boyz n the sisterhood

Last week of course it was international women's day and as an ardent feminist I was naturally keen to participate by giving a talk as an ‘inspirational woman’ but alas the invitation I received asked me to do a speech encouraging bright young gels to give up their careers and write blogs and my publishers banned me from doing it as they didn’t want to crowd the market. What's more the charity nude lady bloggers calender I posed for had all it's copies seized by the obscene publications squad following a terrible rumour about Girl with a one track mind's picture for February.

It looked then like I was sadly just going to spend another morning playing Woman's Hour Bingo with Freya’s mother but she had Mary Wollstonecraft, men, and something else beginning with M that I can't even mention on her card so I never stood a chance. The game lasted all of thirty seconds and then we just listened in silence to a novelist tearfully recounting her emotional journey of recovery and self discovery after not quite remembering where she'd left her car keys. My husband saved the day however because knowing how much it meant to me he and his ever loyal secretary Fabio attended the Million Woman March down in London on my behalf.

Unfortunately only a couple of thousand turned up. My neighbour said that a million women did originally set off to go to London for the march but, what with no men to read the map, well, that's just the kind of attitude we're protesting about, sigh. My husband told me all about the keynote speaker. Apparently she stood on the podium for two hours just looking really annoyed and everyone had to guess why she was upset. I don’t know why my husband commented on this, he’s been married ten years, sigh. He's obviously spent longer away from me than I thought. Sadly they were asked to leave when their sincere attempt to blend in was tragically misinterpreted and anyway they would have had to leave the march for sexual equality early regardless because there were three hundred ladies loos but no gents, so that's one in the eye for the patriarchy I suppose, sigh

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.