Let Down by The Guardian

I am on flu overload at the moment, readers. I have been alternating between hot sweats and cold shivers and have been barely able to speak for the last five days.

Mr T is thrilled.

Yesterday it was 8 degrees (pretty warm for this time of year in the UK) but I drove the boys to tennis wearing a yellow and purple woolly hat and a bright blue fleece.

I looked stupid.

So I haven't done much at all this week. In fact I've only just about managed to follow the Jeremy Clarkson debacle in the media. It's been fun counting how many articles on Jeremy The Guardian can post in one week and truly heartwarming to see them tackling the Clarkson affair with all the impartiality of a open-mouthed shark.

But today folks I feel let down - where oh where is the habitual anti-Jeremy rant? Where is it? I am at a loss how to fill my time between wiping my nose and coughing.

Maybe the lack of an article on Jeremy is cos it's the weekend? Yes that must be it - they must be saving themselves for an article on Jeremy's underpants next week.

Great! That's something to look forward to. For a moment I thought I was going to have to read The Mail to get some unbiased reporting.

*chuckles* (very quietly)

25 Bookish Things Males Have Actually Read By The Age of 25

If you're an avid reader, you've probably read one of the many articles advising you which books to read before you're 18/25/30/40/dead. Well, last week I came across a lively discussion on Facebook about the dominance of male authors in many of these lists. Unfortunately, some accusations about male misogyny were being bounded about. I was reasonably impartial about this accusation as I happen to like men (cough, cough) and probably read more books by male authors than I do by women authors.

However, this morning I have cleaned the Young Master's bedrooms and transferred the good Mr T's underpants from the bathroom floor to the laundry basket so I am not feeling so impartial. As a consequence I have come up with my own take on these annoying book lists. My list is called:

 Twenty-Five Bookish Things Males Have Actually Read By The Age of Twenty-Five.

It's not your standard list. Obviously. But it is, nevertheless, a very important list.

Right here we go:

1. Top Gear Annual 2014.

2. Playboy July 1997 (Farah Fawcett.)

3. Thomas the Tank Engine - A Cow on the Line. (Trains + farm animals = deep joy.)  

4.The Joy of Sex (Essential reading for  university undergraduates.)

5. The Dandy (4th Dec 2012 - last physical edition - perfect collectible for every saddo Dandy geek.)

6. Playboy September 1985 (Madonna.)

7. Top Gear Annual 2013.

8. The Viz - any edition. (Ideal reading material for an intimate bonding experience between father and son.)

9. The leaflet inside a packet of condoms. (Any brand.)

10. The rear of a packet of Kellog's Cornflakes.

11. The dating adverts in their local paper.

12. The telephone numbers scrawled inside their local phone box

13. The menu at the local Chinese Takeaway.

14. Playboy December 1992 (Sharon Stone)

15. The lingerie section of their mother's mail order catalogue. 

16. The Sun newspaper. (Available at the local barber's shop.)

Farrah Fawcett in 1977 - the golden haired icon of a generation who had men drooling before lunchtime.
Picture courtesy of Wikipedia. (Public domain.)

17. Their exam results slip. ( Very briefly - before returning their attention to No 21)

18. The washing instructions on the jeans they haven't cleaned for eight weeks and the bedlinen they haven't cleaned for twelve weeks.

19. The product description on a Lamborghini Roadster.

20. The price tag and mileage on a 2002 Vauxhall Corsa.

21. Playboy June 1998 (The Babes of Baywatch.)

22. The Google search results for Keira Knightly.

23. Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toliet 2000.(Kid's book with universal male appeal.)

24 The alcohol content on a litre bottle of cider.

25. Their sister's diary. (Especially the section on menstruation.)

So there we have it. I think I have more than made up for all that male bias in those books-to-read lists. 

*Sticks tongue out.*

Also, if you want a darn good read by a female author read my novel. It's (almost) a work of genius. And a bargain price. 

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Yesterday, as a treat for my upcoming birthday, one of my dear friends arranged a beauty session at a well-known cosmetic counter. I came away feeling glamorous with a bag load of purchases and freebies.

This morning I decided I should start a new beauty regime and duly applied my makeup as instructed by the beauty consultant. Afterwards, I went to my full-length mirror to inspect my work.

By God, Readers! I looked twenty years younger and almost half-decent. I was so thrilled I was ready to pack my bags and go in search of a toyboy. Hurrah, I thought, there's some life left in the old girl yet!

Then I decided to capture my rare moment of personal glory in a selfie.

Which was a very, very, very, bad idea.

The selfie, sadly, revealed the truth. When I viewed the photo I did not even recognise myself - I had turned from a well-preserved, perhaps even still vaguely attractive woman, into a miserable old hag.

What I am saying is no makeup can hide fifty years of living - I looked like a corpse who'd just slipped on a banana skin.

I'm now thinking of auditioning for the part of the hag in Snow White.

Please God be kind to me over the rest of my life-span. I don't have many years left. Go easy on me. I'm a good girl really.

Anyway, I'm off out to the builder's merchants. I need some concrete mix.

*There is no accompanying picture with this blog post as there normally is due to the potential adverse effects on my readership.*

The Right to Rant

Now I don't want to blow my own trumpet but I am no ordinary writer. This means a number of things but probably not what you are thinking I think it means. What it means is:

One: I have absolutely no desire to talk about writing on my blog unless it's in my usual disparaging way because, let's face it, some writers are so up their own backsides they probably haven't seen daylight for twenty years and I'd rather not get caught up in those long debates about commas, adjectives or self-publishing v trad publishing. If I feel the need to vent I can go onto another writer's blog or, alternatively. I can make up a pseudonym and comment on culture articles over at The Guardian.

Two: Having thought about the terms "author" and "writer", I think it is stretching it to call myself either. I prefer "entertainer." This means I may yet subject you all to a video of me pole dancing in a Hawaiian skirt whilst reciting Ode to a Grecian Pasta Dish.

Three: It means I can use this blog to rant about any subject I please.

Which today is...

People Who Invade My Personal Space.

Okay, so here comes some examples:

1. The Good Mr T.

Oh wait a minute - I signed that marriage contract. It's legal.

2. Those really irritating people in the swimming pool who, even when the rest of the pool is empty, will come and swim right next to you so you are either:

a) Forced to inhale their surf up your nose and end up having a respiratory attack.

b) Forced to inhale the vast amount of the perfume/deodorant they have sprayed over their head and neck. (For what purpose I don't know - maybe to ward off evil spirits or marauding sharks.)

I have yet to question one of these perfumed swimmers on their motives for spraying a whole bottle of cologne or hairspray over themselves prior to submerging themselves in water but I fully intend to one day - when I stop gagging.

There's always someone where you least expect them...

3. Those even more irritating people who, even though the car park is empty, will squeeze their car so close to your's so that you can't get back into the driving position without climbing over the passenger seat and hauling your ass over the handbrake.

4. Charity collectors who harangue me in the street. Look, I am no meanie. I given to lots of charities.  And I've adopted six stray cats. That proves I am sucker for a sob story. But please do NOT wave your bucket at me when I am weighed down with bags and only have two minutes left before my car parking ticket runs out - I need all of my two minutes to climb in the passenger seat and over the handbrake.

5. People who nudge their knees up to me in the cinema. Please just keep your knees to yourself. Unless you're a seven foot tall basketball player I ain't gonna believe you can't keep your legs together unless you have a very, very large third leg.

So there you have it. Another rant from Mrs T which concludes with the thought that personal space-invaders should probably be shot on sight.

(Not Mr T obviously- that would be counterproductive as he pays the household bills which allow me to indulge in this wanton waste of time.)

I know that was a somewhat dramatic statement. However, if you have ever encountered all four of these space-invader specimens (especially on the same day) you will probably feel the same way.

I really should be in politics.

Bad Parenting and The Beginning of a New Journey

Last night, Mr T, the boys and I were all watching Expendables 3 when we got to this scene:




When new recruit, Luna, finished kicking ass this was the conversation:

Master Jacob; She's just like Mum

Mr T: Yep, that's just what your mother was like when I met her.

Huh? I am not tall, blonde or leggy. I don't even do karate!

Later there was a scene where Antonio Banderas, as another new crazed Expendable recruit, says something to the effect of "I just like killing people". Master Jacob piped up again;

Oh that's just like Mum too.

What? I've never even hurt a fly!

Well maybe a couple. But nobody, nobody, touches my chocolate without my permission.

Okay, so there might possibly have been a few wasps as well. But they deserved it.

And there might have been a few of those slugs that keep invading my kitchen. But that was really my salt pot. It fell over by its own accord.

