*Canin' It Like Amy

The Bobo Dread said 'I don't know how you do it' after I recounted the bank holiday weekend runnings. And sometimes neither do I. I think it's something to do with stress-relief from my J.O.B. When I work hard, I like to play hard too. Okay, there are a few weekends when I am just not feeling the fuck-me-pumps and freakum dress...I counted three last year! But in general, 50 hours a week at the plantation equals 8 hours downtime on the dancefloor on the weekend.

It's dating central in the world of B' Jones, nothing too serious, but a drink here, a movie there, and a link-up at a party there. It's all good, and a sign that summer really is around the corner as everybody gets their flirt on, and is keen to lock down a few summer bunnies.

Went to a salsa/r 'n' b night with one of the Wong Sisters, Michie. A bit of an unusual combination, but then it is run by an American. You can have a lesson at 8pm, and then try out your new-found skills for the rest of the evening. Or if like me you would rather just sit and laugh at folk who have got it horribly wrong, you can hold a corner and wait for the R 'n' B to start.

It was in a nice bar in the City (aka The Square Mile). These bars tend to hire out their venues to black promoters on the weekend, as long as your crowds not too 'gangsta'. But during the week the only blacks you'll see there are the 'tokens' admitted to the city enclaves.

I met up with a friend up there, and we hung out drinking vanilla vodka's, and mojitos. He introduced Michie to one of his friends who was desperate to get all up in the business. It was all good until Mich mentioned she was a mother-of-three...then that mofo couldn't run fast or far enough. I wouldn't mind, but for one he seriously wasn't all that, and secondly, as we left we saw him exchanging numbers with what looked like a human gargoyle (I keeps it real). Pickney or no pickney she could not walk in my bredrin's shoes. Done know.

We headed out of there around 2am to go meet Wong and G-Ling to go to a club called Twilights in Canning Town. All set for a long night out we got there around 4am. The place was 'brass' (means broke, you have no dough/or a place is empty - to us!). First of all, there was a flat screen showing the boxing, so the men that were there were transfixed by it, secondly, the rave was half-empty. That could have been something to do with the fact that someone did 'lick shot' (fire a gun) at the last dance there. We kinda forgot about that.

Over the last month, there have been two robberies at well-known south London clubs, Illusions, and Brockwells. As a result it seems that peeps are being scared off from raving. And who can blame them. These cowards went into clubs and robbed people at gunpoint. Funny, because I don't see them niggas trying it up in the white people's clubs. Is this what we have come to? Whatever, it ain't going to make me want to go to Chinawhite's and those other eediyat West End clubs where you have to be on the guestlist and show your breast, or your coochie in a tiny dress (no panties necessary) so that some feisty doorman will let you in. Them days are surely over.

We didn't feel like we really raved that night as they shut it early - at 6am. Yes that is early for Twilights, as it usually goes on until 10am. So eager to shake two foot, we went out Sunday night. I was mashed all day from the night before, but managed to cook a much-needed roast dinner, and after hours on the sofa, and a hair of the dog shot of peach schnapps went out the door again.

We passed by Brixton bar Zed - not my favourite place as it's full of local yokels, yardies and young gyal. But some friends wanted to meet in there. It's a complete pick-up joint. But most of the men are complete pussies and prefer to just play the staring game in the hope that they will crack the Mona Lisa-like expression on your face. No such luck.

It finished at the stupidly early time of 12am. Still not feeling sated, we went on to a drinks free all night dance at Virgo's - a place we usually scorn. And guess what, that was brass too.

Fuck it - I drank my money's worth of brandy, flung two foot and danced with a cute guy. We headed out at 5am when my feet had had all they could take. I'm considering having Botox injected in them, cos dem heels are surely putting a hurting on my feet.

How do I do it? Well I paid for it the next day. Tired as fuck I still had to complete my housework, 'look after' my child (thank god she's 13) and get myself sorted for work. By 8.15pm I was in my bed, reading the weekends newspapers for work. I think that will be my new bedtime all fucking week.


*Canin' it: hardcore raving, drug-taking, drinking, whatever - just doing it to the max.

Summer is coming...

The weather was really good for April (thanks global warming) and it was even sunny on my birthday for once, instead of the usual torrential rain. I got my new bike, she's a beauty, but bike theft is the latest inner-city sport so until I insure it, it nah go nowhere if I have to leave it on road.

Started running (again), as it took me two weeks to recover from the weekend of no sleep. I'm at the point where I resent the fact that I have an obligation to keep fit. Which basically means I'm out of shape. Again. Anyways after a pep talk from The Man Who Has Muscles In All The Right Places, who gave it to me straight (ouch you bastard) I knew I had to get back on the hoss.

The girls are running Mondays and Wednesdays and I plan to join them. Summer is coming blood. So I made the run from Kensington, through the park down to Knightsbridge, St James Park and then to Vauxhall. It was LONG. But it took me the same time as taking the tube home - which I hate - and was a great deal more pleasant.

New season clothes are in the shops and I'm always amazed at the new and varied ways the fashion industry come up with to make you feel like a mampy (heffa, fat, obese). Playsuits are a big feature, mini skirts and of course shorts. Think I'll give all of those a miss. Plus wide legged jeans. My legs are already wide - why would I want to draw attention to that? Gap make jeans for people with thighs the size of teenagers, and I clearly am not one which is why I can't buy a pair of jeans there.

I wish I could just wake up one day with the body I had at 21 - it was dope, but of course I never appreciated it. I'm trying to bring that bitch back.

Wish me luck!

