My birthday weekend was  subdued. Not because the in-laws arrived  or  I felt over- or even under-whelmed in any way, it’s just that I. Was. Subdued.

 I wasn’t really ready for it.  I wasn’t in the mood for it. I needed more time to ponder upon it and to embrace it. I also needed a lot more sleep.  I woke up and thought “Heigh-ho. I’m 42.  SFW?”

Due to the imminent arrival of the Norfolk Contingent I played my part and cleared the house. Cleaned up, cleaned bathrooms, cleaned up the language AND the behaviour. Made some bread, made  an apple Charlotte and then made my favourite thing for dinner – reservations………….

  As they arrived and I was making tea and  putting the usual parental Gifts Of Love away ( home cured ham, home made jam, chocolate cake  -  all mothers are Jewish in some way) I espied   the cocktail shaker at the back of the fridge. It  briefly contained  a whole glassful of martini……… 

 fficeffice" />

I received some lovely presents of perfume, a hat, make-up, Swan Lake (Matthew Bourne’s) on DVD,  a pile of books plus the  West End  show of my choice (thanks to TTMH) and chocolates. The evening was spent at the restaurant with family and friends and I retired to my bed at midnight after a  snifter of brandy  at home. But there was somehow, some spark missing.  Perhaps I’ve come to the end of my allotted birthday fun?  Perhaps I’m now coming to the start of my grumpy, mad, old woman in a hat (charming though it may be) phase?

 So last night, I had an early bath and retired to my nice clean, warm bed, in my lovely baggy jammies (think Katherine Hepburn) with my pile of  books and a cat and practised  my disapproving gaze, my  tight-lipped stare  and my staring-down-the-nose-contemptuously look.

 I do hope it doesn’t cause wrinkles…….

 My life is full at the moment. I don't mean full as in rich, complete, with a life-affirming mission or fully rounded purpose, I mean FULL. This week is taken up with the usual run of the mill dates and diaries, I've got tea and drinkies with a friend tomorrow, Thursday is The Day Of Sex (and before people start loosening their clothes and settling down for a self-love moment, I mean The Day We Drool Over Goran in ER, combined with gossip and a bottle of bubbly. Bet you switch over now), Friday is cinema, Saturday is a date at the Theatre and Sunday is catch up on housework, cooking, washing, ironing, writing letters and then the week starts again. That is getting full too, waiting for my myriad admirers to send flowers on Valentines Day (no one EVER does) my sister's birthday, the Official Arriving Home of The Parents, meals out and then we start again. I'm running out of time already and I've not done anything I want to do! Oh and don't forget trying to fit work in.

March is getting full too. I've been invited back for a re-union with people from my RAF days but that interferes with The Stranglers (on Sunday) and Steve Hacket on Tuesday (with my favourite boss and a chance to catch up on gossip and fun) so I’m pretty sure that's got to go. Then there's this BAFTA thing which I haven't got a date for yet, plus the chance to go to London with The Husband to a show which will have to be soon before he forgets his promise or runs out of money. March also means London for work, (which incidentally means a night of frolics with Gorgeous and a chance to have fun with him, while struggling to stay awake and Be Useful in meetings the next day) Then we've got Easter and a chance to do the rural thing with Farmer Dave. Oh God will this torture never end!!

I also want to fit in a night of fun with Bunnykin, a Young Man of my acquaintance who seems to drink more than is really good for one ("It was like Night Of The Living Dead in drag" - wonderful turn of phrase and one I shall steal) but I feel too old to cope with someone half my age at the moment. I don't want to turn into a social Miss Haversham, living in a sadly decaying state of faded glory amongst the ruins of my memories (but wearing a FABULOUS hat, darlings) but it looks like, to save my sanity and keep this wrinkle free existence, I may have to do just that. Obviously, just to be capricious, I shall complain that no-one asks me out any more, that people are ageist and assume because I'm 42 (damn it, I said it in print now) I want to curl up with a pair of (shudder) slippers in my cardigan* on the sofa with a mug of Horlicks and these young things think they invented night-life, well, let me tell you about the time I frightened a whole house-full of students with a gun.... Oh sorry, am I ranting?

* George, that doesn't mean I have slippers in my cardigan, it means......well, you know what I mean, so quit carping!

