Original subtitles

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Victoria Wood.

We said, that's it, Thursday night.

We're coming out.

We are not sitting in front of the television eating pizza straight out of

the box, scraping cold mozzarella cheese off the inside of the lid two hours

later and eating that.

We're coming out. We want glamour, glitter, excitement.

Oh, well, we're here now.

Welcome to the lovely Swan Theatre. It's very nice to be here in High Wycombe. I

had a good wander around this afternoon. I was looking in the shop windows.

I was thinking, well, if I ever need a lemon acroland button-through cardigan,

this is the place to... You know how in some

places they advertise today's clothes at yesterday's prices?

So you're ahead of me there, that's good.

Don't need to do any punchlines, that's great.

We can all be home by quarter to nine.

I turned up and there was one letter waiting for me at the stage door. It

said, Dear Miss Wood, I will never forget the last time you came to this

theatre. We waited for you at the stage door in the rain. You came out, barged

past us, got into your car and reversed into my sister's Renault.

And that was the only letter I had. I mean, I do have fans, you know, but I

don't have sort of mad fans.

I don't have people hanging around my house trying to drink my bath water or

anything like that.

And I've only once had one of those letters from somebody asking for some of

my used underwear.

Well, I sent some, you know.

Sent all of it, actually.

I said to them, there's no need to iron it, just fold it flat as it comes out of

the tumble dryer.

And I don't have a stalker, as far as I know, that the police have warned me

it's a possibility.

And they said to me, do you carry any sort of anti-mugging device?

I said, well, I don't really, but in the very inside pocket of my handbag is my

emergency Lillette.

Which is about 17 years old.

And if anybody comes near me, I shall jam it up their nose.

And they'll die of toxic shock syndrome.

But I was thinking today, I feel I don't really behave like a proper celebrity,

you know, because real celebrities, they seem to behave in a really bizarre way

all the time. Like they're always consulting fortune tellers and giving

birth in the sea with dolphins.

I wonder what the dolphins feel about that.

Do you mind? I'm trying to have my plankton here.

See, in proper celebrities, they always give their children really bizarre

names, don't they? Like, if you're a proper celebrity, you can't just call

your babies Chris and Bob. You have to call them things like Mercedes and

Rainforest.

You see, if I was a proper celebrity, I'd have to have at least four children.

One naturally, two adopted, one from sperm sent in by a well-wisher.

And I'd call them Pinky Perky, Monosodium Glutamate and Satsuma.

And it's very nice to be here. I've had a terrible day actually so far because I

woke up really late. I overslept. And I was running around trying to get

dressed, shouting at my children.

One of them was being really stupid.

He wouldn't get dressed, so I overreacted.

I've had him adopted.

No, it's all right. I'm going to collect him from the social services tomorrow

morning. Now I'm turning into such an old bag mother.

You know, I used to be quite nice. When I had one little baby, I was really nice

to it. And it had everything. It had musical mobiles over its cart and Mrs.

Tiggywinkle height chart.

Second one, couldn't be bothered.

If he wouldn't go to sleep, I used to prop him up in front of the Open

University.

If I wanted to know how tall he is, I'd just check the snot mark on my coat and

I'd be it.

this morning trying to get dressed, no knickers in my knicker drawer.

And that's because the washing machine's broken down. I think, oh, I can't bear

to phone the washing machine man again.

Because it was so embarrassing last time when he came and it was all blocked up

and it wouldn't drain.

And he came and he unblocked it. And I had to explain that normally I do do my

carrots in a washing up bowl.

Actually, they came out very well in a hot cycle, you know.

Popped in a bit of butter halfway through.

I thought, well, I could phone up, you know, because we've got new phones, new

technology, and it's always quite encouraging now, isn't it, when you

phone a big company, because the phone is always answered straight away. Hello,

you are through to washing machine world.

You are being held in a queue.

If you have a tone phone, please press for your choice of relaxing listening.

Press one for the blue Danube, two for the cuckoo waltz, three for Tommy Steele

having a crack at Phantom of the Opera.

You have now reached the head of the queue. Press 1 for service, 2 for

repair, 3 for a good gossip with Madge on the switchboard.

You have now reached the repair department.

Press 1 for washing machine, 2 for tumble dry. So sorry to hear your

washing machine is not giving complete satisfaction.

Please key in your appliance number.

You are now being connected to the appropriate department where you'll be

put through to a skilled technician. Please speak slowly and clearly after

the beep.

Oh, hello, it's about my washing machine.

You what?

I don't work here, love.

I think you want Sandra, she's in the toilet.

I've only come round to scrounge your tampax.

Hang on, I'll put you back to the switchboard.

No, I've got no clean clothes. Now, I've worn everything I've ever possessed.

Gym knickers, nursing bras.

to put on this morning that was clean was a body.

I've got it. Oh no, which one have I got on? I've got two. Oh yeah, this is made

by Fantasy. This is my Fantasy body.

I've got another one made by Burley.

But it was so embarrassing going into the shop and saying to the woman behind

the counter, excuse me, have you got a large white Burley body?

How dare you?

But they're such a faff to get on and off, aren't they bodies?

I mean, mine's got poppers and Velcro.

Which I think is very dodgy near any kind of a pubic outcropping.

But they are such a faff, aren't they, to get on and off? I mean, I've got

friends who wear knickers, then tights, then a body, then a little dress or

trousers or something, and they go out for a few drinks and they sit and then

they go, oh, sod it, Angela, let's just wet ourselves.

You see, I... can't really manage mine without help and I had to stop on the

way here to go to the ladies and I asked this woman to help me now it was alright

because she needed assistance with the self adhesive flaps on her panty pad so

that was okay well we were stuck together for 20 minutes

but the real trouble is my pubic hair, you see.

Look, because about 20 odd years ago, when I was about 20, I just had three

little bits. I had one little bit there and two little bits there and that was

all I had.

And now, it's all over the place.

It's spreading, it's joining, it's clumping up.

It's like some bloody rockery plants.

If I go for a bikini wax and they see me coming, they pull the blinds down

closed.

going down. The hair on my legs is coming up to meet it.

I'm starting to look like one of those forms in Fantasia that play the flute.

I've seen a half-girl, half-goat, I think.

They dance around to Beethoven, six of them go down. Have you never seen

Fantasia? Oh, you lucky thing.

It's one of the most boring films ever made.

It's all we ever watched, though, since we've had children. We have to watch a

different Disney video every night.

Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Cinderella.

My children think all women have enormous eyes, scrubbed floors, and

never have sex.

They're not getting this from me.

I'd remind me of the damp cloth.

I'm just getting older, that's what it is. In fact, I did phone the newsagent

the other day. I said, I want to cancel my order for Bunty.

He said, do you want to take anything else instead? I said, have you got

Menopause magazine?

He said, does that come monthly? I said, there's no reason why it would, no.

really nice to be here. It's just very nice to get out of London, actually,

because the bit of London I live in is filthy.

I mean, the air is filthy, you know, from traffic pollution.

And all the traffic, really, is these women driving their children to school

in these enormous four-wheel drive Jeeps. Now, why do they have to have

four-wheel drive in London?

I haven't really quite discovered, unless they're worried about

encountering a low-sugar Ribena slick coming up Highgate.

But they all drive these enormous great tanks, you know, with great bars.

on the front to repel rhinoceroses, machine guns mounted on the roof,

moose's heads dangling off the spare wheel. This is all to deliver one

spindly child to the fluffy bunny Montessori nursery half a mile up the

road.

And they have a terrible time in these private schools, you know, these poor

little children, because they're whipped in and out of conversational Spanish and

Mexican folk dancing and interpersonal skills.

My children don't do nothing like that in their school.

They just sit around cutting up old brillo pad boxes with zigzag scissors.

And once in a while they come home with something they've done at school, like

catch knits.

But these mothers where I live, they are so competitive.

I mean, I know one mother, she had her child taught to play the piano when it

was seven months old.

Well, it was a concert of pianists by the time it was two and a half.

It gave a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Ratmaninoff, second piano

concerto. Critics were really nice about it. They said it was unbelievably mature

under the circumstances.

But in the quiet bit, you could hear its nappy crackling.

But they're just so competitive.

I mean, like, if your child has a birthday party, you can't just go out

and buy a birthday cake, like, from a shop.

You have to make one yourself, you know, out of one of those books.

I was at it myself a few weeks ago. I was up till quarter to four in the

morning. Frigging about with licorice bootlaces.

Trying to do Thomas the Tank Engine.

You feel like phoning them up, don't you, these people that write these

books? I nearly phoned her up, Jane Asher. Was this your idea?

A shunting yard made of sponge fingers?

This is also that somebody who's no more than two foot six high can come in the

next morning and say, I think that cold tender is coupled up incorrectly,

mother.

