Episode 4: Life is like Bugsy Malone

Hey,

It's been far longer than I have anticpated since I put my pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

I have actually been in a dilemma as to what to write about - that is how much is going on right now. I have been torn between all the weird karmic things going on in my life and my first 'gig' as an Extra. And both (as usual knowing me) have provided me with a lot of comedy material that is waiting to fall out of my brain and onto here for my own masochistic need for humiliation and of course, for your amusement.

But then I had my mum come to visit on the Granny Express. And mums' have a knack for swooping in and changing everything, don't they?

~

It was Jean's birthday a few weeks ago, getting well into her 60's now, but still not managing to look a day over 40. We are ALL praying fervently that we got her genes. So we decided to bring her to London to watch a show with Future Cinema - Bugsy Malone at the Troxy for her birthday. It was an utterly amazing show they put on. The gorgeous art deco cinema was opened up to a roomfull of bundling, bouncing, cajoling actors. Romping around in 20's gear, boxing matches, chase scenes over the bannisters and terraces, sultry songs, razzmatazz dance competitions, mad-cap silent movies, and all the characters running around in real time, real life. The day couldn't get any better. We had gone to the matinee and trust me, I was the biggest kid there. Then when I couldn't possibly get more excited; they showed the film. Then when I thought I couldn't possibly get more excited; we had a SPLURGE FIGHT!


I could have literally died right there. Happy.

~

So let's fill you all in... 

This was a liii-ttle bit of a double-edged "gift". For those who know me - I needn't say a word. For those who don't know me so well... Here's a clue....

I AM OBSESSED WITH BUGSY MALONE  

I can recite it word-for-word, sing it note-for-note, describe the clothing in every detail, "Bangles De Bell, you look teeerrible", I can do the dancing with my eyes closed, and lord help the person who ever hands me a custard pie - they will get it returned back in the their face!

I have absolutely no doubt that Bugsy Malone forms part of my acting DNA. And I believe that for most of our generation, and even those below and beyond, it is a movie that burrowed its way into your brain, like it or not. I defy any of you to NOT know a song from the movie...


You are singing one now aren't you?


That moment when you first watch THE BEST FILM EVER and it's being acted by people like you! Your age, your height, your brand new teeth that don't quite fit your face yet, that ears that your Gran promises you will "grow into", your puppy fat, your almost teenage training bra breasts, your awful hair that just will not behave and just be straight/curly how grown-up hair is. All those child-to-teenage bodily awkwardness's, made to look so slick, so glamorous, so polished, right down to their manicured gloves...

With make-up, and moustaches (the boys anyway), slicked hair, the hats, the dresses, the suits, the dancing, drinking fancy jewel coloured green and red drinks "on the rocks", the attitude, the peddle cars, the gangsters, the Splurge guns. YOU truly could be Tallulah, Fat Sam, Velma, Baby Face, Bangles, Dandy Dan, or Bugsy... Nobody wanted to be Blousie, did they?... Seriously! But I will get to that later. 

It wasn't about being a kid and wanting to be that person or that person when you grow up. You didn't have to wait! You were able to be those characters right now! Forget having to be at school wearing the awful itchy red gingham dress and the woolly red tights given to you at christmas, that no longer fit you in July, so that you spend all day with the crotch area around by your knees. The matching ribbons for your hair for school. The stupid plaited hairstyle your mum has given you to try and control this unruly hair, that then reveals those massive Spock ears, giving everyone at school the gift of being able to tease you alternately between your hair and your ears. 


When you got home, the gingham was off and the fancy dress was on, the video was in the VCR faster than the fat kid with an ice-cream in the sun.

"My name is Tallulah..."

And school was forgotten in an instant.


You could charm men (okay, boys... and not the boys in your class - ewwwww!) with your dulcet tones and ruby red lips. Run a gangster racket with your pack of hoodlums. Become a singer, or a dancer, or find prize-fighters. Or cheat your way into eating 8 banana boozer specials and 6 beef spitfires. 

"You could have been anything that you wanted to be..." 

This is why life is like Bugsy Malone, or should I say, life should be like Bugsy Malone.

