alternative freak

This is the first entry in my new diary. There are two moments of satisfaction with diaries, one when you write the last page and the other when you write the first. I write a diary every year because of my Uncle Angus, he’s a genius, but he’s also two stops down from Barking. Even though he’s a bit mad, he’s the person I trust and admire most in the world. One of the reasons I like Uncle Angus so much is because he thinks the same sort of things that I do and hardly anyone else does that. Also, he doesn’t like very many people, I can’t think of many people I like, in fact, at the moment, I can’t think of one apart from him.

I never say my name in my diary, names are what other people choose for you, parents, family lines, nicknames from friends. I don’t want to be defined by a name, there are a lot of things I don’t want, a lot of things I don’t like, you should hear Uncle Angus go on about the things that enrage him. But it’s because of all the stuff that I don’t like that people poke their noses into my business. It really pisses me off. But then most people of my age are really pissed off. People think that if you don’t conform, if you don’t make friends, then you’re a fully-fledged nutter, they can start asking why. I don’t make a conscious effort not to conform. I’m just bored with the whole thing.

Tomorrow’s the first day of my last year at school, or at least, the last compulsory year. Am I looking forward to it? I’d rather get into room 101 with the rats. Actually, that’s about what I will be doing tomorrow.

Today was the most mind numbingly boring trivial day. Loads of people were really excited, acting as if they hadn’t seen each other for years, when, in fact, it was actually last week. Then, they were excited because now they are the oldest (which in their minds means the most important) people in school, yahoo for them. . .
I was so bored that I made a list, I like lists and make lots of them, this list is:

Things that bore me.
School (this is an overall category, it has many subcategories.)

My peers at school (they used to be just called class mates or other pupils, or just kids, now they’re peers, and that’s part of other people poking their noses in, making up labels, I have so many labels chucked on me that I could practically make a label coat.)

My “peers” piss me off because – they split themselves into boys (dull, macho idiots who never talk about anything except football and lurk around in groups too frightened to separate from each other, in case – in case of what?)

Then there are the girls – they spend all their time talking about the boys, as if that bunch of fools could ever be of interest for more than five seconds. They all smoke because they think it’s hard and they’re too frightened to say no because everyone does it.
I can never understand why girls far more clever than the boys flutter and flirt around them as if they were something special. Why do they need the attention of a hormone filled Neanderthal to define them – it’s a given fact that all boys see a pair of tits, not a person when they look at girls.

The school smell – it just stinks, what can I say?

Teachers – Should I have put them first? The first subcategory after the School heading, no, they’re not that important, they’re just sad. There are three types (subcategory thing again, I make lists, they don’t have to be perfect)

Teachers who think that teaching is a vocation and that they were born to teach, they’re doing us a favour, we may remember them for the rest of our lives and give thanks every time we achieve something – yeah right.

Those who are masochistic bullies – who can’t get along in real life, with their peers, so they have to lord it over the poor sods who have to trail into their classrooms every day.

Then there are the real saddos, those who gave a toss once, but don’t anymore; it’s been ground out of them. They really don’t care at all. They take no interest in any of the pupils. They just want to get through the day and leg it off home for a big, stiff drink.

I’ve worked myself into a frenzy of rage. I’m off to laze about in a hot bath. I hope I don’t bump into mum; she’ll try and stop me for a conversation.

My head is aching, school today was buzzing away with inane chatter all day. I don’t like talking much – to people I mean. I talk a lot in my head, but I don’t like to share. God I hate Americanisms – we might as well sing Yankee Doodle and be done with it. Americans make their youth the most pathetic telly I’ve ever seen in my life, such utter crap it makes you want to throw the TV out of the window.

It was the fact that I didn’t share, that made people start minding my business instead of their own. First it was my mother (don’t start getting excited here – I’m not about to spill my guts about some terrible abuse or other rubbish like that. Yes, she and my dad have split up – so, bloody what, it happens all the time, get over it.) She thought that I didn’t express myself enough; she thought that I was too different from my elder sister or my younger brother. They shared, they shared all the time – it was mind-numbingly dull. I wouldn’t inflict my sharing like that – my siblings have no idea what self-indulgent bores they were, are, they’re still with us. The more she worried about this lack of conversation, soul baring etc. The more I closed up to her advances. That is not a sexual reference – don’t get excited, if you think I know too much about Freudian slips and such like, then you’d be right. Because, these days, when parents can’t infiltrate your brain, they call in the experts. Experts! That’s a laugh, a great big, stomach-churning laugh. But I’m rushing now, getting ahead of myself. But even if I do, I think you can keep up – it’s not me who will treat you as if you are a numbskull, I think your brain can make sense of a non-linear discussion, unless you’re a total arse, in which case, get on with discussing Beckham.

