Victoria Wood: At It Again

APPLAUSE

Hello.

Well, here we are, then.

We made it. We're out of the house.

We said that's it, Tuesday night we're coming out.

We are not sitting in front of the television,

eating pizza straight out of the box.

Scraping bits of cold mozzarella cheese off the inside of the lid

two hours later and eating them.

We're coming out, we want glamour, glitter, excitement.

Well, we're here now, um...

Thank you very much for coming. Welcome to the beautiful, beautiful,

my favourite venue, the Royal Albert Hall.

I'm really, really pleased to be here. This is the third time that

I've played the Royal Albert Hall

and it's probably the last time I'll play it.

And when they asked me to come back again, I said, "Well, we'll have to

"have a set, because I have to have something between me

"and that huge organ, because it's very distracting."

So they've given me this, which I think is very nice.

It's been sent back twice because the lettering was wrong.

The first time the lettering was wrong,

the second time the spacing was wrong.

It said, "Victoria Wood: A Tit Again."

Anyway, so I'm really pleased to be here.

The woman that runs this place, she's really nice to me.

She said, when she knew I was coming back, she said,

"Do we need to make any special security arrangements?

"Are you likely to get mobbed?"

I said, "I don't think so." I said, "I do have fans, you know,

"but I don't have mad fans. I don't have people hanging around my house,

"trying to drink my bathwater or anything like that."

I said to the woman, I said, "You don't need to make any special arrangements for me."

I don't think of myself as any sort of celebrity.

You know, to me, celebrities are other people,

very showy-offy people who behave in a really bizarre way.

Like, they're always getting drunk and dancing naked on tables,

which I don't want to do.

Anyway, the tables of Pizza Hut are very wobbly.

But they always give their children really strange names, don't they?

They can't just call their babies things like Bob and Chris.

They have to be things like Mercedes and Rainforest.

You see, if I was a proper celebrity, I'd have to have at least four children.

One naturally, two adopted, one from sperm sent in by a well-wisher...

..and I'd call them Pinky, Perky, Monosodium Glutamate and Satsuma.

But the reason I had to cancel all my shows in the first place was

I had this lump. Well, I didn't know I had a lump, but in the end,

that's what it turned out to be. I had this lump.

And the Daily Mirror got hold of it. That was painful, in itself.

They did, they got hold of my lump and they put it all over

the front page of the Daily Mirror and I was so embarrassed.

They were desperate to get a story on me when I went into the hospital and I wouldn't let them have one.

So they sent two men into the hospital dressed as oil sheikhs

to try and get a story on me.

You know, which is stupid - they stood out a mile.

This was a gynaecology ward.

But when I first got something wrong with me,

I didn't know I had anything wrong with me,

because the first thing I noticed was I'd just got a bit bigger,

and I thought, "Well, there you are, I've just got a bit bigger. I'll have to get some new clothes."

I'm thinking, "What size I now?" I wasn't sure if I was 16, 18.

Look at Vanessa Feltz, she looks to be the same size as me,

she's a size 12, oddly enough...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Anyway, I know I'm different sizes in different shops.

16 in some shops, 18 in some shops.

In Gap I'm only a size 12, because they're American.

In Marks & Spencer's I'm only a size 3, because they don't want to upset anybody.

In Topshop, my hips set off an alarm as I go through.

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!"

"There's a big middle-aged woman trying to get in!" There's a grille coming down. Whoa!

I go, "Please, it's not for me, it's my daughter!"

"No, we can't help you, go, go, go!

"Evans is round the corner - please, go there!"

But I didn't realise at first there was anything wrong with me - I just felt a bit strange.

I remember saying to my friend, "I don't feel good."

And she said, "Have you ever thought it might be fibroids?"

I said, "Fibroids? That's a breakfast cereal, isn't it?"

Keeps you trim on the outside and regular on the inside.

And she said, "Well, if you get them and they go really, really big and bad, you have to have an operation."

And I said, "Oh, what?" She said, "You have to have a hysterectomy."

I said, "You have to have a what?"

She said, "You have to have a hysterectomy."

I said, "I'm not having one of those."

I said, "It's not even a proper word."

I said, "It's got half its letters missing."

It's got a big hole in the middle, appropriately enough.

Come on, keep up!

But I remembered what she said months later, you know,

when I was in Casualty and I was lying in this cubicle.

And this consultant came and he said, "I've looked at your scans,

"you know, it doesn't look good. You're going to have to have an operation."

And I said, "Oh, what?" He said, "You've got to have a hysterectomy."

But at the time, you know, I just put it down to the menopause.

You know, because I was that age and I put everything down to the menopause now -

tiredness, irritability, global warming.

Well, it could be, couldn't it? 200 lady Eskimos all having a hot flush at the same time. Whoa!

I was used to going a bit mad, you know, once a month. I was used to all that. I was used to that cycle,

you know, you're all right, you're getting your period, you've got your period,

I love you, I hate you, I'm really sorry...

And I had identified a little mini cycle within that

when you go like this, because you're ovulating.

I'm all right, I get my period, I've had my period, I'm ovulating,

I love you, I'm really sorry, get out of it...

And I thought, "Well, that's all right, you know, I have all that

"and then that'll stop, and then I'll get my menopause."

But what I didn't realise was, you get all this, I have my period...

and at the same time, you get your menopause coming the other way!

So you're going, "All right, I'm getting my period,

"I've had my period, I'm ovulating, is it hot or is it me?"

"What have I come in here for?"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Well, it got so bad with me that in the end,

there was only 17 minutes in a month...

..when anybody could get any sense out of me!

So they're all queuing up for those 17 minutes,

because they know that I'll be nice and reasonable

and I won't burst into tears, so they're all queuing up, everybody.

You've got carol singers in April... # Deck the halls...! #

"Yes, come in!" I've got those men

who go door-to-door selling the dusters,

"Yes, I'll have your dusters.

"And your ironing board cover, anything you like!" My children are queuing up.

"Can I go to Ibiza, even though I'm only 12?"

"Yes, of course you can, my darling!"

"Can I have another two Game Boys?" "Yes, of course you can, my darling!"

My husband's at the back of the queue, "Hurry up, hurry up..."

"Yes?" "Can we have sex tonight?"

"Oh, ping! Time's up! What have I come in here for?"

So I thought, I'll go to a health food shop

and I'll ask them what I can take.

I want to know why the people who work in health food shops

have always got styes...

..and impetigo

and psoriasis and scurvy and rickets.

They're always the most droopy-looking little people, aren't they?

The men always look like they're saving up for a sex change,

and they've only got 22 quid

And the girls have got really teeny-weeny little wrists.

If they've got to ring up a big price, they have to call somebody in from the back.

"It was £19.99, I've done the 19..."

So I went into one and I said to this girl, "Hello, have you got anything about the menopause?"

And she's just looking at me, I can see she's puzzling over

the first part of the sentence, the "hello" part.

Anyway, I found this book, Natural Alternatives to HRT,

and I bought everything it said you should take.

And the next morning, I'm sitting there, I've got this really sad breakfast.

I've got this big bowl of sunflower seeds, linseeds and millet.

I'm thinking, "This is a bit sad,

"I've turned into a five foot five budgie all of a sudden."

All I need is the ladder and the flipping bell.

So I'm chomping away. My husband says, "What are you eating?" I said, "I'm eating linseeds."

He said, "You can't eat linseeds." I said, "You can, linseed oil, is very good for you."

He said, "Well, that's what you put on cricket bats, isn't it?"

I said, "At least you won't crack in the cold weather."

The trouble with linseeds is they're teeny, teeny little seeds

and they get stuck in the cracks between your teeth. So you spend all day...

..getting them out. What's better, really, HRT or linseeds?

I don't know. Who do you want to look like, Edwina Currie or Albert Steptoe?

