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05/13/2008 Europe/London +0100 BST |
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 Name: Janey Godley Country: United kingdom City: Glasgow/London Photo Album
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I know I am 47 years old, but I never knew how everyone else in the world would feel about that and guess what? I am officially very old. I think I am the oldest performer at this Comedy Festival in NZ.
All the young comics are so lovely but some of them do treat me as an elderly woman and this shocks me to the core.
For instance, I was chatting to one young guy and he was explaining how he has so much body hair that he has to wax it off as women find it off putting. I then added to this chit chat “I only occasionally shave my arm pits if they get really feral” to which he replied “Yes Janey, but you are really old, it doesn’t matter with you”
I sat there agog at this observation. What do I do now? Take off my make up and start NOT wearing a bra? Should I give up the long war against my grey roots? Will I just let my tufty hair become white and start knitting bootees for poor kids in Africa and gather cats on my lap?
I am now aware that my gentle flirting might be deemed creepy. Are young boys scared of the old lady who chats to them in late night comedy bars? Has all my sexuality drained out of my saggy body?
I am still fertile; I can bear kids if I want. I can scrub up quite well when I put in the effort.
I know I no longer get second glances from the hot boys, that stuff stopped in 1990, but surely I am not confined to the middle aged car boot sale set yet? There is life in this old dog.
How do I regain my female sexuality at 47 years old and still feel needed and wanted within?
I feel about 20 inside my head. I don’t see myself as an aged woman, when did this all happen?
All this is corrected in one giant leap, as husband still finds me incredibly attractive, but what happens when even he starts to see the old woman who creaks when she bends?
I am disconcerted and discombobulated today. I need a hug.
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  Well I am sorry I took so long to blog. I have been rather busy. My show opened three nights ago and it’s all great. I have had three wonderful reviews and that’s just perfect.
The weather is horrendous; it’s really muggy and damp and keeps raining buckets. I have been soaked twice. The shows are just going fine and I love meeting up with loads of lovely comics from all around the globe.
Last night in the front row of the late show at The Classic there was a girl who went to school with my daughter back in Glasgow….how crazy is that?
She shouted out that she was in the year above Ashley and I fell about laughing. It really is a small world.
I have been quite stressed trying to get everything done as I have to book shows into my diary, write my Scotsman column and keep on top of all the shows and media that I do. So sleep is good.
I miss my husband and Ashley. I love travelling but ultimately I spend more time away from them than I do with them and that eventually gets to you. I didn’t expect to be this age and spend so much time being lonely. I do get share my thoughts with crowds of people at night, but it’s not the same as curling up on the sofa with Ashley and husband.
It won’t be long till I get home and get to be with them.
Today I am doing Comedy for Kids and that will be a challenge if nothing else.
I hope it all goes well.
Janey
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Life is mad at the moment. Was in Newcastle last night doing my one woman show, the crowd were so nice and really made me feel welcome. Husband and I drove down to Newcastle late afternoon and decided not to stay over as I have work today. I am doing a private gig in the afternoon and am headlining the Terrence Higgins Trust gig at Oran Mor tonight (Sunday).
Am quite tired and spotty, it’s been a busy weekend. I even wrote a guest column for the Sunday Herald about domestic abuse to highlight the issue of violence against women for International Woman’s Day today in UK.
It reads well and I am pleased with it. I love writing serious pieces for print.
I have quite an accident prone week let me tell you…
Well it was a bad mistake but I managed to Hoover over my husbands’ bare foot and ripped off his toenail, and his toes are all red and bruised. It was an accident yet he is really upset with me. I am not that used to Hoovering the carpet, it’s a new vacuum cleaner and its quiet bulky. I need to learn how to manoeuvre it without killing people I suppose.
He hopped around with blood dripping from his toenail. I tried to apologise but when people are in pain I suppose its best to laugh…or giggle. He is really annoyed with me.
I am quite accidental prone.
I once fell down the pub cellar steps.
I knocked Christmas tree on top of my baby when she was a year old.
I jammed the cat’s paws in the door.
I stuck a strong sucker from the bottom of a toy onto my baby’s forehead and it refused to come off, I managed to prise it off her tender head and it left a big blood sucker circle under her skin. I had to hide it with a hat.
I once rode my bicycle into a marathon and knocked about eight runners on the ground.
I ran onto a tube train in London and found I couldn’t stop and clattered onto a man who was in crutches.
I sprayed perfume in a beauty store by mistake and the assistant got it right in the eye.
I threw a dart in my pub and it flew off course and ended up embedded in a mans leg.
I potted a ball in my pub at the pool table, it flew off, cracked pint glass that a man was holding and cut his face.
Clumsiness runs in the family as Ashley is just as bad, she once fell off a few steps in a store and almost head butted a baby in a pram.
So that’s been my week and my madness.
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I had such a great time being the compere at Glasgow Jongleurs over the past weekend. The acts had a good time and the audiences loved the shows.
