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“Janey, my lungs are killing me, my HIV is playing up, and my cancer might be back and am worried about swine flu” my brother called to tell me, then added “Am thinking of buying bagpipes” “Jim, you have 3 guitars, two tambourines and possibly a cello and you can’t play any of them, maybe its time to stop buying musical instruments” I replied. “Do you like Kings of Leon?” he ignored my advice and carried on about music. “Yes, I love them Jim” I said. “Me too, I might try and go see them, are they Mormons?” he asked. “Not sure, but I know the Osmond’s are Mormons if you are looking for a religious type musical group” I replied. “Do you remember that time I toured with U2 and showed Bono how to wear a hat?” he asked. “No, I don’t recall that but am sure it was fun” I giggled. My brother Jim is basically nuts and makes me laugh and snort tea through my nose. I miss him and his insane ways, he used to have a dog called Cooper who tried to rape your legs every single visit to his home. Cooper also loved to try to bite the Hickman line that was attached to Jim’s chest during his chemo regime, the dog thought the red stud on my brother’s torso was a clothes peg and Cooper loved biting clothes pegs. It was a rather disconcerting time every time my brother stripped off his jumper in front of his crazy dog. Yet he survived, as always. Much like me, we are survivors of all things medical is my odd family. My other brother is currently housebound as he jumped off scaffolding due a steel bar coming at his head and has now got two broken ankles. My elder sister has a plethora of complaints health wise but seems to be hanging on, I forget what is currently ailing her, but try hard not to think of her as an episode of House on the telly. She is a medical mystery. I don’t have anything medically wrong with me actually, I do get things go wrong when am on tour, I write them down and promise to give it to the doctor when I get home, but by that time the symptoms have gone and I forget what it was that was wrong with me. I will probably die soon, due to a long ignored brain tumour which I mistake for a headache; I am given to deep paranoia about my headaches. Occasionally I get an upset tummy or really sore heels when I wake up, but that called ‘getting old’ and nothing to be scared about. My knees make a noise when I go downstairs; I suspect am in for Arthritis. Other than that am all set to get back on the road again and flying off next week to Barcelona, then around the UK at weekends to do comedy stuff. Am glad to be home at the moment though, Edinburgh was fun but can be tiring; I also did the New Zealand comedy festival this year, so it’s all been hectic and living out of suitcases. It’s lovely to pee in my own toilet. Am also writing stuff for radio and I love doing that, it excites me no end, and I am glued to my laptop like a keyboard junkie. Went up to see my dad yesterday and it was great fun to have a natter with him. He really is an inspiration, despite being widowed this year, he is perky, cheery and trying hard not to fall asleep on his sofa and lie awake all night. He has become nocturnal and can’t seem to shake it off, I told him to come up to my house during the night as Ashley stays awake during the night as well and they may all be vampires. Had a nice laugh when I got home from Edinburgh as it turns out I was a clue in the Daily Record Quickie Crossword! It said 32 across ‘Comedian ----- Godley’ that made me smile and on this coming Sunday I am on the repeat of Just a Minute on BBC radio 4 if you are interested. So back to reality and life, it is time to be me again, I suspect! |
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I had to stop; there were scary chest pains and breathing difficulties during very casual sexual activity. Seriously, just moving my leg gave me pain and husband had to stop leaning on my body for fear it would stop functioning, that’s bad. I model myself on the youthful appearance of Demi Moore, except if you minus all the surgery she has had and the Botox and skin plumper’s. I look how she would look if she had a fatty evil Scottish food and hundreds of fags pushed into her lungs and a series of childhood infections based on poverty and poor diet, if you take that into account Demi and I are practically identical. Except my daughter doesn’t have an insurmountably large jaw line and a penchant for hanging her arse out of jeans, so what I am saying is, me and Demi Moore have fuck all in common but I wished I had the cash and balls to have extensive surgery to look beautiful, I cant even bear to get a filling in my tooth far less synthetic plastic pumped into my lip line! Ashton Kutcher is seriously hot though, I bet Demi makes him do things