Back to my mother. She worried and I let her. I wasn’t craving attention, (that’s what counsellor number 1 thought. Her name was Sally Martin, “please call me Sally,” she simpered with one of those taught smiles lurking around her chin.) But good old Sally was wrong, in fact, the opposite was true. I wanted my mother to leave me alone. I wanted her to stop asking those inane questions.
“Did you have a good day at school?”
What the hell are you supposed to say to that?
The closest answer to the truth would have been. NO, I would rather have spent the day chewing off my right foot.
But that’s not really an acceptable answer. Because that answer is either:

1. Cheeky, or rude, or antagonistic – choose the word that suits the occasion.
2. Me being funny, then we can pretend I love school really.
3. Evidence that I am a psychopath.

The funny thing is that when people ask you questions, they often don’t want an answer; I can feel another list coming on.

Questions people don’t want answers to:
But I’m going to leave the list for a moment, because it has reminded me of this: I had an interaction at school today, I almost never speak to people at school, but, for once, I couldn’t restrain myself.
This is how it happened.
I was lurking outside the door to the maths room, minding my own business. There is a girl in school who’s called Jade – you know, parents who don’t know what to call a child so take up the latest fashion. Anyway, Jade is a real product of her naming. She was talking to Rebecca (not too bad a name, but really fashionable at the moment, just like Emma). Jade was telling Rebecca about how her parents were paying for her to have breast implants for her eighteenth birthday. . . It’s not that I actually interacted on purpose, a huge snort of derision just escaped.
“What’s so funny?” Jade asked me in a fury, rounding on me with an expression of thwarted status on her face.
“Why?” I asked her calmly, clearly meaning why the implants.
Even though she has less brain activity going on in her head than a shop dummy she knew what I meant, but her answer, nevertheless, was an absolute corker.
Her face remained deadpan as she dutifully explained to me: “So I can have bigger breasts.”
There is a saying “ask a stupid question and you’ll get a stupid answer.” In this case it should be, “ask a question of a stupid person and you can wet your pants for a week over the answer.”

I was thinking about my list today.

Questions people don’t want answers to:

The classic – Are you all right?
What they are actually saying is, it will make me feel good about myself if I show concern towards you. However, I want the answer to be yes, if it’s not I don’t know what else to say, so will have to start spluttering platitudes, please answer yes.

Did you have a good day?
Again, it will make me feel as if I am being a good friend/parent etc., if I ask this, but please don’t bore me with an answer. I’m not really interested in the trivial details of your life.

Any other inane question, in fact, people often ask you dullard questions like this so that they can then tell you about their day. I normally adopt the “does it look as if I have the slightest interest” expression. But this tends to annoy people, particularly my mum who feels that if she’s lecturing me on her day she’s spending “quality time” with me. Another Americanism – the whole world revolves round crappy sayings that mean absolutely sod all.

And while I’m on about crappy sayings what about “a stitch in time saves nine”, how crap is that? Perhaps you’re supposed to adopt the hand on chin, furrowed brow and a deeply felt “hmmmm”, every time you hear that old chestnut.

When I had my interaction with Jade yesterday about the all important size of breasts issue, I could see in her eyes that she didn’t really want to interact with me at all, but felt that my derisive snort had affected her street cred – it couldn’t possibly be ignored. Most of my “peers” steer very clear of me, as if there is a magic circle of personal space surrounding me. They think I’m a bit of a psycho, but not as much of a psycho as Jed Carter (Jed, I ask you?). He really is a psycho, he went to the same middle school as me and from the start, he had a disconcerting habit of flicking his willy out of his flies. You’d be sitting round one of those hexagonal tables, small, with matching small chairs at the age of five, listening hard to what you should/should not be doing. When all of a sudden Jed Carter’s willy would be on the table and he would have a grin on his face, note, this was not a friendly “Hi, I’m Jed,” grin. It was a Dr Death “I am really mad and dangerous grin.”

Jed seemed to think that this was a very scary thing to do, and to be fair to him, it bloody well was, but you get used to it. I’ve seen his willy change from a pathetic scrap of skin to a horrible purple-headed monster – he’s 16 next week and he still hasn’t stopped flicking it out at every opportunity. Jed also tortures animals, but most people are more concerned with the willy thing.

