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My Niece Ann Margaret has a cat called Squeak. Apparently it’s her daughter Abi’s cat, but we are not sure. What I am sure of is, the cat has a personality disorder. It goes to its litter tray, does a wee shit, and then instead of scratching the litter over the shit, it turns around and scratches at the wall. It completely ignores the smelly wee shit and stands for at least three minutes making eye contact with me, challenging me to look away or comment and paws at the wall. I got fed up with this madness; I jumped down, grabbed its paw firmly and made scratching movements that covered the litter over the shit with its reluctant leg. It struggled and meowed, then bit me. Then it turned around and hopped into the litter tray and determinedly squeezed out another wee shit, it stared at me again and scratched at the wall in defiance. The wall is all scraped, the shit is uncovered and it merely sniffed at me, spat in my direction and padded out of the room. Four year old Abi came through, she said to me “Stop making Squeak angry, he just bit me and that’s because you are here, he hates you, he doesn’t like touching his own poo….would you?” She is right, I wouldn’t like touching my own poo, but I am not a cat- it is supposed to cover its own poo up. I once had a cat called Twinkles who was the complete opposite; he would shit, then stand for about 40 minutes and completely scoop ALL the litter and the shit out of his box and spread it all over my hallway. We would lie in bed and in the middle of the night all you could hear was this “Sshh, sshhh, sshhh, sshh” noise for fucking hours as he stood there dementedly, doggedly scooping out the litter box. You would think he was trying to dig to Australia the way he went about his business. I am sure he had OCD, if I screamed at him he would stop momentarily with a paw poised in mid air, then immediately went back to flicking the litter and shit all over my floor. He was like a cat possessed; my hall way resembled a scabby beach, all grit and small bits of shit over it. It took ages to clean it up and he sat watching me doing it every time. Maybe he liked the sound of the Hoover? I am not sure. Once he had managed to empty the tray, he looked at the mess all over the floor and then sat happily licking his own arse and wiping his face, congratulating himself on a job well done. This was EVERY shit and piss. So I constructed a box with high sides and a roof. I watched as he went in for his daily piss and scatter routine, it drove him crazy, the poor fucker was in there for ages and I could hear him scratch and flick those wee gritty stones up against the sides of that box for ages. Finally he came out covered in white flecks; like he had been to a cat wedding and was covered in confetti…he was totally confused. Finally he would stand at the entrance and try to scoop all the litter out through his front legs into his hind quarters, but it never worked. He stalked around the box and you could see he was trying to work a way getting all the grit out of the box. He never did manage it and finally gave up his cat OCD-ness and took to licking the lampshade in my bedroom and that eventually fell apart due to the sheer amount of cat saliva it had soaked up. Then Twinkles moved on to having a deeply sexual relationship with the velvet armchair in my sitting room. It was embarrassing to watch. He just seemed to pass one obsession up for another, and then he completely surprised me by going missing one night. He never left the house in his life and it scared me, but even more surprising was the night he gave birth to three kittens and made me realise he was a SHE. I should have known I suppose. Twinkles eventually got adopted out when my daughter Ashley was born, because the cat decided that Ashley’s crib and preferably her tummy was the perfect place to piss on nightly. I loved her, but had to stop her from trying to piss on the baby constantly. I am sure she had fun wherever she went and miss her to this day, though my Hoover doesn’t. Her OCD behaviour broke three Hoovers in six years with the sheer amount of litter that passed through its pipes. |
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Many years ago I used to hang out in a wee Italian Café in Shettleston where I was born. It’s a small place Shettleston; it’s the kinda place where if the full moon gets reflected in the local pond, people threw in dead cats to see if they will be resurrected in its magical waters. I am exaggerating, it’s not that mental. But the locals were ‘special’ in some ways. This café I want to tell you about was a small affair and was owned by an Italian family called the Matteo’s. There were two middle aged sisters, one called Anna and the other called Ella. Anna wore a tall white pompadour curly wig which sat tall on her head like one of those profiterole towers often fashionable at cheap weddings. Ella wore a tall dark one in much the same unusual style. Both were pencil thin and wore heavy black eye make up and big dark beauty spot stabbed on their top lip. Both in skin tight leopard skin clothing. She also owned a wee ginger lap dog called Tootsie. I knew Ella more than Anna; as she ran the café with her side kick Terry the Poof and the wee dog. In Glasgow you are usually named after your character, for instance there was also a man called ‘Bobby the Kiddie Fiddler’ because he was a paedophile. Strangely no one called her -‘Ella the Black Wiggy woman’, but I suppose being gay ear-marked Terry out for his unique name. Terry was also middle aged and lived in a caravan out at the back of the café where a collection of unseen dogs that barked often were tied to a fence post. He had a face that sagged around the eyes as he had been beaten too often and the black eyes that had just faded eventually sat like deflated poached eggs on his weather beaten cheeks. He drank too much booze as well, he would often drag a half bottle of whisky out of his back pocket and take a slug at it between serving up soggy chips and black edged crispy looking fried eggs. He wore skin tight black jeans, a baggy bright shirt on his scrawny frame and always had a bright pink chiffon scarf tied around his neck in a big fancy bow. It was the kind of fashion statement that made drunk and angry men hit him often, and I admired his tenacity and the sheer force of will that made him continue to wear it in the face of fear and aggression. Shettleston was not ready for a man who wore a pink pussy-cat bow tied scarf and flaunted his love of music by camping around dancing and often stood with his hand on one hip. On his head he wore a tight black beret at a jaunty angle. He usually had a black eye that was in several shades of fading, the colours ranged from a deep scuddy purple to a pale yellowish green. It somehow suited him. I was seventeen. I shared his love of music and the café had a great juke box, it was at the height of the ‘Grease’ and ‘Saturday Night Fever’ era and the songs of both top box office films would blare out of that old 10 pence a song silver coloured juke box. Terry and I would dance. The dogs out back would bark and Ella would scream for more chips. The café seating area was based around a corner shape with a few boxed-in Formica bench seats that you slid into with fixed Formica yellow tables with aluminium trim. In the window there was a big ‘Terry’s All Gold Chocolate’ advertisement display made of cardboard that pulled out into a two dimensional image that looked like a big balcony overlooking some Mediterranean lake. It was dreamy and exotic to me, the cardboard image was of a young beautiful couple dressed in elegant evening wear. They stood at the white stucco balcony and looked out at the still blue water and I often stared at it and wondered if I would ever find such a well dressed man in a dickie bow who would give me chocolates beside a moonlit lake. Terry would watch me stare at it; he would scoot in beside me, cross his skinny legs and ask “Isn’t that scene gorgeous? I want to go there too, where do you think it is?” I would shake my head and imagine myself in a big blue dress looking over the calm waters with a sexy man at my side. “How deep is your love” the Bee Gees played in the background and I was whisked away in my imagination again. I would often joke with Terry and ask him if he was the chocolate man in the advert of the same name and he would laugh back at me “Yes, I am the chocolate man, I melt when you hold me tight” and then he would twirl around as he held aloft a plate of greasy chips, and then bend elegantly and kiss the cardboard man in the dickie bow and evening suit. I would giggle and clap my hands. Ella would scream at the top of her voice and tell me to stop encouraging him. The heart of the café lay with Ella’s wee dog Tootsie. It was a tiny pom-pom orange dog, I don’t know the breed, but it was strange looking. It had a reddish coat like a fluffy squirrel’s with a wee pointy blackish face and tiny wee skinny sleek ginger legs that peeked out of the fluffy body. It yapped constantly and bit everyone it came within six inches of. It was small enough to be the size of a handbag. The wondrous and bizarre thing about the evil ginger fluff ball was…it often had a heart attack. Now I don’t know if it was actually a heart attack, but it would yap furiously and then fall on its back, like the biggest drama queen alive, then it would gasp and Ella would scream. She would physically throw the hot chips and runny eggs at the wall, run around hysterically, Terry would flap his hands and scream like a banshee as his scarf got entangled in his face and Ella would demand anyone that was present to press on the chest of the wee upturned dog till it came back to life. That role often fell to me, I would jump up…as if I had been trained in dog CPR, and then grab the orange smelly beast, clear the Formica table with my hand like you see professional doctors do in preparation for an emergency operation. The dog would be put on the table, I would press onto its wee tufty orange haired chest a few times and then it would leap onto its scrawny legs and bite me, every time. Terry and Ella would be running into the street screaming around each other as passers by would gawp at them, realise the dog was having an ‘attack’ and carry on as normal. Customers would sit and wait till the drama passed and Ella would not come back in till the dog was standing at the door yapping again, she would scoop it up and kiss its horrible wee mouth as Terry stroked it and whispered soft soothing words. Then the café would get back to normal. One time when I was being Janey the Dog Doctor, a young tall boy who worked in the bar across the road from the café came in and watched me perform on the beast and quietly said to me “That dog pretends to die every day, you do know that don’t you?” “Yes, I know but it scares Ella” I could feel him smiling at me as I kept my eyes down on the dog, which was now back on its feet. Its attack was not as life threatening that day; I think the young guy’s honesty shamed the wee animal. He laughed and said “Her and Terry are a couple of fucking drama queens, they love the attention” I stared at him angrily, his deep brown eyes held my stare. I snapped back “Some people need a wee drama to get through the day”. He shrugged and walked away. He left slamming the door behind him and it shook the fancy cardboard display that fell from its position and landed flat on the floor. The Mediterranean was upside down and the happy couple landed in some cola that was spilt on the floor. I gasped at the sight of it – it was all collapsed and distorted looking. Terry rushed to pick it up; he looked at me and wiped it down with a wee cloth and then he carefully put it back up at the window. “All good Janey, nothing damaged” he spoke softly “The happy couple are fine” Terry looked at me and patted the cardboard man on the head and came over to see how Tootsie was recovering. “That boy fancies you” Terry said as the dog jumped back up and viscously bit my arm. “I don’t like him, he is a dick” I snapped as I sucked at the bruise on my wrist. Terry smiled and winked at me. I wonder what happened to Terry, Ella and Tootsie; I hope they lived happily ever after. And that tall boy who came into the cafe? Well Terry was right, he did fancy me and we married three years after that meeting. To think we met over a dog that pretended to be dead in a café where a gay man with a bruised eye and jaunty cap worked with a woman in huge black wig. |
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Husband and I took a short break down to the beautiful Lake District. The weather was awesome and so amazing. The place is so startlingly lovely. The rolling hills that line the stunning lake make a great backdrop to Bowness in the Lake District. The down side is that Beatrix Potter lived there and after the success of the movie Miss Potter- the place is awash with the biggest amount of Japanese tourists you have ever seen in the UK in one small town. Japanese people LOVE Beatrix Potter more than you can imagine. Now before you jump on the content of that statement and declare it racist hear me out. I am not averse to Japanese people or any tourists whatever their nationality but squillions and squillions of them in swarms trying to walk in groups through the tiny wee winding crooked lanes of this teensy wee town is really hard to cope with, especially with the sheer amount of traffic that trundles through the place. I was almost knocked down twice trying to walk around groups of Japanese people who didn’t think to walk in single lines along skinny pavements that lined the major road through Bowness in the Lake District. It was scary. Portraits of Jemima Puddle duck and her friends in a shop window made huddles of tourists scream in the street and stop to take umpteen photos of them. How bizarre is that? After the dodgy walk through the town we decided to stay over for the night and we found a lovely hotel with big views across the water. We both sat there and took in the amazing panoramic sight in front of us. We eventually went down to the hotel swimming pool and had a wee swim around. After I went down under the warm water, my ear popped and I came up to the surface DEAF in my left ear! My left ear had managed to compact all the wax it makes and jam itself into the ear drum. I could hear nothing but an echo inside my head and it was infuriating. So today I got a docs appointment and got my ear syringed, its where they squirt warm water deep into your ear canal at a fast rate, then the wax comes gushing out with the water. The whole experience isn’t uncomfortable at all...in fact it’s quite…erotic in a way. I am sure there is a G Spot inside my ear and as the water gushes around it, it was quite sexy and nice in an odd way! I may get addicted to it. Now my health complaints have increased - I have discovered that I have a lump the size of a small pea on my wrist. It’s called a Ganglion or something like that. Ashley called it a Porpoise as she forgot the word Ganglion and told my dad I have a porpoise on my hand- and the doc told me I have to have it cut out. So now I have to arrange surgery. Whoopee…I am falling apart slowly. |
