speak soon.

8th June 2010

Here is my list.

1.      Blood shot pulsating painful eyes – her answer ‘I need glasses’

2.      Sticky itchy ears – her answer ‘I have pus filled infected ears and need antibiotics and a spray for them’

3.      Green poo (yes that’s right) her answer – ‘I have had food poisoning and need to do a sick poo test’

So I had to get my poo on a small stick and take it to the doctors. Yes, people you read my blog deal with the consequences!

To top it all, Glasgow had another mini heat wave so I was full of strong antibiotics and knackered; I had to fly to London as I was doing a slot at Comedy Store. I actually felt like someone who was filled with green poo and pus…great news eh?

To take my mind off all of my problems, I went over to take wee great nieces Abi and Julia out a walk in the park.

Abi is seven soon and wee Julia is four.

The park was full of lovely middle class mummies all gathering at benches chatting and watching over climbing kids. Except for one mother, who ignored her wee blonde child who I like to call ‘mental’ as this wee chubby thing was smaller than Julia was pushing and pulling all the wee ones off swings and watching for their reaction.

Julia is so dainty and careful getting up the slide, whilst Abi is a proverbial monkey who clearly has 20 toes and will climb anything with skill and dexterity.

Julia finally got to the top of the stairs and ambled over to crouch onto the slide, just then Mental open palmed PUSHED her forcibly, I caught Julia’s arm, she was shocked and horrified and slid down slowly with giant blue eyes agape.

Mental came hurtling down behind her, kicking her back, I looked around for Mental’s mum but there were so many folk. Mental then grabbed our pink stroller and tried to throw it on its side, whilst watching my face for a reaction.

I knew it wasn’t the child’s fault, so kneeled down and took her wee chubby hands off the buggy and said “No, don’t do that” Julia was still staring petrified of Mental the Toddler Pusher.

Just then a skinny woman with a tight sports track suit came dashing over. “Don’t touch my child” she shouted.

Julia clutched my leg, Abi scrambled down a tree and belted over to see what was going on.

I continued prising the wee girls hands gently off the pram in case she pulled it on herself. I ignored Mental’s mum as the kid then pulled all the jumpers out of the pram and threw them on the ground. Mental stared at me for reaction, I ignored her and spun on my heels at the mum and said “I will not touch your poor wee child, but you get a grip on her or I will touch you and not in good way”

“Excuse me?” she yelled.

“Don’t make me repeat it, keep an eye on your wee girl, she clearly needs attention and so do you” I snapped.

Abi said “you’re wee girl is Mental”

Julia repeated ‘Mental” and pointed at the wee girl who was now emptying a hand bag belonging to someone else and scattering its contents on the ground.

“I am sorry if I offended you, I didn’t know she had some problems and I apologise if I hurt your feelings” I explained as the wee girl was now trying to wrestle a dog to the ground as its owner tried to drag it away.

The mother said “She is just expressing herself; maybe you could learn a lesson from that”

“Ok, you are MENTAL not her, how’s that for expression?” I said and took the kids out of the park and headed to the shops for an ice cream.

As we passed the side of the park there was a sign that said CIRCUS coming to Queen’s Park. Abi is now a very good reader and shouted “Look Aunty Janey a circus is coming”

Julia clapped her hands and screamed “yes!”

To which Abi stood stock still, pointed to the sign and said “No, Julia, not a good thing, do you want to see baby tigers being made to jump through hoops of fire and wee monkeys in frilly skirts being made to dance?”

Julia stood there with huge eyes and said “yes, I do Abi”

Julia didn’t know Abi was a 7 year old circus protester, Abi didn’t know she had Julia hooked on ‘Tigers jumping through hoops of flame’ both of them stared at each other, finally Abi gasped “I need to teach you about bad circus’s Julia”

Then Abi went on a rant about how clowns have ‘bad make up’ and are actually scary and frighten kids. I couldn’t stop laughing all the way home as Julia kept asking to be told about dancing monkeys!

I do love being with the kids.

The show at Comedy Store was awesome, a huge bunch of nice comics and me trying to be funny, hopefully the audience liked me and it sounded like they did. But as Ashley always says, a crowd of people baying for blood and screaming with laughter is much of the same noise; it’s up to the performer to know the difference!

They did sound like they were laughing.

The heat in London mixed with the strong doses of antibiotics was making me slightly nauseous, but I had a good time.

Hopefully the green poo and ear gung are going to be a distant memory, but not for you reading this, no doubt it will stick in your mind much like evil clowns do in Abi’s head.

This weekend am at Glasgow Stand doing my thing, hopefully will see you there.

2nd June 2010

I spent the weekend in London, and am a bit tired.

I feel as though I have been round the world on a bus and not a good bus either. My usual apartments that I rent in London were busy so I stayed at The Groucho club rooms, the bed was AWESOME…seriously good bed and wonderful linen. You wouldn’t know you were in Soho, it was really quiet and serene, and mind you I did have a back bedroom.

Sunday I headed home on the train from Kings Cross to Glasgow, as British Airways were on strike again. I enjoy the train actually.

As it’s a Sunday- I decided to upgrade to first class as it’s cheap on a weekends.

I got a cracking seat, and was surrounded by lovely old people all getting settled in. You need to check your ticket to see if you can get it upgraded, so I searched out the train ticket bloke and showed him my ticket.

“You only have the one ticket here, you need the reservations part of the tickets” he smugly said and waited for me to find another ticket.

“I have the part that says I should be on the Kings Cross to Glasgow train today…look” I answered and pointed at my ticket.

The train line people give you at least 6 tickets for a return journey and God know I must have lost one ticket, the ticket that gives my seat number and train time on it.

“Go look for it and I will come back to you” he snapped and walked away.

I searched my bag and I knew I didn’t have it, I waited patiently for him to come back, but I couldn’t relax as I didn’t know what was happening.

Meanwhile there was a really old lady with her husband sitting at one of the table seats near me. She got up to go to the loo and the train was trundling hard, so I offered to help her get to the toilet.

She was pretty infirm, and it was easy to help support her and walk her slowly and surely, she was shaky on her feet and her husband was happy to let me help. The lady was very posh, and at first she was pretty quiet yet politely thanking me.

After the third loo visit, I had her laughing by saying that we would soon be doing a double act dance show by the time we got to Scotland.

She said “My mother’s housekeeper was a dancer before she went into service” Then she held her arms out for me to guide her back, I realised she was used to working class women helping her about, not that she was off with me, but just her attitude that she wasn’t surprised that I would tend to her. Her very tall posh husband stood up to the side to let me get her out and into the seat, not thanking or giving me a smile. That sounds like I was expecting some kind of hero worship, but I wasn’t – but it just felt as though it was somehow expected of me in a weird way.

I sat down and then the lady’s husband, who was dressed in beige linen suit with a pale blue shirt and a fedora hat, leaned over to me and said “Could you please go see what’s keeping the lunch trolley”

At that moment, a wee Scottish couple in their 70s who were at the table beside me looked in my direction, the wee man had a big Korean War tattoo on his arm that he chatted to me about earlier, he rolled his eyes and gave me a mock salute, as if to say “Aye Aye sir” and I sniggered but got up and duly did my working class duty.

The trolley for first class was being slow and the fedora hat man gave me the list of complaints about the service, I finally stopped him and said “I know but I don’t work here and I don’t even have an upgraded ticket to be in first class”. He smiled and carried on moaning about the state of first class service. I went off, found the lunch trolley, came back and gave him an update on its movements.

Finally the ticket man came back, he stared at my tickets again, gave a huge exasperated sigh, shifted about on his feet and said “You don’t have the right ticket; you need the OTHER ticket that states which train you are meant to be on”

I quietly held it together and said “Well technically I do have A ticket but part of it is missing but I do have a ticket which states I paid to be on the Kings Cross to Glasgow train today, I am just missing the reservations part, but on my IPhone I have the confirmation email that corresponds with that reference number on the ticket sir”

He rolled his eyes, let out a big huffy breath and said “I don’t take emails or phone texts as a ticket, now you need to buy a new ticket now or you will have to get off this train” He leaned back on his heels and stared down at me, fingering his ticket machine.

The old people around me all stared and waited to see what I would do.

I didn’t lose my temper; I quietly said “I am not buying a new ticket”

“Don’t you have money or credit cards on you” he sniggered.

“Yes, I have credit cards coming out of my wazoo and wads of cash in my bag but I’m still not buying a ticket, especially when you can clearly see I have a ticket for this journey and I have confirmation on my IPhone to prove I should be on this train, now what we are going to do is you are going to get the police to remove me from this train and when they get on and wonder why you called them out on a Bank Holiday Sunday, I will show them my PART ticket and my confirmed email, you will have to explain to them why you went to such lengths to screw me for cash, now lets do that. Go and call the cops and I will wait patiently for that to happen, as you have been so lovely to me, I would rather they removed me, I don’t want us falling out”

He immediately shouted “I am not falling out with anyone” he lost his cool and got annoyed at himself.

“Please don’t shout sir, you are scaring the elderly people sitting in here” I spoke firmly but quietly.

“I am not shouting, I am trying to make myself clear” he flustered his words. I got him now, he was panicking and wondering why he shouted and now needed to face getting the cops and standing his ground, he knew my explanation would allow me to stay on the train and he would look like a dick.

“I am just telling you the rules, I don’t make them” He added.

“I know that sir, I accept you have rules, I am just saying that if the police come on they can debate the rules and over rule you then you wont be held responsible for me being on this train with a part of the ticket missing” I smiled “I don’t want you getting into trouble with the rules do I?” I added. The wee old man with the tattoo thumbed up to me behind the ticket man’s back and mock saluted me.

I spoke slowly, quietly and clearly throughout the debate. Ticket man stared at me. He fiddled with his ticket machine and tapped on it with his pen. He then breathed out.

He said “Ok, I will let you off this time, but in future you need to look after your tickets, when you get your tickets from the machine, you should keep them safe…”

I put my hand up and forcibly spoke “Stop right there, I will graciously accept your kindness for letting on stay on but I am NOT going to stand here and get a big telling off and a lecture about losing tickets, I made ONE mistake, I lost ONE ticket in fifteen years of travel and that is not bad going, but we are done here”

He turned on his heel and left me in my first class seat, which incidentally I didn’t have to pay the upgrade for either, he just left me alone.

28th May 2010

The train manager sat in a cubicle watching the solitary man in first class touching himself on her personal CCTV in her wee special manager’s cubby hole. “Can I get an upgrade to first class please” I asked.

She never took her eyes off the CCTV screen

“Yeah if you have a hundred pounds to spare?” she muttered as she watched the grainy screen.

“Really, that much to sit beside a lone masturbator?” I said as I nodded at the screen she was watching- the man was no longer fumbling…he was wiping his hands.

The train manager’s head snapped straight at me “I beg your pardon?”

“Him on his own in the yellow shirt in first class, he was having a wee fumble when I walked past him” I answered.

She glared at me through narrow eyes and said “Maybe you need to clean your filthy dark mind; he could have been adjusting a colostomy bag or dealing with a clothing issue”

“Or touching his Willy in the privacy of his empty carriage and pretending to have a clothing issue” I smirked.

We weren’t friends after that, she never discussed my need for an upgrade, she merely snapped the door closed and I went back into first class to annoy the man who liked fumbling in an empty carriage. I just walked up and down lots so he couldn’t get into any type of rhythm.

Back at my seat however, there was a rather zonked out young woman with a small boy, she was boring him to death about all the details of her journey. He finally got fed up and said” I hate you am going to find another seat bitch” turns out he was her son.

