Look.

I started off strong, the wind in my hair…the wind beneath my wings…just so much wind.

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote (I’m not exaggerating, I mean literally that, I wrote 3 Substacks) and then I lost my nerve / groove / that damn wind.

Well guess what? A gale is blowing and like Mary Poppins I have dropped into your life again uninvited and with a really heavy bag (except mine is a tote and it’s given me a crick neck, more on that later, if you behave yourselves).

I know what you’re thinking - “Alice, where have you been? Starting a new podcast or something? You l3gEnD”. Gosh, I wasn’t going to bring it up, but yes, exactly that, now you mention it. It’s a show with my close personal colleague Greg James, off of looking like a Disney prince and making loads of money for charity. It’s called Bad Chat and is a very free-flowing, chatty, silly, hopefully funny, meandering mess. Did Miranda Sawyer in The Observer say it was ‘spit your coffee out funny’? Gosh II, Return of the Gosh, did she? I don’t read reviews, but that’s sooooo sweet of her. Bless.

Here's all the ways your can listen / chat to us

And here’s a picture of me in a bath with GJ, just a bit of blue for the dads.

So please do join us. Make it a club, and the show you go to for a guaranteed laugh (shit, is that a legally binding claim?), like Adam and Joe, The Ricky Gervais Show (you know, before) and Elis and John were / are for me.

Speaking of which, I’ve lost my mind for Caleb Heron (in general) and his show So True (specifically). He is UNBELIEVABLY quick, but also thoughtful and generous as a host.

Giving you the youtube but wherever you get your podcasts etc

I basically don’t know any of the US stand ups he has on and yet they are all an amazing listen, this clip really tickled me:

@calebsaysthingsI have been accused. new ep with @Matteo Lane out now #fyp

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Also also speaking of hilarious podcasts that also INFORM, do you remember that show I do called British Scandal? What do you mean you used to listen on your commute all the time but now your sister-in-law drives you to work and she listens to Capital? THAT’S NOT MY PROBLEM GUYSSSSSSS. Well it sort of is because due to OVERWHELMING public demand, a cool 5 years after the first one, we are doing a live show. It’s about that gold toilet that got stolen. Already lolling. Me and Matt are so excited for it because we loved the first one and with his touring schedule and my commitment to The Pitt, we might never get to do this again. Please come, we’re going to really lose it, I can feel it!

Tix baby

Okay well that’s all for now because I’ve only eaten a Kinder Bueno Happy Hippo and I’m getting quite grouchy.

Tell me things that are going on with you, or that I should listen to or just enjoy how you will never be as late with handing in your homework as I am.

Speak soon

May the wind be in your sails x

PS because you were good - my back! Or shoulder? My wing? Lord above, it’s been soooo painful. I couldn’t actually get out of bed. My friends dad gave me comfrey to rub on it (how? I can’t even look at my feet? Or put my bra on. So French, so chic). Another friend gave me co-codamol. Jesus. Tread carefully. Felt like I had smacked my head on the floor (again - please see one of the aforementioned 3 posts). You know the thing that cured it? It really was a gamechanger. These supplements that I’ve recently invested in I’ll link to them-

JOKING.

Obviously nothing helps and I’ve just done some cries and watched old eps of ER sat up straight because The Pitt has run out.

Hope your body isn’t being old on you x

As I was “on the road”, and this was olden times, almost all of my communication with home (and beyond) was via email. A hotmail at that. Don’t, so undignified.

I’m not sure why, but all information about this pitstop was via F (rather than direct). He told me where my hosts lived and what my instructions were for when I arrived at LAX early in the morning. I was to get a minibus service which would drop me in their neighbourhood (Beverly Hills!) and I would have a short walk to their place. Upon arrival I’d find their front door unlocked (!!), they would be out at work, but I should just let myself in. They predicted that after my long flight I would probably want to get washed, fed, watered etc, so I should do all that, then phone them at work. Their office was local, so they could pop back, give me a tour and then I could amuse myself for the day until they returned in the evening.

To be honest at 19 (and dare I say now), this was a perfect scenario. An opportunity to get my bearings and chill out (Gap Years are tough, mannn) before having to make extended small talk with parent-age strangers. Ideal.

Walking up their wide street, I was in the sunny, shiny LA of so many TV series I’d seen, after all I was actually in 90210. The architecture was so familiar; terracotta roof tiles, arched doorways and pale render, it could all have been a set. There were palms and tropical plants in the front gardens and precisely topiaried hedges bordering properties. And those properties were MASSIVE FUCK OFF MANSIONS. I could not believe my luck. I was also annoyed that my dad hadn’t inveigled his way into this family’s inner circle more substantially. Why weren’t we here all the time?!

When I got to the address F had given me, I walked up the path with symmetrical lawn on either side, and reached the front door. As I mentioned, they had told me to treat the place like my own, but it felt presumptuous to just bowl in, so I knocked in case they hadn’t left for work yet. I was a little startled when a petite woman with a broom and a uniform answered the door. Oh. They hadn’t mentioned anyone else might be there. This wasn’t in the plan. I briefly explained that I was Alice, and they were expecting me. The woman started replying to me in Spanish. Ah. I didn’t (and don’t) know any Spanish. I just repeated what I had said again, still in English. She responded. Still in Spanish. Hmmmm. We were a little bit stuck. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me to come in, or telling me to piss off. Expression wise, it really wasn’t clear either. I was exhausted and grubby and hungry. So, as I remember it, I smiled my biggest (apologetic) smile and slipped past her into the open plan room. Bold, as I write it now. She stood by the door, with it still ajar, and stared. I wittered on to her for a bit, mainly to fill the silence. Eventually she shut the door and headed into the kitchen area at the other end of the room. She started sweeping a bit of floor, but kept her eyes trained on me suspiciously.

I decided to plough on, definitely unnerved by an audience but also preoccupied by the relief of having finally arrived. I sat on the horseshoe sofa and took off my heavy walking boots. When I opened my rucksack it exploded all over the living room floor. Months’ worth of supplies no longer willing to be held prisoner. I went up the long staircase to find the bathroom and brush my teeth, passing a picture wall of wedding snaps and family portraits as I ascended. I couldn’t spot F with his trademark moustache amongst them. I couldn’t remember if he was camera shy?

