Tonight, at midnight, december starts, but so does another thing.
A secret thing.

Oooooh, the excitement…
Watch this space…

My kitten likes warm places, and things that smell of food.
It would seem to follow that I should put my kitten in the oven.

If I put my kitten in the tumble-drier, how fluffy would it be when it came out?

My glittering TV career - Part One; “Chat show star”

You see, now this is one of those stories that are better told out loud.
Because I know what I sounded like a 14. And anyone actually listening to me naturally knows what I sound like now.
And the contrast between the two is part of the comedy.
So bear that in mind.
Now, and in the background, forever, I’ve had this nothing-poshish-BBC-type accent thing.
But my accent chameleon genes have always been there, and for most of my youth and childhood, it was the good, solid West London accent that stopped me from getting beaten up any more than I already did.
I can still do it, in a moment, when needed.

Where the lisp came from though, I don’t know.
I have a little problem with the letter ‘s‘, but I think most people do.
The more I think about it, the more problem I have, and the letter ’s’ seems to go on forever.
But I think that happens to a lot of people.
It’s just one of those ‘evil’ letters.
So.
TV.

I was about 14. 14 and talkative and good with words. Sometimes.
Mr Owen, the French teacher I had a slight crush on from 1990-1993, asked another verbose classmate and me if we’d like to be on television.

Of course we would.
Wouldn’t everyone?
It meant we missed half a day of school, for a start…

It was a talk show. About discipline in schools.
And God knows they were right to ask our school.
Our school was the closest ‘rough’ school to the BBC, wedged next to a hospital and a prison, both of which might have come in handy in term-time.

We went, and we went to talk about how class-sizes affected discipline.

We sat there for a long time.
Some bird from a private school talked a whole bunch. Nadine (my classsmate) and I nudged each other and pointed at her and laughed quietly. She was posh. She had no idea what she was talking about.
We were street.
We knew stuff.
We could talk.

And so, after the third time ‘little Maggie’ spoke, I raised my hand.
I had something important to say.
Something important. Goshdarnit.

Kilroy, the host came over.
Kilroy, and his mike, and the camera.

“Well” I said “The thing ith, right, the thing ith, in my thcholl, in my thkchool, you’ve got thirty kidth to one teacher and if he doethen’t have control over them then….”
at this point, my only point, the point I’d thought about beforehand, the only intelligent point I had to say, the point that was coming out unbelievably badly, Nadine cut in.

Nadine, my friend, my classmate, cut in.
And made a much better point.
Much more intelligently.
Much more verbosely.
And the camera swung over to Nadine.

This is, by a long way, the best point in watching the video.
For quite a while you get a two-shot of Nadine and Me, with me, having just spouted spluttering shite, and Nadine talking well and intelligently about life in a State School, and I’m staring at her.
I’m staring at her with daggers…

I hate her. Right at that moment, I hate her, and it’s horribly obvious on camera.
‘Why didn’t I say that?’
‘Why is everyone nodding and smiling at her?’

And that’s what happened for the whole episode.
Nadine thought of the things I wanted to say, a couple of minutes before I realised that they were things that I wanted to say, and everytime she said them, the camera caught me being jealous. Horribly, horribly jealous.

I stared at her, in each of these shots, like I’d like to rip her tongue out.

It really is quite funny, watching it now.
You think that your facial expressions are subtle.
They’re just not, let me tell you now.

And as we were leaving the studio, Nadine was asked to appear on the next day’s show, and I wasn’t.
At the time, I was outraged… ‘Why not Me?‘.
And now I see.
Because she was better.
She was better then.
She wouldn’t be now.

Now, I would be able to hold my own.
I would.

I promithe.
Yeth.

I’m better now.
Thanks.

I would have used many of your hangover cures, but I couldn’t.
That would have meant dragging my arse out of bed and struggling down to the shops.
I now realise why people get married.

Tomorrow morning, and - well planned - I don’t have any classes, I am planning to be quite hungover indeed.

Which is fine for a while, but then I’ve got shit to do.
Things that I really shouldn’t do hungover.
Or can’t.
So…
Any quick hangover remedies would be mint.

Ta.

I just got chatted up by a man that cuts his own hair.
Badly.
And, independently of that, is insane.
Please, what the fuck?
Why?
Why him?

I said no.
Are my standards too high?

