Global Warming and Ellen Marsden

We've had such a heatwave here, Ellen Marsden nearly started sleeping outside early.

Ellen is next door neighbour to Carl Frint, gardener at Longacres House.

He'll tell you, 'I can mark my seasons' clock by first hearing Ellen squidging around on her air mattress. I'll be taking Penny out to do her business last thing, and Ellen will call over the wall - council still hasn’t repaired it: eleven years and counting - “Here’s me then, sleeping outdoors for the foreseeable”. And I'll call back, being careful not to mention the obvious, "Well, you need to be comfortable".'

The obvious being that Ellen weighs thirty-five stone.

Carl has other season markers. Dahlias blackened by first frost, first car accidents due to dry ice, first ducklings mauled by Sadie and Buster, Lady Dawn's German Shepherds.

Those markers remind me of Halberdier Glass from Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy. ‘Two of our platoon overstayed their leave this morning’; ‘Major Trench made a visit to the lines last night. Went on something awful about the bread in the will tubs’; ‘Corporal Hill just shot himself down by the bridge. They’re bringing the body in now.’

Thankfully, it cools down again here after Sunday.

#globalwarming#global#heatwave#obesity#habits#funny#humour#life

Comments

My Mate Jamie-Ray Hartshorne

I've been noticing that alongside photos of Jamie-Ray being a lead in Altar Boys , creating Change My Body UK TM , working the door at Freedom - and clearly asking people passing by wherever that rockpool may be to snap a double-bicep - this sort of thing is cropping up on his social media: We're in The Diner, Jamestown Road, Camden. He's between tour dates of The Bodyguard, and meetings to discuss sportswear and creatine endorsements. The latter, he says, being all about making his product better. Between sips of his peanut butter milkshake (he's allowing himself dairy today in my honour - I don't quite know how to take that) he says in his soft Brum, 'I've signed up for a major Muay Thai event in Thailand next February. I'm going up against one of the Thai fighters. That's the only real way to gain any respect in the fighting world. That's why you've been noticing the combat photos. I...

Some Favourite Books - But Please don't Lesbify Dame Agatha's Denouements

I'm too tired to read anything new so have been round the libraries taking out my default-setting books to read over Christmas. These include: The Pursuit of Love , Nancy Mitford. The blood-stained entrenching tool displayed above the fireplace, child-hunting over Shenley Common, Jassy traumatising the local children telling them the facts of life. The scene at the Gare du Nord where Linda sits on her luggage to cry and meets Fabrice always takes me back to the first reading of the novel, sitting wrapped in my Welsh Tweed shawl, in a tiny bedroom on the eighteenth floor of a high-rise in Kennington. The Pursuit of Love is romantic, hilarious and bleakly eccentric. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady , Florence King. When I entertained troops on the American base in Kandahar, four South Carolina army captains made me an Honorary Southern Belle. Madame Galina, they said, in all her unreasonable, high-blooded,...

How to...Self-Assessment Tax

As we near the end of the year a performer's thoughts will turn to the dreaded self assessment tax return. Eight years ago I made a pact with myself never again to put myself through those two days of surfing receipts; forging official contracts for looking after Lady Carter's pug Mr Timothy; wondering if I would get away with claiming for two pints of Fullers Honeydew, bought to silence a city boy smoking outside the Rising Sun in Cloth Fair, after he saw me help myself to some of the festive flora on the railings of St Barts church to arrange in my hair having forgotten my tiara for a Christmas gig at Club Kabaret . I now do a mini-tax return each month when my bank statements come, and simply tot up the running total on April 6th when I submit my HMRC self-assessment return. Of all the self-employed professions, performers and cab drivers most frequently underpay tax; ergo they are the two professions most likely to be audited by HMRC ...

Iestyn Edwards is...what?

Search This Blog