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I have been over-worked, over excited and over here in NZ for too long and the net was down for a while…sorry I am late but I have an excuse! The comedy shows have been going great guns at Silo, selling out well and I am so very pleased with that, as you can imagine. Auckland is sunny again and I have a burnt nose! I am going to Mike Loder’s home today; Mike is the funniest comic in NZ and was the guy who originally inspired me to write my autobiography back in 2002. He encouraged me to keep writing to him and the original draft I wrote was the actual document that got me a book deal….so I love him. It has been so awesome catching up with my old pals here in NZ but my schedule has been full on and that’s crazy. Ashley has blended into the Auckland comedy community so well, that people don’t assume she is my daughter as she knows more people than me here and already seems to be part of the fixture and fittings (that’s what she does!) and that’s so heart warming that all my mates got to meet her. I am writing for BBC radio 4 at the moment and its been hectic trying to fit everything in, remember I am still trying to get everything rehearsed and sorted for Edinburgh Fringe as well….. I miss husband and it won’t long till I am home now, I get back to Glasgow on 8th May, which is good because sexually the homeless man who lives in the dumpster at the corner of K-Road is starting to look attractive! I am dreaming about sex, everywhere I look people are having sex, it’s mental. In the hotel we have the Junior All Black Rugby team staying, and we got a few of them on camera telling us they were a gay dance troupe…watch out for that live blog! I was lying beside the pool yesterday and a few of those big rugby players came up, stripped and lay beside me….I was like a crazy sex starved bag lady, I almost licked one! Those tight fit torso’s are making me go nutty….I need to get laid soon or stray dogs will die! I am so sorry I was late here, Ashley is having a ball and has decided she wants to live here, which scares me slightly as I will miss her so much, but I think with the two of us living in such close proximity we have came across personality clashes which I thought would never exist between my daughter and I , but then to me she is still five years old and not a healthy big lovely 20 year old woman….so sparks will fly! Talk soon |
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It is Saturday night here, I am about to go do my very last show at Silo Theatre. I have loved that theatre; the people are so cool and helpful. Ashley has been having the most fun a girl can have on tour with her mother! With a few exceptions of privacy issue’s….we really do need a big apartment with separate rooms. The mess she creates makes me feel raped. I cannot cope with the sheer amount of clothes and shit lying about this room, but I know she is good at putting it all away and I have cleany freaky tidy issues that go back to my childhood. Ok I have to go so Ashley is going to finish this blog. See you all after the last show and I will keep you updated. Hello there Blog readers, Ashley here. Mother is off out for coffee with one of her NZ friends. Tonight is the big end of festival party at the Classic comedy club on Queen Street; this means that many comedians will be drunk and fighting for attention, practically all of them will be men and really we should just get the rulers out at the start of the night to save all the noise. I got new boots yesterday, they are like pirate boots but with a large 4inch wedged heel. They are black leather and go all the way up to my knees. They are the luckiest boots in the entire world! A man spilled a drink on them yesterday and I asked the bartender for a cloth to clean them, when I told him what it was for he ran round the bar and polished them for me. It may be that these boots are magical or it may be that the bar tender is a ginger 19 year old filled up to the eye brows with sperm and male hormones! I choose to believe the former and not the latter. Mum says she’s ready to go home, but she’s old and has responsibilities. I want to stay here and never leave mainly because most of my responsibilities are reasonably dispensable, though I know she would not agree with that. The Edinburgh festival is not dispensable but I’m warming to the idea of going to Scotland for a holiday. A dream I know but if you come to this country and spend enough time in it you find it hard to believe that more people do not live here. This country if anything has been kind to me. For the first time whilst traveling with my mother I have felt a bit like my own woman, maybe its the fact I’m now 20 and don’t need to wear dungarees, or maybe I am a little more confident in myself as a person ( I wasn’t the prettiest teenager.) I’m not saying I’m a super model now, but at least I’m no longer wearing Baggy Goth jeans for the simple fact that normal ones won’t fit me. So mums had some good reviews in the press here in NZ. The real excitement is that I am no longer Janey Godley’s quite funny daughter, perhaps she is now Ashley’s very