Iestyn Edwards is...what?

 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...

 Flixy (disregarding my advice at the time) told Trombone Tracey not to pay her last month's rent, she would use the deposit for it. As an avid watcher of Judge Judy and The People's Court I warned her not to. The room as I find it is a collection of non-compensated dilapidations. Ruined paintwork, scuff marks, gouges, nails, blue-tac, oily/sticky patches, water damage, sun warping - and is filthy. But Flixy being Flixy insists, 'I've made you up a lovely bed, with my nice cushions.' Orange bedding is not lovely.  'I told Trombone Tracey to be careful of my nice cushions when she painted the curved bit of wall in her room,' Flixy tells me. 'I stood them upright to give your fold-me-out sofa bed a bit of a comfortable look - isn't it? - and saw there was flaked sky blue on them.' I try and lower my breathing.  Trying yet again to self-diagnose I read how certain strands of Autism are affected by the increased blurring of seasons, added to the alre...

 Up at five to clean. My upper knuckle wound still weeps. Apple peeler stigmata.  #diary #memoir #lgbtqia #gay #funny #humour #brighton

I met my friend Kitty in the street. Her hair was vast. She said something along these lines: ‘I’m growing my hair to sell to a doll factory in Puerto Rico, proceeds going to the Hacienda Verde. Year’s growth: they’re offering three thousand five hundred. Just off to the treatment clinic. They put on it Kamatakan mung-dynasty beans, Tregothnan Manuka honey and Watneys pale, then leave it to do its thing for a fortnight. Then they drain it all off and in a petri dish collect what the beans have poohed out after they’ve eaten and drunk: except they don’t eat and drink like…with mouths…whatever. Then they put this stuff on your hair and you have to leave it for six months till the clinic cuts your hair off - and it gets to the stage where nobody can stand to be around you without the aid of burning joss sticks. I had to take a tarpaulin for a swimming hat at Christmas (I call it Winter Solstice Plus Three these days) when I went on a “finding myself” trip; swam with dolphins. Came back ...

Having notched up one hundred shows for the National Rural Touring Forum before becoming resident in various west end shows I'm going back on the circuit.  The impressive century record never helped me sell me to certain potential promoters on the scheme, who would insist I was too niche for their audience.  I'd send them the review that said Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica 'is Mother Goose on LSD.' Nada. 'The love child of Anna Pavlova and Captain Mainwaring.'  Nope.  I would follow up with the audience survey form comment from Barry in Builth Wells:   'I’m going to tell all my mates to go and see him in Mold. I drew the short straw having to come and check it out tonight. You don’t need specialised knowledge of ballet or anything else you might think at all. And I thought the show was bloody hilarious. True, the rest of my mates just took one look at his flyer and thought “Who wants to go and see that fat poof being weird?"' And still some pro...

   Here we are...come along, do.  #bungay #mytutuwentawol #comedy #bingo #madamegalina #madamegalinaballetstargalactica 

  This happened. The editor thinks it's a book of dog sitter stories waiting to happen. I am scribbling away at that...  I first house-sat by accident. I was originally at Haven House, Lembton, as a live-in safety net for Lady Olive Simmonds, a seventy-nine year-old Bostonian with a lilac afro, a Temazepam habit and leg ulcers. Haven House was by the sea. Eighteenth century, elegant, comfortable.  But there was Olive... Always in pain; either drunk, hungover or both; barely educated. She had married a man who was knighted, and believed this gave her a licence to be a twat. According to Olive, her fellow Lembtonians were all dull academics - this group having reading ages older than hers, which was thirteen - or failed schizophrenics. She had serious monophobia, with staff working (unnecessarily) every day apart from weekends. At weekends, first thing, anxious, she would ring round the Lembtonians that were still speaking to her - six in number - inviting them for coffee, ...

  He walked to the other end of the bench like a cowboy just off a horse. He looked like a hollowed out Richard Harris, wearing tailored jeans, a horizontally striped cotton t-shirt and a Miss Marple gardening hat. ‘May I sit here?’ ‘ Of course.’ He sat, nodding. Then, after a while, ‘What a quaint little town this is.’ ‘ Really? With all the Tudor and the Halls?’ ‘ Oh, granted. But I’ve just come back from living thirty years in Australia.’ Ah, that was the tang in the otherwise smooth, cultivated. ‘Sydney. Divorced my wife after all that time. Left her the house. A million dollars’ worth. The house, not her. Though I used to think she was. Women can do that to men. It’s because they have to ensnare – not all, of course, but quite a number in my experience – as they have fewer basic freedoms than us. Going to the pub alone, for instance.’ He had brightly cold blue eyes, that held no reflection of what he was saying. ‘I’m back here living in the flat I bought for my moth...