The pack mentality at school means that you’re either in or out. You either conform to all the nonsense or you refuse – thereby earning your very own personal psycho label. It really pisses my brother Andrew off that I refuse the kind invitation to join the gang. He has to work twice as hard for his place in the gang because he is tainted with the “psycho in the family” label. My brother likes to be called Andy, or even And, it makes him feel safe and familiar, part of the group. I always call him Andrew just to annoy him, and he knows I do it just to annoy him, but he still shows me how wound up it makes him. Today he said I was “such a muppet”, hmmm seventies kids show with furry animals. Yeah right, that insult really crucified me.

Smiling Sally, counsellor number 1 was very interested in my “relationship with my siblings.” I think she must have thought that I had a brain the size of a pea because she asked the most ridiculous questions, trying to lead me into some sort of self revelation which she could cure with a few kind words and a hug, (oops, hugging is of course, inappropriate behaviour these days) then send me on my way whilst she gave my name a big red tick in her book and a gold star for herself – another poor soul cured by the heroine who is Sally Martin.

I’m going to treat you to a selection of Sally’s awe inspiringly subtle questions:
Do you feel that your mother loves your brother or your sister more than you?
Do you feel as if you don’t belong in the family unit (and then moving closer and looking pained), do you feel isolated?
Does it worry you that you do not interact with your peers?

I honestly think that Sally thought if I could think about these things and realise that none of the above were true and that everyone loved me, then I could just go home and stop giving everyone so much trouble. What she failed to realise was that I had no interest in whether any of the above were true, and if they were true, why that was. I know perfectly well how to “win friends and influence them,” I choose not to, that’s all.

Eventually, old Sal, got to the end of her tether with me, and I have to tell you now, it was the longest most boring tether that I have ever had the misfortune to travel along. Her “get out clause” was that I was becoming too old for her speciality. That’s a bit of an achievement – outgrowing a paediatric specialist. She passed me on to Samuel Bruner, now Samuel really is psychiatry incarnate. I’m seeing him again on Monday. He’s average height, with a larger than average tummy – you know, one of those ones that start at the chest, bulge out and then start their inward curve just above the belt. He’s got white hair, a white beard and glasses – before I met him, I had a picture of him in my mind, of course he was wearing a tweed jacket and had a pipe. I couldn’t believe it when I actually met him, Samuel really is that much of a stereotype, he even has patches on his elbows for God’s sake. He smells a bit of rich pipe tobacco, some people like that smell, I think it’s about as tempting as horse manure. Now Sally chattered and tried to get me to talk so that she could make up a diagnosis from what I said, Samuel is quite another kettle of fish (I’ve put that phrase in because it’s so bad it’s almost kitsch, why would you have fish in a kettle?) Samuel likes to learn more from what I don’t say, rather than from what I do. These experts make you laugh, from the pit of your belly.

The trouble is, every time there’s a silence, Samuel thinks that he’s hit upon a raw nerve, even though, and this is the comedy gold bit, I’m seeing him because I’m too silent. Samuel is obsessed with abuse; he assumes that the only reason a person would refuse to conform is because their “safe place in society” has been taken away from them by some terrible adult masquerading as a friend. So he asks me questions that mean, are you being abused, but are cunningly disguised so that I don’t know I’m answering an abuse question – supposedly.

Do you find it stressful visiting your father?
What he actually wants to know is – does your father beat or molest you on the quiet when you go round and does he then say “oh this will be our secret, don’t tell your mother.” Samuel seems to have forgotten that Dad has remarried, and moved and that we hardly ever see him. This bothers Claire and Andrew but it doesn’t bother me that much, he never was about much when he lived with us, he’s always been a bit of a selfish person. Why miss something that wasn’t really there? But whatever his faults, he certainly isn’t a perve.

I’m not being frivolous about abuse here, it happens and it’s bad, it’s part of the sick cog turning which is our world. But the point is, it doesn’t happen all the time, and odd behaviour from children does not mean, beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone is abusing them. The thing is, I think adults have given up questioning the world they live in, they take it for what it is and enjoy it. They don’t want to hear that it’s “not up to scratch.” So if you tell them that you don’t think the world is much cop, they think you’re a loony, and if you’re a child you are clearly a loony because some scumbag is abusing you. So much for freedom of speech. . . .

