Posted on by JonnyB

As far as I am aware, flatulence has only been the death knell of one relationship of mine.

[Incidentally, it’s still Betty here, covering for JonnyB, who is on holiday. Hello! Again!]

It was the last summer of drama school, weeks of rehearsals, performance and after-show parties topping off three years of sexual tension. All through May, June, July of that year it was hot. It was hot, we were all on heat and frequently we were steaming. It was like Fame (the movie, not the series, obviously) but with extra drugs, and a lot of tequila.

Barney was a boy on his way up. He was talented, too talented for our backwater drama school, and pretty to boot. For hours, we’d been flirting, gently, letting each wave of fluttering flattery wash gently against the shores of lust until we were almost fit to burst. But more than just wanting to rut, we seemed to be able to talk about anything, joke about anything, laugh about anything. Or so I thought.

Cheap red wine makes me fart.

Sorry to be blunt, but it’s a fact that’s going to come in handy quite soon in the story.

The night of our opening night party, we gorged ourselves on the complimentary falafel and red wine and lentil cake feast laid on by our wholesome director, and then we went home and were thoroughly unwholesome with each other.

In the morning, I rose silently, dressed , and, while he slept, stealthily prepared to go and fetch him something yumtious for breakfast. Approaching the door, I bent to pick up my shoes, and expelled, insidiously, a cloud of noious gas the size of Wolverhampton, and almost as foul smelling.

Panicked, I crept to his door, snuck out, leaned against the wall and prayed for the ability to turn back time, or at least the ability to suck air back into my bottom. I closed my eyes, and hoped it had not been as bad as it might, and perhaps he might sleep through. And then I caught the whiff of skunk mass-grave, and heard him wake. And gag.

I sneaked away. To the front door, and gone. I’d left nothing. No note, no message, no sign, just smell.

That night, approaching the theatre, I saw him standing outside, joking with the spearcarriers. I hurried past, head down, said nothing, face burning. All night, the same. He said nothing, and neither did I. And the next day. And the next.

By the weekend, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened.
I was putting the finishing touches to my face when the door of my dressing room opened quietly behind me.
I wouldn’t have known but for the soft squeak of the hinges. Then I remembered that the hinges didn’t squeak. Too late… and the powerful peff of putrified something filled the room.

Just think. We could have been something now, Barney, we could have had it all. We could have been Jude and Sienna, Kenneth and Emma, Tom Cruise and that woman that’s just had his alien baby. Instead we went fart for fart in the enclosed spaces of that provincial town.

We still move in the same circles, of course, and one day we’ll probably board the same lift en route to a big audition. I just hope, for both our sakes, that no one influential is in that lift. No one influential or easily nauseated.

Posted on by JonnyB

There are *ucking foxes in next door’s garden!!!

And that – ladies and gentlebloods, is my best and only impression of Mr JonnyB.
Except he probably wouldn’t have said the ‘ucking’ word.

Yes, hello, my name is Betty. I am, apparently your hostess. With fingers full of fairydust, dear Jonnyboy has let me twinkle all over his internet while he’s away. Here I am.

I’m not sure what to do now.

Oh yes! Foxes!

Sorry. “Foxes!!!” There are *ucking foxes in my neighbour’s garden!!!

Now when I say *ucking foxes, I think we all understand what I mean.
The asterix is representing a letter, you see. I’m just not sure whether I’m allowed to swear. Although, lets face it, this is the internet. I could probably tie balloons to my pubic hair and issue an open invite to a party in my Aunt Jemima and no one would bat an eyelid. Especially not the foxes. Sorry, that doesn’t make much sense, I just realised I was supposed to be talking about foxes. I have no idea how Jonny does this, it’s very hard.

I understand that the first sentence I wrote could sound like ‘there are foxes in next door’s garden and I’m not very happy about it’. This is not the case. There are foxes in next doors garden, and they are at it. They are cavorting. Relating. They are relating like rabbits.

Except not like rabbits, see, because I’ve always imagined rabbits might have happy, soft, fluffy, moppet sex.
Foxes? They have angry sex, from the sounds of it. Angry, bitey sex, all teeth and claws and barking, sounding thoroughly unpleasant for the time it lasts, which luckily isn’t very long before, in stunned silence, they seem to crawl away and lick their wounds alone.
So by the sounds of it, I would estimate these foxes have been married for somewhere between ten and fourteen years.
As they still have sex at all.

