Charity Brawl

This morning at about half past six I got into a fight.

Outside a charity shop.

I was taking my dog Max for a walk and we were crossing the road at a zebra crossing. A man was crossing the road towards me at the same time, shaking his head and tutting loudly. At first I thought he was having some kind of nervous reaction to my dog-walking clobber (this morning’s delightful ensemble included bright green hoodie, stripy Dr Who scarf and electric blue tracksuit bottoms). But then the man looked back over his shoulder, continuing to shake his head, and I saw the real object of his disgust  – a woman pilfering through some bags that had been left outside our local charity shop.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people doing this on my early morning dog walks, but normally, like the man I saw today, I just shake my head and give them a dirty look as I walk past. But today something inside me snapped.

Yesterday I found out that a colleague’s mother had died of cancer. She had been diagnosed shortly after my boyfriend Steve and it really rammed home to me what a sick lottery this disease can be. I guess I had quite a bit of anger inside me just waiting to come out.

So this morning, when I saw the woman stuffing her carrier bag full of somebody else’s charitable donations I didn’t just shake my head and I didn’t just tut and I didn’t just give her a death stare. I stopped, took a deep breath and said, ‘I think you’d better put that back.’

The woman stared at me.

I stared back.

She dropped her gaze, clutched her bag of spoils to her chest and barged past me, knocking into me as she went.

Well that was it, I’m afraid.

I grabbed hold of her arm, pulled her to a stop and grabbed the bag from her hand.

Then I marched back over to the ransacked binliners in the shop doorway, returned the stolen goods and, seeing the woman still staring at me, uttered the immortal words, ‘so what are you going to f***in’ do about it?’

Ah well – you can take the girl from the council estate and you can even give her a book deal…

Then my trusty companion Max started barking and growling his head off at her (it was an RSPCA shop after all) and the woman scuttled off.

Just like that.

Tinkety Tonk

The other day I was on the tube journey from hell. Readers from London will know what I’m talking about; the carriage is rammed and airless, complete strangers are forced to eat each other’s armpits and then ‘Bird Flu Bertie’ plonks himself down opposite you.  

The government catch phrase, ‘Catch it, Bin it,  Kill it’ means nothing to these eejits. No, Bird Flu Bertie prefers to use his own mantra of ‘Spray it, Spread it, Kill them’ as he sneezes with gay abandon.

To cap it all, on my journey from the bowels of hell all I had to read was a copy of the Daily Mail.  I scanned the pages for anything I’d be interested in – which lasted precisely two stops – and then I faced a terrible conundrum: should I gaze aimlessly around the carriage and risk making eye-contact with the oxygen starved, rush hour raging passengers or should I read an entire copy of the Daily Mail?

I took a deep breath (which proved to be a big mistake as Bird Flu Bertie had just taken the opportunity to sneeze again) and began ploughing my way through all of the articles I had turned my nose up at before.

By the time the train reached Finchley Road I’d realised that asylum seekers are to blame for everything – they probably even invented bird flu. I’d learnt that Gordon Brown is the devil incarnate. I wanted to bring back hanging and flogging and I’d become the Queen Mother’s greatest fan.

Now this last development was by far the greatest cause for concern. My entire life I have been a dyed in the wool republican.

It’s not really my fault. As a young child my dad would rock me to sleep singing Irish republican songs. No ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ for me.  I would slip into the land of nod with classics like, ‘Up the long ladder and down the short rope, to hell with King Billy and God bless the pope’ ringing in my ears.

However, on my tube journey from hell the Daily Mail were serialising the newly released official biography of the Queen Mum and – once I’d read every single sports review, advert and letter of small print – I had no choice but to dive on in.

And now I want to take this opportunity to take back all of my past digs at the Queen mum. She might have been a drunken old sot who ran up a small country’s national debt in gambling bills (footed by us) BUT I have to confess she was also something of a legend.

The article was littered with quotes from her, quotes which made me laugh out loud (not to be advised when alone on the London Underground by the way as there is the very real risk of being sectioned). Below are some of my favourites:

When writing to her niece during the second world war she signs off with: ‘ Tinkety tonk old fruit and down with the Nazis!’

In another letter on the subject of the first Labour government in 1924 she wrote: ‘I am extremely anti Labour. They are so far apart from fairies and owls and bluebells and Americans and all the things I like.’

What a genius and completely random way of putting things. If only our politicians would follow suit. Think how much more fun PMQs would be if David Cameron were to stand up and utter something like: ‘Gordon Brown, the tax increases that you are proposing are just like Angel Delight, traffic wardens, earwigs and all the other things I find perfectly beastly.’

