carnage 10 October 2011
The carnage in Dublin continues, as worms are dragged in each night and left to shrivel and die – now, though, they’re also sometimes divided into sections so whichever killer cat is in charge of the murders is getting more gruesome and surgical in her efforts – it’s like something from a v twisted thriller. I love worms, I admire their work, they are my gardening friends, I wish the ferocious felines would leave them alone!
I spent most of last week being a very warty, old, Victorian crone for the BBC – all of which can be seen over Christmas in The Bleak Little Shop of Stuff – also featuring Mitchell and Webb, Johnny Vegas, Stephen Fry and Katherine Parkinson. It’s very liberating indeed to be so grotty in a show that no one could possibly think you were just looking dodgy yourself anyhow on the day. When make-up is subtle it can be too plausibly YOU looking like you’re having a bad day, instead of deliberately making you look bad. Also I’ve worn the odd ‘fat suit’ in films and on tv and nobody remarked on those at all – I obviously looked a bit bigger but acceptably so, as if Pauline had ‘put on a bit of weight’ – disappointing for a gal’s real life…
and it’s no wonder the Victorians had to have help getting dressed and undressed every day – layer upon layer of clothage! And a challenge for us ‘moderns’ when needing the loo – apparently, the ladies of those times had a divided gusset in the pants and simply spread their legs and ‘went’…
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL!!!!
66 BOOKS begins today at the new BUSH THEATRE in the old library on the Uxbridge Road in London. It’s a fabulous new venue and a huge project – 66 responses by contemporary writers to the 66 books of the King James Bible, which is 400 years old this year. I am doing 2 Timothy (a St Paul letter in the original) on various days at various times over the next few weeks – do come along and enjoy – v v exciting to be involved among the 130 actors, many directors, 66 writers and a legion of technicals in this hugely ambitious re-opening of the theatre at its new home.
drains 27 September 2011
So here’s how glamorous my life is – the drains in a section of the back garden are blocked. Badly blocked. V bunged up indeed. It was a job for a clearyourdrains professional, a lovely man who called out within the hour and identified the problem but could not rectify it – that’ll have to be whoever digs up the patio to see why the pipes are not joining, or perhaps there’s a crack and a leak, and so on. Now, in showbiz soap tradition I worry that there’ll be other nasties under that patio, but then I remind myself that the nasty we’re dealing with, even if it gets no worse, is sewage and therefore nasty enough in its own right. The nice man from the clearyourdrains company did put a lot of ‘matter’ into a sturdy black sack and the following morning as I was mooching about outside I saw that he had also left it neatly placed in a corner so at 6am (for that was the time) I was putting a big bag of poo in my bin. I spent the day convinced that the smell was following me around. Ah, the aching glamour of it all…
neglect 19 September 2011
I’ve neglected you all, I know, I know, but let me assure you that I have been neglecting myself too! So, please don’t feel left out – we’re all in this together. It’s been a fierce round of acting, writing and a recent splash of the socials and now I am ousting sociability and hanging on to the work bits. I love being sociable, and am probably too social for my own good and so I am embarking on a vaguely healthy regime (just keeping stressful work stuff, as mentioned!). As I write I am sipping a fresh lemon, grated ginger and cayenne concoction that tastes sharp enough to be VERY healthy – surely? And it would be nice if the bod noticed that and helpfully lost a few pounds for me…I love in hope…well, that and the menopause (possibly…)
Brenda continues to find fun in foil items and Alice is gaining weight and attitude.
A new garden is being undertaken – the cat jury is out on that as yet – if they don’t like it, myself and Richard will have to move out, simple as that.
I saw an Actual Bearded Lady in the airport the other day. She told security she was a circus performer, which was why she had so many chains and crampons and so on in her carry-on luggage. She sounded a lovely person but, as she was quite roundy, I couldn’t imagine her being athletic in the dome of a Big Top. She wasn’t on my flight so I don’t know if she used any of the equipment to entertain other passengers on the plane. I’m finding the image hard to shake off, though.
DUN LAOGHAIRE 9 September 2011
I’ll be doing a book event at the wonderful Mountains to the Sea Festival this evening at 6.30 in Dun Laoghaire at the County Hall with Gerard Stembridge, writer and satirist and all round wunderkind extraordinaire, so I hope some of you can make that?
