My daughter Ashley woke up, and told me she was filming today for her University project. Then she got upset as the guy who was playing a transvestite in her video called off. She was making a MOCK-documentary about how people do stuff to get into TV. She was filming this guy who was supposed to be getting a sex change to take part in a reality TV show.
“Dad wake up” she shouted.
“What is it?” her father pulled his head out of the covers.
“Can you get up and dress as a woman and walk along the street for me, please?” She pleaded “The actor was going to do it but has pulled out, please dad I will dress you up, and you will suit a dress, can you be a tranny for the day?”
My husband stared at her with a very frightened face “If you can’t get anyone else I may try”
What a father he is, the big East End man with gangland connections is willing to be a transsexual in public for his daughter. How cool?
Luckily Ashley did get Scott Agnew, a lovely stand up comic from Glasgow to do the job and what a job he did, it was awesome. I had a bit part also and the finished product is so funny yet touching!
I have just had a call from my mate Craig in BA, he is helping me get all my travel arrangements sorted and has been so helpful I offered to marry him; he said no- but that’s cool. I did offer!
After the horrid way I was treated by a member of staff at Glasgow British Airways back in March (she was so nasty and rude to me I complained and got apologies from BA but vowed never to use them again!)–he is the sole reason I will fly with them again. He is a credit to his company and I can’t wait to see him when he comes to The Soho Theatre shows in late June. I LOVE YA man….
I went to see my sister today as it was her birthday; she was looking lovely and am so glad she had a good lunch at Rogano in Glasgow, she deserves it.

Was walking through town today and the sun was so bright, it brought all the people out of their offices with a smile to smoke on the city streets as we have a smoking ban in all public places in Scotland.

I was trying to buy a dress today for events coming up but as usual my humongous tits fit into nothing, my body is down 18 pounds but my boobs defy all natures requests to shrink so I have to buy a huge top and a small skirt…how fucked is that?

I may get a boob reduction if this continues; my latest live blog 5 on Livedigital provoked many comments from people mostly in USA saying how big my boobs were! I am Dolly Parton of Glasgow, I am off to buy minimiser bra, the kind of bra that squashes your tits flat and practically stuffs them under your armpits! Not sexy but looks better!
Am almost all organised for NZ, and I will be blogging from there and doing live blogs into video and putting them up on Livedigital, you will see link to them through my website also.

Why is it that no matter how many lists I make, or how many post-it’s I accumulate, I am still convinced I will forget something as we leave Glasgow on Saturday for London. We fly out to NZ on the Monday.
Ashley is very laid back about the whole thing; then again her version of packing for a trip involves throwing EVERYTHING she owns into a big fuck-off case and leaving me to worry about the details.
Its not until we are on a plane does she quietly ask me “Did you pack my hair straighteners and my allergy medication?”
“No, because that’s your stuff to pack!” I answer.
So this time I urged her to make a list of her important things to do.
I saw this list and do you know what it says?

1- Pack knickers and new bra
2- Ipod charger
3- New shoes and plasters for heels

So where are all the really important things, like medication, bank cards, tripod and camera?
I assume she has all this in her head, it makes me mental. I am mentally packing and unpacking in my fucking sleep.
I have a few big events to pack for, like the BAFTA TV awards, then the TV2 Gala in NZ and the Divas Comedy gala. I need to pack some fancy frocks.

Husband is quietly padding about the flat staring at me today; he actually stared and stared until I asked him what was going on.
“I am just making sure that I wont forget how you look” He answered.
“Well if you ever forget in the four weeks I am away, there are videos of me on my website then you can remember” I told him.
“I don’t want to remember you through videos. I want to recall how you look sitting there in my head”
To get him off this morose subject matter, I said “Do you love me?”
“Yes, you know I do” he said.
“Ok, if I our love was a country which country would it be then?” I laughed, as he hated anything that asked his Aspergers brain to be creative.