There’s another loony at our school, a proper loony this time, her name’s Janice (yeah, dull name, I know), anyway, she’s a cutter, she cuts her arms. I don’t know what she normally does it with, but one day I saw her scoring into her arms with a compass in maths. She doesn’t do it for effect (that’s how I know that she’s a proper loon, not just a saddo looking for attention), she hides the cuts, but sometimes they break open and you can see a little bit of blood on the sleeve of her shirt. Or sometimes you can just see a cut poking out of her cuff. The thing is, much as I hate to say it, I think sodding Samuel may be on the right track with her – I’m saying no more. Well, apart from the fact that her father is a raging alchy. Anyway, the massive irony is that Janice could probably do with a Samuel or a Sally, to rescue her and help her out, but nobody takes any notice of Janice. It seems that it’s normally parents who care who get help for their kids, or at least notice that all is not well. The people who really need it have parents who don’t notice, or don’t care. But the thing is, apart from the cutting she does seem like all the rest of them, worried about boys and her weight and spots and all that crap. Except she does have a wild gleam in her eyes sometimes, especially if someone’s taking the piss out of her. One day she’ll blow and attack someone, but people tend to sense that and back off when she looks like she’s about to lunge. Unluckily for her, she hasn’t got a mother like mine who whisks you off to any passing therapist at the drop of a hat.

Sundays have got to be the most boring days in the whole week. The only consolation is that you don’t have to go to school, but you know you have to go the next day, so the whole of Sunday is laden with doom and the house always smells of some poor carcass being slowly roasted in the oven. I hate Sunday roasts but my mum thinks that if she doesn’t slave over a hot cooker for four hours on a Sunday she’ll get arrested for neglect. Apart from that, she also thinks we’ll get scurvy or rickets. . .
Funnily enough, she’s not all that concerned about salmonella or mad cows. . .

Sundays are also the days that Dad makes his duty phone call, we all get called to the phone to do small talk, I hate it, it’s not because I don’t want to talk to him because I hold a grudge, it’s because there’s not much to say, he asks the same old boring questions and I give him the same old boring answers. The more time that he’s spent away, the less that he knows us and anyway, Andrew is his favourite, they chat for ages about football and other crap.

Samuel almost got me today. He leaned over and asked.
“Do you find peace in silence?”
I was going to just keep quiet and let him make his own mind up, like he normally does, but there was something about the stupidity of the question that made me bite.
“I don’t really get much silence do I?” I said, staring at him pointedly.
“Ah, you find me an intrusion do you?” He asked, and it was the gleam of excitement as if he thought he was finally getting somewhere that made me shut up and shrug at him non-committedly. What an idiot, of course I find him an intrusion, I’ve made that obvious enough, however, he almost got me, may well have done if he hadn’t been so eager.

But that wasn’t the worst of the day. When I got home, mum announced that she’d booked a holiday for us. Andrew and my sister Claire were really excited, asked the wheres and the whens as if it was the most important statement since Mandela’s release from prison speech.
It was worse than I feared, a week in Gran Canaria in two weeks time, the only saving grace is that it’s a week in school time because it’s much cheaper and we haven’t got as much money since mum and dad split up. Claire immediately started twittering about bikinis and sun tan lotion, Andrew actually said “cool”, who does he think he is, the Fonz?
After dinner they all settled down to watch Eastenders together, I went for a bath and hoped the taps would drown out the terrible theme tune and the droning moaning of the actors.

I couldn’t face writing anything down for a couple of days, I seem to have managed to bore myself and that’s not good, also, what I’ve written seems to be a long diatribe of moaning, it was the analogy with the Eastenders actors that scuttled me for a couple of days, but now I’m back. I don’t write something every day anyway, sometimes I feel like it and sometimes I don’t, it would be a bit predictable to keep a diary and put in entries for each day, how dull. Claire likes to keep that sort of diary. I looked at it once (I know you shouldn’t and I would kill her if she looked at anything of mine, but I keep my thoughts either in my head, or hidden away, Claire left her diary open, it would have been rude not to look. . . ) Going off the point here a bit, the thing about Claire’s diary, is, no wonder she left it open, there was sod all in there, most of the days she wrote an immensely interesting “nothing much happened today” – hmmmm.

Today was the crappest of crap days, created by crapsters, namely Jade. That idiot of the small yet to be enlarged mammary glands. She really is a sap; she practically skipped into registration, giggling and sure of herself, all excited for some reason. Now don’t get me wrong, Jade is not the sort to keep things to herself, so it was clear that we wouldn’t have to wait long for the treat of an explanation. . . (sorry, just dropped off to sleep there thinking about how boringly predictable Jade is.)

