Bargain! Buy Now!

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I have something for an eye for a bargain, an undeniably handy skill in a credit crunch. Take, for instance, this simple and fetchingly plimsoll-like pair of shoes, which my delightful friend Wily Catkins is hand-modelling here:


Once, they were a whopping £70 - now, they're reduced to a mere £85!


And if that isn't enough of a bargain for you, I've found you a special deal on face mask sachets at Superdrug - 97p for one, but if you buy two, you only have to pay £3.99!


Truly, I am the new Robert Peston.

In other news, I have written a new Guardian piece on lying (and that's no lie):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/may/31/lies-condoms-cigarettes-taxis

and also a Cif piece on a rather wry tale:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/15/antonio-castro-online-dating

However, I am considering giving up writing to become an expert on hot deals. Next week, I hope to bring you a brassiere slashed from £18 to £37. Now, that's what I call a bragain!

Fawlty Hours

The weekend before last, I had to get up at 5am to sit on my leg and flap my arms around like an over-enthusiastic green bird. Well, I didn't have to, but for some reason this is what I ended up doing, while talking about my favourite sitcom. But I didn't realise this at the time, because I had adrenaline coursing through me.

That's because live telly is scary. I don't look nervous, but I was terrified. My brain kept saying, "Imagine how bad it would be if you did a huge burp. It will be replayed, and millions of people will watch the burp on YouTube. You will be forever known as Burp Girl, and for the rest of your life, when people meet you, they'll say, 'Oh, aren't you that girl who did that huge burp?!'"

Worse, you could accidentally swear, or say something hugely offensive, or start choking or coughing, or spontaneously be sick. I know this is very unlikely - in fact, I know these things aren't going to happen - but that doesn't stop me worrying about them. It's probably not very professional, but I wrote reassuring words between my fingers, like "stay calm" and "relax" and "breathe". (I didn't look at these words once, but it vaguely helped to know that they were there.)

After watching the clip, I also wrote a helpful checklist of Things To Remember While On TV:

(1) Do not slurp your water on-screen after each question like a thirsty buffalo
(2) Do not gesticulate like an agitated monkey pushing away an invisible banana
(3) Do not sit on your leg, unaware that everyone can see you sitting on your leg. If you must sit on something, make it your hands.



I think the more often you do something scary - whatever it is - the less scary it becomes, just because you realise you can do it (not particularly well, maybe, but you can) and that the thing you were most scared of probably hasn't happened. (Unless it has, in which case you're buggered.)

By the way, Toby and Charlie were ace, and the female presenter (Louise Minchin) is possibly the nicest person in the world (and that includes Nelson Mandela and the woman who called the paramedics after I was hit by a motorbike).

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It's A Punderful Life

I can't stop making puns. The affliction started when I wrote for Countdown for two years, and only got worse from there. It wasn't my fault - first I had to come up with a set of "alternative dictionary definitions":

affable: fifty per cent of a male cow
bigotry: the larger of two sturdy plants
category: your moggy after it's been in a fight
definite: the more hard-of-hearing of a pair of headlice

And now I've descended to this kind of level:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/apr/28/do-fish-feel-pain

Rendering myself truly punfit to be called a writer.

I'd like to change, I really would. I'd like to write poems instead (though some would say they're verse) but I don't have the rhyme. Still, to prove that I can produce punfree pieces, here's one I wrote a long time ago for Richard Whiteley:

I'm sorry to say that your ties
Do terrible things to my eyes
It's the colours I think
With the purple and pink
Of the set - on the whole, most unwise

Overall Dick you dress like a pro
With a sharp dapper suit for each show
But those things round your neck
Make me think "Flipping heck!
"Why did someone not say to him 'no'?!"

So: I can do without them, but it's not quite as pun. But does wordplay leave you pungry like the wolf, or do you think writers should be punished for resorting to it? I'd really like your opunion...

Sunshine On A Rainy Day

The sun has got his hat on. Hip hip hip hooray! (What would the sun's hat look like? Would it be a sunhat? Why would he be protecting himself from himself?)