I pottered for a while; I had a shower and came downstairs with a towel on my head, made myself a sandwich ‘on rye’ (what a thrill!) and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the island. I cannot stress enough at this point that I was expressly told to do this. The lady in the uniform moved around the space, but was never distracted from my presence. I looked out of the kitchen window beyond her to see a huge, blue pool! What was this place!? I was the cat that had got the half-and-half (oh it’s a thing us Angelinos used to say, you probably won’t get it).

Feeling refreshed and revived, it was time to give F’s sister a call. So I picked up the wall phone, it looked like the one in sitcoms - a chunky plastic handset with an extra long coiled chord - and rang the number F had given me.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Alice, F said to call to say I’m here”

“Oh already! Great, I’m just upstairs in the home office, I’ll be right down!”

“Oh! Great, thanks!”

Upstairs? In the home office? How PALATIAL is this place that they didn’t hear me rattling around?! So cool. I was probably staying in a different WING. What did they do for a living to live somewhere like this?

I waited for F’s sister to appear down the stairs. But she didn’t. I waited a bit longer. I suddenly had an uneasy feeling. It was punctured by the phone ringing, which made me jump. I looked at the woman in the uniform, she looked back at me. Stalemate. I broke and walked over, tentatively picking it up.

“Hello…urmmm…Alice speaking?”

“Hi Alice, it’s F’s sister, where are you?”

That’s not good.

“Urrrrrm…I’m in your kitchen”

Pause.

“I’m in my kitchen?”

My insides somersaulted. She sounded more alarmed now.

“Where EXACTLY are you?”

I read aloud the address F had given me from the crumpled email print out.

“Ohhhh” she said, a penny dropping for her but not me. Her tone shifting towards the positive, momentarily giving me hope. Maybe she had forgotten about the other kitchen in the other house they had?

“You’re at 213, we’re 231!”

I thought I was going to be sick - ideally so I could reconstitute the vomit into the apple I had STOLEN and return it to the bowl!!

“Oh. Right. I’ll………..be right there” I said, unsure if that was true.

I replaced the handset gently, ‘casually’ walked over to my heap of belongings and started shoving all of my dirty laundry back into my bag. I hurried upstairs and retrieved my toothbrush and put the wet hair towel on the side of the bath. I came down and tried to quickly put my walking boots on - have you ever tried to do walking boot laces quickly? Jesus.

I heaved the rucksack, which wouldn’t full zip up, onto my back. As if I was always supposed to pop in for 45 minutes, eat the contents of the fridge, and swan around in a towel, I said “thanks so much, I’ll be right back”. Why say that? Why say anything? She kept looking at me, understandably COMPLETELY baffled. I scuttled out of the door.

I half-ran back along the path with the lawn on either side with my walking boot laces trailing behind me. When I got to the sidewalk, I searched left and then right, not knowing which way I was heading. Far up the street, in the direction I had originally come from, were two figures standing out in the road, themselves searching. I quick-walked to them, heart pounding.

All I remember of that conversation is the confusion and dismay in their voices. I could tell they wanted to scold me but I wasn’t a kid and they didn’t know me. So in a strained voice, F’s sister impressed upon me:

“Alice, you just can’t do that here!”

Do what? Trespass? Break and Enter? Thieve? Yeah, snap! Marginally frowned on back home too!! (As if usually in the UK we go on holiday, choose an area we enjoy, and when we arrive JUST LIVE IN THE HOUSE WE LIKE THE MOST!)

I was mortified. But as you can tell I’m over it now.

Some of you will likely want a ‘where are they now’ like at the end of a film, so here goes…

The ‘wrong’ house belonged to a French family who F’s sister wasn’t really acquainted with but she did comment that she thought they were “quite serious”. And so they decided it appropriate to send a muffin basket (so American, love) as a gesture of apology.

The story reached my family faster than any message has ever been transmitted even though the information had to travel LA —> NYC —> Nottingham. F did not recognise his part in the debacle or apologise.

That remains the first and only time I have seen F’s sister.

But, let me end this on a heart warming note. Dear reader, that January I married the petite Spanish-speaking lady with the broom. And this year we are celebrating 20 years together.

What?

Come on, that is a great meet-cute! And I need an ending!

Okay fine, I went to Universal Studios on my own and hated it.

Thanks so much for reading, if you could spread the word far and wide, mainly to this neighbourhood in LA so I can have an emotional reunion, that would be fantastic.

I’m still fascinated to know what the woman cleaning the wrong house told the inhabitants / her family / her mates down the pub.

I also often think how people in America have guns and don’t love you wandering into their homes uninvited (if I now understand the cultural nuance correctly). Whooops.

Very much like hearing from you so send me thoughts, feelings, emotions

A x

PS so much to enjoy with this picture of me returning to Heathrow after 6 (?) months away. Are they knock off Ugg boots? Turn ups? The earrings. Oh yes brown hair. I definitely remember the bag being 8x this size. The list goes on…

PPS Special thanks to my Mum for finding this picture and for letting me go on a Gap Year at all, when I know the idea of me trotting around the globe when I had no common sense whatsoever made her central nervous system short circuit!

John’s tenure coincided with a weekend trip I took to the Otherside of London to visit my pals, their kids and their dog. This combination of residents is important because whenever I stay I am a bit embarrassed about everything they manage to juggle with ease, and how little in comparison I can find overwhelming. I not-so-secretly envy their ability to jump into the unknown and embrace the spontaneous.

When I arrived, some new members of the family had been integrated with characteristic effortlessness; two skinny, slinky, inky kittens. Eggs and Sam were some of the best cats I’d ever met (including ones I grew up with for many years, offence intended, RIP, don’t dig too deep in the flowerbed back right). Originally acquired from a school-gates connection, they were welcomed in as handsome mouse hunters, but doubled up as a new obsession for the kids. Often, the unbelievably strong (and fearless) 3-year-old of the family would grip one of the cats from above, her arms fully around its rib cage, lifting it onto its hind legs, and would waddle with it from room to room. Maybe in spite of someone performing WWE moves on them repeatedly, or maybe because of it, they were super affectionate, cuddly, non-scratchy dudes.

