THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Was there ever a truer line than John Lennon’s “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans” in Beautiful Boy? Its origin can be traced back to a 1957 Readers Digest article by the American writer and cartoonist Allen Saunders (thank you, Wikipedia), but the sentiment holds good, no matter who the author.

   

After four and a half years of stress trying to sell my Cardiff house, I made so many plans in the summer of 2016. With debts cleared, finally being mortgage free, I started to work on so many projects that had been on the back burner. A screenplay, TV series, a novel. I finished writing a book about being broke (heck, if it was going to happen, I might as well try to make money out of it).

   

Then, 2017 came. Life that happened while I was busy making other plans. It was a year in which I lost several people, one my oldest friend from school, Shelley. My mother had an accident and, while I was caring for her and rushing around, I had one, too; I am currently nursing cracked ribs and am unable to travel. All those Air Miles I planned to use sit languishing in my Virgin Atlantic account, where I log in, daily, dreaming of where they might take me, had life not interfered with those damned plans.

   

But I am lucky in that I am a writer. We need material; it’s our lifeblood. My childhood fantasies of sitting in an attic, producing masterpieces (between bouts of contemplating suicide, naturally) are long gone. You have to live. With that comes pain, anguish, suffering, fear – the things that every human endures, in different forms. But there is also joy, surprise, fulfilment, energy, happiness, contentment – so many truly great experiences to be had on a day-to-day, even hourly, basis.

   

This will go down as the year in which I discovered the extent of friendship. During my most difficult times, Facebook has been a godsend. I have been overwhelmed, moved beyond belief and genuinely surprised by people’s kindness: old and new friends, complete strangers, all expressing genuine concern and, regularly, offering practical help and support.

   

I have made new friends as a result: people I would probably never have met, were it not for the circumstances that brought us together. Relationships with old friends have strengthened as we have found ourselves sharing similar experiences. Those conversations we once had about how well the property market had served us have given way to ones about the difficulties of elderly parents; the days of wondering where we would buy our second home in warmer climes have been reduced to watching A Place on the Sun on Channel 4 Catch Up.

   

Seeing my mother struggle with growing older has made me fearful of the inevitable, but then I remember how depressed Mum was at reaching 40. I’ve always tried not to dwell on things I cannot change, and I have had – and continue to have – a better life than most people. I’ve been to so many places and lived in countries many simply dream of visiting for a couple of weeks holiday a year.

They are choices that have not come without a price, and dealing with problems without the support of a partner is, I have come to realise, tougher than it looks. When you are single and work from home, the onus is on you to do so much more than you actually can – physically and emotionally. That’s when accidents happen – as I’ve just discovered, to my cost.

   

The decision to rent a house back in Bath, where I once lived for 11 years, was taken in order to be closer to Mum, were anything to go wrong. It’s therefore ironic that she spent Christmas by herself in her house and I in mine, owing to our respective injuries. I still have my New York apartment (and will keep it – I still call New York home), but I can honestly say I’ve loved being back in the UK, too. I left Bath under a cloud in 2008 when I was burgled twice in one week and my neighbour was raped at knifepoint at 6pm, coming back from work.

   

I’ve now reconnected with old friends and made many new ones. Yesterday, by chance, I bumped into Nerys, my friend and neighbour from Coity, where I grew up. We hadn’t seen each other for 40 years and laughed non-stop. She reminded me of the plays I used to write and make them perform in our back garden (Mum tells me that making my brother be a dying swan was a particular favourite).

We talked of Auntie Mimi and Auntie Gwen, who we used to visit in order to get sweets, laughing hysterically at what we now realise was Auntie Gwen’s Alzheimer’s (“Those are nice socks, Nigel,” she persistently told my brother). We talked of collecting tadpoles; the horrid woman who, literally held the keys to the castle and would never let us have them (we learned how to scale the walls); the scary woman in the post office; Coity school, where the headmaster told us that we weren’t clever if we weren’t wearing glasses by the time we were seven.