funny mother. Here are the two reviews that have made my trip to NZ all worth while and make me smile every time I read them! It sounds big headed I know but when you spent puberty with kids following you singing "Farmer Ashley is a cow, ee ay ee ay oh!" (I wore Dungarees for far longer than any person should) It feels nice to be complimented in the national press. "Janey's daughter Ashley is the butt of a fair amount of material as we hear Janey did not initially embrace motherhood. But the stunning young woman proudly filming her mother in the foyer after the show, has obviously been loved and nurtured, and not adversely affected by growing up round drunkards and addicts in the family bar ("she thought they were pixies and fairies", Janey assured us.)" www.theatrereview.org.nz Janey Godley (Scotland) The most mumsy of tonight's performers, and she is lovely. Her hot daughter is a hot topic and most of the jokes are at her expense. But when you've got the funniest mum on earth, who cares? Our rating: * * * * NZ Herald So from both mother and I here in New Zealand a fond farewell and see you next time. |
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It was the last night of the New Zealand Oddfellow’s International Comedy Festival, my shows had sold out here in Auckland and in Wellington, so I was so very pleased and I thought things could not get better, until the Comedy Festival Awards night. Ashley and I were there to support all the newer comics we had made friends with who were up for a BILLY T award, this is a very prestigious award given to one of the lesser known comics who are based in New Zealand to help them promote and support their comedy career. Ashley was filming some of the event for our documentary, then they announced the ‘Spirit of the Festival’ award, it goes to the person who has embodied the whole festival, been supportive to other acts, been co-operative to work with and enjoyed their time in NZ. When my name was announced as the winner-I almost peed myself, and there was my huge face up on the screen, it was such a lovely gesture that I almost cried! I thought that was such an amazing act of kindness from the organisers in Auckland. They then announced the nominee’s for ‘Best International Comic’- up first was David O’Doherty, Phil Nichol and ……Janey Godley! There were so many awesome international comics over here in NZ to be chosen as a nominee is wonderful. Phil Nichol won the award and rightly so, but just to be nominated was enough to make my night. So today is a holiday, Ashley and I partied hard last night. I wish I hadn’t worn high heels, my feet feel like they had been battered by tools of the devil. There is a guy here in Auckland who dresses up as a wizard, with huge pointy hat, striped socks and strange make up. I watched him yesterday as he sat in the sunshine, casting mini-spells to anyone who would listen, just then two very serious Christians clutching their bibles sat beside him and prayed loudly for his soul. The wizard man sat nonchalantly and arranged his wee candles into a pentacle and drew devils faces on the pavement beside the guys praying as their eyes were shut! I could not stop laughing at this, I know the wizard guy is harmless, and I understand the Christian people need to do their scary work, but together they made the funniest improvised show I have seen in a long time….they should have won ‘Spirit of the Festival’ I go home to UK on Wednesday….Video blog will be up soon on Livedigital…keep watching, just go to Livedigital.com and enter janeygodley and check out my stuff! |
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After the longest journey in history I am finally sitting at my home pc! We left Auckland on Wednesday the 8th and due to passing through the International Dateline (I never even got a date!) we went a day back in time! The flights included babies that screamed like a referee’s whistle and kept Ashley & I awake constantly! Why? People should shut their babies up on long haul flights. We landed in LA and managed to get upgraded to a better seat, but again that flight was fucked as a small baby decided to break all world records for ‘The baby who can scream and stay awake the longest’ I wanted to die….every time I finally drifted off, that fucking high pitched scream that made whales in the ocean below us twitch…woke me up again. The mother just sat there, I wanted to stuff the wee screamer into a small box and throw it out of the window. Apparently that’s illegal. I would rather sit beside the terrorist than that squealing pig of a baby, give it drugs or something? No….let it scream and keep awake an entire cabin full of people who need to get to London refreshed. Of course as we landed the wee monster fell asleep, I felt like pinching it to keep it awake. Apparently that’s illegal as well! So we landed into the searing heat of Glasgow…yes its summer here! The bad news is, our luggage cases went AWOL on arrival in Glasgow. We have been frantic; there is nothing worse than getting to your destination and not having your well packed and much loved luggage. Ashley is hysterical as she has 21 hours