Bad girl for life

I saw an old friend on Friday at my regular once a night club Blacktronica, and he asked me what happened to the blog. What can I say, but life got in the goddamn way. That four letter word that tends to rule most people's lives, W.O.R.K got in the way. Now I am a fully paid up staff member it seems that people are intent on finding new ways to make it less enjoyable for me. Like my start time. It's 7.30am EVERY FUCKING DAY! Ok, I do get to finish at 4.30 (ish) which means I have no excuse not to put a home-cooked meal on the table, but it means I have become one of those boring-ass people who desperately tries to get into bed at a decent hour. I have even retired (once) at 9.30pm for the evening. I must be getting fucking old.

Days of working like a dog turned into weeks, and its been over a month since I last posted. But, rest assured, I always make time to enjoy meself. Ya hear!

I turned thirty-eight last week. THIRTY FUCKING EIGHT ARRRRGGGHH! What a nonsense. How dare I get here so bloody quickly. I'M NOT EVEN MARRIED YET! I've had one proposal, no gotdamn ring (note to men - do not propose and then don't buy a ring - it's mad cheap), and a long-term relationship which didn't end with kids or marriage. I am basically a typical black woman.

So to 'celebrate', because despite the whinge, I was happy to celebrate it - I dragged the girls to a raving 'weekender' in Great Yarmouth. Now I don't know the origin of these things, and how they started, but I know my mum used to talk about 'coach trip' back in the day. So basically, a load of black people (99.5 per cent apart from the bar staff - and a couple of bashy white girls) descended on a 'holiday village' in this seaside town for a weekend of raving. It was both mine and Michie Wong's birthday so we wanted to go. Basically it was a duty rave for them. Even at the big old age of 38, if you say you want to go white-water rafting on your birthday, really and truly, no one should complain (of course this being black folk, they would). A couple of the girls didn't want to go...so we left dem.

Anyway, I will admit, a flirtation of mine was attending, which made me a bit keener to go. Work was kicking my bloody ass and the date couldn't come soon enough. Going into the weekend, I was really tired, but was looking forward to relaxing on the four-hour coach journey up there. Suzy Wong's mum made the fried chicken, and saltfish fritters (out of this world), and we sipped brandy handed out by the reps.

Each night had a different theme, and the first night was school uniform. (I know you want to see pictures Zed!). The second was a Masquerade Ball, and third night African Wear. All I can say is that in 72 hours, I got all of 10 hours sleep. I'm not sure whether I should be proud or disgusted that I have the stamina to rave drug-free (apart from alcohol which I do think I am addicted to) from 4am in the morning to 4pm the next day. Because that is what I did one night. It was deep. But we just had so much fun. I've not had such a good time since Malaga last year. We met lots of nice brothas, the sistas were friendly, and the music was on point.



We were the only girls on the floor of our row of chalets, and right next door, we had some good-looking brothers. Of course it did not take us long to get acquainted. Wong's opening line to the cris 6ft 4 fine-ass brotha in football shorts ' you have nice legs'. LOL! She keeps it real. And he had a brother. Yes I got the digits.



Highlights of the weekend were Michie getting drunk on homemade rum punch within the first four hours of us arriving, and having to sleep it off. She later had to be carried back to the chalet after too much Brandy, but amazingly reappeared in the dance two hours later having a little nap to finish off the night (morning).

School uniform night was fun, our friends brought a pen so we spent the night writing on each other's shirts. One guy wrote 'sexiest chick in town' on mine. I'm a sucker for a good compliment, and so he got a dance. I wrote 'virgin' (not on mine of course) on this young-looking guy's shirt (he was 36 but looked 18). The masquerade night was hot, DJ PC Mistri played a salsa tune, and as I expressed myself with some salsa moves, I was surrounded by a group of the guys all cheering me on. Hotness.

My flirtation didn't really work out, we had a bit of a tiff before we left for Yarmouth, so I put in a call to a 'break in case of emergency' flirtation, and he turned up and didn't leave my side the whole weekend. Oh well. You schmooze you lose.

I think I'm getting the hang of this single life ting.

Streets of blood

Another week, another killing. A 16-year-old boy chased along the street by a gang of youths and stabbed. To death. This happened in the area close to where I grew up in west London. Like Marvin Gaye once sang: “What ‘s going on?” I feel helpless, powerless when I hear this kind of ‘news’. My friend’s daughter knew the boy. Like Aids in the 80s, soon we’ll all know someone who has lost a child, a partner or a loved one in some senseless attack.

Daughter complains about the fact that she can’t go out with her friends on the weekends. They like to go wandering out of the area (south London). The way London is, and has always been is, you don’t visit ‘ends’ you are not familiar with, where you don’t know peeps or peeps who know peeps. People will start ‘armshouse’ with you.

Some of her friends have the freedom to roam the streets after school, and on the weekends. But now they don’t ask her to meet them to wander London after she attends Saturday school, because they know she cannot go. This upsets her a bit but she accepts it. I say: “I can’t help it if they have parents that don’t care about them. Be thankful you have parents that care about you.”

Her year head phoned me once to moan. She asked me: “Does Clarke spend a lot of time in adult company?”. As opposed to what? She’s at school more than she’s at home but she is an only child, and during the week, she goes to school and comes home, so she spends a lot of time with ME. Where else should she be? What would she prefer? That she spends more time with her friends roaming the streets of south London so she would have less of a smart mouth and not argue the toss with the teachers?

She has a friend across the road, and hangs out with Suzie Wongs son. They go to the park, play football, watch football and wrestling and play on the computer. They get involved in random kickabouts, and everyone goes home exhilarated. I get a play by play of the goals she scored. That’s the normal childhood shit we know and love. And that's how I'd like it to stay for as long as possible. But of course I know it won't.

This shooting kids in their homes, stabbing them on the street, that’s the shit like most people I just can’t understand. I’m scared for my child. She uses public transport, I’m at work when she’s travelling home. What would I do if someone took her life so cheaply? People are raising murdering little bastards who will take your child’s life for looking at them the wrong way, and not being from the same ‘ends’.

I don’t want to just watch this happening. I want to help, I want to find solutions, I want to get involved.

I don’t want my child to be next.

Catching feelings

I'm experiencing way too many emotions at the moment. One of the side-effects of quitting smoking. After my run, I feel high, only to crash and start feeling tearful an hour later. Last night I got tearful watching some old video of Heaven 17 (can I just say YouTube is sick - I know I'm late).



I'd been watching this singer Beth Ditto sing a version of their song Temptation with Jarvis Cocker at the NME awards on YouTube. Beth Ditto is an American singer from a band called Gossip (I think), she's unashamedly BIG, and is seriously 'fierce'. This is a woman who puts the 'F' into fat. There are a lot of fat girls out there who could do with half an ounce of her confidence, and just from watching her perform I don't believe it is false confidence. For a start she's got a wicked soulful voice, she can really 'sang'. And tons of stage presence. Watch this space on that girl.

So as I watched the original version of Heaven 17 on Top of the Pops, I began to well up. This was the music I loved when I was a teen, Heaven 17, Human League, Depeche Mode, Adam and the Ants, Carly Simon, Scritti Politti, David Bowie. And now it was in an internet archive, like some dusty old file stored away to be accessed by sad old gits like me. *Sighs*. I was going to buy their greatest hits on iTunes but thought I'd ask my music geek mate at work first Irish Dave. We similar taste in music, except that he actually spends his money on it, whereas I only buy shoes.

He always tuts when I come back from lunch with a bag which obviously contains shoes, and I tut when he comes in with yet another bag of CDs...which I then get him to burn for me. Obviously this is a one-sided friendship. Of course he already owned the CD I wanted to buy.

I'm not really that interested in new music. Apart from Amy Winehouse (right Lois). The songs of my youth have more resonance for me. Provoking memories long buried, and rarely remembered. People, places, clothes, and events come rushing back. If I hear something like Run DMCs 'Sucker MCs' or Mantronix's 'Ladies', I start breakdancing and bodypoppin like I was 17 again. To my daughter's embarassment. OK, I could never breakdance, but I could uprock. And still can after a few vodkas, even in heels. If you don't get what I'm talking about. Listen to Chaka Khan's 'I Feel for You'. Now you get me right?

As I approach my 38th year, looking back and reminiscing about the 'old days' is becoming more and more a part of my life. A life, which in some ways,still feels like its barely begun. Not for want of trying. I've packed in quite a bit, but why do I still feel like I'm at the beginning? Why don't I feel like a grown-up yet? And do I even want to?

The time is now

If you hadn't noticed, new season spring/summer stock is in the shops. And if, like me you're not buying anything new because you are wearing the extra seven pounds you gained over the winter (okay a fucking stone then), now is the time you get your phat ass up off the sofa, and get busy calorie burning.

Contrary to popular belief, smoking does not keep you slim, it just gives you cancer, so that experiment is over. After a run to Victoria during which I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest, something had to give. So the patches are back on, and the mental affirmation, 'smoking kills, even you you fat bitch', is my new mantra.

I have set up a 21-day challenge with my buddy who works at the Other Big Time Newspaper in Wapping, to exercise each day for the next 21 days. Well, we have weekends off. We have to do a minimum of a 20 minute run, walking does not count. So far so good, I ran Monday, and today (even though it was raining). And I already feel more positive, I prefer being a smug fit person, to a smoke-infested lardy one. I'm even considering giving up the demon drink for the 21 days. Ok, I considered it. No fucking chance.

So people we are in March now - if you have a holiday, or a summer wardrobe you like and want to wear again - brave the elements, join a gym, or get a bike - and start moving that fat ass.

Sex counts too - but if you have a two-minute man, I guess you might have to find another activity to top you up.

Bada Boom! Bada Bing!

I really didn't feel like going out on Saturday night - don't faint - but then I didn't really feel like staying in. I was working on Sunday, so staying in was not an option when you have five days of stress to look forward to. Like Biggy said, 'mo money, mo problems'.

Apart from Wong picking me up to do my food shop (so handy now she's driving) I spent most of the day on the sofa after taking two rinky dink paracetamol for the headache I'd had since I woke up. Surely one glass of red wine couldn't have done that. I usually take stronger painkillers, but since reading about Robbie Williams addiction to painkillers I began to re-assess my enthusiasm for Co-Codamol. Needless to say the paracetamol did absolutely nothing for my headache which fast began to turn into a migraine. Having suffered through a phase of migraines which saw me throwing up every day for a week and end up on a drip in hospital I rang Suzy Wong for some painkillers and got my ass ready to go out.

Wong is the painkiller Queen, due to suffering from really bad period pain. Which you know about when you call her and she says: "Don't chat to me, I ain't the girl." Ooookkkk.

After a fairly dry night out the weekend before, we heard about a DJs birthday party at Le Fez, and everyone said it was going to be a good night. So I flung on the frock, and my platform Kurt Geigers (praying for at least a five-hour dancing limit) and hoped the painkillers plus a brandy would dissolve the hurt in my head. Boy did they ever.

We got there at about quarter to 2 (Wong was being long), and it was already ram. The dancefloor was just wall to wall bodies, and the DJs were playing high above the crowd on the balcony. It was a night of flossing, as mans was keen to impress the many women there (and show off on each other) by buying champagne and brandy, eager to secure the all-important 'crub' later on. A combination of the Ibuprofen and the brandy ensured I was on a level pretty quickly. In fact, I was high. Now I get the painkiller addiction.

I saw a guy I know who I quite fancy. Dayum. This night was getting better. A guaranteed flirt op for the night. With my dancing partner on lock, and the DJs playing tune, it turned out to be a wicked night. At six o'clock in the morning we were dancing to Justin Timberlake's 'My Love', the couples and people that don't rave often had already left, and the party was still going strong. I bought one drink the whole night, but my glass was never empty. The night had flown by in a blur of dancing, laughter, and flirting, and we staggered outside into the daylight at around 7am to the car. Oohh, damn, it was bright outside. People were looking at us in our raving clothes with disdain, it was now Sunday after all and we sure didn't look like we were dressed for church. Well my church was over for the night. For this week.

Oh No He Never!

Back on the raving tip this last weekend after a three-week hiatus (do we use that word in the UK?). That's long for me, give me a break, obviously due to not feeling well. Anyway, I have to rave being that I bought a stupid amount of shoes during the sales and I don't have a man with a foot fetish around to wear them at home for. TMI? Muy bad.

We had a duty rave to attend - long time DJ Chris Sweeney's birthday bash. Sweeney has played on 'The Circuit' for years and co-founded one of the longest running events on the black music scene, the RJS Holiday - which is basically a club 18-30 for black people. White people do go, but there are very few white people that are interested in spending a whole week listening and raving to r 'n' b (the proper stuff), dancehall (not just Sean Paul), and slow jams (there will be no 'I'm loving Angels instead' on this trip). Let alone rare groove (dusty old soul tunes). Am I wrong?

Interestingly, Sweeney is white. But close your eyes and you damn sure wouldn't know it because the man speaks Jam-English patois as a result of hanging with black people all his life. This was before it became trendy, and was adopted by the middle-classes. No doubt he would have been called a 'nigger lover' for hanging with black people, and probably copped a beating or two fighting skinheads when he was with his black friends.

The dance was in north-west London, Wembley, at this place Silver Spoon, which is right behind the new improved, yet to be finished Wembley Stadium. As dances go it was not the most exciting of evenings, and the half bottle of vodka we consumed before we went out caught up with me quite quickly, but not enough to prevent the ache in my gotdamn feet.

When I tried to go out to the car, the doorman said I couldn't, there was no readmission. But wait. 'But my feet are hurting me'? 'Why did you wear those shoes then?'. OH NO HE NEVER! 'For your information, and not that it's any of your business, they are NEW shoes? Therefore I would not know whether they would be comfortable or not until I bloody well wear dem'. The 3.5 inch stack heel was a bit of a giveaway.

Obviously I was talking to an ignoramus. How dare he question the reasoning for wearing the brown patent leather, studded peep-toe platforms from TopShop. Face-ty. *Kiss teet*.

As I walked back in the club I bumped into Sweeney, and like a tell-tale tip I whined to him about how the doormen wouldn't let me out to the car to change my shoes. So he took me up to the door, and told them to let me come back in. Suckerrrrs. Oh how I laughed inside. I know what they were thinking - jumped up light-skin bitch. HAHAHA. I went and changed into my Havaianas, and enjoyed the rave for another two hours.

As I came back in, at my real titchy height, I came chest-first with a big black hunk I had spied while sitting at the bar earlier. I gave him the eye contact and flashed him the pearly whites. He bought me a drink, and we chatted as much as you can in a noisy rave, and he seemed cool. He couldn't believe my age, but I believed his, just twenty-six. So I have a decade on him. So when I was Sixteen, he was six. Hmmm. I very indiscreetly took his number, and promised to call.

Maybe I will.

I am Effie White...

It's been an arduous couple of weeks. I fell ill when I didn't want to. There are points in your life when you think, I wouldn't mind a couple of days off, but this wasn't one of them. I had a welcoming drinks at the pub with my new team to welcome me at Showbiz Journalist at The Big Time Newspaper, yes I have a contract now, which means less Kunte Kinte hours, and less money. Oh well. I really didn't feel like going, which should have been a clue that I wasn't feeling well. Me, turn down a free drink?!? (you done know I wasn't paying to welcome myself), but anyway, after a 9-hour shift I dragged myself along, managed to keep consumption down to three 'small' glasses of wine, and escaped early.

The next day I couldn't move.

I spent the whole weekend on the sofa, because you know when you're sick, you have to be visibly sick. No one ever wants to spend the whole day in bed. You need to move to the sofa, and let everybody (well just Clarke) see how crap you feel.

I spoke to Suzy Wong - she was so worried about me, she came over, and did my food shopping so my 'pickney' (child) could have something to eat. That's what you call friend. So I spent the weekend watching my pirate copy of Dreamgirls (don't hate I went to the cinema first) and feeling immensely sorry for myself, as only I can. And loving it. I really just ended up enjoying the whole oh woe is me of it all. I stayed in my pyjamas, got in emergency supplies of M&Ms and Haagen Daz Cookies and Cream ice-cream and kept rewinding Jennifer Hudson singing "And I am teeellling you...I'm not going...". Dope.

I dunno if she deserved the Oscar because I didn't see many of the other contenders, but she sure tore that song the hell up. Beyonce - sit down. You know she felt GUTTED that she didn't get an Oscar, or even a nomination. When you're one of life's winners, its only natural. And if you're one of life's losers, well that's a feeling you're used to so no biggy. But as Usher sang Beyonce had to 'let it burn', cos I know that shit was hurting like a mofo. Oh well, at least she has the multimillionaire 'CEO of Hip-Hop' Jay Z to console her. "So Beyonce, what first attracted you to the multimillionaire rapper Jay Z?"

Anyways, by Monday I was feeling a-ok after a weekend of wallowing in the depths of self-pity and cold and flu viruses. Well, if I don't work I don't eat, and momma's got to get paid! Back to work it is.

Party of the Year

I have no business being a journalist when it takes me whole week to update my blog. I do apologise but I did actually write a fantastic post on how great the party was, a blow-by-blow account of who did what, when and where, and promptly shut the damn thing down without publishing it. Doh! After which I lost the will to live and had to just get as far away from a computer as possible.

But just to recap. The party was off the da heezy (I know young people are not saying that anymore). It reminded me of the parties of my youth, when the older generation (now me) and the young would get together and somehow manage to speak the same language. I think in general it's easier because black people are raised on music, so when families get together, music is always involved and the old people (us now) force the young uns' to get up and show them whatever new dance is going on. And that's exactly what happened last weekend. Suzy Wong and I got to learn the Chicken Noodle Soup dance, which is better than it sounds, and we led the young uns in the Electric Slide to Candy's Cameo (with my daughter shaming me up by misstepping).

People know how much I love to Electric Slide, I even taught it to some women on my friends Hen Night in Spain a few years back. All the people in the club stopped dancing to watch. One woman was soooo happy because she said she had NEVER been able to learn any dance step and had no rhythm. She was black too. Okay I'm lying.

But the party was really good fun. We had the best dance competition 'Dance Idol' which was won by Suzy Wong's niece who we shall call Lil Wong because she stay bad just like her aunty. Wong used to have a hot dance group back in the hip-hop days, taking on allcomers boys and girls, and they took no prisoners.

Considering I was being the meanest mum ever and hadn't wanted to have the party, you would never have guessed from the way I was dancing up myself to every tune the DJ played. Wong and I had to work to get the youts on their feet. Then they harassed my dj friend Peter Platinum Phillips (Bassline FM) to play the tunes they wanted, and if he didn't have them, they 'bluetoothed' the songs off their phones straight to his infrared enabled laptop. Deep. Clarke was cussing our Macbook a few months back because it doesn't have infrared. The damn thing costs twice as much as a bogstandard PC laptop and does half the job.

We fed them MFC (mum's fried chicken), cocktail size jamaican patties, hardough bread and coleslaw. Plus the usual fizzy drinks and sweets. I don't believe in all this organic food nonsense at kids parties. Give them what they want, get them high on the e-numbers and by 10 o' clock they crash and burn into the deepest sleep ever. Result.

My daughter looked amazing (of course I'm biased). Sweet thirteen, all long-limbed and shiny-faced. She resisted my attempts to put a little make-up on her (NO MUM! - not even lipgloss!). Those baby years went so quickly, and now I have this demanding teen (Advice: always have more than one child) who talks too much in class, and could do better according to her teachers (and she bloody well will according to me). But as I wrote in her card - she is everything I ever imagined having in a daughter. And I feel privileged to have her in my life.

Happy birthday Clarkie x

Go Clarkie, it's your birthday

Crappin' hell. It's my daughter's 13th birthday on Saturday. Yes, you heard right, her 13th. Hence why I am feeling extremeply stressed out right now. Why? Because she wants a party. And I can't get away with bowling/ice-skating/Pizza Hut any more.

She wanted a party at home - but our place is quite small so I sat down with her and explained that I would do one for her later in the year, a nice BBQ when we could use the garden, yada yada, blag, blag, and I thought she'd accepted it until Suzie Wong came and rinsed me about how come I'm not doing Clarke's party for her, and that I need to fix up myself.

She went and talked to her surrogate mum about how she was upset that me and her Dad weren't doing the party. So now it's on, and I have to just get on with it. So come Saturday I am going to have a whole heap of 12-13 year olds in my yard, with a DJ. Apparently, these youngsters are already going to parties, which they call 'shubs' - a daytime party in someone's yard. Obviously, Clarke has not attended any of these events. So right about now I think the word is travelling around the school that Clarke is having a 'shubs', so I hope that Clarke's dad is up for the job of door bitch to head off the hordes at the pass.

Luckily my girlfriends have come to the rescue to help me sort things. Shazby is getting the cake, Suzette is helping me prep the room and will cook some food, plus one of our DJ friends is playing and Dad will buy drinks and supervise

So come Sunday I will be the mother of a teenager.

I think this might be the time to start lying about my age.

Ghetto Oscars my arse…

It was more like the TV Quick awards. I’ve not seen so many badly dressed people corralled in one place before in my life. Ok, I have, but not of late.

Ladies, just because your garment is made of 10 per cent lycra, it does not mean that you should wear it two sizes two small. Plus, the new fashion for tulip skirts (think of the flower but upside down) and volume is a bit tricky if you are a woman with a sizeable badonkadonk.

Like most of the trends which trickle from catwalk to road, it suits only the few and rules out 95 per cent of sisters. If, like Beyonce, you are blessed with booty and thunderthighs (and I am included in this equation) think veeeerrryyy carefully before plumping for the a miniskirted tulip dress. It's less dress and more vest if you're round as a pound bum is hitching it up as you jiggle by. But that’s just me talking – I’m sure your target audience – the mans dem – love to see an abundance of backside and thighs on show. So feel free to ignore my unsolicited advice.

After all the pre-party excitement, I was pretty bored about one hour after I got there. I think – and don’t faint now – I’m all partied out. Hence why it has taken me three days to feel anywhere near normal after yet another late night on the weekend. Or that could just be old age.

I mean – you go out, and don't see not even one nice piece to rest your eyes pon. All the effort you make to fling on a nice frock (All Saints), pretty shoe (Office), and a fine veneer of no make-up make-up (MAC, Bobbi Brown and Ruby and Millie), and not even one approach from someone that makes you skin teet. It's a damn shame.

Anyway, after the birthday party I’m going to on Saturday (not a circuit rave), I've decided I'm not going out for a month (that includes Chris Sweeney's birthday dance Mention Crew). I’m retiring from the circuit for a bit and am going to enrich my mind, body and soul with other pursuits. What are they? I dunno yet, but I will report back.

