Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 16 November 2019
I am not ashamed to say that Saturday night is a special blend of heckles and fleckles. When a wooden telly presenter is voted in and a lithe DJ is voted out I heckle, when a vlogger, blogger, or Diva displays a passable fleckle I'm out of my bean bag and howling with the dog.
Shazzer, an Am Dram queen who works in the local farm shop, is forever telling me I should be on 'Strictly' and she's right. I come from a family of hoofers. My Uncle A, used to sing in front of the nudes at the 'Windmill Theatre', my Aunty F, used to reveal her lady bumps when ever she was given a chance and my father won medals for his jitterbugging.
According to Wicked Peedjha; The Jitterbug refers to a swing dancer or various types of swing dances, for example, the Lindy Hop, Jive, West Coast Swing, and East Coast Swing.
The head of my nuclear family was a reprobate and cruel charmer. He wore bespoke suits, had the gift of the gab and was irritated by Chopin cos the Polish genius did not display enough rhythm. My East End father was a fighter, trader and dancer. I would stand on his feet as he whisked me round the room at bar mitzvahs. He played the drums on biscuit tins, using my mothers knitting needles, and built the first gym in our road.
He wore white singlets and taught young offenders how to box. The quadrophonic stereo system he installed in our East End front room, shook the walls, the dockers could here John Coltrane's sax the other side of the Highway as they loaded the containers in St. Katherines Docks.
My errant father was pathological and Scatalogical, ( according to Wicked Peedjha it's The study of fecal excrement) so you could say my father was full of shit, but boy did he have rhythm.
My mother, refused to go dancing with him so he went alone. The obligatory cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth, his hips switching and swaying, his black hair slicked back, his eau de cologne scenting the air, he ruled the dancehalls of Aldgate. So when I watch Mr. 'Emmerdale' dance the light fantastic I am back to the 50's but I am torn between hiding my eyes on behalf of my mother or stamping my feet for Mo, the jitterbugging demon of Watney Street.
I can't dance to save my life - I've told Shazzer this several times - but I do have the rhythm, passed down from my fathers line. I can make Chopin sound like Jools Holland's big band. The old git won't dance, if I were to offer him a new electric car he would not dance with me, although he did jive when he had hair, not with me I hasten to add, I was too busy working out how to make Chopin swing.
So in a couple of hours time I'll be eight inches away from our telly-box , criticising Claudia's outfits, rooting for Karim and watching Michelle Visage chuck a turn with her explosively delicious Italian partner. Would I have accepted if they had asked me to be part of 'Strictly' of course I would, but musicality alone would have not kept me in, by week three I would have fecked up my fleckles, and todgered my tango, whilst my delinquent dad would have been watching from the wings shouting 'Where's your effin rhythm.'
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 4 November 2019
When I lived in Wapping, I was young, my hair was thick, my eyes bright and my body did what it was told. I knew the area as I had grown up in Aldgate, went to Canon Barnet school on Commercial Street and studied the piano at Toynbee hall. If you walk down the street now, and look up, you can see the wire netting the school erected to stop the children falling out of the playground onto the heads off passing Rabbis.
Aldgate is now Hipster trendy without a hint of irony. Back then Brick Lane was our shopping mall, Sarsaparilla stalls, barrels of pickled cucumbers, barrels of live eels, and my Aunty Freda flogging schmutterai. I was part of the Jewish influx, crammed together in dusty houses which now sell for millions.
When I moved into Wapping the Thames lapped outside our window and Waitrose didn't exist. I drove my little mustard Mini to Camden Town and commenced my career in Television. To keep myself camera ready I went to a yoga class, round the corner from Toynbee Hall run by an Asian Postman. We learnt how to bend forward keeping our buttocks low, and how to sit crossed legged whilst we drew breath through alternate nostrils. Indira Nath, was lithe and smily, reinforcing in every class that daily practice was essential and that Yoga was a way of life.
I bought myself a cerise leotard with leggings to match, and worked my belly, biceps and buttocks until they wobbled less. Indira was kind and stressed that, though flexible, my body was not balanced, and neither was my mind.
