Iestyn Edwards is...what?

Flixy has always said Trombone Tracey is 'spectrumy' and awkward; and tried to make Flixy move some of her (they're dead, actually) plants, and some other 'stuff' (junk), etc. She also stressed that, in comparison to Flixy's regular performances for  Tits on Tour, Trombone Tracey wasn't doing anything much at all, just hanging around upstairs thumping and being demanding. Whereas actually Trombone Tracey performs stand up at the Top Secret Comedy Club, played trombone for Anne-Marie on a reload of "On the Day We Fell in Love" and has just produced a short film starring Frankie Boyle.   But of course put her Trombone Tracey in a box, Flixy. Put us all in a box, Flixy.  #memoir #autobiography #diary #diaries #lgbtqia #brighton #cabaret #anne-marie 

Re-reading Dombey and Son. How did Dickens create so many walk-on characters that are funny but also alive? Miss Tox and the Major being two. Both are shown to clearly want something - to marry Dombey (Miss Tox) to impress Miss Tox (the Major.) It reminds me of Evelyn Waugh advising a writer not just to bring someone onstage to make jokes. Miss Tox and the Major are always trying to reach their goals.  Marty comes over again to collect some records. He tells me he has so many records he keeps them in three different places. He could make a definite list of records he will play at a gig, he says, but then there are always those moments when he feels, 'Oh, I wish I had such and such a tune...that would be perfect to play right now.' He tells me Flixy had a good first night - though she didn't particularly like Stevenage - is sharing a hotel room with someone 'calmer' (he doesn't say who she shared with before that wasn't calm) and she was able this time to joi...

Flixy said, 'If you're doing past the Lidl at the end of the road past the Bingo Hall - where it turns off to go to the Marina - can you return something?' I queued twice. She hadn't given me the pin for her card. She then gave me the wrong pin. And when I told her this, insisted she had rung to tell me the correct pin, right after I told her about the first pin being wrong. There had been no such phone call. As I was walking away from Lidl, to look at some more typical Brighton Blue Plaques that come under the heading; 'Who the fuck was that?!', she texted with the wrong pin number again and a different one.  I've been working on some material based on her compulsion to begin every sentence with 'I', and on the way she can turn anywhere you care to mention into a venue relevant to herself.  'Leigh-on-Sea? I did a photo shoot there. You know my fembot one? The photographer can get a bit sleazy but he was okay with me. He said he really loved my l...

 Marty has the brightest orange socks. He tells me, unnecessarily, Flixy bought them. His feet are very small. I don't like that he messaged saying he was coming to pick some stuff up, so not to be worried if I heard strange noises downstairs; that implies I would automatically be upstairs in my attic. No. He is there for some leads, chargers and records, he tells me. I nearly reply, 'We do not wish to hear this, kindly leave the stage', which, Ken told me, they used to sing during auditions at the BBC in the nineteen sixties. I still fantasise about Ken's niece, Naomi, ringing to tell me probate has gone through so I can now have his flat. 'Or the cash equivalent.'  Confused WhatsApp from Kristian saying sorry (I had messaged him saying he is not to smoke - I saw some photos on his Instagram) but he was put onto work yesterday, and it's thirteen hours door to door delivering parcels. 'Not so sure about this...' One of his routes takes him directly p...

I have sinusitis and a bit of wheeziness. Before my cacao in matcha latte oat milk I tilt myself forward and backward and then roll from the waist to dislodge phlegm.  As a toddler, when I was recovering from the fatal strain of croup, Doctor Halfpenny...I don’t know what he would be called these days factoring in inflation: Doctor Twenty-Six Pounds Seventy-five, maybe? Anyway, to shift phlegm he recommended Eirwen and Terry play the Fishy in the Water game.* One or other of them would sit me facing them on their lap, then tilt me backwards so my head was just off the floor and sing, ‘Fishy in the Water/Fishy in the Sea/Who Do You Like Best/The fishes or me?’  And to be lifted upright again I’d have to reply, ‘You’. I gave them such a complex... ‘Fishes.’  ‘Fishes.’  ‘Fishes.’  By the time we went back for my check up with Doctor Twenty-Six Pounds Seventy-five again I’d effectively renamed his game, ‘Don't ask the question if you can't handle the answer, bitches...

 Bump into Ad. He has long hair these days and mutton chops. He looks beautiful. He's still juggling with cigar boxes but his teaching of Pilates hasn't gone well so far. He felt he wasn't ready even to cover classes but was then disappointed to have only two pupils in them. When he tried Pay What You Can nobody at all came. He's still in the housing cooperative, which he really shouldn't be - paying very little for a four bedroom place on his own. His children moved out more than a decade ago. Jane has moved in. Flixy's Marty lives in the same cooperative. There is so much crap hoarded under his bed its legs dangle above the carpet. He shares with someone Flixy insists is 'strange'. Marty's strange, Flixy. Ad told me about some of the Wunderlich acts from the last couple of years, involving masturbation with Henry hoovers. I say, 'This is just what spit and sawdust variety should be!' not sure that I believe myself.  I hear someone next door...

I switch on the lamp in the sitting room. It doesn't work. When I finally palm aside the two cushions, blankets and a plump black silk bag, I find the lamp's lead has gone to ground with four or more dust-buried refugees from the Innovations Catalogue. I leave it be.  There are two large and near to death rubber plants on the small kitchen window sill. Squeezed beside them is a box of broken plant pots - one containing a dried up bulb - shells, a brass tankard, a mug with its broken off handle within, wooden stakes, canes, disintegrating rope, etc. As I rummage through these items I wonder what abandoned interest of Flixy's they might betoken.  The ice-cream parlour sign above the sink is filthy, cracked, with a rust-rash. The painting of the young Queen Elizabeth the Second looks washed out, the frame grimy. The cobwebs above Flixy's food cupboard are the colour of burnt garlic.  Washing up their supper things Marty, Flixy's boyfriend - who is so effete he makes me...