to her and he is scared in case she shaves her head again and starts beating him with pottery wheels or whips? Anyway I have stopped smoking again. This is possibly the ninth attempt. Who knows? I am determined to go at least six months before I become an addict again. Give my wee lungs time to heal a bit. Life is ok at the moment; husband and daughter are ignoring my rather snappy, biscuit eating, ear picking, and ranty, bitey moods as I detach myself from nicotine. I am having a week off before I start comedy gigging, though am doing some filming for a documentary in the Calton next week. Then am back on planes, trains etc, I am in London soon for an audition and a few post- Edinburgh meetings. I am going to be calm and nice about things as my body detoxifies. Am walking more and that’s good for me, had a few celebs on twitter show me some non smoking support, am determined to get fit, lose weight and stop smoking before the year is out. My daughter Ashley is on a health kick as well, she is eating better and exercising and that just encourages me to keep it up as well. Just discovered a nice noodle bar up The Great Western Rd called WU-DON and the food is so yummy, I love thick noodles and Dim Sum, so I treated myself to some nice fare and walked home in the drizzling rain, picking up some charity shop books on the way. I do love buying novels in charity shops, the best way to buy a book as far as I am concerned. Am off to sponsor Eddie Izzard on his marathon runs, you can keep up with him on Twitter and see pics and updates of his epic running journey, such a worthwhile charity, so go help please? Speak soon! |
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I am living on apples; they stop me from smoking and give me something to do with hands. I am back from the brink, no more fags…yet again. So last week I had some very interesting meetings and am very happy with the outcomes of them. Tide is turning in my direction for a wee change! It’s all swings and roundabouts as we all know but am enjoying the new stuff I am working on and Edinburgh provided great breaks for me, though I remain unconvinced that it was their -‘BEST SELLING EVER FRINGE’. The sheer amount of act selling 2 for 1s right up until last weekend was frightening, and even some of the comedy award nominees never sold out on their last Saturday, that’s shocking! People need to remember that 2 for 1s and free tickets given away COUNT as sold tickets in the final round up countdown, so it is misleading. The last two weeks of the Fringe were very quiet and I witnessed some big promoters pull shows near the last weekend, I saw TV named comics struggle getting a sold out on that board and I know heaps of poor comedy bastards that will loose serious cash this year, fucking shame all round, especially when the venue and promoters get their cash off you upfront and NO MATTER HOW BADLY your show sold…I am glad I did it all myself and don’t leave Edinburgh Fringe owing anyone cash. In fact I did make a good profit this year, and am glad I took the risk again, especially with the TV and radio work I got out of it. Onwards and upwards is the name of my game! I am off the fags and working like a wee Scottish devil, that’s what life is all about. I went back to The Calton where I used to live in Glasgow’s East End with Michael Portillo (I know -how odd?) to take part in a documentary about the area. I sat outside my old pub and stared at the old red bricked building above it that was my home for 15 years, it was where Ashley grew up and where I started out in married life. It was rather emotional especially when you consider how we left it in 1994. It looks really bad, despite being renovated. There is so much filth and clutter round the side of the building and the brick work looks dull, the windows look filthy, there are parts of the balustrade up on the roof missing and the pub itself looks like it was transported back to 1975 in a pub time machine. And I don’t mean the good part of 1975, I mean the awful drunken fucked upness of 1975. There were a whole collection of drunken people all dressed in stone washed double denim, all who looked like some evil familial DNA had robbed them of the possibility of a chin since time began. Seriously no one there had a chin, the chubby faces all dissolved into their necks with out the interruption of a chin type facial structure to halt the journey southwards. I even stared into my make up mirror in my bag, to check I do have chin, turns out I have three chins, but that’s fine, the evil chin monster hasn’t stolen it the way he did to these poor people. He even took their teeth as well, people in the Calton outside that pub, lacked teeth and chins….that’s fucked up. I don’t recall swathes of customers without chins or