My Madder Fatter Diary (24 page)

‘Camouflage’ – Stan Ridgway

‘All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You’ – Heart

‘Figaro’ – Brotherhood of Man

‘Begin the Beguine’ – Julio Iglesias

‘Brown Girl in the Ring’ – Boney M

I refused to add Sonia on there – there’s a difference between crappers and crap.

They are all OFFICIALLY CRAPPERS. I’m making a tape of other shit we like. We are going to play it in the bar when we want people to piss off!

Do you know, bar this bloody awful terribly worrying war, 1991 has been quite, well, good really.

2.14 p.m.

Just did fortune telling with the
British Book of Hit Singles
as I haven’t done it in ages. Ask the book a question, flick the book to a random page and point. Just asked about me at Hull – will I stick at it?

I got ‘How Will I Know’ by Whitney Houston.

Won’t do that crap anymore!

Wednesday 23.1.91

9.24 p.m.

Everyone would despise me if they knew what shit was in my head. I think horrid stuff. But then I’m sorry. I’m sorry about it. I don’t want people to really die. Never. Except New Kids on the Block. I don’t even want them to die – just suffer a bit.

Thursday 24.1.91

10.14 p.m.

Rang Mort tonight – we’ve been invited to go and see Mega Brain Jane at Cambridge University over the weekend. Mort knows how hard it is for me to go anywhere I sort of don’t know so I’m good with her. Told Mum – she thinks it’s a top idea. It’s the only time I’ll be going to Cambridge University! It’ll be good to see what people who have got their shit together are all about. These are the cleverest, the most confident young people in the country. If not the entire world. Perhaps I can learn something – I don’t mean about ancient Greece or medicine. I mean about how not to be such an idiot.

Saturday 26.1.91

0.55 a.m.

Cambridge University

Yes – the supposed hotbed of academic brilliance and tradition has been exposed as a total load of mainly wankers, pretentious public schoolboys (and I emphasise the BOYS) and basic TWATS. The first ‘friend’ of Jane’s that we met just stuck her Vs up at us. WHY?!

The rooms though are bloody gorgeous. Mort just told me off for farting. Oh I feel like farting. Even if I was a super brain like Jane I couldn’t cope with this place. AND she’s lovely – one of the sweetest, smartest people ever. She let me copy all her work in year 3 and she partnered me at tennis when I could not hit a ball for toffee and she was amazing!

Now Mort is reflecting on some of the people we met at Cambridge – ‘What a bunch of immature wankers.’ I can’t imagine, on the strength of 95% of people I met tonight, why anyone would want to come here!

OK, there’s the prospect of a brilliant job for life but is that worth AT LEAST 3 years of being with TWATS in TWAT CITY! And then when you do end up in a job is it with people like this because I want to be unemployed forever if it is.

The point is I thought I would see people who had it all together – but they seem to be just as messed up as me. Just in a ‘we can pass exams in a better way than you’ way.

My life would be bloody all right without the return of the head shit. This week it’s felt like it was all returning. I’m so frightened. I don’t want to end up like last time. But nobody REALLY knows. Nobody wants to know.

Oh I need Haddock. We talk the same.

NO. I need to meet other people. I need a change. A difference.

I’m spending a lot of time in fields listening to Enigma. It’s Gregorian chanting. Now you think I’ve really lost it but it was number one so the whole of the UK is nuts right now. It’s David bloody Dimbleby everyday talking about war. He makes you feel unhinged. You need monks.

Sunday 27.1.91

6.09 p.m.

Saddam Hussein is withdrawing his troops from Kuwait. I’m pleased for everyone but most pleased that Dimbleby will now go back to doing whatever he does when he’s not making everyone shit themselves about war.

Wednesday 30.1.91

6.24 p.m.

Soho’s ‘Hippychick’ is a work of total sampling brilliance.

That is all I want to say today.

Thursday 31.1.91

3.40 p.m.

Death to my inferiority

I shall go into my chrysalis and RE-EMERGE!

Better, Faster, Stronger.

Now I sound like the Six Million Dollar Man. Wish I was bionic. I know where I’d run right now. Leeds.

Friday 1.2.91

9.35 p.m.

Adnan is going back to Morocco again tomorrow. He HAS to. It makes no sense but if he doesn’t apparently he’ll be breaking some immigration law. Mum has to go to somewhere called Lunar House in Croydon. I think this is to make you prove that you really love someone because no-one would go to Croydon unless they really bloody had to. Even I know that!

I can’t help but think it’s a bit racist though. If he was from America would they be making this much of a fuss? No! Mrs Thatcher let South African Cape apples in the country all during apartheid. I don’t know many black people in the government. In fact I don’t know many black people at all.

Shit! Am I a secret racist?! No I live in Lincolnshire which is like living in Britain in 1952. There are hardly any black people. Except Adnan – and that’s why we get bones through the door.

Saturday 2.2.91

9.22 p.m.

INFERIORITY

If you ever feel inferior

Remember all the times your shoulder was SODDEN with their tears,

Remember the kind words oozing from your emphatic lips,

Recall the strength you showed in the face of their most absurd absurdity and how you pulled them through.

Do not care for the condescension, or the stereotype,

Remember your beauty and never forget

That YOU can be the only one who can consent to your inferiority.

Thank you Eleanor Roosevelt.

I don’t know who the hell you are but thank you.

I always think I can make people feel better. I can’t! Who am I?!

Sunday 3.2.91

7.35 p.m.

THIS IS BEYOND BELIEF.

THIS CONVERSATION JUST HAPPENED –

MUM: I need you to stay in all day tomorrow.

ME: Why?

MUM: Because the British Telecom man is coming to put the phone in.

