FRAUEN ON TOP

You may be wondering if my 7-month holiday from blogging was caused by some major upheaval or trauma. Rest assured, nothing much has changed. I am still residing in the heart of Europe, fighting the good fight against the inexorable slide into Euro-English.

My lodger McChe is still in residence, despite several attempts to trick him into living somewhere else. Like mildew. After a while you just learn to live with it. I keep taking him on holiday in hopes of leaving him on the side of the road somewhere. But like an abandoned cat, he always manages to find his way home.

I'm still tinging Bert's triangle for the KNOB*, although I wonder for how much longer. Since Bert's departure, the orchestra has fallen into disarray. There has been a degree of laissez-aller, nay dare I say it, total negligence. Most un-German. The horn section has gone to pot - hence we were booted out of Euroompah!2011 in Athens, in ignominous fashion. A timely lesson that needed to be learned. My nose is clean - my ting is always pristine and punctual. But it was time for a new baton, and now we have got one. The KNOB has taken a leaf out of the IMF's book and has nominated a WOMAN leader. No, not me - it has to be someone who can read music. Our new leader is Waltraud von Klampwangler, Wally to her friends, a Rhine maiden of formidable presence who wields her baton like a rapier, and looks much better in lederhosen than any of them. I for one welcome our new overlady, and have dusted off my gay umbrella to show her I'm quite open minded. Some of the old farts don't like it of course - Dietrich made a rude noise on his euphonium the first time she stepped up to the podium, and Fritzi deliberately pretended he couldn't hear her instructions, whereupon she sent him off to have his ears syringed. She doesn't take any prisoners.

BY POPULAR DEMAND ....

Not that I'm bovvered or anyfink, but I do check site meter now and again just to see if anybody's still visiting. And I find that since I went into semi-retirement from blogging, last October, I have had 20,000 hits! That works out, per month, to more than I used to get when I WAS blogging. So clearly, I am more popular when I keep quiet.

But popularity be damned. Silence has never been my forte. Having become a Facebook diva, I feel the need once more to unlace my corsets, and a fruitbasket as big as mine needs more than 450 characters to fully express itself. The blog is truly my milieu. My own pedestal, where I stand in all my glory, and you may all come and adore me. Or not.

There is the small problem of that Anonymous person, who may indeed be responsible for a large number of the hits I have been receiving. But in the spirit of inclusion, let us open our hearts and our comments boxes, nay, even unto the poor in spirit, for they shall inhabit the interweb.

And then there is my former no.1 fan in Tripoli, who seems to be trying to get through desperately. No, Muammar, it's no good apologizing now, I remember when you had your goons running around Brussels looking to whack a woman wearing a fruit salad on her head. You had your chance and you blew it. You're on your own, kid.

I wondered whether to start a new blog, but finally decided that 120,000 hits was too good to throw away and will carry on, possibly to 200,000 and beyond. Per blogga ad astra!

I am sure a great many hits are coming from people who have heard about me too late and are dropping in, only to be disappointed when they see I walked away from it all in Berlin, with my maracas held high. This reminds me only too well of my own propensity to discover hidden gems after the fact, for example back in 1986 when I found this great band composed of good-looking suntanned young men in shorts, only to find what I had just seen was their farewell concert. Well I for one will not be likened to George Michael, in any shape or form. Although now I come to mention it, I did rather fancy the other one, whatsisname .....

WE'LL MEET AGAIN ....

This weekend I am in Berlin, having a reunion with the Women's Section of the KNOB* on their home territory. If the site meter hits 100,000 around now, which is likely, this will be my last post on this blog.


To paraphrase the immortal Mae West, this blog used to be Snow White but it drifted. The original idea was a combination of travel guide, flights of fancy, restaurant reviews and moaning about Harold. A sort of cross between Maria Shollenburger's "Travelista" in How to Spend It and Shirley Valentine. Over time, the flights of fancy have flown away, the restaurant reviews have been hived off to another blog, my travel bug is more of a dead beetle and ... remind me, who was Harold again? Added to this, the newly ennobled Lord Spart seems to think I should spend more of my valuable blogging time working for him, and the eponymous "Anonymous" has taken over the comments box. If I could only read Russian and Chinese I would be able to understand his no doubt adoring remarks.


There were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew ... but there are a few posts I'm particularly proud of.


There was The One About the Communist Manifesto, which was selected for the Shaggy Blog Stories compilation for Comic Relief.

There was The One About How I left Africa.

There was the One About the Hellcat Matrix.

And then of course there was the One About the Gay Umbrella.



I won't be the first to bow out of the great variety show that is the Blogosphere, and other far greater bloggers than I have allowed the red velvet curtains to close on them: Jimmy Bastard, Mrs Pouncer, Dr Maroon, Petite Anglaise, Aunty Marianne, and Gadjo Dilo to name but a few.

Some of you are still going strong: Guyana-Gyal, No Good Boyo, Scarlet Blue, Crabtree, Savannah, Manuel Estimulo, Kevin Musgrove and our doyenne, Pat Past Imperfect. Some of you I have had the pleasure to meet in person: Kim Ayres, who managed to take the only flattering photograph in existence of me; Madame Defarge, Gorilla Bananas, Krimo, Bart, and the Brussels blogger who inspired me to start the blog in the first place: Zoe of My Boyfriend is a Twat.





Finally, a big loud bark for Mutley the Dog, who sadly passed away earlier this year.


And thanks to those who have featured as subjects of my essays over the years, not necessarily under your real names and not necessarily knowingly: the KNOB*, Bert, Millicent Tendency, Scouse Doris, Vi Hornblower and Desmond, Peter Mandelson, Dolores Entwhistle, Orinoco Flo McCluskey, Imelda, Lulu LaClope, George Clooney, Gonzo, Scrumpy, and McChe. You all know who you are (except Bert).


Anyway, it was a fine affair, but now it's over. Think of me whenever you see a gay umbrella. Auf Wiedersehen, pets!

* the Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

L'APPEL DU 23 OCTOBRE

WARNING! THIS POST IS EXCESSIVELY POLITICAL AND A BIT RANTING

Spliffy Cameron has obviously been reading my blog and I must thank him for his announcement this week which has persuaded me that it's not the moment to think about returning to Blighty on a permanent basis. Perhaps by 2020, when I am due to retire. Except thanks to Spliffy and his chums, it'll now be 2021, and by the time I get there, the place will look like Detroit.

Detroit, Michigan

Half a million jobs cut in the public service, plugs pulled on charities, not to mention cuts to the BBC. And all those benefit scroungers will be forced back to work --- er, where, exactly? As people lose their income, mortgages will not be paid, houses will be abandoned. There will be no new social housing built. There will be more homeless on the streets. There will be more crime. And fewer coppers, thanks to the cuts. Big Society my ARSE.


When I was in Lagos, Nigeria, many lives ago, it occurred to me that it would be M.Thatcher's ideal world: no public services, no safe and comfortable public transport, roads full of potholes, decent hospitals and schools all private, if you wanted a guarantee of water or electricity supply and you were rich enough, you dug your own borehole and bought a generator. As a result the ordinary people of the ninth biggest producer of oil in the world were illiterate, starving and -- surprise, surprise -- just a bit dishonest sometimes. If I'd had the misfortune to be born in a country like that, I'd do everything I could to get out too -- even fibbing on an immigration form.

Lagos, Nigeria

Meanwhile, have you noticed that there seem to be more and more ludicrously expensive toys and playgrounds for the obscenely rich? As an avid reader of "How to Spend It", I am increasingly of the opinion that the plutocrats have taken over the asylum. At the expense of those who got plenty of nuttin'. Bankers are still getting multi-million pound bonuses. Chief Executives are still getting million-pound salaries. The government is now full of millionaires, some of whom don't even pay tax in the UK. And those who bailed them out -- yes, you, the taxpayer -- are now going to get your reward. A good stuffing.


After the disappointment of "New Labour", I naively thought that the "new" Conservatives under Cameron might be a different, gentler kind of Tory, and that the restraining hand of Nick Clegg might keep their divisive policies in check. As someone wrote in The Independent this week, Cameron's reforms have surpassed the Iron Lady's wildest dreams.

You can smile dearie

I have never liked bullies. This has only served to push me further to the left. There is only one language these people understand. I am going to the barricades, comrades. I shall finally fulfil that fantasy of being Michelle of ze Resistance, trafficking arms and transmitters under my Aquascutum raincoat to the trade unionists hiding in the hills, and talking in a funny accent. Excuse me a minute while I pop out and buy some white ankle socks.




Citoyennes! Citoyens! The lights are going out all over Europe! Formez vos bataillons! This could be your finest hour.

Your country needs you

NO BALLS PLEASE

Talking of Eastbourne, I once went there with Harold for a few days. Someone had lent us a nice apartment quite close to the Devonshire Park Tennis Club, and we happened to be there in June, when the famous ladies' tennis tournament takes place. We had found a nice little pub right next to the tennis club, I think it was called The Ship, where we used to go for a pre-prandial before our pensioner's special at the Star of Bengal.


One day we were heading for the pub and Harold idly observed a lady who was minding her own business walking in the same direction: "You know all these women who go to watch the tennis? I think they're all lesbians." This was such a typically asinine Harold comment that I just snorted. On a bad day I might have laid into him but it was sunny and I didn't want my mood spoiled.

Billie Jean is not my lover

We went into the pub and took our drinks to a table on the mezzanine from where you could see the tennis courts. There were only a few other customers in the pub at that point, and we didn't really take much notice of them. However, an hour or so later, I noticed the pub was filling up, and that almost all the tables were occupied by women, in couples or groups. Within another half hour the place was heaving with women, many of them in Doc Martens and butch haircuts and drinking pints, and Harold was the only man in the pub. He started to look a bit hot under the collar.

"I don't know what you're worrying about," I said. "I'm the one who's got to go to the Ladies."

I girded my loins, if that is the correct expression, and headed for the loo. There was no-one in there, and I breathed a sigh of relief. However, on closing the cubicle door behind me, I found a freshly-inscribed piece of graffiti, announcing:

"MARTINA I LOVE YOU"

I locked the door firmly. Harold smirked all the way to the curry house. Still, if I do retire to Eastbourne I will make sure I take my gay umbrella. I might even take up tennis.

It starts like this ....

And ends like this?