Janey Godley's Blog

I wrote this last night when I couldn’t sleep…

It really is the middle of the night here in Edinburgh. I am staring out of the big ceiling to floor windows into the dark night sky and all I can hear are gulls screeching their odd hollow laughter at me. It’s like the echo of the stage.

So that’s another Edinburgh Fringe Festival over and done with. My 7^th year of solo shows to be exact and I sit here quietly. The whole house is asleep. Husband is happily snoring and daughter Ashley is exhausted and lying half in, half out of her flowery duvet in her bedroom, I peeped in to check she was ok. I do that every night of her life when we are in the same house. Ashley worked really hard this year organising the Flyering team and making sure the public got my face on card in their hands despite the rotten weather.

The show this year has been my most successful to date. We sold 60% more tickets this year than last. The fringe had been fraught with problems from day one as the box office failed to work! (The only we needed them to do was sell tickets and they bloody couldn’t) The weather was horrendous and people were thin on the ground due to the credit crunch and other shitty things that stall the economy. Yet I am pleased as punch.

I won an award this year (Nivea Funny Women) and I got some great reviews.

I also managed to reach a core target audience of people who had NEVER been to see comedy before, (they told me so) yet they got on trains, buses and cars to come see my show. That is an awesome feeling.

But this strange feeling of pulling everything down and moving the family yet again to another city does become weary. I realise that we are just travelling show people, cases packed, publicity material stored and the show moves on yet again.

I don’t think I will ever settle in one place for the rest of my life. You get hooked on moving around, doing comedy in a different town, different continent or country year in and year out. Husband is getting fed up with it I think. He lay in bed tonight and asked me when we pack up again to go off after we go back to Glasgow and when I told him it was next week, he sighed. He never spoke, he turned around in bed, moved my arm off his chest and humped into a ball and fell asleep. I fear he is bored with it all and who could blame him?

Ashley will settle back in Glasgow as she has Uni to get back to and her own life. She has been coming to Edinburgh Fringe with me since she was 10 years old, back when I first started doing three or two hander shows in the mid 90s. She even did stand up comedy herself in her One –Girl show when she was 13 years old. It’s in the blood.

I had such a great time this year; it was very laid back and lazy at times. I didn’t take on as much work this time and was only doing one show a day, other than the few nights I was a guest on someone else’s bill of course.

Husband and I got to spend loads of time together as we didn’t have many guests stay over at the Edinburgh Flat as we had done in the past. It was just the three of us for most of the time. Though he did go back to Glasgow for a few days respite from the Festival madness, he did enjoy the peace and quiet!

I am off to Glasgow today and will miss Edinburgh. Roll on next year!

Last night I won the Nivea Funny Women Award, I got loads of lovely skin care products and a thousand quid! The award show was running late and I just managed to mutter some of my speech, I knew I had to run off to a late night gig at the Gilded Balloon, so my daughter Ashley did most of the speech for me. I have a video of it all and will post it soon.

I am exhausted this morning and feel as though I have been hit by a truck, I am groggy and tired for no good reason.

My show at The Pleasance is going well, audiences are wonderful and all would be great if the rain would just stop. Each night the show changes slightly according to how I feel and I love just improvising and dropping new bits in when I feel like it. 

 Ashley and her mate Victoria are out Flyering daily, in rain and shine, I love them both.

I have been here now for two weeks and had ONE review! Granted it was a great FOUR star stonking review, but I am annoyed that’s all I am getting so far. The show is selling out well at weekends and that’s really cool with me. Mid-week the numbers are a slightly lower as not as many people are coming to the Fringe mid-week as previously assumed. The credit crunch seems to be having some financial effect and that’s worrisome for the shows. We depend on the cash through the ticket sales, as it costs about £10,000 to put on a show at the Fringe.