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On Saturday husband and I drove through Anstruther; it’s a small fishing village in Fife. Home to the UK’s best fish and chip shop and near enough to St Andrews’ for us to seek accommodation for the night when I was playing the Byre Theatre. We decided to stop when I saw sign saying ‘Hotel’. It was a bar that had self catering apartments attached. I walked into the pub and there was a wee skinny young woman called Kelly, who told me she was in charge. “Do you have flats for one night?” I asked. “Aye, we do” she answered. “Can you show me the room?” I asked her. She had thin greasy blonde hair, looked tired and pulled out some keys and told me to follow her. She opened a door which revealed a disabled bathroom in front of us and two rooms either side. In the wee hallway, stood a wee greying dog, it had white eyebrows, a white tufty beard and a milky eye. It whined constantly and limped about. “What’s the dog called?” I asked, secretly wondering if we had to stay with an aged crippled dog, did it come with the room. “Erm…I am not sure I call it Skippy” Kelly said. I looked at the dog and thought to myself ‘That dog hasn’t skipped since 1978’. “There is one problem, the disabled toilet here belongs to the bar, and so if someone comes in on a wheelchair, we have to bring them through here to use the loo” Kelly told me. The dog whined and limped more behind us. “So at anytime you may be in here, in the flat where I am staying with some poor disabled person who needs the toilet?” I asked incredulously. “Don’t worry, you will have plenty warning” Kelly assured me. “People in wheelchairs don’t often have much warning when they need to pee” I added. The dog stared at me and whined again. “What is wrong with that dog?” I asked as I had a quick look in the 1970s styled living area. All cream plastic sofas, nylon carpets and cheap wood fire surrounds. “Its owner died last week” said Kelly as she carried on showing me how to work a microwave oven, which I suspect was new technology to her and the locals in Anstruther. “Look I am sorry but I don’t want to stay here, but thanks” I smiled and went to leave, husband had just arrived as he had been parking the car. He took one look around and shook his head at the room. Then the dog huddled at my feet and tried to sleep on my flip flopped feet. Husband looked at the old grizzled dog and raised an eyebrow in question at the whole scene. “Ok, then” Kelly said and started to walk out the door. I tired to follow but the dog started walking with me laboriously and I felt compelled to walk slowly to let it keep up. Husband and I got outside and I opened the car door to get in and the wee greying dog hobbled at my side and tried to climb into the car. I looked at its one clear eye, its wee bearded face and wiry coat and felt sorry for it; I leaned down to stroke it and heard Kelly say “Excuse me; do you want to keep the dog?” Husband made a huffing sneering noise and I looked at the dog then at Kelly and said “Tempting but actually…no…I don’t think it has long to live” I tried to shut the car door and heard her shout. “It really likes you and its owner died and it’s really sad, you should take it Mrs” She pleaded. Husband leaned over, gently pushed the wee dog out of the car entry and slammed the door; he revved the engine and drove off. The wee dog stood on the pavement as I watched it disappear in the car mirror. “We are not collecting old nearly dead dogs Janey” he shouted as I pleaded for him to go back and keep the old dog. We spotted another B&B place “You go check I will go park the car” Husband muttered. I stood at the glass door and knocked lightly, I really did want to stay over so I could get a shower and go do my show in St Andrews that night. I heard loud violent barking, a shape through the mottled glass door looked like it was coming down a flight of stairs, it sounded like a mental dog…again. An elderly woman with the bluest eye shadow I have ever seen opened the door at a peep as a big black dog popped its head round to bark and growl at me. “That’s Shelia, he is really a pet of a dog, he was beaten so badly as a pup” she said as I tried to get the dog away from my leg, it was snapping at me. ‘Shelia’ I thought…an unusual name for a male animal, and as far as being beaten? It almost bit my thigh; it may need another punch to the head I thought to myself. “Do you have a room for the night?” I asked, convinced I could now play the part of Joseph in any contemporary Nativity Play to the full effect. “Yes, but the dog doesn’t like you so I am not sure if it will work out” she said without any sarcasm. Her blue pasted eyelids scared me and her incredibly black eyebrows were drawn way up higher than her natural ones should be, giving her the look of a very surprised transsexual. “The dog up the at the hotel near the shop liked me so much the owner almost gave her to me, I am good with dogs” I tried to convince scary eye woman to let me stay. “She likes anyone that dog, her owner died and she is looking for a new home, she would stay with a dog killer” she sneered at me. “Ok, can we stop talking about dogs and tell me if you have a room for the night?” I butted in. “No” said the crazy woman and she slammed the door, the dog barked through the glass and I heard the mad lady say “Don’t worry Shelia, I didn’t like her either” Husband laughed at the story and convinced me to sit on the harbour and he would go get us fish