17 JunNicole/Papa/Pyjamas

Last night I was on BBC Radio 5 Live defending a man’s right to wear pyjamas. Guy Ritchie is apparently guilty of a crime against good taste because he was photographed on his doorstep in jim jams earlier this week. He was waving off his gorgeous new girlfriend at the time. She  is  umpteen years younger than he is.  A Nicole/Papa/pyjama moment.

The poor guy could be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after nine years with Mad-Donna.  My guess is that she wears an animal print leotard, fishnets and stilettos in bed. She’s so super  toned  that Guy probably bruised himself every time he made contact with her on their marital mattress. I bet jimmie jams were banned in Mad-Donna Mansions and post divorce he could hardly wait to jump into a pair and hang loose.

Guy was wearing  a Cary Grant style Stripey pair, by the way, not  My Little Pony or Cupcake print ones and no teddy bears were harmed in the wearing of his jimmies.  Even Mockney Film Directors are entitled to chillax and snuggle down at home, aren’t they?

And it’s not the pj’s, it’s what’s underneath that counts. Hands up who would turn down George Clooney in pyjamas?

13 JunPurgatory, Polyester and Inspiration

Just back from the Royal Academy Summer Show in London this evening. It was a special free invite that my sister had given me, even though her ticket said not tranferable. What can I say?  We’re rebels.

 I think it was a showing organised by the Orthapaedic Society ( if there is such a thing) because everyone in the room seemed to have the same neck complaint going on. Their right ear was fused to their right shoulder. Or maybe that is the correct way to view art?

As well as having a crooked neck the other essential was being able to talk  loud and posh whilst gargling Pimms. I overheard two linen clad women discussing the  prominently displayed Tracey Emin scrawl, a piece of work that in my ignorant opinion wasn’t even graffitti standard. They described it as  ’potent’ and ‘polemic’ and the ‘threshold to purgatory’. I had  ‘p’ words for it too – poncey and puerile - but  then I am a self confessed Philistina and was wearing Polyester so I didn’t chip in. 

I loved the  model of King Kong made from wire coat hangers. It  has inspired me to create something to submit for next year’s show. I’m am going to make an elephant, perhaps even a herd of elephants, installation out of all the single socks in my house. I am going to call it ‘An Elephantine Spasm in Socks’ or ‘Sock Safari’ or………I’ve got a whole year to think about it.

12 JunToo Sexy For My Car Keys

My husband and I were moving daughter number two out of her student house and  having a ding dong on the pavement outside about whether Dreamcatchers (she has several) really work or not  when we saw her neighbour step out of his front door.  A famous person.

We stopped arguing to stare at the lead singer from the pop group Right Said Fred. He has been sharing a party wall with my daughter for nine whole months.

We both tried to get through the front door at the same time to tell her that we had seen a celebrity. I won. “Who is he?” she asked as she bubble wrapped her skeleton. “Whatshisname! The lead singer from Right Said Fred!”  I cried,  all star-struck.

She’d never heard of him so my husband helpfully burst into “I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt. Too Sexy…” and did some very good moves to go with it. If you take into account that he is on a high dose of anti-inflammatories for his knee and hip pain.

Daughter number  two didn’t get a chance to comment because during his showdance my husband managed to poke himself in the eye with his car keys. Which is why this year’s Summer Anthem in our house is “I’m Too Sexy for My Car Keys.”

The dancer is currently lying on the sofa with a sterile pad over his red eye listening to the Right Said Fred album ‘Fredhead’.

10 JunPhilistina

At my Writing Group tonight the task set  for each member was to compose a list of ten things we need to create the perfect productive writing environment. Mine read:

1. Sleep – I can’t be tired

2. Clean teeth – furry teeth = furry thoughts

3. Big knickers - no distracting elastic bites

4. A tidy house - makes me feel like I’m in control

5. Bananas, milk and bread - so I have no popping out urges

6. Gold FM or Spotify for a bit of mood music

7. Constant Internet Access – so I can still be a citizen of the cyber world as I write

8.  A Deadline

9. Pink Grapefruit Squash - one pint

10. The dog to rest my feet on

I realised just how very lowbrow I am - call me Philistina -  when my neighbour started to read his list. It began with ‘Thoughts about Cubism’ (to examine character from every angle and as a route into complexity) and ‘Meditation’ , and became even more thoughtful and metaphysical as he developed and articulated his ideas.

And what did I learn tonight? Imperfect isn’t just a tense.