Ashley is on the streets every day handing out the flyers, and she has a great wee team with her who manage to get my name out there. The problem is the bloody box office system, first they tell people that there are NO tickets left for me, then deny they said that, and then offer other shows to people who want to buy my tickets, and then deny that as well. But luckily Ashley went in to the Fringe Box office and pretended to be a punter and asked for tickets to my show. She was told I was sold out and did she want to buy tickets for some other bloke’s comedy show. Ashley exploded and explained she had full control and access to the ticket sales and she knew personally that there were tickets available for my show.

I had to make seven phone calls to finally release twenty tickets for my show, which was after hours of the Fringe Box office saying I was sold out when I wasn’t! No wonder I am stressed to hell.

The Pleasance has been helpful and is trying to resolve the Fringe Ticket Fiasco.

So if you come through to Edinburgh and try to buy tickets for my show and they tell you it is sold out, COME TO THE PLESANCE DOME TICKET BOX OFFICE and buy them there. I am usually at the Pleasance Dome Box Office around 6.40pm. If you had problems getting a ticket, tell me personally! I will deal with it myself and try my best to make sure you get in.I will NOT let the incompetence of the systems that they programmed ensure my punters and I lose out.

Thanks everyone for coming to see me and if you see my daughter Ashley handing out flyers in Edinburgh, give her a big smile for me, encouragement is a wonderful thing!

At the Edinburgh Fringe, you do nothing but run about organising tickets, Flyering teams and making sure the box office hasn’t screwed up the tickets YET AGAIN!My show is at Pleasance Dome at 7pm every night and it’s going great. I have had a wonderful 4 star review and the other reviews haven’t been printed yet.

The rain in Edinburgh really flooded the city over the past week and that has affected sales big time. The good news is, I got to meet the amazing Joan Rivers, I got to have sell out shows and I got to see my best mate Monica, her sister and her mum. They all came through to see the show.

I have been video taping some stuff for a video blog and Ashley and husband are exhausted with the organising and Flyering side of things. Poor Ashley looked like a seal as she stood in the rain for hours handing out the leaflets promoting my show. I feel so sorry for her and the other guys that are helping me; I hope the evil rain goes away soon.

Good news is, people have stopped bringing kids to my comedy show. It was becoming mental, I mean, I am chatty but for adults only to be honest. The show isn’t that rude, but there is adult content in there.

So today is Saturday and I have period pains that would kill a horse, the cluster bomb in my womb is going big guns, yet I have to smile and pretend I am not bleeding to death. (When does this stop?).

I am having a great time at the Fringe; I do love everything about it and can’t stop smiling every time I see my face on a poster, or a stranger buying a ticket for my show. These things keep me going!

Ashley and I were watching a wedding in a movie tonight and she asked me about her dad and mine’s wedding preparations. So I told her.

It was the summer of 1980 when we decided to get married, we settled on a date in late September. We had already been living together, I had turned 19 and husband was still 17 when we got the plans together. God, we were so bloody young, what were we thinking? I wasn’t pregnant and we didn’t have to do it, but I thought I loved him enough and basically we wanted to escape our families and make a wee life for us.

I recall cycling on my wee red bike into Glasgow city centre to a wedding dress shop. The first dress I spotted was £58 it was on the sale and it fitted fine, so I bought it within six minutes of being in the place. I didn’t really see wedding dresses as a big thing, to me it was like a work uniform or some sort of attire that was required for the day. I didn’t once consider style, shape or size; I was pleased I got one cheap. I knew husband would be pleased at my penny pinching methods. He didn’t really approve of spending what you didn’t have, and I too didn’t want to go into debt over a bloody dress.

The woman who served me said “You should look at others, you shouldn’t just pick one this quick, and your mum should see it first as well”

She was being really pushy and kept nagging at me to consider other dresses and I wanted the one I spotted myself. It was cheap, it was white and it fitted, what more did I need? I was only a teenager with no real fashionable insight and I was worried about my bike that was sitting downstairs in the shop front.

I was annoyed at this and said “My mother is dead” and I handed her the cash. The woman looked shamed and shut up.

Now my mum wasn’t dead, but I just wanted to buy it and get out of there, I know it was a rash thing to say, but she was pushing me emotionally and I wanted to shock her into shutting up. My opinion was important and didn’t need my mum to yea or nay the frock, nor did I need that scraggy faced woman’s opinion- it was my wedding day and my dress.