   

I’ve rediscovered the Garrick’s Head, the theatre pub in which Keith Waterhouse and I shared so many happy times. I have a great local in the Pulteney Arms, which shows rugby and has a great quiz on Monday nights. Now, as a sidebar, can anyone explain why everyone, and I mean everyone, who says, “I’ve got Geography covered” in a team turns out to know absolutely zilch and couldn’t tell its Asia from its Elba. Just saying.

   

So, on this last day of the year, thank you to what I will call The Year of Friendship. Every word, every good deed, every offer of help, accommodation, holidays etc. etc. has been truly breathtaking; the milk of human kindness has been a veritable dairy farm, and I thank you from every fibre of my heart.

   

This year wasn’t what I had in my plans; but life happened. 

And living is always better than the alternative.

   

A very happy 2018 to you all.

  

  

  

   

TIME AT THE BAR

It’s over 33 years since I stood the other side of a bar, serving customers rather than filling up the pub’s coffers.

My first attempt at bartending was when I was 18, at the Welcome to Town in Bridgend. I lasted two nights. I hated the smoke and, as a passionate, lifelong anti-smoking hysteric, could not bear emptying the ashtrays.

My second stint was when I first moved to London and, against fierce competition, landed a job behind the bar at the Palace Theatre in the West End. “I’ve had hundreds of people after this,” the manager told me, “but I’m giving it to you, because I like you.”

I bought a dress from Etam (£17.99) for my new glamorous life. After the curtain went up on Les Miserables, the manager came to the bar to see how I was doing. I was drenched head to toe in mixers, the white collar on my dress a rainbow of orange and lemon. I’d been opening them the wrong way, creating a vacuum in the bottle that resulted in a fountain in my direction with every one I opened.

I lasted just two nights. The manager was very disappointed. He thought I had huge potential. I didn’t. Les Miserables had nothing on the misery etched on my poor little face as I stripped another lemonade from my previously perfectly coiffed Eighties perm.

That was the end of my landlady ambitions. As well as the smoke, I hated the rudeness, the clicking of fingers, the lack of the words “thank you” and “please”; most of all, I hated the exhaustion – physical and emotional.

Being on one’s feet for hours at an end is bad enough; coupled with the psychology of dealing with everyone on an individual basis, according to their drinking and personal needs, made this easily the most difficult job I’ve ever done. I think that to this day and admire anyone who does it – and, yes, as a customer I always say please and thank you.

On Saturday night, almost 33 years to the day since I departed the Palace Theatre, I found myself again serving behind a bar. My friend Saz, her sister Emma and their mother Heather have bought the Victoria pub in Oldfield Park in Bath. It’s been renamed the Victoria Bath and in addition to regulars is attracting a new clientele, some of whom haven’t been to the pub in years; some have never been there at all.

The weekend featured a local band, The Woods, who specialise in 50s and 60s music, and from the outset they had the place rocking. It was packed. When I arrived, people were standing four deep at the bar. Saz and Heather were serving and, when Heather waved, I enthusiastically waved back like the nonchalant Petunia in the Coastguard TV commercial, when her husband Joe shouts “LOVELY DAY, ISN’T IT?” to a drowning man.

Realising the imminent danger (thirsty people), I started to collect glasses but soon joined my friends behind the bar. I was dressed head to toe in Issey Miyake Pleats Please and wearing five inch heels; the till was still too high for me to see it without standing on my toes, and I could barely read the names of the drinks as I had only my cheap supermarket reading glasses on me.

The ale pints were hard to pull and initially I had too much froth (a lovely local told me what I was doing wrong). I also could not remember what they were called and have now re-named them all (Butcombe is now Buttocks; Doombar, Dumbo).

