Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

  The year before the plague, I opened the Essex Book Festival with My Tutu Went AWOL .  I also closed the festival (just call me the Maria Callas of touting the memoir subgenre Drag Meets Marine.)  Patricia Wells, author, also appeared in the closing event: playing the hose continuo.  I met Patricia again at Wilderness. Having just appeared in Brunch Cabaret, in full tutu and tights, I ran across the festival grounds to the book tent for my Travel Writing round table.  A smell of beer, hay, new books and what comedian Archie Artington describes as, ‘A tang, is it, or a pang – not quite a pong – the tang that after a weekend under tent: of dawn and dusk wet-wipe licks and promises: creeps from campers’ crannies.’ To stage left, the round table set up, mic feedback being rectified; to stage right Dorling Kindersley executives berating Clara (BSc MBAcC RYT) for, ‘Such heinously undermining snoring.’ Apparently, Clara, festival book curator, had fallen asleep during the DK talk on th

I thought I'd found a new café.  In this new English market town I've moved to.  The café is above the street.  Like the one in The Pursuit of Love where Aunt Sadie takes Matt to question him about Jassy running away.  It's whitewashed, bright, with thick wool carpet. (I reached down from my chair to stroke it.)   I sat at a window overlooking the charity shops, hairdressers and other cafes, listening in on elderly women's coffee chat.  'With global warming, you’ll soon not be able to talk about casting ne’er a clout'. ...  'When the care home over the heath wasn't doing very well, my sister would check herself in there while my brother-in-law cooled off after an argument. He told her it'd serve her right if during one of these all laid on luxury sulks she popped her clogs'.  ...  'You know my gas man has type-two diabetes?  He can also read electricity meters'. My hot chocolate, which came in a cup a saucer, accompanied by three toasted

  A younger me about to sing onboard HMS Victory for Her Majesty.  She commented on my 'rather lovely, touching' singing.  Even though I accidentally cut the last verse of The Death of Nelson and left him alive at the end of Trafalgar.   #hermajesty #hermajestythequeen #commandperformance #trafalgarday #royalmarinescommando 

                                                                                                        Giving the talk on My Tutu Went AWOL at Sunday Papers Live I asked Stacks, ex-Royal Marine, if he would pray for my soul on Easter Sunday.  'You being a devout Catholic, and all.' He said, 'Nah.  It took too long last time.'   Click to read more about Stacks and me. ***** 'The book is achingly funny!'  Daily Mail  #eastersunday #easterday #easter2022 #prayer #religion #christianity 

    Stacks, Royal Marine, inherited his love of music from his granny. Sadly no longer with us, she was a church organist.   Until one Easter.   As Stacks tells it, 'She was playing for Devotions.  One hymn every hour, on the hour. The churchyard gate was opposite the Dog and Feathers, and she was going over there in the interim. The head verger had to help her up into the organ loft for "There is a Green Hill." He decided after that she was better left. And left.   And left .  Christ had long since risen while she was still beer-snoring.'

                                                                                                                                                                                                 c Joanna Topley                                                 Publishing a book is like packing a child off to school knowing somebody will punch it.   I'm working on another piece of non-fiction, though not a follow up to  My Tutu Went AWOL .  Click here to buy   I did interview some squaddies for the book.  Just not this time about war.  I asked folk in what circumstances were they told the facts of life - birds and bees, sex-ed, human biology, rumpy-pumpy, smashing some doors front or back, etc - and what precise information were they given? I found I could add an unexpected third question - Did you believe what you were told?   (And a fourth - Did your parents after all need to summon the Flour Advisory Bureau?) I was told:   'Your future husband will deal with that on an if and whe

  Follow link to buy My Tutu Went AWOL! First, here's a reminder of my mother, Eirwen Mai: Now, this weekend I told Eirwen Mai about my new book, The Devil Made Your Todger .  I had a long wait to actually speak to her.  She had answered the phone, said I must hang on, then left me listening to rustles and clangs. When she came back on the line, she said, ‘I’d started sweeping up my leaves and didn’t want them to scarper again off the pile and through the gate.   Oh, now. What did informed critics say about your last book?'   By informed critics, she doesn't mean Libby Purves in the Daily Mail , for example, she means her friends.   'Something to do with you completely misrepresented our very loving relationship - as Mari saw it, who’ve had her leg off.  And Dorothy, who's newly religious so prays over a slice of ham, thought you went to town on me. And Vic did. Course, I never, ever got a copy of the book for myself.’ She did. My Tutu Went AWOL! doesn’t have a

  I can still feel the chills as I heard that Radio 4 segment... #Psyhic #trueghoststory #ghosts #supernatural 

 #sex #sexed #humanbiology #humanreproduction #thebirdsandthebees #thefacsoflife 

If you're in the dark about what to expect from my audiobook, My Tutu Went AWOL , let me tell you... It's an out-there one.  Part travel book, definitely, part war-reportage - strong on comedy - and bromance.  So, what are its/my credentials?  In case that persuades you to buy... Well, just for one: relevant today: I've twice presented my all-singing, all-dancing book talk at the wonderful Sunday Papers Live.  All turns are a human version of a section of the newspaper.  First time I was 'Culture', the second 'People'.  (Or vice versa.)  Whichever, I was the only person in the green room I didn't recognise from HIGNY or Eight out of Ten Cats does Countdown .  Or even Question Time. (This was the comedian whose name I always forget, and who I referred to onstage as 'porno-teddy bear man'.  As you do...) Happy Sunday, all.  Click to add to my lovely royalty payments, please... Click to find out more about Sunday Papers Live #audiobook #mytutuwenta

                              Here’s my audiobook for you. Click to buy My Tutu Went AWOL!   It’s self-narrated: with songs, adlibs and bloopers as standard. ‘Achingly funny!’ Daily Mail ‘A book unlike any other, of a story unlike any other. Totally mad, very funny and highly recommended.’ ***** Dr Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt: the Nation’s Favourite Book Guardian ‘One wanted more of his rather lovely singing!’ Her Majesty Here’s the story… I sang in private formally for the Queen on HMS Victory , and then accidentally auditioned to take my drag ballerina act out to entertain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In full tutu. When I realised my mistake, I thought I’d go anyway. Cut to: with tutu and tiara in a Primark bag, me arriving bedraggled in Basra. As Stacks, the Royal Marines Commando, commented: ‘Being flown out to one of the big two — Iraq and Ghanners — is like you’ve been beamed down off the Starship Enterprise, and this time Scotty’s got the coordinates well and