We're all Irish now ...

Having climbed the family tree for several hundred years, I have discovered that the 44th American President and I share an Irish heritage.

Gosh.

Barack is to be known as O'Obama - or O'Bama for short (and ease of speech).

Inspired by him, I should like to welcome you to O'Moptop's Pitstop.

Be assured, I will eventually devise a more Irish first name, once I find the Scrabble set. Irish is another of those Celtic languages (like Welsh) that takes a very liberal approach to spelling. Conchobhar is not how anyone I know spells Connor. What's that chob for? What purpose does it serve?

Scrabble is ever so helpful when communicating in a Celtic tongue. Any chance arrangement of tiles is bound to mean something. Plus it shows a willingness to learn and so everyone's happy.

In the meantime, I am translating Macbeth (by the playwright William Shakespeare) into Irish. I shall present the first copy to O'Bama to celebrate our shared blood line.

Begorrah, and begorrah, and begorrah,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable* of recorded time

* Not advisable in Welsh.

Bring me sunshine

I am not known for my accuracy with numbers. (Posts passim.) I rarely feted for my excellent time-keeping. (I tend to be unfashionably late.) I am absolutely BOB at giving directions. For example:

After a while you will see a left hand turn. After a while you will see a sign for a motorway. After a while you will reach the coast of Spain.

(In this instance, after a while might be 10 yards, 10 miles, or 10 x 10 miles.)

But then I am a creative artist, an artistic creative. I'm not meant to know my fandangle from my elbow. It's in the job description.

But scientists? They're all facts, figures and accuracy to 0.0000000000000000000000001 of a percent - right?

Second Sun On Its Way

announces a newspaper headline. Nothing to do with phone-taps or Me? I know nothing editors. No, scientists tell us that Betelgeuse, a star of which I've always been particularly fond, is due to explode. Its death throes will be so bright that there will be no night for two weeks. Darkness vanquished, we shall be bathed in eternal sunshine. In fact, during the real day, there will be two suns shining down upon us.

Gosh, how exciting, I thought. When's this going to kick off, then? I shall invest in sunglasses, suncream, sunhats. Quick, Stockbroker! Hawaiian Tropic! Buy! Buy! Buy!

O, I see ...

It could be this year. It could be next year.

Or it could be at any point in the next million years - also known as After A While.

A Day in the Life of ...

Whilst dozing on the sofa this evening, I'm sure I heard that nice Mr. Cox say 'A day on Venus is equivalent to a year on earth'. He was banging on about physics (which is why I was dozing), Saturn's rings, tornadoes and icebergs. With dedicated snoozing added to the equation, it was difficult to keep up. At one point his butler delivered a baby on the bathroom floor whilst his mother-in-law made cutting remarks and kept a child hidden in an attic.

Still, I am counting my blessings here at Chateau Moptop. Were I in my Venusian pied-à-terre, Christmas Day would have been rather more difficult.

6 a.m. The mini Moptops are instructed to return to bed until they develop pressure sores. 'Then, and only then, may you throw back the blankets - but please do not let the pillows float out of the window.'

7 a.m. The stockings disgorge their contents.
'Please, Mama, do I have to open any more presents? My fingers are bleeding.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Tarquin-Hurricane, Jr. It's barely February on Planet Earth. Pass me the wrapping paper; I'm going to wrap them all up again.'

10.30 a.m. Church. Who knew O Little Town of Bethlehem had this many verses? The sermon is long and - well - it's mainly long.

Noon. Pass out the pegs. The sprouts have been boiling for 39 days now. 'No, don't open the wind-!'
Too late. 'Phone Houston and request new dog.

2 p.m. Lunch. The turkey is very well-cooked. 'Yes, you do have to remain at the table, Concertina-Rose. I know it hurts. That's what the memory foam cushion is for. Finish what's on your plate. You may use a straw for the sprouts.'

3 p.m. The Queen's Speech. It is noted that Brenda's voice is not as squeaky as it used to be, she suits that colour and that she's looking well for a woman of eighty-two.

'She said anus!'
'No, she didn't, Concertina. Annus. It's Latin for-'
'Bum!'

On Planet Earth, Brenda gets ten minutes. On Venus. with days to play with, she wanders off - sorry - orf script.

'Don't talk to one about Cameroon. He's terribly pink and his wife's in Trade. One doesn't think much of that Hughes chap. He's accepted a Special Position after putting himself in an untenable one. At least ones uncle had the balls to resign -'

And so on. And on. And on.
Sixty-four bottles of Bristol Cream required to toast E.R.'s good health.

4 p.m. Is Monopoly the longest game in the world, or does it just feel like it? Belgravia has vanished under a mountain of Cheesy Wotsits serving as hotels. (We ran out of real pieces several months ago.)

6 p.m. Dr Who Christmas Special. Everyone guffaws at the unlikely space exploits and willy-nilly abandonment of the Space and Time Continuum.

7 p.m. The Eastenders Christmas Special continues until all of the regular characters have drowned in the canal, been barbecued in a blazing pub, fallen over and hit their heads on fire-surrounds, succumbed to the fumes of something in an allotment shed or been savaged by rabid whippets. The Moptops are disappointed by the lack of gangland murders this year, but look forward to an entirely new set of tragic demises in 133,316 of your Earth Days.

9 p.m. Monsieur Moptop complains of a sluggish liver. We count the empty bottles and resolve to invest in a recycling business.

