The whale in the Thames is dead, poor big thing. I saw it swimming in the river behind the flat here in Westminster. It was cool to watch but sad and am glad it is out of its misery, years ago if a whale came into the Thames that would be seen by soothsayers as an omen…maybe its time for Tony Blair to bring the troops home?

Went to BBC in the morning, to do my stint on Radio 4 show ‘Loose Ends ‘ and it went well. I was interviewing Iestyn Edwards, UK 15 stone Prima Ballerina cabaret act who was in Basra entertaining the troops! You can listen to the show again, by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/looseends.shtml and click listen to latest show and you can hear the show and the interview I did. There was a great band on the show called the ‘Story’s their music was awesome.
Last night I went to the gig in Crouch End and it went great, I love getting on stage and doing my stuff. Tonight I am going to do my second show at Crouch end and come home, pretend 50 cent is waiting for me for hot sex. Except I couldn’t call him 50 cent, as shouting “50 Cent, lick me” doesn’t sound right, so I may call him Curtis, as by that time we will be intimate. Can you tell I am lonely tonight?

It’s been an odd day; I spent time this morning doing business on the phone, sat about in my tee shirt and knickers, then after about four hours of sitting watching TV- I decided I might need a shower as I started to smell like Arbroath (a small Scottish sea side smelly town).

I checked myself in the mirror and I notice that I am growing a fuck off huge spot above my eyebrow, so if I slowly nurture it and encourage it to grow, I will be able to apply to freak fairs as the girlfriend of the Elephant Man!

So it being my birthday and all I decided to treat myself to a heat and serve dinner for one at Sainsbury’s. So I walked round to Pimlico and tried to avoid people staring at my huge red lump on my eyebrow.

Just when I thought the day could not get anymore exciting four police cars screeched to a halt outside the wee charity shop where I buy books. I thought that maybe something exciting was happening and by God here I am again, in the centre of the activity, my bloggers would love a story that involved the police.

I stopped and watched and got my camera phone at the ready, there were policemen running from the vehicles, I moved to get a closer look and the six coppers decked a tiny wee drunk woman.

She must have been about five stones in weight, she stood about 4 feet tall (couldn’t really tell as she was crouched like a wee drunk hobbit) she was carrying what appeared to be stolen goods from the charity shop!
Unless she was Osama bin Laden in his cunning disguise as ‘Betty the shouting Pimlico drunk’ then there was no reason for that many coppers! She was fucking screaming and begging to be let go!

Crowds gathered, so I got bored and moved off wondering why so many policemen needed to control that wee poor lady.
I went off down to Vauxhall Bridge to see the lost whale that has swam into the Thames. Again the place was awash with policemen and reporters maybe that was Osama Bin Laden’s secret submarine making its way up the river to explode at the Houses of parliament?

Poor wee whale, it was floundering about and I thought, maybe this is the time to go swimming…how slim would I look if a beached whale was already there?
Am off to heat up my sausage and mash….maybe a big gorgeous man will come to my door tonight and present me with a dilemma…or maybe I will just eat the sausage dinner and sleep?

The Real Janey Godley!
Yes, I am finally 45 years old! I have hit middle age today and it’s good. Can you believe it? I was so looking forward to this age. I am not in the business of letting shit get me down, I am currently having my teeth whitened and am losing weight, yet I do know this is the beginning of the downward slide, who cares?

I also realise that I have been married longer than I have been single, that’s an achievement I suspect. So I am sitting here alone in Westminster, its very late or very early depending what you make of 1am, and I feel good about my stuff so far. I don’t see this really being the end as its only half time realistically and goals can still be scored in my life.

I remember my tenth birthday clearly, my leg was encased in plaster due to the ‘Brownie’ road accident (see yesterdays blog) and I was lying in bed and my mammy got me a magic set. I was so very excited and the magic set really ignited my imagination, I loved the wee tricks I could do for my brothers and sister. I thought maybe one day I could grow up and do magic!

I suppose on reflection, life never does turn out the way you expect it to. I really thought back then that the best you could do was get a job in a factory and live in my street in a wee council house.
People like me didn’t have grand ambitions; we grew up, got married and had kids. That’s how it worked; we didn’t know people who did anything different.
Well I did kind of know someone sort of different, I had an aunt who lived near London, got married and never had kids, and she then travelled a bit. She eventually divorced her husband (unheard of where I came from, women took shit and lived with it).
She would descend on my family occasionally to see her sister (my mammy) and would turn up talking so posh with her English accent, she sounded like the Queen.

I knew nothing of her life, I did know that she would look down her nose at our poverty ridden home, which was strange, coz that was where she came from…anyway as years went on, she would arrive in a flurry of fancy cashmere scarves, wearing sunglasses and talking to us as if we were the cast of Les Miserables and would take my mammy out to the local pub and let the people who knew her from back then gaze on her expensive handbag and leather purse that bulged, talking of her travels to America.

I recall my mammy standing in cold piss smelling phone boxes calling my aunt on the phone begging cash from her, I know she did give it and my mammy probably exasperated the woman…my mammy was like that.

She once took me to her home in Maidenhead when I was 14 years old, she gave me a list of things I was not to talk about, stuff I wasn’t to mention and then dragged me around all her posh friends and have me sit there and chat to them. It was awful.
I do know now that she was a very lonely woman, she had been having an affair with her boss and when he got bored he turfed her out of her fancy cottage and she went to live in a small but expensive flat in Sussex. My mammy told me all this when I was a teenager.

As I got older and got married and went into owning a bar and some property, she would occasionally come visit me, I started to dislike her as she would pick fault with my life. I think she hated that one of the ‘poor family’ had actually made something of their life and she was no longer the woman with cash in the family…maybe I am wrong?

When I finally came out about the abuse from her brother David Percy, (my uncle) she went ballistic and refused to believe me. When I had successfully prosecuted him, she told me on the phone, she was no longer my aunt. This was no great loss; in fact it was good as I never regarded her anything but a shallow false woman who was quite lonely.

The good news was, my dad, my sister, my brothers and , I were still very close and nothing changed on my side, expect we all got stronger because we pulled together with other members of our extended family. That poor woman was left with the child abusing rapist brother. God help her. I do hope she has come through her life and is sitting somewhere happy after everything she has been through.

I don’t hate her, and the reason I am talking about her tonight is, I looked at myself in the reception hall downstairs in the big gilt mirror as I talked to the concierge and I saw that for a shocking moment I looked just like her, I don’t know why I recognised this as I don’t even think about her, but I did see her face in mine for a brief moment -she is also called Janey Godley. My mammy called me after her.
That’s no bad thing I suppose as she looked like my mammy slightly but I wish I looked more like my mammy!

Anyway life is still good at 45 years old.

I am organising to go to New Zealand on tour with my award winning comedy show with my daughter who will be making a documentary of the trip.(Ashley is at Uni studying film making and screen play studies).
I am on Radio 4 this weekend as the guest interviewer. My life is good just now and I am very lucky to have that, I do appreciate it.

I think that magic set I got back in 1971 did work, I have a blessed magical life and I never had to fuck the boss to get it.
Will the real Janey Godley please stand up?

Yes, I know what a title! I was in Soho last night meeting Noel (comedy promoter and friend) outside the Groucho club in Dean Street. As I was waiting, a big armoured Limo drew up at the kerb and out came Allen Carr and Justin (two comics who have a TV show currently) I know Allen quite well and he said “Hello Janey” I smiled back and said “hi” they were joined by Christian Slater who was taking part in some sketch for their TV show.

Anyway, the camera crew were all around and as I tried to get out of their way and pass them big cars started rearing up on the pavement, there were wires and big bulky camera’s and people and I couldn’t get through them.
“Can you move please” said the burly camera man.

I was trying to get out of the wee circle they had created, I understand television and the precarious nature of doing shots in a street, but the street is so narrow and cars and taxis were almost on top of us and the only way for me to get out of the shot was to walk on the road. I stepped onto the road and a big fuck off van blasted its horn and almost squashed me, so I hopped into the pavement again.

“You are still in the shot darling” the patient camera man said.
“I am sorry; I know what you are saying but fucksake man I am not dying under a van for the show!” I blurted out as I was now ducking and practically crawling under Christian Slater’s legs to get to the back of the pavement, “I don’t want to fuck up your camera work, but I don’t want to die on the streets of Soho”
They laughed and waited till I was safely past them, Allen gave me a wave and I was off.

What they don’t know is I am notoriously bad at crossing roads and really scared of the traffic; I have been hit by cars around 5 times in my life. Once I was so badly hurt when I was nine, it took almost a year to walk again properly and I do still limp sometimes. On that occasion I was wearing my brownie uniform and going to the club to attempt to gain my Road safety badge! The irony still hurts!

I was onstage tonight at a special gig, where Random/Ebury had invited all the major booksellers along to meet the authors. The gig was at a London comedy club where I normally perform, so it was cool for me. I was worried though as I imagined in my head that I needed to get these people to get the essence of me being a comic yet having written quite a moving sad book about my difficult past, so they could sell it on to the public and that would be hard.

 

There were also really famous comics and media people there and I was second on. Mark Thomas, Rhona Cameron, Julian Clary and Pierce Morgan were standing around, I was getting nervous. As soon as I hit the stage and took the mic it all went great, I managed to make them laugh and understand what the book was about.

Afterwards nice people who loved my bit came up and chatted about how they would be interested in having me come to their store to do signings and events.

 

I was so happy it worked, as soon as I relaxed and chatted with people, I ended up talking to this slim well spoken guy who was telling me how much he laughed at my stuff, so I told him a big story about how my daughter went on stage last year at the fringe and told everyone that I had grey pubes! He laughed aloud and we joked more and I got a wee bit more outrageous and told him some of the ‘can’t be printed illegal’ tales of the crooks I knew in my pub.

He told me he had written a cook book for Ebury, I asked his name and he told me Tom. I liked him he was funny, it wasn’t till later I found out he is Prince Charles’s step son – he is Camilla Parker Bowles’s son Tom!

Holy Fuck I had told the Heir to our Nations Throne’s stepson a joke about my minge.

Oh well…the other good news is my article that I wrote for London’s Time Out magazine came out today and it looks awesome!