Well, I was religiously chomping away.

I took this stuff every day for days and days and days

and I didn't feel any better.

And I didn't think I looked any better, but I couldn't really tell.

I can't really tell what I look like, because I have a very strange idea of my own body image,

because I used to suffer from an eating disorder.

If you've ever had an eating disorder, it gives you

a distorted view of what you look like.

Like, if somebody's a compulsive over-eater and they're very big,

they can look in the mirror and they see quite a normal person.

An anorexic looks in the mirror and they can see quite a fat person.

Michael Portillo looks in the mirror and sees quite a fat person.

It's Ann Widdecombe! Ha-ha! Afraid of you!

So I just, you know, I just struggle with this body image thing,

because of having suffered from this addiction.

But it's not a bad addiction to have. If anybody's thinking of taking up an addiction, you know,

compulsive overeating is not a bad one, because it's quite cheap.

You know, if you compare the prices

of a gram of coke and a bottle of vodka,

and a white sliced loaf and a pot of Hartley's strawberry jam,

you know, it comes out quite well.

But I just have this strange relationship with food,

partly because of the way I was brought up,

because my mother, like a lot of mothers in the 1950s,

she used sweets as a reward.

You know, if you were good, you got your sweets, if you did your jobs,

you got your sweets, if you did your dry-stone walling, you got your Maltesers...

You know, because I was brought up in rather a strange house on the top of the Moors,

miles from anywhere, just outside Rochdale in Lancashire,

and it was two miles from the nearest bus stop,

and there was just a really rough cart track to get our house,

which meant, when I was older, I could only really have a boyfriend

if he had his own transport

and he wasn't too bothered about his suspension.

Which meant I ended up going out with a load of old binmen, usually.

But I did have this strange relationship with my mother,

because the night I was born, I was born in a little nursing home.

It was when they used to take the babies away as soon as they were born

and there was a mix-up, and I was given to the woman in the next-door

room, and my mother was given this woman's appendix in a jar.

Which she was, you know, fine about.

She was just a little bit distant.

And you know when you're little and your mum takes you to the shop,

and you're like that. She takes you to the shop, and she always stops

for a very long conversation with somebody, and you're just, like, stood there.

And all you can hear are the distant voices that are booming somewhere

above your head. Well, I realised years later that in my case

that was a false arm,

and she'd tuned the radio to The Archers,

she'd gone, she was in a cafe half a mile away.

But it was a funny place to be brought up,

because there was nothing to do. Our main social life

when we were teenagers, there was a church nearby

and I used to go bell-ringing once a week to meet boys.

But it's not great preparation for a mutually fulfilling sex life,

bell-ringing. All that tugging - it's not good.

You know, the first proper boyfriend I had, I nearly killed him. "Oh, God, sorry!"

He didn't mind that so much as being expected to do it in a circle with seven other people.

But the trouble with my mother was that she never would encourage us to go to the doctor if we were ill.

She said, "You should never go to the doctor unless you've got something interesting."

So we were always going around kissing parrots, trying to get psittacosis.

Because she said that you should put up with everything, which is a very northern thing.

It's a very Lancashire thing. You put up with everything,

don't show your emotions, you don't show that you mind about anything.

If you look at the history of the north-west, you know,

they closed the mines, and they just went, "Oh, well, there you go."

And they closed the shipyards, "Oh, fair enough."

They closed the cotton mills, "That's that, then."

I mean, when they marched in the 1930s,

they marched from Jarrow in the north-east,

and the people from the north-west joined on at the end, because there

was, like, nothing else to do, "All right."

And when they got to 10 Downing Street they said, "Look,

"we're not that bothered about the unemployment, but could you please

"not send us any more Gracie Fields films? Thanks very much." That's how

she was brought up, you see, to put up with everything, because she was

brought up in the 1920s, very poor, little tiny house in Moss Side.

She said to me, one year, they were so poor, she didn't have a coat,

none of them had coats. She didn't have shoes, none of them had shoes.

She didn't have a sense of humour, that was just her.

So, you know, when I started to feel ill,

I really started to try and struggle on, but I was losing all my bounce.

You know, because normally, I get out of bed, have a shower,

I shampoo my hair twice, I put mousse and conditioner, I blow-dry it. I'd gone from that to, like,

slapping on a bit of Wash & Go and hoping it rained.

And I was losing all my interest in everything.

You know, because we have a bird table outside our kitchen window.

Normally I like to see what's on the bird table, and I just couldn't be bothered looking.

And my children were going, "Look, look,

"there's a robin!" I'm going, "I'll look later."

One night, we had a fox in the garden and my children were going,

"Look, look, there's a fox in the garden!" I'm going, "I'll look later."

One night, we had a unicorn and two pixies...

And my husband said, he said, "I know you don't feel good, but look,

"it's nearly half-term. We'll have a special treat."

He said, "Why don't we go to Florida and have a week at Disney World?"

I said, "I don't think I can go. I think something's wrong with me.

"I think my compulsive overeating has come back."

He said, "Honestly, we'll have a fantastic week at Disney World."

I said, "I don't think I can go.

"I think I need to be with other compulsive overeaters."

He said, "If you go to Disney World, you will be!"

Well, I've never seen so many huge arses in my whole life.

I mean, I'd never been there before.

I don't know if everybody there has a big arse,

or if everybody in Florida's got a big arse -

everybody in Disney World's got a big arse.

It was big-arse week and we got four cancellations,

I don't know what it was.

But they're all HUGE

and they're all very happily all walking around eating.

And I'm thinking, "Well, I'm sorry, we don't do that in our country!"

If you're very, very big, you don't walk around as if you didn't mind!

You certainly don't walk around eating.

If you're big in this country, eating is a very shameful thing.

You can't imagine this scenario in England.

A big woman goes into a cake shop

and she says, "I would like a cake, please.

"It is for me, I'm going to eat it myself."

It couldn't happen, could it? She would have to go in and say,

"Erm, can I have a cake, please?

"A woman's collapsed two streets away, and..."

"..I think it's a diabetic coma."

"On the other hand, it could be head injuries, in which case I'll eat it myself."

In Disney World, they're walking around, they've got food in this hand,

they've got food in that hand,

they've got a big wheelie bin full of popcorn...

they've got a sort of Bob Dylan harmonica-style thing with a turkey leg strapped to it.

And they're all wearing shorts!

APPLAUSE

And I'm thinking, "I'm sorry.

"We don't do that in our country!"

If you're very, very big, you're supposed to stay in!

If you have to come out, it's beige with an elasticated waist,

it's not shorts!

Shorts, really, in our country are reserved for little thin, weenie, weenie little people.

Little weenie, weenie little shorts.

With little weenie, weenie logos on the back.

"Levi." "M&S." "C&A."

In Disney World, they can write what they like on the back of their shorts!

"Procrastination is the thief of time."

Anyway, I came back from my holiday and I didn't feel any better.

I thought, "I'm so fed up with this now.

"I'm going to go to the doctor's, I'm going to phone the doctor."

I don't think I'd ever phoned the doctor for myself before.

So I phoned him and I said, "I'd like to make an appointment."

And she said, "That's fine, the first available appointment will be November 5th 2002."

She said, "Or, if you can turn up in five minutes,

"we're having a free-for-all."

So I turned up and there's a whole bunch of people waiting,

it's like first come, first served.

And there's five doors, there's five doctors' surgeries.

And there's a doctor behind one door, but you don't know which one.

So we're all there, on the blocks like this.

And I'm sizing up the opposition.

I've got a bronchitis, a varicose veins, a woman in a wheelchair -

I'm not too worried about her...

a manic depressive, I think, "Well, he could go either way, you know?"

He could be, like, sat slumped, or he could put on a burst

of adrenaline and get to the door first.