She then had the worlds most irritating ring tone and when she answered her phone, I am sure people in Botswana could hear her call. The whole busy carriage were staring at each other wide eyed as she proceeded to tell whoever was on the phone to here EVERYTHING she had done that day since actually waking up in the LOUDEST voice in the world.

So now am in London finishing this blog that was started on a train, and the world is ok.

Tonight am at Jongleurs Covent Garden gig, which am heartily looking forward to.

Things for the festival are heating up, am wondering about getting PR as normally I do it all myself…but sometimes I just think…I might do it…and then think…maybe I won’t.

Who knows…odd blog I know…but watch this space.

26th May 2010

But it’s good to be back, my own house, my TV all recorded and saved made me smile. I don’t think anyone watches the telly randomly anymore, who wants to sit through adverts? Not me. I haven’t seen an ad in yonks now. Everything I watch is recorded and played with a speedy button to skip through the adverts, and is it just me but when the adverts do come on they are LOUD as hell? When did that start happening, I heard it when I went to the loo and the left the programme running, I was in the right place to get a fright that’s for sure.

It’s the same with my favourite music site Spotify, I play it and when adverts come on I simply push the headphones in until the wee pie chart showing the advert time diminishes. I don’t want to hear British Gas lie about waiting for you to come home before they come to your door, not after they kicked my niece Ann Mags door in, changed her meter and broke her door illegally and left her a tool kit to fix it. She got them back through and was on BBC Watchdog after British Gas admitted she wasn’t a customer of theirs! So the irony of them letting you know they will send a text to let you know they are coming is a lie, they waited till she went to the school gates and entered her house illegally. She got compensation from them and threatened to sue. That’s my girl. I never want to hear their lying voices ever again.

I am off to see my dad tonight as well, I do miss my dad and worry about him, but he is fine and since my step mum sadly passed away, he has been a bit lost. There is that never ending feeling that I can’t do enough for him, though he is very independent and doesn’t need that much looking after, I just miss him. He is also wicked fun and has the same sense of humour as me, so that helps.

He told me he went into Georges Square for a walk and in my head just the image of him sitting alone in that square in the blistering heat watching families having fun made me cry. He didn’t see it that way; he was keeps himself going and like going to visit nice parts of the city.

So our sunny spell has vanished from the skies, it was hot as hell in the UK for the past week, but Scotland is dull again with just a mild heat coming through. To be honest I prefer the spring to the bursting sun.

I am off to London again this weekend, though its bloody Bank Holiday weekend and am not sure am gonna get a seat on the train to Bournemouth from Waterloo and I don’t fancy standing for two hours before a show.

It irks me that the first class carriage is empty and the economy carriage is heaving with people standing at the toilets for space. That’s why I always end up in First Class just sitting on a seat demanding to be left alone and NO am not paying an extra £94 for the seat…its a train for fucksake not a gold plated diamond encrusted cushion. I paid for a train journey not a human traffic experience.

Its going to be exciting…I can’t wait.

21st May 2010

Yes, forgive me people for I have sinned, it’s been 6 days since my last blog and I am guilty of being lazy. Am not a Catholic but that sounded like I might get three hail crazies and a how’s your father for that bad behaviour.

Anyway, where did we leave off? Oh, yes I was in Barcelona and heading to Madrid! Yes- I recall now, the train journey to Madrid was lovely and speedy, they even had air conditioning on the train, I felt spoilt.

The shows went really good in Barcelona so I was full of optimism for my Madrid sojourn and the weather was hot! Me and the promoter Stephen checked into our hotel in the bust main street somewhere in Madrid, I don’t know exactly where as I was only there for one night.

We had a heap of fun, walking in the sun and then we happened upon really grumpy, maudlin, gloomy hookers, who to be honest weren’t that hot or hooky and I believe they shared my aversion to stupid men, I realised that if I give up comedy, there will always be a place for me in Madrid with the angry old prostitutes. I always thought women who sold sex, were needy and eager to please…not this lot; these middle aged saggy chicks looked like their tax bill had arrived with their period. Maybe they were unhappy sex slaves and I have just completely undermined their plight. Sorry, I always get it wrong.

Anyway, I ended up outside the hotel round the back having a fag when a wee Spanish fat old man came over and asked me ‘how much!’ I smiled and then flicked my ciggie at him and was secretly pleased I somehow fitted in with that amazing city. “Go away” I screeched, and he looked nonplussed. I would be a real grumpy hooker to be honest, my sunny disposition can sometimes be hard to find and I don’t like slimy old fat men.

The other women smiled at me in that knowing way of ‘yes, tell him to fuck off’ but that sisterhood ended when they thought I was doing a number on their patch. I tried to explain I was a fat dishevelled comedian having a fag but the merely sucked something noisy in their teeth and spat at my feet. We bonded.



So Madrid went good, the comedy show was lovely and then the volcano in Iceland went cranky and suddenly I was stuck in Madrid an extra day with no way home. Luckily Lee Mitchell was a nice bloke I met at the gig and he was general manager of the Vinnci Hotel in Madrid and looked after me like a princess. He got me a cracking room, plied me with Tetley tea, offered me the spa and took me for dinner. (Maybe he thought I was an old hooker and that was his thing?) NO…he was lovely and made the extra stay WONDERFUL and I possibly owe him my kidney for that.

The hotel is AWESOME, I can’t tell you enough so check it out on the web at: Vinnci Hotel it’s just stunning.

I realised my flight to Edinburgh was out of the question and as I was going to Nottingham on the Friday coming, it seemed to make sense to just head to London and get the train to Notts and go have an enforced holiday in London with my long time mate Monica.

She is a diamond, her flat is like a day spa and her spare bed is always fresh and ready for her pal. Though the white room, with the stark white ceiling, the white windows with sparkling white bed linen with the strong sun shining through in the morning did give me snow blindness. Monica’s bathroom is marble with more expensive products than Harvey Nicks could shake a Jimmy Choo at. I had the best shower and body treatments ever! I love Monica! Though realised I would miss Ashley and Husband for another weekend…he doesn’t mind though and she couldn’t care less if I ran away and became a gloomy hooker in Madrid!