ME: PARDON???

MUM: We’re getting a home phone. You do need one these days and Adnan can ring me.

ME: So all the time through school when I was desperate for one and we couldn’t afford one we now can because you need to speak to Adnan?!

MUM: And I need to speak to immigration.

I just walked off. I can’t believe it! Not having a phone nearly gave me pneumonia from standing in freezing phone boxes, it completely cut me off from my friends, it stunted my social life, it stopped me from ringing
Going Live
and it probably stopped me (as well as being fat and nuts) from getting a boyfriend because as soon as they asked for your phone number and you said ‘No – I haven’t got one’ they thought ‘skint’ or ‘weird’ and ran a mile.

BUT NOW we are getting one because MUM HAS AN INTERNATIONAL LOVE LIFE.

Not me – not the REAL teenager with a boyfriend to ring.

Brilliant. Oh and apparently she’s thinking of putting a lock on it so I can’t ring who I like if I ‘abuse’ it.

10.45 p.m.

BUT WE’RE GETTING A PHONE!!!! YES!!! No more ‘Hurry up you fat bitch.’ No more ‘Call me back I’ve only got 20p.’ No more ‘Jabba – you posh bitch – I need to ring the DHSS. Some of us have real problems.’ No more spitting either or the smell of piss! GONE. Finished. I can actually talk to people without being ripped to bits.

Monday 4.2.91

7.12 p.m.

Phone man came at about 10. It’s in. It’s white. It’s BEAUTIFUL. I’ve already rung Mort, Dobber, Shellboss, Tegs, Ronni, Battered Sausage, Fig and Haddock’s girlfriend to TELL THEM I HAVE A PHONE.

No – I have not given my phone number to Haddock because if he never rang I’d be gutted and if he did ring I’d end up talking nervous shit.

10.13 p.m.

Yes Mum – 3 people have rung me tonight because I actually have friends. I’m sorry that annoys you but I’ve also had to listen to some of the most vomit-worthy pidgin English love discussions with you and Adnan ever. Just to let you know, what you call my ‘adolescent gossip crapping-on’ is a lot more mature than ‘Love Addy Addy.’ VOMIT!

Tuesday 5.2.91

7.23 p.m.

I just spent an hour on the phone to Mort – which is completely NORMAL. MORT RANG ME – yet Mum starts moaning. I said ‘You do realise how a phone works? If someone rings YOU they PAY’. Mum started shouting ‘You are monopolising that thing.’ This was all in front of Mort! In the end I said ‘I’ll put the phone down and see if you get any calls.’

11.01 p.m.

NOTHING! No phone calls, Mum. Not even from your husband!

11.28 p.m.

No phone calls for me either though which isn’t good considering I’ve told everyone ever I’ve got one.

Thursday 7.2.91

11.09 p.m.

Oh really crappy news tonight. Tegs is leaving running the bar to go and be a nanny/au pair in Geneva. That bar has been SUCH a laugh. That’s another person leaving my life to go and do something I couldn’t even consider doing.

Friday 8.2.91

4.10 p.m.

Fraggle just rang me to see if I would like to go to Peterborough. She’s mega down. She was meant to be ringing me back. That was half an hour ago.

5.36 p.m.

Adnan is talking to Mum on the phone. Standing there tapping my watch just seems to make her talk luvvy duvvy crap for longer. I am YET AGAIN missing out because of my mum’s erotic nonsense. I wonder if the people who are listening to Adnan are thinking the same thing. There might be a teenager in Morocco right now whose social life is getting totally messed up because of this stupid marriage. Young people of the world TAKE OVER and reclaim our right to love. I’m sorry, so-called grown-ups, if you messed it up – but why should you get to be 19 at nearly 50?!

6.03 p.m.

Just put ‘3 a.m. Eternal’ on. LOUD.

6.23 p.m.

Mum has just been up ‘I know what your game is!’ I said ‘Well since you’re acting like a teenager I thought you might appreciate some young music rather than your usual Kenny Ball jazz shit.’ I think the combination of swearing and pointing out she is acting like a TOTAL FOOL sent her totally mad because apparently my board is being raised for no reason other than I play my music too loudly and it’s all ‘BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM.’ My mum really is a completely mature role model for life. PATHETIC!!

Tuesday 12.2.91

11.55 p.m.

Diary, being as it’s you I’m very sorry I’ve been neglecting you. I can tell you. It’s the old trouble again. Collapse of mind. Totally irrational thoughts. When I have time and space they all rush in. Same shit – that I control everything, that I am God or that God hates me. That I have to hit myself to stop stuff happening.

Mum is right – I do need a job but she’s totally wrong about The KLF. That’s why it’s sometimes difficult to listen to her. She gets some stuff SO not right.

Thursday 14.2.91

10.12 p.m.

I have sent myself a Valentine in my head today.

It’s one from Haddock OBVIOUSLY. Change the Mel and Kim song ‘Respectable’ to ‘Predictable’ and you have MY song.

Dear Rae. If I could get my head enough out of my perfect arse I could see you were perfect for me. In every way. Unfortunately my head IS up my perfect arse and therefore I am unable to go out with you/do you/at least help all the terrible shit that is swimming round your head.

However when I wake up from the twat coma I am in we will be together.

Love Haddock.

WHAT IS LOVE?
(No – NOT the Howard Jones version)

I think love is pretty cruel,

I don’t believe it’s blind.

It can see the things it wants to see

It can detect a miniskirt a mile off.

A pretty face, a skinny waist

It can’t see within this head

If it could it would not love

It would run like hell

So I bind her up behind closed doors

I cut myself and pray on floors

I keep her secret.

She leaks out sometimes

I see how people react.