VOTE FOR SHILPA!!!

And the Ghetto Oscar goes to...

Remind me not to give the blog addy to guys with ‘motential’ as it means I cannot chat the business if things don’t really work out. Despite my last hope-filled post, let’s just say there is absolutely no fear that I will be off the dating shelf anytime soon.

It’s a tricky thing when you start seeing someone, and I think if you start to fear letting go of your single gal freedom, then you know that he’s not the guy.

Anyway I consoled myself by hitting the shops in time-honoured Butterfly Jones fashion and picking up some shoes. In the last week, I bought six pairs of shoes. The sweetest thing is three of them I’d had my eye on them from way back when, but couldn’t afford them, or didn’t need them so managed to restrain myself. And as a result I saved myself hundreds of pounds. So when I feel a bit crap, I go put on a pair of the sparkliest, twinkliest shoes I own, and sit on sofa looking at my feet. I kid you not. Pure unadulterated Rabbit-free joy.

It’s been a busy week socially, but tonight is the big one. The 'Ghetto Oscars' as a friend of mine called it. Big birthday dance on The Circuit, one of the name-brand DJs from Hyper crew, so it’s a bit of a ‘duty rave’. Basically, if you don’t represent, mans is going to be upset. Why? Because throughout the year, more time we always get squeezes (freeness), or discount to go to dances, but when it’s the birthday dance, everyone’s supposed to represent, buy a ticket (no freeness) and make sure the dance is ram. We didn’t go to his New Year’s dance and apparently, as we found out when we passed a rave at Illusions a couple weeks ago, mans was screwing. Ah so we name mention. Gossip on the circuit is that we didn’t want to pay. Deep. After we all ah work, and have money inna we pocket. Chat bout.

So today I went to Groom and got waxed and plucked. It's a beauty salon in Selfridges where you have two therapists working on you at the same time and you can pick and choose what treatments you want. I had a half-hour waxing package, leg, bikini line and underarm (plus lip wax - shame) and it cost £70.

And went to Scholl to see the podiatrist to sort out the 'hooves' my feet were fast turning into. I think even she was shocked at the amount of hard skin she had to remove, because she said I MUST rebook for three months time!

I had my nails done on Thursday, so I'm good to go. Just need to decide which out of the six new pairs of shoes I can wear, and last the whole night in. It's not about changing into flats.

When keeping it real goes wrong....

At the top of my road. A woman was murdered in her workplace. I saw the police and crime scene Saturday night when I went to catch a cab to meet the girls for a drink in Brixton. They had the tape and a big tent up and there were a dozen people milling about, so I knew it was a murder. The next day I saw one of our reporters up there.

Incidents such as these happening right on my doorstep do not fill me with confidence, especially when it comes to my daughter walking around on her own, even just to local shops - which is right near the crime scene.

My friends always rinse me because I will happily take night bus, walk street late at night and generally do my thing with little fear. But trust me my street instincts are intact. When you grow up in the hood - you always take that hood mentality with you, but obviously you only expose it when you need to.

Recently this woman at work was jarring me so much, as Wong says 'I let the street come out in me'. It's like that Dave Chappelle sketch 'When keeping it real goes wrong'. You always get those people at work, and you know you shouldn't rise to it, but on the wrong day, lack of sleep, food or sex makes you short-tempered and the real you is closer to the surface than usual. Speaky-spokey Butterfly done left the house.

Anyway this woman, let's call her The Hurricane (can you work out her name), decided from dot that she didn't like me or my lovely friend at work Irish Dave. I only realised this when my news editor told me that the bitch had complained we were both bullying her? What the fuck?!? I think I had worked two shifts with her by that point, and she had only been there three weeks. This didn't really bother me - but when she was being blatantly rude, obstreperous (there's a word for you to look up), difficult and argumentative while we were working together, it started to bother me.

I thought to myself - this bitch is trying to take food out of my pickney's mouth. If I asked her to do something she would ignore me, or act like I was harassing her, but she wasn't like this with other people. Anyway, I made sure I was polite, and kept it professional, while she continued to be a cow. But then one night, when my colleague asked her to do another story - she said 'oh I've done 9 stories and BJ has only done 1' the mist descended and the street came out in me. I said to her 'Why you watching me, don't watch me. Watch what you're doing. I've only done three stories because I've had to spend the rest of the time re-checking everything that you do.' Bitch.

We had a bit of a set to one night in the newsroom. It was one of those passive aggressive arguments, where no one raises their voice, but everyone knows that you are arguing. Thankfully the paper had gone to press and the newsroom was half-empty, but those that were still there were riveted. I said 'why are you so hostile, and she said 'you were rude to me the very first week'.

'So why didn't you come to me and say something instead of carrying on like this for the next five weeks.' She said 'oh maybe I'm just tired'. Bitch I know all about being tired, I worked nights for a straight month when I started, never finished on time and didn't complain. Then after going to bed at either 2 or 3am I would get up at 7am to cook breakfast just so I could see my child who was fast forgetting what her mummy looked like. Yes, I know about tiredness.

Luckily for me, no one has any complaints with my work, and I get on fine with the rest of my team. And the fact that she accused Irish Dave of fucking with her completely weakened her case because he is wicked, and everyone thinks he's cool. But I knew she was getting to him when he texted me referring to her as 'slagface'. Ha ha.

Anyway, the bitch decided she couldn't handle the nights and decided to leave. Thank the Lord for that. Funnily enough, there were no leaving drinks for her, and no whip-round.

And then he kissed me

A rota fuck-up meant I got dragged into work on Sunday evening when my roast dinner was halfway done, and my hands were trying to make sense of Clarke's freshly-blow-dried afro. Not to mention the date I had to cancel. Yes. A date. Draw closer my friends. Yes, I started the new year with the prospect of a date. A first date. But sod's law, I had to fucking cancel it. 'I'm so sorry, I have to work'...while he's thinking, yeah likely story! Muy bad Cockoach Brown (yes - we have names for each other, mine is D-Nice).

It's quite funny, because even though I usually have one eye halfway-open for a potential prospect, when we were introduced, I barely noticed him. No, not because he is a butters - but because when we met I was more concerned with the big white security tag I still had stuck to the back of the new dress I was wearing. I came straight from work (where else), was slightly frazzled, and I'd been wearing a clingy blue shirt-dress, but had a 'butters moment' (fit of insecurity) about how big my bottom looked in it, so decided to go buy something big and tent-like to wear to Blacktronica.

He was with peeps I know and we were all talking. When he left to go to the bog (toilet), his friend says to me - 'he's a really nice guy and he's single' . I looked at the nigga as if to say 'do I look fucking desperate to you' and said 'how do you even know that I'm looking' (thinking fuck me - is it that fucking obvious?!?). 'Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything....'it's okay, I am actually quite single' I said, climbing down off my high horse.

So when he came back, you know I looked at him properly. I looked at his clothes, nice. His shoes - dem mek it. Basically, there was nothing I could criticise. No fair. LOL. He kept buying me vodka tonics, and didn't wrinkle his face in disgust when I smoked (don't worry I've given up again since). He laughed at my jokes, and engaged me conversationally. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Anyway, last month on the flimsiest pretext of hooking up to go to this club Co-op, we swapped numbers. We had dinner beforehand at The Diner in Shoreditch, where I ate a burger and fries like I was in my living room, and his eating didn't put me off. Did I mention that I never like to go to restaurants on first dates, because if a man eats badly (like a hog) it will seriously put me off. I could be single lickle more, I can't knock boots with a man that eats like a monster.

Anyway, this really wasn't a date, so I really didn't even scrutinise him. In fact I don't think he scrutinised me either - he really didn't seem interested in me. You know sometimes you have a male friend, but you're not sure if you really fancy him, but then you sense that he's put you in the friend zone – You start to get vex. How dare he put me in the friend zone before I’ve made up my mind about him? Fucking cheek! (yes I like to be adored by people I don't even want - so sue me).

Anyway, it wasn’t really like that. He seems like a cool guy, and I just thought, cool, he’s a cool guy, we can be mates. But then he kissed me!

Get me to the church on time

Clarke said this morning, ‘2006 doesn’t feel any different to 2007’. Well daughter dearest, I said: ‘What makes it different is what you decide to do differently. So what are you going to do differently this year? ‘I’m going to study hard at school.’ That thud you just heard was me passing out.

I hadn’t made any New Year’s resolutions until New Year’s Eve when I rediscovered just why I gave up drinking that evil concoction, Brandy. I bumped into an old friend, dragged him for a dance, but as soon as we drew close, my head started spinning, and I had to cling onto him for dear life. It was more of a hug than a crub.

The New Year started stressfully. I outdid myself and had to be in three places in one night. First work for an evening shift until 11 (thinking I was going to get double pay and found out too late I wasn’t). Then church in east London, to meet my family, and finally onto club Dillusions with the girls. I worked like a crack-fiend to finish early, which was doubly difficult as it was just me working the graveyard shift.

My cab driver was pissed off because no one had told him I was going east instead of south and he was not feeling battling the new year traffic. Am I bovvered? I used the time wisely to remove the death pallor from 9 hours in front of a computer screen and apply my no-make-up make-up (girls will get this). Vex cabbie took the backstreets and I walked into church on the stroke of midnight. Hugged my mum and my tearful sister (this is often the reaction I get when I turn up to church, sinner that I am) and settled down to the praise and worship ceremony. Breathe.

At 1am, I rolled on gathering no moss to get the tube back to south to meet the Mention Crew (Cah ah your name mention tonite). Liverpool Street appeared to be the mecca of new year’s eve carnage. Most people had started their celebrations several hours earlier, so queues for food were long, there were packs of girls in too-high shoes and party dresses with no coats stumbling about, and shovelling down take-away. The chic party veneer had long since left and they looked fucked up. I jumped on the train trying to avoid the carriages with PLV’s (people likely to vomit) and listened to my ipod loudly to block out the revelry.

Got picked up from the station by Gina Ling, and rushed to Suzy Wong’s to get changed. One strapless black and gold M&S party dress (it's the new Primark trust me), and a pair of bashy gold shoes later, we were on the road to Club Illusions.

Once in there, a similar sight greeted me, previously glammed up girls looking the worse for wear, while we were the ‘freshers crew’, having arrived fashionably ghetto late at 3am. We drank Brandy, they played bashment, and within an hour I think I looked pretty much like the girls who had been there for five hours. Trashed as a motherfucker.

The gold LK Bennetts I was boasting ‘are like my trainers' as I jogged down the road to Illusions, were fucking killing me, and I had no choice but to buss a white girl flex. And tek off me shoe dem. The music was so good, I didn’t want to sit out the rest of the night. So me and Gina Ling backed off the shoes and raved it out.

Just like the last three, my New Year’s was a great success. I got paid, I prayed and then I raved.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

A Woman Without a Career is Like a Man Without a Football Team

I hate the term ‘career woman’. Someone used it in reference to me the other day, and I had to correct his ass. I never hear anyone say ‘career man’, so why the need to make a distinction? If I didn’t work, what would I be called? Certainly not a housewife, nor a stay-at-home mum. I’d be a parasitical single mother who is a burden on the hardworking people of Great Britain.

