Jeni Barnett

I watched Elton John from the comfort of my living room. His birthday is a day after mine. We Aries always have trouble with our feet, and there was Reggie Dwight stumbling around the stage wearing safe shoes. He said his golden trousers were falling down but that didn’t stop the man from Pinner giving … Read more

I’ve just come home from a night in Penge. 14 of us sat upstairs, being an audience, in the THE BRIDGE pub. Down the road from Anerley three women acted beautifully in a play about loss and age. Three women in a room the size of my sitting room, reduced me to tears. It’s been … Read more

I was called up by a TV station to comment on the fall out between Hollie Willoughby and Phillip Schofield. I declined. The following day I was called up to comment on the ever deepening rift between the two presenters. I declined. The following day, whilst talking to the local doctor, outside ‘Specs Savers’, about … Read more

When my father died his second wife seemed to forget that he was born a Jew. He had the looks and attitude of an East End market trader – which he was – when he died in Luton she had arranged a Christian burial. His disgraceful behaviour throughout his life meant the turn out was … Read more

Reading the ‘Daily Mail’ is a punishable offence but looking at the pictures is de rigueur. It is impossible to live in todays world without the ‘Mails’ forensic journalism that focusses on mass shootings, spoilers for soaps, the phoney marriages of blind daters not to mention the turgid trailers for naked tv. I’m not a … Read more

Boys should not be allowed guns, ever. Especially boys who despise democracy – they should not be allowed anywhere near weapons. Boys, with just enough testosterone to allow them to grow hair near their wobbly bits, should then be steered away from guns, bombs and tanks, forever. Boys who invent guns and napalm, swords, sticks … Read more

First Paul, then Barry, then Len – I met them all, but only in a nominal sense. Back in the 80’s I worked at LWT standing proudly on the river – that’s LWT not me – next door to Gabriels wharf where I bought bespoke ceramics and a big wooden lion who stood in my … Read more

There are clumps of daffodils and tulips dotted around the garden. I’ve planted two different peonies, all shiny burgundy leaves in terracotta crocks and there are three pots of poppies on the garden table waiting to be planted up. There are puddles in the lawn and the big, pink bathtub, that was gifted to us, … Read more

The Plymouth politician who ordered 110 trees to be chopped down in the middle of the night lives in one of the city’s most upmarket tree-lined streets. The council paused the plans due to objections from residents to a £12.7million redevelopment scheme but Tory leader Richard Bingley signed an executive order to fell the trees. … Read more

Gary Lineker said; ‘There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s.’ Lineker berated Braverman over her immigration policy and all of … Read more