Then, when we were on our way to get chips, we passed a mannequin that was miles from the Missoni bit but was wearing a Missoni dress, and Mam shrieked, ‘Look! There’s another one!’ See how quickly she picked it up? It was EXTREMELY FUNNY.
We went to the café and Rita-Anne and I had chips and Mam reluctantly had chocolate biscuit cake but nearly didn’t order it because it was seven yoyos ninety-five and she said it was far too dear. (Himself had a double espresso and went for a wander around the men’s department and came back full of talk of a stripy Alexander McQueen jacket, but he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to have it so he didn’t press the point.)
During the second week in the month I went to London for work, and while I was there I took a strange notion that I wanted to see Kathleen Turner in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Strangely we were able to get tickets – I thought it would be sold out – and on Friday night, after a long, awful, shameful week (more of which in a while), we went along and yes, I quite enjoyed the first half. You know, grand. Not great but not bad, I’m not saying it was bad …
But as we stretched our legs in the foyer, Himself noticed that we had not in fact just sat through the first half, but only the first THIRD. There were three acts, and honestly, mes amies, when I heard this, I just lost the will to live. I went quiet and wondered if I should fake an injury, like a cracked rib, or a ruptured spleen – something not too bad, that wouldn’t arouse undue suspicion when we got home and I suddenly made a miraculous recovery.
In the end, I succumbed to a bout of honesty. ‘Himself,’ I asked fake-casually, ‘have you ever walked out of a play after the first act?’ Himself is no fool and realized that this wasn’t a simple theoretical enquiry. ‘You want to leave?’ he asked.
Then he admitted that he wasn’t exactly riveted himself and that life was too short and that if we wanted to leave, we should just leave and not feel guilty or apologize or try to justify it or anything. So feeling very guilty and apologizing and trying to justify it, we left.
While I was in London I began eating and didn’t stop until I left. All the good work done by my ‘24-hour juice detox’ was unmade in a matter of seconds and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it, because it was work! Yes, work. Please believe me.
Afternoon tea with Waterstones, followed by dinner with WHSmith Retail, followed by lunch with Borders and Amazon, dinner at Ready Steady Cook (we’ll get to that), followed by afternoon tea with WHSmith Travel, followed by dinner with Tesco buyers, followed by lunch with Penguin CEO. I’m the size of a house!
And now my hunger has woken up and I need to eat around the clock to satisfy the beast that is my appetite – I’m waking in the middle of the night and sneaking downstairs for bananas and all sorts.
Okay then, Ready Steady Cook. Christ, the shame! Unbridled, unmitigated. No doubt but that pride goes before a fall. You see, as result of being a gourmet-swot, I thought I should be able to hold my own on a cookery programme.
I couldn’t help a mild swagger in my step as I arrived along to RSC (Ready Steady Cook) with my basket of goodies. Also, I was partnered with chef James Martin of Strictly Come Dancing fame, and everyone fancies him. Frankly, I thought we were an unbeatable combination. But no. We were all too effing beatable.
Nicholas Parsons – who is eighty-two, you know, and a very nice man, didn’t gloat at all – was partnered with chef Paul Rankin, also a decent skin, and they wiped the floor with me. I was a liability. I didn’t know where the garlic was, I didn’t butter the ramekins enough, I got in James Martin’s way, I tried melting butter over a gas ring that wasn’t turned on, it was all SO HUMILIATING!!
I should add a couple of things. Ainsley Harriott is a lovely man and wasn’t just lovely to me but also to Himself and Suzanne, who were drinking wine in the green room. Also, Nicholas Parsons’ prize for winning was a cheque for £100 for the charity of his choice.
I – the loser – got a hamper full of goodies (Ainsley Harriott couscous, Ainsley Harriott balsamic dressing, etc.), which I didn’t have to give to anyone but which was mine to bring home, so who is the real winner here? Eh?