10 p.m. The mini Moptops are force-fed the last of the mince pies.
'But they're totally, like, stale.'
'Well, if you hadn't opened the window, you could have fed them to the dog.'

11 p.m. Exhausted by a long and festive day, we retire to our sleep pods. But not before putting the ham on to boil for the Boxing Day lunch.

Inking Aloud

Talking of tattoos, I once dated a journalist who, when he was a Cub Reporter, had the misfortune to be put on Magistrate Court duty for months on end. Only one case stuck in his mind: Watergate.

Sorry, that wasn't it at all and if it had been it would have been petty theft in the Watergate Shopping Centre. No, the one case which the then (short-lived) innamorata remembered involved a man charged with breaking the Obscene Publications Act. My (but not for very long) chap turned up with his notebook. The defendant was slumped in the dock, a woolly hat pulled low over his brow. It was a hot summer's day and the man looked in danger of overheating. The Magistrate listened to the evidence of the Police and mulled over the charges. Eventually he looked solemnly at the defendant.

"Well, Mr. Shearer*, it is clear to me that every time you take off your hat, you run the risk of arrest. Either keep your hat on or grow a fringe. I am imposing a fine of -".

And so on.

Mr. Shearer - who was from Newcastle, by the way - in a fit of - what? Anarchy? Idiocy? Naked aggression? - had been tattooed across his forehead. Capital letters in blue ink announced :

 **** OFF OR I'LL KILL YOU!

I've remembered this for reasons which will become clear. For one, I've just read a short story which toys with a tattoo. It's in Polly Samson's latest collection which I've put down somewhere and now can't find. Anyway, it's very good. Then, of course, there's Parker's Back by Flannery O'Connor which is funny yet utterly, utterly heartbreaking. The Background by Saki is cleverer than a clever thing should be. It might even be the genesis of another short: Skin by Roald Dahl. And there are more tattoos than you could shake a dagger-pierced rose at in John Irving's novel Until I Find You. The tattooists mentioned therein are real people, as I discovered when I read Taschen's 1000 Tattoos.

Anyway, I haven't got a tattoo. I wouldn't dare. My mother glared at my pierced ears for decades.

"If God had intended you to have holes in your ears, you'd have been born with holes in your ears."

After fifteen years she didn't even need to make this statement aloud. I could hear her thinking it.

She extends this logic to body art. "You'll never get buried in a Jewish Cemetery if you get a tattoo."

The fact that we're not actually Jewish would be more of a hindrance to burial in The Mount of Olives, I suspect, than a tasteful butterfly on my ankle ...

Last week, I was talking to a man in his mid-eighties. I asked him about the tattoo on his forearm. He'd had it done at the Seaman's Mission in The Dingle. He pointed at a smudged and faded name. "I was knockin' about with a tart called Vera," he said. "And then I married Dolly and it caused me no end of trouble."

This morning was spent revolting again. (The Cuts, dear, must I remind you?) I have an antipathy to being addressed as Brother or Sister (even by close relations) but Comrade was a moniker too far. It propelled me towards a short spree of capitalist consumerism - and an eyebrow wax.

Alana, a purple-haired beautician whom I'd never previously met but am now intimately acquainted with, showed me - and I must stress that I had not mentioned tattoos at all at this point despite your impression that I'm obsessed with the things - her bum. A crown with Grandma inked above it. She then suggested I had my eyebrows tattooed. I declined (in more ways than one). After witnessing Grandma, I'd have been left with an expression of permanent surprise.

*Not his real name

An excellent start to the day

O, what joy! What delight! Though doubtless not in Tunbridge Wells where they are easily offended.

During this morning's BBC Radio 4 Today programme, presenter James Naughtie said a very 'naughtie' word in relation to Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary. Although, it must be said, someone else suggested it first.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS5mVoqJpUk

Warning! Do not click on this link if you reside in Tunbridge Wells. Naughty Naughtie has been inundated by emails from your compatriots. Please do not add to the gentleman's distress.

Naughtie was guilty of a Spoonerism, although many more tongue-tangles were attributed to the Revd. Spooner than he unaged to matter. I wish the Revd. really had said: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" mostly because I'm hoping to use the line myself - fully credited - in the near future. (Spoonering soon.)

Count Arthur Strong also appears - though it is beyond me how anyone can 'appear' on the wireless - on BBC Radio 4. He could spoon for Britain. I expect it's a Desirable/Essential quality for employment by Auntie. Still, here's a thought: a new Olympic sporting category that we'd have a sporting chance of winning - Spoonerisming . As long as we didn't meet Finland* in the final.

So, with 2012 looming/bearing down fast/hurtling towards us, we - as in The Nation not just the select band who visit Chez Moptop - must get behind the soon-to-be-announced sport of Spoonerisms. Let us start with a warm up exercise. All together now:

I am not the pheasant plucker,
I'm the pheasant plucker's mate.
I am only plucking pheasants
Cos the pheasant plucker's running late.

I am not a pheasant plucker,
I'm a pheasant plucker's son.
I am only plucking pheasants
Till the pheasant plucker comes.

 - though - PLEASE - do not practise in Tunbridge Wells. I'm on their list as it is.

* If you are troubled with insomnia, you might care to read this article about how Finns spoon.