We should always try to make life glamorous. In Bugsy, even the cleaner Fizzy can tap dance beautifully. This was the depression era, and yes this isn't a historical project here, but the essence of always trying to create a sense of beauty and glamour in your life is still important. Like Fat Sam, trying to make things look normal as things fall apart within his empire. I am not saying we need to cover up the bad times, but it can help to make the best and put the most positive, and glamorous spin on what we do have.

We should all dress like we are in Bugsy Malone. The clothes themselves also seem to be having somewhat of a revival too. Maybe it's more likely down to the new Great Gatsby film. However, I it still contains that same sense of theatricality & glamour to the art of dressing up, that I find particularly appealling in Bugsy.

We should all dance like Tallulah - at least once in our lives.

My friend, who will remain nameless, her crowning moment of glory has to be the drunk "Tallulah dancing" on a stage up against a wall. I am positive this did the trick with her then and now partner... and we a have little Tallulah, her daughter, as proof this works!

And you all know the dance ladies - languishing back against a wall, arm up... prey singled out!

We should all have friends like in Bugsy Malone. From an acting perspective, the characters in this film are fantastic. There are so many real characters who all have such a depth to them. Which is rare for about 80% of all adult movies, let alone a childrens' movies. From a kids perspective, I spent my time watching this and identifying all my classmates as each of the characters. And as an adult, I could pick out the Tallulah, the Fat Sam,the Fizzy in my friends circle right now. And this movie is great, what you see is that there is no real star, you are rooting for them all, even Dandy Dan by the end. They all have their distinct characters and they all need one another to get along in the their world.

 

But the theme alone is enough for me.

Life should be like Bugsy Malone. 

From Fizzy the cleaner, to Leeroy the boxer, even to Blousie Brown, the loaf of bread, ok, sorry I mean singer. You really could be anything you wanted to be, even the kids starring as adults in a movie. If you have the desire and you have the drive, to even keep coming back tomorrow, then you could be anything that you wanted to be.

I think that as adults we forget sometimes. We forget that child inside, our inner Bugsy, our inner Tallulah. Who are ballsy, funny, creative, gutsy, and not afraid to be exactly who they are. We get caught up in our own little "rackets", people telling us we can't, Fat Sam telling us he's too busy to listen, or we shouldn't, or that's not the way things are done. Our little battles, our feuds, our fears, our own stupidity or grandiosity. Sometimes, we need that piano moment, you know the one...

*Bammm*

de de-de de de

de de-de de de

dum... dum... dum...

"We could've been any-thin that we wan-ted to be...  

and it's not too late to change"

We can be anything that we want to be, if we have the dedication of Fat Sam and Fizzy, the ingenuity to find a means to an end like Bugsy or Tallulah, friends like Knuckles, and Velma, and a big heart like Leeroy and Blousie.  

"You give a little love and it all comes back to you. You know you're gonna be remembered for the things that you say and do" 

We need have our dreams, we need to try and live our dreams and we need our friends to help us get there.

 

And yes, you may have guessed, Blousie is not my favourite character... Maaan, the girl is so bland - exactly like a stale loaf of bread, always moaning and whining (sorry was that her singing?). And way too reliant on a man to deliver her dreams. But her dreams are  the same as mine, "I'm going to Hollywood!"... 

And if I get to meet Scott Baio in the flesh then I have hit the double jackpot! 

 

Episode 3: The Paper Man

I often see him on the train, on a bench, in a park; the paper man. Weary of the world and thin. Being blown about as the world sees fit to move him. Apparently carefree; underneath wild-eyed with fear drowning in big distant watery blue pools.

I saw him on the train a few weeks back. Upright, clinging to a pole as the train tried to dislodge him from this world.

The last time I saw him, I carefully measured out the correct level of morphine, the 3 pink pills, 2 white and a rattling handful of bulbous capsules. I tried not to look as his crepe paper hands folded around the pills, painfully rolled up and into his mouth with a creaking swallow. Like translucent paper the world pressed in on him until the pain was visible in every movement of what was left of his body. Unable to touch, trying to cocoon his frame with some warmth of the lightest duvet. I fed him tepid tea. I said goodbye. I shut the door.

3 hours later I got the call.

~

This one has been a long time coming. To the point where I am now up at 1:30 writing everything that is bursting out from my head. There is so much I want to say, but I am at a loss how to write this.

~

It was five years ago this week that he passed away, my dad. Not something that gets brought up frequently. In class we talked about how we make the really big events in our lives as small as we possibly can. Don't you think - think about those life-changing events? How do you talk about them to others? We scrunch them up into tiny little balls, so that we can deal them better and make less visible the feelings and emotions. 

It was all so cliche, all so mundane. Life is at times. It was ultimately his own fault. Other people have worse problems. Worse lives. Worse sufferings. And I am certainly not alone in facing this one; it was nothing more than a banal fact of life we must all face as children growing into adults.

~

Aged about 8 I would go to bed and regularly asked God not to let my dad die. He didn't believe in God, he was an Atheist. But I prayed for him anyway. He made me a real dog kennel for Percy the PoundPuppy. He looked after me when all these strangely dressed grown-up people were in our house for a party and made me cry. He put me on his shoulders when I was too scared to climb down the hill at Dovedale. He took me, my sister and Corinna to parks, pools and farms in his embarassingly bright banana yellow Ford van. (I think on this one my mum traded her roast dinner making skills in for a Sunday outing after!) 

On outings he would often stop on a Derbyshire lane. Pick up the road kill, pop it in the boot and take it home to pluck and eat. First we were grossed out, in time curiosity got the better and we learnt how to skin and pluck game. He would threaten to put my rabbit in a stew, I would find him feeding him in his hutch every morning that I had forgotten. He woke us up at 4:30 in the morning when we begged him to take us into work with him at the newsagent, then take us to Jock's cafe for breakfast after. He would draw us silly pictures and cartoons.

It was a waking nightmare that persisted before each bedtime (that and making sure the wardrobe door was shut so as not to allow the alien monsters in). It was always my dad dying that I worried about most in the world. The bossiest 8yr old you ever saw; I would tear around the house indignantly ripping up his packets of cigarettes. Taking them to my spot in the garden and tipping them in a hole along with his whiskey. Poor sod, whole bottles of Teacher's whiskey I poured down the back of our garden along with broken, no soggy, golden packs of B&H. 

I loved my dad. Aged 8 he was the world, he was my world. Him, my mum, my sister who followed me around and annoyed the hell out of me (or so I told everyone), my bunny rabbit, our shop, our house, our garden, Corinna our neighbour, and our awful bright yellow banana car.

~

A few years later things had changed; a lot. And by now I was an atheist.

~

I felt like I lost my dad a long time before the physical reality occurred. What was once tall, sturdy and strong had been shredded into a pile of nothing. Many knew him as the mild-mannered paper man, and he was to others. This guy would stop and talk to the tramps on the street. Tell us that he had a theory that Trolley Ted the tramp who collected the trolleys was a secret millionaire. He would do his weird mortifying embarrassing flirting with the church ladies, chat and moan to the workers as Bass; it is difficult to admit that at home was quite different.

He barely spoke to anyone; we most definitely barely spoke. I set my stall out from that night I accidentally overheard a nasty comment he made about me and how I looked to my brother. It was the final piece of shit that stuck. It hurt. But aged 16 I was going to act in the most mature way I knew... and just ignore him from that point on. We barely spoke till my 18th. People who knew us would come to our house, with my mum, a very warm giving person, who let in any waif and stray. They would see my dad sitting there in silence with his cigarettes and whiskey, folded in a corner of the living room, under our giant overgrown cheeseplant and beach mural wall, silently doing paperwork. Those who didn't know us automatically assumed he wasn't even around.

I could never understand why he started to disappear from our lives. No more games, trips out, to work or presents from trips abroad. No picking me up or dropping me off at netball or sports events. It seems quite trivial, as I know many people who would kill to have had any kind of relationship with absent parents. But it was that very change from presence to absence that was most affecting. I knew and exactly what I had lost. And couldn't work out what I had done wrong.

Meanwhile, Sareka and then Vaughan were still having the relationship I once had. I had been replaced. I took it personally. I started to grow up, our relationship changed. I'd tried the lot: trying to please him and make him like me again somehow. Cooking foods he liked, helping at the newsagent, good grades, lots of reading so that I could argue with him about maths, science, literature the things he liked to discuss. I would always match his obstinacy, stand my ground no matter what and we would argue till my mum told us to shut up. 

