F*ck Santa

Thank God it's over. Christmas that is. I'm not a big fan of the enforced jollility (is that a word), and being cooped up with the fam for more than two hours is often a recipe for argie-bargie. Too many Arians in the place (me, mum and sis). I invited everyone over, including cantankerous Dad, and did the cooking. It was okay, but I kinda missed my mum's food. I watched Dances With Wolves, the big film on Channel 5. Well I'd never seen it before, and as it was three hours long, felt that it would keep me out of harm's way as I tend to be at the centre of the rows. It worked. The day passed without incident, and we all kissed goodbye happily when everyone left.

I got Clarkie two presents. Yes, two. I am officially a bitch without money. Thank God my child is humble. Some Vans checkerboard skate shoes, and a Simpsons DVD. She loved them both, and the other 14 pairs of trainers in her wardrobe won't get a look in now. Her Dad came over to open presents with her before he went to work, showering her with lots of cool gifts, and also gave me one, a sweatshirt made by his designer friend Andrew Ibi which I love. If I didn't know better I'd swear that man was trying to get back into my...good books. But he's all loved up, so I guess not. Am so trying hard to remember why I finished with him...

The only thing I know she didn't get but would have wanted (besides a PSP which she's knows I ain't buying) was a brand new all-singing all-dancing mobile, but not even having more money would have made me buy it. It will only make her a target for crime. Muggings of schoolkids are rife as de pickney dem too bad mind inna London. She was happy with the recycled 3G one she got from her Dad. I received two texts from her today while she was out with Dad. "In the flicks, see you Saturday, love Clarke x", and "We are out of the cinema love lots x". Bless.

Christmas holds bittersweet memories for me. Mainly because I remember the ones spent with my brother's father. Not exactly the life and soul of the party shall we say. When I was nine my Dad went to Jamaica to work (I know, who does that). In the four years he was there, he never sent my mum any money, just some records (quite a few by Lou Rawls) to which her response was: "What 'im tink we fe do, eat de record dem?". By the time he came back my mum had a new man. Dad never fails to mention how heartbroken he was by this. Conveniently failing to mention the woman with four kids he was shacked up with.

Strangely, mum's new man was the brother of my best friend at primary school, which I discovered, early journalistic instincts kicking in, when I questioned him one morning as he lay in my mother's bed. I discovered they shared the same surname. For some reason, my friendship with her faltered soon after, as her family didn't think my mum was good enough for him, and discouraged our friendship. "What a facking liberty!" (copyright comedienne Catherine Tate, buy the DVD). My brother's father was not big on the whole Xmas vibe. I recall one particular Xmas when he ate dinner in his pyjamas. I recognise now that he was probably hung over from spending Christmas Eve in a shubeen, but still that's no excuse. The man was misery incarnate most of the time, and Christmas was no exception.

I liked the Christmases I spent at my Grandma's until she moved to Florida when I was 11. She lived in a house in north-west London, and had a colour TV in a cabinet. You had to slide back the front of the cabinet to turn on the TV. The room was filled with cabinets and ornaments. Hundreds of them. And she had a collection of Beatles albums, and reggae 45s, the one by Tapazuki sticks in my mind. I would stay up all night watching Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire musicals with her. Then go to sleep in her big round bed.

One year she gave me a Sindy ballet doll and a skateboard. Sindy was the bastard sister of Barbie, but as I wasn't really into dolls big-time I didn't care. She nicknamed the doll 'Spooks'. By the end of the night Spooks had no tights, was missing an arm, and I had taken off the head. Like I said, I wasn't really into dolls.

We would all sit round Grandma's big table which filled the whole room, dressed up in our Christmas clothes, hair did in some terrible 'only to be seen at Christmas' hair-don't, wearing black shiny patent shoes (I always remember the shoes). The table was filled from top to bottom, and we ate until we were stuffed like the big-ass turkey she'd cooked. My Gran would drive us home in her grey Vauxhall Viva. She wore leather driving gloves, and some driving shoes which she would put on in the car. And would always wipe the windscreen with her chamois leather. My gran, she's in her 70s now, is so cool, but boy was she cantankerous, yet somehow she always made the magic of Christmas happen.