Disgruntled Film-goer Sues Sly

It was revealed today that Liverpool solicitor Max Rekin has served a writ on Hollywood icon, Sylvester Stallone. Denying accusations of opportunism and wanton limelight-seeking, Mr Rekin claimed that he was merely responding to instructions from his client, Mrs Susan Curley.

"Mrs Curley attended her local cinema to watch Mr Stallone in an action-thriller adventure. Not only did Mr Stallone not strip down to his vest in sub-zero temperatures - as he did with much success in Cliffhanger - but the role of Sylvester appeared to have been filled by his mother, Jackie. My client is suing Mr Stallone for the cost of her ticket - £7.85 - and for £250,000 for emotional distress. Mrs Curley last watched Jackie Stallone in Celebrity Big Brother 2005 and vowed never to watch the lady in question again."

In a hastily convened press conference, Mr Rekin provided video evidence to support Mrs Curley's allegations. Using images from the film The Expendables, the solicitor highlighted various features on the actor's face.

"The eyebrows have clearly been tattooed on to achieve an archly flirtatious expression. Lip implants have resulted in a duck-like pout," he said using a laser pointer to circle the areas causing most concern.

An expert witness from the Rimmel counter in Boots agreed that eyeliner was in evidence. "It's an amateurish application," said Chantelle Trill. "Reminiscent of the school of Amy Winehouse and, revealingly, a trademark of Jackie Stallone."

Mrs Curley was not available to talk to the Press, but her neighbour, James Kelly, 74, read out a statement on her behalf. "No action hero - especially one who has gone fifteen rounds with Apollo Creed - would ever stoop to such feminine behaviour. Besides which, he runs like a girl."

A spokesman for Universal Studios declined to discuss the case in detail saying only that Jackie Stallone was concentrating on her business, Rumpology Enterprises, and had no desire to invade a South American island or fight rogue CIA agents.

Randy Couture, who also starred in the film said,  "This is a total crock. Sly is an experienced and highly-skilled actor. It is not easy running in high heels, but Jason Stathom refused to stand in a trench in their joint scenes."

The case continues.

Penny for your thoughts

I was in Oxford over the weekend and took the Banshee on a tour of the Bodleian Library. Top tip: tell any young person that Harry Potter was filmed here and they'll be immediately attentive and enthusiastic.

This ruse has worked - with some little success - at The Lawnmower Museum, The Pencil Museum and The Dog Collar Museum - amongst others.

C'mon, you must remember the enchanted lawnmower that Harry, Ron and Hermione use to escape from Voldemort? It's in Harry Potter and Overgrown Lawn.

Banshee (PUZZLED): I don't remember that one ...
Me (AIRILY): O, I read it to you when you were very small.
Banshee: What happens?
Me: Um, the usual stuff ... Plus! There are giant, evil dandelions, some poisonous daisies and an invasion of couch grass, but Sirius posts a Black'n'Decker Strimmer to Hogwarts which doubles - the Strimmer, not Hogwarts - as a, um, Blunderbus 2000 broomstick and -
Banshee: You're making all off this up, aren't you?
Me: Yes.

I love museums (almost as much as I love libraries). This love was established from an early age as wet half terms and holidays saw me marched around the Kirkstall Abbey Museum.

Before it was refurbished (A.K.A. ruined) one could put a Bun Penny into a Victorian 'penny slot' machine and see Madame Le Guillotine do her bloodiest worst; watch a pretty housemaid fall out of a wardrobe shot through the heart; follow the trial of a murderer up to the point where he is hanged by the neck until dead - and more. Clockwork puppets in fabulous 2D with juddery animation and a very moral message. (Never hide in a wardrobe when an angry husband's brandishing a gun.)

It was a perfectly thrilling place to visit and one could endure the endless display cabinets of Scrimshaw work and edifying embroidered samplers with the promise of a penny for Being Good.

Museums for the Young are not nearly so much fun these days. Small people pretend to be a poo and waddle through a labyrinth of intestines, or dress up in 100% polyester Tudor clothing, or press a lot of buttons. It's all about being interactive.

Curators! There is nothing wrong at all with pressing ones nose against a display cabinet and just looking. Why, it never did me any harm ...

Is there anything you'd like to add ...?

This evening, during a long and rather giddy conversation with my favourite aunt (also known as the Demon Aunt; she of Malteser Biscuit fame), I was reminded of the many silly things I've said in job interviews.

My FA must attend a job interview - for her own job - and has to give a presentation. She asked if she could give a presentation on how to make Malteser Biscuits but the Head of H.R. said they'd rather have a Powerpoint presentation on care budgets and the implications of the Government Spending Review.

(I know which I'd rather watch, but hey-ho.)

After a couple of years back in education, I applied for a job and was summoned for interview. Unfortunately, the day before I'd torn my calf muscle quite badly and was on crutches.

(I'd crossed a road as a car was heading towards me and, whilst I did not actually break into a jog, I did attempt a sort of urgent shuffle in order to signal to the driver that I did not intend to slow his passage in an inconvenient manner. Who knew that shuffling tore calf muscles?).

As I limped and, er, crutched - ? - into the interview room, the panel scoured my application form in a panicked manner, clearly looking to see if I'd checked the Do you consider yourself to have a disability? box.

"Oh, don't worry," I said, as I collapsed into a chair. "The crutches are a temporary state of affairs. I've torn my calf muscle."

"How did you do that?" asked the person in the most expensive suit.

"Well," I said. "I'm telling everyone it was page 69 of the Kama Sutra because the real reason's far too embarrassing."