As soon as I got back from London I began packing for the Australian tour. Himself was amazed I had left it so late. I’ve made many, many lists of all the possible outfits available to me, but I know that once I get there I will wear the same three rig-outs into the ground.
Also, I attended the optician because my sight has gone to hell. Not just the crippling short-sightedness, but worse! When I am wearing my contact lenses and thus able to see things more than two feet away from me, I am no longer able to READ. The print goes all blurry!
Suddenly, I am like an old person! I’ll have to get reading glasses, which is a terrible realization as I had never believed before that such things were necessary. I’d thought they were mere affectations used by people in order to seem more intelligent-looking. Or to add gravitas to a situation. People who wear reading glasses get asked questions and they look up from documents and take off their glasses and say, ‘I’m glad you asked me that question, George.’
The whole glasses-removing thing slows everything down and makes everyone look at the person, making them the centre of attention. I have always suspected reading glasses to be mere props. Have I been wrong all these years?
And the sight thing is only going to get worse for me. I have inherited my father’s eyes, and he has been afflicted with cataracts over the years and at the moment is missing a lens (a real lens, not a contact lens, although the exact details of how this came to pass escape me) and isn’t allowed to drive, and I can see (pun) that this is all ahead of me.
Truly, as a family unit we are bedevilled with ill health. Anyway, I went to the optician and had my eyes tested, then the lady tried me out with different lens strengths and I had to sit in front of a machine and she’d do a little click and a new lens would slot into place and I had to look at the letters on the wall and shout, ‘Better!’ or ‘Worse!’ like I was getting married. But the thing is that I was never sure whether each new click was making my vision better or worse, it was all happening so fast, but I felt I had to say something. So sometimes I said, ‘Better!’ and other times I said, ‘Worse!’ but was never entirely convinced. Then I got a horrible thought: do opticians ever get bored testing people’s eyes? Do they ever just click the same-strength lens into the little hole and snigger away quietly to themselves as the person says, ‘Oh, better, much better, much clearer this time’ and ‘Oh yes, better again, yes, crystal clear’ and ‘God above! That’s fantastic!’
What else happened this month? Well, yes, Brokeback Mountain, it was really, really lovely. But long, no? Why are things always so long? Hours and hours seems to be the current length for films, and I have a terribly short attention span. After an hour and a half, I just can’t take it. So yes, a beautiful film, very moving, very touching and all that, just – as I say – a little long.
Previously unpublished.
March
Australia!
The talking map!
I am back from the Australian tour, where I met loads and loads of lovely readers and the weather was lovely and I went UTTERLY BERSERK in the Alannah Hill shops.
Himself and I flew out of Dublin on 27 Feb and landed in Melbourne approx a week later – this time-difference thing is ridiculous! Surely something can be done about it?
No direct flight from Dublin to Melbourne sadly, but via London, then Singapore. I behaved myself in the London airport but by the time I got to Singapore it was after a fourteen-hour flight and I was badly gone in the head and seeking
something – obviously some sort of spiritual balm, something to mend the hole in the soul – so I went to a chemist.
I love chemists at the best of times, but this one promised Chinese remedies and somehow, along with Korean ginseng and Tiger Balm rub for sore muscles – ‘Not made with real tigers?’ I asked the woman sternly, but she elected not to speak English at that particular moment – I bought a jar of powdered Siberian deer antler. (Cripes! Horrible thought! The balm couldn’t actually have been made with tigers, could it? I mean, surely that’s illegal? But after the deer antler situation …?)
Anyway, I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up being persuaded by the lady to purchase the jar of Siberian deer antler powder. According to its highly dodgy-looking packaging, it serves ‘as a remedy for weakness, memory loss and general aches and pains’. But guilt? The guilt about the deer? No. No remedy for that.
Back on the plane, landed in Melbourne, all sunny and warm. I had a few days to recover from jet lag before starting work and it was GLORIOUS. I’ve been to Melbourne before but never for long and only in the middle of frantic work, so I never had time to appreciate it.
