"Gunshot Inna De Air"

Three things let me know I was back home and the holiday was well and truly over; I had to do housework, I had an argument with my mum, and there was a shooting in Brixton.

Clarkie and I were shopping in Brixton at the time of the shooting. I had popped down there to look for a new washing machine, and buy some meat from the market. I also ended up buying a new bike. Brixton was mad busy. There were lots of schoolchildren walking in posses looking smart in fresh new uniforms, and eating chips and takeaways on the road(not my child).

The shop that sells washing machines is about five minutes from the main high street in Brixton, and when we came back to the central area to go to Iceland, the road outside Brixton was cordoned off with police tape. A now all too-familiar sight. According to the Evening Standard, a man opened fire on two teenage boys who were in the queue in McDonalds, in front of children and families. Suzie Wong said one of her co-workers daughters witnessed the whole thing, she called her mum from McDonalds.

This gun shit is getting well out of hand. Apparently while I was away there a number of shootings around London. Why I find it so disturbing is because my daughter is at an age where she commutes to school by herself, and to places nearby, like Suzie Wong's house. Now I'm feeling more and more obliged to get a car and ferry her around more, as I just don't feel it is safe for her to travel about on her jacks.

What must the parents of those teenagers be going through. The government needs to do more to get the guns off the street, and to protect the people. But I doubt that they will. Things are so bad, that despite paying a tax which is supposed to provide these services, people are paying out of their own pockets to hire private security firms. Tony Blair owns a £3m house in Connaught Square, just off Edgware Road (ten minutes from Marble Arch). The residents there are paying a security firm to ensure their safety after muggings and burglaries. If these rich motherfuckers don't feel secure on their own doorsteps, what chance do we have.

"Ah Your Name Mention Tonight"

I'm back. I survived the hardest week of partying ever. RJS is like the black people's Ibiza, without the Class A drugs. OK, a fair bit of weed smoking was gwaaning, but other than that, the stimulant of choice was a bottle of Courvoisier. Make that bottles. Damn - black folk have a capacity for drinking on a scale that makes white folk look teetotal. And not one fight did I see after the dances ended. Unless you count the scrum for the chicken shop. After Mistri put on one of his CD's at the food spot, one girl said: "Only black people could turn a chicken shop into a rave." Sho' you right.

As a RJS virgin, I didn't really know what to expect, but there were many highlights during the week.

JAMAICAN ANGELS
Most nights we had a theme for the evening's party. The 'cheerleaders' and 'ballers' night was one of the best nights. Although it was stupid of the organisers to split the dance between two venues. That was also the night I drank the most which culminated in me doing a pretty good impression of dancehall queen Carlene. The fact that for once I was in a rave in trainers, usually a no-no, meant that me and my old dancing partner Suzie Wong (or Swellin' as we renamed her due to her moodiness) could relive our past and buss moves like we used to back in the day. Once the ragga came on, the 'Jamaican Angels' as the DJ christened us (due to our Jamaican cheerleader outfits) while biggin' us up on the mic, danced like no one was watching and let loose with some moves. One of my friends said 'I have never seen you like that before'. Probably because after an hour my hot shoes ah give me hot foot.

SURVIVAL STORY
It was amazing how quickly I got used to the lack of sleep. Once you accepted that with six girls sharing you would always get woken up (especially cos we are not quiet girls) you were better off. My strategies for coping with the lack of sleep were: drinking lots of water, eating lots of protein. Using anti-shadow eye cream, the Lizzie Arden 8 hour cream worked a treat too. And a few hours sunbathing and a swim a day worked wonders.

DA MANS DEM
There were quite a few about, but only one caught my eye. Of course he was the wrong one. Really losing faith in my ability to recognise a good one, so am urging all decent men to step up to the plate. I don't know why guys feel that women should be running them down. In my experience, most men feel intimidated if women have the confidence to talk to them and let them know she's interested. Most men are quite simplistic in their thinking: "If she does this with me, she's like that with everyone." Long. One guy said to me "You're a 'circuit girl'". Meaning I am a regular on a particular scene. Usually this is in no way a compliment. Can I just confirm that this is not a way to endear yourself to a woman you may be interested in. The following night after we danced to a couple of tunes, the man was looking around like a meerkat. So I said: "Why are you looking around like that?" and he said "You're acting like you already own me." Damn son. I walked off and left that mo'fo standing and did not chat to him again. Imagine if I had run it down. I would have felt like a ee-diot.

Other than that fool, I met some really nice guys, especially when I was playing volleyball, and went go-karting, we had a laugh together, and from what I could see (when I wasn't half-drunk) they treated the girls with respect. People were really friendly most the time, and it was good to see my community enjoying themselves.

