JUNE 2004
Mon 28th June, 3pm
Oh, how incredibly annoying. A whole blog entry has mysteriously disappeared. I have no idea where it is. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh. Oh well. Here's another attempt. Not as well expressed as the original but there you go:
Some friends of my parents have spent the last twenty years getting together each year for “The Gathering.” This is the annual celebration of Alan Oberman’s birthday, and it involves about fifty people camping for the weekend in really beautiful Welsh countryside, then having a massive bonfire, sing-song and general get-together in the evenings.
Unfortunately I not only had a bad back but I woke up on the Sunday morning with the ‘flu. I made a vague attempt to pack up the tent, and I did actually get everything into bags, but finding myself faced with the tent-squashing task (folding voluminous quantities of canvas into one tiny bag), I finally broke down and cried. I swapped packing for childcare and left Ally to get the stuff into the car while I followed Felix around ineffectively.
Every now and then people would fall over me and Felix in a cuddle puddle, he oblivious and me wiping tears away. It’s funny how I have no qualms about crying in public and yet I am useless at asking for help. I kep stubbornly insiting that I was all right, and people were forced to just ignore me and go about their business.
Luckily I discovered some Nurofen Cold ‘n’ Flu in the glove compartment on the way home. By the time we reached Manchester I was singing Ten Green Bottles to Felix with gusto. Thank fuck for pseudoephedrine.
Still, it was actually rather a lovely weekend up until the sweating, shaking, headache and fuzziness. Felix was ludicrously cute, and a big hit. We told him we were going on a bear hunt, and he spent most of Saturday shouting “Bear Hunt!” and swishy-swashying through the long grass. We also had tons of fun chasing bugs. We found two baby frogs, which he dlighted in holding. We also found dragonflies, spiders, woodlice, bumblebees and sheep. And an owl.
As usual the socialising around the fire on Saturday night was loads of fun, and we fell asleep to the sublime sound of a very talented girl called Lucy, who gave quite an amazing rendition of Summertime. And the view down the valley from the tent on Sunday morning was quite stunning.
Wed 23rd June, 9pm
OK, which shall I do first: Good news or bad news?
The bad news is that Felix was inexplicably awake for most of the night. Not crying or ill or anything, just awake. Still, I managed to get to sleep about 3am, whereas Ally (bless him) got very little sleep at all. Also I've done my back in, and it's really quite sore.
But to be perfectly honest I don't really care about any of that, because the good news is that I'm being interviewed on Woman's Hour next Thursday morning. Woman's Hour. To understand what a big deal this is, remember that it's a national show with (according to Julia Darling - I confess I haven't checked, cos I want it to be true) millions of listeners. And I'm just little ole me, with my little book published by a little publisher with only a small marketing budget.
I have no idea how they found out about me, but who cares?? I'm going to be on Woman's Hour! I had a sort of pre-interview over the phone yesterday with the lovely woman I met at the theatre a couple of weeks ago. And in one of those weird quirks of fate it turns out she has met me before. Well not me, my son. Well not met exactly... it seems she was on the Big Chill forum a couple of years ago, when Felix had his Naming Day. She saw a thread I posted about it, and followed the link to Felix's website. Then when she was surfing this site the other day while doing research, she followed the toddler link on the front page and found herself thinking, "Hang on, I've been here before!"
Synchronicity and serendipity. [Every time I come across that word I become more seduced by the concept of stealing Claire Dowie's idea and using it as a name for a child; Dippity for short]. There's an awful lot of excited squeaking going on, followed by sharp intakes of breath, as it makes my back hurt.
But if that wasn't enough excitement, we've found out today that Ally will be MCing the Sanctuary Tent all day Saturday at the Big Chill's Eastnor festival! Wowee!
Ahem. Right. I'm off to wangle a back massage out of him.
Mon 21st June, late
Oh dear, I've got that feeling again. The one where you catch yourself folding into a cringe at the traffic lights as you think to yourself, "Ouch. I didn't really say that, did I?"
I was in Newcastle on Sunday night, at a reading of a series of short plays written by the likes of Julia Darling. Hers was one of the pieces I particularly enjoyed - full of humour and pathos. In fact there was a lot of humour on show, and some great acting, especially as they only had a few days to rehearse.
But of course I went into Over-excitable Mode and did a lot of nervous chattering, for which I've berated myself at sporadic intervals ever since. Still, it was great to see Julia, who did of course greet me like an old friend, even though we've only actually met once before (and very briefly). She very kindly also introduced me to her real old friends, who were equally friendly. And hopefully I was only slightly demented.
