19th March
Insomnia
Rehab
Taramasalata Factory
I burn my candle at both ends,
It will not last the night,
But O my foes and O my friends,
It gives a lovely light,
Also I have burnt my fingers and am covered in wax.
Bloody milkman. Who needs milk at 4 am ? Let’s face it, no one does. He’s just trying to draw attention to himself by waking me up.
I went to Ellis’s last night, or rather, this night only earlier, honestly it’s like having jet lag, I don’t know if I’m on foot or horseback half the time. Anyway, I went to Ellis’s and it’s all true... The back of his house is falling off. The shutters won’t shut and there are beams at knee height in his kitchen. So we had a look and then we went down the road to Vivienne’s for supper.
Vivienne’s husband has gone away on a business trip but she’s not sure where or when he is coming back. Ellis says it’s an abberation that he lives here at all and that really he belongs in Crouch End so it’s a blessed relief that he’s disappeared for all concerned. I am not sure Vivienne agrees but she made a lovely supper with chicken and roasted vegetables. I didn’t eat any but Maisie was with me and she ate masses.
We drove to Ellis’s and on the way we stopped on Wordsworth Way to let a family unload their carin front of us. They unloaded pink balloons, pink wrapped parcels, a cake and spme pink and white baby clothes.
‘Oh how sweet.’ I said ‘A baby girl has been born and they have beautiful pink presents for her.’ Just then, one of the balloons, being held by a very handsome young black man, escaped and skittered down the road coming to rest out of sight in front of a parked Mini. He didn’t notice that he had dropped it so I wound down my window and said. ‘You’ve dropped one. It’s by that Mini.’
‘Thanks, thanks a lot.’he replied rushing to retreive it.
‘Thank you so much.’ said his mum and Maisie and me drove off.
‘I don’t know why,’ said Maisie, tucking a strand of spun gold hair behind her ear, ‘but they reminded me of The Jackson 5.’
‘It was fun at Vivienne’s. We drank wine and chatted. Ellis said that the Bee Man from across the road had seen off the Taramasalta factory.
I said ‘What can you mean?’
Ellis said that Bee Man was so annoyed about the noise from the Taramasalata factory at the back of his house that he had written a 100 times to the couincil and in the end the Taramasalata factory had had to move to Dalston.
Ellis also said that Bee Man’s bees all had fungus and that very soon there would be no more bees. I think this is a good thing because I don’t like bees and all the unemployed people would be able to get jobs pollinating things with feathers and getting back to nature at the same time which would be good for their mental health.
Then I came home, and now I am awake. Perhaps I should get a job as a security guard.
Thursday 20th March 2008.
Townes Van Zandt
Boris Johnson
‘ There’s nothing I ain’t tried,
Fast living, slow suicide.’
I love Townes Van Zandt.
Last time I saw Boris Johnson he was sitting in a Routemaster bus campaigning madly for the job as London’s Mayor.
The first time I saw him I was walking Evil round the park at 7 am.
I was quite alone and it was only just getting light when, suddenly, out of the trees by the tennis courts, burst a man in a vividly red bobble hat teamed with baggy shorts and a flappy T shirt. ‘Help!’ I thought loudly to myself ‘A loony.’ As the loony ran past me I saw that it was Boris Johnson.
The next time I saw him, he was touching each bollard at the edge of the park as he ran past in an attractively obsessive compulsive manner and the very next time, he nodded to me as if to say ‘Hello.’
I could see our relationship becoming more serious.
I like Boris Johnson very much. I think Boris is very attractive.
I began to choose my dog walking outfits with more care. I trained Evil to trip runneres up by getting right under their feet.
I was biding my time.
Then I read Boris’s book ‘Have I Got Views For You.’ so as to sound intelligent and informed as I helped him back to his house after his ‘accident’ and I realised that he is a Tory.
Oh well.
My mother rang. 'Have you and John made up ?' she said.
''Yes.' I replied.
' How ?' she asked ' How did you make up ? One minute you're getting divorced and the next, you're all fine and dandy. How does that happen ? '
' Well, the usual really..' I sighed ' Ennui.'