 The parents are coming home! Finally, these two OAPs who have been spending time in Oz,  enjoying the sun, eating at water-front sea food restaurants, visitng museums and generally working hard at having a good time, are on the last leg  of their farewell tour of Her Majesty's ex-colony.  They've been gone for nearly two months. I've been persuading Mamma for years to travel  with Daddy when he works abroad but she's always found soem reason not to go. She can't leave Aunty Pam, she can't leave Batty Granny (97 and in a lovely home)  she wouldn't know what to do on her own, she was worried about me, Danielle, and an awful lot more of other, less impressive reasons.  So Daddy finally, properly retired at the age of 67.  And for the next six months Mamma was annoyed at having him at home. All the time. Not having a week to herself while he was in Canada, or Belgium or Japan. Then the phone calls started coming in. Just a quick call from the boys in the plant in Adelaide or Brisbane or California.  Just to ask the odd question of the man who started the plant twetny, fiften, seven years ago.   And now I've got email at work and home. And  he passes on my address and the wiring diagrams, technical questions and manuals start arriving which really confuse the IT boys who monitor my account. Who no doubt (since 9/11) have to pull any unusal emails out and pass them on to spooks. They really, really want Daddy to go out to Oz. He says he's 72 now and too old to be  running around a plant and sorting out calcinating kettles.  They  ask even more nicely. So in the end, they offer a four star mini-suite (fully paid for)  business class flights for him AND Mamma, chauffeur driven to and from home and airport, an internal flight to see friends in Melbourne, business class home from there and a not inconsiderable daily rate for him, doubled if he has to work weekends to get the plant running on time. And the work would be done in three weeks, so they'd be home in four.

It seemed churlish to refuse.

 I didn't think I would miss them, but I did. I forgot that I ring home from work to check on them a couple of times a week or to  give some gossip or tell them what I was up to or who I'd seen or just to say 'hello'.  I missed the Sunday morning phone calls which meant that I missed most of The Archers, I missed Mamma  just popping in to see me at lunchtimes and taking me off for a quick gin and Daddy complaining about her shopping trips.  I missed that really, really irratating way they have of STILL dissaproving of a couple of  friends of 20-years standing. I missed them telling me that  I should read the Daily Express becuase it's the REAL  voice of the country.  I missed them worrying about me going to London. And I really missed the fact that if I had to go anywhere on business that involved a plane or a train or a bus, Mamma would say "oh, don't be silly, Daddy will drive you!" ("Hello Minister, here's the press pack, you're meeting the editor in ten minutes, I've checked the security arrangements and we're ready to leave in  30  minutes. Oh sorry, I've got to go as My Dad is here to pick me up...")

 In the meantime, life has gone on. Danielle and I have sorted out Granny visiting between us, cleared most of poor Auntie Pam's flat, paid bills and written the funeral thank you letters on their behalf. We've  not needed them at all and have coped admirably.

 But she won't believe us for a minute.

 Things that you never expect to happen:

 1) A friend of mine was recently in a gay bar in London. Full of big hairy, lovely, butch,     mustached men in leather. All of a sudden, there are  half a dozen of them doing Ruth Archer impressions

"oooohhh Noooooo........."

2) To be mistaked for a transvestite in a gay club.

OK, I was dresed a tad dramatically, had loads of slap on (and a hat) was walking around with fag holder in one hand and a gin in the other in vertiginous heels but really! His excuse was: "Oh I'm sorry! I thought the tits were too big for a real woman..."  (Memo to self: Get different corsetry)

He carries on: "Have you ever been mistaken for a bloke  before?"

Moi: "No. Have you?" And on that crushing retort, I swan off in high dudgeon.

 Things you never expect to do:

 The flamenco in a tapas bar with a Rabbi. No, honestly, I did.

 (Max - I'm pretty sure no-one will recognise you from this  brief item)

  Surely I can't be the only person this has happened to? 

 Weekends seem to pass by in a blur. I can feel my life whizzing by in a carousel of the mundane. I seem to be performing a desperate dance to keep my balance, not falling over while juggling the everyday.

Please don’t be offended by this but I’m going to have to tell you about something I  detest. I can’t bear to see it in public, however tasteful or discreet and I really have no idea  what drives these people to do what they do.

 I’m sorry if I offend you about this but it is my own personal opinion and I think I’m entitled to it.

 I can’t bear Am Dram.

It’s appalling, it’s cringe making and it’s frequently out of tune, out of time and shoddy. I sat through a performance on Saturday and could barely look at the stage. I sat there  thinking to myself   I’ve seen Kenneth Branagh on the stage. I’ve seen Adrian Lester and Judi Dench for Gods sake, I’ve  been at premieres and first nights and after show discussions and parties. I’ve been there with Richard O’Brien and Lionel Blair and Robbie Williams, had dinner with Julian Glover and I’m watching this? There are no points of comparison…..

 However, we were watching my partner in law,  so we simply had to go  and see him. I got the feeling he wasn’t taking this entirely seriously as he grinned on stage when he saw us and then corpsed, knowing we were there to watch him.  And of course everyone else took themselves terribly seriously and acted their little hearts out and you’ve got to admire their pluck,  and the costumes were  a nice idea and they did wonders with the scenery , but well…. they  just weren’t terribly good at it. Enthusiastic? Yes.  Confident? Yes. Any good? No. Sorry.