And part... Party bags, they're a real nightmare where I live. I mean, you

can't get away with, like, just chucking in a bit of cake and a balloon.

They go mad where I live. I mean, this year, you can't really get away with

less than one decent piece of jewellery and some air tickets.

I mean, there was none of this when I was little. There was none of this party

bags or consolation prizes or everybody has to go home with something. It was

tough. If you were out at musical shows, you were out.

I mean, out in the street. Go on!

Mrs. Pickering, I mean it.

And there was no exciting food. There was no pizzas or burgers.

We used to die of excitement if the jelly came in two colours.

We used to sneak into the dining room. It's red and yellow.

And we used to have these horrible little potted meat sandwiches with flags

in that said potted meat in joined up writing which none of us could read.

So you take a bite and go, I don't like potted meat, Mrs Pickering. Then you go

without.

And you know when you do pass the parcel now, when you make up the parcel, you

have to put a little prize in each layer, so each child who unwraps a layer

gets a little prize to take home. None of that when I was little.

You were lucky if you got one when you got to the end.

You'd unwrap the last thing and go, there's nothing in it, Mrs Pickering.

No, that's life, that is. Think on.

It's no wonder my generation's all on drugs, is it really?

Not that I'm on drugs myself, I don't see the point of most drugs.

Especially ecstasy, I can't see the point of ecstasy.

I think if I wanted to get dehydrated and jump around with a load of people

I've never met, I could go to a Methodist barn dance, really.

Very strange generation, you know, this sort of 60s generation.

Very frustrated generation, actually, because, you know, one of our big hit

records in the mid-60s was called Grocer Jack, excerpt from a teenage opera,

which went, Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, get off your back, come into town, don't

let us down. See, it collapsed, you see, and they couldn't get in the shop,

right? Well, there was never another record. We never heard any more of the

opera. So we don't know what happened. Did Jack die? Who took over the grocery?

We don't know.

LAUGHTER

It's all right, I do know everybody under the age of 39 is sitting there

going, Ma, is she talking about...

Oh, God,

you know I'm 40-odd. I read it in a magazine.

Eek, squeak, I'm practically antique.

And yet I feel about 13, well, most days. Oh, God, I'm such a barmy sod. I

read the tea leaves in my cup.

But all that they ever seem to say is, for Christ's sake... Grow up.

Oh, flip.

I need to get a grip. I've never learnt to ski or punt go easy.

Ooh, ah, I fasten up me bra by twizzing it around the front house, Leezy.

For God's sake, give a girl a break. Why am I so insecure?

I could take a header into vintage cheddar and still not be mature.

Tea. Born in 53, the middle of the baby boom.

Couldn't dance, never had a chance. There was never any bleeding room, quite

frankly. Boo hoo, I'm in a blooming queue.

A baby boomer's headed west.

Well, we did the twist, then we all got pissed. In a tie-dyed grandad vest.

Can't win, never fitted in. Never was a 60s child, those sizzlers. No point.

Couldn't roll a joint. Used to drive me boyfriend wild. His rizzlers, spots,

specs. Terrible at sex.

Lay there like a stunned gazelle.

I was 33 when it dawned on me that girls could move as well.

Fair dues.

I managed sex and booze. But rock and roll got clean away. And smoking big.

Fan of brotherhood of man. I kiss their picture every day. I'm joking.

Ooh, uh, I'd never heard a blur.

Cause actually, you know, I've gone.

Right from 10cc straight to HRT. Turning left at Elton John.

Hey, hey, baby on the way.

80s mothers really tried. They rambled. No drugs.

Wrap yourself in rugs. Eat your own placenta fried or scrambled.

Swear. Curse. I'm shouting at the nurse. She said, just do the best you can.

I felt such a fool in the birthing pool, in the middle of a hosepipe van.

What's more, now I'm 44.

Can I see the years ahead? I can. White sandals. Ex.

Lax.

Elasticated slacks.

Weekends on the Isle of Man. No vandals.

Jigsaws. I won't go out of doors without a hat upon me old permed head.

I shall crochet dolls in me doctor's skulls in the middle of me folding bed.

Hey, ho, I don't know. God gives us all a place on earth like Crawley. How sad

the life I might have had if I'd been swapped at birth to Lawley. Ho, hum,

I've got it all to come. Tomorrow is another day.

Well, I'm five foot five and I'm still alive. And that's all I want to say.

the other day and he was talking about time and he said that time didn't go in

a straight line it sort of went in a circle so that things came around more

than once well he said it sort of went in concentric circles so like on the

outside things moving really slowly like history like we used to be a little

insignificant country and then we were a great big world power and now we're a

little insignificant country and then nearer the middle are things moving a

bit quicker like we used to have coal fires and we all ripped them out and put

in electric fires and then we ripped them out and put in coal fires And then

in the middle you've got things whizzing round and round, coming round and round

really quickly, like ski pants.

So what I don't understand about that is why have we had two goes of flared

trousers and only one crack at Crossroads?

That doesn't seem fair, does it, when you think of all the other things we've

had twice lately, like tuberculosis and the liver birds. Why not Crossroads? Why

no Meg?

No Sandy?

No Vera with the big earrings?

I like to think they're out there somewhere on the space-time continuum.

Somewhere there's a little cardboard reception desk.

Somewhere a non-speaking extra is handing over the keys to Shalify.

Somewhere Meg is sipping a glass of sherry and going, I don't know, Jill,

but I intend to find out.

I think it would be more fun if it came back. I just think television has just

got really boring.

You know, everything's the same. Everything's got detectives and dead

bodies and police cars and ambulances. Everybody, every programme seems to have

John Thor, David Jason or Kevin Waitley in it.

thing I've ever seen in a mortuary, and I hate that actually, I hate that when

they pull out the refrigerator drawer, you know, there's a big shape covered in

a sheet with a big toe sticking up at the end, with a tag tied to it, so I

hate that.

I'm waiting for the inevitable scene in Silent Witness where they pull out three

drawers, there's three bodies, three toes, three tags, camera goes in, it's

John Thorpe, David Jason and Kevin Waitley, it's the end of time.

Heroines look the same on television, don't they? I mean, you still, you

hardly ever have a black heroine. You hardly ever have a heroine in a

wheelchair. And you never have a heroine with an enormous bottom.

You think of all the girls you've seen on, you know, Jane Austen and Catherine

Cookson getting on and off horses and in and out of coaches.

There's never a close-up of an enormous pair of buttocks.

Somebody going, oh, blimey, them stretch pants don't half get up your crack.

movies and there's a sex scene between a man and a woman and the woman's naked

the woman has never got a roll of fat anywhere on her body now every woman I

know of whatever size has got a little roll of fat concealed somewhere about

her person for emergency use only but you can't see when they've got their

clothes on I've noticed this at the gym you know people come in very trim and

taut in their leggings and leotards they take it all off into the lockers bosoms

bottoms stomachs

It's like somebody put growth hormone in a jelly baby recipe.

See, I've got one. I've got a huge roll of fat around here, which I don't worry

about. Sometimes I think, if I fell into a canal, would anybody bother to throw

me a life belt? She's all right.

It's like you never see a woman on the television with cellulite.

Now, every woman I know has got it. You know the stuff I mean. It looks like

you've got raw crumpets tacked to the outside of your thighs.

God gave it to fat women because he thought they didn't have enough things

to feel guilty about.

And he gave it to thin women just to really bloody annoy them, I think.

Because my friend Louise, she's thin, and she's got it, and she never used to

bother about it. Well, not until she split up with her boyfriend.

That was a bit sad, actually. He was an international figure skater.

She said he was very nice, but he was very boring in bed, you know.

Every night it was the same thing, the compulsories followed by the short

program.

about her cellulite except she had one of those little scrubby massage-y

things, you know, things with little rubber pimples all over it you take into

the shower. You take it into the shower and it'll give your cellulite a good see

-in too with it.

And that's brilliant because then you've got bright red cellulite.

Well, she was quite religious about it. I mean, every morning for about five

years she went in the shower and she scrubbed away. And I have to say, at the

end of the five years, the little scrubby thing looked marvellous, you

know, it was all smooth and flat.

But her legs were the same as ever.

So I thought, oh, give it up. You know, what does it matter?

Cellulite is just God's way of telling you to stop sleeping around and settle

down.

Find a nice man, hide his glasses under the pillow, keep your pyjama trousers

on.

But it bothered her, you know. She started having these treatments in

beauty salons and department stores, you know, where they wrap your legs up in

seaweed and bandages and they put you in a little room under a hot lamp.

I don't know what it is with cellulite, but it's a marvellous deterrent for

shoplifters.

No, it's supposed to sort of...

squeeze all the fluid out of your legs and make them all smooth. I mean, it

sort of worked with her, you know. They took the bandages off and her legs were

all smooth, but her head was twice the size with lumps all over it.