WHY?

Why did I say THAT?

Still, it is nowhere near as bad as a Great Friend who emigrated to New Zealand.

When one emigrates to New Zealand, one has to submit to all sorts of tests and checks to prove that one is road worthy. On the morning of Great Friend's first job interview - to be a Dental Nurse at a Holistic Dentist Practice (don't ask) - the results of all her various immigration tests and checks arrived in the post. She scanned them quickly before she left the house.

The interview went well. Great Friend was feeling quietly confident. At the end, came the standard question: "Is there anything you'd like to ask us?"

Great Friend: "No thank you. I think you've covered everything."

Dentist: "And finally, is there anything you'd like to tell us?"

Great Friend: "Yes, I don't have syphilis!"

Going to the Dogs

In April, I was given a very generous gift voucher which I accepted very ungenerously - in that I utterly dislike the place at which the gift voucher must be spent.

It's a Temple of Commerce and takes its resemblance to a temple seriously, being full of statuary: vaguely Grecian gods and - more oddly - dogs with large, intricately carved penises and shoddily hewn eyes. Why would a sculptor spend ages carving a dog's penis and neglect to give the creature a soulful or loyal expression? (That's a rhetorical question, but if an answer suddenly presents itself feel free to comment.)

Anyway, the place glitters with gold (paint), brass and copper and contains more brown-veined marble than is possible - surely? - or wise. The hotels of Dubai are visions of understated good taste in comparison.

But the gift voucher has an expiry date, and thus the Temple needed a devotee and heavy of heart, I drove to it and wandered and wondered (mainly at the dogs with large penises) and tried to spend the ethereal pounds represented by the piece of plastic masquerading as a credit card.

Erk! My prose is purple! I blame the architect and his addiction to liverish stone and every other sort of unnecessary ornamentation.

Normally, I have no problem at all with spending. Give me a bookshop, or a purveyor of jam-making equipment, or a stationer, or a pen-shop, or somewhere that sells remaindered items and I will divest myself of money quicker than Princess Anne/Zsa Zsa Gabor/Cheryl Cole (delete according to distaste) divests herself of husbands -

O! But the horror, horror, horror! of today's experience. In the Beauty Department (badly named - yet more brown marble) a girl with eyelashes like a Kewpie Doll encouraged me to spend £125 on something that resembled a vibrating wallpaper stripper for a dolls' house.

Kewpie: It will remove all the debris from your skin.
Me: Debris?
Kewpie: It's rumoured that Megan Fox has been seen buying one.
Me: Who?
Kewpie: It injects oxygen into your epidermis.
Me: Didn't a James Bond villain kill someone like that?
Kewpie: You'll look much younger.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (Which wasn't polite.)

After hours of not finding anything I desired - because the dog statues weren't for sale, or so they said - I came close to blowing the whole voucher on a coffee machine ...

But I have a coffee machine - well, a little mocha pot, which bubbles espresso ever-so efficiently and can be stored on a window-sill rather than taking up most of a kitchen counter.

Also, the enormous, glossy coffee machine - a beast rather than a utensil - worked only if fed small plastic pots of coffee costing an arm-and-a-leg a box.

Also, my household have just discovered that their combined digestive systems will all grind to a halt if they do not each imbibe a drink of lactobiffidiffidopholopholus (whom I thought owned a laundrette in Albert Square) every morning, and I am already drowning in small plastic pots.

Also, I am having nightmares about small plastic pots never degrading (that's when I'm not having really dreadful dreams about midgets). Should I put my foot down in regard to delicate and demanding digestive systems? Or should I wait for the wind to blow in another direction and the sprouting their own alfalfa craze to kick in?

And if I return to the ToC and make enough of fuss, will the Temple let me spend the voucher on one of their dogs ...?

Pork Chop?

When I was a nipper, all the neighbours were given the honorific of Uncle or Aunt (if they were nice) and Mr or Mrs (if they weren't). One would never have dared to call them by their first name. Similarly, my parents' friends became adopted uncles and aunts (if they were nice) or Mr and Mrs (if they were rabid, right-wing bigots not).

One lovely adopted uncle was Uncle Donald H., a giant of a man, in stature and in reputation. I adored him. He would see my father home on a Friday night, late, squiffy, but bearing fish & chips and crisp £1 notes for the children. He was famous for practical jokes: spitting out his false teeth and perching them on top of an ice-cream sundae then calling the waitress back to complain; taking a gun from a soldier during the military coup in Portugal and placing a flower in the barrel (Make love not war, Son); jumping on the bed and ordering his wife, the long-suffering Dorrie, to scream (she, aged seventy-two, was smoking a cigarette and doing the crossword) in order to outdo the honeymoon couple on the other side of the paper-thin hotel wall.

I heard a new tale over the weekend.

Uncle Don had been drinking with his friend Gerry. At closing time, a scallywag nipped into the pub selling meat that had fallen off the back of a lorry. Uncle Don paid a tenner for a leg of pork.

Outside the back door of his home, he turned to Gerry. "This is how you handle women, Son. Watch and learn."

He opened the door and shouted for Dorrie. As she appeared from the living room, he slammed the leg of pork onto the kitchen counter. "Cook this for my supper, Dorrie, and make it quick. I'm hungry!"

Dorrie picked up the joint of meat, whacked her husband over the head knocking him to the ground, dropped the joint and returned to the living room without a word.

