08 MarStars and Stripey Pyjamas

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Overall I declare it dull this year – but not dull enough to duvet dive any time before dawn. I watched the lot and passed my husband on the stairs at six o clock this morning when he was on his way down and off to work. My job, watching the 2010 Oscars, was done.   According to him staying up all night to watch celebrity trash tv  is a sure sign of mental illness. But what does he know ? The man wouldn’t recognise Meryl Streep if she sat on his lap.

Where were Brangelina? And Tom and Katie? And Nicole and Keith? There was a lot of sparkle missing. I felt that I made the effort, I wore a diamonique brooch on my stripey pyjamas, so why couldn’t they be there?

‘Nood’ was the dress shade trend. Or nude if you are British, which was rood if you’d  been waiting up all night for some astonishing splashes of colour.

Sarah Jessica Parker was wearing a sex game inspired dress that had a strangely placed strap around her throat and was just an orange and a plastic bag away from, well,   I don’t know but I’ve read about it…..

J Lo seemed to have an occasional table hidden under the left hand side of her oddity  dress. She could do a cover of Jake the Peg wearing it as there was plently of room for a third leg under there.. 

Melanie Griffiths had snipped a couple of stitches on top of her head so she could smile with her  (sponsored by Walls Sausages) plastic fantastic lips. 

Someone needs to tell Colin Firth that  John Frieda  Frizz-Ease is currently 3 for 2 at Superdrug. And why does he have teeth the colour of daffodils?

Claudia Winkleman chatted with her panel of experts in the Sky Studios in London. One was David Baddiel who mostly answered her inane questions with, “I can’t say, I haven’t seen the film.” And Ronnie Ancona was too fascinated by what she looked like on the studio monitors to discuss anything sensibly. She was horribly self conscious and tried hard, for five whole hours,  to be a glammapuss but didn’t get anywhere near.

Gorgeous George was there in the front row with his girlfriend. She was a bit proprietorial for my liking. It was the way she sat next to him I objected to.

I’m resting up from today in preparation for 2011.

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07 MarHiawatha Hosiery

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I thought ’Mantyhose’  -  tights for men – were extreme.

But how about these from Wolford ? http://www.wolford-partnerboutique-w1-london.com/item.asp?pid=1217  Fringed tights at £199 a pair. If you can’t afford them but yearn to be on trend my tip is to wear cheap fishnets and don’t shave your legs until your below the knee, ahem, ‘fringing’  has grown to the required length.  

Wolford say these tights are 1920’s inspired,  but the photo makes me want to sharpen my tomahawk which I know is in my wigwam somewhere .

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06 MarThe Grim Sleeper

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Oscar is a five year old cat living in a Rhode Island nursing home who - FIFTY times in a row –  has slept on the bed of a resident who then dies a short time later. Staff are convinced that Oscar is  predicting who is next to pass away……

I’m no Miss Marple but I have a question ?  Are the staff  checking that Oscar isn’t sleeping at the top end of the bed across the  airways of the doomed residents ?

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03 MarWorms and Dancing Alone

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Today I have a big treat for the many lovely women I know who are single. It’s expert advice – from the writer Andrew Trees in his book ‘Decoding Love’ - about how to attract a partner.

Easy peasy – you have to get within ten feet of the man you fancy and stay put - for at least an hour - because  you need to smile broadly at him a minimum of 35 times in those 60 minutes. I’m guessing that if you spot Mr Right paying for petrol or in a supermarket and he wants to move on before the hour is up, well you’ll just have to learn to smile fast. My( not at all expert) advice would be to practice  speed smiling  in the mirror first to be sure your look is alluring and not loony-chic.

Tip number two from Mr Trees also involves getting within ten feet of the object of your desire, and then dancing alone to music.

 I tried this on my husband last night when he was watching Shed TV.  I made my own music by singing  The Birdy Song, a particular favourite of his, and he responded by asking me if I had wormed the dog.

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28 FebWorth Knowing

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Piers Morgan wrote last week that Susan Boyle has never asked how many CD’s she has sold or how much money she has made since graduating from Britain’s Got Talent into international superstardom.

I was one of many who loved her from the start, for  her voice yes,  but also the way she challenged people’s perceptions of what you had to look like and be like to be a successful singer.

 But having read Pier’s comments I’m not so sure I should be a fan any more.  Now that I know she’s ignorant of all the commercial benefits of her long awaited fame and fortune, then I don’t feel I should be enjoying her work.

It’s like watching dancing bears or elephants doing circus tricks - no matter how good their acts are and how well they are taken care of -  it’s not decent to watch if they are not in charge of their own skills.  

 I want Susan Boyle her to love her stacks of new money - to be shopping, saving for her future, sharing her cash with family and friends and doing anything at all she feels like with her hard earned fortune. But to think that she is working flat out but has never seen a bank statement, makes me feel like I’m somehow involved in her exploitation.

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25 FebPat in a Hat

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My husband and sister and I had a threesome theatre night out on Monday and went to see ‘The Dead School’ at the Tricyle Theatre. The production is  about everything:  education, life, love, religion, and it’’s poetic,  operatic, funny and mesmerising

For a change I have no complaints about my seat, or my neighbours or the cost because I would have sat through any discomforts just to be there. For £8 it was value plus, plus.

It’s a tricky and fast moving play with a few  political and religious references which, in the interval, the three of us sat in our seats and tried to work out. I  never go to a theatre bar in the break. I think it must be my  wino streak that stops me paying squillions for a glass of the red stuff when I know I can get a litre for the same amount or even less in the supermarket. I’m an under the flyover type drinker – no finesse at all.