So then, she said... She's going to go on a detoxification diet. She's just

going to have brown rice and water and organic vegetables and all this. Well,

that's all right, except I do her shopping for her, you see. Now, I know

why I do, because she stopped driving her car, because she's very

environmentally conscious and she said they were so damaging to the environment

and they contributed to global warming and all this. This is ignoring the fact

that the fumes coming from the bottom of a person on a brown rice diet is

enough to melt a polar ice cap all by itself.

Anyway, she doesn't drive, so she could go down the local shops, but she won't

go in the greengrocers because she says the greengrocer is sexist and

patronising because he calls you dear, which he does when you go in. He says,

hello, dear. Well, I don't care, you see, I'm not bothered. I don't care if

he says, hello, dear, hello, love, like your new hairdo, can I pop my cucumber

in between your maris pipers?

Well, she won't go, so I do the shopping for both of us. I go to my supermarket

on a Friday afternoon. She's not a good time to go, and it's got a terrible car

park, which is supposed to be one way, and it's always full of 78-year-old

women going the other way, steering with their knees while they try and open a

packet of biscuits.

And I always get a bit flustered, like, where am I supposed to park? You know,

because we've got all these designated spaces.

Spaces for people in wheelchairs.

Spaces for people on crutches.

Spaces for people with no children. Spaces for people with children.

Spaces for people who want to conceive children. Long spaces.

I'm ovulating, I'll have to do it now.

And then I think, well, do I want a trolley or a basket? You know, because

there's hundreds of different baskets. Baskets if it's on your wheelchair,

baskets if it's on your walking frame, talking baskets if you're blind,

listening baskets if you're lonely.

And hundreds of different trolleys, all with a different baby seat. Seats for

weenie babies, bigger babies, huge obnoxious babies with earrings and a

hairband and a bracelet.

Twin babies, tiny baby, big child, big baby, tiny child.

Toddlers trolley, there's a sort of mesh cage with an electrified fence around

it, good.

Well, I've got different ways of shopping, you know, depending on how I'm

feeling. If I'm feeling really rushed, I just run up and down the first aisle and

just grab the first five things I can see in that aisle and I go straight to

the quick checkout.

And that's alright until I get home and I have to try and think, now what can I

cook with tinned tomatoes, a daily mirror and a bunch of freezers?

And then sometimes, if I'm feeling really insecure, I just tag along behind

somebody else.

And I just buy whatever they're buying.

I mean, it has to be somebody who looks vaguely like me, you know.

I think Judy Finnegan is getting a bit fed up with it now.

has given me this list of stuff to get for her detoxification eggs and tomatoes

and bread and I get it all and I take it back to her house and she's sifting

through it she said I can't have these tomatoes they're from Chile I don't

approve of the regime in Chile I said which tomatoes am I supposed to get she

said well get me Jersey tomatoes I said I'm not getting anything from Jersey

it's against my principles that's where they filmed Bergerac

And she said, and these eggs are not free range.

I said, well, I know they're not free range, but they're barn fresh.

You know, I thought that was nearly the same thing. And they were a lot cheaper.

She said, no, no, no, very, very bad for hens to be kept in a barn. Very bad for

their mental condition.

I said, oh yes, it says this on the lid here, cheaper eggs from balmy chickens.

I said, is the bread all right? No, the bread's not all right. It's got

additives in it. I said, well, of course it's got additives in it. You know, this

is England. We live off additives. We need them. They keep us healthy and

strong. And able to cope with other horrible aspects of British life, like

swirly stair carpets and plug-in air fresheners.

Anyway, she won't have it, so I have to go back the second time. And I'm more

careful. I get free-range eggs, additive-free bread, mushrooms gathered

by non-scrap metal-dealing Czechoslovakian gypsies.

And I take it all back, and she's sifting through. I said, are the eggs

all right? She said, well, they are free range, but it doesn't specify what diet

the hens have been fed on.

Is the bread all right? No, the bread's not all right. It's got gluten in it. I

said, well, of course it's got gluten in it, and that's what holds bread

together. If you didn't have any gluten, all you'd get would be a load of

cellophane and some dust.

Well, she won't have it, so I have to go back the third time, and I am really

careful the third time. I get South African grapes grown by a man who once

borrowed a lawnmower of Nelson Mandela.

Additive-free, gluten-free, whole-grain bread containing natural iron, B

vitamins and the lyrics of Don't Cry For Me, Argentina.

And free-range eggs from chickens that are fed on a vegetarian diet, go on

walking holidays in the north of Scotland, are encouraged to form lesbian

relationships with other chickens, and live in sheltered housing with a video

entry phone.

Well, a week of eating like that, she still had cellulite, and the week after

that, she was back on the licorice all sorts.

So then she said to me she was going to attack it from another angle altogether,

colonic irrigation.

She just came out of the blue one day. She said to me, I'm having my bottom

hoovered out next Wednesday. Do you want to come with me?

I said, I thought you'd never ask.

She said, now, it's not everybody's cup of tea. She said, you know what they do?

They put this tube in and they whoosh all this water around and all this stuff

comes out and you can see it coming out on a sort of little video screen.

I don't think that would bother me, you know. I've sat through a few programmes

with Anthea Turner in them.

I don't think a bit of loose bowel lining is going to bother me one way or

the other.

Well, the place was really clean, which is important, isn't it, if you're going

to get your intestines out on the table.

There's got to be a fair amount of hygiene involved.

You don't have to be going home with a colon covered in cat hairs, do you,

really?

And the woman was really nice. You know, she's putting Louise on a bed and

covering up with a blanket and washing her hands and she used to be a bus

conductress But she couldn't stick the smell of the coppers and all this So she

puts in this tube and starts washing around all this water and all this stuff

is coming out But you can't really see what you're looking at It's like looking

at a little black and white television set But I mean the woman can because

she's trained to identify waste matter at any distance You know, some people

can identify aircraft just from the shape of the wings Well, she can look at

a little blob of old poo-poo

And go, that's a cheese and pickle granary torpedo, August 1994.

So she's whooshing in more and more water, more and more layers of old

residue are coming away. And the woman is identifying everything as it comes

out, because it goes back years, you know, all this stuff.

And the woman is going, pre-decimalisation Maltesers.

Farley's Rusks.

And poor Louise is getting smaller and smaller like this.

She sat there like a punctured lilo at the end.

So we go home on the bus. The only charge to her, half fare, so that was

good. And we get back. I said, right, take all your clothes off and I'm having

a good look. I said, you've still got it. He said, you've still got cellulite.

I said, I don't think you'll ever get rid of it. It's like trying to get

Imelda Marcos to come out of Saxon. Come on, you can't.

And she said, oh, well, let's forget it. Let's forget it. You know, I am more

than my cellulite. You know, I should just ignore it. I should draw attention

to my good points. I should wear false eyelashes and keep playing the piccolo,

and it won't be a problem.

Well, that was all right until we had the hot weather last summer, and she

decided she wanted to be able to wear a bikini. Now, I don't have this urge that

a lot of women have got to wear a bikini because I know I'm not the right shape

for a bikini, and I know what shape I am because I read it in a book.

Honestly, I was in this bookshop flicking through this stupid book about

body shapes, and it said that all women could be divided into one of four basic

body shapes.

And that was pear shape, hourglass, triangle, and rectangle.

And I was a rectangle.

I mean, I actually said it in the book. It said, famous rectangles, Jennifer

Saunders. More generous example, Victoria Wood.

Oh, well, thanks a lot.

But blimey, you know, I don't do... drugs to try and keep my name out of the

papers, there I am down in black and white as an example of a generous

rectangle.

I mean, what a stupid way to categorise people anyway. I mean, I don't think of

my three best friends as two pairs in a triangle.

I think of them as moany, groany and split ends.

It was one of these really annoying books. It was one of these make-the-best

-of-yourself books, which I hate, you know, because sometimes I don't want to

make the best of myself.

Sometimes I want to make the worst of myself.

Sometimes I want to sit around in this sort of old trousers that if you sent

them to Bosnia in the middle of winter, they'd write back, no thanks, we're not

that desperate.

And it said things like, buy a good bra.

Well, who ever went out to try and buy a bad bra?

I mean, it's not like you ever went to Marks and Spencer's and said, have you

got anything grey and droopy with a hook missing?

I mean, you might as well, because that's what you end up with.

When it said rectangles, we had to wear fitted suits, we had to wear geometric

jewellery, we had to wear rectangular watches.

I don't know what hourglasses had to do, strap an egg tamer to their wrists,

presumably.

But Louise, she was a pear shape. She wanted to be able to wear a bikini. So I

said, well, just wear one. You know, it's not illegal to have cellulite. She

said, oh, she couldn't. She couldn't. She didn't have the confidence. I said,

this is stupid now. This is going too far. You're a nice person. You're kind.