All weekend, as I sat with alternating loud, purring balls of heat on my lap (does that sound bad on second reading? It’s too late) my friends campaigned for me to go with them to get the remaining two from the litter - “you never get to try before you buy with pets, but you KNOW these aren’t wankers” was the gist. I had been talking about getting an old, doddery, boy rescue cat for years, I was already vulnerable to the sell. And you really don’t want to end up with a rubbish one do you? It’s no life to return home to something hostile hissing at you from under the sofa. But enough about my exes etc etc. Is this thing on?! This felt like a rare opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a quality cat organisation. Although there was a high chance my friends were just fulfilling their obligation to recruit me as part of their feline MLM affiliation.

Whatever the motivation, I very quickly found myself in PetLand or Pets4U (or whatever it’s called), loading a basket with dry biscuits, a litter tray and various weird combinations of feathers stuck to ping pong balls.

From there my memory cinematically hard cuts to me shimmying under the bed of a very quiet, very tall man, who clearly wanted to get on with his work in the other room, but had to supervise me “meeting” the kittens. My friend made small talk about how well their cute siblings were getting on living with his family while I tried to charm them out. He was working hard to buy me time, but I knew I had to make a call. Lying on my stomach, in amongst a stranger’s suitcases and hand-weights, I decided…

Next scene of the movie Cat Lady; I am in a cab with the kittens in a carrier, on a dual carriage way. The kittens hate it, they are scratching and are crying. I hate it, I am not scratching but I am crying. Due to various traffic debacles and London being ridiculous, the journey takes 2 hours. Cool. Let’s not think about what that has cost, because the feathered ping pongs balls weren’t cheap either. Let’s just get these mad little things home and we will all feel better.

Oh shit! John Pathman is at home, with his beautiful bullnose. Thankfully he doesn’t know me very well, so he might think I am always red and blotchy and crying. Turns out John is a HUGE cat fan. He promises to bring his beloved (now deceased) cat’s play accessories for me and ‘the girls’. Thanks, John. Sounds great! I seem to be experiencing a major unravelling but…..another tea? Milkandtwosugarscomingupppppp!!

Me and the two in the box go into my kitchen, John waving from the doorstep, and plan the rest of our lives. The kittens, now named Jill and Anne, have to stay in one room to acclimate. They quite quickly go stir crazy, as do I. I decide my obligation as their guardian is to spend every waking moment with them in order that they don’t hurt themselves, get bored, turn into adult cats with behavioural issues, die. You might say that this resembles the early weeks and months of having a baby, I think that’s a bit of a reach, this was so much more draining and important.

During this period of learning to be a family, I cried A LOT. I briefly paused when I had friends pop in to visit my very hot kitchen (I couldn’t open the windows in case the cats jumped out). A few of them were noticeably confused by my attire and demeanor (Lost Property rejects, crazed). I didn’t have time to think about what I was wearing, the kittens couldn’t be alone. I couldn’t wash my hair, please see previous excuse. When the pals discovered I had been sleeping near the kitchen, “in case the kittens needed me”, their alarm palpably ramped. One of them just walked in, tripping over a play tunnel and other assault course items and put it right by saying “wow, well this feels mad”.

It was mad. But I didn’t know why. I went out one night for a friend’s birthday, and I got a different friend to cat sit. The birthday group ended up going to a pub opposite the Old Bailey which has a resident bar cat that wears a barrister’s ruff. I burst into tears again. A KC coughing up a hair ball, too much.

What on Earth was going on?

I attach a picture of the kittens telling me to stop crying, hilariously bleak. I can make light of it now (I’m sure you’re thinking, yes, PLEASE when will that start) but I was SO sad at the time. Really disproportionately overcome with the feels. The responsibility? The perceived lack of control? Change? At that point I didn’t know, but it made me feel really bad. The most baffling part was they were perfect cats; playful, affectionate, unbearably sweet when they slept wrapped up in each other in my fruit bowl. It made no sense, this should be FUN! Children get pets! This is not a thing an adult woman should be thrown by!

My brother rang me on Cat Day 6, I was still in a state. “Okay. I think you should feel a bit better by now” he said calmly, “what if I told you we could take them back, and the kittens would be fine, how would that make you feel?”. I burst into tears again. Which was my new way of responding to simple questions. I guess I would feel relieved, I blubbed. So the next day, he drove over and we took Jill and Anne back to the tall/quiet man. The tall/quiet man was impressively unmoved as I stood in his living room hyperventilating, snotting and apologising for my naivety and lack of resilience, pleading with him to understand that I wasn’t usually rash about things and I did take it seriously. He very very didn’t care. My brother took pity on us both and guided me by the shoulders out of his flat, otherwise I’d probably still be there now saying sorry.

The next morning, John arrived to do some Grade A pathing. He immediately asked me where ‘the girls’ were. I didn’t know how to tell him. I felt like a parent trying to break the news to their young kids that Grandma had gone to a better place. “They’re…having a holiday at my brother’s” I said feebly. They are on the farm now, John, they’re on the beautiful farm…

I didn’t tell many people about this whole bonkers moments when it happened, because, well, I was so embarrassed. It felt like such a small thing to be defeated by, when people are so stoical about things that are ACTUALLY BAD. But as time has passed, I’ve told a few people. And the most shocking response? It turns out, I’m not the only one! There’s a subset of pet owners who didn’t last the course. Okay, A SMALL subset, but still, it’s a thing. And everyone feels TERRIBLE about it.

I’ve reflected on my meltdown a lot now. And I think it was such a shock for two reasons.

1. I worried that failing at owning cats, was an indicator of a greater personal failing, it made me worry I was mean, selfish, pathetic…un-maternal? STOP JOINING IN!!?

