rilly come home
Terribly sorry I haven't been around much for the last few days. Afraid I’ve had some rather bad news. My agent says that Ken Loach probably won’t direct the film of my life after all. I would have thought my rootless existence would have made the perfect sequel to Cathy Come Home but my agent says Ken thought Strife in The North was simply so grim and upsetting that nobody would think it was true. In the meantime in order to take up the guest appearance on Woman's Hour that my agent has again promised he can swing for me I need to swot for the test on Mary Wollstonecraft that you have to pass to get on the show. It’s very tough you know, even Mary Wollstonecraft failed it although there is a rumour that she was banned after she ate the last chocolate éclair in a pre-production meeting with Jenni Murray. You can imagine how very excited I was when he first told me he was trying to get both me and Wife in the North a Martha Kearney interview but that was then and this is now and the prospect of us sharing a joint Woman's Hour downshifting special receded when he told me that Wifey's chat was on World at One in a Darfur special and my Woman's Hour spot was scheduled for the next Andy Hamilton presented red nose day edition. Sometimes it seems as if I'm just not taken seriously, sigh. At least there'll be some male company in it for me. Anyway, back soon chaps, tootle pip.
39 comments:
Phew! I can breathe again Rilly, I thought you'd toddled off back to London and left us.
Piece on the BBC website today about how misery memoirs are currently the bestsellers.
it's lovely to be missed M&M. I saw that article and how some of those people can claim to be miserable I'll never know. They should try moving to The North. Grim? I'll give them grim!
I've heard that too, M&M. I leave misery memoirs well alone (well apart from Rilly's blog of course) and have only read one and that was a few years ago and put me off for ever (Angela's Ashes).
Keep your chin up, Rilly. Your continued stoicism is an inspiration to us all.
Is it on this channel or the other one, that the debate over whingeing/wining rages?
Probably the other, but no matter. Just want to widen the debate a little, by saying ( as Henry Higgins himself would have done): "No,no,no,no,NO!".
Whingeing (as in "whingeing Poms":
* see Australia) is pronounced to rhyme with binge, or impinge. Or cringe.
And anyway, my sons tell me that for real whingeing, you have to go to the Australian resident in London...
(Sorry, Aussies; I love you dearly, truly I do! And am almost one of your own, having once been a Kiwi myself. But you can't have it all your own way now, can you? Be content with winning the cricket, and every other game we ever invented!)
(Was just trying to lift the level of debate a little for you, Rilly dear. Hope you don't mind.... and aren't besieged by too many offended Aussies as a consequence.)
I can recommend "Where Did It All Go Right?" by Andrew Collins, as a great antidote to the plethora of misery memoirs – he says it aims to "bring a little hope to all those out there living with the emotional after-effects of a really nice childhood.” The back cover claims: “They tucked him up, his mum and dad.”
It’s based on growing up in the 70s though, so it’s obviously way before your time, Rilly.
Oh my word - it should have been whingeing/whining, (not wining), in my early-morning comment! Quite a different concept that would have been, wouldn't it?
sarnia, the film version of Angela's Ashes was made around here you know, although it's a shame the film crew undid all the improvements they had to make to bring the village up to exaggerated 1930s Ireland standard
I'm so pleased that you have visited without the mysterious cloak of 'anonymous' beatrice. We're all friends here you know, well, except for you and any australian readers that is. You are around very early sometimes, are you sure you're not still on New Zealand time my dear?
drunk mummy, I'm pleased that someone has written such a self-help manual. I think that to deprive someone of the character-building and future-memoirs-royalty-earning opportunities of an awful childhood is perhaps the cruellest thing a parent can do to a child.
Not New Zealand time - just the residual stout colonial spirit I guess.
By the way, did anyone hear that interview with Jackie Gold on WH this morning ? Speaking as a man I found it quite enlightening - although the line where she tried to insinuate that women actually enjoy sex was so obviously made up just to impress Jenni 'I'll get a reference to sexy underwear in if it kills me' Murray.
Afraid I missed today's anonymous. Natalia was listening to Godzina Kobieta on long wave. It reminds her of the distant home that she had to leave behind, much as listening to WH from London does for me, sigh. I can see Jenni Murray has a special place in your heart though dear. wasn't she on the local radio down your way once? With most people it was John Peel with whom they spent their formative 'under the duvet' radio listening years but I don't blame you for substituting JM's lilting tones. Hope you are keeping well anonymous and it's lovely to see you.
Gold was doing well until she got broadsided by the question concerning the effect her shops might have on young girls. She certainly wasn't ready for that one.
I didn't hear it either but would have thought that given the whole size zero models/kids growing up too fast/ etc etc debate that would be a question that someone from that business would have thought about alot and be mosr prepared to answer and defend, I've heard her speak before and she is very articulate and certainly believes in her buisness
Rilly, you like wifey are losing your fertility. Or should that be fecundity? Whatever the word is, your output is down. Rather like wifey's in fact. Maybe you both need round-the-clock supernanny cover, thereby enabling more quality time to be spent at village fetes and blogging to the wind.
anonymous dear, you're right,so much to do you know, if I can't find more time to write this blog I may have to get the nanny to do it for me. How's your polish?
beatrice, about your colonial stout spirit, could do with some of that up here, meant to ask earlier, can you send a couple of cases up, it's got to be better than brown ale
Rilly, after the other 'anon's slightly sarcastic comment about your 'fecundity' perhaps we could have a bit of a brainstorm for ideas on how to improve your output collectively.