But last night (Saturday) as I stood on stage I noticed a wee red light in the back of the room shining every time I was onstage and I realised I was being secretly filmed!
It’s not legal to film comics onstage, I don’t like it as people can easily tape you, upload it onto their PC and send it round the internet. I like to control what is seen as it represents me.
Standing on stage I spotted it and shouted to the bouncers “That guy on the back balcony is taping me can someone go check it” and sure enough they showed me his phone and he had about six three minute clips of me. So I explained they had to be deleted. The guy was ok about it and to be honest he could have been thrown out for taping me, I told him to go to my website and he can see comedy clips of me there.
People watched me chatting to him and I think they thought I was being a wee tad over the top, but this is how I make a living and you really should get permission to tape people. He could easily have manipulated the footage and made me appear naked onstage with George Clooney in a photo-shop way…hang on, I would like that!
That aside it was great night and audience members told me they were coming to see me at The Garage on March 6th on my one woman show. So that was good news.
I am off to London tomorrow night to pick up my Fringe Report Award for Best Performer and am all excited.
By the way I have lost ten pounds on my diet, I have been very strict and at last my knickers fit me!
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I had such a great time being the compere at Glasgow Jongleurs over the past weekend. The acts had a good time and the audiences loved the shows.
But last night (Saturday) as I stood on stage I noticed a wee red light in the back of the room shining every time I was onstage and I realised I was being secretly filmed!
It’s not legal to film comics onstage, I don’t like it as people can easily tape you, upload it onto their PC and send it round the internet. I like to control what is seen as it represents me.
Standing on stage I spotted it and shouted to the bouncers “That guy on the back balcony is taping me can someone go check it” and sure enough they showed me his phone and he had about six three minute clips of me. So I explained they had to be deleted. The guy was ok about it and to be honest he could have been thrown out for taping me, I told him to go to my website and he can see comedy clips of me there.
People watched me chatting to him and I think they thought I was being a wee tad over the top, but this is how I make a living and you really should get permission to tape people. He could easily have manipulated the footage and made me appear naked onstage with George Clooney in a photo-shop way…hang on, I would like that!
That aside it was great night and audience members told me they were coming to see me at The Garage on March 6th on my one woman show. So that was good news.
I am off to London tomorrow night to pick up my Fringe Report Award for Best Performer and am all excited.
By the way I have lost ten pounds on my diet, I have been very strict and at last my knickers fit me!
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Time Out Magazine in London has an online voting competition for the top ten best stand-up comics.
There is a form on the link below, if you have seen my act and you feel like voting for me please enter my name and explain why.
Am not asking my Bloggers to vote indiscriminately, I genuinely would like people who think I am worth the vote to go ahead and voice their opinion. It’s not obligatory and you may have been unaware of the vote if you are not London based. If you want to see my comedy - click on my website and watch some comedy clips or go to You-Tube and enter my name there and watch.
Here is the link to vote. CLICK HERE
Thanks Janey Godley
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Thursday, March at 8:00 PM
The Garage
TICKETS £9.50/£7.50
BOOKINGS 0870 013 5464
To buy ticket
5 Star Sell Out Show 2007
‘Hilarious, shocking, Unsettling’ Stewart Lee Scotswoman of the Year finalist and bestselling author.
‘The Godmother of Scottish comedy’ Scotsman
‘Sensation…Exceptionally funny’ Herald
www.janeygodley.co.uk
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I just thought I would mention that The Scotsman newspaper that I write a weekly column for has now allowed people to view the articles without paying a subscription.
So if you want to read my latest columns free of charge…please check it out.
On another note, I would like to take the time to sincerely thank everyone for their comments and support. Am sorry I don’t always get time to write back, but I do get to read them…so heartfelt thanks everyone out there in blog world! Much respect Janey Godley.
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It was the year of punk that I met Louis Philippe. Well, we never actually met in person; he was my foreign pen pal; he lived in Portugal and we wrote to each other ever week.
I loved the letters. He cheered me up.
Dear Janey,
I am sitting on the beach today with my father. He owns a fishing boat and my sister and I help him on weekends. I am enjoying school and hope to get into the hotel business when I am older. I liked your photograph; you have a nice smile and lovely curly hair. Please write back.
Your dearest friend,
Louis
I thought Portugal was as far away as the moon back then. Living in the East End of Glasgow and lying in bed listening to God Save The Queen Sex Pistols style. Reading his wonderful letters made me feel somehow detached from the poverty and dirty bed sheets that smelt like bad eggs.
I never really told Louis about my true home life.
Dear Louis,
My mum is drunk but not too much as she couldn’t really afford to get totally pissed as she needed money to pay the fine after she got caught stealing the electricity.
Today I only had one slice of blue mouldy bread and a sausage that was clearly off as it tasted sour and my budgie died of hunger yesterday. I couldn’t afford bird seed and, though I tried to give it breadcrumbs, it refused to eat them. I feel so guilty that pigeons outside my window can still live and flap about yet I couldn’t even keep a wee bird alive. I buried it outside in the back garden and cried with shame. Then a cat tried to dig it up and I cried again.