' En nuit ? Do you mean au lit ? ' she asked.
'No.' I said ' Absolutely not ! Why are we speaking in French ? '
' You started it.' she said.
I am having problems with the idea of going to live in the country.
In The Sun this morning I read that all provincial town centres are over run with marauding yobbos high on a cocktail of alcopops and skunk and that they will kick you to death as soon as look at you.
I read that there is no point thinking you can live in a nice isolated farmhouse either, because one morning you will wake up to find your back garden has been asphalted over, that three hundred gypsies have moved in and that, when not busy taking over the village school, they will be enthusiastically burning rubber tyres under your bedroom window and leaving hangmen's nooses on your front lawn.
According to The Sun there won't be a damn thing you can do about it because Gordon Brown has sold all our Human Rights to Germany.
Perhaps we should just stay here after all.
I am very worried about the Credit Crunch. I don't know what it is, but I keep having an overwhelming urge to take all our money out of the bank and hide it under the bed.
John says we shouldn't worry.
Paul says his father has probably lost all his money in the Credit Crunch but no one will know for ages because he's died.
I am going to phone Barclays and check how our money is doing.
Friday 21st March 2008. Good Friday
‘ If that’s a Good Fiday, I wouldn’t want a bad one. ‘ John Hegley wrote that.
Saturday 22nd March 2008. Easter Saturday.
I was right about March. It has snowed and snowed.
‘What’s the point of snow that just falls down wthout settling ?’ asks Maisie.
What’s the point of snow in March at all ? Snow is for December and January.
It is for crunchy, starry walks back from midnight mass, for snowball fights on Parliament Hill during the Christmas holidays, for ice slides on pavements in the sodium glow of the street lights .... and for ski ing, obviously.
We were fed up so we took Sylvie and Maisie to see Spiderwick in Islington.
Half way through the film, hoodies burst into the cinema through the fire escape and we had stereo entertainment.
‘ Can’t you see the goblins ?’ said Freddy Highmore to his sister.
‘ I need a wank. ‘ said a hoody.
‘ I’m going to eat your face off.’ said Mulgarath the ogre.
‘ I wear shin pads to church.’ said a hoody.
‘ Don’t be so rude.’ said a dad.
‘ My dad’s a Jew.’ said a hoody.
You get that in Islington, it’s what the Sun calls ‘Broken Britain.’ I expect they’d been drinking alcopops.
Afterwards, we went to Ottolenghi and bought broccoli for Abigail’s Easter lunch.
Abigail is much better.
Sylvie went home and now John and me are getting divorced again. I don’t see why we can’t have a normal arguement without divorce, but we are the masters of escalation, it’s why we got married and had children in the first place, most people would have just lived together for a bit.
Sunday 23rd March 2008. Easter Sunday
Ellis comes to save me at 3 am. I am suicdal. Usually, when this happens I sleep in my car but Abigail won’t let me.
Ellis says it’s ridiculous to sleep in a car and that he will give me a key to his house, although, actually, he says, his house is probably colder than my car and that he has hypothermia. Ellis is a very good psychiatrist, he is also vey very kind. I love Ellis.
Easter morning.
I have a BRILLIANT idea.
I will buy a house near Penzance. It will be a small house with a wood burning stove and slate floors. I will buy Maisie a Welsh section C sports horse. It will be a flashy bay with plenty of scope and she will go to the Bolitho School and join their riding team.
Me and Maisie will jump ship and leave the captaining to someone else.. Abigail probably..
Then, John will buy a high spec flat in a new development. It will have bamboo flooring and plasma screens. He can live there with Zac and Abigail and they will be very happy.
I look on the internet to find our new lifestyle. We aren’t rich enough. Oh well.
Ellis comes for lunch. He brings John Hegley, Hannah and her little brother. Hetty is in the South of France with Delia Smith’s food photographer.
John Hegley is a very famous poet. He has been on Richard and Judy and Radio 4. He is one of Ellis’s best friends.
John Hegley stayed the night on Ellis’s sofa and as a result he has hypothermia when he arrives.