Uncle Don clambered to his feet. "I haven't finished yet, Son," he said and ransacked the cupboards until he found a bottle of ketchup. He squirted it over his scalp, rubbing it down his cheek and onto his shirt front. He splashed himself with water to make the 'blood' more liquid and staggered into the living room clasping the leg of pork.

"Oh, Dorrie, you've done for me!" he said. "I'm mortally wounded! Phone for the doctor - but cook me my supper first!"

Dorrie got up from her armchair, took the leg of pork from her husband, and whacked him on the other side of his head, then turned back to Coronation Street.

From the floor, Uncle Don looked up at Gerry and winked. "This plan needs refining, Son. Put kettle on."

My question is, did you have any legendary relatives/adopted relatives in your family?

That Was The Week That Was

It's been a funny old week. To summarise, I've learned

• to play indoor bowls (as in the game rather than impromptu musical instruments)
• that when bowling wearing an above-the-knee skirt, it is always wise to refuse to let elderly gentlemen stand behind one
• that beginning a conversation with "It wasn't me who threw the testicles and vagina into the conversational hat" will make one laugh like a drain for days
• that an-almost-certainly-deranged-man-masquerading-as-a-woman thinks that heaven is some sort of slimming club for those of a Catholic disposition (..."I also believe that Catholics will be weighed on different scales...")
• that if one loans a handkerchief to a strange man who is weeping during Toy Story 3, it is best not to ask for it back
• that beginning a  swish poetry event with a rendition of Poppy Tupper's limerick about Jeremy Hunt will not meet with universal approval 
• and that buying second-hand books in Oxfam is far more exciting than buying books from Amazon or Waterstones.

Today, I found a first edition book dated 1888 entitled Archie Macnab Edited by He Himself for less than a bobbins book by Harlan Coben in Asda. Inside is inked William Morgan Xmas 1888, but I also found a business card tucked inside the pages:

HAROLD KING

Correspondant en Chef pour la France

DU YORKSHIRE POST

Directeur Général Adjoint á vie

DE L'AGENCE REUTER (LONDRES)

Correspondant en France

DE BATON BROADCASTING LIMITED (TORONTO)

presents h8s (sic) compliments to Lord Boyle

and hopes he will enjoy the book.

Paris Nov. 1973         3, rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris

This is diverting on all sorts of levels, not least because the suggestion that the Yorkshire Post ever had an International Correspondent is - frankly - unbelievable.

When I lived in Yorkshire, there could have been a political coup at Westminster, an earthquake in Cornwall, and Prince Charles's secret life as a cross-dresser who molests animals revealed all on the same day and the Yorkshire Post headline would have been

PENSIONER JOSTLED AT CROSSING IN HORSFORTH

That aside, Archie and I are getting on great guns. We have rather a lot in common (not least the dreadful habit of procrastination):

Naething worth daein' is ever dune in a hurry, sae the Author sat doon, and walked aboot, chew'd his nails, thocht an' thocht, and repeated owre to himsel', o'fen and of'en - "Archie M'Nab, are you a man worthy o' this privledge, this honour, this high office? Hae you got the penitration, the intuitive insicht, and the delicacy required to perform this michty task? Hae you got the geenus that'll keep ye frae being rideeklus, when yet fankel'd up in the warp an' waft o' sic an intricate and complex fabrication as a woman is? Great writer and a' as ye are, hae you the courage to attack sic a kittley subject?"

If you think you may also have an affinity with Archie, click here. And if you've ever found anything interesting inside a book, please comment in the, erm, Comments.

... Improve Each Shining Hour

Today after work, I sat outside a café sipping coffee and reading another rubbish book (more anon) whilst simultaneously eavesdropping on a former head of the Arts Council who was opining at the next-but-one table: 'Young people don't join choirs.'

What? Hasn't he heard of Glee? As in a more scrubbed and wholesome version of Fame, light on legwarmers and bubble perms and heavy on the Be! True! To! Yourself! message. It's a comedy for the aspiring underdog in all of us - a thought that makes me nauseous.

Singin' 'n' dancin' is the new politics/religion/chocolate/sexual position/handbag-sized dog. (Delete as appropriate.) Surely everyone knows that?

This finger-on-the-pulse chap was at the next-but-one table, but at the very next table was this woman. I had no idea who she was until a man with a tight t-shirt and a tattoo approached and said, "May I have my photograph taken with you? I'm your biggest fan."

"Too kind," I murmured, "But I prefer to keep a low profile, if it's all the same with you." (I was wearing dark glasses and my funeral frock* and was ostensibly engrossed in a book.)

"Not you, you silly old bint. Sonja, here. I'm a great fan of The Wire."

Not a day goes by without someone exhorting me to watch The Wire. Apparently, I shan't understand a word of it until half way through Series 3. Hours and hours spent watching lips move and drawing a complete blank - plus ça change ... I am resolved to watch it with my mother; her attempts to decipher the scripts of Miami Vice in the 1980s provided endless hours of fun and her hearing's even worse these days.

This is a very television-heavy post, which is somewhat bizarre as I haven't had time to watch TV for ages. Recently, I've been hugely busy making people cry and buzz for the nurse to take me away. (True.) Or arguing with my new Sat Nav and getting lost in Albania. (Almost true.) And shouting poetry through letter-boxes at old ladies. (I could explain this, but I doubt you'd believe me.) And planting lettuces and courgettes and weeding the border (between Canada and America - anything to put off writing the 80,000 words I must submit by September). Even if I had the time to watch TV, it seems that all I'll hear is the endless droning of vuvuzelas. I can sit on the step by my lavender bush which thrums with bees and have almost exactly the same experience.

