Being Me

Lying on my bed is a pair of black trousers. They need some sewing work done but I am to needlework what Donald Trump is to coherent discourse and am putting it off. I bought the trousers one summer, several years ago. The label said 'medium length' but when I first wore them, the hems smothered my shoes, dragged along behind me like two recalcitrant children, and yelled to the world, 'This is a shortarse if ever there was one. There's enough spare material here to cover a three-piece suite.' I turned the trousers up to a more reasonable length but, that day, didn't have any black cotton. So, I waited until I could get to the shops to buy black   used silver-grey cotton instead and kidded myself that the stitches wouldn't show if I was careful. Wouldn't show? Wouldn't show?  Perhaps if I was to needlework what Donald Trump is to verbal gaffes they wouldn't have shown. But - I wore the trousers to school the next day and taught the firs...

I'm writing this while sitting in bed very late on a Wednesday evening, unwisely so because I have to be up at six. But I usually listen to Radio 4 at this point and they're playing some of their unfunny comedy. I swear they use the late comedy slot to try out people who ring up and say 'My mum says I'm hilarious. Can I have a show?' 'Yeah, sure. We have a space at 11.15pm we reserve for people whose mums think they're hilarious.' 'Will it be a big audience?' 'Sure, we get all kinds. Insomniacs who really don't care what's on as long as someone's talking to them. Women breastfeeding and using our show to bore the child back to sleep. Drunk people: they're easy to please. Shift workers so knackered we could play them Paradise Lost backwards and they wouldn't realise. Old people who napped for longer than they meant to at 4pm and now won't sleep until 3am. Women still breastfeeding. Ex-comedians who want to feel sm...