Ashley though kindly wrote my Sunday column last week for the website as I was under pressure and between flights etc…she is a good writer indeed. Well, she did graduate Uni as a writer, so she should be!

London was sunny and I had a few days to pass the time and catch up with Monica, though she works more hours than anyone I know. She owns her own PR Company, and I don’t know anyone who puts the hours in that she does and in high heels!

I headed into Soho to have a few drinks and catch up with mates, that’s where the second sexual proposition of the week came along. Yes, I am a sexy hot babe magnet…well…a man offered me on a date. He had one eye, a profound limp and a dog called Smack, he was homeless but at least he did see the potential of my lady skills right there with his one good eye!
I had to say no and tell him I was married already. “Lucky bastard of a husband” he muttered and tripped over a street bin, he then didn’t get up and just fell asleep in a heap. He was hot, and I have still ‘got it’ people.
Constantly beating off sexy men is becoming second nature to me, it must be my tufty thick hair and slightly dry scabby eye that’s attracting the fella’s- what can I say? You can’t explain sexual attraction; you just have to live with it.
I managed to rope a few meetings in London and use the time to my advantage and things worked out well actually, sometimes serendipity works but am pissed off rebooking flights either due to the volcano or the British Airways strike which seems to be constantly on/off and making me insane!

By the way I have noticed that my IPhone keeps running quickly out of power, it needs more battery charging than Katie Holmes vibrator…is it just me or is everyone else pissed off that it doesn’t last any longer than 6 hours off a socket?

So Nottingham here I come, life is good the sun is shining and somewhere in the east Midlands is a drunken broken man waiting on me coming to his city, I hope he has a dog!

15th May 2010

The smell of the chicken was making me nauseous and all I wanted was a sleep. But it took THREE trains from Glasgow to Liverpool? How can that be possible? Didn’t the Victorians sort that out years ago?

Anyway, got to Liverpool as I was hosting the Funny Women heats at the Unity Theatre and I managed to get an hour nap before the show. The show went good, loads of women up on stage doing there thing and then I headed off back to the hotel as I was up at 4am for a flight from Liverpool to Barcelona. I didn’t bother sleeping as who can get up at 4am without screaming into a mirror and trying to get the tugs out of their own hair. The last time I got up at 4am with any purpose was to feed my new born child in 1986 and even then she didn’t like being awake and just slept more.

The taxi got me to the airport and I still find it odd to see loads of people awake at 5am drinking beer in an airport bar! The place was heaving with stag and hen parties, men dressed as women and girls dressed in pink glittery cowboy hats, all drinking booze and screeching in funny accents. I wanted a gun, a self loading never ending bullet gun to mow them all down. Am not good in the mornings as you can guess!

At least I am going to a sunny hot country I thought. I sat at the back of the easyjet plane and hoped I could be alone, but alas a big stag party of young men squeezed their big obnoxious beer smelly bodies in beside me.

“I am scared of flying” one spiky haired fat sweaty boy cried.

They all refused to turn off their mobile phones in case ‘Tracy Ann’ calls and the poor skinny orange clad air host bloke had to plead with them to turn off their phones. Again I wished for the gun.

Finally we took off, the big bloke beside me took off his trainers and the smell of his disgusting feet made me heave. No one in my family has stinky feet and I was dying crushed into that chair. Again the gun wishes took over.

“Are we gonna die?” the scared of flying acne ridden fat boy from Sheffield bleated. Finally I turned to him and said “yes, I hope we crash and finally I can get away from your annoying voice and his stinking feet”

They all laughed at the old lady stuck in the corner but they didn’t know she was eyeing up their foreheads for potential gunshot practise.

As we finally landed in Barcelona I looked out of the window and rain lashed the plane. It looked like Glasgow in July out there not Barcelona in May. The wind and rain pounded our backs and faces and we ran down the stairs to get into the hall to collect our bags.

Finally I got to the hotel and the lovely Stephen who runs the Giggling Guiri comedy club looked after me all the way. He is a cool guy and took me out for come coffee and walk round. We sat at a café table, I plonked down my phone and we chatted. A big tall dull eyed Romanian guy came over and covered my phone with his plastic covered begging letter then started chatting and asking for money. We both said ‘No’ and I realised he was trying to work my phone out beneath the sheet of paper into his hand. It is a scam they do here. I looked at his face as he pleaded with me and I slid my hand quickly under the plastic covered letter and whipped my phone out of his fingers and he panicked. Stephen got ratty with him as he noticed the guy was trying to steal my phone as well. The man walked off and went to try another stupid person who leaves their IPhone on a café table.

The gig at night was great; I have never played in an authentic cave like venue before. It was as if they scooped the earth out with their bare hands and covered it in small coloured glass in an amazing arty fashion. Barcelona has amazing architecture as you can imagine.

The show went awesome, though I was tired near the end of it. To help people to see me I stood on a chair and then realised my knees would be locked standing on a hard stool for an hour, my legs ached like hell after it!

After the show I was so exhausted I headed to the hotel and straight to bed and crashed out. So now Saturday will see me back at the gig in Barcelona and then Sunday I get a train to Madrid and do it all over again. The sun has come out a wee bit….hoorah!

12th May 2010

Ashley and I are doing a kids show together at 12.45pm at Edinburgh Fringe as well as me doing a one woman show at 7pm and we are writing together for a radio/TV project, so we do enjoy working alongside each other.

Anyway now that I have excused my rather close happy relationship with my daughter (it does worry me that people think its odd) I have to tell you what fun we had in Atlanta.

On arrival we were picked up at Atlanta airport with a lovely bloke called Henry who treated us like a pair of special princess’s and got us straight to the hotel. The heat was stifling and we were both exhausted, we did the normal thing and tried to walk out of the hotel and explore the area.

I forgot how much Americans dislike walking and don’t actually provide many pavements/sidewalks for people like us to enjoy such an event.

We were in a suburb called Roswell and the sidewalk only goes so far down the road and abruptly stops – there were two giant four car lanes of traffic speeding past and not many crossings to get across! We were stuck! I suppose we could have gotten a cab but when you don’t know where you are going its hard to tell people the destination, that’s why I like walking! We ended up back at the hotel.

The venue for the comedy gig is called Andretti’s which is a kind of adult playground with go kart racing, rock climbing and squillions of gaming/racing/skill computer games that kids can enjoy. It really is awesome and Ashley had fun getting free tickets and corporate cards to play everything she wanted. The actual comedy club is inside the bar/restaurant area and really nice to play.

They were a lovely crowd night after night and the guys at Andretti’s were so lovely looking after us, they picked us up and dropped us off anywhere we wanted to go. During the day Ashley and I sat by the pool and despite wearing Factor 60 still managed to sunburn her shins!

I loved the trip especially after the time we had in London – by the way did I tell you what happened on our last night when I tried to do comedy at the Groucho’s 25^th Anniversary party? No – well let me tell you!

The room was heaving with members, famous folk and actors getting FREE cocktails, booze and shouting ensued! The space for the performers was just a small area beside a window with a microphone that didn’t actually work. Me, some guys from Avenue Q and a lovely singer stood staring at our doom laded night ahead!

They got on and off quickly without much effect and I just wanted to fling myself out of the window. I finally stood on a piano stool, grabbed the microphone that didn’t work and spotted Ashley with Paul and John (my mates) standing there like a clutch of worried mothers watching their child get up and ‘do a turn’ and they looked as nervous as I felt.

No one listened to anything I said. My chest hurt with horror. So I finally burst into song. Yes, you heard me I SANG a funny impromptu version of Pearls a Singer with Groucho references mixed in with rude suggestions about what happens at the club. The crowd joined in with the chorus, and everything ended with ‘In the Groucho’ it was at least the best I could do with circumstances I had and people after the gig told me they couldn’t really hear me but liked the song!

God love wee Bernie (the fabulous famous character that he is) who joined in and whipped us all into a happy bunch of folk.

What a night! BUT am glad I took on the challenge and did the best I could, but I promise not to ever sing again!

Anyway back to Atlanta, Ashley and I had the best time, but I do have to mention that the sheer amount of food that you get served in every restaurant in that part of America stunned me. Everyone takes their left over’s home in a box, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than walking about with a box of food, but then no one walks about they all have air conditioned cars and can accommodate boxes of left over food.

So finally the trip was over and we headed to the airport and worried about not getting sat together as the plane was full. Turns out we managed to get two seats together surrounded with screaming babies and we willed ourselves into a fitful sleep. It was horrible as the turbulence on the flight was horrifying, I have flown all over the world BUT the sheer amount of shaking, creaking and bumping was scary. In the dark all I could see was Ashley’s big staring eyes pleading with me to reassure her we weren’t about to crash and die.

It went on for hours! My fear factor was finally drained after 3 hours of bumpy turbulence and at one point I wanted the plane to crash just to get a break from the battering about. The thought of lying broken on the ground was more attractive than 5 more hours of being shaken about.

Well, we didn’t fall out of the sky, we made it home and this weekend I am off to Spain to do some gigs and hopefully avoid a volcano flume and turbulence. Speak soon…

5th May 2010

It was lovely to see so many twitter folk come down and see them in the flesh. The Soho Theatre is just awesome and despite it being Bank Holiday Weekend we got good audiences.

Then I got some odd press, as I forgot that in my press release I mentioned that back in 1993 when Gordon Brown as a shadow chancellor came into my bar and I managed to obviously over-charged him and he did nothing about it. The press loved that and it got mentioned all over the place as there was some Gordon bashing going on. The election takes place the day I leave for America and I want Gordon Brown and the Labour Party to win as the Conservatives here in the UK are horribly homophobic and love killing foxes.

Do you know what else is amazing? I got to meet up and have dinner with Paul and his gorgeous man John, two guys I met through a blog site 6 years ago! They are in London living here now and it was just cracking to meet them and finally seal the friendship! They have an awesome flat in Finchley where I expected to see Mrs Thatcher tottering about in a fur coat and shiny handbag, but she doesn’t live there anymore. Ashley and I even checked the local bar ‘Destiny’ in Finchley and she wasn’t in there either. We gave up and instead ate dinner in a posh flat with smart furniture.

I really need to think about giving my flat a make over and giving it some fashionable furniture, but I don’t have the interest in that…does that make me lazy?

My mate John Fleming had his film premier for ‘Killer Bitch’ the film he produced and it is being slated by the press as awful rape scenes and there is no rape in it, just gratuitous sex scenes and Jordan’s husband Alex Reid being odd and trying to deny he is in it!   

Anyway, I got to see Monica my best pal and hang out with some mates over the week in London. Ashley meanwhile has taken up a penchant for the cocktail Sidecar and after three she was giggly and ate a bag of Maltesers and listened to the Ricky Gervais’s podcast till 4am. That wasn’t so much fun for me.

Also on a more touching note I did a benefit gig at The Hospital Club for my pal and fellow comic Jason Wood who died back in February, it was just sweet seeing all his family in the front row and a pleasure to make them laugh, I just felt Jason near as I was onstage. I still miss him.

I am missing husband and Ashley and I are off to Atlanta this weekend for some gigs, we were told that ex-president Jimmy Carter does some preaching near the hotel and we can go meet him, but I decided not to do that in case I said something inappropriate as I am want to do, he is lovely man though and don’t recall him parading as an evil super being when he was President of the USA.