And don’t any of you out there  DARE tell me that I ought to try it myself and see how hard it is before I cast the first stone. Sweetie, I’m playing a role most of the time when I’m awake. It’s called ‘Life’ and I’ve got the starring role.

 Now. I’m ready for my close-up Mr De-Mille……………….

Organised and sent birthday cards and valentine cards (Ah! The joy of www.moonpig.co.uk)

Spoken to the Parents

Prepared tonight’s supper (cooking as we speak)

Sorted out the washing

Collected shoes from the cobblers (always an expense)

Finished reading Vanity Fair

Organised the to-be-read pile by the side of the bed

Found a marvellous new bar full of interesting people which has no concept or closing or even opening times

So am I winning?.

I am becoming a fan of   ‘Bayesian’ emails. These are the very odd emails that seem to contain just a bizarre list of unconnected words until you click on them, when they then turn into an advert for Viagra or such like. They  are supposed to slip through your automatic anti-spam filter using a form of logic called a Bayesian Filter. I’m not entirely sure how it works,  but it does, very well. (No doubt some one will attempt to explain it all to me….) Incidentally, do these spam merchants,  porn sellers, rogue E-traders – call them what you will - ever actually check these lists that they buy? Why would I, a woman AND one with a non-gender specific email address, want to buy Viagra? (my wit  is sharp enough thank you) Why would I want ‘Cindy’ (we  haven’t been introduced but I’m sure she’s delightful) or her myriad friends to  lick something I haven’t even got?  It’s just plain irritating!

 However, back to the gist of this.  These  emails, which use the Bayesian filter system,  are almost poetry.  They take many styles and  some of them  have a marvellous lyrical quality. It’s almost as if the software program used to  spew out this inventory is becoming aware and learning – you can almost see the  influences on  its work.  I read them now, and when I do, I have a vision of some poor starving artist in a garret,  holding his head in his hands and thinking up  a paragraph or two of words. Maybe he’s had  a lonely night filled with dreams of his unobtainable love, perhaps he spent the night in a drug fuelled  state, watching the world through a chemical filter or  perhaps he’s just an erudite spinner of tales with his head filled with poets from De Gryce to Tennyson to Kerouac. 

This one is different:

 “ politician figure electrician aero gene gwen decorous tomb aggression hypothetic paper bloodhound gamma marlowe crocodilian crystallography male nobelium heighten knee quasi threadbare helmut spavin bleat boatswain yeoman strange clubhouse colicky polytypic stalk caribou editorial approve flagstone”

 I can detect the rhyme of Ian Drury in the first three words at least and I’m sure he would have made the rest of it flow too.
And as an insult: “inconsequential morphemic rhetorician”, which came earlier today  really hits you where it hurts….

 fficeffice" />

 I’m not quite going to save them from now on but I’ll peruse them for the poetry. Life today is a hotbed of   speed, rush, electronics, hard labour and the hard and software of daily living. These imperfect but random canto add a touch of whimsy and I urge you all to  indulge yourselves and read them……

I sometimes wish I were someone else. Someone witty and amusing. I wish I were Dorothy Parker. This feeling has come around after finishing reading The Collected Dorothy Parker (penguin books) that I had as a birthday present.

Her witty apercu, couplets, short stories, and off the cuff remarks are an inspiration to us Drama Queens everywhere. I know that Russ and I become a double act when we get together in places where the conversation is less than sparkling - but that’s more of a reaction to the company. In a way we want to raise the level of chat to beyond the mundane. We simply can’t BELEIVE that there are so many people out there – of our age too! – who have no reference further than their own life. They seem to have no concept of literature, of films, of Art (with a capital A) of life beyond their own circle. Or if they know a film or a book, they don’t know the genesis of that particular period, they don’t understand that say, Anne Rice comes out from a Victorian passion for gothic and spiritualism, the understanding of the Jazz Age coming from suffrage, post-war euphoria and the start of cinema. I know that I can throw out a reference or a line and Russ knows EXACTLY what I mean, but I’m afraid to say that they are very often a reference to how witty we think we are and we are in fact scoring a point. Witness Russ’s sotto voce whisper of ‘Sing out Louise, sing out!" to me at a bad play once, or my shudder of "my dear, the crowds! And the people!" in a club.

But I digress again. While Russ and I have our own table at our very own Alonquin and joining us and keeping up on occasion are Thornhill and The Husband (although it rapidly downgrades to comedy writing, knob jokes and politics with those two there), we both wish that we were somehow slightly more distanced from it all, like Dorothy Parker, for whom it seemed to be effortless and impossible to stop.

However, Russ and I have one rule. No actors at our table. Ever. They just can’t cope without a script.