And I had absolutely nothing to do with the dead rat in the compost bin. My conscience is clear. Almost.

Yeah, so there we were watching The Expendables 3 and there was yet another scene where Stallone was kicking some ass and blasting off his gun and... apparently I am like that too.

Yep, so Mr T, Master Jacob and Master Ben all thought it was very funny indeed to make jokes at my expense. Poor Mrs T was deeply wounded.

I should have had daughters who would help me do the cleaning and ironing. But no, I get three sons and a husband who have no idea what the words "toilet brush" means. Life is so unfair.

You see, Dear Readers, once you get a reputation for not putting up with drivers who cut you up on roundabouts and who drive too close to your bumper you can never get rid of it.

Once you get a reputation for not putting up with cheating tennis players and their sycophantic parents you can never get rid off it.

Once you get a reputation for not putting up with slothful teachers and giving the headmistress a piece of your mind you can never get rid of it.

So my advice is - if you have potential "incidents" on the road, on the sports pitch or at school keep your cursing and name-calling to yourself. Do NOT use hand gestures.

So other than that very sound advice ( I always give quality parenting advice on this blog) the news is I am writing a sequel to The Changing Room which I hope to publish next year. In the meantime, the ebook of The Changing Room is on sale for 99p/99c this week on all ebooks sites including Amazon, ibooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.  It will never be this cheap again so if you haven't grabbed a copy yet now's the time as, in the spring, my novel is being relaunched with a new cover by one the UK's leading publicists. As a self-published author it has been a very hard slog to get any sort of visibility. In fact, it has pretty much been zero. So I'm very pleased indeed that a publicist who represents some of the foremost contemporary writers has enough belief in my book to offer to represent it. I've been warned it will still be very tough-going as many people in publishing still have no regard for self-published books. However, after weighing up all the pros and cons, I decided that you get very few chances in life and this was one I was going to take.

"This book is by far one of the funniest books I have ever read. " A Goodson. Amazon.com.
Check out more reviews HERE

So next month I turn fifty and I begin a new journey. A big Thank You to all my friends and blog readers who have supported my writing endeavours for the past eight years or more and who have helped to make my writing journey so far a really enjoyable one. Thanks, folks!

Cursed with a Fat Arse... and other stuff.

Okay, so you may have noticed that this blog has been fairly inactive for a while...which is basically not like me as I always have something (stupid) to say. Basically, my absence is because since I developed a hiatus hernia, with very unpleasant side effects, I'm trying to get on top of it and avoid an operation by doing things the natural way by changing my diet and losing weight. Losing weight has been a preoccupation of mine for about the last 25 years and one that I find incredibly difficult - I'm one of the unfortunate women who work really hard at it but have very little success and as soon as I ease up from a very rigid diet or cut back on exercise (by which I mean less than 5 times a week) the weight piles back on.

For example - yesterday I did a zumba class, forty minutes on the cross trainer, forty minutes in the pool and an hour on my bike whilst watching the telly in the evening. I am on a strict diet which includes no tea, coffee, alcohol, squash, fruit juices, sweets, chocolates, biscuits, cakes, anything rich, creamy, spicy and mainly consists of one hundred percent healthy stuff except pretzels which seem to be one of the few "luxuries" that don't cause a problem with my hernia.

So it was with expectation that I got on the scales this morning - and to my despair I weighed only 0.4 of a lb less than I weighed two days ago. So it seems that, despite every good intention, I am cursed with a fat arse.

Sadly, this is not my arse. I'd like to have this arse but I am one of those women who has been curse with a "personality "
instead . Frankly, I'd rather have a nice arse. I'm sure Mr T would prefer it if I had a nice arse too. In fact I 'm sure he'd be delighted to exchange my "personality" for a arse that looks good and doesn't talk back. 

Now I know all the stuff there is to know about muscle/fat, exercises, nutrition and let me say that for some people doing all the right things still does not bloody well work. So to anyone who says I'm still eating too much or not exercising enough - screw you! (Sorry about that - I'm feeling quite vitolic this morning and it was either write a blog to let it out or take a sledgehammer to my bathroom scales.)

Okay, so that's my rant over.

Anyway, in order to make up for my absence I've signed up for the 2015 A- Z Blogging challenge in April where I'll be blogging every single day on a subject relating to the alphabet. Now if you're not sure what this means it will be as follows...on April 1st I shall be blogging about a topic beginning with the letter A, on April 2nd it will be on a topic beginning with B and so on....