The cause of her divine excitement – Lee Brown – Lee Brown was in the year above us, but left to do a modern apprenticeship at some place. He was a thicko, managed about 3 GCSE’s and that was his lot, he had some sort of cred because he was in a band, they are really rubbish, can’t make up their mind what style of music they want to play so just end up playing their instruments really loud and out of time so it sounds like a big noise (God, I sound like my mum). Anyway, that’s the extent of his cred, apart from the fact that he has a nipple pierced – excuse me while I bow down in adoration. Jade’s had her eye on him for ages, she and her mates would go to all of the “gigs” that Lee’s band played at, oh, I forgot the best part, the band is called Matrix, cunningly named. . . They all think it’s a really “kicking” name, I think they’re a bunch of larrys. Last night Matrix (sorry, still laughing over that one) played at the Vaults which is a place “for the kids” where any old no hoper can get up and play, it’s run by a couple of “ex-musos” who think they are doing “the kids” a favour and that they are hearing “the sounds of the street”. More like the sounds of the M25 when Matrix are playing. Jade and a couple of her mates went up as usual to act like a bunch of groupies and for once Lee noticed her. This is what she said about the romantic encounter:
“So he said hi, and I’m like, hiii.” (move over Britney).
“So he said, what’s up?” (move over rappers)
“And I said, liked the set. Then we just snogged.”
Well that was a real meeting of minds. It didn’t take long for Jade to be persuaded to remove the cunning disguise of a scarf from her neck and proudly show her lovebites.
Class.

Guess what? No Eastenders on tonight, instead, the delights of Coronation St, oh and of course before that, Claire and Andrew sat in front of Hollyoaks, discussing the plots and characters as if they were real people.

My brother is such a banjo player. He thinks I lose him cred??

It’s less than a week till the holiday, the whole house is in uproar, mum and Claire keep talking about what clothes they are taking and what they’ll wear in the evening as opposed to the day, that sort of mind numbingly dull prattle. They even went shopping together for new holiday clothes – I ask you, I can just imagine them skipping around the bikini department in Debenams saying, “Oh, do you think this will go with my sarong?” and then having minute discussions about cloth and colour. Mum asked me nervously if I wanted to go shopping with them. Of course, I was insulted, but managed a polite “no thanks,” because she was clearly worried that I would take up the offer and ruin the outing, but still asked. They brought stuff back for Andrew – what is it about males? Can they never buy their own clothes?

I suppose I should have rearranged my meeting with Samuel for today since I won’t be able to see him next Monday, but mum didn’t badger me into it so I didn’t bother.

As if school wasn’t bad enough, now I have to go home every night and listen to nonsense about holidays, anyone would think we’d never been on one before.

For God’s sake, we’re only going for a week, do we really have to wash every item of clothing in the whole house?

If mum or Claire say the word bikini again I may have to strangle them with one.

Our flight is at 11.45 tonight, Mum is going to panic us over to the airport for 8.45 – can you believe it? If she asks me one more time about whether I’ve packed something, I might explode, she had us all nearly packed yesterday. And she insisted that we phoned Dad, he really is an arse, he only managed “have a nice time” before he was called for his dinner.

Well, we’re here, and I can’t believe it, the island is even worse than I had imagined, it’s just layers upon layers of concreted apartments and hotels, the beach isn’t even golden sand for God’s sake, apparently, it’s a volcanic island. Well, if that’s the case, why didn’t they leave it as a volcanic island so that at least it was more interesting, instead of importing sand which looks as if a million camels have pissed on it. Last night was terrible, after insisting that we got to the airport 3 hours early, Mum started panicking about the flight being delayed. It was only delayed for two hours though so we didn’t get any vouchers, but we did have the joy of being at the airport for 5 hours. . .