I rescued my tax affairs and their box from the kitchen table so Miss Alice has had to take up temporary residence in a shoe box, which is a little tight for her needs (the washing facilities are now a tad cramped). I expect to be punished presently…
worms 8 September 2011
The feline hunter-gatherers of the household are polishing off any of the HUMUNGOUS spiders that have launched invasions on the house. Sometimes they scoff them, sometimes a balled-up body is left for me to admire. It’s not just 8-legged critters that need worry, though. For a while, I couldn’t figure out why there were dark squiggles on the floor some mornings – I greatly feared they might be small poos. But no. Turns out they’re worms, captured under cover of darkness (no idea how the cats are finding them as I doubt they’d go to the bother of digging them up?) brought indoors for sport and left to shrivel and expire. Mystery solved, but poor worms (the good guys of the garden)
tax 7 September 2011
you might have thought that cats would be uninterested in tax but, oh, how wrong you would be to harbour such a notion. my 2 hairies have taken to mine in a big way. it started with the box that my tax receipts are kept in – turns out it is JUST the right size for Miss Alice to sleep and wash in. i have a ‘system’ of letting bundles of receipts go to the floor after they have been sorted and added up and this is proving the BEST FUN EVER for Brenda, who can then hunt for crawling critters underneath the piles and at night take the bundles apart and strew them hither and yon over the kitchen floor – tremendous sport altogether. in the meantime, my records are presently back in their box under a furry sleeper who canNOT be disturbed…so the tax man will have to wait a while longer for the woe that is my 2010 and revenue monies owing…a new version of ‘the dog ate my homework, miss’
rasher 4 September 2011
We Irish have various words for things that differ slightly from other nations – eg in the main, we refer to spring onions as scallions and a thin slice of bacon is a rasher. I am a meat eater (in spite of totally approving of a vegetarian lifestyle…and often hankering after one) but I would really miss the Rasher should I ever go the veggie route. To wit, I am particularly delighted that I can now find rasher with the rind still on in the supermarket. For ages, everything was rindless and therefore pointless (or at the very least diminished) and I could easily pass all by. Problem is that, whilst on my (nascent) regime, I am trying to avoid most things fried and today while ‘inventing’ the Breakfast Pitta for Himself, who does not indulge in the rind (a bonus for me in a Jack Spratt and his wife kinda way), found myself scoffing the offcuts (ie rind) so basically I had the fattiest bit = ARGH!
The pitta was a total success incidentally – wholemeal with a filling of low fat leerdammer, (rindless) rasher and soft fried egg…
I do not care for hickory or any other sort of smoked rasher.
regime 31 August 2011
I decided to start a regime today to lose a few pounds and get fit. I’m not sure it had an ideal start, though it was a most enjoyable one – basically I slept for half of the day. And I managed to avoid drinking wine (sigh). No treadmill or rowing machine but a little chase around the garden trying to capture Miss Alice to give her many rubs. Nevertheless, it was a start…
The teen novel has been re-writ and submitted so I am awaiting the verdict on that. In the meantime my editor at Puffin has gifted me THE best knitting book in the world EVER and I want to make everything in it immediately…which is an impractical wish, however heartfelt…though, again, a start must be made…
I hear that autumn is now upon us – erm, I must have slept through summer and if I did it must have been a certain Friday afternoon in July…(another sigh). It’s enough to drive a gal to wine, if she wasn’t already on a regime…which is where I came in, I believe (BIG SIGH)
universe 23 August 2011
my friend ashley says i owe the universe, and i certainly do in the most general terms – in fairness, who does not? BUT she has a specific reason for suggesting this just now. she is of the opinion that if you want something you send out your request but then have to make a gesture of great positivity to make this possible to fulfill on the part of the universe – a quid pro quo in the best way. she wrote a tv pilot with another pal and they sent out their request and cleaned up a stretch of london canal while waiting to hear if it would be commissioned – it was. so, my retribution? well, as you all know i was gifted a lovely helium balloon for my birthday and attached it to the handle of the london loo which is right beside the front door. it made some spirited attempts to escape and i probably should have let it go but i was selfish and loved having it there to greet me at all hours. it began to wane in height and i thought it incapable of a run for freedom and so on, a lazy and careless return, one day i closed the door and squashed the balloon. it seems, as atonement, i now have to get another and release it (as i should have done with the original – it gave me enough hints about where it wanted to go) and if the person who sells it to me also hands me another i must pay for that and it let go too – such is the way of these things, sez ashley.
rioting? 18 August 2011
I’ve been in London working a lot over this last while – a new series for Comedy Central called THREESOME which you can see in October. But I still managed to see nothing of the recent riots. My television is simply plugged into the wall so I have v v fuzzy ITV and Channel 4 and that’s it so it’s usually not worth the bother of even switching on. So I missed any live action news, and there wasn’t a whisper of trouble in Soho where I am billeted. I like to tell people that we don’t riot in Soho, we party.
Back at the Dublin ranch Miss Alice is well and active and eating like there’s no tomorrow. I think she’s very much Richard’s cat as she loves to stretch out upon his lap of an evening and really doesn’t seem to be able to get the same level of comfort on mine AT ALL. I know she’s back to herself because she doesn’t want to be picked up anymore, though insists on plenty of rubs which I have to follow her around to administer. Herself and Brenda are fly killing machines extraordinaire right now too, and there’s often the body of a big spider to be found under a chair (in this way I feel v protected). Brenda isn’t interested in cuddles either but does hop up onto the table to give me the odd head butt which is a great compliment – it’s also a great scouting move for her in her quest to eat whatever I’m having. I once caught her lobbing a segment of tangerine onto the floor from a bowl of fruit salad I was enjoying so that she could lick off the yogurt – she looked bemused that I found that in any way ‘off’.
I have finished knitting the dog coat for a small creature that doesn’t exist, as part of my researches for the next book (which is for teens). It’s very cute, red, has a little hood and is now on a toy reindeer who is modelling it well. Ideally, I’d‘ve like to try it on one of the cats but they’d both take delight in flaying me for such outrageousness.