As I'm inherently lazy, (apart when it comes to exercise which is a necessity)  I shall not be planning any of these posts but flying by the seat of my pants. However, if anyone wants to nominate a topic please feel free to do so.

Now in addition to that news, I have loads of other news, gossip (and more rants!) to impart but the first of those will have to wait till tomorrow as I have to haul my arse around the block and fill-out a self-assessment tax form which I've never done before and have no idea how long it will take. Filling out my earnings from writing should take about five seconds but if I have to list my expenses that could take days - so my advice to anyone thinking about self-publishing and wanting to take it seriously (ie create a professionally produced book in the same manner as a traditional publisher would and market it accordingly) is -  getting a well-paid 9-5 job and being able to afford some nice holidays beats the hell out of being a writer. At the moment I have no idea how I'm going to fund my next book - there's only so much cash in the kitty and I will have used up my quota with The Changing Room. I do, however, have some exciting news about my book coming up which, God willing, will help me turn the corner from obscurity and sell a few books.

We'll just have to see what the future holds...

Stephen Fry,Toyboys, Hiatus Hernias and Jacob's Cream Crackers. And a Happy New Year to all!

Getting old is a right royal pain in the backside, isn't it? I know middle aged celebs are always spouting that "I've never been happier" phrase (usually when they've just be paid fifty grand by Hello magazine for a photo shoot) but personally I kinda liked being young and healthy. Although - if I was 57 years old and called Stephen Fry and I'd just hooked up with a 27 year old I'd be saying "I've never been happier" too.

In fact, I'd quite happily trade the good Mr T in for a younger model - so if there's any 27 year olds out there  (or younger - I'm not fussy) who fancy their chances with Mrs T and can do a hatchet job on Mr T send me an email with the title "Age is no object and I'm hot for rotund old women."

So, you may have been wondering where I've been as I have been fairly quiet for a while. Well, the truth is - I have started a new diet. It's not my usual New Year diet on the lines of the Mad Axeman Diet and The Hot Dish Diet, it's called the Hiatus Hernia Diet. 

Yep, in early December the old body decided it was about time to start packing up on me. Now as I didn't have the usual symptoms of a hiatus hernia (like heartburn) my other symptoms need investigating so I've had cameras stuck in almost every orifice (that's almost every orifice) and it was concluded I have a small hiatus hernia which, in the scheme of life, aint so bad. It's certainly better than being six foot under.

But boy oh boy - do you know the food stuffs they tell you avoid when you have a hiatus hernia?

There's practically nothing left to eat apart from crackers and pretzels!

Hmm.. it's a pity there's no punctuation that indicates total despair. I suppose an exclamation mark will have to do. Blast.

I gifted myself a tin of Jacob's crackers over Christmas. It was a sad, sad, day. Even the woman at the checkout gave me a pitying look.

God, to think I may have to live twenty more years on a diet of crackers and pretzels. I may yet turn into one of those depressed writers you keep hearing about. It won't be through the inability to create a literary masterpiece though it will be through not being able to stuff my face with chocolate chip cookies.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that what I need is a 27 year old toyboy to cheer myself up. I need to ask the lovely Stephen for some tips about how to get one. Cos let's face it - it's not like I could wine and dine my 27 year old stud into submission in some fancy restaurant is it?  Just imagine it - my potential toyboy is sitting across from me eating fillet of steak and sipping champagne whilst I'm trying to seductively eat a plate full of Jacob's cream crackers and sipping on a glass of cold water. It don't think it's a winning scenario.

And how many seductive ways are there to eat a Jacob's cream cracker?

Not many I can tell you. Nibbling a cracker is not like nibbling a large fresh cream chocolate eclair. Or rolling your tongue around a banana. Remember the film Nine and a Half Weeks? Where Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke do the sexy eating scene - well I reckon I can do the seductive stuff in about 5 seconds before reaching for the Gaviscon.

So there you have it. I had a miserable Christmas, nibbling crackers and contemplating my own mortality while everyone else tucked into the turkey. I'd like to think I've come up with some deep philosophical ideas on the meaning of life but so far all I've manage is this phrase:

"You're screwed, Turley. Get yourself a toyboy before it's too late." 

Any takers? I can provide crackers as a contraceptive.