You should have seen the look of horror on the woman’s face when I tied the big white cardboard box that contained the puffy white dress onto the back of my bike with a big stretchy wire. It was funny looking back, she must have thought I was nuts.

Husband and I decided to get married from our family home’s instead of our own flat in the Calton.So he was staying at his dad’s and I was at my mum’s flat in Shettleston.

I kept the dress at a friends house near my mums as her house wasn’t really that clean and I was worried it would get smoke damaged from all her smoking or dirty there.

The night before I got married, I cycled over to my father in laws house, my husband to be was out working at the bar and I knew my father in law would be alone. I brought the bike into the hallway and he and I sat and watched TV. I needed a bath and my mum’s bath hadn’t worked since 1976 and I didn’t want to be a stinky bride.

After my bath, my father in law and I sat and ate ice-cream and cycled back home where I met up with Maggie. She was my bridesmaid and an old pal of mine. We both stayed at my mum’s that night. Our wedding was at 11am the next morning and we had hairdresser’s appointments the next morning. We both got our hair done and simply walked back to my mum’s flat.

It was a hive of activity; my brothers and my niece Debbie were there, all getting ready for my early wedding! People were chatting, drinking beer, all getting excited and kept asking me if was ok. Maggie and I felt odd being the centre of attention but carried on with our business of getting dressed up for the big day.

I didn’t have make up or anything else to do, as I didn’t wear make up back then. There were no big preparations. So I simply got out of my jeans and jumper and pulled on the dress, I thought I looked nice. I popped the diamante tiara on my head, pulled over the veil and that was me done and dusted!

No fuss, no messing or flapping about nervously. I recall walking out of my childhood bedroom dressed up in the big white dress and felt like I was going to out for my Halloween party, I spotted my wee red bike and I wished I could just jump on it and cycle away.

The morning passed quickly, the wedding ceremony was over in a flash. We went to his dad’s pub, that’s where we first met. We ate lunch and by 1pm we were out of there, I got into my jeans and we left the two dysfunctional mis-matched families to their own devices and went to a bed and breakfast in Saltcoats for our honeymoon.

Husband and I got there early and decided to go see a movie as we had time to kill. We saw ‘Kramer versus Kramer’ a film about divorce on our wedding night! We ate chips and headed to the accommodation. It was slightly smelly and really old fashioned.

It was freezing cold and the bed was foamy and hard. A cat meowed loudly at our window all night long and in the morning a big Alsatian dog that belonged to the owners bit me as I went for breakfast. Memorable.

So there we have it. A wedding, a cheap dress, a non existent hen party, a horrible honeymoon and nearly 30 years of marriage, not bad eh?

Writing a weekly column for a famous Scottish newspaper has its ups and downs. My column gets printed on a Monday and the deadline is Friday afternoon. I love to see my photo and all my words printed in The Scotsman and the novelty of reading it aloud in the living room is slowly wearing thin on my family, but I am still chuffed.

The downside is this- Each Monday after the column is printed I have the shocking fear and slow drip-drip of anxiety that I have to do it all again for next week.

What the hell will I write about? Does anyone really want to know about my lack of organising skills? Shall I talk about Ashley’s lack of love life? Will she hate me? Do the readers despise me and rip up my column so they can wipe their ass on it? Do other journalists hate me and mock my words?

You see I am a stand up comic to trade (if that is an actual trade?) and I work live in front of people who show their immediate distaste or appraisal in the moment in front me….waiting to be judged over the week makes me feel itchy under my skin.

I do get comments from people on the Scotsman website and they veer from ‘We hate this woman’ to ‘Janey is right about this topic’ and once my column was even quoted on the US Fox News website, so it’s not all good or bad.

I just worry, I suppose. The other downside is that my blog has been suffering slightly as I don’t always get to write my most inner thoughts as I have been either busy on the column of have diverted the subject to the newspaper and it didn’t quite make it to the blog.

So there we have it. Today was even busier as I freelance write for other publications and had to write 800 words to deadline and finish my Scotsman column and write this blog and finish off admin for the fringe.

I am comedian, when did life get so bloody busy? I haven’t brushed my teeth and it’s nearly 2pm. I am off to Cardiff tomorrow to do comedy, so its back on the old flight-taxi-hotel trip again. Another anonymous city, with yet another strange bed and nightmares in another dark room, yet I do love my job.

Like the old hooker once said “It’s not the job that kills me, it’s the stairs”

How right she was.

I saw a programme today about a young woman who pulls out her hair bit by bit; it is a form of self harm and she has permanently damaged her scalp. It made me shudder to watch because I was a hair puller as a child. I used to lie in bed, pick out a section of my hair, tie in a knot at the end and tug it till it came straight out of my scalp. The flesh on my head would bleed and I would then throw the clumps of hair under the bed. One day my mammy found loads of the hair and on closer inspection noticed that I had a bald patch on the side of my skull. She couldn’t figure out why I would do such a thing. I never explained it to her properly.

I was sexually abused as a child and somehow discovered hair pulling as a way to divert the pain by ripping out my hair. I did eventually explain to my mum about the abuse, though somehow she chose to ignore my words and therefore allowed her brother to continue to sexually abuse me. My hair pulling got worse. I don’t know when I stopped doing it.

To this day I still tug at my hair, I twist it and sometimes chew the ends and on occasion I do pull wee bits out. The strange pain it evokes makes me feel odd and I know that it is wrong and damaging to my scalp, but somewhere deep inside it reminds me of my childhood pain, yet I continue.

Everyone thinks I am terribly strong and brave because I survived the abuse, because I do comedy about my past and because I wrote a book about my difficult life, but underneath it all I am still a child who tugs her hair out sometimes.

I know I will never reach the point where I actually rip chunks out, but I do still fiddle with my hair too much. I need to address this and stop it.

My daughter Ashley took a photo of me from the side on, in that picture I was chewing my hair; I looked at it and felt terrible shame and horror at what I do.

So today I am resolved to stopping it all, maybe by admitting it I am addressing it will help me do this.

The year was 1981. It was a sunny bright day and Lady Diana Spencer was marrying Prince Charles. My wee dirty old pub was pretty empty, there were not that many Royalists in the Calton in Glasgow so I had the telly switched on and watched the news coverage of the Royal Wedding.

I am a sucker for a fairytale.

Whereas my smatterings of wee drunk smelly men were invariably unimpressed “Turn that shite off” Archie the old safe blower shouted. He had one of those old wrinkled faces that seemed to be permanently chewing something. His skin was the colour of a tea stained chamois leather cloth, the malleable softness of his saggy face morphed into a host of shapes as his gums rotated constantly.

Yet his startlingly blue eyes sparkled with fun when he chatted to you. Every story started out a dull pedestrian anecdote about one night when he had just finished work on the boats and somehow ended up with him having hard core sex- the man was deeply odd, filthy and funny. According to him, he had shagged more people than Frank Sinatra; he reckoned it was the blue eyes that did it. I avoided him at all costs.

I stood at the other end of the bar where Tony the dancing alcoholic was throwing himself about, Gene Kelly style, he was about 80 years old and I often worried he would drop down dead.

The day wore on the customers came and went.

The wedding on the telly was reaching its big crescendo – Lady Diana was at St. Pauls Cathedral. I squinted through the streaming sunlight that shafted through the open door and tried to see the much talked about wedding dress.

At that moment Bella came in.

She was wearing a bright red Spanish off-the-shoulder dress; it was layered with black taffeta and swung like a wonky lampshade as she moved. She donned a pair of white plastic sling-back shoes and a really inappropriately placed fake rose stuck between her low slung floppy breasts. I stifled a sigh. “Hello boys, Bella is here, who wants a dance?” she clattered and skittered over the dirty lino towards Tony.