The Fosters lager was a dream to pour (I could have kissed everyone who ordered it), and I didn’t spill a drop of single and half measures on the shorts. Maybe all my years of saying “Could you fill it to the top, please?” paid off.

The other thing that paid off was my maths ‘O’ Level. I grew up in a time when mental arithmetic was de rigeur. I was doing complicated fractions at the age of seven (thank you, Durham Road Junior School, Newport) and can do calculations in my head. Even today, I use a calculator only to work out how much weight I have gained or lost by converting kilograms into pounds with the multiplication x2.20462 (I am nothing if not precise).

Punters were incredibly patient as I learned on the job – as were Saz and Heather, who had to keep showing me what was what on the till. There was so much to learn.

How big is a dash? Is it greater or smaller than a splash? Who wants head on the beer and who doesn’t? Where is the scoop for the ice kept? Actually, that last one was easy: it’s under that Everest of ice I just poured into the bucket without taking the scoop out first.

I begged to ring the bell and call “Time at the bar, ladies and gentlemen, please,” a phrase that one man told me he hadn’t heard for 30 years (yes, that would be about right; old habits die hard).

The next day, I could barely walk. I still can’t. Feet, back, calves – I feel as if I’ve run a marathon.

But here’s the thing: I really, really enjoyed it. I spend my life in front of a TV or computer screen and don’t get to talk to that many people during my working day. It was great to meet so many different folk and to see them having fun on what proved to be a very successful night. I’ve never been called “love” so many times in one day, and I enjoyed that, too (but don’t try it when I’m on the other side of the bar or you’ll get a smack in the gob).

There is something immensely satisfying in serving others, either literally or metaphorically. I loved engaging with new people and my work colleagues; I even liked wiping down the tables when everyone had gone and adored the post-match analysis with Saz and Heather.

I remain adamant that bar work is very, very tough: it looks easy, but it really isn’t. I have the injuries to prove it. When I come out of traction, I might try it again.

But for today at least, I’m calling my time at the bar.

PIE IN THE SKY WITH SKY

I heard Slade’s Merry Christmas, Everybody yesterday. Twice. 

Two TVs were on in my house in different rooms and each tuned to a different channel (don’t ask; I’m weird like that). I wasn’t watching either as I was working in my office (even weirder, I know), so have no idea whether the song I loathe more than any other in history was being spewed out by the TV that has Sky or the one tuned only to the Mendip signal (again, don’t ask. I have an ongoing electrical nightmare, owing to the wiring in the house – more of that later. I bet you can’t wait).

It certainly wasn’t coming from Alexa, whose idea of Christmas music is a Mexican carnival. I asked her: “Alexa, play Christmas music”, shortly followed by “Alexa, STOP!”

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, Amazon has brought out a device called the Echo. It’s a tube about eight inches long and it plays music, suggests wine, tells jokes – in fact, it does pretty much everything you ask it do, apart from wash the dishes.

It goes into action from the moment you say “Alexa”, although that causes problems when I’m watching TV in the same room and any character is called Alex, at which point Alexa springs into action with the response: “Hm. I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.” It’s rather spooky.

Still, it’s the best relationship I’ve ever had.

So, back to Christmas. It’s hard to believe we are well over halfway through the year and harder to believe that I have done hardly anything other than move house (again). Having sold Cardiff last year and taken an LA rental, in May I moved out of LA and put my stuff into storage there. I then moved my Cardiff stuff out of storage and into a rented house in Bath, where I once lived for 11 years. I am still predominantly based in New York, but cannot bear the humidity of the summer months.

And so I’m doing a bit of nesting in Bath. I spend one third of my life ordering things on Amazon; another third sending faulty things back to Amazon; and the final third dealing with Sky TV.

Here’s the thing: Sky want to give me their super doper new system called Q, but they won’t go on the roof to do the relevant work that would enable me to have it with ease in every room (Elf ’n’ Safety blah blah). I said that I would get a third party installer, the brilliant Moss of Bath, who I have used for over 20 years. Oh, no, said Sky, only they can install Q.