  Tammy, in her seventies, was waiting in the square while the caretaker fixed her hot water. She agreed to let me take notes. ‘ Well, as I say, I began as a Lucy Clayton girl.’ My friend Al went to Lucy Clayton. She told me, 'I learned deportment. That slight swivel walk. Getting in and out of cars. What blank expression to wear while a man lights your cigarette. How to eat your first mussel with a fork, and all subsequent mussels with the shell of that first one. Riveting and fully essential.' Tammy continued, ‘You probably can’t believe I went in for modelling. My face is like this because I get such bad depression.’ When she talked, her lower jaw made a juddery nutcracker movement. ‘I did shop modelling at Fortnum's. Fenwick's. Oh - now, then - also later on at the Co-Op. Their slogan being: Shop at the Co-Op and be H appy . I had to provide the clothes for that one. That didn’t make me happy. The canteen at Fortnum's was a cut above. We all loved it, our f...

  Here’s my audiobook for you.   Will you buy? Click here 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 Here’s the story… I sang in private formally for Queen Elisabeth ii 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 Afghanistan — is like you’ve been beamed down off the Starship Enterprise, and this time Scotty’s got the coordinates well and truly buggered!’ I went from this:         ...

'Brian the verger snapped at me after I tried gently to tell him the church was too cold for a first communion. And of course I didn't want to be physically rude back.' 'Look at the world around you. Where do you see glimmers of the divine?' 'You get to his age, and life is a process of getting gradually slower and smellier.' 'I've seen a harelip recently and someone with boss eyes. I thought we'd all but eradicated such things?  It'll be an urchin in callipers next.' 'Bus driver couldn’t say to me about changes of route but my mate in Radwinter had forewarned me she could feel them coming on.' 'Venus is in Aries. So don't flush your sinuses.' 'Judd doesn't understand the neck bit of his apron again.' 'He looks like he might be married to her. He's got a Mini-Filofax.' 'We toasted her teacake so fast we were wandering around announcing for someone to claim it and she was still in the queue t...

'I saw the saddest little thing on a date leaf in a library book. "Judy. I’m writing my name because I have nothing and I’m beside myself to own something. Even just till the last date stamped".'  'Why would you let him put ointment on your back ribs if you didn't ask for it? I doubt you’d be even that casual when it came to putting custard on an Eccles Cake.' 'The electrician you sent me says he's got the same problem today - Thursday - that he had on Tuesday – and shouldn't have stayed in Cromer beyond Friday.' 'Her new at your pharmacy can't read the doctor's handwriting to such a lesser extent, I’m tempted to try all my latest medicines at the counter, and wait while they take effect for better or worse.' 'Oh, you’d be surprised.  There's a lot of people that go and sing in choirs on the quiet.' 'Remember the flurry of Naomis named after the round the yacht woman?  Then they died off. Like the onset of Au...

'Famous actors don't need to dress like famous actors. Apart from Simon Callow always seems to.' 'She smells like she hasn't actually had that winter coat out as much as needed.' 'Christopher, you can't possibly know that Sea Salt won't have a man's fragrance.' 'None of us on the till thought it was possible to override the take away drinks machine and do an oat milk hot chocolate. But Little Mary went on a mission. Sally and Big Mary were looking on, to see how Little Mary managed it. I stayed out of the way - didn't want any part, sorry. Took ever so long. Janice buttered at least three crusty rolls in the meantime.  'When she handed the drink over Little Mary asked the customer if it was okay - it being a bit of a freak beverage - and he said it wasn't as hot as it could be, but that meant it wouldn't over-melt the marshmallow on his Easter Bunny biscuit, would it?  'Mary said, "All's well that ends well, t...

At the station, Eirwen was standing beneath the Suffolk in Bloom prize-winner sign. She had shrunk again. I was waiting in the car. Gerard, picking up her suitcase (she gave him a  Don’t expect a tip look) congratulated her on the win.  She frowned. He pointed upward at the sign. She saw and said, ‘Oh, are we thinking that’s funny?’ Walking to the car Gerard asked what he should call her? ‘Mrs Edwards. Or Ms Silcox, my maiden name.’ I said, ‘And you can call him, The Right Honourable Gerard Crastley.’ Passing Eirwen’s case behind me, Gerard said, ‘Thank God one day Lord will at least be shorter.’  He didn’t see Eirwen’s disgusted look.  She waited for him to turn round so he could.  ‘Have you got anything special planned, or just seeing your special son,' he asked, driving onto the High Street.  ‘I don’t know what there is to be done here at all.’ ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I told you.’ To try and make her refuse to come. ‘Very quiet.’ I had invited her to stay ...

Twice, a week or so before starting a house-sitting stint, I went to spy out the multiple dogs that would be in my care. Between that reccy and the owners going away one of the dogs in each of the households died.  I imagined the pitiful horror of (me) having been the one to find the canine corpse; running to fetch someone. Who exactly? The canine police and/or canine coroner? Agonising between contacting the owners and ruining their holiday, or waiting for them to come back and the news immediately jettisoning the effect of any rest and enjoyment. Lurching about in distress like Lady Macbeth sleep walking.  Or Maria Callas in Tosca , having killed Scarpia, searching for Cavaradossi’s free pardon. Or – perhaps most dramatically - Hilda Ogden leaving the Street to a chorus in the Rover’s of “Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye”.  Phew, frankly, that Mim and Tonto died pre-me.  The shock would almost certainly have brought on an asthma attack, bells palsy, a phantom mi...