I think, "Well, I'll kick him out of the way, elbow the varicose veins,

"disable the bronchitis with a quick burst of Estee Lauder Youth Dew..."

So I reckon it's down to me and the woman in the wheelchair.

Well, she looks quite fit, actually, she's got a little sweatband on.

And she's got these little leather gloves, she's like this.

Big winner's medal from the London Marathon.

So I'm going home and I'm in a big huff,

and I go past this big billboard outside the doctor's,

and it's got this picture with a very smiley woman with a telephone headset,

and it says, "Medical Advice Helpline - let us do the worrying."

I think, "Well, I'll phone them. I'll phone them and tell them

"my symptoms and they can tell me what to do.

So I get out my new, very flashy,

little black, flippy-flippy mobile phone.

Flip, flip. Oh, it's stuck to my face!

Why is it stuck to my face?

Because it's not a mobile phone, it's a black panty liner with wings.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Wrong pocket, start again.

Flippy, flippy, flippy, beep, beep, beep...

"Hello, you are through to the Medical Advice Helpline.

"Let us do the worrying.

"You have accessed the storehouse, nay treasure trove,

"of trained medical experts.

"Each one expertly trained, medically."

"With a medical training that has made them expert, in a trained way."

"We have over 5,000 top consultants all busting a gut, so to speak,

"to help you with any symptoms that may be worrying you.

"I'm afraid that at the moment,

"there is no-one available to take your call.

"You can either hang up, hang on, or, if symptoms worsen,

"dial 3-33-3-33-3-33

"for our complete postmortem and funeral package."

I think, "Well, I'll hang on."

"You are now being held in a queue.

"If you have a tone phone,

"please press for your choice of relaxing listening.

"Press one for the Blue Danube, two for the Cuckoo Waltz,

"three for Tommy Steele having a crack at Phantom of the Opera."

"You have now reached the head of the queue

"and a trained consultant will be with you in...

"How long, Sheila?!"

"As soon as she's finished her pasty."

"Meanwhile, please press one for huge, worrying lumps..."

"..two for inexplicable flatulence..."

"..three for grumbling groins, back passage bother...

"and all enquiries for Washing Machine World."

"Please note that we are no longer dealing with diarrhoea or gonorrhoea,

"as these are causing repetitive strain injury in the girls typing the invoices."

"You are now through to huge, worrying lumps.

"Please state your symptoms in no more than three short words.

"Please speak slowly and clearly, and if it's something embarrassing,

"then speak up, because there'll be lots of us listening."

"Please state your symptoms in no more than three short words after the beep. Beep."

"Pain, lump, tired."

"Please repeat."

"Pain, lump, tired."

"Thank you. So sorry to hear

"you are suffering from, 'pain, lump, tired'."

"Please hold the line. We're connecting you to an expert who is

"specially trained to deal with, 'pain, lump, tired'."

And then a real person comes on the line.

"Hello? Oh, yes, hello, I'm looking at your problem now,

"I've got my computer up and running. Now just a few questions.

"Tell me, how long have you had it?"

"About a year." "About a year? And do you wear an under-wired bra?"

"Yes." "And have you noticed a wire gone missing?"

"No." "And since you've had the problem,

"have you tried jamming your hand in and seeing if anything moves round?"

"No."

"Because often what happens, you see, is a wire comes loose

"from your bra, gets stuck in the drum and then it can't spin."

I thought, "Right, I've had enough of this now. I feel so bad,

"I'm going to take myself down the hill, I'm going to go to hospital,

"I'm going to go to Casualty."

Now, I've never been to Casualty before, but I think, "Well, it's all right."

You know, I've seen ER on television. I think as soon as

I get there, I'll be on a stretcher, they'll run at me, they'll be cutting up the sides of my trousers.

You know, because they do that in ER all the time,

even if somebody's only looking for the antenatal clinic.

"Oh, they're on me!"

Anyway, I got in there and it wasn't quite like ER.

It was like these two grumpy women at the table, and they went, "Yes?"

I said, "Oh, I've got this really bad pain."

"Where?" I said, "Well, sort of here."

She said, "Oh, abdominal. I'll put leg, I can't spell abdominal."

She says, "You'll have to wait," so I'm sitting in Casualty

and I'm next to this really, really mad, rough-looking woman with no teeth,

who's out of her head on something.

And she keeps looking at me, going, "Hey, Pam Ayres, hey!"

And she's knocking something back out of a bottle, something purple.

I think probably meths, I'm guessing not Ribena Toothkind.

And then on my other side,

I've got this poor man who's got a Dustbuster jammed up his bottom.

He says he was hoovering the back of his boxer shorts and he fell over,

I don't know, I don't know.

Anyway, every time he gets up and we have to move to another chair, it sets it off. "Wahey!"

So we're sat there for hours and hours, there's nothing to do, there's nothing to read.

All we've got, we've got, like, a big television bolted to the wall

and it's showing this hospital information film over and over again,

"Taking care of hospital crutches."

So I'm just sitting there, "Hey, Pam Ayres!" Bzzzz!

And I'm thinking, "Who is that voice-over? It sounds like Susan Hampshire."

"Taking care of hospital crutches. Hospital crutches are not a toy."

"Hey, Pam Ayres!" Bzzzz!

I'm thinking, "Is it Susan Hampshire or is it Hannah Gordon?"

"Taking care of hospital crutches.

"Hospital crutches are not a Dustbuster, they must not be jammed up your bottom."

Yeah, I told you that. Anyway, I get called through

and I'm going through to see the nurse.

I have to go pass reception and I look round the corner,

and there she is, Hannah Gordon with a microphone,

"Taking care of hospital crutches."

And I go through and I see this nurse,

and by the time I get to see the nurse, I have got a really,

really bad pain and my hands have gone into spasm, like this, and I can't move anything.

This nurse says, "Right, you need a painkiller." She said, "Can you take paracetamol?"

I said, "Only crushed up in jam, sorry."

And she said, "Well, the quickest thing I can give you,

"I can give you a painkiller in a suppository.

"Do you know what one is?" And I just went, "Ah!" I didn't know what one was.

A suppository, I mean, I was guessing it wasn't somewhere

where you stored furniture, but I didn't know what it was.

Anyway, so she gives me this thing that's like the last sweet in the bag of Liquorice Allsorts,

and she says, "You know, you can put it where you like, within reason."

I thought, "Well, I'll put it behind my ear, that's all right."

She tells me what to do with it and says, "You can go in that "disabled toilet,

"and put it in in there." I said, "What disabled toilet?"

She said, "That toilet over there." I said, "Oh, is that disabled?"

She said, "It wasn't, but somebody smashed it with a sledgehammer last night."

So I go in and I can't move my hands.

I can't even get my trousers undone. I've got these button-fly Levi's

and they're really tight, because I've got this huge lump here.

I think, maybe I'll go whack and they might go ping, ping, ping, ping.

And I could go shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, and I could, like, throw it up and...

No, I can't do that.

I think if only I was one of those girls from the sex shows in Bangkok.

You know those girls that can take off the top of a bottle,

you know the one? No?

He's laughing, she's not, OK.

"I thought you were in Weston-Super-Mare - how dare you?!"

I thought that they'd find it really easy, wouldn't they? Those girls, they would just go whack,

ping, ping, ping, shimmy, shimmy, shimmy, up. But, you know,

I'm not from Bangkok, the sex capital of the world.

I'm from greater Manchester, the chip capital of the world,

which is why all the sex shows are in Bangkok and all the chip shops are in greater Manchester.

Because if all the sex shows were in greater Manchester, there would just be girls with their coats on,

with a chip pan, going, "Because I'm not in the mood, now leave it!"

Anyway, I can't do it, so I think I'm going to have to ask a nurse,

so I'm poking my head through the door hoping that a nurse will be going past and I can't see anybody,

I can just see a male nurse down the end of the corridor.

I think, "That's all right. A male nurse is a nurse,

"they're trained the same way. It doesn't make any difference."

I'm thinking, "Is it a nurse?" I'm not sure what they wear.

He's got, like, a pale blue shirt on and epaulettes and an ID thing.

Anyway, he comes to do it for me.

I see him a week later, driving a bus, but, anyway...

Anyway, so I get my painkiller and then I feel marvellous then,

and I'm all for going home, and they said, "No, no, no,

"you don't go home now, we have to find out what it was."

They said, "We'll have to do an internal examination.

"Do you mind if we bring in 16 students?"

I said, "Well, it depends what they are students of.

"If it's mechanical engineering, yes, I do mind."

She said, "What we can do, if you don't want a whole load of people coming in your room,"

she said, "We got the new technology now, we've got this tiny,

"tiny, tiny little miniaturised camera on the end of this flexible cable

"and we put that up inside, that takes pictures,

"that goes through to a video monitor in another room,

"nobody needs to come in." I said, "All right, do that."

So the only person that's got to come in is the man that's got to put the camera in.

So in comes this poor man who's got to do it,

and he's so embarrassed when he sees me, he can't look me in the face,

which doesn't matter, because it's not my face he has to look me in, but...

But he's trying to put it in without looking, so he's like this.

So he's looking one way, I'm looking that way, I'm not looking at him,

I'm looking like I've got nothing below the waist at all, like this.

And he feels obliged to have a conversation with me.

You know, it's a bit like the dentist, whenever the dentist put that sucky tube in your mouth,

they always say, "Where are you going for your holidays?"

And you go, "Ibiza."

So he's looking like this, chatting away, says, "I see there

"was another accident in the high street the other day."

"Oh, was there?" "You know, that rather dangerous corner

"where the buses pull out near the pub."

"Oh, yes, I know where you mean." "What we really need is a big sign, danger, concealed entrance."

"Oh, where would you put it?" "Oh, I see what you mean..."

Anyway, he puts the camera in, takes the pictures, back I go to Casualty.

I'm sitting with my friends, "Hey, Pam Ayres!"

Bzzzz! And I said to them, "What are we watching on the television now?

"This isn't 'Taking care of hospital crutches', what is this on the television now?"

LAUGHTER

Well, they get the results from that and they send me down to the women's clinic.

So I'm sitting in the women's clinic and I'm thinking, "Well,

"I never knew there was so many ways for women to fall to pieces."

They're all sitting there, they've got their bosoms hanging out, pelvic floors dangling.

There's a woman with her cervix in a margarine tub, like this.

And she's going, "I took it out to wash it,

"I couldn't get it back in."

And there's a very select group of women, all with fibroids,

all vying with each other to see who's got the biggest one.

"How big was yours? Did the doctor say?"

"Yes, as big as a satsuma."

"Oh, mine was as big as a grapefruit."

"Oh, Spanish or Californian?"

Anyway, so they do another scan and they get the results from that,

and they say I can't go home, I have to go up to the ward for the night.

So I'm up to the ward, terrible pain, hands like this, and they say,

"We're really sorry, we can't give you a sleeping pill, it's too late."

But luckily, the two women in the two next beds to me are having a very long conversation

about how they went to see Elaine Paige at the London Palladium in The King and I,

and all those lovely little Siamese children...

Anyway, so I was asleep quite quickly.

I'd been asleep for about seven minutes, in comes the consultant,

on goes the light, dicky bow, 16 students behind him, washed his hands,

rubber glove, hand in, he said, "Now, what we'll do..."

I said, "Excuse me,"

I said, "I don't expect you to take me out to dinner before you do that,

"but, you know, hello would be nice."

To which he took no notice, he said, "Now what we'll do,

"we'll take away the uterus, the ovaries, the cervix,

"ribs, might as well while we're there,

"spleen, never knew what that was for,

"ginger highlights, see you in the morning."

I thought, "No, I can't stay here." I was a bit worried anyway,

I was a bit worried about sleeping in the ward overnight,

because I talk in my sleep

and I didn't want to end up as "end of part one" on You've Been Framed.

So I thought, "Well, I'll check myself out,"

because I'm sure I've got private health insurance

I took out years and years ago, and I've never had to use it, and I'm not sure who it's with,

because every insurance company I've ever been with has been bought up by a bigger company.

So I go home, and I'm sorting through all my bills,

it's very confusing now,

because I get my water from the electricity board now.

I think that's dangerous, though, don't you?

Anyway, so I make a few phone calls and it turns out,

once I've been re-routed via a few gay chatrooms,

that my health insurance is now with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

But that's all right, they say they'll cover all my costs and throw in a party bucket and dips,

so I'm quite happy. So I'm lying there the next week, waiting for my operation,

this little tiny private room, and I'm just lying there,

I've got about half an hour to go before they take me away,

and I've got a television up on the wall,

and I'm watching a Channel 5 documentary -

When Operations Go Wrong.

And it's all about, you know,

people who have gone in for a normal varicose vein operation

and they end up having their bladder re-routed by some maniac

that's come up from the boiler room and put a mask on.

The anaesthetist comes in to talk to me and he says, "Is there anything you're worried about?"

And I said, "Well, yes, I've just seen this thing." I said,

"I'm worried I'm going to wake up in the middle of my operation,

"you know, paralysed, in terrible pain, unable to speak or move,

"with all my bits in a bowl on the sideboard, and somebody going,

"'Read me them instructions again, Joanne.'"

And he said, "That can't happen now."

He said, "We've got a new drug, "that can't happen."

I said, "What, I can't wake up?"

He said, "No, you can wake up." "What, I won't be paralysed?"

He said, "No, you will be." "What, I won't be in terrible pain?"

He said, "No, you will be." I said, "What does the new drug do?"

"Well, it's an amnesiac drug - if something goes wrong, you won't remember it,

"you won't know anything about it." I said, "Well,

"if I start weeing out of my left armpit

"I might notice something's gone wrong."

Anyway, so he goes, and then in comes the man that's going to do the operation.

He says to me, "Where would you like me to put your scar?"

I said, "Look, I don't know, where do you usually put it?"

He said, "Well, we do what we call a bikini-line incision."

He said, "Do you wear a bikini?" I said, "Oh, come on..."

I said, "I didn't take my coat off on a beach until I was 37."

He said, "We try and make sure that it sort of ends up

"being covered by your underwear. Where do your pants come to?"

I said, "It depends, you know?

"It depends where I am in my menstrual cycle,

"where I am in my laundry cycle, you know?"

Different pants for different moods, with me.

M&S, BHS, C&A, PMT - that's how I do it.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And he said, "Well, we try and make sure it ends up being covered by your pubic hair."

I said, "Well, you can do it there, but I'll bleed to death."

So he goes away and I've got about half an hour to go before

they come to take me away, so I'm trying to think it through.

I'm thinking, "OK, so they take away your uterus,

"so you can't have any more children."

Well, that's all right, you know, I was 48, I wasn't expecting to have any more,

but if somebody tells me I can't do something,

I have to find a way to do it then.

I was thinking, if I wanted to have a baby, how could I have a baby?

I think, well, I've still got my ovaries, so I've still got my eggs,

all I need to do is to get my eggs and get them implanted into the womb

of another woman. I'm watching Friends at the time, and thinking,

I wouldn't get them implanted into the womb of any of those girls off Friends,

because they're too thin and neurotic-looking, aren't they?

You imagine a poor old foetus going, "For God's sake, breathe out!"

So I changed channel to Oprah Winfrey, I think, "Yes,

"I could get my eggs implanted into the womb of Oprah Winfrey."

She's a nice, big, sturdy, sensible-looking woman.

I think, all I've got to do now is get some sperm from somewhere,

which could be a bit awkward,

because my husband's had a vasectomy.