Fifteen years later I no longer lived in Wapping, had moved to East Sussex, left breakfast television and after a stint at LWT was doing daytime at the BBC. I would have ideas in the back of a taxi, call them through to the team, and by the time I had reached Pebble Mill in Birmingham the wheels were in motion. yes it was that easy then.
I had a notion to do a series called 'Ancient and Modern' - older people who were inspirational. From a 100-year-old motor cycle dealer who went into his showroom everyday, to an 86-year-old geezer who taught Yoga in Battle. I sent my researcher to meet him having received a flier through the door about his classes. He passed muster so I went, with a directer and film crew, down to Battle to meet him. He was lithe and smily, lived in one room, arose every morning at 5.00 ate lentils did his practice, and then taught classes. It was the very same Indira Nath who had commented on my buttocks back in Aldgate. He remembered me, gently chiding me for giving up my practice, allowed me to link arms - even though he was an untouchable Swami - and sent me on my way.
When I got a flat in Battersea, I went to Bikram Yoga in Balham. Hot, sweaty, rammed full of tight buttocked women and actors
Hot yoga in Tunbridge Wells was effective but less star studded. Yoga at the gym was peopled with senior citizens, retired health visitors and heavy breathing vest-wearing men. Three different classes taught by three different teachers. The middle aged tutor concentrated on toes, the young one concentrated on us and the aging hippie concentrated on talking far too softly for me to hear any of the instructions.
I now work on my own with a video made by a Scottish Asian man and his actor son, and I've signed up to do a 30 day internet course with an American teacher who says 'GOOOOOD JOB' and makes me so tense that I need to do Yoga relaxation to dispel my irritation.
I like doing Yoga, I like stretching and breathing , I like closing my eyes and balancing on my shoulders, even though my belly travels down to my neck and strangles me. Doing it on my own means I can wear nothing at all, do it any time I like and not have anybody interfering with my buttocks, unless you count a nosy dawg.
Namaste.
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 22 October 2019
This autumn smells sweet. I collected a pile of fallen chestnuts, put them in my pocket till I got home, then sliced a cross in them and bunged em in the oven. The smell of Christmas wafted through the house.
There are fields behind our cottage, a walk down the hill and turn right and you could think you were in France. The fields have been dug over, watery tracks in the dark, brown earth. The dog runs for her life. Sliding to a halt, making sure we're there, and off she goes again. As I write there's an owl hooting down by the wood.
There was a mechanical lift in the avenue, and the farmer lopping high branches off one of the Beech trees. His farm manager, always wearing a cap, his head always bent to the right, was standing grabbing the branches as they crashed down. On the way back from the walk they were sitting in the front of the farmers van drinking tea from thermos cups and having a chat.
The farmer comes from an extremely wealthy family his farm-hand doesn't. They live next door to each other in an extended, renovated farm house. The farmer has chickens, and two children who are now grown. Both sent off to boarding school as their dad ploughs the fields and scatters the good seed on the land. The chickens recognise us and we feed them artisan bread when we remember. They have a good life until they dont when they end up on the farmhouse kitchen table.
When we moved here the farmer - he was new to it then - put a padlock on the kissing gate leading to a pond with ducks. I wrote a stiff letter to the council saying it was on common land and I hadn't moved from the East End of London to find myself hemmed in. The padlock was removed, so now we can slide through the kissing gate and listen to the woodpeckers.
The dog is 21 weeks old, when she jumps on a body it hurts. She is heavy. She has her second puppy training class this Thursday, her sister attends as does a black Labrador and a Cocker Spaniel. Suki Sioux is noisy and undisciplined but we were reassured that she would learn. She'd better otherwise she'll be cited as the reason for our impending divorce.
I made an Ayurvedic soup today, with turmeric, rice, mung beans, carrots and two green beans from the garden. Cooked in ghee and cumin and coriander it tastes rather good and is perfect for autumn. I've gone off sugar and flour so The 'Great British Bake Off' is unadulterated food porn. The dog will lie chewing a chew, the old git will stoke the stove, and I'll sit drooling in front of the telly box waiting for the technical challenge.
I'm on the radio all next week so this week is all about watching the news - PLEASE GOD SPARE ME - and practicing being impartial.
Tomorrow I will go for another walk, collect some more chestnuts, and reheat my Mand soup. In 64 days time we will be sitting down for our Christmas dinner, this year its vegan for our guests, and turkey free as a tribute to our neighbouring chickens and as a protest against President Tayyip Erdogan.
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 13 October 2019
Wordsmiths have berated him.
Politicians have debunked him.
He has been shamed, humiliated exposed and vilified.
There is no-one that does not have an opinion about him.
And yet the Prime Minister of this country is getting away with it.
Who cares whether it's Dominic Cummings, Gove or Francoise who are dipping their greasy fingers into all the pies, their finger dipping is happening, in plain sight, in front of our very eyes. And like a slow motion accident we stare in disbelief as the car smashes into the wall. Mouths agape, silently screaming, we witness the ghastly men of the old order dismantling our liberties. Taking away our freedom.
Even though thousands stand shoulder to shoulder chanting their disgust,
roaring their disapproval, still the weasley men of power continue to bamboozle and bluff their way into the history books.
The words of wise children, the speeches of wise elders, are ridiculed. Whether its climate change, back stops, borders or tariffs, our lonely little Island is being plundered and abused by robbers who could care less about any of it. As we teeter on the brink of isolation, there are those who gleefully await the crash, holding out their greedy little hands to catch the fluttering bank notes.
Finance, money, cash bonuses, off shore accounts, it all makes no never mind as the typhoons rage and the earth shudders to its core.
There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said before, but as fear grips the soul I know I am not alone. That the winds of change are upon us and no matter what the blustering buffoons do, no matter how many bombs they drop, how many people they displace, how much land they destroy - there are scientists building green power houses, and children sewing seeds - for make no mistake the shoots of renewal have been planted and behind every blade of grass there is an angel willing it to grow.
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 26 September 2019
There's a Boris truth.
There's my truth.
And there's THE truth.
There's a Trump truth.
There's my truth.
And there's THE truth.
There's the Media's truth.
There's my truth.
And there's THE truth.
It doesn't matter who utters it, whose mouth it comes out of, THE truth is THE truth and there is no negotiating with THE truth.
Still pundits will punt, commentators will commentate, and soon the frightful happens that somehow we can't identify the real truth anymore. Be that as it may on Shrove Tuesday back in 1601 a certain merchant named Shylock hung out of a Gondola, licking his Cornetto, and declaimed 'THE truth will out.'
The Jews believe it, Tom Cruise believes it, even educated Gnus believe it, so what the piggin Hell is going.
The wool is being pulled over our eyes by the so-called educated. We are being fleeced
by a bunch of self-entitled bully-boys using the tactics of a Windsor common room.
Clamour loud enough, bark, bellow and snarl and the underlings will crumble. Yap, yell and scream loud enough and the fearful will believe the ululations of the baying pack. We are witnessing an Eton mess. We are watching benches full of John Thomas', and Johnson's owning their lies, speaking their untruths until they transmutate into a very un-Godly truth. We are witnessing the tyranny of a group of toffs who have about as much understanding of desperation and loss as a Ferrari owning oil magnet.
We've been sold the lie that we must 'Get Out' at all costs. Ordinary people in Leicester quote it. OAP's in Grantham mutter it. The Barboured shoppers in Barnstable repeat it, speaking the truth as they've been tutored.
But the truth has changed, morphed into the rallying cry for a league of Faragians who want I know not what, and who display the empathy of a black widow spider as she bites off her mates Johnson after their first creepy consummation.
The rain rains, the ice melts, the earth cries out and still this Theatre of Blood plays out nightly before our very eyes. Those prestigididigitators are messing with our minds, juggling with out brains. But fear not because their slight off hand is beginning to wain, their chicanery is beginning to show, we're noticing their tricks, and soon THE TRUTH will be unequivocal, and the Emperors New Clothes will crumble and fall revealing their sweaty dirty underwear beneath.
Vive la Juge and Brenda Marjorie Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond.
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 22 September 2019
There are leaves on the lawn.
There are holes in the lawn.
There are apples on the lawn.
The lawn does not look like a lawn.
There's a dog in the house, in the garden, on the armchairs, on the settee.
There's a dog in the courgettes, in the horseradish root. Have you seen the size of a horseradish plant? Well the dog has dug an enormous hole to compliment it.
There's a dog on our bed.
There's a dog on the spare bed.
There's a dog wailing and whining and chewing and nipping.
There are marrow bones buried near the hedge.
There are toys that squeak.
Toys that pull.
Toys that trip.
There's an abundance of toys that are inappropriately strewn around the garden.
There's a life sized penguin - given by a neighbour - WHY? - lying near the peonies which the dog has flung.
Like a wild wolf on the Prairie there's a dog in East Sussex that tosses and throws a gigantic penguin into the swing set.
There's a dog in the house.
There's a dog on the green bean bag.
There's a dog on the purple bean bag.
There's a dog watching us watching the telly, our very own Gogglebox. She watches global demonstrations, Tom Watson outside Brighton Station, Tom Bradbury bemused whilst reading the news. She watches Owen Jones being shouted down by the daughter of a baron on Newsnight. She watches Corrie - for a little light relief - although the story lines at the moment are about as much fun as a night out with Reese-Mogg on an A&E ward.
She watches 'Strictly' and watches me wondering where the years have gone that even the thought of doing a fleckle is almost as exhausting as watching a fleckle being done.
There's a dog in the house that jumps on heads, licks faces, howls at the moon and gets in the way of serious drama.
There's a dog in the house that has taken over the entire living space.
There's a tupperware lunch box containing peanut and banana homemade dog biscuits, turmeric biscuits, sweet potato biscuits, all bought, and made by a woman with a stall at the Food Festival in Tunbridge Wells. Located in between jars of homemade chutney, bottles of home-brewed beer, German bratwurst, Indian curry, Thai noodles, marshmallows, face-painting, and a well stocked Prosecco bar there was this chirpy woman selling home-made doggie biscuits and bandanas. I bought a red one with stars on. Standing near by was a young woman slurping on a plastic glass of bubbles with her two year old lurcher called 'Scamp'. He was not nipping and biting and jumping and squealing. Scamp was refined and genteel. As indeed was it's owner.
Our dog reflects quite the peasants that we are.
When we shout at each other over the Brexit debacle, the appropriation of the wealth of our country, when we make irate calls to the council because of the ludicrous cost of the Poll Tax, when we scream at he who shall not be named, telling untruths in hospital corridors, the dog in the house bloddiwell joins in.
We have a dog in the house that is meant to make us feel younger, fitter, less lonely, more connected, healthier and sane. She's meant to do all those things but so far the old git and I have not slept in the same bed for 9 weeks, we've spent more on chicken wings and kibble than we have on smoked salmon and bagels. Since the arrival of the dog in the house tissues have been ripped by tiny milk teeth, floors have been piddled on, carpets have been widdled on, nerves have been frayed, rugs have been frayed, fleeces used as blankets, blankets used as beds, pullovers used as cushions, cushions used as chews, tassels on the floor, twigs in the armchair, paw prints on the piano, nose marks on the window, and so far her legs are longer than mine and she's only 16 bleeding weeks old.
I wanted to go to Brighton to protest over something or other, but the dog cannot travel that far yet. So despite viruses, and insomnia, dishevelled shirts and lack of planning, the dog in the house is here to stay. She'll grow saner and bigger and then we can take her along to more protests, for make no mistake there will be more protests, we've been fighting for a world for our kids and grandkids for years now but there's a new imperative where we're fighting for the planet and this idiot puppy that we want to see grow into a participating member of a peaceful society.
The banner will be made;
'Canines for Climate Change'.
'Lurchers against Liars'.
And
'You Can Teach Old Dogs New Tricks.'
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Posted by Jeni in | 28 August 2019
I studied the British Constitution at school, never concentrated, wasn't bothered, had about as much interest as learning how to plait raffia palm mats.
But now fifty four years down the line my interest has been sparked by an old Etonian bully masquerading as our First Minister, a clever, calculating, manipulative nincompoop, imbecile, jerk, lummox, moron, ninny, witling piece of shite that has been appointed, by a bunch of oleaginous sycophants, as the mouthpiece of this little island. Mr. Blobby striding down the corridors of power with his hands in pockets forever scratching his brains.
I want to swear and hurl missiles, I want to scream just inches away from his pomposity. I want to throw Shakespearean quotes at him, whilst standing over him and pricking him with a very sharp rapier screaming; You are a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise breaker, the owner of no one good quality. I want to tug on his jacket, and curse at his use of high born connections, scold him as he persuades poor old Betty Windsor to scribble her consent to his unconstitutional shenanigans.
The arrogance, the presumption, the sheer unadulterated oneupmanship of the baby-kin with tousled hair and upper-crust friends. The Redwoods that tower disdainfully, the Reece-Snobs that shower us with supercilious contempt.
I didn't know I was so angry until a friend wrote a despairing note Will we survive this dictator, she asked. Is he a dictator or just a dick?
As we watch the Etonians sling their privilege around like they own the joint - which of course many of them do - we must remember that when the populace truly wakes up the old school will be given detention and shunted to the back of the class.
For make no mistake this is class warfare that has been refined with the help of Amazonian trillionaires and years of secret dinners.
But do not worry for there are many of us with the muscle to wield our sabres and our rattling will turn the likes of Jacob Reece Snob and John Redwank scuttling back under their rocks. For they are worse than any vermin with their puffed up insolence.
For the first shall be last and the meek shall inherit the earth.
I studied scripture at school, I was taught by a fascist called Mr. Mead who told me Hitler had not finished his job and that I deserved to be in a gas chamber. I picked up my pens and left the room, only then did my legs turn to jelly. He died prematurely - of course he did - rottenness will work from within, he was eaten away by a virulent disease.
The egotistical smug bastards will wither and die and the rainbow children will rise up.
But patience and determination are the watch words. Their certainty frightens me, their distortion of the truth is disturbing, their fumbling under the bedclothes with the likes of Trump, is nauseating, but I keep breathing - deeply - and reread this Cree Prophecy
When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
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Posted by Jeni in Ad Infinitum | 19 August 2019
I'm on Radio Sussex for one more week.
5.50 start. 6.20 leave. 7.08 Brighton. 7.30 Telly trail. 8.00 probable pre-record. 8.28 trail. 8.32 trail. 9.05 and we're off.
Last week we covered everything from Green living to Narcolepsy. A young 18-year-old by the name if Lewis Herzog, told us of his life and tribulations as a narcoleptic. He was eloquent, articulate, and in no way beaten by his condition. He's off to university on his own having fought for a drug that cost 2,000 pounds a bottle. For two years he had to convince his doctors that he was eligible for it. He won, because he is one of life's winners.
This morning we talked about the retirement age being increased to 75.
Ian Duncan-Spite - the 65-year-old pomposity who said he could live on 53 Pounds a week while pocketing more money than he deserves - and his think tank suggested that the country can not afford old people any more. The harder we work the fitter we become - says the corpulent business man who has pension schemes coming out of his anus - 'Lets get the untermenches working as hard as they can for 70 is the new 50' - well something like that said the ex-leader of the Conservative Party who deems disabled people only to be actually disabled when they are knocking on heavens door.
People telephoned and talked of being on pension credit because life had dealt them blows that made retirement a prospect only achievable by the likes of Ian Duncan-Smite.
I am lost for words when I think about the financial advisors, the bankers, the monied class that have as much compassion as Ian Duncan's scrotal sack.
Forgive me, even a scrotal sack, that swings to the right, has more compassion than Ian Duncan-Shiz.
Impartiality is the watch word at the British Broadcasting Corporation, and I am extremely grateful that I have the privilege of listening to people when they tell their stories, air their grievances, on a platform that is provided by speech radio. But sometimes it hurts that I am powerless to help. All I can do is give people the chance to talk.
So today we opened up a box of worms. A woman activist who has been tirelessly working for female equality for six years, discovered that the country was 28 Billion pounds in credit, our credit, your credit. 28 billion pounds that was in the coffers from the hard work that millions of us have paid into our National Insurance scheme. That money instead of being used to help the vulnerable, the old, the infirm, was used to pay off our national debt run up by whom?
It weren't me guv.
Yougov?
Not me guv.
So tomorrow I talk about ageism, bum implants and the buttstop. Feel free to talk to me.
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