So we three drank water and  bantered on about the first act.  I noticed  the man sat next to us  was listening closely whilst pretending to be deeply absorbed in his programme. He wouldn’t make eye contact with any of us, even when our discussions about the play became quite heated and we could have done with an extra viewpoint. At one point he seemed to be laughing at our ideas.

I was sat in bed applying face cream with one hand and holding  the play’s programme in the other (which is my ritual way to end up a night at the theatre) when in there I saw a photograph of the play’s writer, Patrick McCabe. He had been our silent neighbour, sitting there listen to us trying to figure out some of the meaning in his work.

I wish I had known the writer of the play was in our midst. My dad was a keen bingo player and before he set out he would always rub the head of someone if he believed they were somehow lucky because he was convinced that good fortune was transferable.

Patrick McCabe was wearing a hat on Monday night but I would have so loved to have lifted it up and given his scalp a good old rub just in case some of his supreme talent and good fortune might stick to me. I bet he would have found his voice if I had.

ps: Watch out for the actress Carrie Crowley who stole ‘The Dead School’, she’s a Greer Garson lookalike and a powerful stage presence.

Category(s): Everyday life
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23 FebCheryl, Mantyhose and Spooky Rabbits

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I’m on the gallop today so here is a  four in one blog to catch up from last week….

Cheryl Cole – after the coitius vomitus interruptus incident  – when adulterous Ashley paused on the job to puke on the bedside rug before carrying on to score with another woman - why did Cheryl ever offer him a replay ?

Men in Tights – they are on sale in Selfridges and cost £70 – yes SEVENTY- pounds a pair and are the latest style statement for hip hop and happening men. Don’t  laugh, mantyhose could solve the problem of one missing sock forever. They come in three special butch shades: charcoal, black and beige to go with everything and are 120 denier – tough enough to play football in. If you think your hunk would be comfy in ‘mantyhose’ perhaps he could try out eyeliner for men, too. That’s called guyliner by the way if you want to ask for it in Superdrug.

I had my publicity pictures taken for my book last week. The photographer was lovely. He told me he had worked with Maya Angelou which made me weak at the knees with admiration and awe -  there isn’t a finer woman writer alive in my opinion. I was expecting him to remark on my similarity to Nicole Kidman and express amazement at my perfect lips (they really are, ask my family) but what he actually said, a lot, was “Stop talking!”

I can’t wait for April 1st to see what Londons’s freebie newspaper The Metro will come up with. It couldn’t be any finer than last week’s story about a four feet long rabbit called Ralph that weighs 42lb, more than the average three year old child.  Psychic  Derek Acorah believes rabbit Ralph is responsible for spooky goings-on in his owner’s house because the bunny is channelling the spirits of a ghoul. 

I say get Ralph some rabbit tights so he can be hip, hop and happening.

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16 FebGrandparents – Treasures or Terrors?

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My four children have perfect teeth, 4 x 32 = 128.

That’s 128 reasons to love my mum, their grandmother, right there. She would line the four of them up, or prop them against something if they were too young to stand, and count to one hundred all the time  eyeballing them to make sure teeth got brushed thoroughly top and bottom, inside and out. Then, when she reached one hundred she would start all over again and make them brush some more. The reason they needed to brush their teeth so thoroughly ? Nanny had a sweetie bag the size of a family suitcase that was never closed to  little hands.

On Radio 5 Live’s Tony Livesey’s programme last night I took part in a discussion about how grandparents are too soft and can make their grandchildren fat and indolent. Lots of callers and texters to the programme complained about grandparents being over indulgent.

 My children worshipped my mum and dad.  They shared a common enemy – me.  I was horrified that my dad allowed my children and their friends  climb trees and swing upside down from pencil thin branches on the walk home from school.  And they loved it when he got them to roll up a week’s supply of cigarettes using his tin of tobbaco and rizla red papers, especially the licking part.  I only found out about that when they wrote about fag making in their school diaries and the teacher showed me…..

My experience of grandparents is that they have a unique combination of patience and kindness that mums with jobs and menstrual cycles could never equal.

Last night I defended them to the end on radio because I believe they are national treasures. What’s your grandparent story?

Category(s): Family life
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12 FebDesigner Gowns on the NHS

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Top fashionista Ben de Lisi who has created frights, oops that would be frocks, for Helena Bonham Carter has been commissioned to design a new generation of hospital gowns for NHS patients.

 Helena with her electric shock style hair, pale skin and panda eyes is the perfect NHS muse for an outfit to wear whilst having a near death experience. I’m sure Ben will remember to accessorise: mock-croc morgue tags and bling studded containers for dentures could be included in his high style hospital range. And what about irridescent bedpans in a range of seasonal colours. Or maybe some linen syringe covers in neutral shades?

And why are the existing hospital gowns called ‘bum flashers’? Any time I have ever worn them I tie the opening at the front. Does that makes me a belly button flasher?

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08 FebSnap Unhappy

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My husband’s laptop is the keeper of family photographs so when I was asked for one this week by my publisher – I asked him to email me a few to choose from.

It was taking a long time –  with him this means he’s asleep or watching Braveheart again - OR that there is  a problem.

I went to find him and he was at the laptop having a great time scrolling through hundreds of photos -  none of them of me. His push bike was photographed from every angle, the dog was snapped in various poses -  awake asleep and covered in mud. There was even a blocked toilet (I didn’t ask) and a shot of his favourite kebab shop.

“Where am I?” I asked.

He looked aghast. I think  he thought I was having memory or existential issues.

“Photographs of me. Where are they ?”

“I was short on disk space so I think I may have deleted you” he confessed.

You know that saying about happy marriages –  that a couple should never let the sun set on a disagreement? Well my version of that is that you should never accept an apology until the season has changed.  We are officially not speaking.

Unless until he finds a  recent photograph of me that makes me look like Nicole Kidman.

Category(s): Family life
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