* The Funeral Frock, which I'll be wearing again tomorrow, is made of silk and coloured with tangerine, pink, purple, aubergine and raspberry splatters. Like a violent incident in a greengrocer's. A few years ago, I was summoned to a funeral and told to dress as if for a garden party, in bright colours, not a hint of black. I did as I was told (in those days) and arrived at the crematorium looking like, well, a victim of a violent incident in a greengrocer's. I was slightly late, so flung the car into a space, ran down the hill, rushed into the chapel and plonked myself down on a pew ...

... in a sea of black-garbed mourners.

Wrong time, wrong funeral. And it wasn't as if I could leave without creating a fuss. As this occurred in Yorkshire, I expect people are still wondering who the inappropriate woman was.

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche

The annual assembly of the top secret organisation, The Battenberg Group, has been held in Spain.

Delegates from Betty Crocker, Sara Lee and Twinkie were all thought to be present at the conference although under Gingerbread House Rules no register of attendees was kept and minutes of meetings remain unpublished.

At the Hotel Dolce, security was ramped up. Pastry chefs patrolled the perimeter grounds, whilst pâtissiers in crisp, cotton aprons guarded the hotel steps.

Not suprisingly, confectionery theories abound. David Ickels-Cake, the former sports presenter and Son of God, believes Battenberg members are descended from a race of ancient stollen recipes. "The numbers of death by chocolate is on the increase. It is clear who is responsible. We must strike at the very fondants of society! Cast the marzipanned minions into the dessert!"

Mr Kipling, a member of the Battenberg Steering Committee for thirty years, gave a statement to Sasha Torte, the cookery correspondent of The Guardian, who had been posting a daily blog from Spain.

"To say we are striving for one-cake governance is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Battenberg feel we can't go on forever icing one another for nothing and buttercream-filling people and rendering millions bunless. But conspiracy theorists like David are just a croquembouche. I suspect he's been on the blue Smarties."

The other delegates have remained sweet-toothed and tight-lipped. Clearly, what happens in Battenberg stays in Battenberg.

I'm a prima donna

dying in the mmmmm
waiting for the mamma
coming with her vest

I am hopeless at remembering song lyrics. The above is my version of Food For Thought by UB40. It was the first single I ever bought and I played it until the grooves on the vinyl were rubbed smooth.

It doesn't help that every singer since Vera Lynn has mumbled into their microphones. I used to put subtitles on when watching Top of the Pops, but the banal lyrical content was ever so depressing. Anyway, I was never sure if UB40's song began with a marina donna, I'm a prima donna, or I'm a green banana. Or - most likely - none of the above.

This mishearing of a phrase is called a mondegreen. Banshee told me this only an hour ago after a vociferous misunderstanding about the whereabouts of an absent bicycle. It was a mystery worthy of the attentions of Poirot and involved a tennis coach, broken brakes, a twisted ankle and TWOCKING (taking without consent). It wasn't my bicycle so I didn't care. I slid beneath the bath water so that all the vociferation was dulled into quite pleasant gobbets of sound. I couldn't tell what anyone was saying - it was like Top of the Pops all over again.

I missed my vocation in life ...

Artistically speaking ...

I've been swanning round all evening engaged in artistic pursuits, one of which involved four exploding cannons (note the precise spelling of this artillery considerately ensures no confusion within the Church of England which has enough problems thank you very much) that showered the very select (hem, hem) crowd in golden confetti and vanilla-scented fog. It passes for fun in this neck of the woods and all miles better than the whippet-whittling and cheese-rolling of my youth.

I intend to cram as many cannons into my social life as possible before the austerity measures kick in and museums have to start charging an arm and a leg (or, in the case of the Chapmans, a penis and a pudenda) for entrance. Who knows when you'll next be able to afford to view Napoleon's bed chamber or a head made of frozen human blood? Never mind the Minton tile collection.

Still, in our make-do-and-mend political agenda, I expect this Yorkshire-heavy cabinet (Eric-been-at-the-Pickles, Hague et al) with their flat feet and vowels  will insist on the reinstatement of whippet-whittling in the National Curriculum. And if whippets are whittled even just a little bit, they'll resemble Giacomettis and have some artistic merit so it doesn't do to be too pessimistic about the future. I've often heard it said (mainly in The Mirror) that the new cabinet are a bunch of artists.

Back to my Night of Art. Toulouse-Lautrec - now there was a man who knew a floozy or two (or forty-four). Yet he was ever so kind to them in his drawings and prints. (Not like Klimt with his less than quaint queynte complex. Did you know Adele Bloch-Bauer is in a state of rudity under her golden frock?) High kicks, opera glasses and flophouses; dashing lines, splashed reds and yellows, a thick swirl of black ink. Only a few hours have passed and already I am eager to revisit the exhibition; absinthe makes the heart - No! I cannot do it to you! Forgive me.

There's money in Art. In 2005, a Lautrec painting sold for £12.6 million. That would plug a few holes in the deficit so, as they appear to be on a winning streak, is it too late for Camclegg to enter The Turner Prize? Forty grand would be a sure start - especially as they are guaranteed first and third prize.