Her hair was dyed the same shade of jet black that people usually reserve for painting taxi cabs and it was piled randomly on top of her head. A silver shell-like hair comb was stabbed into the crown of the loose bun.

Bella was about 70 years old. 

 “Janey, I will have a wee or big-wee glass of beer, but just charge me for the wee bit of it” Bella purred. This was her usual request.

The first time I had met her I was totally confused between the ‘Big-Wee’ glass sizes, but I soon worked it out. You gave her a half pint of beer as that’s all she could afford.

I loved Bella; she made me smile and her bizarre collection of outfits really brightened the place up. I recalled how she dressed up as a Hawaiian dancer, straw skirt and garland of flowers over a pink stretchy bikini top, scary and funny especially as it was December and the snow was knee-deep that day.

I slipped her a shot of whisky “To celebrate the Royal Wedding, its free” I smiled.

Bella downed the whisky, slammed the glass down, and then whispered “Fuck the Queen, but thanks for the drink” Her scarlet lips parted and she stuck out her tongue through tainted misshapen teeth that were the colour of fresh butter.

I laughed out loud. Bella click-clacked on her cheap heels and dropped a coin into the jukebox. Minutes later Dean Martin started crooning out through the speakers. Prince Charles was staring solemnly at his bride and Lady Diana was being coy through a bridal veil. Dean belted out ‘That’s Amore!’

Tony the dancer clutched Bella by the waist and they were off. His shaking veined hands gripped her tightly.

Archie ignored them and chewed his face off in silence. He dismissed the dancers with a wave of one hand over his shoulder and stared into the distance.

Within minutes Bella managed to get away from Tony, he was good for about a minute of dancing then it usually and quickly descended into a groping sexual assault. Bella knew the routine, prised herself out of Tony’s hands and threw herself into the bar seat. All flushed, her hair falling down out of the multitude of hair grips that failed to keep it in place. 

Tony carried on dancing without her; he shuffled about and sang loudly. The men in my bar may have been really old, but they were constantly on the heat!

Bella went into her usual routine of asking me probing questions and quickly providing the answers herself. “Are you happy Janey?” then before I could speak she said “Course your not fucking happy, you are still here in this shit hole of a bar. Do you regret getting married so young? Yes, I bet you do of course you do, men are all fucked and use you up till you don’t know your arse from your elbow” Then she leaned over and gripped my hand “Run away Janey, while you are young- go darling just fucking run away and don’t look back, did I tell you my man was an evil bastard and ran away when I was pregnant?” 

“Your man was a violent bastard, you were well rid of him Bella, he broke your two legs with a cricket bat” Archie hissed between chews, then he added “Who plays cricket in Glasgow? He must have been a poof as well”

“I loved him” Bella screamed, she pointed a blood red fingernail at her crepe skinned chest “he was MY LIFE” she ran towards Archie and spat her words at his face “He never hurt me in his life, he was a gentleman”

Archie raised his wiry eyebrows at me, mouthed and mimed with a shaky fist “he punched the baby out of her”

Bella screamed again and pulled at Archie’s old shirt. He let her inflict the pain on him. Archie had been through this drama before with Bella.

Then she burst into tears. This was what always happened with Bella. Dancing, laughing and then the floods of tears over the bastard husband, I felt so sad for her.

Meanwhile back in St. Pauls Cathedral Prince Charles never cracked a smile.

He spoke his vows with pure conviction as Bella, Archie, Tony and I sat in silence. We watched as the blonde Diana whispered her vows, she looked flustered.Then suddenly the peace was broken as Bella screamed “Fuck men, all of them” and threw a half pint glass at the wee television that was hung from the ceiling in the corner of the bar.

I screamed in fright. I didn’t expect Bella to throw the glass, the noise was deafening as it smashed to pieces on the tiled floor beneath the telly. The TV flickered but continued to screen the Royal couple though the volume was now gone.

Archie shouted “Fucksake Bella, calm down hen” then went back to chewing his gums.

Tony carried on dancing to a long gone tune that was playing in his head.

I rushed round the bar with a brush and pan and tried to clear up the mess.