By my later teenage years I hated everything about him, hated the very things about me that were like him. Railed at him for all his stupidities; did whatever it took to garner some sort of reaction. I got beyond frustrated. Nothing worked. I got angry. Very angry. I set my stall out. I was rude, abusive retaliating. I could be just as stubborn as him and fight my corner. Even cooking foods he hated, like pasta, just to piss him off! Who knew pasta could be so offensive!

Nothing.

I remember getting ill aged 18, seriously ill, one Christmas. Slipping in and out of consciousness for about two weeks. I remember two things. 1. Every time I woke up, Frank Sinatra was on TV. EVERY SINGLE TIME - it freaked me out. 2. When my mum finally got him to come upstairs to see me (not Frank, but my dad). Even despite how long it had  taken him. It was days. All I wanted was a hug from my dad. I cannot even tell you the last time I'd had one. It was years. It was awful. He couldn't even hug me properly. It was as if he'd never hugged anyone before in his life. I don't think he knew how.

Now THAT was the final straw.

I got well, saw a counsellor,  retook my a-levels and I left for Birmingham University.

I never spoke to him much after that.

Leaving home changed things further. As Rick grew up, a similar pattern emerged. They were closer. they shared a love of art and drawing. Despite that, even their relationship changed - but that is her story to tell. And I have no doubt my brother has his own too. I learnt that on the plus side it wasn't just me and in some warped sense of relief at least it wasn't personal; he was equally absent to us all.

The paper man seemed to struggle under the weight of life.

He took redundancy. Had operations on his feet leaving him barely able walk. He faced an attacker in our newsagent with a machete. At his fathers funeral, we learnt about his childhood. He drank more and smoked more and by now you could see the fright in those wan watery pools staring out at you.

When he got ill there was no surprise. No drama. No sadness. A perfunctory "well what did you expect" from drinking and smoking so much. The doctors chased the cancer around his body like the Coyote after the Road Runner, constantly being outsmarted and never catching the prize. Too late for radiotherapy. Too late for chemo. Strips were torn from him until his skin was translucent. I could see his veins and bones. I could pick him up and move him from sofa to bed. I had carried bundles of newspapers into the shop that weighed more than him.

You think when someone is facing (I can't even write it)... It makes them see the wrong in their lives and want to correct it. The reality is, we don't live in a soap, or a TV drama. This person is not finishing this series to go on and star in a West End Musical. It's just too incredibly frightening to deal with.

We had no revelatory moment. The moment I had perhaps invented and replayed in my head a million times. The moment where he says he's sorry for all the things he's done. I thought - "God, this man is STILL so f**king selfish". 

No, God, this was just a sad, scared man who was just petrified of dying.

When the doctors said they could do no more for him. His response was: "I want to go home".

Home with us.

We boxed away all our anger and frustrations. Took him home and tried to look after him as best we could. 

The rest is obvious, tedious, predictable, unsurprising and sad.

~

5 years on, those little balls of scrunched up grief, have slowly and painstakingly been unravelled. Some are torn, some are ruined. Some have opened up, very creased around the edges, to revelations about our relationship I can only look at and understand now:

I am stubborn.

I always fight for the underdog.

I loved arguing, believe in what I am saying and fighting for.

I don't draw the pictures of his imagination that he and Sareka saw, but I  imagine and write those images that are in my head. We all share a strange little fantasy world born from 'Milo Minderbenders' fantasy life.

I went to university to study literature.

I could pluck a pheasant. (If EVER the opportunity arises).

All the emotions I went through with my dad have given me the ammunition and the tools to explore my acting in ways I would not have had the capacity to do otherwise.

I learnt to question everything, not settle for things at face value.

As a result I am an Atheist. I appreciate life for life's sake and the beauty and frailty of everything around us.

I love Pink Floyd.

I ABSOLUTELY hate pasta!

Thank you for the weirdness.

You crazy, mad, gentle, emotionally stunted, scared, sad, passionate: 

paper man

The episode where I realise I have less than when I began

This one fell out of my brain a little faster than I anticipated... Better out than in I suppose.

N.B. And would it be heinously blasphemous (and magnificently big-headed) on my part to see the celebration of Jesus Christ's death on Friday and Resurrection on Sunday as "like, totally mirroring my life, man!"

So, I have moved out.

What little I have to show for my life was not even afforded proper boxes, only student style humongous black and red checked industrial wash bags (you know the ones). I wonder at this rate whether I'll be carried out one day in one of these myself; they were built to last longer than most humans.

Where I once prided my ability to move from home - to student house - to home - to new boyfriend - to home - to next new boyfriend with such fluidity and alacrity, I now look at the embarrassingly worthless (shamefully small) pile of crap that trails behind me with a creeping anxiety and despair.

Now, cards on the table:

1. I am 31 years old. 
- Or as my mum would so lovingly age-me-up, "you're 32 this year"
2. I no longer have a boyfriend.
3. I no longer have any near future plans to get married or have kids.
- As it turns out the prospect of marriage and subsequent sprogletts was off the table before I'd made the above decision and without any notification. (Maybe life should come with big iPhone red circled "notifications" just hanging there above your head as a reminder, for vital information such as this).
4. On the more trivial end of that scale. I will no longer have regular sex (see prev. blog)
5. The job I have now pays less then the first job I had when I left uni 10yrs ago.
- I updated my CV today. Turns out that first job was a hundred times more interesting too!
6. The career I want is going to cost a minimum of £9000 in training fees alone and full-time training. 
- All neatly packaged, sugar-coated and tied up with the fact that even after training there will be absolutely no guarantee of work in such a competitive industry.
7. I owe about the above amount in uni debt. Still! 
- It scares me to even write that. Clearly all monies earned since has done nothing but form an endless line of dark creamy, frothy Espresso Martinis. Which probably could have reached the moon by now and maybe earned me some money or notariety in the Guiness Book of Records. But hopefully scaring myself shitless and writing this fact might help to change things. Lord knows nothing else seems works with me.
8. The job I don't want, but need to pay said debts off is becoming a reality. 
- I have to seriously consider going back to being a PA in the Financial Sector to pay the bills, debts and save for the course.
9. This will take at least a year.
10. Back to point No.1 - I am 31 years old.... going on 32!
11. Refer then to point No. 6 - the acting profession is the mother of all competitive businesses. Age and looks are key. (n.b. Essential if you are of that slightly more annoying minority, the female persuasion)
12. Things are that bad that even my little brother's is taking pity on me. (And who right now probably earns more than me).
- He's kindly offered to help me move. 
- He's picking me up in his car, not only because I have no car, but I can't even drive!

On the face of it. Right now, life is feeling pre-tty shitty.

As a believer in every kind of astrology going; I have always relied on my monkey-like talents. Swinging, prancing, dancing and dodging from one situation to another. Keeping everyone entertained and impressing even myself with the ingenuity at which I can make things on the surface appear to go my way. What I have come to realise that with all of this mucking about, there have been no foundations laid. I'm like King Louie from Disney's Jungle Book, building an empire, desperate for fire to prove how clever I am (like the real humans) and all among crumbling ruins.

But I am also a Virgo. Pragmatic and as resourceful as ever. Not the person to shy away from hard work and dogmatic enough, when pushed enough, to keep going till they've achieved their goals.

It's juuuust that sometimes a little too apt to daydreaming and idealising the world to realise that it's a tough shitty little place out there. And it turns out that thinking good thoughts doesn't cut the mustard unless you are an actual Disney character...


But this razing to the ground of my entire existence isn't totally negative. 
I have read enough guru self-help books to spit and polish anything into something positive.


