Bucket Bag Lady

Dear Brighton Belles, so you want more puns in South Africa eh?
Well I’ll do my very wildebest – is that good enough?
Andy, I am not publishing your comment about me and scaremongering and the MMR debate because reading between your lines you want to start a fight and I’m not interested in having a nasty verbal spat with you. If you want to talk to me then do it respectfully or not at all. If you can’t tell the difference between real debate and argumentative sniping I suggest you go and ask somebody clever like Stephen Fry to teach you how to do it….
To Marmite and all my old bloggers it’s lovely that you are still bothering, to my new bloggers – well here goes:

I was SO tired this morning I packed my bag slowly so that I wouldn’t leave anything behind. I had Jo Parkerson’s mic ( I always think it’s such a sad spelling for such an interesting piece of equipment, 3 little letters….) and Jo’s recorder which I put in the bottom of my shiny russet bucket bag. All me other bits I nestled over the top.
Every day – if I take a bag at all I carry – a wallet with the London Underground on that holds my Freedom Pass, that’s the pink one, the torn blue one contains my lucky 50 euro note and all sorts of blessing cards that have come to me over the years. A Kath Kidson purse that the next door neighbours gave me for Christmas. My key ring with a little leather shoe from Morrocco hanging on it. Two hair clips from DAZL my haidresser in Tunbridge Wells. One bottle of Mitsuko perfume, described as the lone survivor of the Golden Age of scent, Geurlain’s masterpiece. A packet of tissues, a mini umbrella from Accessorize that takes a whole downpour to open, a Pacamak from Top Shop that’s too long, too big and only keeps the lightest drizzle out, any sort of real deluge and the water seeps into your pores. A bunch of pens wrapped up in a black elasticated hair band, a little of bottle of 200 potency Staphisagria so that if I get too angry at work I dissolve one on my tongue. A little black diary given to me by Zoe so that I know when I’m interviewing celebrities and going to the dentist, not at the same time you understand.
Sometimes I carry a a long scarf and sometimes I have a packet of wet wipes and a small tin of Cuticura talcum powder and a stick of deoderant, yesterday instead of a chemist shop I had a leopard skin top and a pair of flat ballet type shoes to change into for the BURMA VJ premiere, in the event I was too buzy to change. I also have a cheque book, I know so last century, a packet of blister plasters and the most exquisite pendulum in a tiny little leopard print pouch.
I carry the shiny russet coloured bucket bag on my shoulder if the sun is in and in my hand if the sun is out. Why get a whiteline when an all over tan will do?
This morning, due to over-excitment at my new 6 footer, I awoke exhausted. The bed is massive, the mattress hard, the duvet too small and the bottom sheet put on badly by the ‘oosbind. As you would expect. So when I slid out of bed it was too late to exercise, meditate, bathe or eat. I flapped my way to the 170 bus stop, sat like an old lady with my hands clasped, was the last to dismount at Victoria. Bustled onto the tube to Green Park, swore when I missed the first train and watched the speeding carriages full of people lip read my Anglo Saxon. Changed at Green park and walked down the two flights of stairs, up hill to the Piccadilly Line and stood on the line until the train arrived which it did immediately. Two stops to Leicester Square and out into the sunshine. The smell of wet ashphalt was evocative.
I walked the fifty paces to ‘Fiori’ on the corner of the Square. Magda, one of the THEEE most delicious Eastern European waitresses sat me down darLing and brought me a big plate of scrambled eggs, with one slice of tomato and one slice of cucumber, with a pot of hot water and an Earl Grey tea-bag on the side. A family of three sat opposite, the woman was so rude I wanted to punch her, I took a Staphisagria instead. The horribly rude mother made a point of cleaning the table with a wet wipe whilst snarling that the table was sticky. She was either Israelie, Moroccan or from Planet Obnoxious.
I pulled open the doors to LBC Towers and was met by Courtney the doorman who squeezed a dollop of medicated liquid into my palms. The horrible smell of Cuticura handwash floats around the building – you’ve guessed it swine flu….
I sat down in front of my medicated computer and created a show with Chubs. The edited interview of Vivienne Westwood from last night, Anders Ostergaard, the Danish director of BURMA VJ, who was coming into the studio with one of the Co-operative team to talk about their involvment with ethical film making.
My mother gave money every Saturday to the Co-op insurance man our number was: 523254 can you still remember your co-op number?
the rest of the programme was about Gap Year travel, conscience, happy marriages and bees.
Its fact if you have hay-fever or an allergy eat the local honey it will alleviate the symptoms. Its akin to homeopathy,treating like with like, although many of my scientific friends thinks it’s all mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus. Tell the cows that when the farmers give them homeopathic rememdies.
I left and got on the tube to Clapham South and dawdled to my acupuncturist – a 100 million Chinese can’t be wrong – and winced as she put needles in my toes and finger ends. yes of course it hurt. It took me so long to walk home Jim thought I had fallen into a stupor on Lavender Hill. Once inside the flat I ripped off my clothes put on my jim-jams and set about making a salad, a mustard dressing and leeks in butter. I ought to be watching somethhing on the box at nine but you know what I think I’ll have a bath, slide into my 6 footer and try and finish my book that’s been on the bedside back burner since March.
Tomorrow I am interviewing Duncan Jones about his film ‘Moon’.
I’m going to have a hot drink, talk to Jim, call two friends then plunge into a bath.
No need to water the petunias as we’ve had more rain than the forests of Sumatra…sleep good and dream well.