We huddle round the fire and talk about the Edinburgh Festival and the Bloomsbury Set. We talk about painted furniture, velvet cloaks and Virginia Woolf.
Ellis says ‘Your house is so tidy.’
I say ‘ It’s outer tidiness is a sign of it’s inner chaos.’
Abigail and John make lunch. She makes Ottolenghi salad and roasted potatoes with toasted almonds and garlic. He bakes a whole salmon. John Hegley goes to King’s Cross to meet a friend.
Abigail eats a piece of lemon tart from Waitrose. We all pretend not to notice.
Tuesday 25th March 2008
Tessa Jowell’s Gypsies.
I told you !
I read in The Sun that Tessa Jowell has a £1,000,000 house in the country and that gypsies have come and put plumbing in her back garden. They have burned some rubbish and parked 30 caravans on some homemade hard standing.
The gypsies said they didn’t know that an MP lived in the house but because they have some Human Rights it will take 8 years for the council to move them.
They said that they are all christians. I was on their side until I read that. Imagine having a load of christians living in your back garden. Nightmare !
Gordon Brown had better buy back those Human Rights as ASAP.
Wednesday 27th March 2008
‘Nothing comes of nothing,’ Mattress, Asians,
‘ Nothing comes of nothing ‘ well, that’s for sure.
Day 2423 in the Big Bother House and I need to order an Ocado shop.
I take Maisie to school. The day is soft and clear. March is doing that thing again, lulling me into a false sense of security, I take my scarf off on the way home and breath deeply, spring is here, for a bit.
Last night I threw Zac’s mattress out of his bedroom window. I was changing his sheets and realised that his mattress had developed a personality and a micro-climate. I think it may be responsible for that piece of ice ‘the size of the Isle of Man’ shearing off from the Wilkins ice shelf in the Antarctic. It’s odd, actually, normally things are the ‘ size of Wales ‘, I wonder which is bigger the Isle of Man or Principality of Wales ? Anyway, apart from global disaster, the upshot of spontaneous mattress chucking was this.
Zac : ‘ Where am I going to sleep ? It’s ridiculous, you can’t just chuck people’s mattresses out of their bedroom windows.’
Me : ‘ I’m sorry but frankly that mattress was beyond toleration, that mattress was alive, that mattress..’
Zac : ‘ Was my bed, actually.’
I explained to Zac that I have ordered another mattress from John Lewis, it’s coming on Tuesday and that he can sleep in the playroom until then which will be nice for him as he can shoot aliens until the small hours without interruption.
Zac : ‘ Can Otto come over ?’
On the way back from taking Maisie to school I met a Perfect Doctor and the man from down the road who runs Jolly Computers Dot Com.
Jolly Computers had a parking ticket because he’d forgotten to renew his permit, Perfect Doctor got one for leaving one wheel over the white line of his bay. Bella saw us chatting and came out of her house to say she had one for no reason at all.
Bella invited me in for coffee.
Bella’s eldest has a place at Chelsea to do a foundation course which is nice.
Her cleaner has a nasty upstairs neighbour who keeps flooding her flat - you get that sort of thing in Islington - Bella’s cleaner says she might do a swap and move back over this way. She said she told her floody neighbour that she’d be choosing the new tenant and they’d better watch out because she might get some Asians in, who’d stink the place out with curry the whole time and leave catering sized bags of rice in the hall that would attract the mice.
‘Is that what Asians do ?’ I asked.
“Yes.’ she said ‘And I can tell you, they’re being a bit more considerate now, that’s for sure.
Friday 28th March 2008.
Ukelele teacher
Stress
Rachel comes over with Daisy. Rachel is very high powered and has a baby. She is training to be a doctor and she is very stressed because Daisy’s ukelele teacher has a ‘ball frying’ ex wife and he has had to cancel Daisy’s ukelele lesson for the third time while he trys to find some legal aid. Rachel is upset because if Daisy doesn’t achieve at ukelele she may not get into Edgeware where they set great store by musical achievement.
Daisy stays the night.
Ellis comes for chip night. Ellis is very stressed because his floorboards have begun to crack.
Ellis orders two sausages at the Chinese chip shop to combat any sibling rivalry.