of film footage in her camera, her tapes and her hard drive! The good news is that I just got a call and Ashley’s case has been found and being delivered. That’s great; as my case only contains a tripod and some clothes….the important news is that all Ashley’s camera equipment and film footage is safe! She was gutted at the thought of losing her precious memories being strewn to the wind. So we are waiting on news of my case, my good dress and my make-up are secreted in that case, but that is easily replaced….memories aren’t! Husband is watching telly, he is ignoring my big tales of NZ, he will not watch my footage of the shows, he is watching telly….so I am so needy and attention seeking as we speak…why won’t he listen to me? Probably because I will talk about that trip to NZ for the rest of my life and he will no doubt hear it over and over again…but a bit of attention would not go amiss! I am off to kill him. Bye. |
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The open fire crackled and spat, making the atmosphere electric, as if the noise and fire displayed the tension in the room. A small firework arrangement just for us, I sat there and could feel the intense heat on my bare legs, well not really bare but my cropped trousers only reached my knees when I sat with my legs hunched up to my chin. Suddenly this small amount of flesh on show seemed sexual! The skin on my shin bone shone in the glow. I could see old scars below my knees from my childhood exploits, a dark blue vein throbbed blood through the myriad of tissue on my lower leg and I watched it with fascination, why have I never saw that before, when was the last time I stared at my shins? The man sat near, I knew he wanted to touch my leg, the fear and excitement this caused me didn’t make sense. I waited for a spark to ping out and burn me, punishment for my sin of being needed by another man. My need for him to touch me was becoming frightening, what if he never touched my leg? What if he didn’t actually want me at all? I can never truly read sexual situations, being married too long makes that muscle weak. Never having to dance that tightrope of sexual persuasion for a long time disables your inner sense. I might be wrong, he might be feeling sorry for me, watching me sitting here waiting to be wanted with a throbby veiny leg. I tried to numb my brain to all the heightened senses that flooded through my body, why was I here? Why am I not at home? Where is my husband? I saw my husbands face, very young…he must be seventeen in this memory I noted to myself. His dark eyes were staring at me with a strange anger flashing through them. Not now, please…don’t let me have a bad memory of him, I want to see his nice face, I quickly flick through the Rolodex of years and marked memories looking for the look that always made me want to kiss his chin, that kiss that almost gets his mouth but some how feels better it landed on his chin. The man reaches over and stops my brain from downloading a good picture of my husband, his hand gently but very accurately touches the scar on my shin bone, the feeling makes my whole leg tingle, his fingers are strange to me. I don’t know these fingers; I can tell you a story for every scar and mark on my husband’s hands, each freckle and nick are as familiar to me as the map of my own body. I don’t understand this feeling; I have never felt this slow trickle of excitement for many years. I never knew the tops of my outer ear had nerve endings, but they do. They slowly tickled themselves, as if there were some electric current attached from my shin bone to my ear lobes. Is that an erogenous zone? I don’t know and I start not to question it in case it stopped as the feeling was so good and intense I never wanted it to end. “I can’t do this” I blurt out…did my mouth say that? Why is it saying that? I can do this, I want my body to feel that tingle all over the way my ear and shin does. “That’s ok, I knew you wouldn’t” he whispers. The fire cracks loudly and this time a sharp pain hit the back of my hand, I wince and look at the small red mark. The man lifts my hand and kisses the spot. “I have to go” I say as I jump out of my crouched position. Before I am truly aware of my movements, I clumsily stumble to the door of his flat. I get out into the street and feel the late summer wind blow my hair about; though there is still a chill in the air. My heart is beating in my chest, I don’t want to look round because if he is there and looks at me and asks me once more…I will stay. I will let those unfamiliar hands find me. Instead I walk briskly, I walk until roads and shops become familiar to me, I walk and breathe out more and my shins now feel cold, it must be 4am. I finally get to my destination; I wait patiently in the lift that takes me straight to my room. I lie down and fall asleep with all my clothes on and wake up late the next morning. “Mum you were talking in your sleep, are you ok?” Ashley looks at me across the hotel room. “I was dreaming” I tell her and I smile and pull the covers over my bare legs. Those are the kind of dreams I like, certainly better than the nightmares. |