Why stop at art? Perhaps they could co-write a book? A heart-warming tale of triumph over adversity. Proof that it doesn't matter what unlucky hand life deals you: where there's a will - and a large inheritance - there's a way. Published by Faker & Faker, it will be a shoo-in for The Booker, T.S.Eliot, Costa and Nobel. The prize-money (they'll walk it) will go some way to addressing the pot plant and paperclip bill of the Cabinet Office. What have they - or we - got Toulouse?

Clat? Well fancy that!

In my previous post - borrowing heavily from the first chapter of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man - I used the word clat. Wells used it in his chapter and I liked the sound of it. I didn't actually know what it meant.

That'll teach me.

Last time I used a word I didn't know the meaning of, I was twelve and used begotten in a poem as I thought it sounded much more poetic than forgotten. The Begotten Doll was quickly forgotten - thankfully, no trace exists of this juvenilia. (And this admission won't stand up in Court, so sue me.)

(Apologies - it's been a lifelong ambition to say so sue me to someone. I saw the chance and took it.)

The Urban Dictionary has lots of meanings for the word clat - none of them suitable for sensitive souls. If you are a sensitive soul, don't click here.

I imagined that when Wells used it, it was intended as a derivation of éclat meaning a brilliant display or effect. So I checked other texts and - stone me! - he had written éclat in the first place.

Still, suggesting that Mrs Hall carried the cloth, plates, and glasses into the parlour and began to lay them with a group of promiscuous men shows a certain éclat, no?

But a bit of better butter makes better batter

I like butter - not in a Last Tango way - but I cannot think of a single dish that wouldn't be improved by some lovely butteriness. I could quite happily eat buttered toast without the toast. But I don't because - unlike Marlon Brando - I try to keep my less attractive urges in check.

I blame my mother for this. (The butter, not the less attractive urges which are entirely my own responsibility.) There was something going on with the milkman when I young. Something that involved exchanging washed milk bottle tops for a Milk Marketing Board Cookbook. Each recipe in that book began: Take 1lb of dairy butter, 2 pints of dairy cream, and add 15 pints of full fat milk. We lived on a Sixties housing estate filled with young wives who engaged in competitive coffee mornings. The milkman retired at thirty-five and went to live in Spain.

My granny talked about best butter - as if there were any other kind. 'I made this cake with best butter,' she'd say. I was confused: how many grades of butter were there? Of course, I know better now. Pale Normandy butter glistening with crystals of sea salt is the best butter; Anchor, over-salted and artificially yellow is probably the worst.

My father's been diagnosed with high cholesterol (not to be confused with that pungent aftershave Hai Karate). Consequently, the butter addiction which has characterised my parents' forty-eight year discord, sorry, marriage has been abandoned. Margarine - some sort of cholesterol-lowering plant extract spread - now sits unloved and untouched in the cow-shaped butter dish. 'I only want a little bit of butter for my bread,' Pa whimpers - fruitlessly as there's not a Dairymaid or Alderney in sight.

Margarine is a travesty of the highest order. Not only does it taste nothing like butter, but it has ruined a perfectly beautiful word. Margarine, with a hard 'g' like Margaret, means pearl or pearly. And then some chemist created oléomargarine from rendered beef fat and that luscent, nacreous, iridescent pearl of a word became forever linked with synthetic spread.

Poets have long known the real value of margarine.For example:

Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made;
Margarine that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade.

(The Tempest - William Shakespeare)

And here's Robert Frost musing on his morning toast:

A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like margarine, and now a silver blade.

Even St. Matthew urged us not to throw our margarine before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. (Matthew 7:6)

Utterly Butterly? Utterly rancid. Give it to the pigs.

Rescue Me

Last night, my brother sent me a text message: GU24 8AT. Google Earth. He's a chap of little conversation (having spent far too many years in Yorkshire).

If you care to look it up - and I cannot see why you would and not just take my word for it - you'll see the very large roof of a very large house and some trees. But what you won't see is an extravagant horse chestnut close to the front of the house.

You won't see it because when I was twelve years old, I got stuck in that tree - my knee firmly wedged in the forked trunk - and the Fire Brigade had to cut the tree down in order to rescue me.

(I am turning into my grandmother who, whenever she saw piles of bricks where a row of mean terraced houses had been demolished, would exclaim,"Look at those houses! They've gone!")

My mother had thrown warm soapy water over me - well, it helps dislodge tight rings from swollen fingers, so why not a girl from a tree? - and a drunken baronet (cashiered from the Royal Naval Pay Corps) had come too close for comfort with a chain saw. Meanwhile, I had lost all feeling in my feet and my brother (who had far too much to say in those days) was running round in circles chanting "I told her not to climb it, Mum, I told her not to climb it, Mum!"

I didn't like the house at GU24 8UT. We rented a flat there and were a family oddly at sea, scattered over three floors. My books from that time have a plaintive message scrawled inside the cover: Moptop, 1978, living in a house that I HATE. (Doubtless, I left them on my mother's pillow, bookmarked in case she missed the point.)

Having been forced to trip merrily down Memory Lane by a text message, I started thinking about all the times I've been rescued. (I shan't list them all; you'll only worry.)

And then I realised that I haven't been rescued in ages.