Bella continued to scream and cry. She was pulling out all her hair grips, she was ripping at her dress, and she was going absolutely mental.

“Janey, can I get a pint of lager hen?” Archie shouted over the din.

I ignored Archie and tried to console Bella. “Come on Bella, don’t get yourself so upset” I hugged her and stroked her warm shoulder. She sniffed on a tissue I gave her; she looked at me with dark heavily made-up eyes and spoke in a hushed voice “Can I have a wee-big beer?” I nodded and went round the bar to pour her beer.

Bella eventually settled down, climbed on a stool and supped on her drink, Archie lit a roll up cigarette and Tony finally fell asleep on the couch near the door.

We all watched the Royal Wedding on the telly which was now without sound, the rich and famous mouthing words, heaving crowds waving Union flags, and opera singer Kiri Te Kiwana belting out a silent song during the wedding service. I laughed as Bella opening her scarlet lips to imitate the singer’s mouth but uttering no noise, Archie chewed and Tony snored.

My husband came in and stared at the scene, pointed at the television “Why are you watching it with the volume down?”

“It’s not down, it’s broke. I smashed a glass at the telly coz all men are bastards and I hate weddings and I think I have fucked the volume” Bella said loudly to my young husband, she shrugged and went straight back to her beer.

Husband replied “Ok, I am going upstairs, I will see you later”

Bella, Archie and I looked back at the telly and tried to guess what was happening without the commentary as the camera panned the cathedral and its royal guests.

Bella was found dead in a hostel a week later. Apparently she dressed up as sailor-girl, and was found clutching a photo of her bastard husband after taking a fatal dose of pain killers.

Archie and I cried when we spoke about her. Tony danced.

Sometimes when I lay in bed at night my mind flickers back to old memories and I replay them like worn out over-edited home movies. In my brain I think there is a big Rolodex that I click through and occasionally stop and stare at an image, depending on my mood,           I may look further, or just click on.

Last night my memory home movie of choice was Ashley as a baby. I could see her wee chubby fists trying hard to pull herself up onto a chair in the bar. She could barely get her legs up; I ran over and lifted her up quickly before she fell over. My cousin Sammy was looking after her at the time “Janey, leave her she needs to learn to climb up things”           I knew he had a close eye on her but I recall that deep tugging feeling in my soul each time she looked dangerously close to falling. I had to run to catch her.

Then my brain switched images and I saw Old George my barman carrying cases up from the cellar. He was a retired bar manager, but came out of his retirement to work for us.       I giggled as every time George came up from the door trap as he always managed to scrape his baldy head on the underside of the cellar ceiling. He had a permanent red angry mark on his head for years.

In my minds eye view-finder I looked around and could see all my regular customers,         I can hear the noise of glasses clinking, the jukebox banging out U2, the cigarette smoke    is making wispy garish shapes against the day light that flooded through the big front bar window. People laughing, talking, singing…                                                                  the constant background noise of my life for many years, whispered threats, dirty sex talk, angry words about the government,    religious quotes, drunken slurred slander and some old woman singing sad country and western songs to crumpled photo she kept pulling out of her purse. I can still see the sad  fat tears dripping down her heavy mascara-ed eyes.       I often wondered who she was crying over but never bothered to ask.

My brain flickers over earlier memories, husband and I trying to heat up mince and peas out of can and onto a cracked plate in the big smelly microwave oven that sat behind the bar.    I had never seen a microwave oven before and was fascinated by the sputtering and crackling of the fat in the food in the strange space-age machine.                                       I recall the over processed taste of the rubbery food and husband and tried to force it down our hungry throats. We gave up; I walked through the driving horizontal slashing rain and got some greasy fish and chips for the Italian chippy near the Bingo at Bridgeton Cross.    We ate it in companionable silence. Licking fingers and gulping on hot fleshy fish,    savouring every mouthful whilst keeping a sharp eye on the drunken old man who wobbles scarily near the juke box.