06 JunParadise Found

I am in mourning for my PERFECT weekend. It was spent at a Health Spa with my entire extended family. It’s amazing how alike we look  when we’re all in white dressing gowns with sticky out hair. My husband kept referring to himself as a patient instead of a guest. The kindly staff who wore white nursing style uniforms gently corrected him each time. He ate a lot of ‘Bliss Balls’, a yogurt and oats house speciality.

Before a facial my therapist asked me to describe my complexion so she could write it down on her form. I answered ‘dalmation’ and she didn’t disagree. She shook her head in sympathy, rubbed my forearm and  replied, “And so late in life!”

I had a de-stress massage that was magnificent. So much so that I walked around for two hours afterwards with my flip flops on the wrong feet before noticing.

And this morning I found my entire family sat an an Infra Red Hot Box with the dial set to the ‘sexual stimulation’ setting. They enjoyed the Hot Box but say their favourite family, non sweaty, pastime still is throwing Maltesers into one another’s mouths from across the room.

There were eleven of us and we calculated that from Friday to Sunday afternoons in steam rooms, changing rooms, treatment rooms and bedrooms we used 154 towels.

03 JunThe Ferryman, the Permit and Pandas

The plan last night was to hook the trailer to the car, drive across London from North West to South East and collect  daughter number one and her gear from her University Halls of Residence at the end of her first year. It worked perfectly the other way around last September, so what could possibly go wrong?

 At 00.55am this morning when he was driving down Park Lane for the third time in two hours my husband was hollering, “What do you get if you cross a Classicist, a Writer and half a Doctor? A sodding bunch of stupid arses that’s what!”  He was bare chested, by the way, because he had removed his tee shirt after profuse sweating during the earlier great heave ho.

When the trailer had been stacked high with her clothes, handbags, books, iron, ironing board, mini fridge, pots, pans, shoes, toiletries, buckets, photographs, soft toys and empty souvenir bottles of alcohol she had the cheek to declare, “You are so embarrassing! Why do we have to look like the Beverley Hillbillies everywhere we go?” Her new duvet didn’t make it home. That went  straight into the dustbin because she’d used it’s stuffing  to make hairy panda chests for herself and all her friends last weekend. Stella McCartney’s got competition.

Then there was the small matter of my car which has been on loan to daughter number two. She lives close to daughter number one. Daughter number three needs that car later this week. The girls and I combined our intellects and decided that I would collect the car en route from collecting daughter number one. Daughter number two had tickets for ‘Sex and the City’  and wouldn’t be home but agreed to lock her set of car keys in the boot. I had the second  set to give to daughter number three to pick up the car from an agreed halfway point which is why two sets of keys needed to be in play. Are you keeping up here?

It was all under control until weighed down with  student stuff, dinner-less and wanting to watch ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ before midnight I had a mental aberration and said to my husband, “Go straight home, I’ll sort out the other car business tomorrow.” I’d muffed up and didn’t know it, and he didn’t spot it , so by my calculations that makes him as much to blame as me, obviously, doesn’t it?

The flaw in my ‘later on’ plan which I realised when we got home was that my car, still outside daugter number two’s house was immoveable because the keys were locked in the boot. And she lives in a 7am tow away zone. and hadn’t put a permit in the car because she wasn’t expecting it to be there.  As my husband and daughter number one unpacked the car and trailer  I realised what I had done. Tomorrow was too late. She needed keys to get into the car to save us £120 fine. 

I  had a brainwave and called a local mini cab company and asked them to send a driver to collect a package from me in North West London and deliver it to my daughter in South East London then bring me a package (my car keys) back. This would allow daughter number two to retrieve her set of keys from the boot, put a permit in it and drive the car back to me later this week in time to deliver it part way to her sister, daughter number three.

The man on the cab switchboard sounded suspicious. “What is this package?” he demanded. I didn’t want to say car keys in case the driver decided to nick the car when he got there so - thinking I could hide the keys in a cereal box - I answered ”Cornflakes.”

He snarled down the ‘phone, “She likes her ‘cornflakes‘, your ‘daughter‘, does she? Piss Off Missus! We have nothing to do with drugs. I’ve got your number and I’m calling the police!”

So  my husband and I drove back across London at midnight to unlock a car that I had been a quarter of a mile away from two hours earlier. When he’d stopped shouting he talked about that well known lateral thinking problem - the one with the ferryman, the chicken the fox and the bag of feed. And I still haven’t worked it out.