And Gordon Brown were to reply: ‘Tinkey tonk, old fruit and down with the Tories!’

The Fat Lady Loses Her Voice

Regular readers of this blog will know that earlier this year my boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer.

It was all very sudden and very shocking – malignant melonoma (skin cancer) that had gone into his brain.

There are several events from that time that I will never forget. The day we were told Steve’s dizziness and nausea were being caused by a brain tumour. The long yet strangely peaceful afternoon in the hospital chapel whilst he underwent brain surgery. The evening in the recovery unit, post operation, high on relief (me) and morphine (him). The subsequent cancer diagnosis and the silent drive home. And then there was the day Steve was given his prognosis.

“You have one to two months if you don’t have radiotherapy, possibly one to two years if you do.”

We both sat on the end of the bed and cried.

To me that was the day the light was turned out.

No matter how hard I tried to be positive, the finality of the doctor’s words meant that life became a long dark tunnel, with no glimmer of hope at the end.

But Steve refused to give up.

He went on the internet and researched the links between diet and miracle cancer recoveries and embarked upon a radical overhaul of his lifestyle.

To give you some idea of just how radical an overhaul this was, pre-cancer he was a hard living actor with Ronnie Wood as his lifestyle guru. On our first date we went out for “a couple of drinks” at lunch time and had to be chucked out of the pub at closing time.

But now it was out with the cigarettes, merlot and fry-ups and in with the broccoli, green tea and algae.

He went through four weeks of radiotherapy and lost his hair. But his skin started to glow and his energy picked up.

He swapped long nights in the pub for day trips to Holland & Barratt - when he sneezes he actually rattles with all the supplements he is taking.

Then he went back to work and is currently in a play at the National.

Life went on, but for me at least there was a numbness to it, an awful feeling of apprehension; a life ruled by ‘when‘ not ‘if’.

But yesterday Steve went for his three monthly check-up and the doctor he saw gave us a new set of words to hang our lives on.

“Your body is completely cancer free. The primary tunour has gone and there is no reason at all it will ever come back.”

We both sat on the end of the bed and cried.

But this time they were tears of hope, not despair.

The light has been turned back on and now all I can see are possibilites.

They say it ain’t over till the fat lady sings – and sometimes, like today, the fat lady loses her voice.

Thought for the Day

Thought for the day.

Last month Peter Andre released his first single since the legendary ‘Insania’.

So his newly dumped and freshly smarting wife, Jordan / Katie Price revealed on national television that she had recently had a miscarriage.

Last week Andre did the press and media rounds promoting his upcoming album.

Jordan revealed that she had been sexually abused as a child and raped several times as a woman.

And this week Peter Andre released his new album and Jordan upgraded last week’s rape revelation to a ‘celebrity rape’ a la Eureka Johnson.

Question.

What is she going to do if Peter Andre announces a world tour?

A Cautionary Tale…

Today’s blog is a cautionary tale that will send a chill right to the heart of any fellow writers.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Good, because I can guarantee you’ll be squirming in your seat by the time you finish this.

Last week I had to interview a mega successful businessman for a financial magazine. One of the questions I asked him was, “What has been the most satisfying moment of your career to date?”

To which he replied, “Being able to buy my parents their dream home – seeing the look on their faces is a moment I’ll never forget.”

So I wrote up the article.

I edited the article.

I re-edited the article.

I sent it off to the editor of the magazine.

Then for some bizarre reason I decided to give the piece one final quick once over.

And discovered this absolute horror lurking in its midst:

What has been the most satisfying moment of your career to date?

 Being able to buy my parents their dream home – seeing the look on their faeces is a moment I’ll never forget.

Just one little letter out of place was all it took to transform a moment of pure feel-good magic into something altogether more horrible.

I pictured readers recreating the scene in their minds:

“Mum and dad, without your love and support I would never have got where I am today, so please accept these keys to your dream home as a token of my gratitude.”

“Oh son, you shouldn’t have. We’re so grateful we have lost all control of our bowels…”

I told you it was horrible.

Even worse was having to ring the magazine concerned whilst on a crowded tube train and dictate the mis-written line to the editor at the top of my voice.

At least she found it hilarious!

Get Over It!

I’ve been reading in the press that some writers have been spitting their dummies out over new laws that will mean they have to be CRB checked before giving talks or workshops in schools. Phillip Pullman has called it “outrageous, demeaning and insulting” and Anne Fine has said it is “demeaning and unhealthy.” Both are now refusing to go back into British schools if they are made to suffer this “indignity”.

