More Than Just a Cash Point

I have fallen in love with my local cash dispenser.

Not just because it has just told me I only have £10 left in my account and is therefore playing extremely hard to get.

But because it knows how to talk to a lady.

Unlike my boyfriend.

Last night I told my boyfriend that I loved him.

He gazed into my eyes and replied, ‘I love you too, my little…’

I waited, breath baited. (He’s from Liverpool so it takes a while for him to disengage from the football part of his brain and move into the romantic zone.) What was he going to say? Was I his ‘little darling’, his little sweetheart’?

No, apparently, after waiting a good two minutes while he wracked his brains, I am his little ‘roadside floral tribute’!

‘WHAT?’ I replied, pushing him away. ‘I remind you of scenes of carnage?!’

‘No,’ he spluttered. ‘I meant the floral bit – all pretty and feminine.’

‘And tragic,’ I added. ‘And tied to a lampost all bedraggled.’

‘Yes, well no, I didn’t mean- ‘

But it was too late. The damage was done. He is not going to live this one down for a VERY long time.

But this morning, this morning when I popped into my local bank, I looked at the sign above the cash point and it was like one of those moments in the movies where the picture goes all soft and gooey and the air is filled with the  sweet, sweeping music of violins.

‘I’m more than just a cash dispenser,’ it said, before listing all the lovely things it would like to do for me (like printing me a mini statement, allowing me to make a deposit etc). ‘I love it when you press my buttons,’ it finished, breathlessly.

Hmm – perhaps I should send him indoors over to Barclays for a crash course in the art of seduction?

Bumpin’ & Grindin’ at the Poetry Caff

A friend of mine, Anjan Saha, runs a music and literature event called The Literature Lounge. It happens every month at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden and is an exciting mix of poetry, prose, incense, live music, incense, red lighting, Indian sweets, incense, drumming, dancing, incense and an open mic.

The open mic is usually the cause of most of the excitement – although inhaling the incense can occasionally lead to an interesting patchouli-based high.

In the time I have been co-hosting at the Literature Lounge I have witnessed everything from drunken rants against Bryan Ferry to spontaneous verse about marriage break-ups to Amercian beat poets still a-trippin’ on the open mic – you just never know what to expect.

Last Thursday was no exception.

In the space of two hours in our smoke-filled basement we had a moon walking tribute to MJ, poems about the womb, old people and cancer. Tabla playing, a short story entitled, ‘Alien Action in Acton’ and, oh yes, a bit of bumping and grinding on the dance floor – see below:

I also read the first chapter from the thriller I’m currently working on. It was the first time I’d read anything with such a dark subject matter at a public event so I was a little apprehensive about how it would go down. But the response I got was amazing and it’s really fired me up for finishing the novel. (I had reached the dreaded half way point where I know a lot of novelists can become gripped by doubt – is the plot working? Are the characters strong enough? Have I got the stamina for another 150 pages etc, etc.) Having people come up to me after begging me to tell them what happens next and showing real interest in the characters and plot was a great shot in the arm for my confidence.

Which kind of compensates for the last time I co-hosted a Literature Lounge and Anjan cohersed me into a god-awful jam session with the musicians at the end. The musicians, being musicians, all obviously had some kind of in-built rhythm section and played along spontaneously and perfectly in time, whilst Anjan rapped about words and music and then, to my mortification, passed me a mic. I was like the Tory MP John Redwood that time he had to pretend to know the Welsh National Anthem and was filmed miming and clapping along like a sea lion.

Yes, you never know what to expect at the Literature Lounge!

If you would like more information about the Literature Lounge and our upcoming events, please pop me a message via my mailbox.

Taking the Drama Out of Tuna

Those lovely souls at John West have come up with a new twist on the good old tin of tuna. They are now selling it ‘pre-drained’ so that their customers can have – ‘tuna without the drama’.

Well thank Christ for that!

I have been a tuna lover for as long as I can remember but the one thing that has blighted my love affair with the yellow fin has been all of that incessant draining.

I mean really – after spending literally seconds opening the tin, to then have to walk ALL OF THE WAY to the sink, press down on the lid and wait for another two seconds for the brine to drain away has brought me to the brink of despair on many an occasion.

‘Oh the drama! Oh the relentless agony!’ I have been known to wail, as I watch the brine trickle away down the plughole, my will to live in hot pursuit.

