Sex & The City 2

Soooooo two years on here we are again, catching up with the fabulous foursome. The years have been kind to all of them but poor old Samantha who is menopaused to the eyeballs and has metamorphosed into a rather nasty old skank with dreadful jokes. And to think I used to identify with her!!!!*

Carrie is bored with Big, Charlotte is just not coping with being the perfect mother and then there's the full time nanny with her big old cow titties flopping about everywhere - this apparently is sexy and a threat to all the other women who manage to purchase and wear brassieres.

Miranda is still ginger and still stressed about EVERYTHING!!!! And that's about it really. To spice things up they go off to Abu Dhabi, except they don't cos the UAE didn't want them spreading their nastiness, so the filmed loads of it in Marrakech.

Having recently returned from said city I recognised a few bits - the airport, the souk - but my word did the set designers ever go to town with the bleach! Everything is white and clean and shiny and "Hollywood".

As with the first movie and the entire series the clothes are the real stars, I got my fix of playing spot the "it" bag and realised that even Patricia Field can't make those Ralph Lauren gold harem pants from last summer look good! It was bliss, and I shall be hitting the shops for an oversized silk boyfriend blazer just like Carrie's!

There's been loads of reviews both in the press and on the net saying how shit the movie, that its racist, that its this, that and the other and the epitome of all that is wrong with the world.

To those people I say get over yourselves, its a bit of fluff, its not pretending to be anything more than that, it's a movie for camp men and camper women and I defy anyone with an ounce of camp not to have loved the opening wedding scene, even with poor old tragic "image of her mother" Liza Minelli's dreadful version of Single Ladies.

If you loved the series, if you think of those four like the four pals you don't see too often these days, then go see it. If you're looking for a deeper meaning, fuck knows, go see Hot Tub Time Machine or something!

By the way, here's another little elephant I found at Notting Hill Gate






















*I am fully aware of the irony of that statement

Things Could Only Get Better...

... really.

After my little spleen venting blog last Monday, the week picked up. To be fair it couldn't have gotten worse really!

I saw the doctor and a series of tests are being lined up to get to the bottom of what's ailing me.

My belly button wound finally healed.

I got back to the gym and after some initial agony, I started feeling strong again.

I spent some quality time with a dear friend.

I had a boob check up and its all good.

I got a gorgeous Kate Moss for Topshop frock.

I saw practically a whole herd of Elephant Parade elephants

I've made the most of the glorious sunshine.

Best of all Friday and Saturday night I got to MC at one of my favourite venues, the Leicester Square Theatre for Just The Tonic and got to see some fabulous comedians - Carl Donnelly, Rufus Hound, Pete Firman, Paul McCaffery and Will Smith - as well as having a blast with two cracking audiences.

Hell even the night bus journeys home passed off without incident!

Good times are back baby!

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck....

...I'd have no luck at all!

In the last seven days I have:

Had my flight from Marrakech cancelled due to the Ash Cloud, resulting in a £400 and 30hr alternative trip home

Contracted food poisoning that became so severe I collapsed and ended up in hospital overnight

Had to cancel a weekend's worth of gigs

Was too late to cancel the train tickets cos I was in hospital so lost a fortune on them

Dyed my hair and had the roots go ginger!

Woke up to a bloody wrist this morning cos somehow during my sleep, my 'genuine Jade' bangle from Wat Arun in Bangkok shattered and cut me to ribbons

Turned up at my Doctor's for a long-standing appointment only to find that they've screwed up the booking and cannot fit me in for another week

A lesser person might think its the wrong time to give up Prozac!

The Aftermath...

So I got home, feeling pretty weak having not really eaten for a couple of days. I'd risked that free sarnie at the airport and paid the price big time!

I dumped the contents of my case, happy that the huge ceramic bowl I'd bought survived as did the tea glasses, and then stripped off and hit the shower. I'd dumped all of my toiletries in the hotel on Tuesday morning thinking I'd not need them - silly me - so I was stinking! Before I got in, I took the dressing off my belly button wound and it was nasty! I tried to clean up the stuff that was coming out of it and this came out along with the pus!

Yep, its a big old lump of knotted thread! The kind of thread you sew buttons on with. Not the kind of thread to stitch wounds with!

When I had the operation six weeks ago, I was told that there were 'one or two' dissolving stitches internally and that they'd soon be gone, so where the hell did this chunk of thread come from?????? No wonder the wound wouldn't heal, my body was trying to expel this damn thing!

All Kinds Of Eruptions!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The week was passing by very pleasantly I have to say. Of course I succumbed to the inevitable impulse buys in the Souks - red leather rucksack, tea glasses, "proper" silver jewellery, "proper" being the technical term for a metal that ain't tin apparently - and even tho the constant hassle from the men was tedious I'd found one or two that I could have a laugh with.

I've developed a theory that the less access men have to women's bodies, the hornier they are. In Bangkok where punani is on almost every street corner (and to be fair, punani in far better condition than mine!) I have never had any sexual harrassment, despite wearing nothing but shorts and a vest top. Here in Marrakech, in jeans and a long sleeved t-shirt I am considered "easy". I guess because the majority of the women here are showing very little more than their eyes, anyone who has the audacity to display their full face is a slut! Whatever the reason, its incredibly tiresome, and at times quite threatening.

Before I'd booked my trip I read up on Morocco and the general consensus was that it was safe for solo female travellers, I'm not so sure about that at all. I certainly wouldn't go back there alone! Well not unless I suddenly developed a taste for Moroccan cock anyway!

You'd be amazed at the things they used to try and persuade to you go with them too! One guy offered me one of these for a bunk-up!

Another guy was trying to tempt me to make "Fiesta" with the promise of a free glass of mint tea! I have to admit he did make me laugh cos all I could picture was him trying to shag me in time to the Pogues' tune Fiesta!

Despite the hassle and the hotel's attempts to rip me off at every turn, I actually felt really rested as the end of my break approached. I had a tan, the sinusitis I'd arrived with had finally gone, even my belly button wound seemed to be healing. I decided to celebrate with one last trip to Djemaa el Fna on Monday night.

Now I know there is a rule here about never having fish in a restaurant on a Monday. The thinking being that the fishermen don't work on a Sunday so the fish isn't fresh, but I figured that didn't apply to Marrakech, so for my last supper I had more calamari, along with some delicious aubergine which might just be my new favourite vegetable.

Everything was wonderful, until I got back to the hotel and started packing. This is always a stressful thing for me anyway, and especially when I've bought half the souk! But it wasn't the stress of packing that was causing the rumbling in my tummy, was it? Nor was it the stress making me shiver so much that I had to put the heating on full in my room and get two extra blankets to wrap myself up in! Needless to say sleep was non-existant!

I was glad to see the sun come up and after a very hot shower I was feeling a bit better. There wasn't anything left in my stomach to come out - of either end! - and I decided to keep it that way by avoiding breakfast. I got my case closed and locked - hurrah! - and checked out.

I was early for my flight but decided to head to the airport anyway, mindful of the way the flight was moved forward on my return from Bangkok, no way did I wanna stick around here any longer. I wanted to get home to the land of Immodium! Plus, I'd had several emails telling me the flight time had changed cos the the clocks changing here, and didn't wanna risk one of those emails being wrong.

Marrakech Airport looks fabulous from the outside, and its lovely and airy inside, but there aint a whole lot going on in the way of facilities. I went to the Royal Air Maroc check-in desk and was told it wasn't open until 10am. Only two hours to kill then.

The flight was on the board and there were plenty of others being boarded, until about 9am when I noticed that the EasyJet flight to Gatwick had been cancelled. Now I was aware that the pesky Icelandic volcano had been spewing ash clouds around southern Europe, but there was no news on CNN about it affecting Morocco as I left the hotel. Turns out CNN weren't that on the ball. At 8am - the time I'd arrived at the airport - all airports in Morocco apart from this one had been shut!

By 9.30 nobody was going anywhere as one by one, cancelled showed up against all the flights on the board. Panic ensued, and inbetween my frequent trips to the loo, I soon learned that none of the airline staff were of any use at all. Their sales desk was unmanned and a phone number posted. Of course there was no answer on that number! Someone told me to head into town to their main office and rebook on a later flight. The EasyJet people were being told to queue up and rebook for later in the week. I know this cos one of my fellow Twitterers was in that queue!

Chatting to her delayed my cab ride and did me a favour as I was then informed that if I was a bit clever and pushed in I could get on the 2pm flight to Paris Orly. I did just that and was even given a business class seat, but I was confused as to how a plane could fly as far as Paris but not the extra few miles to London - there was no ash cloud there!

Oh well, it was 1pm by this time so I made a mad dash through security, and along with several other London-bound passengers took a seat in the departure lounge. Our flight wasn't on the board and by 4pm when there was still no news of it, we all began to suspect it didn't really exist! At 5pm they gave us a free cheese sarnie and a drink and finally about 6pm we boarded.

I had a vague plan of getting the Eurostar the rest of the way home, but the late flight meant that wasn't gonna happen till tomorrow, so I figured I'd find a hotel in Paris. I surprised myself at just how calm I was about the whole thing. In the past I'd have been getting angry and impatient and freaking out, but I was kinda blase about the whole experience. I guess still having the shits put everything else into perspective!

With the time difference it was about 10.30 when we landed in Paris and I was fortunate to find the kindest woman in France on the information desk. I asked about hotels and she found me one in the Opera district of Paris, at a relatively reasonable rate and booked it for me! I'll always remember her for going way beyond the call of duty! I found a cashpoint and got some Euro - of course I had plenty at home but I hadn't planned on needing any on this trip - then joined the huge queue for a cab.

Nearly €70 later I was checking into my garret and rushing to book a ticket on Wednesday's Eurostar. Blimey, they know how to charge don't they? It was £223 for a flexible ticket and £220 for an inflexible on, I decided to splurge the extra £3 and have the choice.

I think I managed about four hours' sleep and so my extravagance paid off as I boarded a much earlier train than planned. At midday I walked into my flat, 30 hours after I'd begun my journey home. Somehow all that R 'n' R had been wiped out by the stress of travelling home. Well that and the food poisoning!

More Marrakech!

Sooooo my time in Marrakech was progressing nicely. After my initial 'lost in the souk' experience - which seems to be a compulsory experience for all visitors - I'd settled into a kind of routine.

Each day was sun-filled, so I rose at a reasonable hour, stretched and meditated, showered and had breakfast (ps their toaster was the shittest so far!) then greased myself up like a Channel swimmer and headed down to the pool to sunbathe.

In the past I've been what is known as a "burner" so most of my sunbathing was done when there was very little sun about, but I'm learning that as long as the factor is high enough I can pretty much sit out all day and soak up the much needed Vitamin D, without being fried to a crisp. To be fair, it was much cooler here relatively speaking than say Thailand, the daily temperature seemed to be around 80f, and because there's so much less of me, I don't find the heat to be painfully uncomfortable the way I used to do.

I felt great laying there, watching the freckles pop up on my skin, some parts of my skin that have never really seen the sun before, like my tummy for instance. Yep that's right I was bikini'd up folks, and it felt great! I didn't even care who saw the waterproof dressing on that sodding belly button wound (which is still healing btw). The freckles seemed to be especially appearing on the scars from my surgery of recent years, making them much less apparent. What a result!

I swam 20 lengths of the pool every day too, which was amazing for me really. I been swimming a lot more recently and while my style leaves a lot to be desired, I've noticed that my technique is improving. What a fab, full body workout too.

I had planned to use the gym every day as well, in fact that was one of the reasons I chose this hotel as opposed to a Riad closer to the centre of the Medina, but as I bounded in there on the first morning I was stopped from entering by a miserable looking man who informed me that if I wished to use the machines it would cost me £10 a time! Needless to say the place was empty. Shame on you Expedia and Best Western for misleading me and no doubt many others by inferring that these facilities were free! The entire time I was there I didn't see a single person use the gym, how stupid!

One of the more fabulous things about Marrakech is the big square called Djemaa el Fna. In a recent Jamie Oliver TV show he visited it at night and it looked amazing. Once the sun starts to set a whole bunch of chefs set up their own little restaurants selling all kinds of delicious food. As I walked up to it from where the cab dropped me off, I really had the feeling of being somewhere magical.

Of course, once you get close enough, the hassling begins. Everyone has the best food, everyone has the widest selection of the freshest fish, everyone is best mates with Jamie Oliver! It's a kind of floorshow of it's own. The reality is, everyone has the same menu, apart from the guys on the outer ring who are selling things like escargot - I was given a free sample and learned this is not for me, and I've had all sorts in my mouth in me time I can tell ya! - and the most amazing looking egg and potato sarnies!

I picked one stall at random and had the most delicious meal, Moroccan salad - tomato, onion, green pepper and some fresh herbs - some calamari and shrimps, olives, bread, and a mint tea all for about £4.50! It was soooooooo tasty!

I walked it off in the souk afterwards, being careful not to go too deeply into the heart of it, if I could get lost in the day time, the night was way beyond my pathfinding skill even with landmarks like this one!

I also took advantage of the free shuttle bus to the Nouvelle Ville a couple of times. According to Lonely Planet this part of town was a "must see". Hmmm well I guess if you wanna check out what kind of rubbish clothes Etam would be selling if they were still in business here then yeah, it is. Other than that, there's one road, Place de la Liberte, that is kinda worth seeing, if only for the amazing patisseries!

I'm On The Marrakech Express!!!!!!

So escaping the return of winter (and the Icelandic Ash cloud) I jetted off to Morocco on Monday night. As usual I was way early at the airport and being a Bank Holiday and taking off from Terminal 4, which has to be the dullest terminal ever, I had a bit of a boring wait to even check in.

Still, nowt that a coffee and a couple of chapters of Atlas Shrugged can't get me through, and soon enough I was through security, and running around the shops like a mad thing. I almost got away with buying nothing despite the gorgeous Loewe handbags calling me like sirens. Then I clocked a pair of Tiffany sunglasses. The lure of the "diamonds', the shape that suited my face perfectly and that gorgeous blue just peeking out behind the black frames was too much to resist. In my defence they were discounted by about £30!

The flight wasn't at all busy, I got a whole row to myself! Funny how that never happens on a long-haul flight eh? We had a little stop in Casablanca for refuelling, and by 10.45pm I was in Marrakech. The airport was pretty deserted but I soon found someone to take me to the hotel I'd booked, for a vastly inflated fee of course, but I was tired, too tired to haggle!

I got a lovely surprise when I saw my room, spacious, kinda traditional, but not 'theme park', overlooking a gorgeous garden. This is the perfect oasis from the madness of this city. I unpacked and flopped into bed.

This morning I woke to this fabulous view
and after shaving me bits in the bath and then having a shower to get clean, I headed down to check out the breakfast. I was very impressed but can't comment yet on the toast maker (regular readers will be aware of my quest to find one that works somewhere on this planet) as I followed up my yogurt with a little Moroccan pancake which was rather delicious.

I was reading an old copy of Style while I drank my coffee, and the silver tongued waiter looked over my shoulder at a naked photo of Charlotte Rampling at age 25, and asked if that was me! I flipped the page and showed him the photo of her at 70-odd and said 'No that's me'. Nice try fella!

I checked out the facilities of the hotel and then jumped in a taxi to the square at Djema El Fanaa, where I was blown away but the stalls selling dried fruit and nuts. There were snake charmers, and rather ratty looking monkeys on leashes that were NOT happy to be there. Next thing, I found myself in the souk.

It seemed remarkably less claustrophobic than I'd been led to believe, and it was way cooler than Chatuchak Market in Bangkok! There's some amazing stuff, the leather bags dyed all colours of the rainbow. I can see that I will be returning here. One this this market is tho is lacking in any obvious exits! After about 2 hours I was lost in the bowels of it somewhere and more bored than scared. I asked a shopkeeper how to get out and he summoned a young boy - about 14 - to guide me out. It cost me £3 but actually was worth it. Bless him, he made me laugh when he invited me to go to a disco with him tonight! I think even Madonna would think twice about a 35 year age gap, that's not cougar, its pedo!

I was almost free and clear when I got stopped by an old crone straight from central casting who asked about my tattoos. I was having a proper discussion about them when her younger accomplice grabbed my hand and began applying that sodding black henna to my hand! She said it was for luck - her luck I presume - and no matter how many times I told her to stop she continued. It cost me a tenner, plus the price of a soft drink in the cafe I ran to so that I could wash it off in their bathroom!

Having A Ball...

So far 2010 is a year of massive re-assessment for me .

Deaths of friends and family have made me rethink how I live my life. I've tended to prevaricate and postpone most major decisions until circumstances force me to change.

I'm not doing this so much these days. Life really is too short and I owe it to myself and loved ones I've lost to make every day count.

This is translating to my comedy and my performances. I'm getting so much more out of every gig I do and - obviously - giving so much more, and I love the reaction it gets!

This weekend I was at The Glee Club in Cardiff for the first time in a loooong time, and on Friday instead of MC'ing I did a set and used the opportunity to try out some new stuff I'd been working on. The response it got told me I was on the right track. A lot of my self-doubt was banished, by just going for it.