30 MayElvis, Eurovision and Pushkin

This is a blog-lite because I am getting ready to go to dinner tonight in a Greek restaurant that has an Elvis impersonator working the tables. I am all shook up because I can’t zip up a skirt I bought this time last year. 

My Spotzilla (see recent post of same name) has matured into a shirt button size red disc that is clinging to my nose tip.

We don’t take Eurovision seriously enough, that’s why the UK never win. I bumped into a couple of Romanian friends yesterday at 2pm. They had finished work especially early and were going home to hang decorative lights in their front room, wash their hair, change into their best  clothes and cook the fish that was raw in a Tesco bag when I met them and so big they were sharing the weight between them – and all in homage to Eurovision.

I am in charge of Pushkin again, my neighbour’s cat,  for one night only whilst she pursues the unique joys of the Horn in Aldeburgh. His mummy handed me her house keys like she was giving me a gift and said “Someone has been attacking Pushkin.” At the same time she was goggle-eyeing my cat who had a fresh dead mouse in her mouth that made her look like she was pussy smiling. ”Oh dear, who could be doing that?” I asked her. She nodded in the direction of my cat and said darkly, “I have no evidence.”

27 MayTaxis and Truants

The cab driver who turned up to to take me to the BBC Radio 5 Live Studio tonight  opened the car door for me, helped me diddle with the seat  belt and  called me a very pretty lady.  He undid all his good work in a stroke by saying I reminded him very much of his mum.  He’s 62 and she’s 88.

I did an interview with Tony Livesey about taking children out of school for holidays in term time and suggested that as per the Queens Speech parents who want their children to sunbathe or ski  instead of study should band together and start their very own ‘Do Whatever I Want Whenever I Want’ Academy. They can take 52 weeks a year holiday instead of just 13 and teach their children that education doesn’t matter and neither does the rest of the class or the teacher.

22 MaySpotzilla

I was going to cancel my volunteering session at the hospice today – because I have a spot on the end of my nose. It wasn’t a health and safety issue or anything like that. It is very well secured to my nose and wasn’t about to drop into the jelly and ice cream I serve patients from my trolley – but it is terrifyingly big. Think a peanut, or a raisin or Nanny McPhee and you’ll be in the zone.

After grappling with my conscience I decided to be brave and go anyway in spite of what I looked like. After all, if you are resident in a Hospice you definitely have better things to worry about than my custard topped skin eruptions.

But they didn’t. Every single patient I served, bar one,  made a reference to it. “Is that your unborn twin?” “You should see a doctor about that” and “That had better not be catching!” were just three of the comments my spot got.  As I trundled around it felt as though the spot was pulsing and then I started to think it was glowing in the heat of the day.

The one patient who didn’t immediately remark on my gobstopper sized spot just sat up very straight and widened his eyes. Thinking I’d get in there first (and convinced he would be polite and deny any knowledge of spotzilla) I said, “You look shocked! It’s not my spot is it?” and he answered, “What a whopper!”

I finished my trolley rounds helped myself to a large bowl of jelly and ice cream and ate it sitting on a  bench in the Hospice’s Kindness Garden.

19 MayBarter and Garter

I am a supermarket tart, I shop around, and today I was trollied up in Asda when there was a power cut.

All the lights went out, the tills fell silent and a bunch of suits appeared and stood shoulder to shoulder shouting into walkie talkies (most likely) to one another.

I headed to the till point where two members of staff one armed with a calculator and the other with a pad and pencil wrote down the cost of anything that was pre priced and guesstimated the price of everything else. The dynamic duo who served me suggested £3.50 for a pink grapefruit, 35p for a tub of olives and 17p for a huge packet of honey nut roast cashews. 

With all the bartering in progress the queue was incredibly slow moving but that gave me time to chat with the couple behind me. She was a 23 year old Phillipino and he was a fifty plus plus scouser who looked like he’d swallowed a dozen footballs for breakfast.  

“Nawmally  he use internet for shop . That where he buy me!” chirped the pretty one of the pair. She was more out than in a green satin bustier top, leather mini skirt, seamed sheer black stockings and a diamanate garter. Her red patent shoes had little locks on their buckles.  Very keen to chat she confided, ”I fee him all his foo,  don’t I honay?”  He nodded from behind page 3 of The Sun. She continued, ”We do everthang togefur” and “I ova he so far five day.”  Then she told me that a ‘porn sta fwy’ was on tonight’s menu. Yes, I checked - there were some  prawns in their trolley.

Poor girl I thought , all too soon reality will bite. The tills will work in Asda again and her honeymoon will be ova.