It's Murder On The Dancefloor

Five days of intensive gym training led me to believe that I looked great in my floor length floaty chiffon, halternecked beaded under the bustline print dress from Ms Selfridge (forget ToSho it will be the store for 2006). A million bucks in fact. I turned up at the Etiquette Christmas 'Ball' unescorted, as my friends had gone elsewhere ( I was joining them later) and spent a couple of hours wafting as elegantly as I could on my spindly heeled Karen Millen sandals. I don't think the shoes were designed to be worn by heffers as they have an unstable heel. But hey, they look fucking good. The trick is to walk slowly - unfortunately it means you look like you think you're 'too' nice. Not a problem for me though.

It's taken me two months to get my ass back in the gym, and even then I had to be nagged and given a free gym pass as I no longer have a membership. M has been my coach for the last two weeks, as I attempted to make myself look halfway decent in time for his ball last Saturday.

When I don't exercise, I feel fat. Whereas when I do exercise, I'm still the same size, but feel slim. Does that make sense? Anyways, on my first day back at the gym, I decide to run for 30 minutes, just to see if I can. And I do. And it was, dare I say it, easy. Even after two months of hanging on the sofa eating all manner of things that would be rejected by anorexics and bulimics. I guess that's what happens when you don't smoke.

This is my fourth week as a ex-smoker, and I've finished attending my smoker's clinic (Obi - how are you doing? *raises eyebrow*). Patches are definitely the way to go. I have six more weeks of them, and that's it. It was funny giving up the evil nicotine. The first week I was depressed. By the second, I was missing me 'old mucker' (friend), the cigarette. It was like it was a real person who had blown me out just when I needed them most (and do I know what that feels like). By week three I was starting to feel like a born again human, real live clothes had replaced the pyjamas and long cardigan I was schlepping around in, and I felt able to venture outside. No wonder people stay addicted to crack, the withdrawals must be a motherfucker.

Now that I don't smoke, I feel more elegant, and...clean. Cos lordy, the first thing you notice when you've stopped smoking is the stench from those that do. It's like I'm a blind person and my sense of smell is compensating for the absence of vision. Having long dreads means anytime I'm out, in a bar, pub or club, by the time I get home, I smell like I've been bathing in ash. To think I smelt like that for 17 years. Boy I was one deluded bitch.

I left the ball after 2am and got a cab to Pikeytown aka Croydon to meet the girls at DJ TLC's birthday bashment. I had an Absolut Kurrant vodka tonic, to which TLC added pink champagne, and then someone sloshed in some brandy. New found demi-sobriety meant I threw half into a potted plant near the dancefloor. After I slurped what was left I knew I couldn't drink anymore on top of the champagne cocktails and V&Ts I'd had at the ball, so just drank water. Can't do high heels and drunkeness anymore.

A couple of guys tried to 'pull' me for a dance, but I weren't up for it. I don't care if it's Christmas, so I politely turned them down. It can be done you know. Then there was the guy who sent his friend to ask me out for dinner. Although he looked like a man he could have been an hermaphrodite, because he definitely lacked balls. And people have the cheek to ask me why I'm single.

M and I had planned to check out the broken beat/future jazz night Co-op the next day. However, the fact that I got in at 6am proved to be too much to overcome. It's official, I can't do two party nights in a row anymore. All day I was busted. I lay on the sofa and drifted in and out of sleep. I bought Sunday dinner, but was too knackered to cook it. Clarke said she was happy with the leftovers from the big pot of chicken I cooked on Friday. God that sounds absolutely terrible.

I could've pushed myself to go, but I would've needed some legal drugs to get me out the door, and I was out of coffee. I guess my years of being first on the dancefloor and last to leave may be about to draw to a dignified close.

Yeah right.

Grudge Dread

Some people say I like to hold a grudge. And you know what, I'ma have to agree with them. In the last week, I've seen two women that I used to go secondary school with. One of whom I had a fight with, and another who was a sheep and sided with the girls in my year who ganged up on me and my best friend. I saw one in the street, and I know she saw me. I had to laugh because she looked busted. Ok, not everyone goes out dressed to the nines, but you know somedays you ain't looking hot and you pray that you don't see peeps you know? That's how she looked. Meanwhile I was rocking my casual 'indie' look, reefer style navy wool jacket, striped pink and black Fred Perry scarf, and jeans, on my racer, looking lo-key f-ly. Got you bitch.