I have spent the last 10 years not knowing what I want out of life, not having enough conviction behind those vagaries to really push for what I wanted. I lived solely by, what I didn't want. The last few months have, at the very least, made what I really want crystal clear:


1. I still want to follow a career in acting.
- All excuses aside now, kids. F**k that big scary acting world out there! I'm coming to get you.
2. I want to clear all my debts and be solvent. 
- This might have to precede over the above more as a necessity than as a desire.
3. Turns out, marriage and children are important to me. 
- Who'd have thought it? Anyone who knows me from school may just have fallen off their stool laughing. But I am pleased I have at least realised this before it's too late.
- And I still have time to save myself this one for later. Until The Barwood Ovaries start ticking too loud for me to drown it out with some proper house music, that can wait. And I still have a good 4, sorry 3, solid years left before I can truly start to biologically panic.
4. I want my own personal library/study.
-I got to throw in at least one fantasy wish list in here. And it's not really a biggie. I don't want to be rich, I just want a house where I can (even pretend) to have walls full of books... and vinyl, and a big feck off leather armchair to ponder life's mysteries in.

"All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."

The episode where I get myself my very own "stalker"

Morning peoples,

I had hoped to write a very profound next blog droning on about the inspirations behind the acting bug, yada, yada, yada...


But "The Weirdness" has already descended on my life - as I promised you in the first part. Plus, I need a good, trivial RAAAAAANT!


So as some of you may know I have been single for all of a billionth of a nano-second. And like a blinded rabbit in the headlights, I have been regaled with horror stories both from longer term singles and fresh onto the dung heap singles. The one thing new to the dating game after my 7 years off the merry-go-round: stalkers!
(Now I do mean this in the most trivial sense of the word and I don't wish to denigrate sufferers of true stalkers.)


Lunch with one friend began with a catch-up on her dating success, "He's ok, nice guy, maybe a little short, but not bad on the whole". And it ended the weekend later with, "OMG, he's text me asking what I want for breakfast next week!" They hadn't even been on a second date yet. Lunch with another friend revealed she has a guy at work she dated only once who now won't leave her alone. And at her insistence that she was not interested, he then saw fit to become abusive towards her.

Now as appealing as all these (and many more) stories are to ease me soothingly into singledom. I do have visions of dating (now 7 years on since the emergence of dating websites) as some Matrix style farm, where everyone is plugged in blithely going about their dating business unaware that this energy in the search for love is being tapped into by some A.I. superbeing milking all our human energy to power some Mechanico-land!

I think I will pass thanks.

I really want time alone. With regards to that segment of my life, I want to fold it up like the last bit of a Terry Chocolate Orange, stick it in the fridge, deal with the other segments and save that one for later, thank you very much. Even with my friends stories to inspire me, dating is not on my radar, it's not even in the same star system right now. I want to concentrate on my baby budling acting career right?

So who the heck let down the Boyfriend Invisibility Screen without telling me?

You know get issued one of these B.I.S. as standard once you enter a relationship, right? And it protects you from the unwanted attention from the other menfolk in the village. You are girlfriend of (insert Neanderthals name here). Keep Off. And Carry On. It saves all of those embarrassing, I don't really like you moments you may have in the presence of strangers making untoward advances. You may even be issue with the Boyfriend Badge, which you pull out, unsheathe, holding arm outstretched, letting in glimmer in it's own radiance:

"Sorry, I have a BOOOOY - FRIEND"

Even the really fit ones. You can flirt outrageously, knowing you'll never get rejected, because you can pull out the badge and reject them first. Yes me! Rejecting the the hottest guys ever to utter a sentence in my presence... because "I have a BOOOOY - FRIEND!"

Well, someone took my screen and badge away without my notification and look what a pickle I get into.

Last week I got stopped by a rather sweaty, pasty, bad shorted runner in the park while waiting for a friend. I will admit we had an mildly interesting conversation. He was a life coach and well, let's not pussyfoot around the fact; my life right now is on its knees giving out its overly dramatic death throes.

Before I could fully realise where this conversation was really going it was all too late. My furtive glances into the distance for my friend should have given off the, "I'm not interested vibe"... I thought. Then came that awkward moment where he asked for my number so we could go for a coffee... "erm... errr... (2 minutes later).. erm... erm..." Still not getting the hint from my boundless enthusiasm to continue our conversation. I panicked, I didn't want to be rude, looking harder into the distance in the hope that Matlida-style I could push out tiny little fingers from my eyeballs and drag her there right that second.

No such luck.

And while we're here, another problem I have with today is; prank calling.