He never even paused for breath
“Italy, it would be Italy, as I don’t know where I am most of the time, I don’t understand the language, I am not familiar with the currency, Italy’s leader had to be thrown out as he couldn’t accept he was outvoted and there is a constant power struggle there, Italians are curvy and dark and well dressed, they talk loudly and are full of passion, but underneath they are just as soft as fresh pasta! So our love would be Italy”

I looked at him and laughed but with affection as he never could have rehearsed that, I pull these questions out of nowhere and I have never asked him that before.
“Good answer!” I said, and I meant it. That was a good answer, my husband is the quiet man, the man who stands back and watches the two women in his life perform and talk loud.
I am worried he will miss Ashley and let it get him down. He is used to not seeing me but those two are very rarely parted.
She is being very offhand and brave saying stuff like “I wont really miss papa, I will be fine”
Trust me this girl will get to week two and cry on the phone to her beloved daddy. He will probably get on a plane and wing it to NZ , it doesn’t matter how old she is, he is still the number one person in her life, and no one can replace that. Not even me.
So with that in mind maybe she should stuff her daddy into her case, to be honest he would probably fit into the case she has dragged into the hall, it looks like the kind of luggage used for carting bodies around and with her fathers history with gangland connections …..Who knows maybe I should check her case before we leave!

I had such fun last night at Blackfriars comedy club. The whole place has been completely changed and renovated. The sad thing is, the owners have installed a huge fuck off Air Conditioning/ Smoke extractor system that racks its way across the ceiling, huge big silver cylindrical tubes snaking its way all around the room and all it manages to do is carry the music from upstairs – to the downstairs comedy room, and Scotland has a no smoking ban! All that cash and hard work for nothing!

I had a great gig though, a lovely wee intimate gig, just about 50 people sitting round me, I sat on a tall stool at the microphone and had such a relaxed yet - funny time. I have never enjoyed a gig so much in ages.

Today, I uploaded some more of the footage that Ashley filmed down in the Glasgow Green; I made it into a small video that I will put on my Livedigital webpage this week.

I have spent all day trying not to argue with husband, he is making me mental by repeating the same thing over and over to me when he explains stuff he needs me to do before I go away next week.
Maybe I am just being nasty again; I am so stressed at times and chilled out at others.

It’s my big sister Ann’s birthday this week, she will 50 years of age!
I can’t believe she is middle aged (like I am not?) I love my sister; she has been a rock in my life since we were wee kids. She has four kids and four grandchildren….soon to be five as my niece is expecting a baby this year.
I still think of my big sister as the lassie in the blue dress, thick Alice band holding down a head of chunky dark hair, atop a very determined face that always got her way. My sister was not the kind of girl who let other walk over her; if I was getting bullied…Ann sorted it out!

So after a whole week of self reflection and spending too much time in my own head I have came to the conclusion that I need to just get on with life and stop analysing every fucking emotion my body goes through!

I want to thank everyone who has sent me lovely comments supporting me through the past few weeks, when I was under stress and pouring some of that out on my blog here.
I have been meeting deadlines for the Edinburgh Fringe and it was getting so difficult to work away and get everything done.
Maria at Printlink has been a hero, spending time with me, poring over the tiny details of my posters and making sure they were perfect for me.
So one week till we go to London and then onto Los Angeles and then onto New Zealand.
I will be taking you all with me, also I will be doing live blogs from Auckland and Wellington.

I spent the whole night writing stuff that meant nothing on my blog, and the real truth is I felt quite down today. I don’t really know why, I had one of those days when I ended up reflecting on my life a bit for no reason and then felt a bit down.
I don’t know how that happens, but it does I am sure.
I know I should be happy as I have so much to loom ahead to, like going to NZ with my daughter to what looks like a fun successful tour and then I get to go to London to perform at Soho theatre and then I go to Edinburgh Fringe with my adorable daughter Ashley and before all that I get to dress up nice and go to BAFTA TV awards…but somehow I felt flat.
I suppose part of me is worried I wont miss my husband when I go to NZ.
I know that’s sounds odd and am hoping he sticks to his rule that he never reads this blog; coz I think what I will say will hurt him.
I have spent an entire lifetime with him, since I was 18 to be precise and way back then I was besotted with him as all young brides are. I would lie awake to watch him sleep; I lay there in the darkness and would kiss his face gently.
After I wrote my autobiography I know that I exposed our very turbulent and difficult marriage to the world, he never read it. He promised he wouldn’t and I am glad, but after all the press and radio stuff I did, he heard plenty to know that I had told our innermost problems to the listener ship of BBC Radio 4 and possibly the world.
So anyway, in the past ten years of doing comedy I have been away so much that I no longer miss him as much as any wife has the right or at least decency to do. It scares me.
I know that any relationship involves compromise, but when you compromise yourself too much, you end up infringing on your own personality and values, its like cutting up your own nation and adopting a new language and trading with a hostile country. Some of it is worthwhile but some of it makes you want to throw out the illegal immigrant values and become racist….well racist against HIM.
The last four years he has become a whole new man, the man I wanted in 1986, not necessarily the man I need in 2006…so where does that leave me?
I have managed to change or at least help manipulate a bastard into a decent bloke and now I am not sure if that’s what I want.
I sometimes look in the mirror and don’t know who is staring back….have you ever done that? Not recognised the person you see? That’s what I do.
So today I walked around town, all of these thoughts milling around my wee head and I worry that I have compromised too much and have ended up with someone I am not sure of and have a person inside of me that I don’t know.
So I am not sure who I am today, maybe tomorrow I will know me….but tonight…I am a stranger.

I have been watching some short videos on Livedigital, I love watching the home made ones, like my own live blogs or people’s self made short sketches. I can’t believe the amount of short videos that people download from TV and upload onto the site. I don’t want to watch snippets of TV shows but then I also am horrified at watching some horror films as well. They are the kind of ‘real’ films I don’t want to see. For example I inadvertently watched part of a ‘Real train death’ and a ‘real suicide bomber’ I was skipping through various films and unwittingly watched them! I was fucking traumatised for a whole day afterwards.
Who watches that stuff? Who wants to upload it and look over it? Should it be there?
Then I realise that my opinion is no issue, we have the freedom and rights to watch and listen to what we want. It scares me though and I mentioned to Ashley to be careful in case she watches them by mistake as well and she told me that she is of the internet generation and has saw all that stuff before and has no worries, at all. I should be more careful she told me!
So I need to get used to the fact I no longer need to keep protecting her from the world. I don’t think I can get used to that, but I should try to. She is more capable than me at times dealing with stuff.
I recall times when she did need me to look after her, I miss doing that.
I remember taking her aside when she was 14 years old and explaining why the girl in her class was bullying her, there was no actual violence, but this girl made everyone else in this all girl class ostracise her. This girl was jealous of Ashley and made sure she had no friends to turn to; it was a small class so that made it worse. I sat there and watched my daughters eyes fill with big fat sad tears as she told me how this girl ensured she sat alone at lunchtimes and was cruel to her privately.
I wanted to go into that school and stab that 14 year old girl in the eye with a screw driver.
Ashley was a stand up comic at 11 years old and did her own show at 13 years old at Edinburgh Fringe, this girl felt threatened by Ashley’s confidence and went about trying to dismantle it.
I encouraged Ashley to ignore her and laugh loudly any time the girl walked past and after a while I taught my daughter how to smirk secretly when the girl came near and yet keep a straight face when questioned by the nasty girl. Slowly Ashley built up a wall of laughter and silent giggles until the girl was hysterical with anger as to why Ashley was happy or laughing at her, Ashley denied this last accusation because such was the covertness of her smiles the teachers couldn’t understand why the nasty girl was upset at Ashley. To be honest laughing and smiling isn’t really a crime.
I suppose I taught my daughter a form of silent psychological warfare, something that makes the other person feel victimised and distraught, yet with no real actual harm to them, just making yourself look happy is enough to annoy them as your sadness is more important to them.
It did work, the girl did leave Ashley alone and even to this day that nasty girl has problems with Ashley, I know this as they met last week in a night club. The nasty girl saw Ashley and snubbed her as the group was introducing each other; Ashley recognised the snub and whispered something into one of the other girl’s ear and they both laughed loudly. The nasty girl saw this and screamed at Ashley “Why are you always laughing at me? You always laughed at me at school as well”
The nasty girl’s friend turned and said “Ashley wasn’t laughing at you, she just said that she loves watching the Pakistani boys talking ‘street and rap’ wishing they were really black and dangerous and not rich young preppy boys trying to look rough, it was funny!”
Ashley stood there smiling, raised her eyebrow and pulled herself up to her full height and said “I never laughed at you, weren’t we friends at school?”
The nasty girl shouted, now losing it “No we weren’t friends, everyone in the class hated you didn’t they Selina?” She turned to a brown haired girl standing beside Ashley.
Her mate looked at her with disgust and said “No we liked Ashley, she was always funny, you were a cow to her, you told us never to talk to her, but we liked her, grow up”
You can never be there to protect your kids all the time; you can only give them skills to handle the hard times. Laughing at them may just work.
So there we have it, sometimes bullies can be laughed down.