It’s amazing how London changes you, the first days in Soho I was engaged in the homeless people’s plight, listening to their long stories and giving them some cash. Then after three days of being constantly begged on by the same three people, I got grumpy and asked them to stop interrupting my phone calls as I stood outside a club trying to speak to people. They didn’t care; they simply waited till I finished my call then expected more cash. One night my cousin who drives a cab in London actually spotted me on Dean Street and drove up, shouted me over and chatted. We hadn’t seen each other in years and the ‘Soho poet’ (who isn’t a poet but a big hairy burly man who screams poetry and demands cash) was talking over the top of out long lost relationship. “Go away mate” I asked and yet he threw limericks and disjointed words into our conversation till I finally screamed “Shut up poetry man” and he didn’t. Then he simply said “Give me money and I will let you both chat”

What he didn’t know was my cousin and I are quite Glaswegian and don’t tolerate mild threats, we both shouted “Fuck off” at the same time in the same accent and he finally walked away. Now bear in mind this dude had gotten enough cash out of me during the week, I am not mean to the homeless but there comes a point where they cant threaten your social life in exchange for cash.

Today I set up a direct debit for the Shelter and that made me feel better about screaming at the homeless man.

1st May 2010

It’s Bank Holiday Weekend in London and I am here doing the Soho Theatre – fun times!
Ashley and I are having a ball, but the downside is, I didn’t explain fully to Ashley how long we are leaving Scotland for, as we go from here to Atlanta to do some comedy and she thought it was 6 days the round trip.

There is a point to this conversation, she only packed a small case and screamed when she found out we are actually travelling for 14 days in all. She has 3 pairs of knickers, one pair of boots and a few tops and one pair of leggings. So we need to go shopping for clothes for Ashley.

The shows so far at The Soho Theatre have been great fun, I had some nice Twitter people come to see me, GOD BLESS TWITTER and that was amazing, I love the internet.

Ashley has been hanging out at The Groucho on her own as I go onstage, she is now a fixture in the corner reading, drinking and nattering to the staff. I am just the old mother who turns up and kills the party with a sweaty head, a boring story and penchant for cups of tea.

Ashley told me a funny story – but here is the back story first - at home Ashley doesn’t swear as it annoys her dad so instead of cursing she does a big childish ‘raspberry’ with her mouth when something pisses her off.

Anyway she sat in the club watching the Election debate, there were some serious intense blokes sitting alongside her. Ashley is into politics and loves the whole debate thing, but got so carried away, that every time David Cameron spoke Ashley blew a big spitty raspberry with her tongue snaking out and cheeks puffed up. Then she looked to the side and spotted three pretty interesting actor blokes staring at her like she was slightly special.

She almost cried with horror when she told me “Mum, I love that actor, he is my favourite and all he will know of me is that I sit in a winged backed chair and blow big baby raspberries at political debates in public”

I told her not to worry, as that is a marriage proposal in Soho.

The other night we were in a bar and three very skinny girls dressed in Twiggy mini dresses, blonde bobbed haircuts and big heavy eye make up came tottering in, they were totally into the whole 60s thing. They were wearing white thick tights, big black T-Bar shoes and pouting.

Ashley whispered “Do you think they know the Pill has been invented” and that made me snort, but the girls were awesome, I love people who stick to a theme and go for it in public. You can’t beat Soho for whacky dressed folk and a homeless man who will scream poetry into your face and demand cash for his ‘Art’.

Yes, that actually happened, the homeless in Soho love a performance, whether it’s pissing at your feet whilst you try to recall your pin number or throwing a kitten at you when you try to eat a pasta pot before a show….I love Soho.

Being with Ashley makes me happy, though she is missing her mates; she is insinuating that I duped her into travelling with her. I will let go of her one day….one day indeed.

29th April 2010

I cannot thank Mark Breslin and YukYuk’s comedy clubs enough for financially taking care of me when I got stranded and all the local comedians who supported me and kept me company. Especially Jo-Anna Downey, Cal, Marilla Wex, Ron Vaudrey, Cleeve, Kate and everyone else whose name escapes me, its good to have a family of people around me this lovely.

Husband was at the airport for me and was so glad to see me as he kind of missed me for a while. Ashley was at home and I could see they had both cleaned the house and tided up – they both live like unsupervised students when am away then do a blitz and clean up quickly.

I am home for a few days, before I head off to do Soho Theatre this weekend from Thursday and ending Saturday night. Then Ashley and I are off to Georgia Atlanta for a road trip comedy tour, it apparently is in the whitest part of Atlanta with Middle Class bake sales, art lectures, wear- green- wig for charity day and a jam tasting competition, what’s not to like? Ashley is excited and says the most boring places usually throw up the most interesting adventures. I hope she is right, but I once stayed over in Oban and the most exciting thing to happen was I saw a cross dresser who turned out to just be a badly dressed woman who had a beard.

I am the stage where I am dragging clothes out of the case into the washer, hanging them up and throwing them back into the case. That’s a weird feeling and everything smells of places that I don’t know.

I am looking forward to spending time with Monica my best pal, we haven’t had a full conversation for a month as she always out of the country or I am too busy or she is too busy. I miss my pal.

I will also miss the election and really don’t want to return home to find out slimy Cameron has taken over my homeland, it will make me cry at the airport if this is true. I am not really a big fan of Labour or Gordon Brown but suddenly he seems more attractive than Tory boy in brogues and corduroy!

So speak soon

21st April 2010

On Wednesday, I went for a wander round town, a short meeting with the YukYuk’s team and then heading for dinner at Jo-anna’s place.

I have decided that if I get stuck here for a while, I am going to do more gigs and just enjoy my time, when do I EVER get to go ‘off calendar’ and just drift? Never is the answer to that question, somehow the situation makes me feel footloose and free!

I do know that there are problems all over the planet with food wasting, flowers dying and industry being crippled, so I do feel bad for those folk.

The sun is shining in Toronto today and I feel good. I do miss Ashley and Husband and I know they are coping well without me, and I have spoken to my dad, who basically thinks I have been kidnapped and am currently living in a basement being assaulted by strange men, but then he has a vivid imagination.

