The Bad, The Worse and The Queen

Seems like Her Madge and I have more in common than I could have ever imagined this Jubilee. We both managed to spend our Royal Bank Holiday Monday visiting our very nearest and dearest in hospital. Liz: visiting Phil the Greek and his dodgy bladder. Me: visiting Little Mum and her increasingly dodgy hips and knees. But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. It also gave both me and Queenie the chance to avoid an enormous musical travesty, otherwise known as The Diamond Jubilee Concert.

"I told Gary Barlow I wanted Devo or Shellac. Or The Smiths reforming."

And we almost got away with it. Her Top Royalness was forced to show her mug at the dying embers and probably endure more pain than her hubby trying to pass The Royal Wee. Me? I was just helping settle Little Mum down for the evening, when I heard some dreadful wailing coming from the corner of the Ward 5. "Listen to that poor soul", I commiserated, thinking one of the old dears was in a frightful amount of pain.

Until I realised that what I could hear was some twat murdering an awful pop tune on a telly round the corner of the bed curtain. I'm told The Black Eyed Pea person is in the UK to judge our musical hopefuls as they belt out tunes on some TV singing competition. Now, that's actually funny, because Will.I.Am. can obviously not sing for fucking toffee. Further investigation revealed that he was duetting with some bird who insisted on shrieking painfully flat. I am reliably informed by a nice staff nurse that this is a creature called Jessie J, also a judge on aforementioned sing-for-your-15-mins-of-fame-fest. Quite honestly, I'd rather listen to hospital radio. Dreadful.

Two for the Tower, ma'am.

After leaving Little Mum to get some shuteye after her tiring day, I came back to my Sis's house to enjoy the rest of the concert. On telly? Watching it? Don't be ridiculous. You know I don't watch The Television. No, that nice Tim Jonze at The Guardian live-blogged the event, revealing each astonishing happening in minute-by-minute detail. Between him (and the superlatively funny comments of some of The Great British Public) I learned that neither Cliff Richard nor Elton John were in possession of their own teeth or hair, both old musical Queens wearing pink and hamming it up. Grace Jones (Gaga-With-Balls) sang Slave To The Rhythm whilst hula-hooping (I thought I might have accidentally swallowed a load of Little Mum's morphine when I read this, but it is TRUE). But my favourite insta-post was this, which I screengrabbed:

8.13pm Was Her Most Regal Rock 'n' Rollness watching Savages at The Old Blue Last??

(Postscript: this was the only Jubilee similarity between Liz II and me. Day One of Diamondfest had revealed no parallels. Not having to give a stuff about the constitution or any of that silliness meant I could spend my Sunday curled up, with an enormous bar of Cadburys, drinking tea and watching lovely old B&W films.  Queenie, the poor 86 year old love, was forced to spend her Sunday floating about on the Thames on one of the wettest, shittiest days of the year. Gawd bless 'er.)

Root Of All Evil

Following an enjoyable few days (DTB at The Lexington – mesmerising, an evening with Les French and The Scot – good company as ever, The Haberdashery – superb cake, a jaunt to look at my new home out East – nervewracking and exciting), a small adult refreshment with The Marrieds made a sweet finale to my weekend.

I arrived at the drinker of choice, where they lay in wait. The second he laid eyes on me, Lord Married got his phone out and said “oh, you’ll know about this” and proceeded to show me something…well, I knew not quite what.

It looked like a badly whittled stick. Turns out the picture features on a page for the source of much knowledge (and often a source of much hilarity for me), Wikipedia. The page in question is about ‘figging’.

Right, you lot – hands up who knows what ‘figging’ is when it’s at home?

I’m imagining not many of you. Here you go - prepare to broaden your mind (if nothing else):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figging

What the flipping fuck? Quite honestly, I had no idea. I’m now slightly concerned about the public perception of me. “Oh, you’ll know about this” – HOW? WHY? The thought of me inviting any of my gentleman callers to pop a pared bit of fiery root up my behind is, quite frankly, highly unlikely. I’m a nice, old-fashioned girl. The only orifice I’m putting ginger into at the moment is my mouth, coupled with hot water and some lovely honey because I’m full of bloody cold.

Oh, and into my cakes. But rest assured, lucky recipients – the ginger in my baking has come straight out of a jar from Waitrose. Not my arse.

(Postscript: actually, I come from a long line of nice, old-fashioned girls. A few years ago, Little Mum was celebrating her 75th birthday. We took the old darling to her favourite Chinese restaurant, a rather swanky affair near Leeds. The accountant brother-in-law looks after their books, and in turn, they did a lovely job of looking after us. Following a spectacular feed, the charming owner brought out a special treat for Little Mum, one of those ridiculous banana-masquerading-as-penis affairs, a tiny bit bizarre for such an eatery. 10 out of 10 for creativity, though - they used that crispy seaweed stuff to depict the pubes. "Ooooh!", squealed Little Mum in delight when she saw her pudding. And, as she went to lick the tip of the banana, she confided in a conspiratorial tone..."I've never done this with a real one". Try and imagine the faces of her daughters, her teenage grandson, her son-in-law. Laughed my head off. Then thought, "bloody hell - poor Dad, god rest his soul".)

NB: bell end is a lychee. Genius.

**NEWSFLASH!** Picture above has caused much jollity among those of you who hadn't already seen it. What I've just discovered via my blogging stats is that it's been downloaded quite a bit in the last few days since posted here. This makes me wonder if, a) I have unwittingly become a pusher of geriatric porn and a filthy network of granny fiddlers are using it to get their kicks, or b) like me, people find this picture so sweet yet utterly hilarious that they now have it as their screensaver. I'm hoping the latter, and that Little Mum becomes an internet sensation known as "lovely grey-haired old dear performing fellatio on that banana".