2. At the time the kittens arrived, I lived on my own. They were supposed to make me feel like I had company, everyone said how nice it would be to have some tiny paws padding down the stairs when I got home. But I really liked living on my own, I didn’t find it too quiet or lonely at all. I found it serene and easy. I could go away for a night on a whim or stay out late (you know until, like, 10 or something) and no one would be affected. The kittens arrival highlighted the one thing I didn’t like about living on my own, that all the responsibility is always on you. Who didn’t put the bins out? Oh, ooops, that would be me. Who didn’t get more milk? Guilty! Who didn’t feed the cats for a year because they forgot? Arghhhh. Their welfare was in my hands only. There was no one to tag team with to take a shift. I now had a fixed routine and dependents, I had people (okay, kittens) to check in with and no back up. If I dropped the ball it was all my fault. And weirdly that felt lonely.

I told one friend this theory, feeling quite relieved that I had worked it through on my own and got to the bottom of it. He nodded throughout, which I mistook for agreement. When I had finished he said with light surprise “I just thought we all accepted that it was all about your breakup”. Oh. I see. Right. Did we? There was that. A few weeks before I got them. Hmmmm. I guess, possibly? That could have contributed. Maybe. Probably not. Unlikely. Seems a reach…

It was the break-up, wasn’t it?

Fuck.

Don’t get kittens heartbroken.

Do NOT get a new fringe cut either.

Just do something safe, just ring John and pave over the cracks.

Thanks for reading, less crying more laughing next time x

And yet…the anxiety dreams. They fall into two main categories:

1. A variation of the one you have all probably had; it's the forgotten deadline, the essential module that you haven’t completed so you can’t graduate, it’s the whole year to complete the dissertation that you have somehow entirely squandered.

2. The “I think I killed a man in Leeds International Pool” one

Oh, Leeds International Pool, you wally. A place of great lore, and it’s moniker one of great promise. So the legend goes, it was built to much excitement and fanfare. A jewel in the city’s aquatic crown (which sounds like something King Triton would wear, made of a circle of conga-ing Yellow Tangs). But, allegedly, in some design botch-up, the blueprints for the main pool hadn't accounted for the thickness of the tiles that lined the pool walls, meaning when it was built its overall length was a whisper shy of the 50m requirement to officially be considered an Olympic pool. So no international championships for Leeds. Not even the county go-to, apparently everyone swam off to Sheffield for their meets instead.

As I say, I don’t know that this is true, but the thought gives me a stomach ache. Imagine realising, in the middle of the night, long after sign-off that you had forgotten to add that one, essential, measurement. Someone senior would have flagged it, surely? The CAD programme would have demanded a thickness for that feature automatically? No? But, in fact, you are the only one who thought of it and now it’s too late. So you just wait…2…3…5 years for the project to be completed. Why would anyone measure it this far down the line? The first semi-finals they host, you’re home and dry. Right? But delays. Council red tape. Contractor issues. The project drags on like a cursed Grand Design. And the whole time you’re the only one who holds the secret. Just a few millimetres between you and your old, carefree life. You win awards, you get promotions, your wife falls pregnant with a much longed for baby girl, you can’t enjoy ANY of it, because, The Tiles. You move to a new company, they “loved what you did with the Leeds International Pool”. They don’t know. Every tap on the shoulder, every “can you pop into my office when you get in today” email, a chill down the spine. It’s a rounding error! What’s a little 1cm between friends? Actually don’t answer that. (Stopppp. You’re embarrassing yourselves.)

Perhaps because of this mishap then, the day I went, I wasn’t met with something resembling those jolly renders that architect practices produce, with lots of trees at the entrance and a mum with a pram strolling in the periphery. I got changed in the very dank and decrepit locker room. The mood of the place was; we haven’t been shut down, but we haven’t not been shut down. The pool was empty, save for a handful of other swimmers, including one very old man. Chekhov’s Old Man.

Even though the pool was so undersubscribed there were still passive aggressive signs everywhere, the ones usually reserved for crowd control issues. At the end of the lanes were the suggested speeds, with anti-clockwise instructions for turning.

Now, I’m a decent swimmer. Not Olympic standard - good job, I’d have been in the wrong place! etc etc. But I’ve been known to hold my own next to a Garmin wearing maniac at London Fields Lido. And I won the Front Crawl race at school. Hate to brag. *quieter voice* As it turned out I was actually competing in the Breast Stroke event, and so was disqualified, but I think my point remains.

So ‘Slow’ wasn’t an option, frankly. And I’m not arrogant enough to jump straight into ‘Fast’, and there was a mirrored goggle-wearer in there already, who looked the business. In ‘Medium’ I found myself behind the Old Man.

I did a couple of laps following him. As he moved at the speed of continental drift, I’ll admit, I was getting a bit annoyed. He was in the wrong lane. Clearly not Medium by anyone’s metric. Having tried to hang back and give him a head start, I started to gain on him for a 3rd or 4th time.

Importantly, I was 19, I knew nothing of the ways of the world. I couldn’t drive, so wasn’t even able to try and transfer the rules of the road to the rules of the pool. BUT, I was, and remain, terrified of getting in trouble. What I certainly wasn’t going to do was put myself in a position where I was being told off by the Old Man, or even, God forbid, a lifeguard. Overtaking him seemed aggressive. Alpha. Obnoxious. I’d win the battle but lose the moral war. Was it even allowed? Was there a sign for that? Bombing, definitely out, famously. Heavy petting wasn’t a risk in this case. But I couldn’t remember if overtaking was sanctioned?!

So, my brain offered up an innovative solution: just UNDERtake him. Yes! I’d dive down, glide beneath him like those aerial videos of surfers on their boards, oblivious that they are floating above a Killer Whale or Great White. Then I’d heroically resurface…15 (?) meters ahead of him and continue my lap, now in the lead position. If he was glancing away, there was a good chance he wouldn’t even notice. An act of charity, which would allow him to save face. I wouldn’t be thanked, but I’d have done a good deed and that would be enough for me. Maybe later, in the showers, someone would come up to me and tell me they’d seen it from afar, tell me it was a really classy move. I’d shrug, it was nothing.