and chips from the famous chip shop. The queue was fifty deep at the front, as people from all over come to buy their fish and chips there. The place has won all sorts of awards for its tasty deep fried goods. I sat on the warm stones, took in the late summer sun and wondered where we were going to stay. I came to the conclusion that we wouldn’t get a place to stay, we may get a dog but no room, so I would head to the Byre Theatre in St Andrew’s have a shower, do the show and head for home. Husband waited an hour to get the fish and chips and YES it was worth waiting for, so yummy and delicious, so crispy with thick fluffy fresh fish and chunky fat chips. We sat happily at the waterfront, boats bobbing in the sparkling water, the ancient stones on the harbour wall holding their heat for our fat chip eating bums to rest on. We arrived at the Byre Theatre in plenty time, the place is so wonderful. I had a great shower in my dressing room, fresh towels and fully stocked green room to have a good cup of tea and a sit down before the show started. The theatre was almost full when I stepped out at 8pm. I love comedy, I love being onstage…I did 1 hour 25 minutes and that was good value for money for an hour show! The audience gave me a really good cheer at the end and I walked out front and thanked them for coming along, I love meeting the people after the show. Some people brought along my autobiography for me to sign, luckily no one brought along a dog for me to keep. I wonder what happened to wee old Skippy, and who knows how that crazy eye shadow lady gets guests based on her dog’s dysfunctional personality, but what a great day! |
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I think I make a good friend to my close pals. Though according to very reliable sources I exhaust people, I talk too much and I don’t really listen. This last bit could be true as I know that sometimes when people tell me their problems I am mentally redecorating their flat or imagining what I would do with such a cute alcove. Or I am off on an Arabian adventure. It’s a problem I call attention deficit disorder. It hasn’t actually been officially diagnosed by a real doctor but it’s my excuse for being annoying when it suits me. I can fake interest and go away to a place inside my head and run barefoot on a sandy beach. I have been known to speak and drift away at the same time. No one really notices this gift except my daughter Ashley. “Mum, are you listening to me? I just told you I broke my ankle” she said one day in the middle of a conversation about all the things that happened that day at university. “You haven’t broken your ankle, you are fine” I muttered as George Clooney kissed me on the mouth as I lay in a swinging hammock on a beach in the Bahamas’. “Yes but I am trying to get your attention” she moans. I can pay attention and pay lip service in the same moment. But she says she can see it in my eyes, I have a ‘distant’ look when I am supposed to be focussed. When I was a child I could very easily take myself out of horrible situations and completely immerse myself in another world. Handy when you are being sexually abused or watching a screaming fight between your parents, good for distraction all round. I call this gift ‘Drifting’ and I love it. The sheer amount of times I have been in a drudgery of hell and transported myself to another place. Like when Ashley was a baby and was taking at least four hours to feed on one bottle and by the time that bottle was finished it was the time to start her next feed again! I would sit there and have conversations in my head with Charles Dickens, Voltaire or have myself walking through some Amazonian rain forest looking at all the different plant life, smelling the deep earthy wet undergrowth or be simply swimming up and down a huge open air pool. The water lapping at the sides of my arms relaxing and refreshing me with every stroke, never once leaving the room or disregarding my baby’s welfare, drifting is a gift. Sometimes I have had to sit through the worst of comedy nights as new acts or even established acts who have bored me to the utter depths of insanity and off I go…to the Great Wall of China, to tea at the Ritz, to lying on a quiet grassy headland looking out to sea, the gulls above me calling out, the water crashing off the rocks…all easily accessible in the darkest and nosiest of comedy clubs. Even sexual imagery is a wonderful escape; I can be with any man in any place at any time. The amount of times I have made Brad Pitt exhausted on a train to Edinburgh is obscene. Daniel Craig, the new James Bond has kept me well entertained on tube rides through London, and 50 Cent my favourite rapper doesn’t mind I am 46 years old as he drags his big leather belt off his jeans and strips, dances and lays me down on his bed whilst I have been sitting through a mortgage meeting with my bank manager. I call it a vivid imagination; my mates call it ignoring them, but who can tell? Would you rather listen to an hour of ‘What shoes should I buy?’ or go fuck Justin Timberlake in the back of his limo as he begs you for more? As Einstein once said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. |