You answer the front door even when you know it's the Jehovah's Witnesses.

And she burst into tears. She collapsed on the carpet. She said, you don't

understand what my life is like with this cellulite. She said, I never go

out. I never have sex.

I sit in night after night eating biscuits. I've reached rock bottom.

I said, that's your rock bottom.

Those are my retirement plans.

I said, look, look, I know what we'll do, I know what we'll do. I said, come

with me to my gym and we'll exercise and stuff. I'm sure exercise can do

something. And she said, oh no, she couldn't come to the gym. It would be

full of posers in thong leotards.

I said, oh, not my gym. Everybody looks like me.

Everybody's an ancient mother.

Nobody could cope with a thong leotard.

In fact, for a high impact class, a lot of us wear pampers.

Tell him it's quicker.

Anyway, she said she was fed up of messing about. She was going to have

cosmetic surgery by a personally recommended cosmetic surgeon. I said,

personally recommended by whom? She said, the woman in the dry cleaners.

I said, if you mean that woman with the three eyebrows, be careful.

She said, well, you haven't seen her lately. I said, no, I won't go in that

dry cleaners. That woman is a terrible dry cleaner because she chain smokes the

whole time. Everything comes about reeking of cigarettes.

I don't really want to get lung cancer from my own cardigan.

She said, well, you haven't seen her, but she's had a complete radical

facelift. She looks marvellous. I said, what's a radical facelift? She said, I

think they take your face off, wash it, starch it, iron it and put it back

again.

She's got really, really tight skin. She looks fantastic.

I said, can she smile?

She said, she doesn't need to smile. She's a manic depressive.

I said, well, they have mood. swings you know i said suppose she has a good day

at the dry cleaners suppose she gets a load of gravy out of somebody's

eiderdown what does she do then they just let out two darts at the back

of her neck

Don't rush into anything. I said, at least send off, you know, to the clinic

for the brochure. So the brochure came. All sounded very nice, very vague.

But it said at the bottom, you're very welcome to come and have a look round.

I said, that's what we should do. We should go and have a look round. Well,

it sounded really posh. It was called the Abbey Grange Radiant Appearance

Centre. And we turned up and it's a little house next to a chip shop on a

main road.

So I stood there knocking on the front door. All looked a bit dusty, you know,

needed repainting. And I'm peering in through the windows and all the pictures

are crooked.

I said to her, would you want any sort of breast work done by somebody who

can't even level up two pictures?

But the front door opens and there stands this nurse with a party hat on

her head like this.

And she's got a glass of formaldehyde in one hand with a cocktail cherry in it.

And an earlobe in the other.

I don't know how...

There's always something left over.

Anyway, come through. Are you having a look round? Now, don't worry about us

being banged next to the chip shop like this, which, by the way, only uses pure

vegetable oil.

There is no deal going on with the leftovers from the liposuction.

Though I must admit, if we run out of the silicone implants for the breast

enlargements, those little sachets of tartar sauce are spot on.

Sorry, we're a bit chaotic at the moment. We're in the middle of a leaving

party for one of the nurses.

We all clubbed together to get her a nose job.

She woke up halfway through and said she really wanted a tease made, but it was

too late by then. He'd already started chiselling.

That's our surgeon, Mr Stevens.

Shaking Stevens, we call him.

No, I'm only kidding. One of his hands is fabulous. Anyway, come through.

They'll all be down in a minute when they've finished the hokey-cokey. Can

you hear them? Put your left leg in.

I don't know whose left leg they're doing that with. Anyway, come through.

This is the waiting area.

This is where you can sit down and choose what procedure you might like to

have done. We've got two on special offer at the moment. We've got the Greta

Garbo. That's the removal of the back molars here.

Implants here. Give more defined cheekbones. Looks fantastic.

Some people have trouble with the chewing afterwards.

No, I'm very frank with people. I say, come on, you know, Greta Garbo, she had

the world at her feet, but could she manage a curly whirly?

special offer, which is also very popular. That is the Kim Basinger. That

is the injection of the buttock fat around the mouth.

Give a fuller lip line.

I was going to have that done, but my boyfriend said, come off it, Babs. You

talk through your ass anyway. Why pay for it?

Once you've decided what procedure you might want to have done, you do have to

undergo an in-depth suitability assessment by our in-house psychiatric

counsellor. That's her over there in the overall, stirring the custard. Hi,

Renee. No, she's very shrewd. She can size people up straight away, even

through that serving hatch.

Once you've been assessed as suitable, you come through here to the preparation

area. As you can see, we've got three people waiting for ops at the moment.

We've got a tummy tuck, a breast enlargement, and a penile implant.

Now, I must stress that even though the penile implant is here only for cosmetic

purposes, of course, it still has to be dealt with sensitively and

confidentially. Johnny, I'm just telling them I'm going to the bigger willy. Just

telling them.

which apparently is fine.

It's just that he works in this supermarket with a load of women and he

felt he needed a bit more just for the look of the thing, really.

Especially on the Mondays when the stock take the freezers. You know, it's a bit

cold down there.

Now, I must stress...

That any operation can go wrong, which is tragic for the patient concerned, but

hilarious for us.

We had this woman in the other week, what was it for? Oh, breast reduction,

that's right. And they were ginormous. And she'd booked him for this holiday at

a nudist camp in Saint-Tropez. And she wanted to be able to sit there having a

lunch without having to worry about remembering the French for, excuse me,

could I just retrieve my nipple from your palm free, would you mind?

Well, she was on the operating table. Mr. Stevens had just removed the

nipples. Rini comes in with the trolley with the teas and biscuits.

Well, Mr. Stevens only puts the nipples down on the wrong trolley.

Well, I am hurrying down that corridor, helpful leather shouting, nobody have

the jammy dodgers!

And then the next week, he only does the same thing again. What's this man coming

for? Oh!

Penile implant, that's right, another one. Only that was for sexual reasons

because he was impotent, that's right. Only I'd admitted him, couldn't read his

handwriting, thought he put important.

I had him down as a VIP.

He was getting cream in his coffee and all sorts.

Well, same thing, he's on the operating table, really comes in with a trolley

with the teas and biscuits.

Mr. Stevens only implants this man's penis with two Bakewell fingers.

But it worked really well, actually.

Just if you went anywhere near Derbyshire, he got an erection, but you

can't have everything. See you.

Well, she didn't have anything done in the end, Louise. She didn't have any

operations. In fact, she stopped worrying about her cellulite because she

fell in love.

She fell in love with this man who had his own crumpet factory.

And he thought she looked marvellous. He took her down on the shop floor where

they were stamping out the crumpets. He said, look, this is what I want them to

look like.

Now, we're getting towards the interval now, and they've asked me to say they're

doing something they often do in this theatre. They're taking a collection for

charity. So if you see the ushers or the usherettes going around with little

collecting tins, that's what they're doing. And tonight they're collecting

for their own charity, which is Mavis House, which is the convalescent term

for knackered usherettes.

LAUGHTER Which is named after the patron saint of usherettes, Saint Mavis.

Who was a cinema usherette who dropped dead one night when somebody gave her

the right money for a king cone.

Well, oh, I'm 17 and I live round here and it's not so bad.

And oh, me sister's left, so I'm just at home with me mum and dad.

Well, he's not me dad, but I call him dad.

But oh, I'm really looking forward to when I won't be here When I

fly, fly away to a better day That's my idea, it's me best idea,

it's a great idea And oh, I have these mates, and they're really great,

they're really prime And oh, about once a week, we all go out, we

have a brilliant time

We have a brilliant time.

I tell them they're all coming with me the day I break away.

Because I feel in my heart that will be the start of a better day.

A better day.

It was such a shame Cause oh, he crashed his car And he looked okay But he wasn't

the same He looked the same But he wasn't the same But oh, if he'd have

taught me driving I'd just drive clean away Cause oh, if I had a car I could

get so far Towards a better day A better day And oh, I had this

job And it weren't much cop So I packed it in. And oh, me man went mad.

Said, what have you done?

Said, I packed it in.

I just walked out. I packed it in.

Cause oh, somewhere around the corner and headed straight my way.

I can see so clear.

I won't be here. I'll have a better day.

A better day.

It's all a con.

Cause look at me.

I have these dreams and they won't come true.

Me mum says dream on. That's what she says.

Dream on Andrea.

Dream on Andrea.

And oh, something set me thinking. This thing my gran would say.

We'll win.

It'll all begin.

When our ship comes in. We'll have a better day.

A better day.

Something set me thinking this thing that she would say We'll win, it'll all

begin when our ship comes in We'll have a better day Well I'm 17 and I live

round here and it's not so bad And my sister's left so I'm just at home with

me mum and dad And oh, something set me thinking this thing that she would say

We'll win, it'll all begin when our ship comes in We'll have a better day, a

better day

Hello? I'm collecting.