I did a lot of driving, which was great because it gave me a chance to think about a new character I've been working on for Novel II. It's a funny process; rather like making a new friend. She's not much like me, although she is also slightly demented. I didn't get to see the Angel of the North on my travels though, which was a shame. I saw several power pylons though, and in the dark they all seemed like potential angelic candidates.
Fri 18th June, midnight
I’m all animated after a really nice Friday. The things I’m excited about are mostly quite vague, but I’m all enthused, nonetheless (no, I didn’t use a thesaurus).
Reasons to be cheerful today:
(a) A lovely drunken email from a PR woman (Sue Fletcher) giving me contact details for the Woman's Hour woman and encouraging me to contact R4 to find out what's happening.
(b) An email from Amazon, explaining the reason they haven't fulfilled all their orders (people keep complaining about this to me) is that their suppliers have run out of copies! I’m trying to keep the excitement in check about this one. It’s probably some administrative error. Still, who knows… I wonder what it would take for a second print run to happen? Hmmm. Note to self: Do not get carried away.
(c) Some brilliant emails from a nice woman called Mel, telling me how to cook smoked duck. Tomorrow I shall attempt this. It’s part of my new resolution to cook one meal a week, and try experimenting with new foodstuffs (I’m very unimaginative in my eating habits, and incredibly lazy with regard to cooking. I just make Ally do it all. And I was once a chef!).
(d) A reply straightaway from the Woman's Hour woman, saying she hasn't forgotten me, is still reading my book, and is hoping to pitch me as an idea to the editor some time next week. Yay! Need to keep hopes at a reasonable level though…
(e) A lovely email from Francis Blake, the illustrator. He really is a star, and has arranged for three copies of my book to be ordered for the library he works at. We’re going to have a go at collaborating over an illustrated children’s book. Fun!
(f) A delightful evening out this evening, eating Italian food and nattering non-stop with my friend Andrea. She really is serious competition in the nattering stakes. It’s rare to find someone as loquacious as me. We could have kept going all night, I’m sure.
(g) An email from a woman at Manchester Gay Centre, inviting me to do a reading, a workshop and an interview in a student magazine. Of course I love readings and interviews, and I’m really keen to do workshops. Maybe one day I could teach creative writing… [sighs dreamily]. Plus, the reading invitation is at a summer camp in Hebden Bridge, which I really like the sound of.
(h) An email re the Llangollen fringe festival. This still isn’t sorted out for sure, but we’re definitely getting closer.
(i) My planned trip to Newcastle at the weekend; I get to see Julia Darling! She’s a bit of a heroine of mine. I think I might have one of those platonic schoolgirl crushes. Is it all right to put stuff like that in my blog? It’s all very wholesome, I promise.
(j) The appearance of my first in-depth review, on the Rainbow Network (look under Culture: “books”, or under “authors” for the interview). Amongst many other things, they described the book as "experimental". Every time I hear another response to my book, I’m reminded of a different aspect of it. I didn’t consciously try to be different, but then I didn’t try very hard to be the same, either. How hard it is to be objective about it though. Is it funny? Is it experimental? Are the characters extrovert? Well nobody can really be objective, so I guess there are no definitive answers. Or is that just too up-me-own-arsishly post-modern? I’m going to practise using phrases like “post-modern” so that if I end up on Woman’s Hour, I can appear intelligent.
(k) The news that 19 copies of my book have been sold to my colleagues. My very wonderful friend Fran (a sort of semi-colleague) organised this. Three cheers for Fran!
There is no (l). Nor no ‘ell, neither.
Tue 15th June, midnight
Blimey, this is the second night in a row. I keep getting sucked into the world of swingers on Channel 4. They’re ace! I love the way they have all the same squabbles and tribulations as ordinary couples, except it’s about who got to suck some stranger’s nipples, instead of who left the lid off the jam.
Anyway. This week is officially the first week of the rest of my life. I’ve been getting all puritanical and trying to make myself do wholesome stuff, like eating more beetroot and cleaning out the humidifiers. The humidifiers represent one of those jobs that keeps sliding to the bottom of my To Do list but is important enough that I have to keep bumping it back up to the top again. I’ve developed some kind of weird phobia. I simply can’t make myself do it. It’s not even hard. They just need washing out.