Unfortunately, the errors in this approach came thick and fast. My first was that I wasn’t wearing goggles. Madness. Unperturbed, and sightless, I took a cheek-inflating breath and dived (dove? doved??) deep. Too deep as it turned out. I promptly began running out of breath. But no matter, I thought, up we go! After all this was the plan all along, just a bit sooner than expected. I just wished at that point I could see, but why really? It’s not the Great Barrier Reef. A glimpse at the famous tiles would have been nice, but that could wait. So I headed for the surface, ready to gulp that thick, warm, chemically air. But my hands didn’t break the tension of the water as I expected, I didn’t have the relief of refilling my lungs. My fingertips hit something soft. Sinewy. For too long, I pushed and prodded my hands all over an ice sheet of flesh.

Eventually, I broke free and managed to resurface. Gulping and wheezing, and with water in my eyes, I realised I had rotated in the chaos and popped up directly in front of the old man, inches away from his face. I gasped for air like I’d just been resuscitated. He recoiled and started splashing, now trying to stop the water going down his throat. But his flailing wasn’t keeping him above the water line, the shock had rendered him an even worse swimmer. Sorry, not the time, but I cannot stress enough how he wasn’t a Medium. As he became more distressed, I began to regain my calm. Sort of like his ebbing life force was topping up mine.

I caught my breath, tried to apologise for the shock and for the breaching into his abdomen (was it his abdomen?! Argghhh) but…there were no words. So, I just swam away from the wreck. A swim ‘n’ run. I speedily completed my length and flopped my arms over the end of the pool, treading water, waiting for him to catch me up so I could say sorry again. But he didn’t appear. After a while I looked back, and he was gone. Not in the slow or fast lane (obvs). Not on the poolside, or on the diving board. That would have been bold. He’d gone. Back to the bleak changing rooms, shamed or traumatised? Or to the bottom of the pool, sucked into the vents with the plasters and the hair balls?

I got out and made my way to the showers, glancing back at the calm water.

I wonder if I was continuing a curse. Like the Leeds International Pool designer, I had majorly miscalculated. Like them, would I be in limbo for years, waiting for someone to share a story about a sweet (though I cannot stress enough, VERY slow) old man who met his maker in the Medium lane?

In his memory, I go back to the pool once a year and complete a short contemplative swim. Ha! I don’t. Obviously. That’s ridiculous. Plus, it was demolished in 2009. Instead, I do what I think, from our brief time together, he would have wanted. I’ve turned it into content on Radio 1 and Would I Lie To You, and now Substack. Is there a greater honour?!

PS The other night I told my pal Greg James (you wouldn’t know him), about writing this and he drew my attention to another fantastic example of the genre, please see the picture. I’m obsessed with the line “the hotel’s architect was Italian and spoke meters, while the London architect spoke feet”. Hahahhhaahahhahhaha.

Tell me things.

Love you byyyye x

I know this genre has been around for quite a while, but I am suddenly being fed it A LOT. I think it’s Vogue who do the most well known series. Actually I can verify this with…the internet! One sec. Oh look! She’s a journalist ladies and gentlemen…and a very good one at that. (this references a very silly video of Cilla Black delighting in busting an ‘undercover’ journalist who went on assignment to Blind Date. I can’t say ‘she’s a journalist’ without hearing it. Now you have the curse too.)

My extensive research shows Vogue’s version is called In The Bag. I don’t know what came first, but Bazaar UK do a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT series called Inside My Make Up Bag, where I think the USP is…flannels? Some celebrities cut out the middle man and do it for themselves on their own social channels. Basically, at any given time, there is a well-known woman somewhere, being made late for work, by the need to pour her stuff all over a sofa seat and comment on it.

These videos just always have the whiff of a politician on Desert Island Discs about them - you know when, say, Sir Keir’s team have convinced him to say he loves Fred Again or David Cameron wants to seem cool but talks about Chumbawamba’s difficult second album. It’s okay, lads, just speak your truth, say your favourite band is the Vienna Philharmonic or that your favourite thing to put on after a tough day is a discordant modem.

It’s the same with the bag videos, everyone’s overthought it to the point of madness. Often, the result is a designed-by-committee list of what The Public will want the famous woman to retrieve from her bag. What? Is that a real sentence? It’s sort of melted my brain, much like the videos themselves (but I have to watch them all to the end to understand how bad they are…okay?)

They tend to start fairly innocuously with ‘civilian’ things that no one can get upset about; car keys, painkillers, phone, sunglasses, chewing gum, a ‘tatty’ notebook, you know, things Normies might have in their disgusting Normie totes to use in their sad Normie lives. But the women in the videos then have to inject the extraction process with a dash of personality, that’s the whole point, that’s what The Public want. Just ask the committee! This is where it gets dangerous though. Not because they don’t have personalities, but because (my guess anyway) is that so many people have been buzzing in their ears saying things like “pull a kettlebell out, you can talk about working on your strength, it will be a great way to bring up your collab with Nike” or “what about pulling out a few volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica, you can talk about working on your strength, it will be a great way to bring up your collab with Nike” etc that they have fully lost any sense of what is normal to carry around with you. And so they produce full-sized glass bottles of perfume (of which they happen to be the ambassador), the ticket stubs from every concert they’ve ever been to (is this a Blue Peter time capsule or a handbag?), very niche tinctures for very niche ailments, brass hatstands…actually that last one is Poppins, but it’s not far off.

And the bags. Oh the bags. All of them cost thousands and thousands of pounds, natch. We wouldn’t expect one of the world’s most glamorous women to be carrying an Eastpak (no offence intended, my most coveted item of Yr8). Margot Robbie muses on her carrier of choice, a Chanel leather backpack, “it says, I’m pragmatic, I’ve got lots going on, I’m on the run”. Hmmmm. Now, I’m not a fugitive, but I have seen all the Bourne films. On the run? How on earth are you going to fit your weapons, fake passports and brunette hair dye in a mini Chanel rucksack, Margs? You’re just not THINKING, babe.

I’m just a bit baffled by the effort of the contrivance. What’s wrong with opening your real bag with real things in it? What happens if we know that you have a snotty tissue or a leaky pen in there? I guess there’s a chance someone will write something snarky about how you are trying too hard to seem like the girl-next-door…arghhhhh…I AM THE PROBLEM. But seriously, it’s all getting a bit Dakota Johnson x Limes.

We could just let women have the private sanctity of their bags, let them transport their tampons and anti-depressants in peace? Hahahhaha. Just joking. Here’s mine:

• No less than 5 lip balms (Neutrogena stick, Paw Paw mini tube, Burts Bees tinted, that orange packaged one that is a bit medical looking and a very premium Estee one that looks like a lipstick bullet). I am part desiccated coconut, so I can be found slathering myself in a humectant every 4 minutes. I panic I don’t have one with me and so always throw another one in before I leave the house. Just also found one in each coat pocket. So just the 7 with me this week. Must buy more.

• Many, many, many snotty tissues. Many many many clean tissues. Cancel me, GO ON. TAKE ME DOWN.

• No joke, two handfuls of utility bills, confidential correspondence, invoices etc torn into tiny pieces, for anti-identity theft purposes. Then I planned to take extra precautions by taking them to the British Scandal studio where there is a shredder (why? what have I done? why can no one know I exist? And what is Operation Blackbriar? One for the Bourne-heads there). The XL confetti pieces have come back home with me every night since Monday as I keep forgetting. Now a scrap of paper with my sort code or my address on it flutters out of my bag every time I retrieve something from the bottom

[I’m thinking this would have racked up 4m hits on Youtube, really regretting not filming it now]

• A book called Harvest by Jim Crace (paper), that I promised my Dad I would read so we could talk about it. “It’s very thin” he said encouragingly. We’ll come back to my abysmal reading speed at a later date. I’ve carried it around (bag on my bad shoulder, to really self-flagellate) for months. I’ve got to about page 25 three times. He gifted it to me in October I think. Will I ever speak to him again? Not until I finish it, or I will never learn.

• A bagel wrapper. The bagel place near where I record (the now twice mentioned podcast!) British Scandal, is VERY excellent. To be clear the picture is actually a NYC bagel I had at Russ and Daughters on 2nd March 2020, bagel zero if you will, but it demos the point I am about the make. The place near work is good apart from…they put wayyyy too much cream cheese on the bagel (an even more egregious amount than the protrusion pictured). In the sterile laboratory conditions of a London bus top deck on my way home, I often use a bit of bagel as a scraper to de-cream cheese part of the bread, and drop the excess cream cheese into the wrapper. The whole thing is as undignified as it sounds. As is forgetting that it was bundled up in my bag.

  So, you happy now? Seeing me like this?

  Do you feel like you know me a bit better? Now I’ve shown you my darkest secrets?

  Wait wait wait…oh shit, I think I can do that thing real writers do where they bring it back to the beginning….wait wait…shhhhhh.

  I know you’re going to say I should just ask for less cream cheese, but I have done a few times and the result is the same, plus it feels…picky or fussy. So I just do my method.

  I guess…

  you could say…

  I’m just a girl…a simple, wasteful girl!

  *sigh*

  *pulls proverbial drawstrings*

  x

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

What does it mean? What was the point? How did you make it all the way to here? We don’t know.

But I can tell you I love you for reading and commenting and subscribing and sharing, thanks for your support in the first month of this!

It’s just a fun place to make a mountain out of a mole hill really.

But every time I post I feel a tiny bit sick, out of an acidic combo of fear, doubt, staying up too late finishing it and probably still too much cream cheese, so your encouragement is metaphorical Gaviscon. No pressure, but if you don’t love this I might get an ulcer.

Love you byyyyyyyyyye x

(Oh piiiiiine, okay, she’s funny AND smart)

Yes, I know, don’t dump it…reuse it. Saw the branches off and create a mobile for a sweet baby or whatever. Make wood chippings for the flower beds. But I think you have mistaken me for someone with access to a saw, a sweet baby, an industrial wood chipper and flower beds. Don’t worry, it happens all the time. I’ve just got one of those faces.

At the risk of admitting to making this my latest fixation…it’s keeping me awake at night. That could also be the foxes (welcome to Woman Dying or Foxes Shagging, 9pm ITV4), swirling anxiety (nooo?? youuu??) and my bad shoulder, which means I can’t do my preferred kid-pretending-to-be-asleep sleep position anymore (prayer hands under left ear). But I am also worried I have missed the boat to get rid of it. The pavement was full of them and now there are fewer and fewer. Am I just leaving in shoved down beside the wheelie bin for 11 months and then dragging, what will be by then, a dried out spider climbing frame back into the house?

My brother-in-law said that I should just go onto the council website and they would do some kind of free collection. “They do in Lambeth”. Well, well, well, isn’t Lambeth feeling itself? Doesn’t Lambeth know how to keep its denizens happy? The Imperial War Museum and now this? Why so generous, Lambeth? Lambeth probably takes your decorations off your tree, gets on the rickety chair and puts them in the high cupboard for you too. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lambeth comes round to your house, with a bottle of wine and-

I’ve got distracted.

So, I went on my council’s website. Sidebar: Naaaht great user experience on that one, tbh. Few cheeky dead ends on there, m’darlin. I spent so long searching for an answer that I caved and filled in a survey about traffic calming. Turns out I have strong feelings on 7am-7pm bus gates and additional permit parking (it’s not my route and I can’t drive - but I recently watched Erin Brockovich and I think this could be my Hexavalent chromium!).

It’s tempting to *whispers*…leave the tree on the pavement outside my house *coy Princess Di eyes*. But My Favourite Website says if I leave the tree on the street, it’s Fly Tipping and I will be arrested under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (or something).

But, please see my previous email, Linda, EVERYONE is at it. They can’t put my WHOLE street in gaol? (that spelling is to add a sense medieval brutality, FYI).

Not Frank across the road, surely? He’s left his curbside (rather than against his wall) which I thought showed some flair. But he’s well over 80 now, you’re not going to make an example of him are you? Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, he fell at the zebra crossing not far from our houses and dropped a bag of apples, which rolled out in the street in every direction. I helped him pick them up and offered my arm to steady him as we walked home. When we arrived at his door, as a thank you, he pressed a particularly shiny one into my palm. I didn’t know what to say in that moment. Apart from maybe, it’s been on the floor, Frank! People gob here on the regular! It’s a lovely gesture ‘n’ all, but what am I supposed to do with it? I’m joking, I’m joking, I’ll just fly tip it, there’s a proper heap forming outside mine.