DA GIRL'S DEM
You know the competitiveness between girl's always rears it's head when man is in short supply, and this was no different. Girl's would just walk past without even a morning 'dawg'. But for once, no one tried to 'chuck it' with us. There was plenty of looking, and 'blanking' going on. But I made a point of saying morning to most people I saw that were part of the RJS group. Anybody black basically. There were some girls that Suzie Wong identified as long time haters, so out of group loyalty tried to avoid them. But this got harder and harder as the week went on because I would be 'lean up' and just forget who was who! Also, some girls would appear friendly, but you know they were just trying to 'eggs up' with your group because we were friendly with certain man. It's not about that.

One guy said 'the quality' of the girl's was the best yet on an RJS trip. So for the man's dem it was cool. It definitely appeared that lots of the girl's made a big effort to look the part, although I would say that some were showing too much T&A at points, but that's their ting, just not mine.

POOL PARTY
We were lounging by the pool one day and it was pretty quiet except for a ipod playing on some speakers. Then one of the DJs, 'T' went and got his laptop and speakers and that was it, bashment. We were out there for six hours in the blazing sun. I rocked my 'retro' skirted bikinis which got props, and felt pretty comfortable doing the walk from the lounger to the swimming pool despite being surrounded by lots of skinny bitches. Mission accomplished. My tan is dark burnished brown and hopefully should survive well into the wintertime.

I always used to think when I travelled to Europe, it would be nice to do this with a group of black folk because we would have the music and the vibes in the evening time. And it really lived up to my expectations.

THE WONG SISTERS
I had a really good time with Suzie Wong's sisters. Pure joke from Gina Ling, Michie, and Gill. I have known them for a long time through Wong, but you don't really know people until you live with them. I was a bit 'fraid because them lot can argue nuff when they're together(I know I can talk) but it was cool. In a way they were my saving grace as Wong spent nuff time sleeping (boring) so we would go off and do stuff together.

One of the arguments Gill and Gina had was the funniest thing I've ever heard. Come like argument soundclash. First of all, it kicked off because Gina's shower gel was finished and she was 'bent' (upset). During the middle of the shouting and screaming (as we were getting ready) Gina started singing: "I ain't never scared, I ain't never scared" and Gill sang back: "Yuh too bad mind, yuh too bad mind". I nearly wet myself. Never before have I heard people 'clash' each other while arguing. Tears did come in me eye. After that we just would sing 'I ain't never scared' to each other and collapse in fits if laughter.

MENTION
One of the RJS organisers came up to me, half-cut I think and said: "Don't t'ink seh I ain't notice you.Me ah watch you. Ah your name mention tonight." (Translation: I'm am the hot girl) Did I mention he is white. Deep. After that, it became the catchphrase of the trip. If we saw a guy that looked alright - we just shortened it to 'mention'.

Day Six: I´m A Soldier

I can´t remember functioning on so little sleep since I first became a mum. This is just stupid.

Wednesday night: 4 hours
Thursday night: 2 hours
Friday night: 3 hours
Saturday night: 4 hours
Sunday night: 5 hours

Red Bull is my new best friend, and I choose alcoholic drinks according to which will make me more lively, hence I was drinking tequila shots last night. Which along with champagne, and vodka did not give me a hangover.

Had a brilliant day by the pool. The soundmen (djs) do not go anywhere without their music. So power was jacked poolside, laptop plugged in and tunes blazed out like the sun all day. The coolie girl tan is on lock. And funnily enough, I´m beginning to function rather well now.

Day Four: No Sleep Til´....

Forget holiday. The raving marathon continues. And so does my headache. Last night´s rave was at Lineker´s Bar, and Rampage flew in the spice things up a bit. I decided to have a ´dry´ night, no alcohol, and stuck with water. It´s not about falling sick from too much alcohol and dehydration.

Have got to know a few people from playing volleyball (mainly guys) and just being friendly in general. The woman to man ratio is high as expected, with around 10 girls to 3 man. It´s not really an issue for me, but it does manage to breed a bit of resentment among the girls, and in the toilets conversations seem to centre on the fact that women are ´screwing´ (eyeballing) each other. So far so good. Bad breed Butterfly has not had to make an appearance. I pray it stays that way as the lack of sleep generally affects my mood adversely making me even more short tempered than usual.

Other than that, there is generally a good atmosphere at the parties, and the men that are there are being respectful. Everyone is drinking sensibly and we´ve had no casualties, and don´t expect to, but this ´holiday´is not for the fainthearted. Because of my headache I really wasn´t feeling staying out late, but just as I was about to leave they started dropping the old school ragga and I couldn´t leave. We closed the dance at 7am....