teeth back in my day! A black youth walked past me and as he headed across London road I heard a chinless denim clad man shout “there’s Bobo the darkie” and other deformed faced denim clad men giggled. I clenched my teeth and stared at the ground. I hated the cunt faced man and hated that this was where my child grew up and hated that old men were actually not old really and smelled of beer and piss and I come from those people. I hated everything, I tried to remember good times in the Calton. So I sat on the red fencing pipe opposite the bar and reminisced about Ashley learning to walk on that pavement, just as my golden glow of memories were over taking my brain, a car drew up, the man rolled the window down and he asked “You looking for business?” I forgot about the kerb crawling bastards who surf the Calton looking for hookers, this man didn’t have a chin either, that disturbed me more. “Fuck off chinless weirdo” I shouted at him as I waited on the camera crew arriving. He actually spat at me and drove off; to think I had glowy memories of this fucking street, what was I thinking of? A wee drunken man from my old bar came wandering across to ask me inane questions that I can bear to write down or repeat as the dullness of the conversation was only saved by the fact he didn’t have a chin and I got to look close up at the chinless facial structure of this creature. It was amazing and really worth staring at. Then Michael Portillo and the crew turned up and we all got microphones clipped on and started the shoot. The chinless man in double denim came out of the bar and walked purposely very close to the camera and shouted loudly “Don’t put me on camera, I don’t want on camera” “Fuck off out of the shot, go back into the bar and don’t come fucking near a camera is the way to cure your worry about being caught on camera isn’t it you chinless fuck?” I shouted back coz I used to live there and I recall that’s how people spoke to each other. Michael Portillo merely stared at me and then carried on regardless as though nothing had happened. I think politicians are good at pretending shit hasn’t happened and can smile through any storm, and he must know that as he was a Tory when Scottish people hated Tories and were allowed to cull them legally in honour of stolen milk and miners or something like that, I can’t totally remember! The day brightened up, we finished the shoot and wandered home. All my glowy memories of the Calton were shot to fuck, people were nuts, double denim is SO HUGE in the Calton and I don’t want to go back there, all the good people are dead and the useless chinless cunts are left behind. |
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M&S charge you for a plastic bag to carry your food home, yet they don’t charge you for a plastic bag to carry your clothes home after purchase. They also don’t charge you for all the plastic that they wrap around the food unnecessarily either, I wish they would make up their minds. I now have a ‘shopping bag’ which I take to the shops and put my food in to bring home. I recall years ago that my mum used to have a special shopping bag, like all Glasgow mammies had. It was brown, plastic, deep and smelled of potatoes and tobacco with an occasional Embassy fag coupon floating about the bottom of it. Your mammy made you carry it to the shops with a list of stuff to get and then you had to lug it back home again, feeling the handles strain against the weight. My daughter was aghast to hear that us kids -back in the 60s had to go to the shops and carry a wee bag of coal and some sticks on our shoulders all the way back to our home! I recall the day when I was considered ‘big’ enough to get the coal from Joe Lafferty’s in Shettleston Rd. He had those big tin posters of Cherry Blossom shoe polish, with wee kittens sitting in shiny boots right beside the coal stack. He helped balance the bag full of coal on my shoulder and watched me walk precariously out the door, all proud to be old enough to carry coal! The chopped fire sticks would dangle on a string beside your legs and give you skelfs (splinters) as it bounced off your thighs and later you would have to dig them out of your skin with a hot sterilised needle! Shopping was different back then! We used to wait the queue in Curley’s which was a big grocer shop; they sold all the cold meats, butter, cheese, cans and household cleaners. The floor was covered in black and white tiles and the staff wore white aprons then you had to go queue at the local butchers to get the butcher meat. So we are back to the days of proper shopping bags, and that’s a good thing in my eyes! I am hoping shopping trolleys make a come back as well, as I have a tartan one in the cupboard. Ok, some news about Glasgow -seems John Friel, an old