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

                                                                      Click to buy the book 'My spoken material is about the facts of life,'  I was explaining to the Mother Superior.  'I've been asking people what they were told, how they were told it and did they ask questions. Terribly funny...'    During my Where do Babies Come From? talk at the Metrodeco Café, Brighton, a  superfluity of nuns stopped at the window to listen.  In the street later that week one of them glided up and said how much they had enjoyed hearing me sing.  ' And we wonder, might you please sing something for our charity evening?' I said, of course, sister.   The nun nodded.  'That's very good to hear.  But just to correct you: not sister - but  Mother  Superior.' She then ...

  For Lewisham it was an otherwise quiet evening. So, I went next door to remonstrate with whoever was endlessly mowing. Handsome, forties, with a bit of a belly, he mowed the border of what had been the Salvation Army old people’s hostel. I supposed he was one of the guardians — folk paying to squat in buildings awaiting development, to deter non-paying squatters from tipping up with their dogs on strings, army surplus jackets bulging with beer can bongs and contempt for toilets. He mowed on. I did the English thing of staring, hands hovering midway to hips, brows hoisted. He took his palm off the gas. ‘Sir, yes?’ Absolutely self-assured. ‘Er…hello…yes, to you, also. Iestyn. And…I was hoping to borrow the lawnmower.’  ‘Jake. Are you in the harpist’s flat?’  I nodded. ‘Staying till my new flat has floors.’ ‘How do you know her?’ Suspicious — did he think I might have broken in, suddenly thought I’d mow the lawn, failed to find a mower, conveniently heard one being plied o...

                              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 —...

In the nineteen fifties, my grandmother Atkinson got herself into a state of wretched cowment because neighbours up to three doors down on either side might hear her at her business in her new indoorsy toilet. She explained, 'The council took it upon themselves to send round what looked like a chain gang, except not in the stripy flannelette pyjamas they do have - or the bed hats - who did damage my nerves with their banging.  And there it was.  A toilet.  Indoors.  Looking very bright and new.  And I immediately settled it in with some Jeyes Fluid, of course.  Standards.  But I've also got my pride, so I'll be sticking with the privy.  Not to be overheard...'   'Why not sing hymns like the rest of us, Nancy?' the neighbours asked.  Fair question.   But how to admit that adequately drowning out the effects of Nancy's ever-upflaring bit of bowel would take all the verses, including the asterisked ones, of "Guide Me, Oh Th...

  Max held me at right angles to the ground and un-prised my fingers from the railings.  I must have looked like one of the nannies blown out as Mary Poppins blows in. Merrin Peeble's hooking email said, 'Hi, I'm all the way from TV land...'   She named the company. I mustn't.  When we facetimed, I saw I'd been spot on imagining Merrin as fourteen, slum-fed, with an absinthe green buzzcut. She continuously hoicked a shapeless crocheted black sweater up to her ears. 'We've had quite the laughs in the office looking at your footage,' she said, waving.   I waved back.   She waved bigger; so did I.   She frowned and gave her wave a steely quality - a wave to stop any further waving, thanks.   'And we thought you'd be totally right for something up our sleeve since this morning's production meeting.'   In her excitement she had pulled her sweater right over her head.  She screeched until she found the neck; sound...

Researching the interviews, I asked people 1 How did you learn the facts of life? 2 What facts were they? The setting for the following two interviews was a Piers Luxon Bespoke party in the Cotswolds.  Bertie and Lionel were waiters.  I was the floor show, as Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica. Bertie, 20, was sporty, gorgeous of jaw, wearing black jeans so tight his balls were easily visible squished one or either side of the great divide. Bertie Aged eleven, biology, we were sat down two to a desk to watch a video of a family of nudists, all coming out of their bedrooms one at a time. The film would pause itself for you to see all their bits with a voice-over elaborating. The real actors faded to cartoon characters for the, What went where… details, including helpful cross-sections of thrusting. The teacher, Mr Simmons, later distributed condoms for us to fit correctly over cucumbers and carrots. He gave detentions to anyone who made a water balloon. He so didn’t want to li...

  I would never have written a book if I hadn't dealt with my chronic inability to be alone.   My Proper Nan Silcox would use that Kipling quote when any of her grandchildren complained of being lonely.  'Lonely indeed!  Have you lost your library card?  Lonely having tea with Miss Bates?  Lonely on wanders with the Pickwick Club?  Lonely winning the Horse of the Year Show with Rupert Campbell-Black?  And furthermore, let's remember that the banding together mentality is all lovely when it leads to The Huddersfield Choral, or the Massed Bands of the Coldstream Guards or those monkeys with the typewriters who are one day going to finish Timon of Athens - but not when it means the Gestapo, Big Brother or the Bethesda WI.' She would draw herself up by the handbag.  'You make the best of your solitary circumstances, now, Iestyn.  Better to live by choice in a bedsit than by force in a leper colony.' 

  Along the lakeside came a  woman, at the back end of middle age, with wiry, flicked hair, wearing a pink vinyl mac and gingham pedal pushers.  With her was a Jack Russell, off the lead.  They passed three pairs of nesting swans, then the Egyptian geese supervising their gosling's teatime feed.   The woman turned her head as day-trippers remonstrated with her, then stood in a bevelled pose, like the central figure in The Three Graces statue.   'He's fine!' she drawled, clearly delighted for her Jack Russell to run to and fro barking by the water's edge.   Meanwhile the goose nosed the gosling into a pond and jumped in after it followed by the gander.  The swans stood absolutely still, feathers up all around, in front of their cygnets.  The woman stayed in her daft pose, smirking indulgently at the Jack Russell. Then a man picked the dog up by the collar, walked over to her and thrust it into her arms. 'Take this back to wherev...