Highlights this month
- Much happens!
- An apology!
- Babywipes!
Becripes lads, it’s the first of June and I haven’t a thing written. It’s been a giddy whirlwind, amigos and I’ve done so much publicity that I can’t ABIDE myself. I hate myself quite a bit at the best of times but two months listening to myself talking shite on the radio and telly has just about finished me off. Okay! I’ll tell you what’s been happening but it’s weird, I kept thinking to myself during the last month, I really must remember to tell my amigos this or I really must say that on the blog, but the only thing I can remember now is Babywipes. (We’ll come to them.)
First, an apology. In my current book This Charming Man, I have a community of cross-dressers and transvestites and when I was doing my research I misunderstood something. I thought that cross-dressers were straight and that transvestites were gay but I have it wrong. Either can be straight, bi or gay and it was very kindly pointed out to me that if you’re a wife or girlfriend of a man who comes out as a transvestite, you might mistakenly think he was gay. So sincere apologies for this, I hope I haven’t caused any distress and I am really really sorry if I have.
Start of the month, a lot of me talking shite on the radio and telly, then coming out of the studio, jack-knifed with shame when I remembered some of the things I said. See, they tell you that they can’t have ‘dead air’ and to say ANYTHING rather than nothing and I’m afraid that I’m quite obedient that way. Anyway, I know publicity is great and all that and in fairness the book has been doing above and beyond my wildest dreams – the reviews have been AMAZING and the sales have been record-breaking – thank you very much to all of you who might have bought it and I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it – but the other effect of publicity apart from selling books is to send me into a pit of self-hatred, a familiar enough place for me, of course, as regular readers will know, but all the same. What makes it worse is that I am astonishingly lucky to get so much access to the media, so I feel very ungrateful on top of my self-hatred and the variety is nice, I suppose!
On May 8th I left the country and went to Brighton to the Waterstones Sales Conference for actually a very nice night. I presented a prize and met very nice people and stayed in a nice hotel. The next day myself and Himself went to Belgrade in Serbia because Nena was home from Australia with baby Oliver and Ljiljana (my sister-in-law) was coming from Prague with Ema and Luka (my niece and nephew) and we had a really lovely few days. Ljiljana’s mother Zaga fed us until we wept and I almost bought a stunning pair of raspberry-coloured suede wedges but talked myself out of it, so felt virtuous. I must tell you what Ema said to me. We were staggering over to Nena’s family for a barbeque, which was somewhat tragic because the reason we were staggering was because we’d been ‘Zaga’d. So much grub, lads, oh god, so much delicious, delicious food. All made by Zaga and when we were leaving she gave us a goody bag, just in case we got hungry on the 20 minute walk. Anyway, we’re lurching along, holding our stomachs (Himself had his in a wheelbarrow, which he was pushing along in front of him) and Ema remarked to me that my lipstick had disappeared (that would have been down to the inhuman quantities of food I’d consumed) and she said, “And you don’t have any with you.” (Because she knows everything.) But! Yes, but! She sez, “You can have some of mine! I always bring a lipstick with me because you never know when you might need it.” She’s eight, amigos, 8.
After a mild scrape with Serbian officialdom, I was allowed to leave the country.
What happened was I bought myself a little painting, nothing expensive,
we’re not talking Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, but it was so sweet
and very Serbian and I’d seen something similiar the last time I was
in Belgrade and loved it and this time I bought it and was marching through
customs with it rolled up like a big tube of Smarties under my oxter when
I was stopped sharply by a girl in a uniform who told me I couldn’t
take it out of the country without the correct paperwork. Well, I was startled,
this was not the fecking Holy Grail I was trying to leave with and after
some discussion I was escorted downstairs to the bowels of Belgrade airport
and into an office with a load of officials and the Big Man himself, sitting
behind a big desk. Discussion ensued. So did phone calls and the upshot
was a definite ‘Ne’. I could not take my not-expensive, if very
lovely, painting with me. At this point I got to my feet and launched into
an impassioned speech, making eye contact all the time with The Big Man.
“I love Serbia,” I said. “And I love Belgrade! But no-one
else does! Oh no! Everyone else hates you! Yes. But I’ve been here
many times!” (Twice counts as many, in my book.) “Because I
love Serbia. Yes!” (I believe I may have thumped my chest at this
point.) “But you may have noticed that no-one else loves you. For
the love of God, you don’t even have Starbucks! Consider it gentlemen,
even STARBUCKS WON’T COME HERE. And they’re everywhere. They
probably have a branch in Mogadishu! But I’m here! And I’ve
always told everyone else they were wrong to hate you. But, gentlemen, I’m
reconsidering my position. You’re behaving like an inefficient banana
republic! A stupid bureaucracy!” (At this point I caught sight of
Himself’s face. He was as white as a sheet and written, very clearly,
on his fizzog was, “If you get me thrown in a Serbian slammer and
I have to miss Robert Plant, Golden Rock God, I will never forgive you.”)
