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07/21/2008 Europe/London +0100 BST |
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 Name: Janey Godley Country: United kingdom City: Glasgow/London Photo Album
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Following on from the previous blogs about what men must never do or say – here is the female equivalent!
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  To follow on from my last blog that I had so many comments about, so I thought I would add on. Here are some examples of what men must NOT do. Men must… • Never buy Lavender talcum as a birthday present, and then after the screaming has finally abated produce ANOTHER tin of talcum because the supermarket had a two for one deal on the product. • Never say out loud “When did your knickers start cutting into your fat bum, you have red marks, do they hurt?” • Never stroke your wife in the dark in bed and ask “Is that your boob or that fat bit that comes round your back?” • Never ask why after so much application of make up you look the same as you did when you started. • Never laugh out loud when you bang your toe. • Never …when asked an opinion on your outfit actually assume that we want the real truth. • Never tell a complete stranger on an aeroplane “That’s my wife just farted, she ate a curry last night and always farts like this the next day” • Never point out a spot in your wife’s face; I think she would already have guessed it is there. • Never laugh out loud in a shop when your wife holds up a dress. • Never tell people that your wife can’t cook and you once almost died of food poisoning when she made an apple crumble. • Never tell a journalist that your wife doesn’t really see comedy as a job, she talks like that in the house, the shops, the car and to kids and you would rather pay to shut her up and that you cannot understand why people pay to hear her and that she talks like that in her sleep. You see… they print that shit. • Never ask her why she married you, it was probably a long time ago and in the late 70’s skinny boys with big eyes seemed sexy back then. So there we have some of my sage advice on what men should never say, now I know there are loads of things women shouldn’t say, but I am not about to reveal the sisterly secrets, faults and misdemeanours. Am I now?
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A mate called me last week and as she is single she discussed certain things a man must DO and NOT DO to be on a list of possible boyfriends. Now I thought this was awful but then I realised I too have an agenda that my man must follow. For example, I know I could never have married or gave up my womb to reproduce with any man who used the word ‘Zeitgeist’ in his everyday language. There are other words I have banned from coming out of my husbands mouth and I have made a list. • Soporific • Cognoscenti • Latte double hit • Anything that is preceded by the word ‘Uber’ like Uber-excited • The saying ‘amongous’ like to say ‘chocolate-amongous’ as to express lots of chocolate. There are also things he cannot wear or I will divorce him…for example- • Wearing cuffed track suit bottoms with leather shoes and white socks. • Acrylic tank tops with a white shirt beneath. • Football tops of any kind EVER. • A fake tan. • A beanie hat. • Leather sandals of any style. • Jewellery of any kind. • A tattoo or nipple ring. • Busy Christmas sweaters with reindeer or trees. There are also sayings he cannot come out with or I will go to a beach and fake my own death, here are a few of these examples. • “Darling lets go to Macramé classes and make beaded pot holders” • “Janey I adore taxidermy in birds, see my stuffed peacock?” • “I love making seashells into lampshades” • “Do you fancy trying dogging?” • “Let’s go hill walking” • “Do you like my fake tan?” • “Madonna is a wonderful writer of children’s books” • “Don’t you think Victoria Beckham is gorgeous?” • “Do you think I would suit a pipe?” He knows all of these topics are off limits and I am not saying he wants any of these things, but in my mind they are the worst things a man can say other than “ I like stabbing babies” which is horrendously off limits and I don’t know anyone who would say that…but it was an extreme example. So my pal is right, she should have a list of things she looks for in a man. There are good things men can say and do like… • Cleaning. • Ironing. • Raising babies. • Cleaning out a Hoover. • Going to the late night shops for cookies. • Hand washing your underwear. • Cooking. I suppose that’s a bit much to ask, but it’s worth a try.