Me: “So you are offering me something you won’t install yet won’t allow anyone else to install. You’re not really offering anything at all then, are you?”

Hence my having to stick with Sky Plus, but owing to the bizarre wiring in my new house, is taking forever to install. I don’t know how Moss have the patience to do it, but they are getting through it with the calmness of Trappist monks, while I run around them hysterically, shouting: “ALEXA! PLAY SOMETHING SOOTHING!”

Apart from the wiring, the nest is coming together nicely. Everything I sold at knockdown price or gave away when I left Cardiff, is having to be replaced. Microwave, kettle, toaster, bookshelves, rice cooker, Ninja smoothie maker . . . 

Okay, I tell a little lie. I didn’t actually have a rice cooker before, but the Amazon section in which it says “People who bought this item also looked at . . . “ has me buying all sorts of nonsense. 

I hardly ever eat rice. I don’t like gardening, either, because I am a person who can kill even plastic plants. But my new herb troughs look very nice filled with the 50 litres of soil and already dead herbs from Tesco.

My garden furniture arrives next week, along with the bay trees. The secateurs arrived yesterday, the leather gardening gloves are coming today, and the fork and trowel tomorrow. I already feel a return label coming on.

I’m giving the barbecue a miss, though, as the one I left in my shed in Cardiff saw the light of day just once in 10 years. Even I have my spending limits.

The Ninja is one of a trio, as I also have one in New York and another in storage in LA, along with the two Kitchen Aid mixers that also belong in those two places.

I’m therefore feeling a bit spread out again, all thanks to Brexit, which made it impossible to remain full time in the US. The rate of exchange is appalling, and whereas when I went to the US in 2008, exclaiming “That’s so cheap” everywhere I went, today I cry into the little wine I can afford during Happy Hour. Instead, I find myself back in Tesco, sobbing with relief that I can get three containers of Quorn for £5.

I’m down to my last six boxes of books to unpack now and I’m feeling very much at home back in Bath. It’s quieter than New York, obviously, and the seagulls are a bit possessive of their territory (the one nurturing her young chick on the roof is adamant that I am not having the top room as my office).

I’ll be back in New York soon and am also heading to LA in time for the Emmys in September. I really miss the US, and New York in particular, but there is no doubt that the Trump presidency has put a dampener on the spirits of the majority who did not vote for him. In the air still, there is a sense of disbelief.

This, for the moment, then, is my new life. I have enough Virgin Atlantic Air Miles to allow me to zip off at anytime; I have lovely neighbours and am thrilled to discover how European Bath has become since I left it in 2005. Service in bars and restaurants leaves a lot to be desired (you could consume a three course meal in a New York hostelry in the time it takes them to bring you the menu in Bath), but I’m doing a lot of home cooking and already feeding my friends. I’ve already had one house-guest, many visitors, and am loving seeing more of family and old friends.

After several difficult years and the chaos of so many moves, I’m taking time to sit back and smell the roses. 

Well, I would if I hadn’t already killed them.

TOO MUCH FOOD FOR THOUGHT

What are tournéed vegetables? What is a “green apple gastrique”? What’s fregola? A farro salad?

These and several other questions confronted me when I sat down to Delta’s Business Class menu on last week’s Los Angeles to New York flight. Now, before everyone gets worked up into their usual tizzy because I am even deigning to comment when not flying cattle class, I have thousands upon thousands of points acquired through daily living that enable me to travel this way. In fact, these flights invariably cost me less than Economy; and, anyway, #NYGB (Not Your Goddamned Business).

I always look forward to the meal: the laying of the cloth, the arrival of the tiny salt and pepper pots that house about eight grains between them, the wine cart that invariably gives you the choice of three different ranges of c**p.

Beverages and food are always a hit and miss affair. Virgin Atlantic currently has a terrific Spanish red onboard, while Delta has a selection of totally undrinkable wines. 