To this day, trust me, I would NEVER, speak to any of them bitches. The other, I saw at another friend's christening party recently. Ditto that. Me just look pon her. Why? Because these girls were part of a gang of girls at our school who bullied me and my best friend.

Bear in mind, all the drama happened about 20 years ago. But when I was hanging with my best friend and baby Mimi today, both of us all grown up and shit, we both realised that even now, we never talk to any of these people if we see them. The people that bullied us, the one's that egged them on, or the ones that just stayed silent in the background while we were being physically or verbally abused on a daily basis for a whole year of school.

Now, you may all know by now, that I'm no pushover. But we were up against practically a whole year of 15 year olds, some 14 year olds and they older sisters who jumped in now and then too. The whole thing was sparked by a feisty comment, surprisingly not made by me. But by my best friend. She said to the main bully while we were doing a trampolining lesson: "Move, 'Bully' you stink." It was typical of the throwaway disses we bandied around at that time. Like saying 'shut up you tramp'. Except this girl took offence, probably because she really did stink.

A whole crew of them followed us to my house, to beat up my friend. Now my best friend was the most bookish person you could meet. She'd only ever had little foolish fights with me, not full on ones with the school bully. I told that girl: "If you want to fight, let's go to your house and do it, cos we ain't fighting outside mine." There was a whole massive of them, the dummies looked at each other, and then said how I shouldn't be sticking up for her because she was African?!? (err she's Nigerian). The 'stink' girl wasn't even Caribbean, she was fucking African too, but was Ja-fakin' it. No. Meaning. Dem gyal was eediot, you think that was gonna make me abandon my friend?

Admittedly, when I first met my best friend, she had a threaded African hairstyle, so I used to call her Spiderwoman. She spoke RP English, unlike me, and knew the answers to all the questions. So I didn't like her. But not because she was African, but because she was smarter than me. But by the second year of school, I bagged a desk next to her, and we became friends. If you've ever read the book The Friends by Rosa Guy, that is me, and my best friend's story in print. Fictionalised of course. She was the good girl, and I was the rebel. Teachers used to warn her about being friends with me. I was a 'distraction', and she should 'choose her friends carefully'. But she never listened to them.

Our friendship was too strong for any such nonsense to come between us. I fought them bitches toe-to-toe, for her and for me, so allow me my little digs at them. They tried and failed to come between something that they knew they could never have. True friendship. I didn't need people like that in my life then, so why would I need to speak to them now? If that's holding a grudge, guilty as charged motherfuckers.

As I sat with my best friend today, after changing my goddaughter's pooey nappy, chewing the fat, and watching the last episode of a cheesy show we're both addicted to (Our New Life in Everwood - 1st series on ITV) I thanked God we came through those tough times together, and that 25 years since we first met, just like old times, as my girl CC, I mean Jill Scott sang (on Beautifully Human), 'I'm Still Here'.

In The Company of Men

Usually my weekend shenanigans (now there's an underused word) involve me and Suzy Wong. But my girl's all blew me out for one reason or another, so I was rolling with my boy M.

I was celebrating on Friday night. No. Not just because it was Friday. But because I finally got the results of my masters. I PASSED. I GOT IT. I have the bit of paper that says and I quote: "This bitch gave up work full-time, slogged her guts out for nine months, drove herself and most of her peeps crazy, fed her child on junk food so she could finish assignments, and busted her ass to get a second degree." Okay it didn't say that, but damn near. Thank you Jesus.

So I was looking forward to an evening out at a new restaurant opened by a friend in Holborn called The Terrace. A nice little place in the middle of one of London's historic architectural landmarks, Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is an enclave for barristers. It's in a park area, which will be lovely in the summertime, as it's light and airy in decor.

My sister met me there and we sat on a table with some people I knew, including some lovely un-smug married couples I know. The food was dope, good portions which didn't leave me feeling like a beached whale. I even managed dessert. We then went to a bar pretending to be a club, Torts in Holborn. Yeah the same place where the gangster heffer threatened to glass me. In my corset dress and pink ballerina style satin Kurt Geiger heels, I wasn't exactly dressed to fight, but decided to assume a defensive position (focus please boys) and stand in one spot all night. Opposite the bar.