Anyhow, what I mean to say is: sunlight is filling the room where I'm typing this, and it's making me feel extraordinately happy. I don't know why a bit of yellow light can make me feel better, but it can, and very quickly too.

So I thought I'd make a list of all the other things which I (and perhaps you) don't notice much on an everyday basis, but which can make us feel alive and happy...

(1) Being well. When you are well, you don't wake up every day thinking "Fantastic! I'm still well!" You just get on with life. But when you're ill, you can't wait to be well again. And when you are, everything seems fresh and new.

(2) Sleeping. Not the actual 'asleep' bit - you don't notice that for necessary reasons - but the warm, relaxed, snug feeling in between sleep and waking. That bit where you're half-asleep and dreamy and enjoying the heated cocoon you've created while sleeping.

(3) Exchanging smiles with strangers in the street for no reason other than friendliness. Babies and kids too. Having someone say "good morning" to you if you pass each other early and are the only ones walking down a street.

(4) Showers and baths. Lathering soap bubbles, lying in bubble bath, feeling hot water on your skin. And feeling clean and smelling good afterwards, wrapped in a fluffy towel, with your hair all shiny and clean.

(5) Being outdoors, feeling cool air across your face and being able to smell grass and flowers. Knowing that soon it's going to be spring, then summer, where we can lie in a park, reading books, eating ice lollies and having a picnic.

Can anyone think of any others?

Thought For An Afternoon Weeks Ago

Hello. I hope you're all well and happy. Thanks for coming back.

I've been a bit rubbish again, and I'm sorry. This blog is basically turning into one long string of apologies, half-explanations and inept rhymes. I don't want to deluge you with trivia, and blogging about the more interesting parts of my life at the moment with any degree of truth is a bit too surreal, but bear with me - I promise I'm writing new stuff for you to read, it's a lot funnier, and most of it isn't about my two favourite topics of atheism or buses.

Until I upload it, here's an interview I did for Credo, Independent on Sunday. Where are my arms? I am totally 'armless.

Secondly, here's a sympathetic piece on the campaign (see "Wednesday") from BBC World Service. Which was nice, and quite unexpected.

And lastly, here's the text of my Thought For The Afternoon, which was broadcast on Radio 4 on January 10, and which a few people have asked for (someone also kindly uploaded the broadcast - thank you). I hope you enjoy all these things - and I promise to write again soon.


Thought For The Afternoon

We live in a beautiful, fascinating and complex world, and we’re all trying to make sense of it as best we can. There are 6.7 billion of us living on this planet, belonging to hundreds of different belief systems. Most of us want to live peacefully, yet we also want to think that our own personal beliefs are the right ones. And if we are right, whatever we believe, that means millions or possibly billions of other people must be wrong.

As a world full of individuals, we are never all going to think the same way. What we can do is accept that we hold many different beliefs - and focus instead on what unites us as human beings, because we are truly similar in so many ways. We all want to feel loved, and to give love freely; we all want our children to be happy, healthy and safe, and for them to receive a good education. We all want to live long, enjoyable lives free from fear and pain. And we’re all muddling through life the best way we know how.

What’s important are not the beliefs we hold, but that we are free to hold them, and that we always express them peacefully. That we see all other people as individual human beings just like ourselves, who love and hurt and laugh and feel pain and hope. That we share our lives with people of different backgrounds; that we talk about all kinds of ideas calmly and openly; and that instead of letting our differences divide us, we let our similarities bring us together.

Britain is a wonderful country where people are free to believe in whatever they like, and that includes non-belief. Many people think humanists and atheists don’t believe in anything. This isn’t true. We may not believe in a God, but like most believers, we think we only have one life on this planet. Nobody knows for certain what happens after this, but we know that we only have a very short time to experience all the excitement, adventure, love, fun, humanity and kindness available to us. We’re lucky to be alive - and to live life to the full, we need to share it with others and learn from them - whatever you, or I, believe.