My God, I don’t believe it, this holiday is a nightmare beyond hell. Today, we had breakfast in a café boasting the fact that you could get a “Proper English Breakfast,” I wouldn’t mind, but all the cafes do English Breakfast, in fact, most of them are run by disgruntled English people who have fled Britain to live in the sun and sweat over frying pans. These cafés are terrible, you can read a two day old version of the Sun. Christ, who would read the Sun on the day it was printed, let alone two days later, still I suppose the news is just as wrong and badly reported regardless of how old the Sun is. And of course there is the delight of page 3 – Jade, your career awaits, oh, no hang on a minute, if you have to wait til you’re 18 for your boob job you’ll be too old for the Sun. . . The breakfasts are swimming in fat and taste terrible, and if you get there late, like we did today because Andrew insisted on sleeping in like a hibernating bear for hours this morning, then you end up surrounded by a load of clubbers nursing their hangovers and talking about how many birds they pulled (boys) or how many blokes fancied them (girls). I don’t think it’s much of a compliment to have some drunken idiot coming on to you so that he looks good in front of his mates. It was a nightmare, and Claire kept glancing over, hoping that someone would make friends with her and take her clubbing – they didn’t even see her. Then we had to spend ages on the beach “tanning” I said I was too hot and wanted to go back to the apartment, but wasn’t allowed to go on my own, and was told to stop moaning and ruining everyone’s holiday. . . By three o’clock, mum and Claire were the colour of a lobster that had been hideously boiled alive. I had been sensible enough to cover up and Andrew only had a burnt nose since he was hardly out of the sea all afternoon. We were supposed to be going out for dinner, but mum and Claire were so uncomfortable with their sunburn that they decided we would just have a quiet night in and have omelettes for dinner. Good job too, they were embarrassingly red, their skin was glowing, you could feel the heat from a mile away. Claire kept comforting herself with the mantra “at least it will go brown”, I hope she convinced herself, because she certainly didn’t convince me. I almost missed my hour with Samuel, at least you could settle down and get some peace and quiet.

I can’t believe I was moaning about not going out to dinner last night, we went tonight and it was worse than a disaster. Claire had chosen this cheesy place which was a cross between a really tacky Spanish restaurant and a skanky British nightclub, it was terrible, we got a table outside, which was just as well since the lights inside were bouncing off her and mums’ sunburn and blinding other diners. There was a group of Brits who were treating the waiters as if they were family, in fact, I think they eat there every night and come back to the same place every year for their holiday. The waiters were trying their best, but mostly they looked bemused at this behaviour, particularly when the group got drunk and wanted to dance with them and meet the chef. I did wonder about the chef actually, a cat wandered in off the street and made straight for the kitchen – I didn’t see it come out.

Anyway, mum ordered a really terrible white wine, which Claire glugged hoping she looked grown up, but instead ended up getting even pinker in the cheeks, if that’s possible. Andrew ordered what he thought was a plain steak and ended up with a mountain of sauce which he said made him feel sick. Then mum got a bit tipsy and started flirting with the waiter, and guess what? His name was Juan, or at least that’s what he told us, I’ve got a feeling that’s the only Spanish name he thinks English people recognise, except for Jose, which is what the other waiter was called – I rest my case. Well mum is ridiculous when she flirts, she only ever does it when she’s had a few glasses of wine, but the wine makes her eyelids droop so she ended up looking like a gold plated fool. Which would not have been so bad if she and Claire had not got a huge fit of giggles which attracted the whole restaurant’s attention. Even Andrew rolled his eyes at me and we never do conspiracies together.

Of course this morning Claire and Mum were suitably chastened, quiet and mumbling about heads etc. They are still talking about going to the beach though, even though their sunburn is still pink and tender. But first, we have the delights of breakfast.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse Claire and Mum dragged me into the depths of shame, this evening I was hauled to a Spanish show. Now, I wouldn’t have minded going to a decent show, but this was one just for the tourists, which involved lots of dancing and the audience pulled up to participate, the audience was full of beer bellies, tattoos and gold jewellery, yet Claire was desperate to be called on to go up. Luckily, she was overlooked in favour of someone who was clearly not going to be able to dance. As he wobbled about the stage I realised that the dancers were having more fun than the audience, trying to teach this bloke to dance. All in all a lucky escape, it could have been much, much worse.

I sent Uncle Angus a postcard today. I don’t normally send postcards, they’re so naff and a waste of time, but I did it as a joke. Uncle Angus has travelled all over the world, he used to be a foreign correspondent, covering world events for the papers, he got quite sniffy when I told him where we were going. He just asked why!

We have one more day before we go home – relief? No question about it.

Claire’s peeling – she can’t believe that she’s peeling before she’s finished her holiday. I told her, what do you expect if you bake your skin? She said – “Whatever.” I couldn’t believe my ears and just looked at her, “go and pledge allegiance,” I said, but she didn’t understand what I meant. She and mum are rushing around and sorting out all their stuff, I don’t know why, the flight isn’t for hours, it’s one of those middle of the night ones – cheaper, you see.