Didn't tell me, the bloody liar,

said he was going to the garden centre, thank you.

I think, well,

I could have a bit of a fling with the man in the corner shop,

because he's very attractive. We could have like a big smooch

and at the last minute, I could whip out a yoghurt pot.

It could be awkward, though, couldn't it?

The next morning, when I'm popping in for my bran flakes. "Morning!"

I think what I would need to do, really, what would be better,

I should do what a lot of people do,

I could get some sperm off a gay man.

You see, that would be better, because they wouldn't expect

any emotional commitment, you know,

and they might pop in a Dusty Springfield impression,

might make the bed afterwards.

Anyway, I've got about ten minutes to go before they come to take me away

and I'm just thinking, all right, so they take away your uterus,

so what's left? Is it just like a big hole?

I mean, am I supposed to put something in there, you know,

like an ornament or something like that?

Pot pourri, what? Nobody's said.

And, like, does it affect your sex life?

You know, what happens afterwards? Does your husband's penis panic

and say, "Go back, it's too big, it's too big!"

I've got so much to worry about. I've got to fill up a big hole,

I've still got to give pleasure to my husband, how can I do both?

I think, well, I could pop in a sausage sandwich

and a picture of Charlie Dimmock, that would probably do it.

Well, they come to take me away for the operation and what I didn't realise,

because I've never had an operation, they don't take you straight into the operating theatre

because they don't want you to see them clearing up from the operation before,

going, "Oh, no wonder he never responded to oxygen, never had it turned on. Oh, well."

Anyway, I come round after the operation and this nurse says to me,

"You don't have to get up, you don't have to do anything,

"you've got a catheter in and it's draining away to something under the bed, don't worry about it."

I said, "I'd rather get up." "No, there's a catheter in, draining away to something under the bed."

I'm thinking, "To WHAT under the bed? What is it?"

And I can hear this woman going, "Leanne, have you seen my mop bucket?"

They say, "All right." They take the catheter out and say,

"All right, you can get up and go to the bathroom now." I get up, the first time in two days,

and I'm stood there, looking at myself in the mirror.

I'm thinking, "For God's sake, what do you look like?"

I've got no bra on, J-cloth knickers.

I've got this terrible hospital gown, all flowery,

like a 1960s housecoat. I've not washed my hair for two days.

It's gone all flat and the brown bits are showing through.

I've not got my contact lenses in. I've got my glasses on, which are years old.

I'm just stood there thinking, "For God's sake.

"You didn't look so bad when you came in. You've turned into Olive from On The Buses!"

And I'm thinking, "I must get my own pyjamas on and then I'll feel a bit more like myself,"

but I don't see how to get my gown off because, on this hand,

I've got a needle in the back of my hand with a drip

going up to this big drip stand on wheels

with a big bag of morphine on it.

Cos when I came round from the operation they said,

"If you need any pain relief, you press this little button

"and you'll get a measured dose of morphine every six minutes."

Well, I thought she meant you HAD to have it every six minutes.

That was a long night! Anyway, so...

So I get my gown off this arm and I get it down the front,

and then I get it down this arm, over the needle,

up the cable, onto the top of the drip stand.

Then I'm stark naked and it's dressed up as me!

So I get my pyjamas on and the nurses come in.

They're so nice. They say, "You're doing so well - you're dressed,

"you're up. You're doing better than anybody else on this whole floor."

Cos everybody on my floor's had the same operation on the same day.

They said, "You're doing really well. Why not take a walk up and down the corridor? Go on."

So I'm walking up and down the corridor like this...

I can see into all the other rooms with the women who had the same operation - all the doors are open.

And all these other women are hoovering and painting the ceiling!

I'm so cross. Anyway, so I get home, and when I get home I think,

"I've really got to have a look at my scar,"

cos I especially avoided looking at it all the time I've been in hospital

cos I was a bit too scared to look at it.

I think, "What I'll do, I'll unpack my bag from hospital,

"put on my pyjamas, and then I'll have a look at it."

So I unpack my bag and I've got my pyjama trousers but I haven't got my pyjama jacket. I've left it behind.

I really like it, so I phone the hospital and say, "I'm really sorry.

"I've just checked myself out and I think I left my pyjamas."

She says, "Tell me what operation - I'll call you back."

So I tell her and she calls me back and says, "What floor was it?

"What ward was it? What operation? What are you missing?"

I said, "It's floor ten, ward three, hysterectomy, pyjama jacket."

"All right, I'll call you back." Bit later, the laundry phones

and says, "We think we've got what you want. Ward three, floor ten,

"hysterectomy, missing item. Sending it up now."

Up comes this taxi, refrigerated box -

not my pyjamas, my uterus!

No, no, no...

Yes, I know we have to stop.

I know. I know we have to have an interval. They're like this. I know.

Sorry, I'm getting like Ken Dodd. I can't come off! Anyway...

So I get changed. I think, "I'll have a look at it," and it's not as bad as I thought, actually.

I thought they shaved the whole thing, but they didn't -

they just shaved a little strip across here.

It's like they've shaved a bit and gone, "Come on, Maureen, half past six - karaoke. Come on."

There's, like, a really bald bit across here

and the rest is just sort of hanging down, you know.

No, cos I've more or less let it go, you know, the previous few weeks.

No, cos normally I try and keep up with it a bit, you know.

I chop the odd chunk off now and again.

You know, with the nail scissors.

LAUGHTER

Oh, not just me, then! Ha-ha!

No, I do, I chop bits off, and...

then I don't know what to do with them, so I put them out the window.

No, cos when I was little and we used to clean our hairbrushes,

my mum used to say, "Put the hair out of the window, cos then the birds can make their nests..."

There's some very annoyed birds where I live!

Tapping on the window, going, "Do you mind?

"Can we stick to twigs? People are talking."

Yes, I'm just coming. Anyway, so...

So I look at it, and what it is is, like, a really bald bit

and then the scar, actually, is not that bad.

It's like a little thin mouth, like this.

And if I twitch my stomach muscles at the side, I can make it go up.

I think, "Who does it look like?"

It's like a little mouth, stubbly chin and sidies coming down here.

"Who does it remind me of?" I think, If I had tweed knickers on,

"it would look like John McCririck from Channel 4 Racing."

I'm just coming. I've just got to tell you this, though.

I'm so annoyed, actually, cos it's all grown back now

and the way it's come out,

my scar is just above where my pubic hair comes to.

I'm having to do so much backcombing of a morning now.

Luckily, Nicky Clarke does a lovely pubic mousse, but...

Look, do you want to have a look?

MUSIC PLAYS

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh, thank you, thank you.

What a welcome.

There must be northern people in this audience tonight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The atmosphere is so warm.

I'm just getting these warm wafts coming up.

Talk about "on the wings of love".

I am floating two foot in the air, I really am. It's unbelievable.

Oh, I'm filling up now. What am I like?

So many people. Hi, Marion.

God! Not seen you for about 15 years.

How are you? You look gorgeous.

Are you still a prostitute?

What? A cashier? Oh, lovely.

Which bank? Barclays?

Aw. AUDIENCE MEMBER CACKLES

That's a short skirt. Are you moonlighting?

I don't think Nick's had sex for a few nights. Give him a discount.

I can't believe I'm in this hall with all you lovely people.

Oh, there's my mum. Love you, Mum.

Put your knees together.

No, but what a year I have had.

I mean, a year ago I was nobody.

Yes, I was gifted. Yes, I was gorgeous.

But, basically, nobody knew who the Kentucky Fried Fricking Chicken I was.

PHONE BLEEPS

Oh, text message.

SHE CHUCKLES

Anyway...

To plunge into a little Lancashire idiom, last year I was nobody,

I had nothing and, as we say, I didn't have a pot to piss in.

No, I'm not trying to be offensive when I say that. We speak as we find in Radcliffe.