The Italian sparkling is drinkable enough, but even I, a huge Champagne/Cava/Prosecco lover, can’t manage a six-hour marathon of bubbles.

Virgin’s tomato and basil soup is my favourite starter, especially during my current vegetarian phase (although I’ve never been a big meat or fish fan). But, horror of horrors, on my UK to LA flight last week, there had been a catering mix-up and there was no soup. I know! Third World Problems, or what?

Luckily, the crew quickly spotted that my greed for Air Miles is far greater than my greed for two tablespoons of soup (I have eye baths bigger than Virgin’s soup bowls) and promised me a five-figure sum of miles as compensation. In future, I think I might enquire in advance, just to discover what’s not available and then ask for it.

I declined the alternative two cold starters. There were chicken skewers or a butternut squash salad. First, if I wanted bits of wood in my food, I’d go camping, not wait until I’m 30,000 feet in the air for that dubious luxury; second, squash looks like a slightly larger version of what you always throw up after a night on the tiles.

I can’t remember what I had as the main course, but I recall that it was a hot dish that arrived cold, as it always does. It was also on a plate barely bigger than a saucer and, at the first stabbing, I lost half of it as it journeyed across the aisle.

Delta, which is now a partner airline with Virgin Atlantic, has the same job lot of plates. Now, I know that space is limited on an airline, but if you are going to be serving “Herb-Crusted Lamb Chops with saffron quinoa, tournéed vegetables and green apple gastrique”, at least put it on a plate from which the lamb can’t escape before it hits the fork.

Unlike Virgin Atlantic, Delta doesn’t serve Port with its cheese plate, and the “acacia gourmet cream crackers” were even less appealing than a packet of Jacob’s cream crackers in the desert. 

Here's the other thing: the menu said the cheeses were "offered" with fresh fruit and the crackers. 

Hang on. "Offered" with? Does that mean I can take the stuff, or I can't? There's a bit of an "If you must, Madam, you greedy bitch" in the word "offered". In any case, there were only a few grapes. The cheeses were excellent, though: “Cyprus grove midnight moon” (don’t ask, I have no idea) together with “kaltbach gruyère and buttermilk blue affinée

Alas, my computer will not allow me to put any space or punctuation after the last word in the previous paragraph without removing the accent; suffice it to say that I learned more French from this menu than I have during the past 20 years of lessons.

Within the past two weeks, I have also flown on British Airways, as they threatened to take away all my points if I didn’t fly with them before June 3^rd (they thought they had already done me a huge favour by giving me a three month extension). So, I took a flight that I didn’t want, to a place I had no need to go (Paris – much as I love it, it was an unnecessary trip), all in order to keep Air Miles on an airline I never wish to fly.

It was horrible. Despite being in Business, the knees of the man behind attacked my lower back throughout the flight. They ran out of the first food option after serving just two people and I had to take the afternoon tea, which consisted of stale sandwiches and a scone that looked more suited to a moon landing than an oral consumption.

I’m grounded for the moment (physically; emotionally will take a lot more work), but am worried that I have become slightly obsessed with flying and collecting Air Miles. I always have to have one obsession in life – it used to be property or a man; now, it’s Air Miles. At least if I’m in the air, it keeps me away from putting deposits on my credit card for the former and pursuing the latter. Above clouds, I am safe.

Hang on . . . there’s WiFi on board and my credit card is in my hand luggage. And that guy in 14A is quite cute.

And I’ve just hit 300,000 Virgin Atlantic Air Miles. 

Triple whammy, or what?!

     

TRANS-TALL - AND STANDING PROUD

A curly perm doth not an African American make. 

Neither doth changing your make-up to Black Up Matifying Fluid Foundation. 