I was well impressed with myself (´llow me) as I was wearing some of those fashionable short shorts. I have not worn shorts out in public since....19 long time. All that work did pay off as I felt good, and wasn´t feeling paro (noid) about my big thighs. I wore them with my jewelled TopShop wedges (last season) for added height and a nice black silky wrap top from ToSho (two seasons). It is nice to get dressed up everyday and go somewhere, that´s one of the nice things about holidays. You don´t really have a ´butters´(ugly) day.

I´ve had 2.5 hours sleep and we´re going on a day trip to the beach. I have my yellow polka dot bikini on, and the coach will be here in 15 minutes. I´m going for a full english now (sorry personal trainer). OY OY!!!

21.56pm

I went to bed with a headache brought on no doubt by the high level of alcohol consumption and over-exertions on the dancefloor. And then I woke up with it. I swum with it, sunbathed with it, and despite the 3.5 Panadol Extras ingested, have still not managed to shake it. It´s my third night here, and third party. Last night I must have got in at 6am, and was still called a lightweight.

There´s Karaoke at 11pm, suffice to say, they will not be seeing my black ass. Black people take karaoke too seriously. People act like they´re on American Idol and Simon Cowell is judging them. I´m only going to watch, so I´ll just try and sleep, something I´m finding hard to do for long with five other bodies our ñiving quarters. Someone gets up and starts talking (loudly) and that´s it, you´re up.

It´s gonna be a struggle to stay looking human on this punishing schedule. But tomorrow´s the all-day beach party. Gotta fix up and look sharp by then *yawns*.

The Malaga Diaries: We Run Tings, Tings Noh Run We

Finally got to Malaga after the journey from Hades. Stupidly early flight meant we were awake for twenty-four and then some hours. Some people didn´t handle it well.

The first two days Suzie Wong was acting like the baddest bitch. Sleep deprivation made her a monster and we were all suffering. Michie Wong is filming the trip and when she played back the footage of Suzie Wong acting up, she couldn´t believe she was really going on like that.

We got to the first night´s rave around 2.30am. Everyone really looked good. Grown and sexy in dresses. I was wearing a full length halter necked number from Miss Selfridge I bought last year. It´s a style that´s become very fashionable this year. And yes I am bigging up myself for being fashion forward. I teamed it with a pair of snakeskin print open-toe wedges which I found in East Street for £5.99. The shoes dem look good, and for once I did not complain of foot pressure. Praise Jesus.

Everyone was sleeping before the dance except me because I was restless. So I went and ate some food, found a Baskin Robbins and had a sundae, and made like E.T. Phoned. Home. We´re in Fuengirola a real English people´s holiday spot. The Spanish like to stare a bit, but it don´t really bother me. Some English tourists have been a bit funny. One of them said as some of the girl´s we know walked by¨"Don´t ever let me go out with one of them." As if you bombarass. And why is it the English always have to wear an England football shirt on holiday? What´s that about. Then they act stupid and everyone knows, it´s the English football hooligans.

We had a sports day yesterday. After doing a bit of sunbathing, I played volleyball for a couple of hours. It was really good fun, and there were lots of buff guys playing. Heh heh heh. But unfortunately despite my efforts at marshalling ´my´ team. We lost three times in a row. The girls on the team let us down because they couldn´t play at all, it was embarassing. I love sport, and was always the captain of the teams at school. My pet hate is girl´s that can´t catch or throw a ball. So you know I spent time with my babygirl teaching her how to catch ball. And she´s very good. Some of these girls don´t seem to know what their hands can do other than apply make-up.

Last night we had our ´cheerleader´theme night. We went as Jamaican cheerleaders. We had these Jamaica vests and short black skirts. (I had some black adidas boxing boots too). The djs bigged us up nuff on the mike. As soon as we got in the dance we were ´brukking out´like we were in that David LaChapelle film ´Rise´. Well I was anyway. Because we were wearing trainers, we were able to really dance properly for once, not just do the ´foot pressure´ two-step. All the dances I usually reserve for my living room in front of the TV came out. I felt like 18 again.

The alcohol measures out here come like when you go house party. Half the glass is filled with alcohol, and I´m talking tall glasses. So as the night wore on, and we got merrier and merrier, the dancing got more and more outlandish. When the dancehall music came on that was it. The Jamaican came out in me and I was bending down backways in a half-crab, and dropping down on the floor booty-shaking. Shabby. I hope the big black knickers did cover my modesty.