It is fabulous and they were getting ready for the Commonwealth Games and they had all these beautiful fish sculptures along the Yarra (the river, handy thing to know if you are ever on Eggheads). Also really fabulous grub. Also shops. Bought things. Oh God, yes. Alannah Hill. Lovely.
Right! Injuries. Himself suffered a scratch to his eyeball in a bizarre contact-lens-applying incident and needed antibiotic drops. Me? My trusty black sandals, the sandals I’ve had for a long time and wear for walking about, buying clothes and general enjoyment, suddenly turned on me and gave me a footful of blisters! Fecking agony! And confusion! Why now? I’ve had them for a long, reliable time, and God knows they were bought for comfort, not beauty (black solid-looking wedge slides, really quite unattractive), and frankly if they don’t pull their socks up, they won’t be coming to Canada and the States for the book tour there.
Plenty more sandals in the sea!
I visited a chemist (the same one where I bought Himself’s drops – by the end of the four days in Melbourne, myself and the pharmacist were on first-name terms) and bought special expensive blister plasters, but they didn’t work! They peeled off, causing extra agony.
Back to the chemist, where I purchased antiseptic powder, then I had to change into my ‘good’ turquoise Chie Mihara sandals in order to walk about Melbourne. Ridiculous. Those sandals were specially bought for being on the telly!
Right then! Work began in Hobart, Tasmania. I’ve always wanted to go, and although the visit was short I’d love to go back. People at the reading were great. Also, the food was very delicious.
Back to Melbourne, where hundreds of enthusiastic readers – the most wonderful people – turned up to the events, and walking home with Himself after a great night in the Victorian Arts Centre we crossed the bridge and they were doing a rehearsal for the opening night of the Commonwealth Games, with fireworks and some funny business with the fish sculptures, and I felt extremely blessed to be there for it and incredibly lucky and happy.
Next stop Brisbane, a great night in Riverbend Books, then up the coast to Noosa, more nice people, then the weekend in Sydney.
This is where it gets really, really good. I mean it was fabulous before, but wait till you hear! We were staying in the Four Seasons, which is my most favourite hotel in the world anyway. But not only were we staying in the Sydney Four Seasons, but a very beautiful, kindly employee of the Four Seasons – Kaarin Lindsay – upgraded us to a suite! On the thirty-fourth floor! With a view of the opera house! I mean! How lucky am I?
Oh God, it was glorious! Huge and beautiful and a bathroom full of wonderful things, including excellently roomy shower caps.
Regular users of hotels may have noticed how small shower caps tend to be – I have an abnormally small head and sometimes even I find them a squeeze – but you could wear a bucket on your head and the Four Seasons shower caps would still fit you!
Funnily enough, we were staying in the Royal Suite – and indeed being treated like royalty – and didn’t the Queen arrive! Yes, the Queen of England! Not actually to the Four Seasons, looking to be let into the Royal Suite and being told to feck off, that it was already occupied, but to Sydney, to open the new bit of the opera house, before going on to Melbourne to open the Games.
It was gas! I was looking out of the window on the Monday morning and saw throngs of people sitting in rows by the opera house. ‘What’s going on?’ I wondered. Next thing, some woman in a ginormous hat, accompanied by some lanky bloke, got up to make a speech. It was Queenie!
Anyway, she got her revenge on me for stealing her hotel room. See, all the roads had to be closed off for her, so the people of Sydney who were coming to my literary lunch at the Four Seasons were badly delayed. Nevertheless, when they finally got there, we had a great time.