Many South Africans agree and are this week up in arms at the arrival of Nkechi Amare Diallo, who arrived to speak at the inaugural event of Quest for Non Racial South African Society Dialogue. Nkechi, however, is not her real name; it’s her Nigerian adopted one. She changed it from Rachel Dolezal – which she changed from her birth name, Rachel Moore. 

And she’s not black. She’s white. Very. Born in Montana to parents of Czech, German and Swedish origin, she’s as white as a tub of Baskin Robbins vanilla ice cream. In fact, she’s so white, she couldn’t even pass for the vanilla with chocolate chip cookie pieces variety.

   

Lecturing to mostly black students about her struggle with her “authentic black identity”, she was President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter in Spokane, Washington, but resigned when it was revealed she had lied about being African American and alleged hate crimes against her. She was outed by her parents and became an instant media non-darling. 

Comparing her experience to that of trans-gender Caitlyn Jenner, she has now declared herself “trans-black”. She is everywhere on our TV screens, parading her trans-blackness with a perm that looks as if it has eaten Michael Jackson’s bouffant for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s the kind of hair that is crying out not for a stylist but a topiarist.

What an inspiration!

   

The astounding revelation has had a profound effect on me and is now forcing me to come clean about my own situation; I am just hoping that I will be met with the same understanding. Despite my diminutive appearance and the fact that I am biologically just five feet, I identify as trans-tall.

   

All of you who called me Bridget the Midget when the song hit the charts when I was in school can laugh the other side of your faces now. The others, who addressed me as Titch (after the so-called comedy act, Titch and Quackers) can get lost, too. I am a very tall person who is short only in public perception, and NAD has finally given me the courage to come out regarding my true identity.

   

My life as a Lilliputian will henceforth no longer be known as Jaci and the Beanstalk; instead, I am registering a name far more suited to my trans-tall state: Longfellow Giraffe Brobdingnag.

   

I am not short, nor have I ever been. I have a T-shirt saying that I am a tall elf, but even that I find offensive. Why do people assume that the body into which you have been born is the one in which you live in your head? Just as NAD subjected her hair to electric shock therapy to suit the soul with which she most identified, so I am having leg extensions to comply with the being I know myself to really be. 

   

Unfortunately, it involves having my legs broken in three places and having a set of circus stilts implanted from my ankles to my thighs, but this is who I am, right? You see? I am already adopting the lingo of my new tall persona.

   

Being trans-tall comes with so many advantages. I can shout “Oi! I was next!” while standing at a bar, without the person behind me being served first and spilling a pint of Stella over my head. I can jump queues by saying “I’m on the list”. I can put luggage into the overhead rack on a plane without having to stand on the seat and look helplessly to a man to give me assistance. I can reach every magazine on the top shelf. 

None of this would be possible if I had been content to languish in the body that has been imposed upon me since birth.

   

I confess to having had a great deal of therapy before coming to terms with my trans-tall self. People always assumed that I was just a raucous Welsh dwarf who laughed too loudly and partied too much. Now, they will know the truth: I was a giant trapped in a small woman’s body, and there was just too much of me trying to contain itself in the tiny frame for which I was never meant.

   

Like NAD and her blackness, I will continue to identify as tall. While she admits having being born to white parents but identifying as black, I confess that I was born to short parents. Dad was five feet six, Mum four feet nine and a half; yet I still identify as tall.

   

As one of NAD’s supporters said: she has chosen to self define and what’s wrong with that? I get it! Why let biology get in the way of a good delusion.

   

Yes, I have chosen to self-define, too.

   

I am trans-tall.

   

Live with it. 

   

Step on me at your peril.

   

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Re-posting this older post on Friday, 9th June 2017, the morning after the General Election...

The announcement of a General Election on June 8th sent me into meltdown.

Having endured months of people arguing and falling out over Brexit in the UK, followed by the same over the establishment of Trumptown in the US, I just felt politicked out. I have never fallen out with anyone over their beliefs, and, indeed, one of my closest friends voted for Brexit, while I am a passionate Remainer. It hasn’t dented our friendship one iota. I haven’t lost any friendships in the US, either, but that’s because not one single person I know voted for Trump. If they did, it’s not the kind of person I want in my life anyway. 

A party that is so obviously (even proudly) intolerant, sexist, racist, homophobic, ignorant (to the point of stupidity - do check out White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s briefings) and increasingly dangerous - how could anyone with an ounce of humanity get behind them and their claims to be for the “ordinary” man and woman? Not least while their leader takes every photo opportunity in front of a gold-plated backdrop and threatens everyone he doesn’t like with bombing the shit out of them?

As the countdown to June 8th begins, I felt I couldn’t face another seven weeks of aggro. While I love social networking as a tool, it quickly becomes anti-social when people seem incapable of accepting anyone whose views differ from their own. Personally, I am always open to new ideas (I DID listen to Trumpites, by the way, but my opinion didn’t change) and I encourage debate rather than ranting. 

One thing is evident, though: people have become more aggressive as they have become more selfish. It now feels that the dominant mentality is every man/woman for him/herself, and sod the rest of you.

But before you go to the polling booth, ask yourself just one question: what sort of human being do you want to be?

For me, there is no contest. We are all in this life together, and it is our moral duty to support those who are weaker than ourselves - the frail, the sick, the mentally ill, the young and vulnerable, the elderly (also vulnerable) and in fear . . . I could go on. It’s called having a heart.

I consider myself blessed every day. Although I have been through tough times that I’ve written about (depression and financial worries, to name but two), we all go through the mill at some point in our lives. But I have a roof over my head and I have my health. 

I also have a support network of people whom I trust and love, and we are always there for each other. If we are lucky in life, friends and family pull us through every time; yet surely the State has a duty to us, too - it’s what we pay our taxes for.

I am not married. I have no children. As a single person, I am discriminated against in so many areas (read The Solo Pound about my gripe about never being able to have the Chateaubriand “for two”), but I don’t resent for a second my taxes supporting those struggling to bring up families on little income, or being used to provide decent education for future generations. I’m not sick, but I don’t resent my taxes supporting a free NHS. I’m not in a wheelchair, but I don’t complain about councils spending money on ramps. And so on.

Hate crime against the disenfranchised in our society is on the up - disturbingly so. It seems that anyone in a vulnerable minority is a target and it makes me desperately sad. It’s cruel, reprehensible and inhumane. We need not only to stand up for, but show that we are standing up for, the Everyman (or woman).

Jeremy Corbyn would not have been my first choice as Labour leader and he has come in for a lot of flak since he was voted in. Everyone is predicting a landslide for Theresa May as a  result. Her decision to call for an election doesn’t surprise me or horrify me as it has so many - she’s a politician, for goodness’ sake; of course she’s going to protect her plinth in whatever way she sees beneficial. 

But let’s not write Corbyn off. He’s a good man - someone who really does put the disenfranchised before his own interests. His lacklustre performance over Brexit did him no favours and one can only hope that he gets the wind behind his sails in the forthcoming weeks.

You may have already decided against him. You may have decided to take the coward’s way out and not vote at all. You may have resigned yourself to the possibility that there will never again be a Labour government in your lifetime. Maybe the world really has changed into one in which people really don’t give a damn about anyone else.

I like to think not; and the millions who continue to serve others in so many areas of life - medical, social, psychological, educational - so many, many areas - lead me to believe that this is the case.

So, wherever you are in this decision making moment, please, before voting, consider that one question I asked earlier: what sort of person do you want to be? 

And, also, what sort of person do you want to be seen to be?

A LOAD OF HOT AIR

I think I am going to have to stop travelling; it’s just all too stressful. Every day begins a new battle with an airline or hotel whose staff seem incapable of listening to, or correctly reading the simplest information.