I did not have a pot to piss in, did I, Mum?

A pot to piss in, I did not have.

If somebody'd come to me for a pot, wanting a piss,

I couldn't help them.

Pot-wise, piss-wise...

I was nowhere.

No piss, no pot - that was me, big time.

Anyway, it's a nice little expression, isn't it?

We've got those sayings like that, haven't we, Mum?

What did we use to say to my dad?

"Don't leave your teeth in the bed. My bum's bad enough as it is."

And my own particular favourite...

"If you think you'll have a shag, pop a johnny in your bag."

But what a fantastic chance for me.

There I am singing on our luxury liner, The Watery Queen,

on comes this docu-soap crew, and I didn't realise what a chance it was,

you know. I was quite ambivalatious about them.

I said to them, "You can film me, if you like."

I said, "I've got nothing to hide." I said to them, "I am what I am.

"And what I am needs no excuses."

That is a line from a song from my favourite, favourite,

fabulous all-time show, Cage Aux Folles.

It's a gorgeous show. It's French. It's about these...

It's about these two gay frogs.

Oh, no, sorry - we're not allowed to say that.

It's about these two French poofs and, er...

No, I love... I love gay people.

I couldn't be a gay man, though, could you?

I couldn't face all that ironing.

But what a fantastic chance for me.

And I am truly grateful.

That's one of our mottos, isn't it, Mum?

"Longitude or latitude,

"my attitude is gratitude."

And that has got us through some very sticky situations, hasn't it, Mum?

Last year when my dad was arrested, charged with insulting behaviour,

liable to cause a breach of the peace -

ie running into Sainsbury's stark bollock naked, shouting, "Your Jaffa cakes are crap..."

..and he had to be led into court with a blanket over his head,

I said to my mum, "No, come on, be fair."

I said, "Attitude is gratitude.

"Let's be grateful we've got a bloody blanket."

Anyway, I'm going to finish this part of the show now with a little song.

I think you can all guess what type of song it's going to be.

I am becoming known for my big ballads.

This song is written for, and is dedicated to,

my fiance, Sven.

Lars! God!

What am I like, getting my engagements mixed up now? Sven was another cruise altogether.

Lars, who I met recently in a chip shop in Brindisi.

We were being filmed at the time and he hutched up against me in the queue,

so I think the whole world knows my first words to him were,

"Would you mind not shoving my arse? We're all waiting on battered saveloys."

Since which time, of course, we've had a whirlwind romance.

We've become engaged, we're buying a big house together

just outside Huddersfield, with a granny annexe for my mother

and a secure unit for my father.

And, er...

you know, we've only known each other ten days, but as I said to...

him, I said,

"This was meant to be.

"This was written in the stars.

"This was our destination."

Because before I met him, I was quite...

I was quite soft on the outside

but quite hard and cold on the inside.

A bit like an Arctic roll.

And so I'd like to dedicate this song to my fiance -

I will get his bloody name right, Lars, Lars, Lars -

with thanks for all his care and his love and his dedication.

Plus I must say, he is absolutely top-notch in the underpants department.

This song is called Filling My World.

LAUGHTER

Are you from Barclays as well?

Cos that is what he has done for me.

Filling My World.

# I was lost, I was cold

# Oh, my life was a mockery

# Had no future, no past and no colour but grey

# Stood alone like a gnome not at home in a rockery

# When you came Sent that same grey away

# I was sad, I was dead I was Emily Bronte

# Always looking for love in the mists on the moor

# But my heart held a shard of dead-hard diamante

# Till your knob did the job on my door

# You

# Lightened my life and you frightened my demons away

# You heighten my feelings

# My bust is on fire night and day

# What can I say?

# Since you gave my arse that shove... #

Duh-duh-duh. Get it next time.

# There's blue in the sky above

# Filling my world

# Filling my world with love

# I had nothing, had no-one to even get pissed with

# Lived my life like a fool on a hill or a cloud

# Out of place as Anne Robinson in Aberystwyth

# When you came My defences were down... #

MUSICAL FLOURISH Ooh, I like that!

# Life was dull, life was cheap Like the programmes on Carlton

# Always hoping for something exciting to start

# But my love had grown bald and so, like Bobby Charlton

# I combed across the top of my heart

# But you

# Lighted my dark, you ignited a spark deep inside

# Requited a love in a heart that was unoccupied... #

SHE GROWLS

# I had nowhere to hide

# Just with a single kiss... #

Duh-duh-d... Thank you.

# You plunged into my abyss

# Filling my world

# Filling my world

# With bliss

# Worshipped nothing and no-one

# Had no god or totem

# There was literally no-one for whom I could care

# Then last Feb on the web I caught sight of your scrotum

# As I looked, I was hooked then and there

# But you... # SHE MISSES HIGH NOTE

# Lighten my lumps and you heighten my bumps like a dream

# You whiten the pumps of my life like Meltonian cream

# Until I could scream

# You're King in a world of Kongs

# A big pants in a world of thongs

# Filling my world... #

Let's go for a key change. Go up.

# Filling my wor...

# You

# Your eyes are the size of the fries at the Hollywood Bowl

# It's not a surprise that you managed to fill up the hole

# That's deep in my soul

# When faced with a clitoris

# You don't go, "Oh, cripes, what's this?"

# Filling my world... #

Let's go for another one. Go up a bit.

# Filling my w...

# You... # It's too high!

# You conquer my mountains

LOW-PITCHED: # You fill up my fountains with coins

VARYING PITCH: # Times without counting I'm lost

# In the lust of your loins

# A groin amongst groins

# The minute we kissed

# I knew

# Right there in that chip-shop queue... #

SHE SNORTS

# I'd be filling my world... #

Big finish.

# Filling my world... # Big long note.

# With you. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

God! Give us a drink.

No, just the vodka.

Don't bother with the Orangina.

Oh, God! Couldn't remember his flipping name on the keyboard.

What's his name? Put my microphone back on.

Oh, is it on? Ladies and gentlemen,

will you please join me in thanking my musical director

and keyboard player for this evening only, Mr Nicholas Gilbert?

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You know, I've been thinking about giving it up, you know, being a stand-up comedian.

I was thinking about stopping doing it.

-AUDIENCE:

-No!

-Oh!

No, not tonight. I'll wait till you've gone home. But, er...

No, I don't want to get too middle-aged to do it, you know,

cos I've got really middle-aged lately.

I can't read the paper. I'm doing this with the paper now.

I can't really read it unless the woman in the house across the street holds it up at the bedroom window.

And I can't read the A To Z. Can't read the small streets.

If you don't live on a main road, I'm not coming to see you.

And I can't thread a needle.

One of my children changed schools a bit ago and I had all these name tags to sew on.

I got the needle and I got the thread and I'm like this.

I said, "Right, you're not going to that school now."

No, but you don't want to get too old and out of touch to do it, do you?

I don't want to do all that terrible boasting that people do when they get old.

Like, if you ever see Raquel Welch on a chat show,

she always has to say, "These are my own breasts, you know."

I don't want to be coming on saying, "I've still got my own hips."

I used to do a thing in my show -

I used to say I knew when I was getting older

when I went past a rack of Dr Scholl sandals and went, "Oh, they look comfy."

Now I'm going past going, "Oh, too modern, too modern."

It was a strange year for worrying, really,

because when I came back from hospital they said to me,

"You can't work for eight weeks,

"you can't go to the gym, you can't exercise, you can't lift anything.

"You can't do anything. You can't even do housework."

I said, "I've got to do some housework." They said, "No.

"If you need anything doing, you have to ask your husband to do it."

I said, "Doctor, will I still be able to criticise?" They said yep.

Terrible for me, though. No housework!

I love a bit of a poke round with a toilet brush first thing in the morning.

Some people say that's not the best way to clean the teapot, but I don't care!

My friends said to me, "What are you moaning about?

"You get to lie on the bed. You can read any book you like."

I said, "I can't read any book I like."

I've got a whole stack of books I would like to read

and every time I pick up one of mine,

looking at me very reproachfully from the bedside table

is my copy of Captain Corelli's frigging Mandolin.

Which I cannot be doing with.

Every time I pick up one of mine it's looking at me going,

"Ding-da-ding-ding-ding." So in the end I did not read anything.

I thought, "I'll just lie here. I'll watch the TV. That's all I can do."

I don't know if you've ever tried watching television throughout a whole day.

Oh, it's draining. Just awful.

I'd start about half past nine, once my children had gone to school.

I started with a discussion programme,

one of those whingeing programmes, like Trisha.

And even with the sound off, they're depressing.

You can see the captions. "I'm embarrassed by my dad's nose hair."

"We haven't spoken for 30 years. We fell out over yogurt."

So I always turn over then to the American ones

and they're much, much worse - things like Jerry Springer.

All these huge, horrible, dysfunctional people all thumping each other.

You turn it on and think, "Who told those sumo wrestlers to wear those blouses?"

"Oh, they're women!" They're women!

They've all done really horrible things to each other and they're really proud of themselves.

The woman's going, "So you actually made love with your sister's husband?" "Uh-huh."

"And this was in a church?"

"Uh-huh."

"And this was during your mother's funeral?" "Uh-huh."

Or there'll be some bloke sat there. "So, Frank, you cut off your own penis to win an argument?" "Uh!"

"So you have no penis?"

"No, but I won an argument." "Oh, good."

They had a thing on mismatched couples.

They had loads of these little teeny, wizened old men of about 99

married to these huge girls of about 17 with huge silicone breasts.

And I turned it over and there was one about women and boys

and there was this woman of about 65 married to a boy of about 13

and it said, "I'm 65, he's 13. He's the best lover I ever had."

And then another one came on. "I'm 65, he's 13.

"He's the best pimp I ever had."

I'm sorry - whatever happened to,

"I'm 65, he's 13. I'm his piano teacher"?

Wouldn't that be nicer?

And on Jerry Springer, any excuse to bring women on in their underwear.

And on Jerry Springer, the bigger the better.

There's always some item like,

"My wife is too heavy for skimpy lingerie."

And they say, "Well, let's have a look at her." On she comes. "Whoo!"

And I'm thinking, "No, she is. She is too heavy."

I'm thinking, "She'll not get that G-string off without a tyre lever."

Then I have to turn back onto the main channels.

In the middle of the morning, it's all makeover programmes.

All your house programmes and your garden programmes.

Then I'm just lying there racked with guilt.

I'm thinking, "I shouldn't be lying here.

"I should be tacking a bit of chicken wire over my kitchen cupboards.

"I should be cutting wacky shapes in MDF and spraying them silver.

"I should be nailing sheets of perforated zinc over my bathroom windows."

I thought they only did that when you'd been evicted, but no.

There's so many of them. There's too many of them.

I used to really like it when there was just one garden makeover programme.

There was just Ground Force. It used to be on BBC Two and nobody much watched it. I really liked that.

They'd turn up to a little house and this poor bloke would be sent away

on some pretext and then they'd go into this little overgrown back garden and - whoosh -

two days later, it would all be just covered in planks.

With one zinc bucket in the middle with a cactus in it.

And this poor unsuspecting bugger would come back and go,

"Oh, I've always wanted to sit on a load of two-by-one looking at a wet pebble."

"By the way, where are my gooseberry bushes?"

They're all over the place, these makeover programmes.

And the people who present them are now considered to be stars in their own right,

and they're not - most of them are just builders.

The only difference between those builders and our builders

is that those builders have turned up.

I saw this terrible programme a bit ago

and it was called All-Star Family Fortunes,

and it had two teams. It was makeover people.

It had a makeover team, a house team and a garden team,

and you'd never heard of any of them.

I thought, "I'm sorry - they're not stars."

To me, stars are people like Madonna or Elizabeth Taylor.

You can't be a star if your only claim to fame is that you've got your own spirit level.

I think the worst programme I saw

the whole time I was lying on the bed was this thing called

Touch The Truck, which I don't think a lot of people saw.

It was a truck, right?

And there was a lot of people stood round touching it...

..like, for a long time.

And the last person left touching it got it.

I'm probably making it sound more interesting than what it was, but...

It was just a lot of people stood round a truck like this.

They tried to make it interesting -

they had a gay person, a black person, a homeless person,

a person with a bad wrist. Ooh, they couldn't do it.

And it wasn't even in a studio,

so you didn't have a studio audience going, "Whoo!"

It was in a shopping centre.

So all you had is an audience with people going past going...

They wouldn't stop, cos they'd come to do their shopping.

They'd stop for a bit and then go, "Come on. Brown jacket, Marks's."

You get some terrible, terrible adverts on in the afternoon

and they're so depressing cos they're all aimed at people in debt.

"Are you finding it difficult to get credit?

"County Court Judgment?

"Struggling with several small, manageable loans?

"Let us lend you some money

"and then you can struggle with one huge unmanageable loan."

And there's always quite a few aimed at elderly people.

"Would you like to release some capital?

"Sell your house, bugger your grandchildren, go on."

And there's always one for a stairlift in the afternoons.

I love those. I would never be off my stairs if I had one of those.

There's always another one.

Have you seen this one? I don't know if it's just me.

Have you seen the one with the bath that opens at the front?

Am I missing something with that?

It can't just be that you open it up,

whoosh, rubber ducks all over the carpet!

There must be some system

whereby the water drains out, the door opens,

you're sitting there. So instead of ruining your carpet,

you get hypothermia, I suppose.

The ones I really can't bear

are the ones that encourage you to sue for compensation.

You know the ones that say,

"Have you had an injury and it wasn't your fault?

"Have you been hit over the head with a brick?"

"I was hit over the head with a brick.

"I was awarded £3,000."

"I chipped a front tooth on a piece of a neighbour's home-made flapjack.

"I was awarded £5,000."

"Somebody said my arse looked like the loading bay of Do It All.

"I was awarded £10,000."

"I opened my bath when it was still full, and flooded my carpet

"and got nothing at all."

But usually in the afternoons on Channel 5 there's a nice movie

and they show the movie right the way through with no adverts,

so I usually turn onto that. They're not terribly good movies.

Some of them are American and they're usually starring girls

who've got too old to be in Charlie's Angels.

Or there's often that woman who used to be in Cagney And Lacey.

I can't remember. Not the one that used to go, "Christine!"

Not that one. The other one.

Remember? I used to love her. "Christine!" I liked her.

I could do that voice.

The only other voice I've ever been able to do

was Mrs Bridges from Upstairs Downstairs.

"Oh, Ruby." I can do that.

But lately on the television, they've had these terrible,

terrible English thrillers.

Murder mysteries from the mid 1970s, and they're just awful

but they're very easy to follow.

I'm not very good with plots, and they're usually set in London.

They're about two girls looking for a flat to rent.

They'll be looking through the paper and it'll say, "flats to rent".

Good, I'm with it so far.

And they look through the paper

and one of them says, "Oh, this is a cheap flat.

"Carlton Towers." And the other one goes, "Carlton Towers?

"That's the block of flats where eight girls who looked

"just like you have been murdered."

And I think, "If that was me, I wouldn't even go and look at it,"

you know?

"It's all right. I'll stick on the inflatable bed

"in my mum's front room."

But they always go and have a look, don't they?

And they have to duck under scene-of-crime tape to get in.

There'll be bloody handprints dragging down the walls

and a chalk silhouette of a dead girl on the kitchen floor.

And they're still going, "It's nice and airy.

"Do you think my dresser would fit in there between those two mocking

"death threats that somebody's painted on the wall?"

