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I cannot believe this lumpy looking red boil is STILL on my cheek, I have tried everything to get it to come up to a head, I have had an insurmountable set of treatments been slapped on it, I have had hot water on it to draw it up….I mean it has had more attention than Princess Diana’s sexual past. I don’t think there is a paste or cream that hasn’t been smeared onto this fucking evil lump…. Maybe I have cancer? Holy crap! What if I do? Can it be? I am over-reacting I know, but sometimes I sit and look at it and wonder what is keeping it thriving …..If I tried to keep a spot alive that long for the GREAT BRITISH FACIAL SPOT COMPETITION, then I would not have succeeded as much as I have now. I hate this lump. What if it never goes away? Ok I need to stop obsessing I know, I have done nothing but fight with husband since I got home from Festival in Edinburgh. He tells me he would rather sleep alone than be with me, he told me he is sick of me talking, he told me he is entirely bored with my life, he doesn’t want to go where I am going, he doesn’t want to spend his life chatting to me on the phone from the various cities I end up in week after week. So I sat and cried, I felt bereft of all emotions then I decided not to let anything hurt me and guard my heart. I don’t need his approval for my life and I know he is feeling down and is lashing out at me because he is upset about his own stuff but I cannot fix him or fix his life. He needs to do that alone and I will carry on with my life and hope he comes through whatever he is going through, I do love him but I cannot stop my life and my ambitions to sort out his emotions. I did that shit for most of my life and guess what ….it didn’t work! Today he apologised and told me he will stop being so difficult and try more to help me. I hope he does. I have places to go and people to meet and stuff to do. Ashley is good and is getting back into her routine so she can get back to Uni soon and I am off to London next week. I feel odd and confused tonight and worried I may just go back to being Janey who lets her self worth and emotions be dragged down a dark hole by a man who loves her, while she cries in the dark and hope one day he stops making her feel that way. Or maybe …just maybe…I will be me again. |
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The weather here is awesome; I am in the most amazing apartment in the West End of London. I have a huge penthouse suite that Crown Lawn organised; they are just the best people in the world and look after me like I was their own family. I love them. The balcony looks over the whole of this side of London and it’s just wonderful. The place is so cool and I feel like Joan Collins sitting here in Park Avenue, all I need is a couple of naked dancing boys and my day is complete! So husband and I have come to an amicable agreement that we stop going over past misdemeanours and concentrate on our future, for if I can only remind him of everything he did bad (and I think my autobiography already did that, people all over the world now know what he has done to me) then we need to reconsider why we are both in this relationship. I have no idea why every time a memory comes up, for instance if he mentions Disneyland holiday in 1995, I immediately recall how he fought with me that night and I ended up sleeping outside on a beach lounger, I don’t recall the other 22 nights when he walked for two miles to get me painkillers from the outside garage, how he surprised me with breakfast in bed, how we sat on the beach all night and watched the sun come up and how he held Ashley in his arms all night because she was sick and wouldn’t sleep in case she choked and her temperature went up too high. No I remember the one night he was an ass. Why is that? I have a BANKFUL of holidays, days out and special occasions that are marked by one argument, one fight and one time he spat at me, he told me the reason he hardly recalls the past or chats to me much is he is scared it will trigger a bad day and he will spend the rest of his time sad, because he is being punished for something he did in 1987. I need to stop and realise that for every ‘bad’ time there are the wonderful days. Here is one…. In 2004 I had been on a live Big Brother TV show on UK Channel 4 television called Kings of Comedy. After the intensity of performing live on demand and being under the scrutiny of 57 cameras 24 hours a day, they let us out on the Thursday night till Sunday lunch time to do our regular circuit gigs. The studio was in Bristol; far enough from my home in Glasgow, where my poor stressed out family were watching me constantly through a TV lens. Remember that whilst in the ‘comedy TV house’ I was under immense stress and the politics of being stuck with five other comics was mental, anyway on that first Thursday night when they drove me to London, I arrived at the Hotel and lay down to sleep at midnight. At 5am in the morning my husband and Ashley arrived out of the blue to see me, they had DROVE ALL NIGHT to get there to be with me and it was just wonderful to see them and lie with them after the week I had been through. I remember how great that felt, just to be with them and how much I loved him for doing that for me. So there are many good times and I need to sit and recall those and not every fucking half hour of badness wipes out months of amazing times. I am working on it. |