How can I give a fake number if he is going to stand right there and prank call me! I had no way out. My number was handed over reluctantly like the child who stole from the biscuit tin. I made my excuses to leave and said I was very busy, but maaaaaybe we could meet up "ONLY AS FRIENDS" and I ran - like a startled golden poodle in a wind tunnel.

A week later and I have over 10 missed calls, 5 voice messages, more calls from another number, landline, he already told me he worked in Reading (so checked the dialling code), and 6 text messages. I have replied to none. And now I have no idea what to do.

So I have a few questions about boys, dating and meetings in general:

1. Did I do anything wrong? Could I have handled that one better?

2. Have you been in worse situations. How did you deal with it?

3. Why is it we feel we can't say no without feeling guilty? My friend tried to say no and faced a barrage of abuse?

4. And finally, are they only "stalkers" because we didn't like them. If that was some tall athletic demi-god, would my friend have welcomed his offer of breakfast, or me the offer of coffee and a chat about life?...

Okay, rant over...


(feel much better now - thanks) ;-)

“So much time, and so little to do! Strike that, reverse it.”

It's a phrase that I have acted more than a thousand times, much to my delight and the annoyance of my nearest & dearest. Those who know me, know well enough to never play Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in my vicinity; that and Bugsy Malone. Unless you want to here me squarking the lines parrot-fashion through the entire film - and all lines at least 3 seconds before they have been uttered by the real characters.

I would strangle that parrot- I really would!

Recently, this quote has had more resonance than I could ever wish for. The best part of my life has been spent believing the former. I have lived my life as though I have an eternity still ahead of me and doing very little of worth to fill it's vastness. And I have no doubt that this is undeniably true for the majority of the people around me. We all believe that somehow we are invulnerable, eternally youthful, immune to pain and hurt and will continue like this for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever... Ok, you geddit.

I blame the media (well, everyone else does!)

But we are not James Bond, Neo, Angelie Jolie, Brad Pitt, or their kids, and Dan Brown still hasn't given us the clues and the symbols to finding the fountain of eternal youth.

So, in the last few years, months and weeks, the latter part of this quote has come to haunt me, to the point of panicked terror and sleepless nights. Oddly enough, not long after hitting the 30 "mile" mark.

I have bumbled and stumbled to this point in my life, with indescribable highs and desperate lows. With episodic unravelling comedy scenes to rival the Hangover, and dramas more outrageous than an Eastenders script. But it all contained one uniting theme; I had absolutely fuck-all direction. Which has led me to the situation I am in now.

We/I really have so little time.

And most importantly, I have so much to do. So much I want to do. And quite honestly, all joking aside, it scares me shitless.

As a result of these thoughts and feelings, little by little, or in great whacking chunks, whole areas of my life have begun to change. From the huge to the small, from the obvious to the obscure, and from the necessary the unnecessitated. I have no doubt that it will still contain the bumbling stumblings inherent to this Barwood make and model (you can't teach a middle-aged dog all new tricks!) But there are some areas in my life that I have given new direction, ok, actually all of them as you will see. And I hope to at least provide some amusing anecdotes (if nothing else) as to how it all goes to plan... or how it strays hopelessly from it!


Acting has been my sole career of choice for as long as I can remember. I think the decision came after the little confusing mix-up, aged 7, where I announced to my mum's dinner party that I wanted to be a "stripper"! But since leaving university life has gotten horrendously in the way. I will admit that I have happily let another life slip in... actually more like totally run amok and get completely in the way. I am sure many of you know the fear, "what if I am utterly appalling at what I really want to do? How could I ever recover from that kind of humiliation?" And for that matter, where would I then go with the rest of my life if I don't have my dreams to keep me company?" Sometimes a dream can be a burden as well as a goal. But as a friend so eloquently put it, "What if you wake up, aged 50, having never at least tried to fulfil your dreams." How would feel about that fear that stopped you from living your life?

Not everyone can be Buster Merryweather. (I know you will Google it)

I can't even grow that beard to start with...

I digress.

So I have started with the acting "malarky". It doesn't sound so scary when I make it sound whimsical like that. What has been endless empty chatter in everyone's ears for far too long, is now beginning to slowly take place.

And as I promised, there are already Barwood-stylee random situations occuring, which could and would only happen to me...

Which I will save for another day children ;-)

Goodnight x