Being Me

A short play, entitled, 'The Most Disgruntled and Lugubrious Waiter in the World', inspired by today's afternoon in town when I went into a local cafe to do some marking.   Middle aged woman (MAW): (Settles at table in cafe.  Waiter comes over.)   Could I have a cup of tea please? Waiter:  I'm sorry we don't do cake any more, if you were wanting cake. MAW.:   (surprised at the sudden introduction of negative ideas)   It's okay.  I'll order some lunch in a bit.  I just want tea for now. Waiter:   (funereal)   We used to do cake.  We don't now. MAW:  I know.  I'd noticed. It's a shame.  But never mind.  We middle-aged woman need all the help we can get to stay on the right side of Sumo wrestler! Waiter: (Completely ignores joke.  Is not a fan of stand-up comedy.)   I did tell them. I said, 'We'll lose customers if you get rid of the cakes.'  And we did.  We've lost all the regulars. ...

Something that never happens to me: No one ever comes up to me in the street and says, 'Hey.  You realise Kate Moss is getting on a bit now.  Fancy doing a photo shoot on a beach in Cuba for the cover of Vogue?' Something that is much more likely to happen: Someone comes up to me in the street and says, 'Hey.  You realise Kate Moss is getting on a bit now.  She needs someone to model beside her so that she continues to look good even as her body turns to loose hanging flesh and her face falls in so it resembles a cat's anus.  Are you looking for a job?' Something else that never happens to me: No one ever rings my doorbell and says, 'Hey.  Are you Fran Hill?  Here's a giant bouquet of flowers sent to you from a secret admirer.' Something else that is much more likely to happen: Someone rings my doorbell and says, 'Hey, the old lady next door with the hooked nose and piggy eyes and thirteen rolls of fat around her hips is out, but someon...

I was the runner-up in a competition recently with this short piece about 'A Day in a Writer's Life'.  I thought you'd enjoy it, especially if, like me, you tell people you are 'writing' when you are really watching gymnastic cats and laughing babies on Youtube. 9 January 2013 6am Woke up from a dream.  Was dressed in a lime green ski suit and running through a dark tunnel with my Granny and a cousin from Australia.  Granny was yelling out lines from ‘Macbeth’ and breathing fire.  There was a tsunami.  Wrote plotline in my ‘From Dream to Bestseller’ notebook and forced myself out of bed to make tea.  Was determined to get at least three chapters written today. 9am NB: Confucius say: ‘Lady who take tea back to bed is not writing lady, but snoring lady.’ 10am Sat at my computer, staring at a blank screen and a reflection of me in the screen, staring at a blank screen.  Wondered whether the kitchen floor needed scrubbing.  Wrote...

I don't know if you've read 'Room'.  I've read it twice now, once for pleasure and then a re-read to teach it.  I've been reminded of the book twice today, once for a trivial oh-doesn't-Fran-find-silly-things-amusing reason and once for a much more serious reason. The novel is about a woman who's been abducted and trapped for years by a man in a shed in his garden.  She has had a child by him and the only world the 5 year old child knows is 'Room'.  The mother faces problems when he begins to grow old enough to realise that the world he sees on the TV represents the real world, and she begins to plan to get him out.  It's a really fabulous read.  Donoghue says that the Fritzl case in Austria partly inspired her story.  She writes about her novel on her website  here If you've been watching the news today about the three women and a 6 year old child found trapped in a house in Ohio (item  here ), you'll know why I thought about the...