So thank-you John West for making my life that little bit more bearable and drama-free. Thank you for saving me two valuable seconds of time in this day and age of juggling and multi-tasking where every second counts.

Thank you for making my tuna-life balance that little bit more manageable.

How long, I wonder, before John West go the whole hog and start selling tinned turds labelled, ‘ready drained, digested and excreted tuna’ ?

Then my life really will be complete.

Artists’ Dates

The other week at my writing groups we did a workshop based on the best-selling book by Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way.

The Artist’s Way is a great book for anyone who is looking to become more creative. It is written as a 12 week course but there are two key exercises that form the foundation of the course and even when done on their own can produce some powerful results. (A friend of mine did them and wrote a full length play in a month!)

The first exercise Cameron calls the ‘Morning Pages’ – 3 pages of stream of consciousness that she recommends we write first thing in the morning. The theory is that this will give you an outlet for any issues that might be blocking you and it also trains you to overcome your internal censor – the voice in your head that tells you what you’re doing is no good.

The second, and my personal favourite exercise from the book, is called the ‘Artist’s Date’. I always have a bit of a giggle when I introduce this one in my workshops; ‘it’s where you take your inner artist on a date’ might go down well in California but in London it can be greeted with more than a few raised eyebrows.

But Cameron isn’t talking date date – you don’t have to book a candlelit dinner for one at your nearest bistro – what she is asking is that you set aside some time each week where you do something by yourself that you know will inspire you creatively.

Here are a few of the best and more unusual suggestions that came out of my workshops. Why don’t you try one for yourself this week?

Get off the train or tube at a station you’ve never been to before and explore. Go for a long walk in the woods. Go night driving. Watch an old film. Visit a museum. Revisit old haunts from your younger days and see how far you have come. Take photographs and really study the detail in each shot. Take a trip to the coast. Read a much loved classic. Look at some abstract art to free the mind. Walk along a river or canal. Have a pamper night. Do something scary. See a good play. Visit a historical place. Go people watching. Watch the Spanish film ‘Sex and Lucia’. Visit an art gallery and think of the stories behind the paintings. Go to a church or cathedral and sit in silence and see what ideas come up. Travel around London on the top deck of a bus. Go walking on a windy day. Visit a law court and sit in the public gallery. Get up early and sit in the garden and listen to the birdsong. Go to a bric a brac sale. Visit the Departure Lounge of a busy airport. Go to the ‘Naked Art Gallery’ in Chesham (!) Spend some time on London’s South Bank – last time I went there was a beach rave going on at two o’clock in the afternoon and Buzz Alldrin was speaking in the evening! Take your notebook to a cafe and free-write.

Please note: the author accepts no responsibility for any arrests that may occur as a result of any of the afore-mentioned Artists’ Dates, in particular the ‘people watching in a busy airport Departure Lounge’ and visiting the ‘Naked Art Gallery’ in Chesham.

Till Death Us Do Part

Whilst browsing through the paper this morning I nearly choked on my breakfast (croissants and smoked cheese in case you are interested – as I am currently enjoying a ‘majorly delicious’  full fat phase- eat your detoxed heart out Gwynnie! ) when I came across an article informing me that a Swiss study has shown that marriage shortens a woman’s life by as much as one year.

Good grief – so when my boyfriend proposed to me earlier this year he was actually issuing me with a death threat.

It doesn’t help that on our first date he nearly brained me.

We had gone for a very nice drink (or ten) and were taking a shortcut home through a cemetry, where he told me he wanted to show me a very interesting grave (cut the Sid James cackling, please, there was no ‘tombstone’ in his pocket). As I bent down to examine the faded inscription on the grave, he leant casually against a tree, adopting a fully relaxed, Littlewoods catalogue man pose. As his arm made contact with the tree I heard a sharp crack and looked up to see a massive branch heading my way. It missed my head by a millimetre, landing squarely on my shoulder. I was flung forwards under the weight – he lurched forwards (to ‘try and save me’ apparently), and ended up giving me a Huyton kiss (that’s a head butt to anyone south of Liverpool).

So, on my first date I ended up with mild concussion and a dislocated shoulder and now he wants to finish me off with marriage in the first degree.

I continued reading the article.

Apparently married women are way more likely to suffer from diseases and go to hospital with mental health problems than their single counterparts.

Conversely, married men have a whole host of health benefits, including lower risk of heart disease and fewer cases of depression. They also live around ten years longer than unmarried men.

I read on.