However, being delayed by the Queen was just one of the many examples of the havoc Mercury being in retrograde in Virgo caused this month. And it went on for the whole shagging month, until the 25th. Examples include: me ringing my mother on 12 March and singing ‘Happy Birthday’ down the phone, when her birthday wasn’t until the next day. Himself’s electronic organizer dying and losing all info, so we couldn’t phone people. Also, we couldn’t send or get emails. Also, the alarm clock on it began waking us at random times – one morning I was out of the bed and showered and dressed before Himself managed to tell me it was only 4.35 a.m. and we weren’t due to get up for another hour and a half! Feck! Oh, mes amies, feck! Sleep is a precious enough commodity on a book tour, without this sort of a caper!
Next and final stop, Perth. Two gorgeous reader events, with time for a visit to David Jones in between them.
And then home, where the garden is finally being ‘done’. After living with what basically amounts to a bog for the past nine years, we have finally taken the plunge and are getting the whole fecking thing concreted over and turned into a car park. (Well, it’ll involve gravel and a decking and that sort of thing, but it will be grass-free.)
With all the rain, it’s like the First World War out there. Like the Battle of the effing Somme. Mud, mud and more shagging mud. A muddy walkway connects the front door with the kitchen, random men abound, and in an attempt to ward off any stress-generated illnesses, I’ve taken the powdered deer antler. (My reasoning is, what can the poor deer do about it now?)
Right, football! As you know, Himself’s football team are called Watford and they never seem to do very well. But it’s all different this season. They have a new manager (yes, yet another new one) – Adrian ‘Betty’ Boothroyd – who is young and keen as mustard and has brought together a team of young renegades and turned them into a winning machine. (He is like Spencer Tracy in Boys Town, only not ginger.)
Watford keep winning and it is so lovely not to be the fecking underdog, for once. It is delightful to be able to ‘lord’ it over other teams, it is great when dodgy ref decisions are in Watford’s favour, it is glorious when the other team play their hearts out and still lose.
The bad news, however, is that Watford are in very real danger of being promoted to the Premeer Division, where they will have to knock heads with the likes of Chelsea and Man U, who have buckets of cash behind them, and they will be the underdog again and will have the shit kicked out of them all season, and we will be terribly despondent again and they will be demoted at the end of the season. Oh dear.
Finally, my mother. Remember about her and the Missoni coats last month? Well, I was barely home from Australia
when she rang me, all agog, to tell me that ‘that Missoni crowd’ have brought out a perfume. Gas.
Also, I didn’t tell you about her and the satellite navigation in the new car. The day we went into town to look at wedding dresses for Rita-Anne, Mam sat in front and was bedazzled – yes, quite bedazzled – by Himself’s sat-nav. She simply couldn’t get over it, she marvelled and marvelled at it, especially when it knew the name of her road and when it spoke to Himself, telling him that when he’d dropped Mam off, to turn right, up Ashton Park. ‘It’s like magic,’ she kept saying. And then it was only one quick logical step for her to decide that it was proof of the existence of God.
Since I’ve got back, most of her conversations with me have been about what she calls ‘the talking map’. She said she had met Anne O’Byrne at bridge and told her about it and actually Anne O’Byrne had ‘heard tell of it’. Clearly a sophisticated woman, a woman of the world. She’d never seen one, mind, but she knew about it.
Then Mam wanted to know if Dad could get one for his car. And when we were talking about going to Aughrim for dinner, trying out the place where R-A and Jimmy are getting married, and I expressed anxiety about driving there as I was unfamiliar with the route, she screeched, eyes a-bulge at my stupidity, ‘But what are you worried about? Haven’t you got the talking map?’
Previously unpublished.
April
Book launch!
Idea for own chat show!
Busy month. Book (Anybody Out There) out in Ireland, then out in the UK. Doing much publicity and readings. All very nice, esp. as the book went to No 1 in both countries, thank you very much.
I had a ‘fabulous’ launch party in London in the Sanderson Hotel, which I was v. anxious about, as I hate having parties. I spend two hours before kick-off a nervous wreck, convinced that no one will come and that I have no friends, but lots and lots of wonderful people came – and the best bit! Bobbi Brown did goodie bags! Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff!