A Writer Re-Groups . . .

I have made many mistakes in my life. We all do. We would not be human if we did not. But the biggest mistake we ever make is not to learn from the ones we have made.

Today, I was talking to an agent who represented me twice in my career and who very generously gave me time to talk over my various projects but, more significantly, my despair at a publishing marketplace that just doesn’t seem to want what I write.

I know it’s not because I have no ability; I have. Lots (*modest face*, as Twitter would say). But in a precarious and ever-changing world, how do you get out there? Do you try to second-guess what people, publishers and audience alike, want? Do you just do what you want to do and hope that the penny drops with someone, somewhere? Do you just write about what you know?

I have published a lot of journalism, but little fiction, which, along with poetry, is how I began my writing career. I had two stories published by Faber in 1984 in Introduction 9, which showcased new, unpublished writers. Six years later, Hutchinson published my first novel, Definitions of a Horse. It was critically acclaimed, even by John Carey in The Sunday Times, but sold few copies.

The heady world of showbiz, London and, for the first time in my life, being paid for writing, incarcerated me in journalism and, as a result, TV presenting. In the intervening time, I continued to write what I called my “real work”, mainly updating my autobiography and trying to re-market it in different forms in the hope of making a sale.

The eagle never landed. It is still trying to fly but losing height as the years go by.

I suddenly realised, during my conversation this morning, that it was pretty much the same conversation we had had several times before. Yet here I was, not in my 30s or 40s anymore but, at the age of 54, still banging on about the same subject matter, the same obsessions, the same failures, the same foibles – and still not getting it published.

Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It’s what I’ve been doing in my writing. I know I can write, but escaping my internal landscape and putting thoughts, words and deeds into the mouths and actions of characters is a skill I have to re-learn.

My first novel featured a 50 year old, embittered married man having a nervous breakdown. I was a 30 year-old, content single woman; the only thing my character and I had in common was that we both worked in a school. Yet people praised me for my ability to “get inside” the head of a middle-aged man. I hadn’t done any such thing. I took the emotions that I felt – that we all feel - and put them inside another body and personality, fine-tuning them to that character’s different circumstances. But it was still, essentially, me. A human being.

When I landed my first job on the London Evening Standard in 1988, the brilliant editor John Leese quickly knocked out of me my tendency to say “I” in my job as TV reviewer, even though I was expressing my own opinions. “There’s always a better way to say it,” he said.

There are, of course, many great first person narratives, both fiction and non-fiction, out there, but after this morning’s call – and feeling embarrassed that despite physical changes of circumstance, I still sounded as barking mad as ever – I know I need to start enjoying the third person again – at the very least, for my own sanity.

Not listening to that agent was one of the greatest mistakes I ever made; the other was not accepting an offer on my second novel.

I remember sitting in the restaurant and balking in horror at the advance when the publishers described the picture they could see on the dust-jacket – a bare leg with a glittering frog garter on it.

I should explain that the book was called Kissing Princes and used the Diana/Charles romance as a metaphor for how even, in the seemingly best love stories, princes turn into frogs.

Had I taken the cheque and carried on with damned thing, it would, given the events that followed with the Royal divorce and Diana’s death, probably have made me a fortune. But I wanted to be Tolstoy. At the very least, I wanted to starve in a garret to prove my authenticity.

And I lacked confidence. I was from South Wales, living in London in a bedsit. These publishers must have been wrong. Why would anyone want me?

The last time I left the agent’s office, many years ago, he told me that the publisher “really thought you were going to be the next big thing.”

I walked up the road, sobbing, knowing that I had made a huge mistake. And I felt such a failure. I still do.

The world of celebrity and trivia is big business; heck, bad writing is big business, as is bad television. We are, as I am wont to say, living in the golden age of mediocrity.

There’s a place for that, too – clearly – but I realised today that it’s not where I want to be at this point in my life.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time on the wild side with stars in my eyes under candy-floss lights. But the time to write about it has gone and I missed the boat. I didn’t listen to the people who knew what they were talking about. Shoulda, coulda . . . But didn’t.

Hey, ho. But now, as the TV psychiatrist Frasier says: “I’m listening”. And the first thing I’m going to do is to stop listening to the sound of my own voice banging on about myself. It’s time to change the record: put away the vinyl and enter the emotional digital age.

Much as people enjoy the personal stuff, it just ain’t selling. And I need to eat.

That’s not to say that everything I experience won’t still make it to the page at some point, but it will be in a different form; the reality (albeit a cliché) is that you can tell the truth a darn sight better in fiction that you can in non-fiction.

So, I’m going to take a break from myself and take a walk on the dark side again. It’s where I began and, probably, where I belong.

  

Misophonia is the New Black

Misophonia is the new black. 

Ever since I described the condition and told people my symptoms, I have been inundated with people who say that they, too, are blighted by the condition.

    

Basically, misophonia is a neurological response to certain sounds. It induces in sufferers high states of anxiety, often anger, and their inability to tolerate them can force them into a life of solitude.

   

 It is not – I stress not – just being irritated by those sounds. It is an extreme reaction that really can make life intolerable.

   

 I can no longer sit having breakfast among other people in a hotel. Waiters clattering cutlery, spoons chinking on cereal bowls and, worse, diners scraping every last morsel of yoghurt from a carton – all bring me out in a sweat and feelings of intense fury. “Just have another yoghurt if you like it that much!” I want to scream, as I hear a spoon excavating another layer of plastic.

    

Tapping, chewing, scraping, texting, typing – to me, the ordinary sounds around us every day are intolerable. I have stopped going to one café bar because I cannot stand the sound of customers playing with their cappuccino foam, right down to the last bubble. I have parted company with another restaurant because, at the end of food service, the sound of cutlery being washed, dried and cleared away echoes in my ears like the London Philharmonic tuning up. Loudly.

    

Then there’s The Hum, which is a different ear complaint altogether. And it’s just that. A hum. I have it only in one house, which makes me think I am attuned to some kind of generator close by.

    

So, finally, I went to the doctor, who thought the second complaint was most likely tinnitus; she didn’t really comment about the first but thought that I was suffering from high anxiety and recommended anti-depressants or counselling. I took her up on neither. She also referred me to the hospital, where finally, yesterday, I had an appointment.

    

The nurse said that I had been referred for tinnitus, and when I explained about the misophonia, she wrote down hyperacusis and said they were the same. Well, they are not. Misophonia is, literally, a hatred of sound; hyperacusis is the over-sensitvity to the loudness of a sound.

   

I was sent to a room for some hearing tests. With headphones on, I had to press a button every time I heard a sound, no matter how quiet. I would have been able to hear every one, had staff not been making such a racket outside the supposedly soundproofed room (cue sweaty palmed annoyance). I was also tested for my tolerance to very loud sounds.

   

I returned to the waiting room while the results were being collated, and that’s when the trouble started. I could hear Lady Gaga singing Poker Face. Quietly, but enough to set off my misophonia big time. I looked around to see if anyone else could hear it, but this was a room full of people losing their hearing, so it was unlikely. 

I went to the reception desk to ask if they could turn the music down. They said there wasn’t any (their own hearing aids made me realise I was on to a loser going down this path) and that it was the air-conditioning. Even I know that air-con sounds nothing like Lady Gaga, but they were adamant. I spotted a lad listening to his phone and asked staff if it was okay to approach him (ie beat him up if he didn’t turn his music down). When I did, it was clear that the sound was not coming from his earphones. 

What followed was a small riot. People started to strain their ears and declare that yes, I was right, they too could hear Lady Gaga. They nodded their heads enthusiastically, agreeing that they, too, were suffering this gross infringement on their silence. 

I felt like Robin Williams in Awakenings, as the catatonic patients came to life after being administered with the L-Dopa drug. Suddenly, all these deaf people were awake to the sound of Lady Gaga; the waiting room sprang to life, with patients frantically pointing to the air-conditioning, insisting to staff that Poker Face was coming through the vents. My misophonia had brought about a revolution.

    

The man reading his Kindle in the corner had been quick to join the complainers, little knowing that it was the phone in his pocket that had been playing the song. When he realised, he apologised to the now baying throng, but it was too late; the rabble were well and truly aroused.

  

Luckily, I was called back to the nurse for my test results and left the chaos I had created.

    

Verdict: I have the hearing of a dog (I could have told them that). “My hearing’s even a little bit better than yours,” said the nurse, a little unnecessarily, I felt. I wanted to add: ”And I’m five stone lighter than you, and I know which I’d prefer,” but I kept my counsel.

    

As I was able to tolerate extremely loud sounds with no discomfort, hyperacusis was out (I could have told them that, too); so was tinnitus. I have experienced strange noises in my ears just twice in five years, and The Hum did not appear to fit the tinnitus profile, either.

    

I was recommended “hearing therapy”. “The first question you’ll be asked,” said the nurse, “is what you do to relax.” She had already asked me that question when I arrived and, the truth is, the only thing I do to relax is more work. I love writing. More than anything. Taking time off from it to go fly-fishing or some such inane “hobby” would stress me out even more.

  

I know I am stressed at the moment and my blood pressure is higher than normal – all of which, I was told, could well be contributing to The Hum.

  

I think, basically, the verdict was that I am nuts.

    

Walking back through the waiting room, silence had resumed and, as in Awakenings, when the patients returned to their catatonic state when the effects of the L-Dopa wore off, my patients were once again deaf mutes.

    

Still, it felt good to know I had given them their moment in the sun.

    

So, now I await my “hearing therapy”, during which I will doubtless be told to imagine calm seas, to breathe deeply, to get more sleep, and to do something relaxing. Like fly-fishing. 

Fat chance.

  

     

      

  

ITV's Stewie is my Family Guy

Four years ago, on the eve of my 50^th birthday, I was crying in a London restaurant, watching a TV and seeing America’s first black American President head for the White House.

    

It felt good to be a part of history. Not just good. I was brimming with overwhelming joy. To see changes in our society that just a few decades ago would have been unthinkable was something that could not help but move you.

    

I thought back to my primary school days, when a boy called Raymond, who obviously had learning difficulties, was (even to my young and inexperienced mind) racially abused. He went on to do time for murder and, while I recognise mental disorder, I wonder how much of his disturbed adult life might have been averted had his learning disability been recognised and treated and, even more significantly, if he had not been black.

    

High on Obama fever, I went to live in Los Angeles, where I stayed for two and a half years. The venom I heard poured on Obama horrified me and disgusted me. “Whadderyer think o’ the urban?” I was asked, through barely disguised contempt. Most of the comments I heard are unprintable.

    

The ignorance of so many Americans, who blindly go where evangelical religion leads them, to the extinction of all rational thought and humanity, stunned me. While ignorance is just as capable of breeding and being fostered on this side of the Atlantic, I believe that it is our history and the lessons we learn (or are forced to re-evaluate) from it that enables us to examine ourselves very differently from our neighbours across the pond.

    

It is that ability, coupled with extraordinary broadcasting abilities that, for me, made ITV’s coverage of the US election one of the greatest pieces of television, let alone news, I have ever witnessed.

    

I have been a TV critic for over 25 years and regularly watch between 80 and 100 hours a week. In over two decades, nowhere has there been as great a change as in news. When Sky launched its 24 hour news channel in 1989, it was revolutionary. I was addicted. I watched the entire OJ Simpson and Louise Woodward trials, gasping when the verdicts were announced as loudly as I might when watching a drama killing off a key character.

    

Now, 24 hours news is everywhere, and we have Twitter, which delivers news even faster than even TV can. I learn about celebrities’ deaths through Twitter, I Tweet throughout all TV programmes (via Zeebox), sharing thoughts and ideas with others. The irony is that in an age when we are able to record and catch up on just about anything and everything on TV, it is still the shared experience that we most enjoy. For all the joys of the boxed set era, there is still nothing quite like our relationship with the immediacy of the literal boxed set in our living rooms.

    

What ITV did spectacularly last night and throughout this morning was take news coverage to a whole new level. The studio-based discussions and interviews, led by a breathtakingly energetic Alastair Stewart, made complex political analysis accessible to all, without resorting to dumbing down. Alastair made personalities and mini-dramas of every single situation and interviewee – even the dullest. No, it’s not often that you hear the word “parsimonious” at 2.30am, and the banter about such matters, through Alastair’s linguistic fencing, while still keeping a tight rein on the matter in hand, was awesome (as the Americans would say) to behold.