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I managed to scam my way from London to Liverpool by train, ok here is the story. When I booked the train ticket online I mistakenly booked it for Thursday the 7th of September as opposed to Friday the 8th. Now I did try to rectify seconds after the confirmation email came through and I had realised my mistake, but the nasty women on the line insisted that I have to pay £68 for a Friday ticket (how fucking expensive is that for a train? The flight to London was £40) and go through some procedure to get back the original £12 I paid for the Thursday journey. Anyway I turned up at Euston, collected my tickets from the ticket credit card machine and boarded the train and took my chances. The ticket guy came, I nonchalantly handed my tickets, he looked at them and said “This is yesterdays tickets” I gasped in horror and explained “That cant be right, I just collected them from the ticket machine, my journey was booked for Friday, look at my booking online on my laptop” I showed him the receipt I pasted and copied onto my desk top from my email, except I had obviously altered the date and day in the same font. (I am sneaky). He looked at my laptop, looked at me and said “Ok there must be a mistake” I know I am going to hell, but even Jesus would understand why I refused to pay over £60 to go two hours on a train from London to Liverpool! I finally get to the amazingly unique Parr Street Studio hotel. This is one of the oldest recording studios in Liverpool and now has some very basic but comfortable hotel rooms. They give you a key to the LIFT! It is ancient and one of those old trellis type sliding doors (again…remember I had one of those in Oban last weekend?) then you insert your key and pull the shutters over and get up to your room. I think this place is really good for musicians and performers to come to, I think when the refurbishment is complete ordinary members of the public will love it, yet I think that will make it lose some of its eccentric charm. The great news is it has a wonderful cool private members bar where musicians all hang out and that’s where I am sitting right now. I did the gig at Bar Blue and it was awesome, I do love that club and the audience are excellent. The dockside of Liverpool has all been renovated and so trendy, they have a Beatles Museum and there are thousands of tourists visiting the area, mostly they are Oriental from what I have seen, those Eastern people really love the Beatles! The whole city is geared up to be European City Of Culture in 2008 and I am sure it will make a great host city, I remember when Glasgow was the City of Culture in 1990, it is a wonderful accolade to have and bring millions of regeneration to industrial towns in UK. Parts of Liverpool are still run down, even just off the city centre and I do hope those beautiful old buildings get recovered as they are wonderful. I walked home from the gig and stopped in the bus station to check a text on my phone, the bus station is brand new and all shiny and very well lit but was completely deserted. Just as I sat on shiny chrome bench I heard footsteps coming towards me and there was a fucking smelly stumbling drunk heading for me. I sat there and sighed inwardly, always me, they always come to me every time I am a nutter magnet. He sat right beside me, pressing his thigh against mine- that’s how close he got. “There are hundreds of benches empty and you come to sit beside me” I snapped at him “Do you have a fucking problem?” He mumbled with the alcohol reeking off his mouth. Great! He was actually Scottish. “Yes I have a problem, get your manky leg off my thigh and fuck off; I don’t want to talk to you” I said back. I stood up and walked on, he followed me, I walked faster- he walked faster. I then turned on my heels in this empty big bright yellow and white bus station and shouted right at him “Fuck Off! I will actually kill you, I have killed before” He stopped in his tracks. “Get fucked, do you want me to stab you, I once set a man on fire and took photo’s as he burned, then I ate his barbequed leg and God told me to do it” I screamed into his face and jumped up and down like a mental patient. He ran off in the opposite direction, screaming as he went, arms flailing and sloppy trousers flapping in the breeze. I sat back down and finished my text and out of the corer of my eye I saw a bus station attendant watching me closely! Now I was the bus station nutter- I could see him tentatively talking into his radio. Now we all know I have never killed before and I wasn’t going to stab him but it really works sometimes to OUT CRAZY the NUTTERS! They hate it if you are more mentally damaged than them, it is too much competition, I learned that trick from days in the bar when I worked in the roughest part of Glasgow, whenever some crazy fucker come up and whispers evil stuff, just agree with them and tell them you really want to fuck a dead body or can you cut him and drink his blood…..it works most times " except when you once meet that man who does like that " then run for your life! So I am in Liverpool for one more night and then it is back home to husband and possibly normality. |