No, I couldn’t write that, so I wrote…
Dear Louis,
Life in Glasgow is good. The weather is roasting hot and tar on the pavement outside melted and stuck to my sandals. I got quite burnt around the shoulders and my face hurts a wee bit. Hope you are happy in Portugal. Tell me your news.
Your pal,
Janey
Louis sent me a picture of himself. He was really handsome and looked all broody and dark haired. I wished I had a boy like that in Glasgow who was interested in me but, even at sixteen years old, I knew it was hopeless to assume any man would like me. I was flat chested, very plain looking and possessed hair so curly that the knots had to be cut out. I ended up looking like a clipped Shetland pony.
I continued my correspondence with Louis for months after that hot summer of ‘77 and, later that year, I started work. I bought boxes of bird seed with my wages and just kept putting the boxes under my mattress. I wasn’t sure why I kept buying them but they did mount up.
At night I dreamt about the wee blue bird that lay stiff on the cage floor. In my dreams, I would pile box upon box of seed into the cage. The seeds rattling through the thin metal bars would finally cover the bird and bury it.
Years fled past in a flurry of jobs and boyfriends. Louis and I kept in touch and Louis got married and I finally found a man who liked me just enough to put a ring on my finger.
I was 43 years old when I found Louis again.
It was in the strangest of circumstances. I was sitting in a hotel lobby in New York. I had been there on a working holiday. As a stand-up comic and radio broadcaster, I was working the comedy clubs in Manhattan and reporting back to the UK on Radio 5.
On the final morning of my trip, I was waiting for my taxi to take me to the airport at 6.00am. There was a man opposite me in the coffee bar who was also surrounded by luggage. We smiled at each other as we both reached for the sugar sachets. The café was empty except for us and the waitress.
We got chatting.
“I am from Portugal,” the tall, dark haired man said; he had flecks of grey at the temples and a nice face.
I was really tired and slightly bored; I wasn’t really up for chatting and swapping lives with some tourist.
I smiled and tried to think of anything I knew about Portugal: “I had a pen pal many years ago in Portugal,” I said as I sipped my coffee and watched the main door for the cab driver to arriveThe man smiled: “Well it’s a really big place, so I don’t think I will know her.”
I laughed and warmed to his sense of humour.
“Actually, it was a boy. He was called Louis Philippe. I can’t believe I even remember his name.” I shut my eyes and thought of the dark haired boy with big shy smile. My mind wandered back to the summer of 1977 when I used to rip open the blue air mail envelopes and I even pictured my wee blue budgie.
The man looked at me with curiosity, and then he laughed out loud and started wagging his finger at me: “That’s a joke - a good joke! How do you know my name?”
I stared at him: “I am sorry. I don’t know what you mean.”
He pulled out his passport and flicked through the pages and then thrust it at me: “My name is Louis Philippe.”
I sat bolt upright in my chair and looked at his passport and stared at his face. There was no way this could be the same person. my mind raced and tried to make sense of what was happening.
“Did you have a pen pal in Glasgow, Scotland when you were 16?”
The man sat there staring at me, his hands shook slightly and he sat up close and looked at me.
“You are Janey?”
“Yes, I am!”
I laughed out loud.
Just then, my taxi driver arrived.
We hugged and laughed, still both shocked at the amazing coincidence of the meeting.
“You always wrote nice letters and you were very cute, Janey. I spent years wondering what happened to your life. Are you happy Janey?” He spoke quickly as I grabbed my luggage.
“Yes, I am Louis. Are you happy?”
“Things have happened Janey, but I am good in my life and am going home to Portugal today to see my son.”
We stared at each other and, somehow, it just seemed right not to say any more.
And I walked off into the snowy streets of New York.
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My daughter Ashley fell a few weeks ago when her trainer caught on the escalator of the underground tube train station and hurt herself. At the time it was just her knee that seemed to take the blow. But since that first week of December when the fall happened she has had chronic back pain.
She convinced herself she was dying of liver or kidney failure or ‘back cancer’ as she called it. This morning we went to the doctor (who has since stopped saying mmm…mmm…over the top of me speaking) and it seems Ashley has muscle spasms due to the fall and is now on anti-inflammatory drugs to help ease the pain.
Meanwhile we have convinced husband that we deserve to own a puppy.
He is distraught as he never really liked having animals around. He is not cruel to them, he just isn’t as enamoured by pets as Ashley and I are.
So we were all sitting on the sofa and Ashley talked me into getting a dog as husband made a whole orchestral arrangement of noises like tutting and huffing.
As I got more eager Ashley blurted out “I am not even going to get a fucking sea monkey out of this conversation am I?”
“Yes, we are getting a wee dog” I assured her.
Husband went foetal.
“Can we call it William Shatner?” she pleaded
“Yes, we are getting a dog and calling it William Shatner” I assured her.
So I am going to cat and dog home to get a puppy or a wee dog.
Watch this space.
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