As writer in residence for several London schools and someone who has regularly been police checked before running writing workshops for children for various London councils, three words spring to mind:

GET. OVER. YOURSELVES.

Phillip and Anne my loves, no-one is accusing you of being paedophiles. But why should you be exempt from the checks that other adults face when wanting to work with children just because you know how to string a sentence together?

As a parent as well as a writer I’m glad and reassured that such proceedures are in place and besides it’s hardly as if having a CRB check is any great hassle. You aren’t dragged kicking and screaming to an interrogation room to endure hours of lie detector tests, water-boarding and listening to Englebert Humperdinck’s greatest hits on a loop.

You fill out a simple form and the school or local authority in question send it off and pay the £64 charge (in all my years of being CRB checked I have never once had to pay).

But this is all clearly too much for the delicate sensibilities of Anne Fine.

“All of us are constantly invited to do tours abroad.” She said last week. “If we can no longer enthuse British children about reading then I’m happy to go to more sensible places like Australia, New Zealand, america, France and Italy.”

Anne Fine is a superb author and as someone who knows only too well how much kids can get from an author visit I find it appalling that she is putting her own pride before the needs of British kids.

The truth is that some kids are only really made aware of the magic of reading and writing when they have an author come to their school. Authors have a freedom that curriculum-bound teachers do not. We can get kids to write about what really matters to them, we can show them that anyone can write and that reading and writing can be fun.

The children are what matter here – not the ridiculous egos of authors.

Retrocession

Apparently the current recession is sending us all a bit doo-lally.

Not only are we now growing our own veg (please don’t ask what happened to my tomatoes – it wasn’t pretty!) and wearing shoulder pads and staying at home for our hols - now, in some rose-tinted haze of nostalgia, we are apparently turning to old lifestyle books for advice.

And when I say old I’m talking from the Victorian era.

Now I know this has to be true as I just read all about it in the Daily Mirror.

I have also seen various re-published tomes springing up on Amazon with titles as eye-watering as Aunt Epp’s Guide for Life: From Chastity to Copper Kettles - now there’s an interesting combination!

I have actually been a fan of such books ever since browsing round an antique fair and spotting a copy of The Best Way Book - A Practical Guide for the Housewife. Crammed with useful recipes and ‘capital’ darning hints, it also begins with this jolly little ditty that I now recite every morning before springing out of bed:

If you want to have a happy home where peace and plenty dwell,

Then housewife you must know your work,

And how to do it well!

Great isn’t it? But really, we haven’t all become so credit crunched that we are actually taking these things seriously. Are we?

Admitedly some of the tips that get lost in translation are hilarious – whilst quickly flicking through my Best Way Book I actually came across the heading ‘How to Keep a Pristine Muff’ , but are people really taking the advice they offer to heart?

How about this gem from Aunty Epp:

‘Always keep an open mind and open bowels. Close the one and you become a bore: close both and you become a dead bore. and nobody will be listening to you anymore.’

Could she really be suggesting that we go through life with permanently open bowels? Admittedly life wouldn’t be boring, but it might be a tad unpleasant.

Or what about this genius tip if you don’t want to have sex with your man.

‘Place a stale fish beneath his side of the bed. The bad smell will keep his mind off intercourse.’

Two things: firstly, did they not get headaches back in those days? And second, wouldn’t the smell of rotting kipper be a tad distracting for the woman trying to sleep?

So I am going to throw down the gautlet. Blogees, surely you have some lifestyle tips to beat the Victorians….

‘Are We on Air?’

A couple of weeks ago my son made his debut on live radio.

He has been asked to write the match reports for one of our local football teams in the Non League Football newspaper and also to phone in live reports from the touch line to the local radio station Hayes FM.

To say that I am proud would be the understatement of the year.

When Jack was little we used to play a radio phone-in show game where he would pretend to be a radio host and I would pretend to be various ridiculous guests calling in.

Radio (especially of the Talk Sport variety) has been a running soundtrack to his life and he dreams of one day hosting a sports show of his own.

So to see him take the first steps towards his dream at the tender age of twelve has been cause for great cheer.

As have the inevitable technical hitches that a radio debut entails.

I have attached the clip so that you too can share in the joy. There is a classic moment where Jack doesn’t realise he is live on air and the presenter asks him if he knows who has scored. To which he simply replies, ‘Yeah.’  Cue long silence and then, ‘Are we on air?’ I think he recovers admirably though, just click on the link to have a listen…

‘Are We on Air?’