If the council are really hardline on this, they’d have to bang up the family at number 55 (I've changed the number for their privacy. Anne and Peter in fact live at 58 - red door, very handsome Norway Spruce shedding opposite). That would be a shame as they’re nice people; they bought a MASSIVE box of chocolates for their daughter getting into university, which accidentally came to mine when I first moved in. I thought someone had sent me a New Home present. Shucks. You really shouldn’t hav- oh, you didn’t. There was no card or note (as I remember it, to the best of my ability, Your Honour), so, I ate them and offered them around to friends whilst we unpacked. Fast forward a week and Peter The Dad is on my doorstep asking if I had possibly received a MASSIVE box of chocolates for their daughter who had recently got into university? Doesn’tttt rinnnngabelll, Peter The Dad, doesnn’tttt ringabellll. I probably still had praline in my teeth. (Don’t get distracted by the fact that I only brush my teeth weekly). Anyway, he doesn’t meet my eye anymore. Good people is what I’m saying, good people! Let them walk free!

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Back on alicepleasegetalife.org, I found an option for a collection of “bulky” items:

a) define ‘bulky’ please. This thick knit jumper makes me look ‘bulky’. That mattress resting against the wall is…well…a fuck off mattress

b) annoyingly they charge you the same amount to collect one item as they do for five items (I only had 1 tree this year rather than my usual 5, the drawing room looked so very bare)

c) oh my god, how is she still on that website and still talking about it?

d) Its over 20 quid to de-bulk!

Yes, yes I know was on Taskmaster about 12 series ago, but let’s not get silly. Scant change from £22? The principal of it just feels off, you know, as a ratio (tree price: tree disposal price). Especially because I’m only getting 1/5 of the service. (I wish there was a function for you to mark up on here the exact point at which you think I completely lost the plot).

Anyway, then I GENUINELY thought, I could knock on doors (not the ones from my first post, they’ve seen quite enough of me), offering 4 lUCkY, bargain-savvy neighbours the chance to have their tree (and related tree disposal stress) removed…for the peppercorn charge of £4, all handled by me. I’m making a small loss here, but I’m actually going for a growth vs profit model for the first 5 years, next question. Then I realised I DON’T HAVE TIME TO DO THAT. I DON’T WANT TO DO THAT. I MUST CHECK THE LONG TERM EFFECTS OF A CONCUSSION.

[I went and made dinner]

Okay, okay, forget me becoming an accidental entrepreneur. I’ve just checked again. New info discovered. Don’t know how I missed it, nestled intuitively in the How To Pay Your Council Tax by Traveller’s Cheque section. There’s an option to drop the tree off at a number of local parks, the closest of which is a 5 minute drive away. Phewwww, so I’m just going to:

• pass my provisional - I have actually failed once but that was 15 years ago, I know so much more about aqua-planing now

• learn to drive - 4-6 months? As a student at Leeds Uni I spent around 10 of my approx 15 weeks of lessons not being allowed to go into second gear, the instructor used to take me to a place he named Cat Corner which, as the moniker would suggest, added unnecessary hazards / fatalities

• wait for a test - unknown timeframe, I believe there has been a national shortage of slots for a while now, not funny, just true. Don’t say this isn’t a NEWS SOURCE

• buy a car - 1-4 months. Do all dad’s say that new cars “depreciate as soon as you drive them off the forecourt”? I feel like mine says that a lot. So we’re holding out for “a semi reliable banger” please, which coincidentally is how Calvin Harris described his new single to his accountant when trying to forecast next year’s tax liability.

Then I just need to

• wait for my shoulder to heal so I can heave the tree into the boot (I’d say that’s 6 months from when I actually start using the stretchy band)

All doable, all veryyyyy possible. But, I might just plonk it outside Frank’s house and anonymously shop him to the council to save my own skin? Cute? He’s already likely doing a stretch for his this year, so what’s another 6 footer?

Honestly, at this point, it’s that or move to Lambeth, but they just seem so…full on? Y’know? Highly strung. I’m a chill girl.

A x

[BREAKING NEWS]

A miracle! After I finished this! I bumped into my friend’s Dad who had a saw (not on him! Jesus) and access to flowerbeds (sweet baby and chipper tbc)! Very kindly, particularly because it was in the frost, he helped me hack the tree to bits and then trundled off home with it! I’m obviously furious; this whole piece and a week+ of worrying is completely redundant…but mainly, I want to go around and do everyone else’s! Very satisfying.

(Frank might get leniency as a one-time offender)

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Love hearing from you, so leave a comment, ask a question. It also helps a lot if you share it with your former colleagues, enemies and exes. It’s a good reason to reconnect with them!

On the 20th December in the year of our Lord 2024, I tried to write my first Substack. In fact I did write it, then I tucked it away, safe and sound, in drafts for the 300th time. My plan was to come back in 15 minutes and finally send it, or publish it, or ‘stack it, or whatever you lot say. I think it’s definitely ‘stack it, that rings a bell.

But instead I left my laptop lopsidedly propped open on the sofa (is there another way to store the most expensive thing I own?), walked into my hallway and collapsed.

Job done. Smashed it.

It would actually be quite on brand for me to consider this a measured reaction to having done a bit of work. Sometimes I think I deserve a Victorian swoon after putting on a fitted sheet when one of the corners of the bed is against a wall. *back of hand to forehead*

But on this occasion, I wasn’t doing serious TOIL. I wasn’t lightheaded, or low-sugared or stressed or shocked by a bare bottom, or whatever would make a nun in a film faint. I just passed out. Actually, I blacked out (are they different?). I don’t remember what happened at all, which feels like ‘black out’ covers it. Not full Momento (Oh! In fact not even partial Momento as I just reminded myself of the plot of Momento. Wow! Not that!). Just 10-20 minutes of blankness.