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My Niece Ann Margaret has a cat called Squeak. Apparently it’s her daughter Abi’s cat, but we are not sure. What I am sure of is, the cat has a personality disorder. It goes to its litter tray, does a wee shit, and then instead of scratching the litter over the shit, it turns around and scratches at the wall. It completely ignores the smelly wee shit and stands for at least three minutes making eye contact with me, challenging me to look away or comment and paws at the wall. I got fed up with this madness; I jumped down, grabbed its paw firmly and made scratching movements that covered the litter over the shit with its reluctant leg. It struggled and meowed, then bit me. Then it turned around and hopped into the litter tray and determinedly squeezed out another wee shit, it stared at me again and scratched at the wall in defiance. The wall is all scraped, the shit is uncovered and it merely sniffed at me, spat in my direction and padded out of the room. Four year old Abi came through, she said to me “Stop making Squeak angry, he just bit me and that’s because you are here, he hates you, he doesn’t like touching his own poo….would you?” She is right, I wouldn’t like touching my own poo, but I am not a cat- it is supposed to cover its own poo up. I once had a cat called Twinkles who was the complete opposite; he would shit, then stand for about 40 minutes and completely scoop ALL the litter and the shit out of his box and spread it all over my hallway. We would lie in bed and in the middle of the night all you could hear was this “Sshh, sshhh, sshhh, sshh” noise for fucking hours as he stood there dementedly, doggedly scooping out the litter box. You would think he was trying to dig to Australia the way he went about his business. I am sure he had OCD, if I screamed at him he would stop momentarily with a paw poised in mid air, then immediately went back to flicking the litter and shit all over my floor. He was like a cat possessed; my hall way resembled a scabby beach, all grit and small bits of shit over it. It took ages to clean it up and he sat watching me doing it every time. Maybe he liked the sound of the Hoover? I am not sure. Once he had managed to empty the tray, he looked at the mess all over the floor and then sat happily licking his own arse and wiping his face, congratulating himself on a job well done. This was EVERY shit and piss. So I constructed a box with high sides and a roof. I watched as he went in for his daily piss and scatter routine, it drove him crazy, the poor fucker was in there for ages and I could hear him scratch and flick those wee gritty stones up against the sides of that box for ages. Finally he came out covered in white flecks; like he had been to a cat wedding and was covered in confetti…he was totally confused. Finally he would stand at the entrance and try to scoop all the litter out through his front legs into his hind quarters, but it never worked. He stalked around the box and you could see he was trying to work a way getting all the grit out of the box. He never did manage it and finally gave up his cat OCD-ness and took to licking the lampshade in my bedroom and that eventually fell apart due to the sheer amount of cat saliva it had soaked up. Then Twinkles moved on to having a deeply sexual relationship with the velvet armchair in my sitting room. It was embarrassing to watch. He just seemed to pass one obsession up for another, and then he completely surprised me by going missing one night. He never left the house in his life and it scared me, but even more surprising was the night he gave birth to three kittens and made me realise he was a SHE. I should have known I suppose. Twinkles eventually got adopted out when my daughter Ashley was born, because the cat decided that Ashley’s crib and preferably her tummy was the perfect place to piss on nightly. I loved her, but had to stop her from trying to piss on the baby constantly. I am sure she had fun wherever she went and miss her to this day, though my Hoover doesn’t. Her OCD behaviour broke three Hoovers in six years with the sheer amount of litter that passed through its pipes.
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Well we moved into the flat in Edinburgh for my three week run at the Fringe Festival. The flat is awesome, so big and light and I love it. The good news is, it is just out of the city centre so the noise levels are fabulous. No screaming in the street outside like the flat last year! My daughter Ashley and her mate Bobbi (cutest wee girl flyerer in Edinburgh) are in one room. Their wee faces last night after the first day of work was funny, both of them sitting up in bed taking make up off and watching the Gilmore Girls on DVD (An Edinburgh tradition). Well I did my first show last night at the Pleasance. It went great; I had about 50 people in for the first night and one wee boy aged 11 years old. I didn’t panic about such a young kid being there but I did ask his mother if she was sure she wanted him to hear me swear a bit. She said it was ok, so I went ahead with the show. I had a great time, there were reviewers in – I am not sure what they thought, but everyone there laughed loudly throughout. My chat show at the Green Room opens today and my daughter is a guest! We also have the amazing Reginald D Hunter and Doktor Coca Coal McDonald. So it should be fun. I did a big painting for Arthur Smith’s art collection and delivered it to his massive Georgian Town house Museum in Queen Street, where he is showing the Art. Today I a going to busy but I will try to make sure I keep this blog updated at all times. Wish me luck.
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Yes I am becoming obsessed with this subject matter. I woke up this morning and panicked as I realised I am nearly 50…well I am 46 and that’s fucking close enough. I recall the 80s like it was yesterday, I can tell you what I wore, who I voted, how I felt and what music I liked and that was 25 years ago! It felt last month not decades ago! I can’t believe I am this age, I have only one marker or example to go by and that’s my mammy and she was murdered at 47. She was really old at my age. She was wrinkly, had no teeth, cared nothing about what she wore and had absolutely no ambition, she accepted her child bearing days were done and that she was just a granny with no future! I think my life is just beginning now that my daughter is an adult, I can travel more, I can explore my own ambitions and I can start to be me again after the hiatus of motherhood. Well that’s the plan! Talking of travel I am just back from London having done my first Edinburgh preview show at the Arts Depot in North London. I decided to stay at the Groucho club overnight as it was nice and central. The place is awesome and I love the Groucho, but at 5.30am I was sharply awoken by the noise of hundreds of bottles being smashed in the backyards of Soho as the recycling truck came round. The noise was ear shattering! I could not believe anyone or anything could make that much noise so early! Fuck the planet and let me sleep! So here I am back in Glasgow and its Saturday. I have woken up scared I am nearly 50 and scared I will be too old too quick. I want my life back to live all over again and this time I promise, I won’t get married too young, I won’t spend 15 years in a shitty bar and I will make sure I find a way to go to America and screw Brad Pitt!
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Seems the day I had flown out of JFK, the New York police and FBI stopped a plot to blow it up! They have arrested four men who are allegedly the terrorists who had organised to explode the fuel pipes that feed that airport. I don’t know if the day I was flying out was that day they were getting ready to go to town on their explosive attack but I do know I no longer care or worry or fear terrorism. When in London on any public transport I go sit right beside any Muslim looking man carrying a backpack. I figure if you welcome death it evades you and I never intend to be scared. When I was a kid people would tell me not to go near a dog because it was biter and I would always make a point of rubbing its head and making friends with it. I welcomed the rage of the animal, as I was sure if it smelt fear it would bite but if it recognised my lack of terror it would be ok. This neither makes me brave or mad, it’s just a theory that I lived with and I have survived loads of shit in my life. A few years ago a building near my home exploded, people died and were dying in that building and I ran towards it with a camera taking pictures of the devastation. Those pics made the front page of the Glasgow Evening Times. People questioned my motives at the time and I reckoned that a documentation of the unfolding event needed to be recorded. I have no idea why I carried on taking pictures as people were running around injured, but it felt ok at the time and as I have no real first aid experience I wouldn’t have tried to administer it. So taking pictures was the only thing I could do. Carrying on regardless in the middle of a scary situation is what I prefer to do. My theory has seen me through the scariest of times and I am sticking with it. I don’t mean I actively seek danger, but if presented with a dangerous situation, I would rather fly in the face of it. The only thing that really scares me is wasps and flying beasties. Show me wasps or bugs and I will scream like a girl and run like the fucking wind. Show me a man with a knife and I will challenge him to an arm wrestle.
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This is my new Fringe poster for the Edinburgh Festival 2007
JANEY GODLEY - TELL IT LIKE IT IS!
1st-27th August - 7.00pm at The Pleasance Dome
www.janeygodley.co.uk/fringe2007
Also I will be performing a second show and I will post the new image when it’s finished on this site.
