INTRODUCTION
SPOKEN WORD
Telling Tales
I'm So Bloody English
Spring Fever
Breasts and the INS
CLOWNING
A revelation
Whilst doing my ablutions
No longer am I short and rotund
In my own eyes that is
Instead I find myself tall and slender
Long limbed
With his, a waist, and cleavage
(Turn back to audience and adjust boobs)
A cleavage, see?
That culturally sanctioned anorexia?
The Cosmopolitan’s version of beauty?
I don’t but into it.
I was a wild warrior in the seventies
Climbing the tallest trees
Fighting the greatest battles.
I was no damsel in distress
I was a knight in shining armour!
(I’ll come back to this theme later)
In short, a tomboy!
In my twenties, I was a road warrior!
With patches on my knees
And ribbons in my dreads
Yet when spring rolls around
I fall into the trap
Instead of feeling sexy
(As we all know spring is sexy)
I feel flabby
And unfit
For human consumption.
Have you, like me,
Had this experience of hard labour
Keeping you trim, and fit,
And suddenly you stop?
Yet eat like you hadn’t?
That’s what happens to me
(For England that is)
And I wanted to get the sun on my body
I wanted to see my body, to be honest.
There have been winters
Living in oblivion
Of what my skin looks like
(Pale, in case you wonder)
Suffering from
Those long john blues
Weeks within the union suits
Like i said spring is sexy
It makes me want to feel light, free
It makes me want to get laid!
Did I really say that?
Oh yeah! To get laid!
But that’s fucked up!
Yep, I never said I wasn’t!
I might be in my thirties
But I’m still fucked up
So where was I?
Oh, at my parents.
House-sitting at the farmhouse
In small village Worcestershire.
Upstairs I put on the first pair of shorts I could find
Then looked into the mirror
I took the shorts off
I couldn’t decide
‘Is this worse or better?’
I took the t-shirt off
‘Now that is definitely worse and
The socks don’t help’
What to do?
What to do?
Instant diet!
I know I’ll eat salad every meal
I’ll buy fruit and vegetables
No more chocolate cookies
No more toast and marmite
But first I’ll fast
A 24-hour fast!
So I called a couple of friends
‘Hey guess what! I’m on a fast!’
-‘ Bummer sleam, we were going to ask you over
We’ve got roast chicken, potatoes,
Tanya even made a fruit crumble.
So why are you fasting?
Feeling fat again then?’
-’Detoxing’ I muttered,
Are you having ice cream with that?
Can I come watch?’
I fast. I obsess. I eat. Cookies. Tea. Toast. Ice cream.
Back to the mirror
‘What do I and don’t I like about myself?
I like my knees
I like my legs, good and strong,
Feel like they can take me places Like away from this mirror’
I wonder what my parents would
Have said to find me wandering around
In this state of undress?
Very uncomfortable I imagine
It goes against the grain
To be naked anywhere
But in the bathroom
Alone
How very un-English of me!
To be naked in the kitchen
So unhygienic!
A few minutes later
I put the kettle on
And made a cup of tea
In the kitchen
Looking outside at the huge willow tree
-’What to do? What to do?’
Diet? Nope, that didn’t help me last time.
Fast? Definitely not!
Hmm…what will make me like my body?
Aha! I know!
Masturbation!
I’ll have a good old-fashioned wank!
In the garden
And with my socks on…
I took my fresh cuppa tea
And the radio.
Whilst listening to the play about a colonel
Who’d gone blind
I threw myself into the job at hand
So to speak
Suddenly I heard applause
What?
Yes! Applause!
I sat up (clutching self modestly)
I saw no one
I stood up (hiding self modestly)
I saw no one
I crept over to the hedge
Aha! The answer!
Dad had told me
But I’d forgotten
The field next door had been sold
To a golf course.
There they were the happy golfers
Putt putt clap clap
I lay back down with my tea
Now tepid
And my skin
Now flushed
And I pretended that the applause was for me
For my unabashed nudity
For my performance
Perhaps spring is sexy after all?
Diets? Fasts? Phobias?
I don’t think so, no,
More like time for skimpy little shorts
Tight little shirts
And a beer at the local pub
That sounds right to me
I had a revelation
A revolution
Whilst doing my ablutions
Was I ever anything other than what I see now?
Tall and slender?
(adjust self again)
With a cleavage?