I have perhaps tended to boast that I have the widest range of fees for my work, because I cater to the widest range of possible employers. For example, I have a £50 Zoom talk booked tonight for My Tutu Went AWOL! the talk and a Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica cabaret set at a party in February 2027 for £1,500.  Perhaps I should have kept quiet about the more lower end fees. But then, thoughts speak to the universe.  It all wants thinking of more carefully. 

'My mother wasn’t prepared and forewarned about being evacuated, they just billeted her on some retired schoolteachers in the New Forest. Whereas, my granddaughter recently was given a forewarning photograph of her new infant school teacher.' 'Real ghosts vanishing always remind me of the shrinking dot of light at the very end of old television.' 'If your operation scar’s likely to be longer than six inches, always go private.' 'I just don’t think Bernard should be automatically in charge of everything. He’s selfish. He goes to Hastings every year the same two weeks and hogs the perpetual toaster. He tells us. As though it’s something to be proud of. And he expects the proprietress to keep his same table for meals and keep the peony in his vase dead upright, even if that means taking some of the fish tank gravel out of the vases on other tables. He checks, he tells us.' 'My immediate neighbour keeps telling her dog everyone loves it, which is blatant...

'If you wear anything you have to be asked about, don't.' 'Lots of big posh cars in the square today, occupants going up to the church. Somebody of self-importance must be dead.' 'He's one of that family that only look ginger from the front.' 'None of us on the till thought it was possible to override the takeaway drinks machine and do an oat milk hot chocolate. But Little Mary went on a mission. Sally and Big Mary were looking on, to see how Little Mary managed it. I stayed out of the way - didn't want any part, sorry. Took ever so long. Janice buttered at least three crusty rolls in the meantime. When she handed the drink over Little Mary asked the customer if it was okay, being a bit of a freak beverage, and he said it wasn't as hot as it could be, but that meant it wouldn't over-melt the marshmallow on his Easter Bunny biscuit, would it? Mary said, "All's well that ends well, then". But I could feel my own mind being stu...

On two occasions, a week or so before starting a house-sitting stint, I went to spy out the multiple dogs that would be in my care. Between that reccy and the owners going away, one of the dogs in each of the households died.  I imagined the pitiful horror of (me) having been the one to find the canine corpse. Running to fetch someone – who, exactly? The canine police and/or canine coroner?  Agonising between contacting the owners and ruining their holiday, or waiting for them to come back and the news immediately jettisoning the effect of any rest and enjoyment. Lurching about in distress like Lady Macbeth sleep walking.  Or Maria Callas in Tosca, having killed Scarpia, searching for Cavaradossi’s free pardon. Or – perhaps most dramatically - Hilda Ogden leaving the Street to a chorus in the Rover’s of “Wish me Luck as you Wave me Goodbye”.  Phew, frankly, that Mim and Tonto died pre-me.  The shock would almost certainly have brought on an asthma attack, bells ...

'I began as a Lucy Clayto n girl.' The woman was in her eighties, sharply dressed, hair in a sixties style. ' Deportment. That slight swivel walk. Getting in and out of cars. What blank expression to wear while a man lit your cigarette. How to eat your first mussel with a fork, and all subsequent mussels with the shell of that first one. Riveting and fully essential. You probably can’t believe I went in for modelling.' No, I assured her, I fully did. 'M y j aw really only does this nutcracker business because I get such bad depression. ‘ I did shop modelling at Fortnum's. Also, Fenwick's. Oh - now, then - also later on at the Co-Op. Their slogan being: Shop at the Co-Op and be Happy . I had to provide the clothes for that one. That didn’t make me happy. The canteen at Fortnum's was a cut above. We all loved it, our four-girl runway show. One of the four , Chrissie, was a bridesmaid at my wedding. In the order of service was a photo of my husband at twe...

                                                       'And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true...' On the touring talk circuit with me just now are readings of MR James ghost stories, a biopic of Mata Hari and a surgeon giving a lecture on STDs. With slides. In the coffee break, nobody much fancies the Garibaldi biscuits.  Let alone the Jammie Dodgers. Also a talk positing that, from His behaviour in the Old Testament, God is gay, bi-polar and a chronic hoarder. There are one-man  Beowulf 's,  Tom Jones's  and  Under Milk Woods . Monologues on Lully's conducting accident, Beethoven's chamber pot spillage and  I was Benjamin Britten's First Mr Squirrel.  The imagined spoken record of a Stonehenge mason, of Michelangelo winch-hanging under the Sistine Chapel ceiling and of Tracey Emin unmaking her ...