Hall and Oates constantly being threatened of having a deep scratch on it’s black vinyl,   then finally acquiring a strange hicky stutter like all the other records that garnered speech impediments due to the clattering drunks in our bar.                                                   Why did the pissed old men always fall on the juke box and never the pool table?

So many memories, all on a loop, playing constantly in my head, some great and some sad, yet all tucked safely away in my head for future showing.

I wonder what I will watch tonight.

I am home and safe. Ashley is slightly burnt, my poor wee girl! She managed on the first day of the holiday to fall over, tits over hair and skint her two knees, then she got her shoulders burnt despite wearing factor 50, and then she had a migraine. It was fun though. We spent hours sitting on that amazing balcony watching the sun go down over the beautiful pools, laughing listening to music and chatting. Wonderful stuff.

We had such a good time, we have great photo’s to upload and will do so soon.

Its great being back home, I did miss husband. Lanzarote was so lovely and nothing what I expected at all. Playa Blanca was really peaceful and nice. The weather was really hot though and being Scottish, I melted a wee bit.

Meanwhile I need to remind all you good people in Norwich that I am doing my one woman comedy show at the Norwich Playhouse Theatre on July 25^th, do come along and see me!

Speak soon.

I am so very hot and sticky, but of course I am in Lanzarote. I never knew heat like this, it is relentless and burning every pore in my body. Thank God for the beautiful cool blue swimming pools here in our hotel. I simply wake up, pull on a cozzie, walk down for a chilled orange juice and then fall into the still flat cool pool. Now that’s life!

Floating about…enjoying the peacefulness as there are hardly any guests here, let alone screaming babies or drunks who do pyramids in the pool. Just pure serenity and I love it. Though I have to admit, I am bored. Husband did warn me of this syndrome. Apparently I yearn for peace and quiet and then make enough noise within that space because I am easily bored.

Though Ashley and I have had such a laugh together, she really makes me giggle. We have dinner at night then stretch out on our balcony and chat along to our music till the sun goes down over the ocean. It would be nice of she had a chat with someone under the age of 35, as everyone at this hotel is pretty middle-aged. She still hasn’t quiet gotten over missing Jay-Z at Glastonbury. She will never get over that and it’s my entire fault. </p> We have some colour, both of us have read three books and both of us have walked some miles in the heat and came to this conclusion.

We hate… 

Beaches

Sticky limbs with sun cream

Hotel sheets

Bars that smell of burgers and bingo

Flip flops

Sangria

Insects that chase us

Angry cats

Shops that sell cats faces cut out of coconutThe fact that no one sells ceramic donkeys and that’s the one thing Ashley can ask for clearly in Spanish. (Don’t ask me why)Sand that blows in your face.

So, soon we will be home from our lazy hazy holiday and I am missing husband. He is probably having a great time away from me!

I am in Lanzarote. Due to a somewhat worrying medical situation, I missed going to Glastonbury. Ashley and I have come to Lanzarote instead. It was a surprise gift from husband. He knew I would have time off after my minor surgery and decided to treat me. So he sent Ashley and me on a last minute holiday.

I would never have picked Lanzarote in my life. I hate package holidays and despise the smell of beer and kebabs. BUT this place is awesome, it is quiet and huge and the food is wonderful.

We are staying at the Gran Melia Volcain in Playa Blanca. I am stunned at how great the hotel is! Its 5 star in Lanzarote standards and trust me – it shows. I am so relaxed. Ashley loves the swimming pools and I think our complex has four; I am not sure as we keep stumbling across more stuff as we walk about. The place is quiet and there are hardly any guests – which I am loving.

I imagined Lanzarote to be a place where people eat hot lard and sing the ‘Birdie Song’ continuously as baldy British men beat their wives and kids get sunburnt or ignored for a bingo night.

I haven’t had a proper holiday in years. I am so happy and though am worried about issues surrounding health and family, I am having a great time. I post up some pics when I get back.

Please remember all comedy fans of the blog I am doing my one woman show at Norwich Playhouse on 25^th July and at Eden Court Inverness on 27^th July.

More news from Lanzarote this week!

I have been increasingly worried lately about my lovely wee step mum who hasn’t been well. Then I had a medical thing of my own which meant I had to cancel my appearance at The Glastonbury Comedy Tent, so life sucks a bit.

I am just back from Nottingham, I was MC at Jongleurs and I loved it. We stayed in serviced apartments with Urban Self Catering who really went out on a limb for me, they are amazing people and just wonderful hosts. The big two bedroom house was

I do like Nottingham and am looking forward to my big one woman show at Norwich Playhouse. Comedy is going well.

So, considering all this medical stuff goes well, Ashley and I are going to have our first holiday together in years. We are hoping to go to Turkey to Olu Deniz. I saw it on the web and it looks amazing. I really need a beach holiday and time to myself…and with Ashley! Husband hates beaches and holidays in general, so he is staying at home.

I really need a break just before the Edinburgh Festival.

I am hoping the hotel or destination does have internet, as I need to write my column for The Scotsman from a beach! That will be cool.

So I am off to sleep and wake up tomorrow and find a travel agent that will organise my wee holiday.

Unfaithful marriages are what keep gossip columns alive; it needs stupid people to read about it and feeds like barracuda’s on every detail of some unfortunate couple’s life to survive.The most recent and enduring story is of footballer Ashley Cole and Cheryl Tweedy of Girls Aloud fame. This yarn is still being hocked out round the glossy mags.

You can’t pick up a magazine without seeing the angry Mrs. Cole is in a basque with the by-line “Would you cheat on this woman?”

It’s an old story; stupid man cheats on gorgeous sexy wife. Why would he do that? Have you seen the woman he had a dalliance with? Is the wife not fragrant? Is she not beautiful? Why would he stray when he has this hottie at home?

When did straying in a marriage have anything to do with looks? Unless you are married to the Hunch Back of Notre Dame and have a quick one night stand with Brad Pitt does that theory come into play.

Society dictates that if you have a sexy partner, you have no right to go off and sully that relationship by having sex with a plain person. Which means that if some overpaid footballer had a one night stand with the latest Miss World, would that make the unfaithful act ok in his wife’s eyes? ‘I don’t mind you shagging around, as long as she is pretty?’

We all recall the Beckham alleged affair with Rebecca Loos, the pouty Posh One screamed “David wouldn’t touch a fat ugly woman” Which leads us to believe that if Mr Golden Balls screwed Eva Longoria then at least he wasn’t batting below his weight and Victoria could fully understand why he did it! Who makes these rules up?

That theory is all nonsense and the media is naïve to use beauty as a means to be staying faithful. As if sexy women or hot men never get cheated on!

If that were the case then why is Hollywood full of divorced beautiful people?

Most psychologists will tell you unfaithfulness has nothing to do with how sexy the wife or husband is, the whole episode hinges on the persons own self worth and how they feel being in a committed relationship.

The mistress isn’t always a sex bomb that came along and hooked he bedazzled man.

We all recall the hoots of horror when it was revealed that the Prince of Wales had chosen the slightly haggard Camilla Parker Bowles over the poised and perfect Princess Diana, who at the time was apparently the words most beautiful woman. What was Charles thinking?

We all know what he was thinking now, he loved Camilla.

Diana could wear all the pretty frocks she chooses, and her man still wanted the bushy blonde who smoked too much and lived in her wellies.

It gave the ordinary women all over the world a glimmer of hope, Princes can love the not so pretty girls as well, and the ugly sisters among us can win the kings heart. Prince Charles empowered us women more than Diana ever did by choosing Camilla over his glamorous wife, though we never really thanked him for it.

People are unfaithful because they want to, it doesn’t matter how attractive or ugly the wife or secret partner. It happens.

I am a Scottish Stand up Comic, Actor Playwright and Journalist. Also am published Author of "Handstands in the Dark" my critically acclaimed memoir.

I work all over the world, either on tour with comedy or theatre. Follow my stories daily and catch up with my unique life.

I love writing my Blog & reading the comments posted, but I do not always have the time to reply or to chat, Thanks.

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