Who knew volcanic ash could cause such horrendous disruption? Where was that in the information about volcanoes and flight problems? I never heard that being mentioned before? Now we all know.

There are so many lovely and odd things to see here in Toronto the Dollarama store is my favourite place and the homeless lying on the streets disturbs me. But we have homeless people back home, who am I to feel awkward?

Last night I went to do some open mic at Eton House with Jo-anna and it was cracking fun, there is a wee old man called Chicken Legs who is 69 years old and picks up the empty glasses. He is a legend round at the Greek area of Pape (where Eton House Bar is) I cant stop laughing at the word Pape, coz in Glasgow it’s a derogatory word for Catholic, as it derives from Papal!

Anyway Chicken Legs is a wee wizened man of huge character, his face resembles a crumpled brown paper bag that may have been set of fire at one time, but he is such a huge local character it was awesome to meet him. He reminded me on Notty, a wee drunken wizened man who used to be my pot man (someone who clears the tables for beer) back in the pub I owned in the early 80s. Old characters like Notty and Chicken legs are so important to a community, wee men who were proper tradesmen who fell on hard times but are still part of fabric of the area. It made me sit last night and think of my days in that East End bar when I never thought I would ever get out of there. And here I am sitting in Toronto writing back home from a comedy tour. It would make Notty proud am sure.

I am supposed to be flying home on Saturday and am excited about that, I cannot thank Mark Breslin and the team from YukYuk’s comedy company enough for looking after me when I was stranded in Canada; I am blessed with good people.

I will miss my new mates, like Jo-Anna, Cal, Marilla, Cleeve, Katie, Kerry, Sarah, Ryan, Ron and all the gang at YukYuk’s – thanks guys you made me welcome.

18th April 2010

Apparently we made the earth angry and it’s now throwing shit at us- well I can take it. Am currently in Toronto and may or may not be able to get home on Monday, you know what? I don’t care now…I am done stressing, people are watching their kid die of a disease somewhere in the world and I might not make a BBC radio show in London on Tuesday- BIG DEAL!

I love Toronto, the comics are lovely, the club YukYuk’s is awesome and the traffic lights have a countdown system that goes from 20 to zero really quickly and makes you RUN across their giant roads with sheer panic in your heart.

The weather here is freezing cold windy (another sign that we will all die coz we never recycled our own shit) - it was sunny then rainy then hailstones came down and then a big wind nearly took my tits off…its whacky.

My room is trashed as I went all moody and never bothered to tidy up, so it’s now 3am almost and am folding clothes and packing up slowly, whilst listening to Plan B, which is an awesome band from London.

When I mentioned how I love Plan B on stage the people of Toronto clapped, cheered and made hooting noises, now I was amazed that this relatively new band from Forest Gate in London were so big in Canada – turns out Plan B is the very famous Morning After pill in Toronto which women take after unprotected sex. I am not a hip chick who knows her music; I am whore who can’t use a condom. How they laughed.

Tomorrow I go find big coffee filters that husband has asked me to get as they are hardly available in Scotland and I had already bought some but guess what – I got the wrong ones, so a stilted snappy conversation via Skype ensued…oh how I love Aspergers – he basically turned into a pretzel when he heard I got cone shaped ones…one day I will hit him in the eye with a toffee hammer.

Miss him though and Ashley.

So I wake up Sunday and find out my flight is cancelled and am stuck in Toronto, the British Airways website gave me an option to rebook my flight, but the page is out of date and mentions the strike in March. I suspect they are panicking and not looking after their website. When I call BA they tell me there is a high volume of calls and best I book on their website….but I want to tell them – no doubt like squillions of other people that we CANT rebook as the link is out of date and keeps talking about MARCH for fucksake.

I don’t know when I am getting home, but that’s all good and I am happy to stay here till times when I can go. Give me a hug Toronto – I need it.

16th April 2010

I got into the city and in to the hotel in quick time, I got to bed and snored loudly and happily after the long flight. I am performing all week at YukYuk’s Toronto and the local comics are lovely and the club is really cool.

The weird thing is there is no break in the show and four comics do seven minutes then I go up and do 45 minutes! That’s odd for me coz in the UK comics do 10 minutes, then a 20 minutes and then the headline does 30 minutes…it just felt odd, but the Canadian audiences are just lovely.

No one has had a problem with my accent except for last night when a big American man from Dallas in the front row shouted loudly when I walked onstage “Will we get closed captions with the Scottish woman?”

I laughed and said “Shut up fatty boom boom”

“How dare you” he shouted back.

“Well, you understood that didn’t you sir?” I giggled, the room cheered and the show went fabulously well.

The fat American and I bonded and all was well.

Toronto is a very benign city, there is no menace, and the homeless folks lay right smack bang in the middle of the pavement on a grill that blows hot air. It is a highly inconvenient spot to choose, but they don’t care and they sleep fully extended on the ground letting the people from the financial district step around them. I like that the homeless are so visible and tolerated, there is something to be said about people who don’t sneer or try to hide their social issues.

I tried to step round a homeless bloke at the traffic lights and I tripped over his leg and he shouted “you clumpy footed cunt” at me which made me think he might have had Scottish ancestry, and then he smiled.

They call you ‘cunt’ then laugh, I love these people.

Back in the UK I missed the ‘dance off’ between, Brown, Cameron and Nick Clegg with their political jousting live on telly. For those reading this abroad, the UK is about to have an election and we had a debate with the three major politicians. From all the tweets I read it seems Cameron was slimy, Brown was bumbling and Clegg resembled a woman trying to get into the Masonic Lodge.

I am going to miss my daughter Birthday on 19^th April as I will still be in Canada and by all accounts on the news, with the volcanic cloud from Iceland I might not get home at all! So please wish Ashley; http://twitter.com/ashleystorrie on Twitter for me on 19^th as it will help assuage my guilt of not being there.

Speak soon.

