1. Pirouetting around globs of spit on EVERY pavement. Anyone who does this deserves to get TB. Use a tissue, or your sleeve or your fucking lunchbox – just stop gobbing on the street.

1.  An old one, but…people walking down the tube platform…really…really…slowly. If you can’t go above 1mph keep to the sides. This town isn’t suited to your snailish demeanour, sorry. Maybe try Norfolk? Or even just NOT fucking rush hour.

1. Valentines Day pink crap EVERYWHERE. I have a boyfriend and I feel like kicking all of the displays over and screaming in terror and disgust.

1. The manipulative till layout in Marks and Spencer ‘reminding’ you that you need wasabi peas, Percy Pigs and of course chocolate hearts. The poor girl in front of me clearly wasn’t wise to their ways and ended up needing a suitcase for her haul.

1. Nearly getting run over by an old man in a Jaguar coming out of a garage. You own a fucking JAGUAR do you really need to run down peasant girls for sport?

1. The Evening Standard blathering on about rich, posh inbreds divorcing. NEWSflash – you’re a NEWSpaper. Report something relevant or at least interesting. It’s not like any of these people work; they can sit in their mansions 24/7 gossiping about Lady Flunkington divorcing her brother. We don’t give a shit.

1. Contactless payment. OK so it got me out of the M&S Valentine’s grotto quicker, but now I have some visions of someone stealing my card and running up an army of tiny bills for The Sun, Rizla and Percy fucking Pigs.

1. The traffic lights on the corner of Great Eastern Street and Curtain Road. I might as well stick a bouquet with my name on it on the nearest lamp post because if I keep using that route home, it’s 50/50 that I’m going to survive.  

1. Brothel Creepers. I only just found out what these were called. Seriously? Orthopaedic shoes. You do know that these are what as known as a JOKE in the cobbler world?

1. People on the Central Line giving me dirty looks because I’ve got a seat and they haven’t. Tough titties Giant Handbag. We can swap but then you’d also have to get on at East Acton and spend ten hours getting home from work.

AND TWO THINGS THAT I LOVED!

1. A lovely lady on the Overground dragging my Oyster from the brink of the platform abyss with her foot and after I had profusely thanked her, thought a minute and said ‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have used my shoe’ Apologising for helping me? You have to love the English sometimes.

1. Again on the Overground, the knighthood-worthy driver who announced ‘This train is extremely full. If you’re reading a newspaper or magazine, don’t be so selfish. Put it down so people can get on the train and also go to work. ‘This should be LAW.

Nothing else positive about London today. It’s cold, dry, miserable and needs a good kick up the arse.

I love this. Slightly disappointed that I write in such an obviously female manner but I suppose it’s true…

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

Every time it says I’m female!

I have not had a chance to comment on this before as I was in New York but have been absolutely dying to express my opinion about the Conservatives’ latest fuck up.

Since I wrote the original draft of this it has become apparent that David Cameron and other senior Tories are not going to back Nadine Dorries unnecessary bid to reform how the abortion process in Britain works. She wants pregnant women considering  a termination to receive counselling from an organisation that does not actually provide abortions themselves — which may be a religious group despite Dorries ‘assurances’ that it would not be. But then who else would have such a vested interest? Apart from the current providers, who she wants to strip of these duties, who are doing a perfectly good job already.

 However, the fact that Cameron was going to back this in the first place says it all. What kind of person, what kind of government, wants to make it harder for women to have access to an abortion when the experience is emotionally difficult enough as it is?

It’s not like regulating drugs. Abortion is not a reckless pursuit despite the fact it seems that certain MPs seem to think that the women in this country are so feckless and stupid that they see it as an easy back –up option if no condom is available the month before. People make mistakes. This country is sensible enough to realise that while abortion is not pleasant it is necessary and civilised to perform them and perform them as smoothly, and with as little additional state-generated trauma, as possible.

Every time, I hear the words Tories and NHS in the same sentence my heart sinks. I cannot fathom the mentality of this government. Who are they trying to appeal to? I’m sure that most families, of any background, faced with a pregnant teenage daughter or a deformed foetus which would have no quality of life, are relieved that there is an alternative method out there for them than bringing an unwanted child into the world. Is Nadine Dorries going to personally adopt this boom of 60,000 extra children she talks about — only born because the mother was guilted into it by a corrupt agenda driven counsellor or because the system has become so slow that it was too late for an abortion to be performed?

Do the Conservatives live in the real world? Life for most people is not school, university, job, marriage, children and happy ever after. Often these things don’t come in the right order, or at all, and as a society it is up to us to help each other when things don’t work out as planned.

Dorries told an emotive story of her time as nurse and having to dispose of a foetus that was still breathing. Does she realise that if she is adding more layers to the procedure there will be more late abortions where this may be more likely? At present, a woman can realise she is pregnant, talk to the clinic and within a couple of days miscarry. The result being more like a very heavy period than an actual baby.  Despite the seemingly quick time frame of this that still does not make it easy. It is still unbearable and she wants to extend this ordeal? For whom?

Oh, sorry, the ’60,000’ foetuses. Are they more important than a grown woman’s standard of living? And where has she even got this figure from in the first place? Has an army of 60,000 disgruntled foetuses come to her in a religious reverie demanding that their ‘lives’ are avenged?

Or is she thinking of fourteen-year- old school girls who should be counselled into keeping an unwanted child, maybe students whose future career would be at the very  least hindered by a baby, maybe a forty- year-old woman who already has three and cannot afford a fourth?

Maybe Dorries would be better off focussing on improving sex education in schools so there are less unwanted pregnancies in the first place. Start at the root — not halfway up when the damage has already been done. Tackle the British prudishness so young girls grow up  not being embarrassed or scared of being judged if they buy and carry condoms around with them, or make sure in the case of younger girls that they know exactly what being and getting pregnant entails. As I have suggested before, make it compulsory for thirteen-year-olds (boys and girls) to visit abortion clinics and talk to the professionals who perform this job.

Maybe Dorries would rather have them all sit down and watch Juno over and over again Clockwork Orange style until they renounce pro-choice altogether and vow to numbly hand any future unwanted children over to barren ‘proper’ families. She’s crossed the barrier of ridiculousness already so that would be just as appropriate.

It always strikes me as funny that sex versus love is still such a fascinating subject. After all, they’ve both been around for, like, ever. You would think we’d have cracked it by now. That someone along the years would have discovered the perfect formula/ perfect balance/ perfect age but, no, we still have to figure it out for ourselves. How rude.

Maybe, it’s just me.

I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine a few years ago and saying ‘Sex is the best subject ever, isn’t it? I could just talk about it for days.’

And she replied, ‘No, it isn’t. You’re a loser. You must have a sad life.’ How rude, again.

Anyway, so now I try to keep talking about it to a minimum but I still write about it an awful lot. One by-product of this is a new play that a friend and I have written which is actually going to be put on in public!

‘Push’ tells the story of Emily. (Who is not based on me despite people thinking it is just because the girl on the poster is blonde and I happened to co-write it. What does that have to do with anything??)

She is trying to juggle a dull job, a misogynist boss, a sweet boyfriend and a high sex drive. It may sound trivial but when you’re in that situation it’s ferocious.

Not that I would know.

It’s not Shakespeare or anything but anyone who has a pulse will relate to it in some way, I’m sure. (Unless you’re under fifteen coz it’s not suitable.) Please come!

PUSH is part of the Gaea Festival in The Lion and the Unicorn Theatre, NW5 2ED. (Kentish Town) 6th —11^th September. Please visit www.giantolive.com for more information and to buy tickets.