I make Ellis and me an enormous salad and I cook Tilapia because I think it’s one of the very few fish that one is allowed to eat without destroying the planet, but I might be wrong.
Ellis and me don’t eat chips because we are hench.
Ellis goes home early because he has to take Hannah for an interview in Wales for a sixth form place at an International School where you may end up in Canada or Italy and where you will certainly become Eurotrash and learn to sail.
Ellis’s youngest will stay with me while they go.
Hetty is staying with Delia Smith’s food photographer’s ex-wife who is a very high powered architect and barely has time to turn round and spit.
Later, I get a phone call from Bangalore. The man on the other end pretends to be called Peter and says he is calling from South Africa. I say,
‘If you were South African you would says “Yis” not “Yah.” It’s Ok to be Indian, you know. My grandmother ran the Raj in India for years.’
The man in Bangalore seems rather nonplussed, just as I had planned.
‘ Admit you are in India.’ I say ‘ Are you, or are you not in Bangalore ?’
The man from Bangalore hangs up.
It’s a shame because I had been going to tell him that he was being exploited by a large multi-national and that with his obvious skills he should try to get a Visa and come to England where call centres pay an absolute fortune to out of work actors and Poles and are crying out for Indians.
John comes home very late. there is no news so he has been busy making some up.
He opens his post and finds he has been sent a signed photo of himself and Dolly Parton. It’s very funny and I will have to take it to Steve to get it framed.
John tells me his editor has asked him to find out what sort of music Boris Johnson likes and to take him out to a gig.
That is so unfair.
I want to take Boris to a gig.
Sunday 30th March 2008
March is nearly over. Hurray !
Zac.
Zoo.
Zac has gone to Wiltshire with the Vowels in a very privileged way. He has packed all his clothes because quad biking gets you very muddy. He took a train from Paddington to Chippenham and it cost £42 which is extortionate.
Before Zac went to Wiltshire, he spent some time in the bathroom and asked me to get him some spot cream.
‘Why ?’ I said ‘Are there going to be girls in Wiltshire?’
‘God, Mum.’ said Abigail, who was standing by the cooker eating mange tout with balsamic vinegar, ‘Why do you always ask that ? Will there be girls there ? Will there be boys there ? He’s 16 you know, so what if there are girls there?’
‘Well, I said ‘ A boy can be very vulnerable to girls of that age. Some of them are very predatory actually. My brother was jumped on by a girl when he was 15 and lost his virginity by accident. Maybe Zac should have some condoms with him.’
‘OK,’ said Zac ‘ Can we stop this conversation right now please ?’
‘Yeah.’ said Abigail ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not the 70s you know, when everyone went around having unprotected sex and listening to David Bowie on vinyl.’
‘ OK’ I said ‘ Zac, what’s the fat one called ?’
‘ The fat what ? ‘ asked Zac.
‘The fat girl ?’ I said ‘ And what’s the pretty blonde one called ?’
‘ Melanie... How do you know who’s going ? How do you know there’s a pretty blonde one and a fat one ?’ asked Zac.
Abigail rolled her eyes.
‘ There is always a pretty one and a fat one in all groups of girls.’ I said. ‘The most dangerous girl will be Melanie’s slightly less blonde best friend. Watch her like a hawk.’
Zac rolled his eyes and went to Wiltshire.
I take Maisie and Ellis’s youngest to the zoo. It is a lovely day because March has nearly done with us. The trees are frosted with palest green and the sky is a clear, washed blue.
At the Zoo we agree that the Golden Headed Tamarind is just like Abigail. ‘It even pulls the same face when it’s cross.’ says Maisie. We think Ellis’s youngest is probably a Meerkat and that Maisie is a Slender Loris. I think I am a Camel.
April 2nd 2008
Zac
Ellis
Gillian Mckeith
I am worried about Abigail. Yesterday she ate nothing at all. Today we had this conversation :
‘Abigail I am worried about how little you are eating. If you insist on continuing on your present course you will be ill.
You will have a horrible summer locked up in a loony bin being fed by giant, fat psychiatric nurses with moustaches.