(correct answer; ‘NO’)

But why is he the one that….
Oh, fuckit. Is neither big, nor clever.

One particular type of belgian beer, I don’t know what type, but it began with a ‘D’, and ended with an ‘L’, is bad stuff for making you a very drunk person.

I write this as a very drunk person,
therefore I know.

Not that I am a falling over or slurring drunk person (which reminds me of a very good joke but not one that I can type only one that I can say and one which isn’t so funny then)

I’ve always managed to be a very verbose, coherent, intelligent drunk person.

Whether it was coming in to houses late at night after gigs and having to talk to my mother, acting sober as anything, I don’t know.
If it was drinking the contents of my dad’s liqueur cupboard, and acting sober when he unexpectedly popped down for a glass of water in the middle of the night, I don’t know.
If it was discovering that the bunch of students I lived with the first time around were such a bunch of dipsticks that someone needed to act sober and take control of the taxi driver, I don’t know/

Whatever it is, I have a skill.

Useful for what?
Not sure.

Point?
Lost that.

End here?
I think so.
You?

Everyone else is saying happy thanksgiving, so I’m going to join in.
I don’t know if it is actually thanksgiving, or if you guys (bloggers, journal-writers, BBC) are ganging up on me to make me think it is.
Why would you do that?
That’s mean.

But, Happy Thanksgiving. Just in case.

And just to celebrate, I’m going to go and get drunk!
Give thanks!

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we apologise for this interuption in your reading.
In a change to the scheduled planning, tonight’s episode of;
‘I’m only 25 an I’m single, and it’s not fair, and Meh Meh Meh, whinge whinge’,
the popular mid-twenties comedy-talkshow-drama-soap, will be postponed to any such time as anyone gives a shit, and will be replaced this evening by the perennial standard
‘A short rant on packaging’.
We apologise again to those of you tuned in for
‘25 and Single Whinging Diatribe’, and we assure you that normal service will be restored as soon as we forget (once again) that sub-Bridget-Jones-wank just isn’t big, or clever. Thank you.”

I like Nuts.

I do like pistachio nuts.
I like them in pubs, with beer.
Like them so much that sometimes I buy them to take away.
But I have this to suggest;
A small bag, taped to the side of the big bag, for shells.
Because otherwise I have to litter. And that’s a bad thing.
Or a portable bin, for every customer.

Or a littering waiver.
A piece of paper that says ‘She doesn’t want to, but look Officer! Shells! What shall she do with the shells?!’

Or a little monkey.
Any of the above is fine.

And the other thing pisses me off?
Lucozade.
I drink Lucozade when I need energy, because it has lots of sugar in, and that’s good.
But for a drink that they want you to drink when you have no energy, they sure screw the cap on awful tight.

Usually, approaching a bottle of Lucozade, I don’t have enough energy to get the cap off to drink the Lucozade I need to get the cap off the Lucozade.

So here’s the idea;
Syringe of concentrated Lucozade strapped to the side of the bottle.
You shoot the orange sugar goodness, you immediately have enough energy to drink the product.

It’s my idea, I know, but if anyone from Lucozade happens to be reading this, you boys can have that one for free.

If you need any more help, though, just ask.

I am sad because no one has e-mailed me in about 50,000 years.

I think my e-mail is broken.
Someone has jumped on it and it is sad and hurt.
It will not give me e-mail.

Either that, or no-one has e-mailed me in that time.
In which case I am sad.

*sigh*

I’m sorry, but I’m simply not able to take the news seriously if people continue to refer to the Conservative leader as IDS.
It sounds like a tax office.
Or a bowel condition.

(Bowel condition?! Bad anna. We promised not to talk of such things.
What would Emily Post do?)

Sorry, having just read my earlier post, I would like to reinforce two points.
1. As a writer, I am highly prone to exageration.
2. As a person, I am beardless.

I don’t know what posesses me sometimes.
Writing things that in my head, sound harmless but when looked at again make me sound like an idiot.
With a beard.

It’s terribly unladylike as well.
What am I going to write about next?

Leg shaving?
How, when I wake up in the morning, I look like I’ve been struck by lightning?

Farting?

God help me, I wouldn’t write about it even if I did do it.
Which I don’t, of course.
Ever.

So no more beards around here.
What would Emily Post do?
This will be our catchphrase.

Oh, no, hang on, it’s alright, there was something caught in my throat.