Some other guys I knew turned up, and we hung out in the bar area watching the people go by. They forgot I was there, and soon had me rolling up with their withering put downs of women and men (but sadly mainly women) dressed in ways they shouldn't have been, showing parts that didn't need to be seen. There was a woman with huge 'baps', wearing a cheap white halterneck top, and no bra. Her nipples were like headlamps. And she stood all proud and shit just illuminating the spot. Tramp. There were so many badly dressed people in there, they made me feel like I was wearing couture and not high street Karen Millen.

When I did move from my spot to the toilet, there were some hardfaced women in there. The conversation went. "I just pushed her out the way, why should we care about them if they don't care about us". Her friend said "I'm going to be sick." When she came out of the toilet her mate said to me. Let me rephrase that, she shouted at me did I want to use the toilet. No. Thanks.

Saturday night, M asked me to 'follow' him to a club. And before you ask. No, we're not fucking. He picked my up at 2am, or rather his friend Beemer Brother did. Is he trying to hook me up? So there's me, and two fine looking men, out on the town and I'm feeling like a pimp mama. We go to Yeungs. A chinese restaurant trying to be a club. Anyone that's been there hates it. Including me. It's just wrong.

So I'm thinking, what's the protocol when you're with a male friend, and his friend looks a bit 'tasty'? Bearing in mind, me and M are definitely not fucking. But I decided not to flirt. A tad tacky? I went against type (forward and flirty) and played it cool but friendly. BB and I got talking about music, he likes the broken beat/nu-soul scene so we arranged to go CO-OP on Dec 18th, the daddy of broken beat clubs for a proper dancefloor workout. Cos Yeungs be dry like crackers. Trust me, it's gonna be a roadblock. He asked me for my number to hook me up with some broken beat CDs. Cool. But you know, I have a feeling he's not single. I call it 'singlemandar'. It's like 'gaydar', I can just tell.

It was refreshing hanging with 'da man's dem'. Reminded me of my misspent hip-hop youth when often I would be the only girl rolling with a posse. When you're with guys, there's less trips to the toilet, no one's complaining their feet are hurting, and you don't get approached by skanky chancers. Or anyone for that matter. But contrary to popular opinion, judging from Friday night, they are way bitchier than girls. Dem man is 'arsh.

The Family Girl

I really hate being told what to do. Especially by my family. Despite having a child, a home, and a fledgling career in journalism, none of this ever matters once you pass through the threshold of your childhood abode. As soon as you're there, in their eyes you are Don-dons, aged 10 or whatever juvenile age has stuck in their mind.

In two weeks time, I have a party on the same night as my mum's friend's 60th which she's asked me to come to. Even though I planned to go to my party weeks ago. She said: 'It will be nice if we go as a family." In otherwords, if you don't come I will hold it against you for all eternity and constantly refer to your selfishness when we argue. My sister has already started applying the emotional pressure "I'm sure we can make excuses for you if you don't come". The two of them usually join forces against me. But my sister has totted up enough 'no shows' (including Christmas Day 2003) for her loaded comments to carry no weight with me.

If my mum ever 'asks' me to attend anything, I always make the mistake of thinking I actually have a choice. If I say I'm not coming, she gets vex, cusses me out and attempts to makes me feel like the worst daughter in the world. I know I don't go out that often with my mum (mainly because she rarely goes out, and will rarely make the effort to organise anything. What are children for?) but I just hate being made to feel obliged to do it. If I already have plans, why should I change them? Why can't they just accept that I have plans without trying to make me feel guilty about it? Don't get me wrong, I like doing family stuff. I take my mum out on her birthday, organise theatre or cinema trips, or invite her to stay, when she feels able to make the journey from west to south. My mum is only in her fifties, looks younger, but acts like a septugenarian. I attend the funerals, and weddings of her friends, and church occasionally. But the one time you don't attend something is the one time they always want to bring up.

Also, there seems to be a double standard that operates in my family. If my sister says she's going to something and doesn't turn up, it passes with little comment. But if I say in advance that I'm not going to come, all hell breaks loose, and I'm accused of being selfish. Go figure. Obviously, I need to learn to tell a white lie. But I don't see why I should have to do this? I mean, I'm grown, I have my own committments in life, why won't she understand this? It makes me so fucking crazy sometimes. Like today. *Breathe*.