A Prisoner of Fame

Moi - thirty three years ago

The tributes are coming in thick and fast and I'm knee deep in bouquets here. It's my birthday on Saturday and some of my legions of fans have been sleeping outside my front door for days now - no doubt vying to be the first to play 'happy birthday' on a set of saucepans while tooting a tin whistle on Saturday morning when I officially turn 38.


The current view from my house. "Thanks for your enthusiasm lads but could you piss off now!"





I've even emptied my chamber pot over them a couple of times, but what can I say, they will not be moved. So now I'm paying the high price of fame and have been locked in my house for days, subsisting on Pot Noodle and listening to my old vinyls.

Now, I'm trying not to get too sad about turning thirty eight because my husband, bless him, says that "you get better looking every year," and I'm going to choose to believe him.

So, let's go back to the night of my birth for a moment, to that wintry night thirty eight years ago when my mother was barefoot and pregnant and my father was under a bed somewhere trying to pretend it all wasn't happening. Now, mum is a very slim woman and claims that no one (save my father) knew she was pregnant. She had a job in a pub and didn't want to be sacked for being pregnant apparently and often wore a big coat to cover up the bump. Well, she had a French flatmate called Aimee (who mum thinks might have known she was preggers but wasn't sure), who was out at work when my mum went into labour with me. And before walking round to the hospital, mum wrote a note to Aimee saying: 'I have gone to hospital because of the baby,' and a few days later when mum got back from the hospital Aimee got the shock of her life when she saw me because apparently she'd thought the note meant mum was off to have an abortion!

Amazing isn't it, that from such inauspicious beginnings I have now become one of the brightest flames in the blogosphere? So please dear ones, please send me gifts. And if you want to write a tribute, do go ahead, it can be as sentimental or mental as you like. Tell me how and in what way I have touched you (!) And serenade me if you like. Video tributes are also welcome from those with a lot of time on their hands, like this tribute to my famous namesake: