Tanya Beckett & Sophie Raworth are......Waiting for Godot......

TB: .....here, Soph. Can you lend me some of your nail varnish? I think I've just chipped one picking away distractedly at this cheaply decorated set meant to convey a bleak existential landscape in which you and I are waiting for a metaphoric redemption in the form of Godot...... who never arrives.



SR: Sure thing Tanny. Midnight Plums OK? (Why does that colour always remind me of Jeremy Bowen, by the way?) Now, where did I put it? Ohhhh! Don't tell me I left it on the dresser by the hall with the gas bill I forgot to post on my way to the theatre. £55.65 by the way? Is yours ever that high?



TB: Sounds a bit steep to me, Soph old girl. What have you been doing, taking midnight bubble baths with an entire Premiership Rugby side and indulging in a crafty sachet of Belgian choccy options or several while they practice their rucking techniques with your aromatherapy bath cushion? It's a wonder your bills aren't sky high carrying on like that...

SR: ...I mean, you expect it to be a bit more in the winter quarter, but this is just ridiculous...



TB: My uncle Stan used to work for the gas board. He was a funny old stick. Used to make us little puppets based on prominent politicians of the day - Lord George Brown was a particularly eerie likeness, as I recall - and entertain us with a little miniature theatre he made up out of old cornflake boxes and j-cloths when we were kids. That was when he wasn't trying to get his hand up our skirts. Filthy old sod! He still sends us a Christmas card every June. It's amazing how much things have changed in secure psychiatric units, isn't it?



SR: ....£55.65. And we were away in Dubai for all of October...

TB: You found it yet?

SR: Sorry, Tans. I was just leafing through my little red book. I didn't realise I had it with me. Gosh, some of these dates...I'd completely forgotten about them - with good reason... Did you know that Griff Rhys Jones is double-jointed?



TB: Really?

SR: Well, that's the only explanation I can think of.....him and his pair of plyers...

TB: How long did you go out with him for Sophs?

SR: Only a couple of weeks - until I got bored rigid with his sheet metal origami obsession. Honestly, he couldn't go anywhere without a full toolkit and a pack of handy wipes. Until, that is, he dislocated his shoulder trying to make a huge ornamental Mandarin Duck out of our boiler flue. I never heard back from him after that. Here we go. Oh, sorry Tans, it's Prussian Blue. will that do?



TB: Oh I suppose so. It won't clash with my mustard twin set, will it? This is Desiree by the way. She's waiting for Godot too. What's he like eh?

Desiree: I know - I waited 3 days for one last week....and then they were all only going as far as the Broadway....

SR: Hi Desiree. Course it won't clash, you picky mare. Here, something I've always meant to ask you - you know when your skirt rides up when you're interviewing someone on the couch on Breakfast News?

TB: Mmm-hmm...

SR: Do you do it on on purpose or is just accidental?

TB: What do you think!! As my dear old Grandfather used to tell my Mum, "there's no point wearing stockings if you're not going to flash a bit of garter, girl!" How she put up with him wearing her smalls for all those years, I'll never know...



SR: Thought so. I always wear tights myself. You should give them a go - you know how chilly it is on the studio floor before the heating clicks on at 7.30. Now, are you quite finished with my varney? I've just bitten one of mine off remembering Griff and his bizarre metal folding exploits. I still wake up in a cold sweat sometimes when I hear a creaking noise in the night...

TB: Here Soph, have these for being such a brick about lending me the nail varnish.

SR: Oh Tans, they're lovely! Where did you get them?



TB: I half-inched them from outside the Sally Army on the way in while they were out beggaring about with their trombones and tambourines. See, I forgot to take the card out, but it's the thought that counts, isn't it??

SR: Too right Tans - I'll just stick them in some water. Now, where has that confounded Godot got to? Shall I stick the kettle on......??

Delle de Jour

The Diary of a London wheeler and dealer.

Nice little earner this call boy lark, Rodders. The manager - madam, if you will - takes 30%. Tips and travel expenses are exempt from her commission. The client usually pays an extra 30-50 pounds on top of the agreed price for travel. About a quarter of 'em tip. Cushty!

I have only seen the madam in person a handful of times. I prefer to pay the spondulicks in to her account, and she knows I am reliable with it. Some of the other lads she meets at restaurants or at home or down the Black Horse, but she ain't comin' back to our grotty little flat in Nelson Mandela Mansions, I'll tell you that for nuffink, my son!

Most other WBs I have met do not work for the same agency and are usually friends-of-friends. I only meet others from my agency if someone hires two of us at a go - Mange tout de Triomphe, Rodders! As we say in the trade. We arrive and leave in seperate transportation, and know nothing of each other beyond professional names, which is just as it should be. Honi soit qui malibu, Rodders.

I have never had an overtly negative review reported to the manager. My clients are not usually drunk and I have not yet run into an abusive one. We are instructed that if they are abusive, we take the money, ring the manager, and leave. They are instructed by her that if we find them objectionable, we leave. Bish bosh! You might say I'm lying, or have been extremely lucky. You might also say that I have some skill in putting people at ease. But I've never had a spot of bother. Apart from when one old bag recognised me down Peckham market and wanted a refund on some dodgy inflatable Korean carp I'd flogged her. Said she'd put 'em straight in her pond and they were all dead. Dozy mare! Still, Cherchez la femme, eh Rodders? Cherchez la femme!

I do get a bit nervous about clients if they've changed the location or time of the liaison more than once. In these instances the agency provides security, or I ask Trigger to drive and guard me. I bung him a pony out of me pocket for this. If you want the bestest but you don't ask questions, brother, he's your man. Nastro azurrio, my son!

Do I kiss clients? Of course I do, you plonker! Pretty Woman is not real. Comprendez? Fiction. Richard Gere is not really a gigolo. You're thinking of David Hemmings in American Gigolo, Rodders.

Refusal to kiss is an affront similar to fake porn lesbians who won't put their tongues anywhere near a pussy, but are perfectly happy to shove a fist up one. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, Rodders. I don't hold back. Kissing is no more intimate than any other act - intimacy is what the mind does, not the body. Outlandos d'amour, Rodders.

Now, where are me low-waisted flesh-coloured lace knickers (La Perla). What do you mean they're in the wash, Rodders? You plonker!

// posted by delle @ 3:21 PM

xxx
'Berta

Blog Comment Whore....

Why do I do it?

I must spend several hours a day posting rubbish like this (on Blind Flaneur's effort) on blogs belonging to people I have no connection with other than that they happen to have chanced upon my blog rather than any of the other billion or so that they might have:


The 27 used to be a nice route. We used to be able to pick it up at the bottom of our road in Twickenham and go all the way to Archway for 4 pence. Christ knows why you'd want to do that, mind - but you could. Then again, I can't see why anyone would want to buy a record by Rod Stewart, but people still do. Though I doubt you can pick one up for 4 pence. Bloody charity shops - they're worse than HM bloody V. My late father once opened the door to Rod Stewart - on the Archway Road as it goes. It wasn't this that killed him, by the way - it was progressive heart disease, but the door thing might well have been a contributory factor. It must've been quite a shock I imagine, opening the door to find a pre-fame Rod Stewart standing there with a tea chest bass and a Scotland scarf demanding "can Kenny come out to play?" We'll never know now, of course. My uncle was a mate of his. Rod Stewart, that is. He was tight as arseholes, apparently - always hid at the back with his hands in his pockets, never bought a round. Rod that is - not my uncle Ken - he's a diamond when it come to buying a round. Had a trial at Brentford too Rod Stewart, not Kenny. Never really had much time for him, personally - although I do quite like the strings on Do ya think I'm sexy...

Roberta

p.s. Just a quick technical point here, BF. Being blind, was this sequence of events relayed to you by a sighted companion, or did you just make it up? Don't give up hope - it's amazing what they can do with lasers now, apparently...

Say you ponced about like that for three hours a day. That's 21 hours a week. That's almost a full working week. (If you can call it a working week when you spend 2/3s of it posting meritricious crap on blogs belonging to people you've never met etc. etc. instead of doing what you're being paid to do. Whatever that is. It's so long since I've done anything except blog that I've actually forgotten. I know it can't be very important...) I wonder if you could put it on your passport - occupation: spurious blog commentator (p/t)?? Imagine the adverts: Aimless individuals, highly unmotivated despite being in regular, full-time employment but with time on their hands are required to bombard pointlessly world wide internet weblog sites with frivolous, self-aggrandising verbage. No prospects. No supervision. No time wasters.

The other thing is I've started using the word 'cunt' in every comment I post. Must stop doing that. Imagine if there are children reading it....I really need to start setting a better example. I'm forty fucking one years old......

Envoi: S. this morning, overheard from the bathroom while she's watching the BBC Breakfast News item containing an interview with the chaps on the wrong end of the the recent bungled terror raid - "with a beard like that, I'd've fucking shot you.."

She's the funny one.

Further envoi:

I can't stop myself - just posted today at 11.02:

There's a technical term for it, BF. You are a sufferer of what we in the medical profession (I am a registered Paedophile - I know what I'm talking about and have the broken windows to prove it...) refer to as Severe Geoffrey Howeing of the Hair Syndrome. It's a relatively managable condition, but in extreme cases it can flare up into the more general and potentially life threatening affliction of Incurable Darcus Howeing of the Scalp. Once diagnosed, there is little hope for the poor victim of this awful illness. There is no cure, unfortunately, and the only known palliative care involves the patient being taken out into a field by the Secretary of State for Health and shot at dawn. You will, however be pleased to know, that this treatment IS currently available on the NHS.

HEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xxx
'Berta
© 2006 Swipe Enterprises

The Other Girl With a One Track Mind...

I bought the Sunday Times yesterday (and no, before you get all aeriated, I'm not going all New Labour now we've joined the propertied classes - it had a free DVD of One Plus One in it, if you must know. See, bit of culture and that) and there's an article in there about this tart. Apparently Girl with a one track mind is a freelance camera assistant (surely they can't be that difficult to operate...??) and she's been working her way through the casts and crews of what remains of the British film industry (I bet that Puttnam gave her a good seeing to - he looks like a right saucy sword swiveller, doesn't he? It's the beard, I think...) and posting up the (incredibly interesting, I'm sure) particulars on her eponymous blog (although, apparently she also witters on about films a lot as well, making her a girl more of the two-tracked mind variety by my reckoning...but, hey, whatever...)

Anyroad up, GWAOTM has just become the latest blogger to have her highly riveting sexploits published in good old analogue* book form. So, after years (well, a year) of trying to persuade the sceptical world of publishing (and radio, Reality TV, DIY show hosting, mail order catalogue modelling etc.) that Roberta is the greatest thing since sliced wotsits, I've finally realised what I've been doing wrong all these year(s). So, brace yourselves dear, gentle readers for the new look Roberta Swipe Show. That's right, from tomorrow, you and the rest of the world of Global Publishing can sample the delights of the Other Girl With a One Track Mind.....(be warned, if you don't have much time for Goth girls splattered with fek blood wearing fishnets as string vests, I'd stick with Spinny - at least you know what you're going to get with La Spinster. Well, you know what you're not going to get, anyroad...)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have beggars to flog and a podcast to tape......


* Will Self: "they're portable, you don't need batteries for them and they last for hours..." (books that is - filth!)

xxx
'Berta


© 2006 Swipe Enterprises

I'm in a band.....(Yay!)....

That's right Swipettes - all those years hanging around backstage in a beehive wig wearing fake leather twinsets with a pretend cigarette dangling seducticely from my lower lip have finally paid off! I've been asked to play keyboards in my brother Bob's newest techno pop combo - and he's even asked me if they can call the group after me. I was a bit sceptical at first, but Bob thinks it's a great idea and cited other great bands that were named after real people - Alice Cooper, Lynyrd Skynrd, Pele, Jeremy Irons etc. etc. So I'm cool with it, plus I get to have my mush pasted over every bus shelter and big issue poster in the Greater London area - what's not to like? I did wonder at first if I was letting my sisters down by allowing my physical charms - yes, that's right, charm*s* (I have at least two) to be put to use selling the band. But then I realised that, hey, if you've got it flaunt it - and if you haven't, you'll probably soon be able to get it on the NHS, once they finish fully privatising it.

Anyway, we've been doing a lot of rehearsing and recording of late and I'm pleased to say that my high school one finger sythesizer line skills have not completely deserted me. OK, I'm no Linda McCartney yet - although I can do a mean veggie sausage roll, believe me - but what I lack in musical ability, I more than make up for in sly sexual manipulation and a thoroughbread's understanding of the minutiae of  the upholstered brassiere. Just think of me as the new Candida Doyle, only without the candida....well, mostly...

Right, judge for yourselves...