I come from a working-class background. My gran worked, she was a bit of hustler, she understood the value of buying property, then she was a seamstress and a cook. She had four daughters, no husband I ever saw, owned her own house in Alperton and was always very hard-working. Now she lives in Florida. My mum stayed home for a few years when we were young, my Dad didn’t want her to work – he was a bit of a career gambler, but when their relationship fell apart when I was around nine, she got a job. Always worked her finger to bone, worked the shit shifts for years 3-11pm all the way through my secondary school education.

I didn’t go off the rails, get high, bring boys round (couldn’t because Big Sis was there – so I went to their house) I was already pretty scared of The Wrath of Mum, so didn’t push the boundaries too far.

So working is not a new thing for the women in my family. Hence I do not see the need for the tag ‘career woman’. I have benefited from the labour and toil of my mother and grandmother. My grandmother came here for a better life for herself and kids, and she achieved that, my mother wanted me to have the education she never had, and she achieved that. Now I want my daughter to do better than me, I want her to be entrepreneurial, not just to work a job but to create jobs. To me, that’s not being a ‘career woman’, that’s being a brilliant woman.

Christmas starts here...

Christmas is coming, and the only thing getting fat is moi. At the moment my exercise regime consists mainly of lifting lots of edible objects to the cake-sized gap in my face. Yum. Even a bout of party dress shopping (one must get one’s priorities right) only made me temporarily stay the tendency to eat chocolate and apple crumble with cream, as I breathed a sigh of relief at ‘squozing’ myself into a size 14 Kazza Mill strapless dress. Oh well, I’m back to the weight/size I was in 1999 – so it’s not all bad. And the dresses that I had to avoid on the grounds of ‘too much booty, not enough fabric’ can come back into circulation. Maybe I’ll try for 1989’s size 10 next year.

First Christmas do was last week Thursday with my team at The Big Time Newspaper (website). Thankfully, there was no need to dress up. We had a meal, where I tried to drink as little as possible, and then once I had some food down me I felt more able to indulge. It’s not about getting lean with work people and embarrassing yourself. I know someone who got very drunk at her office party, and snogged her very married boss, in front of her workmates. Shortly afterwards she got six month’s salary and was asked to leave. Strangely she didn’t think the two incidents were connected. Either way I’d say that was a fucking result!

That would never happen to me. For a start my boss is female. And secondly, when I’ve had a few drinks I’m more likely to hit the dancefloor and dance in a rudely, suggestive manner rather than collar someone I wouldn’t give the time of day to when sober.

After the meal we walked to a pub in Notting Hill. Yes, The Notting Hill, but rest assured, there actually are black folk living in the real NH. We had a couple of drinks at a pub where some weird looking man decided I might find him wildly attractive if he stared at me long and hard enough. Forty-five minutes to be precise. Even after a voddie and tonic and a shot of sambuca, I felt in no way compelled to talk to him.

Like I said, I just wanted to dance. A guy gave us some free passes to a bar up the road, The Gate, so we trotted along there as I was desperate for a boogie. One debate with the doorman later (some people forgot their passes in the pub) we were descending the stairs to Montel Jordan’s ‘This Is How We Do It’.

We had a good little dance and managed to have a conversation that didn’t revolve around work for once. It’s quite cool when you get to know people you work with. What’s strange is that there are people I started off thinking were really nice, that I know now are not. And people I thought who were ‘wrong uns’ and now think they’re great.

Princess Pushy proceeded to get pretty hammered so I went into ‘watch over the drunk friend’ mode, and ended up bringing her home with me. She promptly stained my sofa and her stupidly expensive Reiss top with the extra chilli sauce on the kebab she’d bought. The kebab I waited for in the back of a black cab, while speeching the driver who wanted us to get out and find another cab, because he said we were stopping him from earning.

His maths was obviously shit because him taking us from Kensington was at least a £20 fare, but he was saying he could pick up a couple more fares while he was sat waiting outside Ranoush. I really don’t know what’s got into cab drivers, but it always seems like you have to argue the toss with them. I mean, while we were sitting there, the meters running and he’s getting paid, what exactly is his problem. I just kept him talking, as he tried everything, short of telling to get the fuck out, to get out of the cab. There was no way I was getting out of that warm cab to stand on a street corner in High Street Ken, trying to flag down another.

Don’t these people have any compassion. I won’t even count the number of times black cabs with lights on have driven past me in the early hours of the morning. When I was working in Manchester, an Asian cab driver drover past me. That one really hurt. Two women, on their first day in a strange town and the fucker wouldn’t even stop.

I can drive, but I don’t know how that’s gonna work when I get a new set of wheels. No more boozy nights out for me. Just a tonic water and the thrill of the rave. So looking forward to that.

Why?

Did the cab-driver ask me not to make a mess in his car when I was eating a packet of crisps?
Did the website I’m working for crash for five hours and start working an hour before I was due to go home?
Did roller-skating on Thursday get cancelled?
Don’t I fancy my personal trainer?
Do women wear shoes they can’t walk in, to work?
Do I always like the most expensive item in the damn magazine?
Can I never afford it, but usually find the money?
Does the guy that does pictures for the website never buy anyone tea?
Do I feel its my duty to tell him about it?
Is my child hard of hearing?
Does she think my purse has an everlasting supply of money?
Do I think Beyonce is cheesy?
Do I like the Pussycat Dolls?
Do I bite the skin around my fingernails?
Am I a size 16 in jeans, when I wear a 12 in a dress?
Are there so many fat people in Kensington?
Does work drain me of creativity?
Do I think nothing of dropping £160 on a dress but stress about spending £5 a day on lunch?
Can't I be bothered to exercise yet get fed up when clothes don't fit how I want them to?
Am I not bothered about Christmas?
Haven't I started Xmas shopping yet?
Do I fancy the wrong people?
Am I not bothered about sex anymore?
Do I love cakes so much?
Aren't I doing any work today?!?