   

Quite what the BBC was up to is anybody’s guess. At no point, apart from post 4.30am did they even have the right numbers of total seats won on the screen. While ITV cut to the US each time a key result was announced, the BBC panel, hosted by David Dimbleby, was engaged in yet another sleepy, repetitive discussion.

    

Meanwhile, on ITV, direct from the US, pieces of carpet were being laid on ice to show which states were going to which party; there were towers keeping us up to date with the numbers of states falling to red or blue; there were people. Yes, people! ITV recognised that this was an election about people, and we heard from them. Women. Hispanics. Blacks. Gays. Voters!

    

Alastair Stewart was the brilliant ringmaster throughout, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. I was at home watching from my bed but ITV made me feel as if I was a guest at the biggest party on Earth.

    

As I did four years ago, I cried again, because today, the world is a better place for the decision that America made. And British television continues to be a better place for the sublime talent we witnessed on ITV last night.

    

The US has its own Stewie in Family Guy. 

For me, there’s only one Stewie, and gosh, has he earned his sleep.

  

  

  

  

Happy Birthday to Me!

This is the first birthday ever that I am spending by myself. 

It’s weird, but just a fact of age, I suppose – and having no money to be able to throw a party.

    

So, I had a long lie-in and was feeling quite content until I woke to my reflection and the longest hair growing out of my chin I have ever found.

    

I began to wish I had bought the NoNo online - the (allegedly) miracle device that removes facial hair with “virtually no pain”. It’s that word “virtually” that worries me, in addition to the potential damage I could cause if I decided to use the NoNo after a couple of drinks. I have visions of waking up on the sofa with a Mohican and one eyebrow, not to mention a sliced ear. So, I just took the tweezers to it.

    

In the shower, I thought that my body wasn’t too bad for 54. True, I have not “returned to me original weight”, which is what women always boast about when they shed a couple of stone (that would be silly – my original weight was 7 lbs). My age showed more clearly when I dried my hair, as there appears to be a great deal less of it with each passing year. I felt like Paul Daniels as I tried to manoeuvre strands across the patches of white scalp and wondering why nature could not make what was happening on my chin happen on my head.

    

As a child, I used to have parties but, being born on November 5^th, all the kids brought fireworks to let off. Then, as now, I hate fireworks and used to spend the outdoors part of the evening hiding indoors, terrified behind the sofa, while my guests waved their sparklers in the garden.

    

They, on the other hand, were probably glad to escape my clutches. When they arrived at the party, I would organise them in order of height and arrange their presents on a chair with similar precision, so they were doubtless only too happy to be de-mobbed to the garden. To be honest, I was always glad to be rid of them at the end of the night, and thrust their parting gift of a “goody bag” into their hands as speedily as I might an unpinned grenade.

    

I’ve also been thinking back to my significant birthdays. In the photographs of my 18^th, I am in a gorgeous turquoise two piece (oh, why did I throw it away?) and boasting a hairdo that looks as if it has eaten my body weight twice over. I look at least 55. 

On my 21^st, I am in brown crimplene. 

I spent my 30^th in Camden Town, in Chalk and Cheese, a restaurant then owned by my friend Liz, to whom I remain close to this day. 

My 40^th - possibly the happiest day of my life – was in Soho House in London. 

I had three 50^th birthday parties and, at the main dinner in London, felt blessed that the friends there were the ones who had been prominent in my life for over 25 years. At the party I organised in my Paris apartment, the last guest was taken away unconscious by the pompiers. They were not happy and shouted at me in French that this was not their job. Ha! I wanted to respond. You want to be in Cardiff on a Saturday night, when this would be your only job. Luckily, my French was not sufficiently up to scratch to be able to convey this.

    

I am not feeling sad at spending a birthday alone; it’s only one day. We all live busy lives; friends have partners, children, jobs. Last week, I was in London, enjoying a wonderful dinner with very close friends; does it matter that it was not on one particular date as opposed to any other? Not a jot.

    

Tomorrow, I hope to see my mother, who lives an hour away. Does our love diminish because we have not seen each other on THE day? Again, no.

    

It is the poignancy with which we recognise the nature of time passing that changes how we view birthdays. For me, today, it does not have to be different from any other, but a day to reflect on how lucky I am to love and be loved by so many wonderful friends and my ever-supportive family.

    

Facebook, too, has overwhelmed me with friends, acquaintances and complete strangers sending their good wishes. For all its faults, social networking is a phenomenal medium for reaching out to people and letting them know they are in your thoughts.

    

Every day of my life, my family, friends, and even these people I have never met, give me a goody bag, and I am 24/7 grateful for it. 

My birthday is happy because every one of them is in my life.  

  

  

      

Creative Aloneness - and Why I Won't Be Going to the Theatre Again

Two rare things happened last night. 

One, I went to the theatre. 

Two, I walked out of the theatre before the end of the play.

    

The first happened because I met the delightful and very talented Gary Pillai, who was appearing as Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, alongside Meera Syal, playing Beatrice. I love Meera – as a writer, actor, presenter, person – but had never seen her on stage. The production, set in India, also sounded interesting. It was the last night, and I am so rarely in London I wanted to take advantage of one of the city’s obvious main attractions.

    

My theatre going experience in general has not been good. The brilliant critic Jack Tinker was a good friend and I was always amazed that his passion for the genre never wavered. I used to go with him to shows not to see them, but to watch his enjoyment and his eagerness to file his copy. So great was his enthusiasm, he once failed to notice that I had fallen down a manhole on our way to Joe Allen after a play.

    

I also used to go to the theatre with Keith Waterhouse when we both lived in Bath. It’s a strange city in which to watch a production. The theatre’s front row is invariably packed with old ladies, who express their disappointment vociferously if what they see on stage does not match up to the picture on the front of the programme. At the start of a very trendy production of A Country Wife (programme: green fields, white people in nice frocks), their response to the black actor coming on stage and delivering a monologue not in the script was: “Oh, no.” Together. Like a geriatric Jedward.

Blood Brothers was ruined for me by a coach load of people from Wales, who collectively screamed: "Ooh, 'e's gonna shoot 'im!" at a key moment (Apologies to those who have yet to see it - is there anyone who hasn't?)

  

It’s not just my theatre history that made me doubt whether I should venture into this dangerous territory once more; I had endured an awful few days. Filthy hotel, underwhelming conference at very grubby college, screaming child in pub . . . Oh, I could go on. And will. Ugg boots. Cup cakes. People who wear woollen hats – any hats, come to that – indoors. I was having such a bad anger management day, I tried to get #whatsthatallabout trending on Twitter. 

No one joined in (Mean buggers - #whatsthatallabout?) . . . Celebrities whose new fashion accessory is a cardboard coffee cup (why don’t they just drink the sodding thing in the café?) . . . Chinese restaurant staff who say to single people: “We only do tables for two or more” (yes, that really happened). So, I thought I would treat myself.

 

More problems - not least, when I tried to book online and predictive texting kept changing “Ado” to FBI (#whatsthatallabout?). Much FBI About Nothing. Really?

    

So. The queue for tickets was huge, with two minutes to go before Curtain Up. But after a nifty bit of manoeuvring, I managed to make it to the front. “Senior citizen discount?” asked the cashier.

    

What? I have a birthday next week. I will be 54. The last time I was asked my age was when a supermarket was reluctant to serve me alcohol. I was 28. When did I get to look so old? 

    

Having procured a ticket, I took my seat. So far, so good. The woman next to me was also a late buyer and clearly a theatre enthusiast.

    

Then, more problems started. The sweet wrappings, the crunchy chocolate, people arriving late, finding aliens in their seats, and debating the issue with the usher. And, worst of all, the seven year old behind me whose mother had to keep explaining who bloody Benedick was and why he was dressing up pretending not to be Benedick.

    

The last time I got so angry with a child in the theatre, I had to be moved. The production was Scrooge, in Bristol, and responding to every damned person who came on stage, the child next to me asked her mother: “Is that a ghost?” After about two hundred non-ghosts, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “There are only three ghosts, okay? THREE! And I will tell you every time they come on!”

    

The mother said that I clearly didn’t have any children, at which point I lied and said I had three and, were they to come to the theatre, they would not be obsessive irritants who think they are seeing dead people. The management thought it best to move me. To a box. Alone.

    

A Bollywood version of Shakespeare takes concentration – I loved it, but it required silence from the people around me. So when, in addition to the sweets, chocolates and child, the theatre’s air conditioning came on right above me, I made a decision. Go. Now. And did.

    

I was sorry to miss the end of the play (yes, I know the ending, but that’s not the point) and was very honest with the cast when we met up later on. I was thrilled to have seen some new people making their RSC debut (Anjana Vasan as the maid – Wow! Brilliant!). And, as always, I left with enormous respect for actors who strut their stuff for peanuts in order to bring pleasure to the rest of us.

    

But why can’t people go to the theatre and just STFU?! Social networking has made interactive viewers of us all. We Tweet, we Facebook, we Zeebox – there is an audience not only for the shows, but for our own opinions, on a 24/7 basis. We have lost the art of sitting in a dark place, enjoying the company of others in our imaginations. Creative aloneness.

    

Maybe that’s why I love TV so much. Give me a 50 inch screen, people I have never met, pretending to be people who have never, in reality, existed, and I am so, so happy. 

Especially if there is not some brat behind me asking why there's a man dressed in a frock.

  

Can a Grope Ever Be Just a Grope?

When does a hug become a grope? 

Is a grope ever acceptable? 

Is it more acceptable for a woman to grope a man? 

Does groping a person in a more powerful position than yourself let you off the hook in terms of unacceptable behaviour? 

Can you be a gropee and a groper?

   

These, and any questions like them, have been occupying me in recent weeks as the furore (quite rightly) over the late Jimmy Savile’s abuse of young people has hit the headlines. Suddenly, however, it is not just a sexual abuser who is under the microscope, but media men in general, the latest being the historian Adam Hart-Davis, who, it is reported, was admonished by the BBC for “inappropriately” hugging a woman, who complained about his behaviour. He said his actions were misinterpreted.

   

In my younger days, I confess to having groped men in what, by today’s standards, would be considered inappropriate places. Some of those men worked for the BBC, many did not; interestingly (and this is only an observation), every man I ever groped received promotion shortly afterwards, a sign not, I believe, of my ability to influence, but my good taste in my choice of gropees (you know who you are).

   

I groped one prominent politician at a very senior BBC executive’s Christmas party. The man had that week been named as one of the sexiest politicians in Britain, so, in a bit of fun and in full view of everyone, including his wife, I grabbed him and made light of the survey. The following year, he arrived at the party and, out of view of other guests, put his hand up my skirt and groped me with some vigour. The executive wrote me a letter of apology, explaining that much as he tried to control his guests, he was not having much luck (a senior BBC female presenter had also tipped a glass of wine over someone’s head).

  

I confess to having been surprised at the nature of the grope, although I fully accept responsibility for it – what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and all that. But whereas my groping was always done in full view of everyone (it became a sort of fringe to the fringe at the annual Edinburgh TV festival), the politician had targeted me away from the crowd and, yes, it felt more invasive.

   

I cannot remember when I conducted my first unsolicited grope. I was not a promiscuous teenager – in fact, when my first boyfriend took me to Porthcawl fairground, my screams when his hand ventured near my top could be heard far above those of the people on the Roller Coaster; it was, perhaps, the strictness with which I was brought up about sex that led to a curiosity for and fascination with, exactly what it was that lurked so sinisterly in men’s trousers.

   

My first grope – definitely unsolicited – was with a schoolteacher, and that, maybe, is where it all began. I had no idea what my hand was being led towards, much less what I should do once it reached its destination, but the thrill of the unknown was perhaps what stayed with me.

   

Did I, the victim of a groper, become the gropee in the way that the abused often turn abusers in later life? Was I just having a laugh and, for the most part, not receiving a negative reaction to my behaviour (well, for the most part – Kevin Whately was a very unwilling victim), carry on because it was just a good way of breaking the ice with men?

   

Who knows. But the world has changed. My groping days – at least, in public places – are over; I am too old for such displays of affection, and also, today, I would probably be behind bars.

   

I am glad to have lived in the era of the innocent groper, though; and while I would not in any way condone anyone who abuses their position to gain any sexual favours, we have to remember that there was a time when sinister motives did not lie behind every overt (or covert) sexual expression.

   

Sometimes, a grope is just a grope.