So I'm thinking of sitting in an airport lounge and getting repatriated somewhere. A Government Official could carry my hand luggage onto the coach - it'll be a photo opportunity. In fact, he could carry me onto the coach. That's bound to be worth a constituency or two. I'm talented at looking exhausted. If I pop a pair of the Small Boy's socks in my pocket I'll pass the she-hasn't-washed-in-days test and my hair is naturally unkempt.

I could pretend to be Welsh. Anyone can speak Welsh. Cobble a handful of consonants together and make throat-clearing noises - you'll easily pass as a Child of the Valleys. And then I'll get repatriated to the Welsh-speaking region of Patagonia. (From where I'll pretend to be English and get rescued again.)

But even if I just get carried onto a bus - and immediately frog-marched off it again - well, that little rescue will be enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndO80eh9YwI

Sofa, so good

I am saving up.

I am saving up like billy-oh.

I am saving up because a new shop has opened. I noticed it yesterday as I was completing my paper-round. It sells sofas. Not any old sofas. According to the legend above the shop, it sells Cavalier Sofas.

You can see why I am counting all my pennies and putting them into a jar. How much joy could a cavalier sofa bring to ones day-to-day existence? Even the prospect of a cavalier sofa is bringing me joy. Just the name of the cavalier sofa is bringing me joy. Sitting on a cavalier sofa is bound to be an adventure. An adventure filled with joy.

Think of all the things you could do on a cavalier sofa ...

The shop also sells cavalier carpets, but I suspect they may verge on life-threatening. In my experience, you need a carpet* to be dependable, not cavalier.


* Though think of all the dangerous things you could do on a cavalier carpet ...

Drop the Ball

I was once given a small book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sweaty Chicken Soup - or somesuch. I forget what exactly. It was a (mutters) Self Help Manual, full of wistful photographs of tanned, lean-limbed people and postive suggestions.

However, one page did prove useful. I read it whilst I was waiting for someone. (The gasman, the postman, Leonardo - again, I forget who exactly.) I stored the information in my constantly churning tombola and it floated to the surface at just the right moment several years later ...

... Last summer, in fact, when I was sent on a training course with an organisation who are the subject of much internet chatter. Are they the Illuminati? The Masons? Blue Lizards who've puffed molecularly and - one could say - spectacularly out of long-dormant volcanoes? I can't say more than this as they are dreadfully litigious. What do I care? I met some nice people and had several good lunches.

On the third day, a session with NLP practitioners was scheduled. I can't help feeling that NLP is money for old rope. If I remember rightly, the NLPer said the physical reaction for fear is the same physical reaction for excitement: increased heart rate, sweaty palms, shallow breathing. It is only the label that Society has given the reaction which differentiates between pleasure and anxiety. I must retrain my brain not to accept negative labels. Next time someone runs at me brandishing a machete screaming 'I'm going to chop you up into little pieces' I must remember to tell myself that I'm excited. Excited.

Anyway, we were put into pairs and instructed to reflect each other's insecurities and anxieties but in a positive manner, in order to stop them being insecurities and anxieties. Well, that was the theory.

I was paired with a lovely chap. Let's call him Lorenzo (for that was his name). English was not his first language, although he spoke it very well.

Lorenzo: I am anxious about my workload. Everyone comes to me with their problems. They are piling up on my desk. I don't have time to do my own work. I am drowning in problems.
M (WHISPERING): What am I supposed to say?
Lorenzo (ALSO WHISPERING): I don't know. I wasn't listening to the instructions.
M (WHISPERING): Something to do with reflection ...?
Lorenzo (WHISPERING): Bravo! Yes, you must repeat back to me.
M (WHISPERING): But if I reflect your problems back at you, it'll be awfully depressing.
Lorenzo (WHISPERING): This is true ...
M (WHISPERING): Shall I improvise?
Lorenzo (WHISPERING): Yes, but you must do it quickly because that woman is watching us.
M (LOUDLY): Tell me your problems, Lorenzo. What is troubling you?
Lorenzo: I have too many problems to deal with! People come to me: I can't do this, I can't do that. What should I do about this and that? My desk is overwhelmed with problems! I cannot work for problems!
M (THE EVER CHURNING TOMBOLA SENDS SOMETHING TO THE SURFACE): Here is what you must do, Lorenzo.
Lorenzo: Yes?
M: You must visualise all these problems as balls.
Lorenzo: Balls?
M: Yes. All these problems are balls. Some are little balls, some are big balls.
Lorenzo: The problems are balls?
M: Yes, balls. People are throwing your their balls. And you are catching them.
Lorenzo: Yes, this is correct.
M: And now your arms are so full of other people's balls that you are not able to handle your own balls.
Lorenzo: This makes sense.
M: You are being buried by other people's balls.
Lorenzo: Yes!
M: Your own balls are being neglected.
Lorenzo: Yes!
M: So, when someone throws you their balls, either drop them -
Lorenzo: Drop them?
M: Or stroke them gently and throw them back.
Lorenzo: Stroke them gently ...?
M: Yes. You must never grasp anyone else's balls firmly. A gentle, fleeting touch and back they go.
Lorenzo: But - this is genius! Cara, grazie mille! You have changed my life!

Minutes later we regrouped and were asked to report back on what we had learned from the exercise. Lorenzo was very excited.

'It has been life-changing!'

The NLP practioner beamed.

'Moptop has told me I must stroke other people's balls lightly as then I will be able to handle my own balls with confidence.'

The beam vanished.

Who says self-help books are a waste of time?