   

The past week alone brought the promise of three hours’ hold on the phone to Delta, an ongoing British Airways situation, a problem with Accor Hotels, and numerous other things too tedious to mention. I am bored with hearing about my travel woes and feel genuinely sorry for anyone else who comes across them.

   

Let’s begin with Delta, who recently became a partner with Virgin Atlantic. I have very few quibbles with the latter. I love the airline, the crews, the Upper Class lounge at Heathrow, and it is only their dreadful new website that continues to let them down.

   

Delta are another matter altogether. I set my alarm for 5am while in the US to try to avoid the three hour wait, and even at that hour was on hold for 22 minutes. When I finally got through to change my flight, I was charged several hundred dollars to do so, event though I could see on the website that I was changing it for one of exactly the same value (the website wouldn’t let me change it myself). Exhausted, I paid - using my credit card’s old address, as Delta’s system still refuses to acknowledge the address I have had for four years.

   

The confirmation came through: wrong flight. I had been correct - there was no extra charge on the flight I had asked for. I rang again. Another 20 minute wait. I spoke to a lovely lady who was very sympathetic, booked me on the correct flight and spent half an hour trying to get hold of her supervisor to arrange for my refund, which was duly done. Hoo-flamin’-ray.

   

The new confirmation came through: right flight, wrong month. Booked now for April instead of May. I had to phone again. FINALLY, I have the right flight and the right day. Delta on Twitter said they would waive my original change fee of $200, but now they tell me I have to talk to Reservations to get that done. And so the whole terrible cycle begins again.

   

Now, to British Airways. I was booking to go to Kiev at the beginning of May and, when I tried to cancel, was told that my Avios Air Miles had expired - by eight days. I had received no notice that they were about to do so (and I have EVERY bit of correspondence from BA, going back two decades - they still haven’t responded to any of it) but was told that if I booked a flight within three months, I could keep my miles and would be refunded the outgoing part of the flight for which I was eligible, as I had paid full price. But where to go cheaply within three months? I enquired about a one way flight to Paris. After a lengthy phone call and a long e-mail they wrote, explaining my options (both Club Europe and Economy), I said that I would like to check out the Economy fare, thereby saving the bulk of my refund.

   

I will not bore you even more than I already have with what transpired through BA on Twitter, but they kept telling me that they could do nothing until the Fares department came back with their calculations. This morning, I went online, and not only are both Kiev flights still there, they have also booked me on the expensive Club Europe flight to Paris. I have not agreed to this. I did not confirm anything. All I have had are the very adamant BA Twitter people telling me that nothing can be arranged until Fares get back to them. So why the heck have they gone ahead and done it?

   

Let’s get to Accor. Since I stayed at the Francis Hotel in Bath last year, I have been trying to get my points accredited. I booked through my membership number, I checked the hotel had my number, I wrote to the hotel, I wrote to Accor - but still nothing. Now, this morning, they tell me I should have claimed my points within six months of my stay. AGGGHHHHHH! I DID! Several times!

   

I really am at the end of my tether. Travelling is stressful enough (just ask poor Dr Dao, dragged off a United Airlines flight this week), without having to jump through so many hoops. Virgin Atlantic will tell you that I am the calmest and nicest passenger. I get on with everyone and always give praise where praise is due. Contrary to what people believe, I do not use Twitter to complain all the time; mostly, I use it as a means to thank people for their service - and I always take names so that I can add a personal touch.

   

But Delta and BA, between them, have led me to the brink. I’m just going to have to stop travelling, because my blood pressure really can’t take it.  Or I’ll just have to stick to going everywhere that Virgin Atlantic goes, which limits my options; but at least I get to talk to those lovely people in the Swansea centre for whom nothing is ever too much trouble. Yes, I love you Virgin Atlantic, with a passion that grows each day that every other airline screws up. 

See you on the Psycho 7! Sorry, folks - in-joke. We know what we’re talking about though, eh, Virgin?