Actually the humidifier phobia is spreading to all those annoying little useful jobs that need doing. And the big ones too. Which is why I’ve embarked on Puritanical Week. Purge all the jobs in one manic seven-day period. But I’ve only just got around to writing my blog – which was supposed to be one of the easy, enjoyable jobs – and we’re already on Day Two. Oh well.
Other things I will do this week: Cook a meal. Clear out the medicine cabinet. Do some clever database stuff at work. Stop moping about the place and sparkle with vim, vigour and purpose.
I don’t know whether it’s the weather that’s causing the mopingness, or the weird limbo of being between book publication and… well, I don’t know what. Gratification? Obscurity? Woman’s Hour?
I haven’t heard anything from Woman’s Hour, but I have been interviewed by writewords.org.uk, which is a resource for hopeful writers, and looks pretty good. I’ve also been interviewed by the Rainbow Network, and I’m back in discussions about hopefully reading at the Llangollen Fringe festival. Oh yes, and someone from BBC Drama is having a look at my book!
So I don’t know why I feel as though I’m waiting for stuff to happen, as clearly it is happening. It must be an adrenalin comedown after all the work that went into the launches.
One of the nicest things I’ve done in the last week or so was to write some words and a bit of a tune for a random guy who posted on the Big Chill forum asking for suitable lyrics. He won’t be using all of it (not surprising, as I did it in a major hurry) but he was very appreciative and it was fun being able to help. The same guy was struggling with his revision this week, so we turned a list of interrogation techniques (yes, I know - Psychology A level apparently - hmmm) into a kind of rap to help him remember it. I’m assuming he’s young, but only because he’s doing A levels. For all I know he’s a mature student, rapping out his torture practice over a Zimmer frame.
Oh. The event I’m doing at Pride is at Brighton Pride. Which explains why the Brighton & Hove mobile library service want me to read. Not as mobile as I thought then… and I do feel very silly. But I reckon Brighton Pride is probably much more fun than London, and anyway I suspect they haven’t called theirs “Pride” for donkey’s ages now.
Blimey, I still haven’t written about the launch last week. Well there’s not really a great deal to say, except that it was oodles of fun. Chloe Poems was ace; really did me proud. My parents were there, as were two uncles and one aunt (I was very touched by their attendance, particularly as two of them came all the way from Sheffield), and Mum and Dad jived to Paperback Writer, which was definitely a highlight. Somebody screamed “We love you Clare!” at one point. I later discovered this was my friend Emma, and she did it because she was desperate for the loo and had some idea that it might speed things up a bit. But weak bladders notwithstanding, the audience were (apparently) gripped, and their reactions confirmed that claim.
There were between 50 and 70 people there, and we only just squeezed them all onto the green room mezzanine. The staff were absolutely lovely, and apparently it was a uniquely well-behaved clientele at the bar. Rosie Lugosi was there, as were my new friends from the Tmesis event the other week, and at least three of my ex girlfriends. So maybe I’m better at staying friends with exes than I thought (I claimed not to be on BBC London the other week). Although to be fair, two of them were exes from fifteen years ago, so maybe I just need really really long cooling off periods. ;o)
There was one bloke there who spent half the evening standing at the back and leafing through the book, and I kept wondering whether he’d found his starring role. He once did something really funny. It’s in the book. But it turned out he was just looking for rude bits. I obliged by finding them all for him, and discovered in the process that there’s a lesbian sex scene on page 69, which seems rather neat. I wonder if he’ll ever realise he’s been immortalised?
On Monday I started work again on Novel II. I was a bit scared, and prevaricated for a while at first. I felt the motivation slipping away from me, so I tried a new tactic to get myself started. I remembered how I used to play Lovely Day by Bill Withers whenever I wanted to smile. I hunted out the 7” vinyl, and it did indeed make me smile. Not the song – lovely though it is – but the comedy warping that resulted in several key changes per bar. The funniest thing is that I think it used to do it when I was 21 years old too, but I just assumed it was my head.
I listened to a great short Jackie Kay play on Woman’s Hour last week. It was all about a woman who was terribly in love, and obsessing about receiving texts from her lover. It was so wonderfully evocative; I identified with it 100%. That awful feeling of just having to text (in my case it would have been email) and then waiting with total distraction for the reply. And then going through the whole thing again. The singlemindedness of infatuation. It made me feel rather glad that I don’t have to do that any more!
At the weekend Felix helped me rediscover the joy of bugs. We grubbed around the garden finding spiders, ladybirds, caterpillars and woodlice, then letting them crawl all over our hands. He's still a bit scared of flies and bees, but at least it doesn't extend to other creepy-crawlies. And I've now conquered a weird aversion I had to woodlice.