Dates, venue and show title below
JANEY GODLEY'S CHAT SHOW
2nd-26th August - 5.00pm at The Green Room
www.janeygodley.co.uk/fringe2007
Thanks Janey Godley
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I am still in London; I was in Birmingham over the weekend doing Jongleurs. I left husband in the fancy apartment in Chelsea, there was no reason he should have to come up to Birmingham with me and Ashley is still in Glasgow. I really no longer know where home is. I miss my daughter and she will be 21 years old on 19th of April and I will miss it, but she is happy she has her own space back in Glasgow. There were Morris dancers in Birmingham; honestly a bunch of strangely dressed men with bells on their toes waving hankies at each other…gay isn’t even the best word to describe it all. The Morris Dancing Annual Event was on and there were at least 200 dancers of all shapes and sizes yet none of them black or Asian which amazed me as the majority of people watching the show in Birmingham were of some ethnic minority! I wondered what they made of the skippy- happy -clappy -hanky waving men with flowers on their heads brandishing short ribbon clad sticks at their opposite dance partner. I cant really talk being Scottish we have men dressed in skirts tiptoeing over a pair of swords. So I am back in Chelsea, husband has gone off to forage for food…or go downstairs to the Supermarket next door to us and I am going to watch 13 episodes of a TV series that I am reviewing on a radio show tomorrow…I need more time!
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“There is a Scottish pub in Fulham, lets go round and watch the Celtic match” Husband suggested as we walked through Chelsea in the sunshine. “I hate football pubs and hate anything Scottish in another country, it’s all too patriotic for me” I moaned. So we went there as my words mean nothing. It was a tiny wee bar, on entering we saw loads of small fat people in Celtic football colours and we knew they were Scottish as that’s our national shape and sport. We got crushed up against the bar and I stared at the screen that took up the whole wall as I was quite into the football. I do love football as a sport, but being raised in sectarian Glasgow, it always makes me feel anxious, due the violence that it caused over the years. Catholics and Protestants, Green and Blue, Celtic and Rangers all hating each other….that shit never goes away. I was five minutes in the place when an Oriental man came in with big bag and scrambled his way through the crush. “Oh Chinky Chonker come here” the wee fat man with a big stretchy green and white hooped Celtic shirt shouted and clawed his way through the throng to get to the Oriental man. I was aghast…I looked at husband and we both gawped at each other with huge astonished eyes…who speaks like that to people nowadays? Clearly Glaswegians in London is the answer. The Oriental chap merely smiled and pulled out of his bag a bunch of bootleg DVD’s, it can a stereotyped view but in the UK the majority of bootleg DVD sellers that go round bars selling their goods are from The Far East. Fair enough but to call him Chinky Chonker man is hideously insulting. The Oriental man chatted to the fat bloke and they swapped cash and DVD’s. “This better work better than the last shite you sold me Gonga Din ya Chinky Bastard” the wee fat man laughed and the Oriental man smiled and stuffed the cash into his pocket. “You Japs need a good talking to my man” the Scottish bloke added. He was clearly unsure of the man’s nationality and went for every pop at his roots. The man could have been an Eskimo for all he knew. I sat there ashamed at my fellow Scot and really wanted to scream. Then the irony of the situation kicked in because there on the football screen was the wonderful Celtic player Shunsuke Nakamura scored a goal for the Glasgow team and the whole place went crazy. “The Man from Japan is a genius” a woman screamed as the people jumped up and down in the crowded bar in joyous celebration. The DVD seller threw up both his arms and shouted in the best English accent I heard that day (including mine) “Yes! Go Nakamura; show the British how to play football” He hopped around in excitement and said to the gathered and now astonished crowd “That’s how you win games, hire a Chinky to score for your team” The man left the bar yelling with happiness that his countryman had scored for a Glasgow team, the Glaswegians in the bar had no idea how to deal with that information and I thought I was going to piss the seat with laughter. Now that’s a result a football match that will take years to beat in my opinion.
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