See, I don’t know whether to complain. Where I live, one doesn’t converse with ones neighbours, unless one is attempting to secure a very bad fate or some very good weed. Or both.

I might complain to the foxes, but I’m not sure they would care. Or hear me over the shagging sounds, which sound like this. ‘NYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! ROGH! RAAIIIIG!’

I could try hunting the foxes, I suppose, but having not left the city in a long while, I’m not sure whether the hunting ban affects us as well as those dreadful rurals. Also, I would have to loose my dog out of the window. And while it would almost certainly not kill him, I think five floors may be too much. Although gravity would probably ensure he landed cast first, so he may be ok, as long as I threw far enough to get over the barbed wire, then he could sniff them out. Well, he would have to, of course, after that time with the… Oh I should stop this. I don’t really have a dog.

Not any more.

I should probably stop now all the same. Jonny never writes too much, does he?
Besides, the knockout bell has rung, and the vulpine lovemaking bout has stopped for the evening. I imagine them there now, lying there, silently hating each other but satisfied, pulling on their – foxes don’t smoke, do they? – pulling on their glacier mints and just being generally cunning.

The *astards.

Posted on by JonnyB

I am going to Cornwall!!!

Back in a week.

Whilst I am away, my Private Secret Diary will be guest edited by my good friend Betty.

We have a long and fine tradition of guest editors here, from New York Comedian Jill Twiss to top TV writer Salvadore Vincent. Well, that’s just about it. Maybe it’s just a fine tradition.

Betty’s an actress who, like Salvadore, prefers to write under a nom de plume (that is French for ‘name of pen’). But of course in this medium it’s what one writes rather than Who one is that’s the thing. Please make her very welcome and I will see you all in a week or so.

Posted on by JonnyB

We visit the big city.

With my new family, I have not had a chance to do this recently. I have missed the buzz, the vibrancy, the lights. The shops and theatres. The restaurants. The throngs of people, the traffic, the noise and the intense urban atmosphere.

Baby Servalan stares wide-eyed as we step out into the Norwich car-park.

It is quickly decided that we should split up, the LTLP wishing to buy women’s clothes and me not wishing to buy women’s clothes. I head into a department store with the Baby.

As I walk round, I feel an unusual sensation coming from somewhere. It takes me a while to identify it, what with it being unusual and all that, but by the time I have reached the fancy stationery section I have twigged: women are looking at me in a leering fashion.

I quicken my pace. I had heard before that men with cute babies are particularly desirable to the opposite sex, but this is the first time that I have experienced it in practice. I slouch a bit and try to make myself look as frumpy as possible, but it seems to have no effect, so I go for a coffee.

“Would you like anything else?” asks the waitress girl coyly as she collects my cup. I look at her in some alarm. “No thank you,” I reply, and hastily pay the bill.

I explain my problem to the LTLP when we meet up again. She laughs at me and tells me that women don’t really leer at men with babies and that it is all my imagination, but it is pretty well exactly the same reply that I give her about looking at women’s breasts so I am not convinced. I am told to go and change a nappy, and I disappear off into Debenhams.

Not being too quick at this sort of thing, there is a queue outside when I leave the baby changing room. The two mums waiting look like they are going to drag me back into the cubicle and gang-rape me there and then, which would be a shame as it would probably break the baby-changing mat and thus spoil it for everyone. Plus I would probably get a really old-fashioned judge who would say that I was asking for it by carrying a cute Baby. I push past them for the safety of the sales floor.

I arrange to meet the LTLP back at the car. A woman sprints up to me as I am waiting for the lift. “Excuse me! Excuse me!” The lift does not arrive. I hammer the button furiously. “Excuse me!” No lift.

“She’s dropped a sock,” she announces, brandishing said sock. I take it from her with a strangled thank-you. Stealing socks off babies in order to create an opening with their fathers. She leaves disappointed and frustrated.

“Well that’s a nice day out then,” says the LTLP as we pass under the barriers and out onto the main road. I say nothing, and put my foot down to speed back to the sanity of the village.