Another stupidly long blog. Oh well. Night night.
Mon 14th June, midnight
Aaaargh, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. I had a bit of a break from all things word-related for a few days after the Manchester launch last week, then today I started catching up again. But I’ve only now got to the point of blog-writing, and it’s just too late – I need to go to bed. I’ll write more tomorrow.
But in the meantime here’s a little story about Felix.
I made the mistake of letting Felix go to bed with a little toy lorry one night last week.
One of Felix's favourite games is to make toy cars etc go into "tunnels" which generally consist of the arms and legs of other people's clothing.
After he’d been in bed a while he was kicking up a hell of a rumpus so I went in to see what was the matter. "Lorry," he said pathetically, his hands between his legs. I could hear the lorry clicking, so I assumed he was holding it there and it was broken or something. But his hands were empty. He'd shoved the lorry up his trouser leg and it was stuck in the groin of his pyjamas. He didn’t think it was anywhere near as funny as I did.
Tue 10th June, 11pm
The Manchester launch was absolutely brilliant, but I am very broken, so bloggage is not a realistic possibility; sorry. I'll try and write a big long eulogy tomorrow night! Thank you so much to all who came. I loved it. Possibly a bit too much. Ouch.
Mon 7th June, 3pm
Ee by gum
Well, I think I feel more and more like a “proper author” each day. First of all there was last week’s event at Tmesis. I’d never met any of those people before, and yet they’d all heard of me. That seemed like authorly validation of a sort. And then there’s the stuff appearing about me in print. City Life, Out Northwest and Diva magazines are now being added to with a review in the Big Issue this week. I think there might be something in the Manchester Evening News this week. And I’ve been asked to do a reading at Pride by Brighton and Hove’s mobile library service. I’m still a bit confused about this, but clearly the definition of mobile is that you don’t have to stay put. And libraries are great. I was also asked to do a reading at a rather cool-sounding poetry gig with visuals, and the Llangollen Fringe festival. Sadly I couldn’t attend either of these (due to other commitments), which is really rather frustrating.
Anyway, the really big news is that Woman’s Hour (Radio 4) are definitely interested in having me on. Unfortunately at the moment it’s only interest, rather than an actual booking, but I’m really hoping that I helped my case rather than hindered it on Friday…
Ally and I went to see “Bad Reputations” by Penny Arcade at Contact theatre, as part of the Queer Up North festival. We took flyers (for the Manchester book launch), and though I wasn’t in the mood I handed some out. I even made my myself talk to people and explain what I was giving them. One woman listened to me and then said “Oh, it’s all right, I’ve already got one of these. In fact, I’ve got the book.”
Wow!
And then we heard the explanation. If I was a pessimist I’d moan that she only had the book because she’d been given a free copy. But sod that. Seeing as I’m not just an optimist but a frequent jump-up-and-down-with-squeals-of-delight-ist, I became a hopping squeaky thing when I discovered that she was from Woman’s Hour. I then did my very best to explain to her how great I would be on Woman’s Hour, with Ally at my shoulder going “She really is very good on the radio, you know”. She said “Yes, I can see that.” Of course, she may have been teasing me. She may very well have gone back to Radio 4 and said “For God’s sake don’t have that Clare Sudbery on the show, she’s a complete loon.” We’ll just have to wait and see.
I was less than enthusiastic about giving out flyers because I’d got myself into knicker-twist mode. I’d got all over-excited about the fact that Jerry (aka Chloe Poems) and David (formerly known as The Divine David) were sitting on the sofas in David’s installation in the Contact first floor bar (I did just try and remember David’s surname - I even did an extended google, but all to no avail, sorry). The excitement translated into talking very loudly and trying to be cool, which then translated into paranoia that cool was the one thing I definitely was not. Before I knew it I was in knicker-twist mode and didn’t want to hand flyers out. Luckily I got over it or I would never have had the opportunity to squeak loudly at the woman from Woman’s Hour. Which is a good thing, right? Oh dear.
As well as the Woman’s Hour woman, I’ve also spoken to the New Woman woman. Oh hang on, I haven’t yet written about the New Woman woman. Well, it’s kind of a long story, but New Woman are doing a feature on bisexuality in their August issue, and they ended up interviewing me about it. And Ally. And an ex girlfriend (“What’s it like going out with a bisexual?”). They even paid for us all to go to London and have our photos taken. And dressed us up. In slightly not-quite-us clothing. In fact the whole experience was very surreal. Not least when I discovered that not only were they planning on paying me for the whole thing but I was getting paid more than I did for writing a 1200 word article in the Big Issue! Does anyone know how I can become a professional interviewee for a living?