And she always moves in, the girl.

Within minutes, there's a man with an infrared telescope trained on her

from across the road.

There's a pig's head behind the shower curtain, with a blonde wig

and lipstick. There's a death threat on the answerphone from her

psychopathic twin sister who was killed ten years ago in a car crash.

Does she run screaming from the flat?

No. She answers the front door in her bra and pants...

..to a delivery boy with no identification

holding a ticking fruit basket.

And then some hours later, when she is unaccountably still alive,

she's the only person in the block of flats that night.

Everybody else is out at a fireworks display in the middle of Regent's Park.

A freak electric storm has wiped out the entire emergency telephone system,

the lift isn't working, the basement lights,

where the washing machine is, are flickering on and off,

and she still goes down there in the middle of the night

to do her bloody washing.

And I'm going, "Don't go!

"You can wear the same pair of tights two days running.

"Just dip the crotch in the washbasin

"and hang them over the grill."

Anyway, the trouble is, I wake up properly

about four o'clock in the morning, the worst time.

If you suffer from any sort of depression,

four o'clock is the worst time.

I start churning over everything in my mind about my job, my career,

my children, my marriage, everything.

And I'm thinking about the therapist and what she said to me.

She said to me, "If you want to put a little bit of the spark back in your marriage,"

because I've been married a long time,

"have you ever thought of booking a session with a sex therapist?

"You can book half an hour with them and they'll teach you new sexual techniques."

I said, "I don't think I could learn any now.

"I think it would take me too long. It's taken me about 20 years

"to remember when we are making love not to say,

" 'Did you do the bins?' "

But I said to her, "Anyway, it's not about sex. It's about romance.

"I have been married a long time and I would like to put a little bit of

"the romance back." She said, "What about, one evening,

have you ever thought about cooking a little romantic supper just for

"you and your husband?" I said, "Yes, I've thought about it."

"I've got children. Like a lot of people,

"I work all day, I finish work,

"I go to get my children from school, I bring them back.

"One's not got their PE kit. We go back, we come back again.

"One's not got their homework, we go back, we come back again.

"One's got one of his new shoes missing

"and he's wearing another child's hearing aid..."

I go, "What are you doing with that?" And he's going, "He lets me."

"But, yeah, I know..."

We take that back, we come back.

There's 12 Cubs on the doorstep waiting to be driven to Whipsnade.

They're going, "Didn't you get the letter?"

I'm going, "What letter? What letter?"

We take them, we come back. I say, "Right, where is this letter?"

He shows me a drawer - ten years' worth of letters I've never seen.

The bottom one, from ten years ago, says,

"Your child has been identified as the source of the outbreak of nits."

Oh, well, too late now.

The top one says, "Your child has been given three parts in the school play

"and we need three costumes by tomorrow morning." Oh, good.

"A satsuma, a skyscraper and Lady Jane Grey."

So, there's me, there's your romantic evening going, there is me

trying to make the costume. My other child is walking around

with a mobile phone clamped to its head.

I'm going, "Where did you get the money to buy that?"

She says, "I hope you don't mind, I sold my bunk beds." "I do mind!"

So I'm there with a piece of shirt cardboard trying to make

an Elizabethan frill, trying to get the one on the phone

to come off the phone and clear the table.

Won't come off the phone, have to send her a text message, "Please..."

I said to this woman, I said, "It's very hard to be romantic

"when you've got children." I said, "Rightly or wrongly,

"I've put a huge amount of energy into my children because I've always

"tried to be the perfect mummy." I mean, I'm not, I'm not,

I'm terrible, I'm so bossy and naggy and shouty,

but I've always wanted to be like a mummy in a book.

Well, I am, but it's that book about Joan Crawford, unfortunately.

I mean, I do try.

I try and do everything that they want to do.

Like, you know, for years they've all had their birthday parties

in these terrible soft-play places.

You know, like Wacky Warehouse and Clown Town, Monkey Business,

Pirates' Playhouse...

All their friends have had all their birthday parties in the same places.

And I think, "For God's sake,

"have I got to spend every Saturday afternoon in my life

"in a shed off the North Circular?"

I can't hear myself think with mad children screaming,

the whole place stinking of old wee-wee and Monster Munch.

My trouble is, I read too much Enid Blyton when I was little.

I've got a very idealised view of what a mummy should be like.

I'm always wanting to run in and say, "Look, darlings, the sun is shining,

"let's pack a bag, let's go for a picnic, come on."

And they're supposed to go,

"Oh, Mummy, you're the best mummy in the world."

Hasn't happened yet.

Sometimes, I try - I go in, "I say, look, look, it's a really nice day.

"Shall we go for a picnic? And they go..."

SHE BEEPS

Once I managed to get them out.

Once. I said to them, this summer, I said,

"Look, Daddy's away tomorrow. Why don't we all get in the car,

"really early, tomorrow morning, we'll drive out to the seaside, really early, beat all the traffic,

"go somewhere we've never been before, we'll play on the beach,

"we'll have a paddle, we'll have ice creams, have a fantastic time -

"what do you say?" And they said, "All right."

The next morning we got up really, really early, we got in the car,

we drove out of London, no traffic, we found a beach,

somewhere we'd never been before, we paddled, we played,

we had ice creams, I looked at my watch,

it was half past nine in the morning...

I'm thinking, "What are we going to do now?"

Now, if you're ever tempted to try this sort of mad escapade,

I'd just say, don't do it in East Anglia.

There's nothing to do. I'd never been there before.

I'm never going there again.

I'd never seen the point of it as a place.

To me, it was just a big landmass.

I thought it was designed to stop the people of Hull

doing their shopping in London. I didn't know what it was for.

So there was nothing to do. So I went to the Tourist Information.

I got all these leaflets and brought them back,

and we're sitting in the car, and it's pissing down by this point,

of course. And everything is shut, because of the foot-and-mouth.

I'm going, "We've got animal farm, butterfly farm, zoo - closed, closed, closed.

"Here we are, this is open - slipper factory.

"Quiz trail for the under-12s.

"Chance to buy rejects and misshapes."

All right, then. "Here we are, this looks good -

"all-year-round adventure park.

"Water rides, roller-coasters,

"open every day of the year except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and...

"today". So, in the end,

there's only one place left open in the whole of East Anglia.

I'm driving towards it.

I've got the little... I'm trying to read the little map with one hand,

I'm trying to steer with the other hand

and smack my children with another hand I haven't got.

And the rain is sheeting down,

they've been eating nonstop all day,

the car is littered with old tin cans

and crisp packets, sweet wrappers...

The whole car is like a shantytown.

It's like a shantytown - you wouldn't be surprised to see

Davina McCall down by the gear lever for Comic Relief, crying,

"These poor people..."

And my children are in the back, numb with sugar.

Cadbury's Creme Eggs hanging out their mouths...

I think, "How has this happened?

"I never actually meant to bring them up like this."

You know, when they were born I was really, really strict

about everything, you know? They were brought up on these, like,

filtered water and organic stone-ground muesli.

Now they won't even eat chips because a little know-all bastard

at school told them a potato was a vegetable.

Anyway, I finally get to this place and I say, "Come on, kids, out we get."

We're standing there in the rain.

I say, "Look, this is going to be good -

"The Tungsten and Ball Bearing Experience."

And all it is is just a big old factory,

and they've just crossed out the word "factory"

and written in the word "experience".

And there are two cartoon figures,

two cardboard cut-outs, in the doorway -

Tommy Tungsten and Bobby Ball Bearing.

And I'm just stood in the middle - I just wanted to burst into tears,

I wanted to go, "I'm cold, I'm wet,

"I've dented the back of my car reversing into a bollard

"because I was so busy smacking my children I wasn't looking where I was going.

"I'm in the middle of a big old shed in East Anglia,