The Spanish people working in the bars have been wicked. And lots of Spanish people have been coming into the bars just to rave with us. They are so amazed by the whole scene in the clubs, and were baffled when everyone was singing along to the popular tunes. Chris Sweeney, one of the promoters for the trip said they wanted to know how everyone knows the words to the songs.

That´s one of the things I love about these type of dances. It´s very Jamaican. For some people it´s too old-fashioned, and they say it hasn´t changed in years. But that´s what I like about it. Even though my parents are Jamaican, I was born in England. But going to these dances I feel I get to express my Jamaicanness to the full. I mean, I can hardly start singing and dancing and saying ´wheel´when I´m working at some newspaper can I!

We're All Going On a Summer Holiday

Despite my recent blog big-up in a free London paper, I have not actually been posting anything for new readers (wishful thinking) to digest. Duh.

Apologies for the MIA behaviour, but Butterfly got a grown-ass gig, still freelance but some regular hours in-house at one of the big papers. It's all good, a bright shiny building in one of London's ritziest areas. It's a small 'hack' (journalist) world, and I keep bumping into people I studied with at City – aka the 'hacks' finishing school - as well as others I just know from around the journo way.

I have to do my usual BPHC (black people headcount) just to see who is about and how many. There's actually quite a few outside the kitchen, and not wearing the uniform of the cleaning company.

The brothers in the staff cafeteria are being their usual interested selves. I'm polite and stuff, but one of them pissed me off when he asked me where I was from. I said my parents are Jamaican. "You don't look Jamaican." I said: "What does Jamaican look like?" And the man pulled a 'screwface'. Whatever.

"Where are you from?", I asked. "Nigeria". "Are you Ibo or Yoruba?" He said: "Yoruba". Eh heh. "How do you know about Ibo and Yoruba?". I said: "I might be Jamaican, but I am not ignorant." And tried to walk off in as dignified a manner as I could muster which was quite hard in my too tight pencil skirt.

A summer of freelancing at home has taken its toll of my office fashion. Lots of raving garms, and not enough work garms. It doesn't help that it coincides with the change in the fashion season, and we're having an Indian summer. Que nightly wardrobe trauma as I put aside an hour to get something half decent together. It's not that I care that much, but it's mainly because I will end up being late if I do it in the morning.

Every night I go through the wardrobe and try to pull together something which is not too revealing, not too tight, doesn't make me look fat, and doesn't crease too much when I fold it as I ride to work. As you can imagine it's a lot more pressure than my usual style choices, 'thigh-skimming' or 'boob-flashing'?

Next week I'm off on my holidays to Malaga. Yes, it's finally here, the trip I have been wanging on about for some months now. I ran, biked, jumped and humped. Ok, forget the humping. Got a personal trainer, and took up cycling in a big way. I dropped a dress size, lost inches, and two chins. Unfortunately the holiday coincides with major tummy bloat and extreme body dissatisfaction. But the first heffa I see bigger than me will soon put that into perspective. Trust me there's always someone on the beach fatter than you, wearing something they shouldn't, and looking like they're having a better time. So don't watch that.

I have 'molto' bikini's (many), some cute Kelis style skirted ones and some skimpy triangle ones for when I start feeling brave after I've had a few days in the sun to cover the old cellulite. Although the word is that some brothers like cellulite. Thank god for pervy brothers.

It's a group holiday, a black 18-30 (more like 18-50) and I'm sure there are will be plenty of 'saga's' to tell. Although the mantra is: "What goes on in Malaga, stays in Malaga." And I shall be keeping a diary. Web addict that I am, I will probably update at least once. I have three aims for the holiday:

1. Nothing will happen on anyone else's time except mine. I will not rush for no one, and I do not response to no one but me. ME ME ME. For a whole week I will not hear: "Mummy can you...can I...can we..I need...my hair..where are...what's for dinner...". Sorry babe - but mummy be back soon.

2. I will enjoy spending time with my bredrin Suzie Wong who made this possible for me, her sisters and Lou. Grown women with wildy different personalities and it will be a challenge at times no doubt. But, it's all about enjoyment, so hopefully any negatives will not last long. The less said about the last set of women I went away with the better. Let's just say, they didn't know the 'road code'. Man was the be-all and end-all and certain gyal did lose their mind over a 'wotless' boy.

3. I will make time for myself to go and explore the town, have some authentic Spanish tapas, buy some shoes (it is Spain after all) and find some vintage clothing. I always did love the flamenco look.

Other than that I'm gonna rave it out, and come back bruk up with a 'coolie girl' tan. Wish you was dere!