Apparently women who experience divorce are 60% more likely to develop heart disease than their long-term married friends.

I put the remains of my full fat croissant and smoked cheese to one side.

I have already been married (knock one year off life). I then got divorced (add 60% increased risk of heart disease). Someone has asked me to get married again (knock another year off life).

I am doomed!

But why? Why should marriage be such a death sentence / invitation to the funny farm for women? Surely all the picking the pants off the floor / wrestling for the remote / map reading / having to know the exact location of everything in the house all the bloody time must only enhance our mental and physical well-being – mustn’t it?

Get the (Poop) Scoop from Goop

Has anyone else seen Gwyneth Paltrow’s ‘lifestyle’ site, GOOP, where she tells us mere mortals how to, and I quote,  ’nourish our inner aspect.’

The trouble is, more often than not she’s recommending that we go on a fast, which to my mind is not very ‘nourishing’ at all.

Like this week:

“As I write this I’m finishing the amazing three week long ‘Clean’ detox program…I feel pure and happy and much lighter (I dropped the extra pounds that I had gained during a majorly fun and delicious ‘relax and enjoy life’ phase about a month ago).”

Okay, two things. First, if relaxing and enjoying life is so ‘majorly fun and delicious’ why would you deprive yourself of a substantial diet for three weeks?

And second, isn’t there something a little tragic about someone who describes relaxing and enjoying life as just a ‘phase’.

The ‘phases’ I have been through in my life tend to be something I never want to repeat ie; the time I shaved the sides of my head and dyed my remaining hair Ribena purple (what can I say, it was the 80s, I was a teenager). Or my fondness for the Smurfs theme tune or the time I insisted my mum call my new baby brother Solomon because I happened to have a crush on a boy of the same name in my class.

I know it is impossible to relax and enjoy life all of the time but to treat happiness as a passing phase for which you must starve yourself into submission afterwards is sad beyond words.

But maybe this is the way of things when you are an actress and everything centres around the way you look.

Last night the British actress Stephanie Beecham was a guest on the BBC’s One Show. At least I think it was her – her face was so motionless it could have been her waxwork dummy.

Stephanie was talking about a very interesting and good cause – hearing dogs for the deaf. But all I could think of as I watched her rigid, expressionless face was the more pressing need for moving faces for the botoxed.

Last year a writer friend and I set up a charity called Happy Ever After. One of the projects we run is in Ghana teaching people to read and write and start their own small businesses so that they can hopefully lift themselves out of poverty.  It costs just £50 a month per village to fund our literacy programme – a fraction of what it must cost an actress to inject her forehead with botulism, or pay some ‘wonder doctor’ to tell her to drink lemon juice for a month.

Am I the only one thoroughly sickened by this perverse imbalance in the world?

Am I the only one who wants to tell these pampered actresses to get on a plane to Africa and rather than buy a little black fashion accessory/baby, do something that could make a difference to the many not the chosen few?

Notes From the Cancer Waiting Room

Yesterday I went shopping for net curtains (rock ‘n’ roll, baby!). I hadn’t planned to go shopping for net curtains (I told you it was rock ‘n’ roll). I was in my local shopping centre and walking past a branch of Linens Direct and the urge to buy some new net curtains suddenly overcame me.

So I went in, chose some nets with a very natty design and asked to buy some. Then the shop assistant asked me what size I would like.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not the kind of person who keeps the measurements of all of my windows engraved upon my heart, so I took a wild stab in the dark and told her that Iwanted net curtains with a 36 inch drop.

When I got home I discovered that in actual fact my windows have a 48 inch drop.

I now have half-mast net surtains for every room in the house.

I briefly pondered putting them up in the hope that my neighbours would think it was some kind of new trend for ‘barely there’ window dressing, but came to the conclusion that they would probably just declare me insane and so my new, made-to-measure-and-therefore-non-refundable net curtains remain languishing in their bag.

Initially I’m afraid I didn’t see the funny side at all and spent a good hour huffing and puffing about the house wondering if I could somehow stretch the net or shrink the windows.

Then, flicking through a notepad, I found the following, written one rainy day in April while I was waiting for my boyfriend in the radiotherapy waiting room at our local hospital. I had completely forgotten I had written it so it was like reading it anew and, as soon as I’d finished, it made me laugh my head off at my stressing over net curtains. If there is something silly that you’ve been stressing about today I hope it has the same effect on you…

Notes From the Cancer Waiting Room

I’m sitting in the radiotherapy waiting room and despite the sheets of rain sliding down the window, I wish I were outside. Death’s calling cards are all around me – in the sunken cheeks, translucent skin, bald heads and hacking coughs.

The silence expands. Everyone waiting, waiting for what?

But then a wheelchair breaks and laughter dazzles the room like sunlight. We are all in this together after all.

The silence filters back but this time it is accompanied by gentle, knowing smiles and nods. I resolve that when I leave this room I will Live and I will Love.

Cancer: Death’s calling card or Life’s wake-up call?

Flexed Mussels

At the weekend I went out for lunch with a friend. Neither of us were feeling that great – she is currently working for the boss from hell, I had just turned down a two book deal (yes, you did read that correctly!) – so it was dangerously close to turning into a moan fest.

But then our lunch arrived and with it a gift from the comedy Gods so jaw achingly funny I just had to take a picture of it so I could share it with you here.

No, you’re not seeing things, it really is a mussel with what looks like a stonking errection!

“At least he died happy,” my friend mused as I got my phone out to take the above pic.

Just at that moment the waitress arrived back at our table with the drinks. “What are you doing?” she asked, then uttered a long, shell-shocked (excuse the pun) ‘Ohhhh,’ as she looked over my shoulder at the object of my lens.

Of course this only made it all the more funnier. Not only did my lunch have an errection but I was taking pictures of it like some sleazy photographer for PlayFish magazine.

Anyway, I hope it brightens up your Monday like it brightened up our weekend….

Who are the Real ‘Wackos’?

Okay, now I know I promised you on Monday that I would be all Pollyanna-esque this week and blog endlessly about hope, but I just have to make a brief reference to the tidal wave of ‘Wacko Jacko Woe’ currently sweeping the globe. (Unlike the rest of the press and the media who dedicated acres of space to his funeral yesterday rather than the memorial to the 52 people murdered in the July 7th terrorist attack, I will keep it brief).

Firstly, if Michael Jackson had been an unemployed man living in a Peckham high rise with a penchant for sleeping with young boys would the world’s media be whipping up a frenzy of mourning? No, I’m sure the likes of the  News of the World would have been printing free ‘lynch him’ posters rather than tribute supplements.

Secondly, what does it say about our society today that we are so blinded by ‘celebrity’ that we are prepared to overlook their drug or child abuse? And before you email me to say that Michael Jackson’s sleeping with young boys was all perfectly innocent I’d like to ask you one question, would you have let your own kids share a bed with him?

I’m not saying that we should rip the guy to shreds now that he is dead but am I the only one whose stomach turned at yesterday’s funeral extravaganza?

Did anyone else feel sick at the sight of a grief stricken Paris Jackson being shoved into the spotlight to tell the world how wonderful her father was. Sources have said that she wanted to make a public tribute to her dad but the sight of Janet Jackson shoving a microphone under her nose and telling her to ’speak up, speak up’ when she was beside herself with grief made me think that yet another child was being manipulated for the gain of the Jackson clan.

I don’t think anyone will deny that Jackson was a deeply damaged and troubled man, but who is the more wacko? Him for believing himself to be some kind of messiah or us for being blinded by the hype?

Have You Seen the Signs?

Do you believe in signs?

I don’t mean signposts or road signs – I sincerely hope you believe in them or you could be in a lot of danger – no, I’m talking signs from the Universe telling you that you are on the right path in life, or showing you the path in life you should be taking.

On Saturday I was given a series of signs so bizarre and yet so hopeful I felt I had to share them with you.

However, my story of hope begins in the pit of despair.

For the past few months I have been trying my hand at writing a thriller entitled The Dark of the Moon. My previous novels for adults have all been relationship based dramas or comedies, so it has been quite a departure for me and a real challenge. But I have stuck with it and my page count now stands at 126. However, last week I decided to send the first three chapters to an agent friend of mine, just to make sure I was on the right track.

I guess I was hoping for words of encouragement to propel me through the next 200 pages.

However, what I got was the complete opposite. She didn’t like the main character, she didn’t like the concept, the writing didn’t ‘transport’ her the way she had expected it to, she wasn’t sure a female protaganist would work in a crime novel, no-one was getting book deals these days unless they were a ‘big name or branded’. And, in summary, the state of the publishing world made her want to ’slit her throat’.

Hmm. Now maybe if there hadn’t just been a death in my family and if I hadn’t been having other problems at home I might have brushed her email off and focused on the far more encouraging feedback I had received from another friend. But I was feeling pretty down anyway last week so I decided to take her final piece of advice and ’stick to writing for teens’.

This is rather embarassing to admit, but on Saturday morning I actually woke up crying, as I felt my goal of making it as a best-selling thriller writer slipping from view.

But then my boyfriend and I went up to London’s Southbank and a magical string of signs began to appear before me, seemingly to reassure me not to give up.

We had gone to see a friend performing some poetry at the London Literature Festival but as we had got there early we decided to have a browse of the second-hand book stalls outside the Royal Festival Hall first. Within about ten seconds I spotted a copy of my first novel for adults, Sweet FA.

As I picked it up a felt a faint thrill at the memory of getting that first book deal with Hodder & Stoughton back in 2001. I am already a published author for adults, I reminded myself. Then, a few books down, I found a copy of Father Frank by Paul Burke – another Hodder author who I’d done a mini book tour with when our first novels came out. Another happy and positive reminder. Two books along from that was a copy of a novel my editor at Hodder had given me as a gift when I first signed up. So now I had three signposts reminding me of a successful time.

I walked over to the other side of the table and found a copy of Celia Brayfield’s ‘How To’ book entitled, Bestseller. I decided to buy it for inspiration and my boyfriend and I went off to the poetry event.

During the interval there was a lengthy musical interlude from a ‘modern’ jazz duo – who I’m sure were fantastic if you like ‘modern’ jazz but to me just sounded like a load of random noises kids in a nursery could achieve (and to the guy behind me it was ‘just like mutual mastarbation’ apparently!). So anyway I decided to have a read of my new book and as I took it from my bag an old receipt fell out from between the yellowed pages. Out of interest I picked up the receipt to look at the date on it. Now this is where it gets really spooky – the date on the receipt was the exact same date I got the offer from Hodder for Sweet FA. And the receipt was for a writer’s notebook.

I tucked it back inside the book and had a quick flick through to see if there was anything else lurking there. Towards the back I found a newspaper clipping. I took it out and opened it up – it was a random advert. Then I realised that I had to be looking at the back of the clipping as half of the ad was missing. I turned it over to see a short article entitled, The Top 5 Crime Plots.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend had been browsing the Literature Festival programme and (probably in a bid to escape the ‘modern’ jazz / musical mastarbation fest going on in front of us) told me he was going to try and get tickets for the headline event of the evening,  which turned out to be a talk from the former astronaut Buzz Adlrin.

He texted me a few moments later to say the event was sold out but that he was going to wait anyway in case there were any returns – I guess that’s how bad the jazz was!!

I stayed for another hour, saw my friend perform and then went looking for my boyfriend. He was sat at the front of the queue for returns. Just as I reached him a woman came out of the box office and said, ‘I have two tickets for you.’

Twenty minutes later and we were sitting at the front of the Festival Hall watching a short film of the Apollo moon landing. ‘Well this is pretty random,’ say I, having had no idea when we had set out that morning that the real Buzz Lightyear was even in the country, let alone the same literature festival.

The film was awe inspiring, particularly a quote from JFK saying that America had chosen to try and put a man on the moon, ‘not because it was easy, but because it was hard.’ I couldn’t help thinking of my own attempt to write a thriller – miniscule in comparison I know, but surely a worthwhile concept to apply to our own lives and goals?

Then a writer came on to introduce the event. He was an expert on the moon and in the five minutes that he spoke he inadvertantly mentioned the name of the main character in my thriller (Luna) five times and the title of the book twice.

By the time Buzz Aldrin came on and started talking about the importance of challenging one’s self and how nowadays everyone wants a quick and easy fix, I had already decided that I couldn’t give up on my own personal challenge.

Yes, I would take my agent friend’s advice on board and I would read Celia Brayfield’s book and do everything in my power to make it the best possible crime novel I could muster. But I would not let negativity and self doubt get the better of me.

It might be a difficult time for writers to get book deals, Christ, it’s a bad time for everyone right now. But it isn’t impossible. Not if you still have hope and determination. And if you keep your eyes open for the signs the Universe sends your way.

In this spirit of hope and to try to counter all of the negativity out there at the moment, all this week I am going to be blogging about instances where things have actually gone right for people recently. I have two corking stories for you so please call back soon and in the mean time – keep your eyes peeled!