gangster died last week. I recall him from 1979 when he parked his jaguar car outside my (soon to be) father in law’s bar in Shettleston; he managed to clip my leg as he backed up. I didn’t know (nor care) who he was, all I saw was a tall balding man wearing a beige camel coat getting out of the car and ignoring the fact he just hurt me. I ran towards him and lifted one big blue Kicker clad foot and kicked him squarely on his spine; his beige coat had a big muddy footprint on it. “What the fuck?” he shouted twisting his coat round to look at the stain. My prospective father in law laughed loudly and nodded at Mr Friel “that’s my son’s girlfriend” “She needs to stop kicking people” Friel snapped. “She probably wont” My boyfriend’s dad laughed again and the incident was over as quick as it started. We did meet up years later and he was always absolutely courteous and lovely to me, though once he told me to get out of a nightclub I was in as he was annoyed that the women I was socialising with worked as prostitutes and he knew them. “You should be at home with your husband and not out here with these working girls” he snapped at me. This was in the dark days of 1980s East End Glasgow, women back then weren’t allowed to vote, speak loudly or read at that time, unless accompanied by a female tutor or virgin/spinster companion. Me and John Friel argued for about half an hour until he conceded defeat and accepted that I was allowed to socialise with anyone I wanted, especially after I threatened to penalty kick his spine again! I recently read that he was involved in some spy ring, the IRA and a host of underground activities; I always thought he had kind eyes and a nice smile. RIP Mr Friel…may my footprint for ever be on your coat! |
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I want to stop eating bucket loads of biscuits and stop smoking without actually harming someone. Life is odd at the moment, I saw a woman with a funny black hooded hat scream at a cat in the street, the cat stared at her and basically gave her a cat sneer, and ignored her. I love cats, they really don’t give a flying fuck about people, if they were humans they would be either mentally retarded folk who are unable to recognise feelings OR upper class foppish Oxbridge bedwetters who believe the world owes them a living. They have a disdainful look about them and people end up serving their needs which apply to both the mentally retarded and Oxbridge bedwetters. Anyway this woman screamed at the cat, her voice reached whistle range and the cat merely licked a paw and wiped its face. Ok, the woman was wearing a Bhurka, and she was scared of cats, I never explained the full story, I omitted she was a Muslim lady in devout looking dress and was terrified of the cat. A man came running out of the Mosque across the street from me and he screamed at the cat as well, the cat licked its other paw and wiped its ears. The man was also scared of the cat. He paced round it, tried throwing stones at it and then finally flicked it with his foot; they needed the cat to move away from the woman’s front door. I was annoyed at the cruel way they were treating the fat tufty cat, so I walked over and lifted it up and placed it in the garden opposite her door. This leads me to wonder if people with Asian/Muslim origin don’t like/hate cats and if they do, then we are missing a huge opportunity in the war against terror don’t you think? Maybe that’s why the Muslim fundamentalists wanted to blow up the bar Tiger Tiger in London, it wasn’t the ‘loose Western Women’ they were after but anything that represented big cats! Maybe we should be allowed to carry cats onto planes and if another terrorist hijacking situation comes into play we just throw cats at them? Anyway that’s how my brain is working as I stop smoking and try to stop eating. I have HEAPS of work and auditions/meetings etc…and I need to focus and stop getting involved in cat/Muslim situations and get my head into work. I am off to see The House of Barnarda Alba at Citizens Theatre this Thursday to see the show. I wrote the foreword for the programme and am excited that Siobhan Redmond who plays the lead character cited my autobiography Handstands in the Dark as an influence on her playing a woman in a gangster family. Lastly I am excited about Susan Boyle’s new song Wild Horses, which is awesome, though the press in the US citing her as the world most famous Catholic, made me giggle, surely that would be the Pope? Not Jesus as some people originally believed to be the most famous Catholic, as we all know he is the worlds most famous Jew. I still find it funny that Catholics pray to a dead Jewish man ….ok…don’t get all stroppy and start sending me hate mail. Ok, on that odd note I am off to not smoke…speak soon. |