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I had my last gig in Liverpool last night and went back to the hotel for a good sleep. The hotel is also a recording studio and private club so late at night music blasts constantly straight into my room. Normally that would annoy me, yet the music was awesome and after 15 years of having lived above a bar, it kinda soothed me to sleep no worries. .. This morning as I was packing to catch a train home ( I was so desperate to get home and see husband and Ashley, I have really missed them) I had that sinking feeling of sitting on a train for ever…then Neil Shackelton called me. Neil is a stand up and was in Liverpool for a family party and was driving home to Glasgow! Did I want a run home? YES! So I shared the journey home with one of the funniest and loveliest men you could meet, he and his best mate Will made sure I got home safely. WE laughed the whole way in the car as Neil and I reminisced about our days when we were comics together, Neil hasn’t done stand up in a few years and is thinking of getting back into it and he should, he is fucking hilarious. Neil and I once did a gig way up in the North of Scotland maybe nine years ago. The gig was held in a small working man’s club, it was awful from the start, and the people came out for the night to enjoy the singer who was on before us. The singer was ‘sixty-something’ year old man who had jet black dyed hair the same ebony matt black you normally paint onto tyres to make them look shiny and fresh- his face was covered in fake tan that never actually reached his deep wrinkles and this left brown flashed stripes down his sagging face. He resembled an old tawny zebra! His bright metallic red shirt was open to the waist revealing a thick silver curly chest and nestling there was a disgustingly large gold necklace in the shape of a lion….I am not joking….it was a LION made of gold. His tight hip hugging white synthetic trousers were so flared they almost covered the gold plastic shoes that peeped just out of the bottom, like gilded tongues that flashed when he walked. When he came into the back room to say hello, Neil and I could not even begin to make eye contact for fear we would laugh up a kidney. I watched the man glide around the main room with the confidence of a constantly elected President, his people cheered as he picked up his guitar, the place was electric when he plucked the guitar and his voice resonated throughout the small community room as he burst into the worst hammy version ‘Jailhouse rock’ that I have ever heard in my life. I swear I thought I was taking part in a spoof movie; surely these were a cruel people that egged on the crazy pensioner who couldn’t sing? Neil and I just sat there in impending horror, if these people loved him they were going to fucking hate us, which was all I could think. As we sat at the side of the dance floor watching this trippy scene as the locals got up to dance. The people there were dressed like something from the 1960’s, I know this sounds like a unfavourable lazy stereotype but there is no other way I can explain this. There were a group of women to our left all wearing the thickest traditional Fair Aisle woollen jumpers in the brightest colours, it was very cold outside I grant you but all that small gathering of women were wearing clothes that were too small, the sweaters were pulled snugly over rolls of fat and barrel chested breasts…they all looked like Buddha’s in sheep’s clothing. Then to the other extreme, there were a small clutch of younger women to our right wearing the cheapest version of the latest styles, gaudy red nylon tops with plastic glittery straps or yellow polyester shirts on top of the biggest jeans I have ever saw stretched over the fattest asses I have ever seen. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not the thinnest of women, I am over weight but under no circumstances would I wear jeans if I got to that size…now way EVER! That amount of fabric could house nine people at Glastonbury under a marquee. The strange thing was- the women who were slim looked underweight and sick! They were either extremely fat or dangerously skinny…were we about to perform at The TITTY TWISTER from the film From Dusk Till Dawn? The few men that were there were exactly the same! A whole bunch of fat, brightly dressed farmers with ruddy cheeks or thin dying- looking pasty men. And still the aged rocker sang on….. Then it was time for us to get on stage, I have to say it was the hardest gig I have ever done, people stared as I told funny stories….tales that became un-funny as each word left my mouth, each punchline faltered and died as it left my lips, like saggy balloons on the brink of deflation falling from my tongue…even my breath felt empty as I tried to suck air in standing on that wooden floored room. I walked off to the sound of my own feet, clumpy hollow noises followed me….the fat/skinny people looked relieved but not unperturbed that we failed, it was as if they expected such an occasion, before I could even reach the end of the room, the scary shiny old man struck up his rendition of “Beyond The Sea” and the whole place burst back into life. I was merely an interruption in their fun pack pensioner loving cabaret. Neil and I sat together after being paid for the worst service in the world. Just then one of the fat woolly women came over and asked him to dance….Neil looked horrified but she stood there demanding he danced with her. She smelled of sweat and cheap beer. I looked at her and said “I am sorry but he wouldn’t be able to hear the song because the sound of your cloven hooves on the wooden floor would drown out the music” At that we ran out of the place, started the car and drove off out into the coldest night in the remotest part of Scotland. Black roads, no lights, gravel paths and Oasis blasting out of the sound system as owls and other night birds flew past the long strobe of the headlights. We laughed like mad clowns, with a mixture of fear and bewilderment until we reached civilisation or at least a motorway that we recognised. We finally stopped somewhere outside Fort William, we got out of the car and looked up. The thing I remember so vividly about that night was the sky….honestly it was awesome, with no city light pollution and the clear conditions, there was every star and constellation known to us, just hanging there sparkling above us like a dark carpet sprinkled with glitter, the night air was so fresh and we lay on the car bonnet with our backs warm from the engine and gasped at the stars. We agreed that we might never become great comics, but we both knew we would never be ancient cabaret singers dressed in shiny satin and that somehow made us feel ok. Neil and I talked again about that night today and we laughed all over again, both of us spluttering and giggling, feeling shameful for slagging the wee awful singer who in actual fact did entertain those people better than we could ever have hoped. So I am finally home, sitting in my own house on my own sofa and happy. |
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I still have that lump on my cheek, it will not go away. I think I have to maybe go to a voodoo witch to get it removed completely. The antibiotics never seemed to work, they only gave me thrush. Now I have a lumpy face and an itchy vag…wonderful! I am now on special bifidicus tablets to restore the wipe out of the good bacteria that was flushed out of my system. AArrrhggghhhhh! I am back on stage this weekend at Glasgow Jongleurs and can’t wait to perform to a nice home crowd. I love comedy and being on stage makes me insanely happy. Cant say the same about husband, he is terrified to realise that I am home for a few weeks and is planning his escape, he feels like a hostage when I am at home. Ashley is getting ready to go back to Uni and normality. We had such great fun at the festival together; performing together has been the most wonderful time for me. I will miss her when she goes to Uni. Although she is still at home, she is gone most days and we don’t get to do our favourite thing which is watching daytime telly with the volume turned down and adding our own voice over’s. It is hilarious watching Star Trek and voicing every scene as a gay men’s get-together. Try it…it is fun. Watching Dr Spock stand there in his tight skin fitting costume saying loudly in a fake American accent to Captain Kirk “Yes, I do want you to lick my back” Captain Kirk then turns to the big screen up front and points to a scary totalitarian monster that appears “He is my ex-boyfriend, he keeps following me throughout the universe, and he wasn’t even a good kisser” I will miss those funny times and have to try to enrol husband in this game, he hates it and screams at me for ruining his favourite day time watching. I am a mental patient. Next week husband and I celebrate 26 years of marriage together, which is usually an excuse for a big fight, if you recall last year, he managed to DELETE my entire address book online by mistake the night before we were due to go away for our 25th Wedding anniversary…….I refused to go away on holiday with him and we spent the night in tears, lets hope this year is better and I am going to be a good girl and not fight. Well that’s the plan! |