13th April 2010

My nose is burned and the heat in Glasgow is mental. I mean its scorching, it’s serious – that big burning ball of fire in the sky- ‘The Sun’ is making a comeback and Glasgow is its opening season.

We haven’t seen ‘The Sun’ in ages, in fact we REALLY gave up on it, much in the same way we gave up on Madonna after she started collecting babies from dead mothers in Africa, we knew she couldn’t go back to singing after that. Luckily Lady GaGa made a hat out of a fish tank and flashed her minge whilst singing big songs, she’s great.

Anyway ‘The Sun’ hasn’t been on tour in Scotland since….aw…way back last year, maybe August? It was a sell out show back then, everyone came out to see it and people were totally worshipping it, but for some reason – it gave up on public appearances in Scotland and left us for a better hemisphere. We got ‘The Snow’ – Yes that came and entertained us for a while, it was amazing, I mean it killed, it was a showstopper but we like ‘The Sun’ better.

So today we all heard on the radio that ‘The Sun’ was coming for a whole day and me and squillions of other Scottish people and especially in Glasgow headed out to go pay homage to our hero.

Me and my wee great nieces Abi (6 years old) Julia (3 years old) and their mum Ann Margaret all headed off to the Botanic Gardens up Glasgow’s West End. We decided not to go to Kelvingrove Park as we went there the other night and saw a teenager on a BMX bike with a real live python round his neck, it clung to his torso as he did tricks in the skateboard park, and it freaked us a bit.

We don’t like people who ride bikes and do tricks.

The girls, their mum and I managed to find a spot amongst the crowds who had gathered to shield their tiny Scottish eyes from the majestic ‘Sun’.
People looked happy, but something came to me that I had forgotten, and its this – kids don’t really like sitting in a park in the blistering heat, there is nothing to do but eat or scream at bees.

People brought dogs to the park and they hate the heat as much as the kids. They started snapping at random children, trying to either eat their melting ice creams or just having a go at something head level to them.

All around us were happy languid West Ender’s eating Marks and Spencer’s salads and drinking cool chilled wine from hampers, and surrounding them were innately bored, sweaty toddlers who screamed for shade, their own sofa and their cartoons.
Even Abi got annoying and she is normally fabulously funny, chatty and so easy to be with. Abi, started to bitch, moan and get involved with complete strangers lying beside us and then slating their dress sense, food choice and loudly speaking about everyone and everything she has ever disliked.
It was like she was a wee Scottish Perez Hilton.

Nothing would shut her up. Then Julia threw her weird tantrum, its worth seeing. Julia has a strange way of throwing a tantrum, she doesn’t speak, she stands with fists clenched and opens her gigantic blue eyes and basically stares at something without blinking, its totally freaky, she glared at a couple of kissers for almost 20 solid minutes, and it frightened the kissing couple – in fact I think it broke them up.

Then she progressed with her David Lynch tribute act and threw my big flip flop at a pigeon almost killing it in front of other stressed toddlers who screamed as it flapped in pain into the circle of guitar – playing posh teens who were all on their IPhone’s or talking about ‘Topher’s trip to Tibet’. Abi commented loudly on their hairstyles and baggy shorts, apparently one girl had a big nose and bushy hair.

We couldn’t stop her she was in full on bitch mode.

Me and Ann Margaret tried to ignore the kids but it wasn’t just our kids that were annoying, once one toddler screamed at ‘The Sun’ it set a chain of events off and before long, there were just heaps of tired floppy kids haranguing parents to go home.

Scottish people need ‘The Sun’ to make them feel good about living in the dark rainy climes, but the kids didn’t understand that and just screamed loudly as one big burning wound.

We cajoled, we played, we chatted, we sang songs but the kids decided if we didn’t get our fat asses off the grass, they would actually swallow their own tongue for attention. Well, that’s what it felt like, Julia choked on ‘nothing’ and Abi pretended to be dying on a bit of cardboard- clutching her chest and mock vomiting.

So ‘The Sun’ made a comeback, but it only served to hurt us, annoy our children and make dogs slightly mental, foamy and bug eyed bitey.

Goodbye ‘The Sun’ I enjoyed you.

7th April 2010

It’s this time of year when everything seems to be moving quickly and without much pushing. The Edinburgh Fringe is almost upon me and I have this year been really organised, my advert/images and posters are all up to speed.

I just need to get a flat in Edinburgh and every year it costs me about three thousand pounds to get a decent place…that kills me…does anyone have a decent flat to let in Edinburgh during August?

Soon I am off to Toronto to do Yuk- Yuk’s comedy clubs, then am off to Soho theatre and then off to USA to do gigs at Roswell, Georgia – Atlanta and am taking my co – writer daughter Ashley with me.

She is going to video some blogs and we need to get our kids show for Edinburgh organised. Did I mention I was doing two shows daily at fringe? Yes – Ashley and I are doing a kids show at 12.50pm and my own one woman show is at 7pm.

So to complete my travels, I am off to LA in June and have practically paralysed myself with nervousness and fear over the few meetings I have there. I need to get some Moxie and stop being so girly!

A few weeks ago I did a gig in front of the TV booking people in London and I was the only female, the guys all swore and did some really filthy funny stuff but I never swore or did rude material as I don’t get away with it.

My accent makes any swear word sound like a cluster bomb that just killed babies. If I was a girly girl from Oxford and stuttered out ‘fuck’ covered my mouth and giggled, then that would be fine, but when I say ‘fuck’ it sounds like I am actually ‘fucking’ in real life in front of people.

The TV folks were lovely and not scary and even dropped me off at my flat in Kensington…how nice was that? OR maybe they wanted rid me of me quickly!

My accent has been taking a battering lately, but I am getting over it.

My big three night run at Soho Theatre at end of April is coming up and some lovely celebs twittered it for me, people like Allan Carr, Jason Manford, Justin Moorhouse and Simon Pegg all did me proud!

Thanks Guys….come see me at Soho Theatre London last weekend in April!