“A small-minded, petty laughing stock! And I’m not sure I can
say that I still love Serbia! Because I’m sad now. Yes, disappointed!
Because I loved Serbia quite a lot -”
The next thing The Big Man was coming around from behind his desk and
was shoving my painting at me. “Take,” he said. “Go. Take.
Go.”
It took me a moment to realise what was happening. “You mean I can
have my painting?”
Someone placed it in my arms and I was overjoyed! “So!” I declared.
“I was RIGHT to love Serbia as I do!”
“Take,” he repeated grimly, ushering me to the door. “Go.
Leave. Go. Go.”
“They could see how much I loved Serbia,” I said happily to
Himself as we ran to taunt the girl who had originally stopped us. “That’s
why they let me take it.”
“It’s because they could see that you weren’t going to
shut up any time soon,” he replied.
Anyway! Next stop Paris! To see Robert Plant GRG (Golden Rock God) and the
charmingly lickarsey Alison Krauss in concert. Himself ADORES Robert Plant
GRG and he wasn’t playing in Ireland and we couldn’t get tickets
in Blighty so we decided we’d go wild and go to Paris and yes, it
was good, good stuff. Your woman has such a beautiful voice – do you
know her? She did a lot of the music for Oh Brother Where Art Thou? She
also had a lovely pair of black boots on, very, very high. They might have
been by Stella McCartney, but I was seated quite far away, so can’t
be sure.
Then we got the Eurostar to London and I met Suzanne and we had a lovely time then Himself and myself drove up to stay with his parents in Saffron Walden and on the Saturday we went over to Chris and Caron to see Jude (3) and Gabe (1), delicious the pair of them. Then on Sunday, we went to the opera at Glyndebourne with John and Shirley (Himself’s parents) and mes amies, I’m sorry to be such a philistine but I think I must have a tin ear or something. Opera just isn’t for me. I just don’t get it. So another reason to hate myself! Huzzah!
Then home to Ireland briefly to check on the little sister, Rita-Anne who
is due any day now! Such excitement! More media, in particular the Late Late
Show, where I met the boxer Bernard Dunne and also his lovely wife Pamela and
if anyone has an address for them, will you forward it on because Pamela lent
me her hoody because we were very cold standing outside doing the barbeque and
she disappeared before I got to thank her and give it back to her.
Then! Off again! This time to Hay on Wye, a literary festival in the most difficult
place on the planet to reach. No matter where you fly to, you still have many
thousands of miles to drive (or so it seems.) Nevertheless, it was thrilling.
I was on the Sky Arts programme with – yes! – film legend Kathleen
Turner who was very, very warm and nice and down-to-earth. The following day
I did an event with the lovely Penny Vincenzi and the ultra-amazing Sandi Toksvig
– do you know her? She is magnificent, a one-off, a force of nature. She
is very involved with a charity called WomanKind, which I must look up and find
out more about. Then, thank you so much to the people who braved the rain and
the Battle of the Somme style conditions (the mud! That night when I was getting
undressed I discovered some on my bra!) for the reading on the Friday night,
I had such a great time, I’m still on a high from it. And then home! My
horoscope told me that Mercury had just started going backwards (all Virgos
beware) and sure enough we got caught up in a fecking protest at Heathrow and
nearly missed the flight. We had to do ‘The Run.’ I love seeing
other people doing The Run, (racing red-faced and sweaty through the airport,
dragging a wheely yoke behind them) I think it’s a very noble thing to
do, you have to be entirely without vanity and I always wish the people well
and hope they catch the flight. And we DID catch the flight and got home last
night and here we are.
Meanwhile the (Caitríona and Sean’s) wedding plans continue unabated.
I’m on flowergirl dress detail, which is quite a challenge seeing as one
flowergirl lives in Long Island and the other lives in Prague, but I like this
sort of thing. I am also on hen-night duty, which again I quite like doing.
I can spend hours on line looking up spa treatments when I should be working.
Right, baby wipes! Maybe you know all about this already, in which case I apologise.
But you know when you send stuff to the dry-cleaners and it comes back 14 shades
lighter and the material is gone all weird and stiff and cardboardy and the
very stain that you sent the stuff away to be cleansed of, is still defiantly
there? Yes? Well, don’t bother any more. Use a babywipe! They can remove
almost anything which makes it a little bit of a worry when you think about
what they might be doing to your baby’s skin.
Michael Morrison, if you’re reading this, I had a lovely dream about you just before I woke up this morning, in which you told me you were very happy. Then I was very happy!
Right I have to go. There isn’t a fecking thing to eat in this house and
I’ve to go to Tescos. I hope you had a lovely May and that June is good
to you. Thank you again to everyone who bought my book, despite all my whinging,
this has been one of the most magical times of my life. The book has sold so
fast and in such astonishing, record-breaking numbers and has got such respectful
reviews that I am overwhelmed with gratitude. You are all so very good to me
and I am grateful, grateful, grateful. Thank you so very, very much!
With lots of love and gratitude
Marian xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx