So London has been such a fucking pain this time. You see here is the truth, I was sick on arrival; I flew into Heathrow last week feeling hot and yucky. I secretly thought I had swine flu; mentally I was plotting my funeral.

So, then I just got ready for the gigs and getting myself into gear. The coughing during the night freaked me out so much I had to stop smoking all over again (yes I slipped). So breathing is better since I had stopped again, but seriously I am concerned and need to go get my lungs check.



So I called NHS helpline and they asked me all the countries I had visited lately, I gave them New Zealand, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Scotland. She ignored all the exotic locations and dug her teeth into Scotland. “There are big out breaks of swine flu in Scotland” she shouted. After I listed all my ailments she reassured me that I don’t have swine flu but just The Flu.



The gigs have been great though, I managed to do an Edinburgh preview which wasn’t really an Edinburgh preview. I just made some stuff up and watched if it worked or not. Meanwhile, the illness was ranging from snotty thick nose goo and coughing up green kites out of my lungs, then hacking coughs during the day that almost made me pee myself.



Wednesday last week I headed up to Manchester for a casting. I made the fatal mistake of jumping on an early train (instead of 9.20am I got on the 8.20am) which apparently is evil and costs an extra £160- as if I was going to pay that because I sat on a train an hour earlier that is just mental. I told the train man to fuck off, the train was empty and I refused to be robbed by those people.



He just stared at me and said “You got on a train that is peak time and your ticket is off peak, you have to pay”.



“Am not paying, look, am sorry but this train is empty, I am not taking someone’s seat, the sheer amount of times the train I paid for never either never left the station or never quite got to its destination is many fold, so am not moving or paying so call the police, look mate I know you are doing your job but this is just wrong” I spoke. He stared at me and said “ok” then smiled. I like the train man now.




The casting went fine, and I headed back to London on a train that wasn’t actually my ‘time train’ but I was now addicted to screwing with the system and felt quite crazy. Nobody bothered.



London has been really hot, at night I was sleeping in the lovely room with a big fan in my face which was awesome but in the morning my mouth and nose were dried up.



On Friday I woke up to the news that Michael Jackson had died, I really liked his music but went off him years ago when he paid a kid not to take him to court for sexual offences. I know he was found innocent in another child sexual case, but I just didn’t like him much after that. No one likes talking about this, not many people liked my tweets about this, so I will leave it at that!



On Saturday I did a comedy stint on Loose Ends on BBC Radio 4; it can be a tough gig as you basically shout stuff at five people sitting round a table in a small studio. The lovely Gerry Anderson was there, he was the man who made the Thunderbirds puppet series amongst many other puppet based TV shows.



He was really a cool old dude and gave me a big chat about stopping smoking; really he should be doing the circuit as a stopping smoking guru as he was awesome at that. Then he went on radio and as Clive Anderson asked him about Thunderbirds etc...Gerry told him “I hated working with puppets” That made me giggle, nice man though.



The comedy slot went ok, but honestly I think I have done better before.



I coughed my way onto a bus and headed back to the flat to get ready for Jongleurs Bow.



I have been bothered by my over eating campaign that started back in 1980, I know I am too fat and decided to diet (again). This time to help motivate me,

I got an email from my past. A woman I knew called Maria when I was 14 years old got in contact. We knew each other through a friend of mine, but we didn’t attend the same school as she was a Catholic and because I am bereft of a religion so therefore assumed as a protestant (this is normal in east end Glasgow) – we never really moved in the same circles.


Anyway she emailed me to say hi and that she enjoyed my comedy set when she saw me at Tron Theatre back in March.



Anyway it got me remembering about her. I was always in awe of Maria as she wore thick black kohl pencil eyeliner and bright blue eye shadow. We were the same age but she had a curvy possibly plump demeanour with big ‘woman’ type boobs, which always made me stare at her. I had two very less -than -perky nipples that sat completely flat against my teenage ribcage with breasts that threatened to defy my sexuality and make me possibly the famous man/girl of Glasgow.



She had bigger back boobs than me and always had an ‘adult woman’ BO scent about her, it was a smell that reminded me of my mum’s drunken pals. It was a dirty smell that always disturbed me and she wasn’t a dirty unkempt person (like I was!). She was always immaculately dressed and came from a lovely home. I had been in her bedroom and it was lovely, pink and didn’t have a dog that ate its own fleas or a mum who crushed cigarette ends on the floor, like mine.



I can’t quite explain that smell, but it was definitely something disturbing and I recalled it immediately when I read her email. It can’t be a good sign that when you remember someone from over 30 years ago, you get instant recall on their body smell.



She always had steady boyfriends at a time when I was still thinking about Donny Osmond and dreaming about kissing a Bay City Roller. I remember one day I spotted her as she crossed the road near my home in her school uniform and an older man was waiting for her with a giant teddy bear. I thought it was her dad, but he swept her up and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ then kissed her full on the mouth, a big proper kissing. It was her latest boyfriend and he had a moustache -I decided there and then to get to know her more. She fascinated me, how did she manage to be a woman at the same age as me and grow big boobs and have boyfriends with facial hair and a car?



She was an only child and her mum and dad let her boyfriends come to their home and sit in her room with her. This astonished me beyond belief, who would have a boyfriend that came to your house? That was exotic.



One day my mum was chatting to her mum Chrissie. When Chrissie mentioned she was getting some steak for Maria’s boyfriends dinner. My mum asked her why her daughter had a boyfriend at that age and why the fuck was Chrissie feeding him.


The woman explained she’d rather have her daughter’s boyfriend in the house and get to know him. “She’s only fourteen Chrissie, too fucking young for boyfriends at that age, especially ones that eat steak” My mum said. As far as my mum was concerned steak was an adult’s meal and children didn’t eat good meat that was for ‘men’.


The woman shrugged her shoulders and walked off.



My mum couldn’t believe this woman was buying steak for a boyfriend of her fourteen year old daughter. I told mum her boyfriend wasn’t a boy he had a moustache and a car and wore a jacket with elbow patches on.



“That’s fucking Catholics for you” my crazy mum spat. My mum liked finding things wrong with Catholics, it reinforced her sectarian attitude.



She looked at me and said, “Don’t even think about wanting some fucking boyfriend that eats steak”


So I made it my business to get to know Maria more. It was hard work; she was always busy with her boyfriend. Occasionally I would turn up at her door and her mum would let me in. I would go through to Maria’s bedroom and sit there staring a

The flight down from Glasgow was ok, I was rather annoyed as I got a BA American Express credit card and on the phone the Amex people reassured me TWICE that this British Airways Amex gets you access to their executive lounges and I asked my mate who works at BA when I got the airport and she told me it didn’t give you access, MANY people had been duped by that sales technique. Shame on Amex for lying to people, anyway flight was fine.


The downside of the flight was I was feeling horrid. I had a spiked fever and my throat hurt. I was convinced I had swine flu. You see, I had been in Dunoon and Shawlands over the weekend and both places have been hot spots of swine flu, so in my head I was about to die. The thought of going to the NHS and saying “I have a fever and sore throat and by the way I have just travelled through Los Angeles, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Dunoon and Shawlands over the past six weeks” I would be strapped to a bed and quarantined like a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. So, instead, I waited till I had infected everyone and did my shows. I am now fine and the symptoms have gone, I suspected I was Typhoid Mary for a few hours though.



Am staying in Westminster Crown lawn flats which are superb, the place is awesome and it has an underground swimming pool! It is just round the corner from Big Ben.



I lie in bed and can hear Big Ben chime all the time, it’s really nice to hear it.



Did my preview show and was worried sick as I don’t really do preview shows at all, I wait until the first night of Edinburgh fringe and that’s when I do the show for the first time. I never really have any material ready, until that first show. Scary and fucking weird I know, but that’s how I work. So, the crowd were lovely as I battered out some new stories that may or may not make it to Edinburgh and the crowd were lovely as hell. They even told me at the end what to keep and what to discard come the fringe! Well, I did ask them.



Had a staring competition in Costa Coffee when I popped in for a pee without buying a tea, a woman who had been sat down drinking watched me come in and got up and decided that she was going to use the loo before me. She stood in front of me and I stood in front of her.



“Have you bought coffee?” she asked as we waited the queue for the loo.


“Yes, I have bought coffee, just not here, and am going to pee in their toilet; do you own Costa Coffee then?” I asked her.



“You are passive aggressive” She snapped.



“So is everyone, sometimes we are aggressive and sometimes we are passive, now take your pseudo psychoanalysis bullshit and watch me pee for free”


I stared her out and got into the toilet and just for badness read a chapter of my book as she waited outside in a huff. That’s what she gets for being the toilet Nazi.



After my show I headed down to Groucho club with Fran and got to see my best wee mate Bernie. He is the vanguard at the door of the club and filters out all the celeb wheat from the chaff & Chav! He is really funny as fuck and makes me giggle when he does his thing. That club is worth joining just to watch Bernie the Prince of Soho.



Anyway Fran and I had a great time and there was some funny high jinkery going on, I didn’t get home until 2am. Feet killing and make up slid down my cleavage, that’s what happens when you dance and sing round a piano with a few gins inside you.



So onwards and upwards.