I woke up (came to? Again, does it matter? But “woke” sounds like I just dozed off on my doormat). Then I stumbled to my next door neighbours’ house, wearing an assortment of items I wouldn’t usually combine to go outside; bra, pants, socks, massive coat. So far, so inappropriate. She sat me on her sofa. I asked her if it was Christmas Day. And apologised as I couldn’t remember her name. Now, if you don’t know me very well, you might not know that I am very very good at remembering when it is and isn’t Christmas Day, and names I’m pretty good at too. Probs off to A+E, aren’t we? Yeahhhhh…

My neighbour was excellent, in a way that I just know I wouldn’t have been. I don’t think I’m a good emergency person. I wouldn’t scream or cry or run away or anything, but I think I’d be very indecisive to the point of maybe you bleeding out on the ground from the gunshot wound or the shark coming back to get us or something. It’s really emergency dependent, clearly. But she was calm, authoritative, very quick with a glass of water - the universal cure-all. Seeing as our relationship basically consists of 4 years of signing for each other’s parcels and occasionally examining the party wall together, I thought she was very gracious in letting me puke all over her living room carpet. She dressed me in an outfit of hers, and off we went to hospital while her husband bathed the baby.

G’bless the NHS, they were also, obviously, excellent and also very gracious when I puked on their carpet (lino?). They also chose to dress me in their own outfit (to misquote Aretha Franklin shading Taylor Swift “beautiful gown”). They did their tests for a few hours, and then asked me if I wanted to go home. Yes please.

Back at the ranch, with a concussion and no explanation, the room was too bright, and my head was too heavy for my neck to hold up (apparently common, but a mad symptom to have to describe to a medical professional, a bad case of ‘baby neck’). The doctor had said I shouldn't be on my own for the next 24 hours, and as luck would have it, I know (and am related to) some of the nicest guys and gals in town. So they arrived at my bedside - is this a film!? Chatted to me when I was awake, chatted to each other when I was asleep, peeled me satsumas and slurped a Deliveroo Tonkotsu in my bed next to me. The latter was a liberty to be honest, but, you gotta pick your battles, I got Baby Neck over ‘ere! *does Italian hand gesture*. My pal stayed over and came in to check on me in the night. How caring and loving that was made me cry.

In the few days that I was a zombie in bed and the following weeks that I’ve felt out of sorts, a bit overwhelmed and tinnitus-y, I discovered some good things that I thought you might like if, for whatever reason, you’re out of sorts or overwhelmed. Because that’s basically the MO of this month, isn’t it? Conking out or not!

• Not the sort of thing you think you should be listening to after whacking your head AT ALL, but in fact the perfect companion; Sarah Polley, Oscar winning writer / director of the film Women Talking, talks on This American Life (10:19 onwards) about a serious head injury that changed everything. It’s funny, shocking and ends with a really uplifting message.

• Jones crumpets. What the fuck have I been doing messing around with Warburtons for 30+ years? (I’m older than 30+ describes, but I don’t think I was eating crumpets in early primary school, so I’m going to let myself have this age vanity vagueness). They are incredible. Ordered by the Tonkotsu slurping friend, they were the first thing I ate when I felt able to. Jesus. Apparently they are like Supreme and do a limited drop every 2-4 years (approx) and we just got lucky. Queue around the block for them, buy them on eBay, keep them box fresh as an investment piece for your grand-kids.

• Everyone has quite rightly been talking about the brilliance of stand-up Nikki Glaser in the last few days, this year’s host of the Golden Globes. I can be smug and say I discovered her a whole few weeks before this appearance (she’s been a big deal for yearrrs, soz). I’ve rewatched her set on Netflix’s The Roast of Gisele Bündchen’s Ex-husband (39 mins in if you’re watching on Netflix). I think it’s officially called The Roast of Tom Brady. But I don’t know who Tom Brady is, so his public humiliation is largely wasted on me. If you’re the same, just tune in for Nikki, her set is BREATHTAKING. Literally. Her jokes knock the wind out of you and by the looks of it out of the rest of the comics in the studio too. She has brought an AK47 to a water fight. What is an AK47? I just mean a big powerful gun. It tracks, right? The male panel of stand ups don’t know how to recover, so just stumble into a standing ovation and then a few pre-prepared jokes about her promiscuity which she’s already preempted. Her gags are really rough, as a warning, but just brilliantly written and delivered. She talks in an article (which I can’t seem to find now - is it the head injury?! My excuse for everything forever) about why in this particular performance she apologised after every joke, even though she is the master of evisceration. See also: Martha Stewart on the Justin Bieber roast. I didn’t know I was a roast person, in fact I don’t think I am, but these are two very great (though different) examples of the genre.

• Also saw Conclave, thought it wasn’t for me because popes, but was for me coz fab. Don’t read anything about it, just soak up the cinematography and surprisingly compelling jeopardy with fresh eyes. This is a good reminder to tell you my The Substance story - something for another time! In radio world, this would be called ‘share driving’, keeping you captive in your car / kitchen for the next part of the story - now you have to come back to find out. So slick. Wow. nailing this.

Thanks for joining for this first one. I think this Substack will usually

• Be funnier*

• Contain less head injury content, but more spiralling of my brain content

• Arrive in a slightly more timely fashion - unless I find some other great dramatic excuses. And also, who am I kidding? I am late for everything

• Feature some drawings and or photos if I can work out how (drawings? What of? What am I talking about? Time to log off now)

*why did I promise this?

So, please get in touch (if I have switched on that function, shit). In case it wasn’t obvious I don’t really know how this all works yet and I’m not very good at tech. So this will be a fun, ever-evolving (read: potentially inconsistent), DIY (read: messy), hopefully enjoyable presence in your inbox. I was really excited to get started on this before The Incident, so bear with me and I will find a rhythm! Can’t wait to hear from you.

A x

PS Is this a good length? Feel like I’m writing my dissertation again, checking the word count every 2 mins, and that was mainly bulked out by references, maybe I should do a Oxford formatted bibliography from here on in, to give it some heft…

PPS I didn’t know I had to attached a picture, so this is one I sent to the family group to prove I was now thriving. Featuring a hat I complimented my mum on, so she then gave to me. My nana used to do that too. Nice pearls, Nana. Okay - have them. What’s it got to do with anything? Urmmmm….

byyyye…