We're not allowed to...

attention to ourselves.

But we can do quite an interesting rattle.

Plus, I'm looking for me friend.

Have you seen her?

Kimberly.

She's really, really tall and really, really platinum.

She's had like these hair extensions done. So ages to do to eight hours.

Well, far for each armpit.

She's got a new job now, Kimberly.

She was working in this natural therapy centre with that really, really

therapeutic... You know, it's a proper place. You could have a massage without

enjoying yourself.

She was doing this thing called distant healing, where you, like, heal people at

a distance. You, like, send these mental rays through the atmosphere.

When your typical Kimberley, she got a bit tanked up one lunchtime, got her

rays crossed, sent somebody in Paisley a right load of sciatica, so she had to

leave there.

They didn't exactly fire her with them being so enlightened.

They just said it might be a good idea if her aura went on a personal journey.

So she's got this new job now. She's working in this new health club and

gymnasium. It's gorgeous.

It's really upmarket. It's converted from an abattoir.

So there's loads of hooks for your leotard.

And she's retrained as an aerobics instructor.

She did a two-day course. It was a day to learn the exercises and a day to work

the cassette deck.

She does step classes mainly. They're really popular, you know, because she's

not bothered if you don't feel like stepping. You can just stand at the back

and go, whoo!

She does loads of different ones. She does basic steps. Step it up, step and

pump, step and stretch, step and sweat, step and smoke. That's really busy.

And she does step for the over-60s.

Escalator.

And she does water resistance work in the pool.

Aquapump aerobics.

With ankle weights. That's really good.

Well, as long as you're in the shallow end.

Because it does, like, remove any aerobic benefit drowning.

And I'm just going to hand me money in. We're collecting to send agoraphobics

and people with personality disorders to theme parks.

It's really rewarding.

Except the agoraphobics don't want to get off the coach.

And the personality disorders won't sit next to each other.

But I love theme parks.

Me and Kimberley went to that big one in Spain.

You know, Puerto Venta, Puerto Venta, Puerto Venta, Puerto Venta.

It's got the biggest white knuckle ride in the world. 27 loops in a right big

queue. It's awesome.

You turn upside down so fast.

Last time, when I went on it, when I come off it, I had two French fries

hanging out my nose.

And someone else's bra on.

I've got loads to do tonight.

I'm going to my evening class.

It's a new one.

Awareness of self, it's called.

We use like Jungian techniques and confrontational therapies to bring about

a profound change in our inner being.

Well, it was that or basic pastry.

And then I'm meeting Kimberley at the health club. She's treating me. I'm

having my legs waxed.

It's 16 pound normally, but for two quid you can keep your tights on, they just

do what's poking out your ladders.

I tell you who I am I'm Pamela Patricia but they call me Pam I don't like shorts

or slingback shoes My only pair of trousers are my gardening trues I don't

say who, I don't say whom I never use the toilet, just the smallest room I

don't say gay, I still say queer I think that Mussolini had the right idea

Got engaged in 62, got married in the April in a nice pale blue. It all turned

sour to say the least. I was stuck in Abergele with a sex-crazed beast.

A wedding night I heard a cough. There was Harold in the doorway with his

jammers off.

I said, now look, I must be blunt. I couldn't give a beggar on the whole sex

front. Not me, not my scene. I prefer a game of rummy and an oval teen.

when in a book and I was not impressed.

Once divorced, I lived alone and then I chummed up with a woman by the name of

Joan.

She moved in, she seemed quite nice, wore army boots and braces but I didn't

think twice.

I said, are you not happy in my maisonette? She drained her rum and baby

sham ran her fingers through her crew cut, said, I love you, Pam.

I didn't faint. I didn't scream. Just carried on demolishing

my custard cream.

She said, please come upstairs with me. Let me show you just how wonderful a

love can be.

I said, all right.

was my specs got bent.

Not me, how I feel. I'd rather have a coffee and a wagon wheel.

Joan, dear, do get dressed. No woman over 40 suits a mauve string vest.

Then last year, to beat the blues, I booked myself a cabin on a ten-day

cruise. So much to do, so much to see, with a load of single women who look

just like me.

Then one night I clicked like that with a bachelor called Billy in a golfing

hat. We were so happy, hand in hand, listening to a lecture on the prostate

gland.

I told him sex had been no go. He took it as a

challenge and we went below.

We kissed and hugged without delay. He tried to take my rain hood off. I said,

no way.

Ten whole pounds, I bet you have an orgasm while I'm around.

He got stuck in, he really tried, but I only felt a tremor down my left hand

side.

La la la la, la la la la.

Not me, that's my boast, I prefer a bit of ironing and a round of toast.

Bill, dear, do get dressed, but he just fell over moaning as he clutched his

chest. He went, ah!

type of sound bill was dead he died for me they took him on a stretcher as i

drank my tea but as i poured another cup i thought i've never had that orgasm i'm

10

She's doing a survey. And I thought, well, are you doing a survey?

Are you trying to sell me something?

I thought she was about to be selling me insurance or a pension or a

conservatory. So I'm listing that for the trick question.

Have you ever wanted a big see-through plastic box stuck on the back wall of

your house?

Have you ever wanted to sit on wicker chairs in full view of the neighbours?

LAUGHTER Well, she said

she was doing a survey on...

and she said to me, could you tell me what you think is so stressful about

moving house?

So I had to think, and I thought, well, the worst thing is that the house you

buy and the house you move into are two completely different buildings.

Because when you buy a house, anybody who's bought a house will know this is

true, you buy a house almost at random.

I think I spent longer choosing shoe polish than what I have houses.

Because you look around the house and you go, oh, I love their Hoover. Let's

buy it, let's buy it, let's buy it.

And during the time it takes for the sales... to go through. It turns into a

sort of fantasy building in your head. You sit there poring over the estate

agent's details.

Phone socket in hall.

Small, concreted area to left-off kitchen door.

So, the day you move in, it's a horrible disappointment.

You know, because in your head, it's been warm, cosy, blazing log fire. In

reality, it's cold, filthy, dead mouse floating in the toilet.

Big hole in the middle of the living room where they've ripped out the

fireplace.

But the most stressful thing is that the day you move in, the next-door

neighbours, who you've never met, they very discreetly pop round when you're

not there and they leave you a little plate of homemade flapjack, which you

never have a chance to eat because you're too busy chasing after the

removal men, going, could we change our minds? Could the piano come back down

the spiral staircase?

Would that be all right?

And so by the end of the day, when you're wandering around completely shell

-shocked, trying to unpack, going, where does toilet paper go? In the toilet. Oh,

yeah, that's right.

Not only have you never eaten the flapjack, you've never been around to

say thank you. You never read the little notes they tucked under the doily that

said, we have done you a cold supper, please knock on the back door any time

after half past seven.

But at some point during the evening, you looked at the plate and said, this

isn't our plate, banged it to bits with a poker and put it in the bin.

Now, because we are British and inhibited, somehow it's not possible for

us to immediately go around next door, knock on the door, say hello.

He says from next door, we're very sorry, we haven't stopped the flapjack,

we've broken the plate, we didn't know about the cold supper. Can we please

embrace as fellow human beings and new neighbours?

We can't do that.

So we do the next best thing.

Nothing.

We say, well, we just won't talk to them at all. We just won't talk to them.

Look, they're coming now. Look away.

says anything. Nobody speaks.

For 20 years, nobody speaks.

But the whole cold supper, flapjack, plate business is hanging over the heads

of the two houses.

They're all thinking about it all the time.

The woman wants the plate back. Go and ask her for it back. No, I'm not going

to ask for it back.

She's not going to bring it back. I'm not going to ask for it.

The cold supper's been on the table for 20 years.

Will you bloody move that cold supper? No. I said that cold supper would be on

the table. It'll be on the table.

And in the other house, the woman's going, Well, shall we buy her a new

place? Look, John, you go around and say we're sorry. I'm not saying sorry, I'm a

man. And so it goes on for 20 years.

Well, what will break the silence? And it's some sort of terrible, dire...

British emergency.

Like in the middle of the night, a gas main fractures and half the houses in

the street blow up. Everybody has to be evacuated. There's lights flashing,

sirens wailing, smoke billowing. The two couples are out on the pavement side by

side, blankets wrapped around their pyjamas, waiting for the ambulance. Then

they have to speak.

We were just admiring your Vauxhall. Is it economical?

And the other woman goes, now I'm glad I saw you because I was just about to

bring your plate back when the house blew up.

This woman on the phone says to me, can you tell me, have you ever suffered from

the following?

Divorce, stroke, difficulties with partner.