You ate nothing at all yesterday. I insist that you eat something and I insist that it not broccoli or peas.’ I said , authoritatively.
‘God, you’re so making such a meal of this.’ Abigail replied ‘I’m 18. I told you I have a bug. It makes me feel sick. I feel ill, that’s why I’m not eating. It’s got nothing to do with the other stuff.’
‘OK,’ I said ‘In that case, when you are over your ‘bug’ which, oddly, no one else in the house has caught, I want you to eat a bowl of cereal. You need to eat a wider variety of food and you need to reintroduce some protein into your diet.’
‘ This is ridiculous. It’s like living with Gillian McKeith. You’ll be rifling through my pooh next. ‘ said Abigail.
I think that was quite rude, I have no intention of rifling through her pooh in the manner of Gillian McKeith who is a tiny Scottish woman with a hunched up back which I, demonstrably, am not.
Later on, Abigail ate some cereal.
Zac came back from Wiltshire. He spent most of the weekend on a quadbike shooting people with something called a BB gun.
It was terrific fun.
He spent the rest of the weekend in the indoor swimming pool and now he is worried.
‘How do you get muscles ?’ he said. ‘Look at my back, it’s got a lump.’ he said. ‘I’m deformed. Look, it’s terrible. What shall I do ?’ he said.
I looked at his back and his front. Zac is very skinny. Zac doesn’t stand up straight. ‘Stand up straight.’ I said.
‘If you want muscles you have to use weights and you have to do sit ups... I think.’ I said.
‘Otto had muscles and he doesn’t do weights. It’s not fair.’ said Zac ‘And I’ve definitely got a hump, I can’t stand up straight with a hump.’
Zac has got a hump. What shall I do? Why are my two older children such physical messes ? This is bound to be my fault.
‘Did those girls in Wiltshire give you a hard time?’ I ask.
“No’, said Zac ‘The fat one didn’t like me much. What shall I do about the hump?’
I am going to get Zac a personal trainer. It will cost a lot of money, but I can’t have a son with a hump and not try to get him some ‘core strength’ or similar to combat it.
Much later Ellis came back from Wales.
Ellis is exhausted.
I make fish pie.
Ellis’s youngest is ecstatic to see him.
Ellis says. ‘It was a nightmare. The car broke down as soon as we arrived home, and I had to go straight to work. Hannah will be so disappointed if she doesn’t get into that school. It’s like a castle by the sea and the gardens are full of beautiful people reading poetry under trees’
It sounds amazing.
‘I had to go to The Unit in a taxi when I got back. I had to section someone who kept taking all her clothes off and running about on Hampstead Heath whilst threatning suicide.’ went on Ellis ‘And I had my eyebrowes threaded while I was in Wales. Do you like them ?’
He looks like Mr Spock.
Imagine being sectioned by Mr Spock.
‘Then I had to go back to The Unit in another taxi because I forgot to put the girl’s name on the paperwork.’ said Ellis. ‘ There was a police car and an ambulance hanging around waiting for me for hours’. ‘It was so embarrassing. Hannah really loved that school. Have you opened that wine yet ?’ said Ellis
I am glad I am not a psychiatrist.
3am. Insomnia..... how boring.
John is having a dream. It woke me up. I can’t see how John can be having a dream because he has no imagination but he keeps muttering and thrashing about. Perhaps he is reliving an old episode of Doctor Who.
Wednesday 2nd April 2008.
Quiet.
Kate Atkinson.
A whole day of quiet, of silence, of peace.
I have finished ‘One good Turn’ by Kate Atkinson.
I would be very happy if I could write like Kate Atkinson I would also be very rich and living in a honey coloured L shaped farmhouse in the Cotswolds next door to Joanna Trollope and Kate Moss. I would, however, not be happy if I wrote like Joanna Trollope, aforementioned L shaped house notwithstanding.
I don’t expect Kate Moss can write at all but she is very pretty.
Zac has gone to see Arsenal beat Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium where they beat people and he is going to walk home later with a triumphant Arsenal crowd.
Abigail has gone to Posy’s house for a study day. They are going to get The Illiad off by heart for their A Level Classical Civilization.
