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Far from me being the one to point the finger, but I did have a woman who worked for a huge corporation in London come to Glasgow to tell me that the people I might be speaking to will not understand my accent as some of them are English. Now had I been of Asian descent that comment would have been considered racist - but because I am white it’s considered just information. I ignored her comments and decided to speak to these whacky foreign folk from England in my perfectly wonderful Scottish accent, funnily enough they understood every word I said and before long we were interacting like proper English types without the aid of an overhead projector and finger pidgin words to help us. It does infuriate me when people come to Scotland to work then assume you wont be able to talk to the visitors from London…I am doing a tour of Canada next week and am off to Soho Theatre for my fourth run in their lovely venue. I also do BBC radio 4 'Just a Minute' and we don’t need a diversity course to introduce my dulcet tones to the listeners, we believe they have all heard a Scottish accent before. I think the woman in question just doesn’t like who I am and picks on the one weakness she believed would play on my insecurities, what she underestimated was my ability to constantly shout 'FIRE" at her to see if she understood my warning or say funny things about her and watch her reaction. "Oh I didn't know you could understand me, so I talk about you a lot in this accent thinking you wouldn’t know what I was saying” I am a comedian and that’s funny, especially in front of the English people she said wouldn’t understand what I was saying in my guttural useless Scottish tongue! I did during the course of my work that night ask a wee English girl what age she was and she answered 'six' and we chatted. Later on a woman from Sheffield said to me "when you say 'six' its sounds like ‘sex’ and we all laughed at your accent, whatever did the child think when you repeated her age over the microphone?” I replied “Erm, I don’t think she knows what the word ‘sex’ is and she nodded when I asked her if was ‘six’ so maybe only you heard the word ‘sex’ when I was talking to a small girl?” You see I had been through enough that night about my accent and I didn’t know when I said ‘six’ it sounded like ‘sex’ so I have been walking about all day saying 'would you like sex six times?" to hear the difference and husband is really happy and he has been walking around behind me saying "Yes". Fuck the naysayers - my accent is awesome and the people of New Zealand, Netherlands, New York, Los Angeles and London have always said so. |
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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! |
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So I arrived in Toronto after a three hour delay with British Airways, where we had to sit on the ground at Heathrow waiting for a staff member to arrive as they were a man down…three hours for this fuckwit to finally get to the airport and board the plane. I was sat beside a woman in her late 30s who did a shed load of paper work, then sat back sucked her thumb and twiddled her hair as her legs rocked up and down. The suckling noises were horrifically disturbing, here’s a tip people – thumb sucking is cute in the womb on a sonar scan, not on a fully formed grown woman! 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 19th 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 19th as it will help assuage my guilt of not being there. Speak soon. |
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First they refuse to pay back the cash we gave them now they have fucked the skies with a giant flume of molten Bjork just to fuck the world off. Lets go to Iceland and beat the shit out of the weird whale hooting people who live their just to vent our anger…or let’s just accept we can’t take the world for granted and accept that seals are pissing themselves laughing and the rainforest is screaming with giggles. 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. |
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I was supposed to be going home last Tuesday but as we all know the big ash in the sky has determined that I stay here in Canada. Who knows what will become of me? I am joking…I have met so many nice people like Marilla Wex, Jo-anna Downey, Ron Vaudry, Kerry, Ryan and all the team at YukYuk’s that I don’t feel isolated or lonely. I have to say as well, the standard of comedy in Canada is as good as I expected, they are awesome. 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. |