Anyway, Katie Masters, the New Woman woman, rang me up to read the article to me over the phone, and it turned out that she hasn’t revealed my innermost secrets after all, so it’s all right to tell you lot about it. She could have revealed them, because I did tell her them. But I can’t really claim that she cunningly tricked me into telling her – I just have an incredibly big gob. Buy me a drink and ask me to tell you my innermost secrets. You’ll soon regret it.
Right, what else do I have to tell you about? Well, after the knicker-twist moment at Contact, I actually got to meet Penny Arcade herself, and she was absolutely lovely. Not only that, but she’d heard of me! We were on the same page of Out Northwest – half a page each. In fact, I spent the whole performance sitting there thinking, “I was on the same page of a magazine as this woman – how cool is that?” But that’s not how she’d heard of me. A lovely PR woman called Sue Fletcher (another of my email victims) had given her a flyer. Thanks Sue! Anyway, Penny Arcade is lovely, and I really really hope she’ll make it down on Wednesday.
I also have a brand new email stalkee. Ally was contacted (in his professional capacity) by another Diva author – I think she must be the author of their next publication after The Dying of Delight. Anyway, she’s called Jacquie Lou and she responded to my rambling email introduction with an equally rambling and enthusiastic reply, so I like her already. I haven’t met any other Diva authors yet, apart from Kathleen Bryson (who is my editor) and Rosie Lugosi (who I knew already). It’ll be good to be able to compare first-time author notes – it’s such a weird experience all round.
On Saturday night I went to another Queer Up North event at Contact theatre; a performance jam and then Black Angel (lesbian club night). I had loads of fun, partly cos I handed out my flyers and got some really positive reactions, and partly because there were tons of people there that I haven’t seen for ages and I got to have some really good natters. I should do more nattering. Oh, I am doing more nattering. Well that’s all right then.
One of my natterees was Jerry (Chloe Poems) again. This time I managed to avoid knicker-twist mode and had a really lovely long chat with him. He really is my absolute favourite poet, by the way. I’ve never really been much good at reading poetry; my brain glazes over. But I love to hear it. For me, poetry is about bringing out the rhythm of words. For this reason I have no problem with rhyme (in fact I love it, and hate when people get snobbish about it). It also means that my favourite form of poetry is performance poetry. There’s a thriving performance poetry scene in Manchester, and to my mind Chloe Poems is the undisputed queen of it. She’s just head and shoulders above the rest. Jerry (who I think would be happy to be described as the actor that plays the role of Chloe Poems) has got a phenomenal talent with words, and Chloe the best delivery I’ve ever seen. So I’m thoroughly delighted that Jerry/Chloe has agreed to introduce me and perform a couple of poems at my launch on Wednesday. Yay!
In fact the excitement is building nicely all round for Wednesday’s launch. I’m getting the impression there’s going to be rather a lot of people there. Which is perfect, because this is what we want. A proper knees-up. And the chance to do even more excited squeaking. And the performance, of course. Don’t forget the performance.
There was something else I was going to write about… oh yes, the bisexuality thing. I’ve been meaning to write about this for ages. About how I have this big 80s political hangover and I still feel guilty about being bisexual. Sleeping with the enemy, a traitor to the lesbian cause, all that kind of thing. I still assume that all lesbians will hate me for these reasons, and when I first started writing this blog I disguised the gender of my partner (male), by taking advantage of his androgynous name (Ally). This is a big problem with bisexuality – it doesn’t go very well with long term relationships. Most people define your sexuality by who you’re sleeping with, so the only way you can be a convincing bisexual is by having multiple sexual partners.
Being published by a lesbian publishing house has brought all of this stuff back to the forefront of my mind, but I’m quite glad of this. It’s given me an opportunity to examine it all. I’ve also discovered that the world has moved on, and (thank fuck) that attitude of “bisexual women are traitorous scum” seems to have dramatically receded. I do of course fancy women. I am most definitely bisexual. There is no doubt in my mind about this. But I still feel the need to try and prove it by repeating statements like this [sigh]. Maybe I’ll get over it one day.
In other news, there was a minor barnie on the Nine Ladies message board when some people mistook me for, well, actually I’m not sure what. Someone who was trying to cynically make money out of the protest, I suppose. It brought up some interesting issues about trust, etc. I could totally see why they were suspicious of me. I can’t link to the message board though, as it seems to be broken (not my fault!).
I was rather sad when Kitten was evicted from the Big Brother house. Partly because I really identify with her – she reminds me of me when I was 18. But partly because the idea of sending someone back into the house to spy on them all after eviction was such a great idea, and for some reason Kitten’s eviction prevented this from happening. Plus I confess I expected some entertaining fall-out from the whole business of punishing Kitten by evicting someone else. I’m still not sure whether I should be feeling guilty about this. I have the same dilemma every year. Which (of course) doesn’t stop me watching.
But this year has been more entertaining more quickly than any other year, I think. Luckily it seems this wasn’t solely due to the influence of Kitten. And anyway the poor thing is probably much better off out of it. We had quite a good discussion about Kitten, Big Brother and politics on this thread on the Big Chill forum. If you don’t know which one is me, you’ll just have to guess!
The funniest thing about this year’s Big Brother is that my parents are for the first time utterly gripped. Not only that, but they apparently both think Kitten is attractive. I don’t know why I find this so funny, but I do. My mum is straight, by the way.
I’m getting increasing amounts of feedback from people who are reading / have read the book. So far it’s overwhelmingly positive, and for me the most interesting thing is what aspects of the book people like best. At the moment the clear winner is the twists and turns of the plot. One woman (the very lovely Mel) wrote this on the Big Chill forum: “It was like having a laid table with loads of tablecloths on it and every time I thought I'd worked the plot out Clare whipped another cloth away. And the closer I got to the end the faster the cloths were being pulled till even now I'm still puzzling bits.”
I can’t work out whether it’s a good idea to blow my own trumpet like that in my blog. Oh well, it’s my blog and I’ll show off if I want to.
On Sunday my parents and aunt Jenny came over, and we sat in the garden while Felix played on his new slide with the next door neighbour’s kids. They’re both close in age to Felix, and he particularly likes the little girl, whose name he pronounces as “Nana” (the cause of much confusion, both food- and people-related). He kept giving her enormous hugs. Hopefully Dad’s got some great photos, and if I ever get around to updating Felix’s website I’ll stick them up there.
I drove to Asda the other day without my purse. I remembered the handbag, but forgot the purse. Moral: Always carry a handbag (but make sure it’s got a purse in it).
Last, but very definitely not least: Please do vote in the elections, particularly the European ones and the London mayoral ones. It’s important because the fascists (mainly BNP) are fielding candidates, and they stand to make real gains from a low voter turnout. These guys mean serious business, and no matter what your politics they are worth voting against. I would recommend voting for the Respect coalition, but the most important thing is that you vote for someone who is not a fascist.
Tue 1st June, the middle of the night
Well it felt like tonight's "Sassy Northern Birds" event at Tmesis was going to be a disaster, but it so wasn’t. Unfortunately Gwendoline Riley and Helen Walsh couldn’t make it, so the event was cancelled at the last minute. I didn’t have time to let people know, so I went down to the venue, assuming the bar would still be open. But all I found were padlocked doors and a little cluster of people outside.
James, Mandy, Nick, Helen and Neil all came with me and my mate Paul to the pub. I did try and leave a Post-it on the door of Tmesis, but my other mates Andrea and Paul, who came along later, didn’t see it – so I guess it blew off. If anyone turned up later and couldn’t get in – I’m very sorry!
Anyway, we all had a fine time in the pub. I hope I have five new friends. Well, either that or I just steamrollered five strangers into buying my book! Actually I think it was probably more fun than the original event might have been, in lots of ways. It was much more intimate, which meant I got to talk to people properly – and let’s face it, I do love the sound of my own voice.
In a way I regret turning up, but only because I learnt later that when I was ten minutes late Paul started fantasising about telling everybody that he was in fact Clare Sudbery, whose transexuality should be kept a little secret between him and them. LOL!
Other things that happened today: I received a lovely email from The Ancient One, who is a Poet, Psychic and Spiritual Advisor in Southern Ontario Canada. I promise Michael that I will reply to you when I am not drunk and not at work. I also got a sneak preview of a review of my book that is appearing in next week’s Big Issue (in t’ North). I got four out of five stars (that’s quite good, right?).
Anyway, I’m off to bed now. Oh yes, and the general consensus is that GMR don’t have a women’s hour, so it must be Radio 4 who are interested in interviewing me. Hurrah!
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Clare Sudbery