I would suggest the answer has to lie in 'multi-tasking'. What about having a laptop zone in your pantry ? [oops, nearly typed 'panty' there..]
Then you could choose your food for tea and blog at the same time..
Or what combining 'cuddle time' with 'laptop time' ?
A sort of 'snog while you blog'..
Perhaps you could try recording your contribution as a podcast whilst you are doing your ablutions in the early morning ??
Or what about recording your thoughts using a webcam ? Such a video could be done, ooh, I don't know, maybe while you are getting dressed to go out, say...
Just a thought from your one of your male viewers, oops, sorry, I mean 'readers'...
You and Wifey 'sharing a joint'. Good grief. Whatever next?
Am convinced this blog is written by a committee of gay men living in Chelsea. Therefore the male reader/viewer hoping for some soft focus soft porn would be sadly disappointed by the pictures from the webcam.
Or maybe not.
//Conspiracy theorist said...
Am convinced this blog is written by a committee of gay men living in Chelsea.//
Really?
Who cares who writes it?
It's very funny satire.
Agreed, Rilly you really are super!
Sorry Rilly - stout colonial spirit doesn't bottle well. You have to have imbibed it from birth.
Sorry too that no irate Australians have come thundering in to take people's minds off Woman's Hour. Australians have NZ jokes as we have Irish (or Polish) ones, you know. It might have been fun.......
Come to think of it, the idea of "The Supers as seen through the eyes of the Polish nanny" is rather a good one. Have a go at it, why don't you?
anonymous, I am just imagining wife in the north and myself as a kind of blogging Mel and Sue, or maybe Mel and Kim to placate australian readers. I will talk to my agent but thanks ever so for the suggestions. that's not too implausible is it, surely local yokel dear?
conspiracy theorist, don't forget about the power of female intuition I was talking about the other day dear will you, wink.
sarnia and dulwichmum, thankyou for your kind thoughts. I just want to come down and give you both a big hug.
beatice dear, I fear that if I asked Natalia to do this blog for me she would either flee back to Poland, flee to work for Freya's mum or just stop feeding the children so as not to work any more hours, sigh
Ah, Rilly, I think you are a little confused [easily done at this hour].
Mel and Kim are British pop stars fro m the eighties are they not..
Respectable-able..!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y72QPSkBFt8
you are quite right anonymous, I meant kath and kim. Let's put that one down to hormones, the nursing mother's 'get out of jail free card' for all mistakes confusing eighties pop duos with australian housewives, and many more besides.
so THAT'S where i went wrong trying to get on women's hour! they're bloody impossible to please - i'm absolutely fantastic (clearly), yet they've knocked me back 4 times now.
It was never my idea that Natalia should do it, Rilly! I'd hoped you'd do it for her. It would make a nice change, don't you think(sigh)?
welcome back rivergirlie, yes, they are rather sensitive there. You don't mention whether you were unable to recite word for word 'vindication of the rights of woman' or if you ate all the cream cakes, or both...
beatrice, that would compromise this blogs truthful and naturalistic aims entirely my dear, how could you even suggest such a thing!
The debate on 'whingeing' -
I just heard an Australian comedian saying 'whingeing' - and it does sound like cringe!
To those of us in Canada and the US - we say whine - which sounds like crime - and as you can see it is even spelled differently.....
Hence the confusion from across the puddle....
AIMS, did you notice whether 'whinge' had the word 'Poms' attached to it? It's the usual juxtaposition. And they don't mean it kindly. It means (I'm told) 'prisoners of the mother country' - ie those who didn't have stout colonial spirit enough to get themselves banished to the other side of the world.
They have another combination, still more derogatory - but I'll have to use asterisks, to avoid lowering the tone of Rilly's site....They talk just as often of 'Pommie b*****ds'.
Well they would, wouldn't they, being Australians?
By the way Rilly, have you noticed something? So many people are chatting to one another on your site that nobody seems to have noticed your own non-appearance lately?
Perhaps you could just call it the Super Gossip Pages?
Talking of fecundity, Rilly, what happened to the baby we heard crying in the background recently? I do worry about your children sometimes.
aims darling, you say tom-ay-toe, we say it properly, of however the song goes. thanks for dropping by
beatrice dear, you missed me though and that means a lot, sigh
marianne, don't worry about the baby dear, he's fine and using my power of attorney I have signed a release on his behalf which allows me to include him in the next post...
Is that how you make babies up North then?
I'm just popping out to get a new mouse, this one seized up getting to the bottom of your page.
well, they don't grow on trees marianne, although I'm not sure if that's the case over the border now, with devolution they've changed everything you know
i fear i'd have failed on both counts - but i didn't even get that far. still jeremy vine wanted me - but not in a nasty way (sadly)
rivergirlie, rejected from woman's hour, harbouring impure thoughts about Jeremy Vine and cry at the end of The Railway Children ( the original I hope or you will shatter all my illusions about you), Could we be sisters seperated at birth? you haven't got any trips up north planned have you? I'll put the wine in the fridge just in case
of course the original railway children. can't bear the idea of jenny agutter being old - cos then i would have to be too. we do seem to have a scary amount in common so perhaps we are twins after all.
i'd never go oop north voluntarily, of course ... although to be quite frank i don't truly live in the south either - except spritually, that is.
be that as it may, i should love to share a bottle of wine across your limed oak kitchen table while the wind wuthers on the moor outside and men with faces grimed with coal dust tip their flat caps respectfully at you, while walking their whippets.
or perhaps we could meet up at harvey nicks one day.
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