U Turns

I set my alarm for 5.00 Wrote it on my head three times and fell asleep having seen BEYOND THE CANDELABRA in Uckfield Picture House. My writing partner is staying until Saturday and we are tweeking and creating in the garden. Anyway fell asleep over my book and woke, having slept brilliantly, until 4.32. Got … Read more

yukety yuk yuk

The tree tops are swaying in the wind, they look like despondent, manic rag dolls. The rain is raining. The wind is blowing. My feet are freezing. I can hear the television from two floors down. Thursday lunch in a pub. Friday night a Turkish in Hackney. Tonight a French in Twells. Tomorrow back with … Read more

10 days that shook the world

From Devon to Wiltshire, from Wiltshire to Bristol to home. It’s 5.20 in the morning of Wednesday 19th of June. I spent yesterday in the garden, this morning was going outside to enjoy the fruits of my labour and do me exercises to the dawn chorus, but the Heavens have just opened and the rain … Read more

JUNE 9TH

Tomorrows show will be comic, serious and extremely entertaining. Call me if you want to talk about autism and wild life gardening. 0207 224 2000 Rob Deering, Niamh Cusack, Kate Williams and Kate Bradbury. Brilliant guests/ But I Can’t do it without you. BBC London 94.9, ever so Royal now that Queen Bet visited. Join … Read more

5 Rites – Right….

This is for Angela and all of you who want to remain young forever and ever and ever.
You can get books on THE TIBETAN FIVE, you can find the exercises on the internet.
The story I heard was that two men were about to go to the Himalayas to find the secret of eternal youth. One man declined and the other, old, relying on a walking stick, and really not mobile, went alone.
Up into the monks world he went and was taught the five rites.
Some four years later he went a-knocking on his friends door. On opening the door his friend saw a man of youth. Standing erect, looking young, elegant and as youthful as a Shaolin monk. And so the myth continues, the decrepit wil rise again.
Now for a long time it was a huge hit in Germany, my German acupuncturist friend told me about them years ago.
My Swedish acupuncturist has been doing them for 27 years and looks younger than her 67 years. Much younger, indeed a magazine have just asked her to be interviewed because they thought she was 40.
My writing partner’s mother did them and died peacefully aged 90, Bruce Forsyth does them, etc. etc.
I do not do them because I want to look like Audrey Hepburn dressed as lamb, I do them because they are easy, and take no longer than 20 minutes. because they utilise all the bendy bits of a body that make you feel better about yourself.
The theory is that all the Chakra points – vortexes of energy in the normal body – get a work out.
No point in me trying to describe the positions but if I tell you what they are you can research them for yourself on the t’internet.

Read more

Big up the Beech

So I had the call yesterday to ask whether I was free to sit in for somebody at Radio Kent. True nobody texted, emailed or messaged me so I should have known better. Still I went to bed, without even writing up my journal, and fell asleep by about eleven. Kept waking up but I … Read more

Hiya

It has been a very, very long week.
I am missing writing Potty Politics. I haven’t even started on my next project. I am having headaches trying to make an idea work. The sun is out and all I want to do is sit in the garden and eat cheese and wine except I don’t eat cheese or wine.
Sitting in for Vanessa was really good fun. Lovely producers and lovely listeners.
Tomorrow I’m doing another shift at Radio Kent. Should be fun.

Read more