I said, I've never had a stroke. She said, no, a stroke is part of the

punctuation, it's not the question.

I said, I've never been divorced, no.

Difficulties with partner, yes.

Which is why I've never got divorced, actually, because you have to fill in a

form, don't you?

Giving your reasons. Have you got any more paper?

By the way, to me, as far as stress is concerned, no relationship with an adult

is ever as stressful as one with a child.

Like, top of my stress factor table would be taking a two-and-a-half-year

-old boy to visit a childless, child-hating couple who collect early

Victorian china.

This turns a normal mummy into a sort of mafia thug.

Before she rings the doorbell, she's got the kid by the neck.

Touch anything.

And Paddington Bear gets the concrete overcoat treatment. Do you understand

me?

Just terrible things to be in a mother. It turns you into a sort of Jekyll and

Hyde figure.

Like one of my worst things, this is just a personal thing for stress, is

having to have my children ready for school with all their right things by a

certain time every morning. I call this the 10 to 9 factor.

Up until 10 to 9, you're laughing, joking, kissing, hugging, making the

breakfast. Best mummy in the world. You look at the clock. Hit.

half past nine. Come on, read it to me.

What? Well, I haven't got time to teach you to read now.

Look at the pictures. What do you think's happening?

Well, it's not Catcher in the Bloody Rye, is it?

It's not some oversensitive bulimic having a midlife crisis.

Mr. Greedy, big tummy eats too much, so I'll need to know. Come on, come on,

come on.

And I wrenched them all the way to school. I mind that lamp, I mind that

dog poo, and I'm so stupid.

These children, they don't know you can walk to school in a straight line.

and their arms are going to be six inches longer than the other.

I'll tell you another stressful thing about children nobody ever warns you

about, having to read Mr. Men books.

They are the most boring books in the world.

I think if childless couples who wanted to have babies had to read a Mr. Men

book before they made love, they would use seven condoms and be so desperate

not to have any children.

They're so boring, nothing ever happens in a Mr. Men book.

They make Baa Baa Black Sheep look like it's got a shock ending.

One for the master, one for the dame, one for the little boy who lived down

the lane. Never saw that one coming.

And not only are they so boring, there's so many of them. There's always another

one. Mr. Happy, Mr.

Greedy, Mr. Topsy-turvy. How many more are we going to have? Mr.

Unfaithful.

Mr. Impotent.

Little Miss Menopause.

and there's so many of them, anybody could write them. I mean, if the man who

writes them, I hope he doesn't drop down dead tonight, anybody could write them.

You could brush past the keyboard of a word processor with a big bottom and

find it.

Terribly sorry, I seem to have written a Mr. Men book on your computer.

I'll tell you another stressful thing about children nobody ever warns you

about. It's that you have to do their hair.

I mean, you have to give them hairstyles.

I mean, I had to fill in a form the other day and it said, What have you

discovered about yourself since becoming a mother? And I had to put that I am

crap at plats.

There's this terrible moment when your child looks up at you with a little

trusting face and says, Mommy, I want a French plat.

Are you sure?

Is there anything else you'd rather have, like drugs or something like that?

I'm reduced to taking her to the doctors. She's got a rash on her head. I

can't see anything. No, do a French plait and you might be able to see.

And nobody ever warned you of the stress of dealing with nits, did they?

See, you forget all about nits when you're... a grown up with no children

you forget all about nits you know they sort of recede into your own history

along with gobstoppers and bed wetting you don't think about them and when

you've got little babies you never think about nits you know you never sit there

flicking through the mother care catalogue you never look at your partner

all misty eyed and say oh darling one day we'll have head lice but once you've

got them you go nit mad you're on their nit patrol you're looking at the backs

of people's necks in the post office

catches the head on the television, infested, you see.

And once you've got them, you have to kill them. I mean, you have to kill

them, you know, otherwise they would take over your whole head.

They would get dead bold. They would hop down off your shoulder and start walking

around your living room, criticising.

I don't like those curtains. No, I don't like them either. So you have to kill

them. You have to put this lotion on which kills the eggs, which, if you were

sensitive, could make you feel a bit like a mobile abortion clinic.

And then you have to comb... it all through with a special comb, and

somebody told me this terrible thing, this doesn't kill the grown-up head

lice, it just breaks their legs.

So not only am I fretting then about committing mass infanticide behind each

earlobe, I'm worrying about the poor little head lice crashing to the ground,

clutching their fractured femurs, so many tiny gazers all over your

carpus.

I would say to my children, nits is as bad as it gets. I haven't dared tell

them about sex.

I have not dared tell them about sex looming up on the horizon as a source of

stress and embarrassment.

I mean, when I think back to when I was about 13 and I had to take my first

boyfriend home to meet my mother, which is always your mother's idea. You don't

want to take him home, do you?

You want to be in a shop doorway with him somewhere, wondering if you can get

pregnant through two pairs of wranglers.

wants to meet him, and up until the minute you bring him home, it seems like

he's so sexy and gorgeous, a bit dangerous. You bring him into your

house, he just looks stupid, suddenly, doesn't he? And your mother is looking

as embarrassing as ever, wearing a PVC apron with We've Been to Manchester

Reference Library written on the front.

And you're just stood in between the two of them thinking, oh God, please let it

not be beetroot.

Do you like beetroot, Clint?

And she's looking at him all the time he's eating. Did I not give you a fork,

Clint? Because it's quite difficult to manage coleslaw with your fingers, isn't

it?

And at the end of the meal, she says, now, what would you young people like to

do now?

I would like to be in a bush shelter somewhere, licking the back of each

other's tonsils, thanks very much.

Now, I put some glue and some macaroni in the dining room. I thought you might

like to make a collage.

For me, you see, it's never got any better.

Sex, I think there's just something so stressful about it. I keep thinking, in

the end, they will have to phase it out altogether.

It'll have to become one of those things that we just watch on the television,

but we don't like to attempt ourselves.

You know, like a banana souffle.

I suppose in the end, we'll all love virtual reality, but we won't need to do

it at all.

We'll just go round with those things and our heads going, bloody hell, that

was a good one.

See,

to me, there's always the worry with sex, are you doing it the same way as

everybody else?

You can't be sure, can you?

I'm sure that's why people go and see porn films, you know, just to check.

Because I knew this woman, and she was married to the same man for 35 years,

and she only ever, ever, ever slept with him. She was very innocent about sex.

She didn't really know anything about it at all.

Until she caught sight of a bit of a soft porn movie on a television set in

an electrical shop window. What?

Well, she was furious when she got home. She said, Ken, I don't know what you've

been doing all these years with a tin of biscuits in a string bag.

Well, she had never had an orgasm, this woman. In 35 years, she tried and tried

and tried, and she could never have one.

And then she suddenly had one, one day.

This was on her way to work, actually.

She wasn't even thinking about sex. This was at a petrol station.

She just stood there, fitting up her car with petrol. She just stood there like

this.

be able to go back there again.

She said, I will.

She said, you look at it from my point of view after 35 years of trying, that

it's quick, it works, and you get tiger tokens.

But this woman on the phone, she says to me, she said, now we've done a survey,

she said, and we reckon that the three most stressful things that can happen to

an adult are moving house, getting divorced, going to jail. Would you agree

with that? And I said, no, you've missed out something that is much more

stressful than any of those three, and that is spending Christmas with your own

family.

That's much worse than going to jail.

I mean, there's a point three days into a family Christmas when you're sitting

watching Die Hard with your Auntie Kathleen, and it's been on for about 47

minutes. And she still hasn't got Bruce Willis sorted out from Alan Rickman.

That's the point where you think to yourself, it must be quite nice to be on

remand in strange ways.

See, it wouldn't be so bad, I don't think, if Christmas started on Christmas

Eve and stopped on Boxing Day and that was the end of it. But it drags on for

days now, doesn't it? And the run-up starts in about August.

You can be in a department store in the middle of August looking for a

sleeveless T-shirt and the woman will say, oh no, that's all the tinsel

department.

And before you know where you are, suddenly, it's the middle of November,

the first Christmas cards come on the mat.

Now, there's a rule with these Christmas cards. The earlier the card arrives, the

more ugly and tasteless it will be, the more you will dislike the person who

sent it.

So the thing that crashes onto your mat around about November the 27th is always

from some woman you met on a ferry 20 years ago, who you took an instant

dislike to because she was sending in a funny anecdote to the Reader's Digest.

You exchanged addresses, hers went in the bin straight away. She's been

sending you a Christmas card every year ever since.

Always the same sort of thing. Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie.

Brackets, remember the fairy? Question mark, exclamation mark, close brackets,

smiley face in the O of Sophie.

Every year you get one. Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie. Merry

Christmas, lots of love from Sophie. One year, bit of excitement. Merry

Christmas, lots of love from Sophie and Tom. Brackets, he's gorgeous,

exclamation mark, two smiley faces in the O's of gorgeous.

A few years of those, Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie and Tom. Sophie

and Tom, one year, but more excitement.

Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie and Tom.

Brackets, Mr. and Mrs.

Appleby now.

Yes, we did it. Please enjoy the enclosed.

The enclosed being a lump of brown stuff with raisins in it.

Mine had been wedding cake before it went through the sorting office.

A few years of those, Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie and Tom. Sophie

and Tom, and then one year, you're sort of slightly expecting this. Merry

Christmas, lots of love from Sophie, Tom, and the sproglet.

Brackets, due April the 18th, conceived on holiday in Tenby. Two smiley faces in

holiday, one in Tenby.

And so by the following Christmas, you're braced, ready for the inevitable.

Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie, Tom and Emily Bluebell Marcia.

That's the year they've had the Christmas card specially printed with

the photograph of the ugliest baby in England.

The one that failed the audition for Gremlins.

That's Emily Bluebell Marcia. That's the card you have to put at the back of the

mantelpiece behind the big one from the Midland Bank.

On and on it goes. There's no stopping them. Merry Christmas. Lots of love from

Sophie, Tom and Emily. Merry Christmas. Lots of love from Sophie, Tom, Emily and

baby Charlotte. Merry Christmas. Lots of love from Sophie, Tom, Emily, baby

Charlotte and Susan.

Brackets. Our lovely northern nanny. Smiley face in our lovely northern and

nanny. That's the year they start putting in the newsletter.

You know the typed thing?

The thing that isn't to anybody. Dear friends and family.

Full of information you don't want to have.

Breastfeeding has settled down now.

My cracked nipple seems to fall.

On and on it goes, there's no stopping them. Merry Christmas, lots of love from

Sophie, Tom, Emily, Charlotte and Susan. Merry Christmas, lots of love from

Sophie, Tom, Emily, Charlotte, Susan's left, the dog, the cooker, the new

guinea pig. One year, November 27th, huge ugly card crashes onto the mat.

Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie, Emily and Charlotte. Oh, where's

Tom?

Not in the card, not in the envelope, check in the newsletter. Oh, here we

are, the divorce.

The divorce was rather stressful, but we are now back to normal and Emily has

just passed grade three bassoon with 122 points. I don't want to know.

Next year, November the 28th, three enormous ugly cards crash onto the mat.

The first one says, Merry Christmas, lots of love from Sophie, Emily,

Charlotte and Robin, brackets, man of the moment, close brackets.

The next one says, Merry Christmas, lots of love from Tom, brackets, Sophie's ex,

let's not lose touch, close brackets.

Everyone says Merry Christmas. Lots of love from Susan. Brackish, do you

remember me? I used to work as a nanny for Sophie. You met her.

And then you're into December then.

Christmas shopping's on your mind. You go around with little bits of paper in

your handbag that say crackers, question mark. What does that mean? I've got to

get crackers, go crackers.

Middle of December, men start panicking. They're running into department stores

looking for the lingerie department.

Trying to buy French knickers for their wives without actually looking at them,

touching them or saying the word knickers.

Yes, that's right. That's about the right size. I'll have that. It's a fire

extinguisher. Never mind. I don't know why

men feel they have to buy this sort of sexy underwear for their girlfriends,

you know, which their girlfriends hate, you know, because the lace is all

scratchy and the holes in your nipples are never in the same place.

But every once in a while, you know, the girlfriends feel a bit guilty and they

get it all out from the back of the drawer and they put it all on and it

sits on the end of the bed trying to look alluring.

sees it all and thinks, oh, bloody hell, there goes the snooker then.

See, what I don't understand about Christmas is why we carry on looking

forward to it when we know what it's going to be like.

It's like we never learn. I mean, if you drop a brick on your foot, you go, oh,

bloody hell, that was painful. I won't do that again.

But looking forward to Christmas is like dropping a brick on your foot one year,

then a few months later going, you know, I'm really looking forward to dropping a

brick on my foot.

I'm not talking about the Christmases that we spend with little children. I

think that's different. I'm talking about the Christmases that we as adults

feel obliged to spend with members of our own family, with our own parents.

I mean, what is this invisible signal that goes out to normal, intelligent

people in their 20s, 30s, 40s? This signal that says, you must leave the

place where you live, where you have a life, where you have fun, where people

respect you. You must leave that place.

You must go back to the place where you spent some of the most miserable years

of your life.

Where nobody takes you seriously. Where the fact that you have three business

degrees counts for nothing.

Where you'll be addressed as chunky chops throughout.

But if there's anything worse than spending Christmas with your own family,

it is spending Christmas with somebody else's family.

Because then not only will you be bored, miserable, irritable, tetchy, bloated,

as you would be in your own home, you'll also be completely baffled.

Oh yes, we always sing a little donkey in eight-part harmony in the garden at

midnight.

Christmas I have ever spent. A few years ago, just before I had children, I went

up north with my friend Pauline and she was going home to her mother, Mary, and

she wanted a bit of moral support because she'd just got divorced. And so

for the first year, she wasn't bringing home this lovely husband that they all

adored. She was bringing home her boyfriend of two weeks standing.

Italian, Fabrio, ponytail, leather trousers, kept scratching himself and

winking.

They'd been going out for two weeks. I think they'd been out of bed for 11

minutes during that time.

And we're all going up in the one car, she's driving. And I said to her, why

are you taking him home? They're going to hate him. She said, well, I can't

manage without him, sexually.

In fact, we may have to stop on the way there. I thought, this is going to be a

marvellous journey.

She's only just learned to drive since she got divorced.

She really had to think which is the brake, which is the accelerator.

He's sitting there with steam rising from his leather trousers, exuding

enough sex hormone to fell a hippopotamus.

I'm on the backseat with all the presents. I've got a Magimix under one

arm and eight matching saucepans under the other. Huge plastic talking bus on

me lap.

Every time I breathe in, he goes, if you're happy and you know it, peep your

heart, baby.

It was a very long journey because she drove really slowly because she had to

think about everything. Every time she wanted to change gear, she had to go,

no, change gear, look in the mirror, take your hand off the steering wheel.

He's edging nearer, obviously hoping she'll grab hold of the wrong knob

altogether.

When we get there, it's just... boring town in the middle of Lancashire. And we

get to their house, a huge semi in the middle of an avenue, and there's all

things written on the gate. No hawkers, no circulars, no junk mail, no graffiti,

no gypsies, no stiletto heels, no mentioning Rock Hudson, what a

disappointment he turned out to be.

So we're in the doorbell. She answers at the front door. Mary, about 65 years

old, the mother. She's stood there, scanning us up and down like a barcode

thingy. Beep.

Beep. Friend looks harmless.

Beep. Pauline's put weight on.

Beep. The eye tag can go in the room with the ironing board.

This being the mission of the 65-year-old mother all over the world,

no unattached daughter is to have sexual intercourse on her premises over the

Christmas period.

Gay couples can be put in the same bedroom because the 65-year-old mother

has not cottoned on to this at all.

She thinks Gary and Anthony are just jolly good pals.

And the fact that they have matching wedding rings and keep licking each

other's earlobes has passed her by completely.

So she lets us into the front hall, which is steaming hot, stinks of air

freshener. There's little Christmas lights winking and blinking wherever you

look. Every time you touch anything, it plays Silent Night at the speed of

light.

It's a bit like being an intensive carer and you're not so relaxing.

Well, she introduces us to the rest of the family. They're all there. The

family time bomb is ticking away.

You've got the two sisters who hate each other.

Sister not, who didn't want to come.

She's seething because she's had to put the baby to bed in a cot that looks like

it could come out of a Second World War air raid shelter.

You've got the little boy, Raymond. He hasn't been to sleep since about

November the 6th.

He's got his head stuck in a bucket of Quality Street.

There's the bigger boy. He didn't want to come. He smuggled from school his

precious copy of Massive Bosoms magazine.

He's just desperate to get away on his own in a corner somewhere and have a

bash at masturbating.

And then there's the nutty neighbour, the one from across the road, the one

who never comes out. She only comes out of the house once a year and she only

comes across the road to Mary's house, thinks everything in Mary's house is

fantastic. Oh, Mary, I just love the way the skirting board is joined onto that

wall at the bottom, isn't that good?

Well, she shows us up to our bedroom, the second best back spare bedroom,

decorated as only the 65-year-old mother can do it. The two single beds bolted to

the floor so you can't push them together and have sex on them.

So we're wrapping up the presents.

I've got the talking bus to wrap, which is a bit of a nightmare because wherever

you put the sellotape, it goes, if you're happy and you know it, beep,

beep, beep, beep.

So we're having a laugh about that. Mary comes banging on the door. We have to go

downstairs. This being the first rule of family Christmases is that nobody is

allowed to be upstairs in the second best back spare bedroom having a good

time when they could be downstairs in the living room getting on somebody's

nerves.

So down we go. Pauline is very pissed off when she sees that Fabrio has gone

to the pub with the rest of the men. This being the second rule of family

Christmases, the men can go to the pub as long as they are back in time for the

beginning of Mary Poppins on the television.

But the women have to sit in the kitchen slashing the crosses into the bottoms of

Brussels sprouts.

So we're all... sitting in the kitchen and there's a terrible atmosphere

because none of us have been offered a drink. This being the third rule of

family Christmases, no woman is offered a drink until the men have come back

from the pub. Well, we're all desperate, you know. It's Christmas Eve, we're

grown-up people.

Normally by this point we'd be cracking out in the champagne. There's nothing.

We're hoovering up the insides of liqueur chocolates.

Sniffing inside jars of fermented mincemeat.

Nutty neighbors all right. She's in the living room watching the television. Oh,

Mary wasn't looking by the mantelpiece is right over the fireplace like that

Well, there's a terrible atmosphere in the kitchen anyway, because the two

sisters don't speak they fell out years ago So what you do the coloring book? I

don't even know what?

They don't speak sister-in-law is still seething from having to put the baby to

bed with Mary watching going That's a funny way to hold him. No one is not

thriving She's come out without her baby alarm.

So she spends the whole evening

trying to keep the conversation going. And I'm saying to this sister, what does

your boyfriend do? And she's going, ooh, he's in films.

And Pauline's going, he is not in films.

He is, he's just been in a film. He has not been in a film. He got caught in a

security video starting a fight in a shopping center.

Well, then she won't speak at all, this sister. She just sits there in a huff

with this Christmas calorie book, copying out calories for Christmas

because she's on a diet. Two macadamia nuts, 157 calories.

One teaspoon brandy butter, eight fat units.

Well, they send the little boy Raymond to bed, and of course he can't go to

bed. He keeps coming to the top of the staircase going, it's a Christmas day,

yeah?

Other little boy, desperate to get away with his copy of Massive Bosoms

magazine, have a go at masturbating? No chance.

Mary is on the case. Mary Poppins must come first.

No boy is allowed to go upstairs and look at pictures of naked women when he

could be downstairs in the living room looking at Julie Andrews in a nice white

frock and a nice umbrella jumping about with Dick Van Dyke.

And even if that gave you an orgasm, would you want to have it in front of

your mother, your grandmother and the nutty neighbour from across the road?

Well, eventually, the men come back from the pub, we're offered a drink, the

turkey goes in under a low light, the sprouts go in under a flamethrower for

12 hours.

Anything less and they run the risk of being edible.

So we're all sat there watching Mary Poppins and I think, I can't stand much

more of this. Nutty neighbour creates a diversion.

She decides to pay a visit to the new downstairs lavatory.

which nobody's ever dared to go into because it's new.

So she comes back out going, oh, Mary, the flush in that new lavatory is

absolutely rhapsodic. Oh, Mary's on the alert. She didn't really want anybody to

use that lavatory in case they made a smell.

Now, there shouldn't be a smell because there's potpourri on top of the cistern,

a pink thing and a blue thing wired to the inside of the rim, two air

fresheners stuck to the light bulb.

But she's in there. She's like the odour section of the SAS.

She's there with the spray gun. We're coming in.

Well,

eventually, Mary Poppins finishes. I think, is that it? Can we go to bed? No,

we can't go to bed.

Pauline and Fabio are getting very twitchy by this time because they

haven't had sex now for 11 hours.

This is the longest that Fabio has gone without sex since he was 13.

Well, they switch off the television.

Somebody gets out the Monopoly.

Somebody else gets out a photograph album.

Somebody else puts the radio on, Radio 2, carol concert. And from then on, in

the room, somebody is either going, hey, this is a laugh, you have won third

prize in a beauty contest.

Or going, oh, do you remember that jacket? Or singing Little Donkey.

Or struggling unsuccessfully with trapped wind.

LAUGHTER Well, this happens at Christmas, doesn't it? You get eight

large people stuffed into four small armchairs.

Let them loose on the Brazil nuts.

LAUGHTER

sat there, she's there with the Christmas calorie book. One bag of

crisps, 154 calories.

Sister Nush.

I'm sorry.

Rail is still running out. It's a Christmas day, yeah?

I think there's no point in me trying to play Monopoly with people who've played

it every Christmas for the last 35 years.

Because you just keep putting your foot in it, don't you? Can I be the racing

car? Oh no, Mary's always the racing car.

And Laura from across the road is always the boot.

But we don't put a hotel on Park Lane. Well, why not? Well, we just don't. It's

a tradition.

So I... I end up looking at the photograph album, which is one of these

really boring ones full of very old black and white photographs of people

standing next to their own cars.

That's all have to be explained.

Now, that's Uncle Alan's Morris. Excuse me.

Little donkey, little donkey.

It's a Christmas day.

One mince pie, 72 calories. Which one was I again? Am I the boot? I'm the

boot. I'm the boot. That's right.

That's our first Morris Traveler. I'm sorry about that.

On the dusty road.

It's a Christmas day. Which one was I again? The boot. The boot. I'm the boot.

That's right.

That's our second Cortina.

I'm very sorry about that.

Carrie Mary.

It's a Christmas day. Which one was I again? The frigging boot.

Well, eventually the clock strikes midnight. I think that's it.

So we all troop off upstairs.

Pauline and Fabio are giving each other frantic eye signals that mean I will

meet you for oral sex in 25 minutes.

I'm thinking, please God, the sister doesn't find out. She'll be telling her

how many calories there are in this.

So we all troop off upstairs. Nutty neighbour goes home, passes out in the

road drunk.

Well, she has had three sweet sherries.

And when that ran out, three dry sherrys with Hermosetas in them.

So she conks out in the middle of the road drunk and because she's wearing a

cardigan the colour of tarmac, nobody notices.

They just drive over very slowly thinking she's a speed bump.

Traffic's quiet tonight.

troop up upstairs. And me and Paulie, we have to wait for everybody else to go to

bed so that we can go around putting the Christmas presents outside the bedroom

doors. It's a tradition.

I'm there with my bus. Be happy and you know it. Be hot, baby.

So by the time I get to bed, it's about half past one. So I'm lying there and

I'm desperate to get to sleep. Half past one, half past one. I think, well,

nobody will come in much before half past eight. So that's seven hours.

That's seven hours sleep. That's all right. If I get seven hours sleep, I'll

be all right. I'll be able to cope. Seven hours sleep, I'll be okay.

Suddenly, I hear the door open.

But I can smell Calvin Klein.

And I can hear the creaking of leather trousers.

So I figure, it's not Santa.

And I think, oh, I can't lie here and listen while they have sex. I've got to

go to sleep. So I say to him, Fabio, no, no, no, no. Go out. Go and do something

else. Go and take your mind off it. Go and have a cold shower. Go and have a

black coffee.

Go and watch something else with Dick Van Dyke in it. Get out.

So I'm lying there, and it's really difficult to get back to sleep. It's

about half past two, but I think, half past two, half past two, I think, well,

nobody will come in before half past eight, so that's six hours, that's six

hours sleep, that's all right. If I get six hours sleep, I'll be all right.

Suddenly, the doorposts open, top light comes on.

Auntie Polly, Auntie Polly, you know what Father Christmas brung me? If

you're happy and you know it, beep your horn, baby.

Well, I'm just about to wrench the batteries out of it. In comes Mary,

fully dressed in the doorway, with a tray of tea. Good morning!

three o'clock in the morning. It's a tradition.

Oh, my.

It's time to say goodbye. I hate it when we have to stop.

I'll finish with a song The surrey with the fringe on top It's gorgeous, buy gum

Suppose you hadn't come I would have done a two hour set To a load of plush

and a toilet brush Two cleaners and an usherette

Now then, I hope we meet again In sun

or sky or storm or dry land Oh gosh, I'll have to have a wash I'm getting

very wet and warm like Thailand Oh Christ I hope it all sufficed. I think

it sort of went all right.

But we will be shocked if the doors are locked and we're here all bleeding

night.

Ding dong, where am I going wrong?

Sophistication's passed me by, goes to show you, in fact, I need a posher act.

selections from the king and i getting to know you big shame i'll never be a

dame they've really got it in for me just cause i once got done for a bit of

fun on the bonnet of a ford capri flipping heck

i'm such a nervous wreck but underneath the doubts and fear i'm a nice girl one

day i might just break away and get myself a new career as a spice girl oh

well it doesn't do to dwell at least i'm not a garden gnome Well I've had a ball

and I love you all And now let's all

a surgeon that can't start without