Maisie has gone to Billie’s house and John has gone to work.
I am having a nice, quiet time.
Thursday 3rd April 2008. April ! Tate With Fran.
Do you want to go to the place that sells lattes in a bowl?
Indian call centrtes
April, hurray ! I love April. My birthday is in April.
Weirdly, my eyes keep filling with tears. I am turning into my mother. I am also morphing into Abigail and will only eat peas. I am becoming Zac and developing a hunch. I am actually Maisie and I write boring lists. I am about to disappear.
Luckily I am not turning into John and I have no urges in the direction of Doctor Who and I am not nearly 17 stone.
I think I must be very tired.
Yesterday I went to The Tate Modern with Fran. I haven't seen Fran for ages because I missed The Brit Awards. Fran was driving her husband Bill's huge new car which is automatic, she didn't know how it worked so she just twiddled all the buttons and pressed 'Drive' and it did.
We went to see some Dadaism. and some Juan Munoz.
I didn't know a thing about Juan Munoz before.
There were wax models holding drums and a room full of laughing men with no feet. There were shadows and boxes and cabinets and bronzes. Now, Juan Munoz is one of my favourite artists.
We also saw some Duchamp and his assorted 'brides' who were machines or chocolate grinders and we saw some Man Ray and Picabia who were his good friends. Just before they all died they got rather disillusioned and did some finger painting.
Afterwards Fran and I had lunch in Ottolenghi in Islington. We had broccoli and quinoa and I took some broccoli home for Abigail.
Fran is very nice I like her very much. She told me Bill is running the London Marathon and he thinks he might die in the attempt. The BBC are tracking him as he runs because he used to be on East Enders so his death will be televised. I said I would sponser him if he promises to win.
Fran told me her daughter Dulcie is going to Manchester University and she told me that Abigail will get over her anorexia. She also told me how a hairdresser had cut off all her hair which she had just grown back after her chemotherapy and that put some of my issues into perspective. Bloody hairdressers. Fortunately short hair suits her.
In the evening I went out for supper with John. We went to a fish restaurant in Islington and it was very good. Rather oddly it was full of black cab drivers.
At the restaurant John and me drank too much wine and we came home full of resolve to tackle Abigail's eating disorder with some tough love. Unfortunately she wasn't very receptive to her parents lolling about on the sofa saying, 'For goo'ness shake, why are you sho shtoopid. Jus bloo'y eat shome food!'
Abigail said 'God, you're both complete alcoholics.' And went to bed.
Sunday 6th April 2008.
Snow !! Global Warming ?? America.
Snow. Why ? How ? This is April. This is entirely unacceptable.
I am glad I am not going to see King Lear at The Globe on my birthday. The weather has gone all peculiar.
The Globe has no roof and we would probably be swept away in a mudslide like South Americans, sucked into the air by a tornado like people from Arkansas or perhaps killed by an avalanche like people in Chamonix. Phew, lucky escape!
Ellis says, because of global weather shifts, we should buy land and get ready to grow our own food.
A woman in The Guardian says her friend is saving up for a helicopter and is stockpiling fuel.
Will such forward thinkers inherit the earth? Will the meek be ridden over rough-shod, while land owning carrot growers train their submachine guns on the boudaries of their lands, or hover, in their helicopters, over the starving masses?
We really must get our act together.
Next week John and me will go to Derbyshire like Elizabeth Bennett. We will not, however, marry Mr Darcy or hang out at Pemberly like Elizabeth. Instead, we will buy a house with carrot growing potential and also a submachine gun or similar to guard said carrots from the masses.
This has to be a step in the right direction. I wonder where you get a submachine gun from.
Before he goes to Derbyshire, John is going to America. He is going to interview Neil Diamond in L.A. then he is going to Nashville because he likes it, then he is going to New York to get a job on a New York newspaper. If he succeeds, we will have to rethink and buy a carrot, or perhaps, maize growing house in The Hamptons.
Going to live in America will be a good thing. I have never been there, but Americans seem awfully nice on the television and are reputedly very fat which will be good for Abigail’s self esteem.
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