August 2008 Archives

JK: Please welcome my next guest, ladies and gentlemen. A big round of applause for Brummie Broad.

[boos from audience]

Hi, y'alright?

BB: Yes, a bit nervous, Jeremy.

Well don't worry, just sit back and relax. Let me ask first of all, Brummie, did you, contrary to my research team's request, wash before you came on the show today?

Er, yes, I'm afraid so, Jeremy. I couldn't help it.

And did my research team specifically ask you to wear an ill-fitting jogging suit with stains down the front?

I don't own a jogging suit, Jeremy.

[boos from audience]

So, Brummie, tell us what's going on? What's brought you to this programme for our help? Start from the beginning and take your time.

Well, Jeremy, I have an addiction.

[gasps from audience]

And when did this addiction start, Brum?

In my first secretarial job. I did it when no one was looking.

[more gasps, a bit of tutting, much pursing of lips and shaking of heads from audience]

Is it true to say that you're ashamed of your addiction, B? Yes or no? YES OR NO?

Yes, Jeremy. I can't seem to stop myself once I start, I just have to finish.

You're still in love with him aren't you?

Pardon?

I can see it all over your face, you're still madly in love with him aren't you?

Who?

It's the kids we've got to think about here!

Is it?

Yes, the kids! YOU SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT THE KIDS!

I do. But... well, they're all grown up now.

That's no excuse! You, madam, are the worst excuse for a mother I've ever had on my stage, or am I missing the point?

What? [Looks in audience at three sons all miming 'w***er']

Shall we read out the results?

What results?

The results of the lie detector test?

What lie detector test?

The test you took to find out if you've been cheating, madam!

You can cheat at Mahjong?

We asked, have you, since being with Wayne, ever had sexual relations with another man?

Who's Wayne?

You answered no. YOU WERE LYING WEREN'T YOU!

[boos from audience]

I think you've got me mixed up with someone else, Jeremy.

Oh that's right, claim that the test is wrong!

The only test I've done recently is a typing test. I thought I came here to talk about transcribers being addicted to computer card games. This is Tuesday isn't it?

Stop avoiding the question! Get off your bottom and get a job, THAT'S A FACT.

I have a job, sitting on my bottom all day as it happens.

It's my tax money that's keeping you, madam!

If only that were true, Jeremy.

Listen to yourself, you can't even spell the word truth.

I can, but can you spell supercilious?

Be quiet, this is my show, that's my name up there on my stage.

[audience cheers, several thousand home viewers of the student variety down a celebratory shot of tequilia.]

Now answer the question!

There was a question?

Were you or were you not sleeping with seventeen different men when you fell pregnant?

I'm pregnant!

How sure are you that Wayne is the father of your baby?

I'm having a baby!

Let's read out the results of the DNA test shall we?

But... but...

And Wayne is NOT the father, laydees and gentlemen.

[gasps of horror and boos from the audience]

But I'm neutered, and I don't know anyone called Wayne.

You lied didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?

I'm confused.

I'll bet you are! What have you got to say for yourself, eh? Well?

Well if I can get a word in edgeways, I'd like to say you're a bit of a pompous git with a King Solomon complex. I'm leaving now because this isn't what I came for.

I bet its not! Go on, get off my stage!

[audience boos and jeers]

[off stage] Is Trisha still on?

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday.
Brummie Blogs: There rest of week.

I gave myself a PDR today - Performance Development Review. All companies do them now, and just because I'm a self-employed transcriber working alone at home I didn't feel I should miss out on a chance to develop myself on both a business and personal level. So I gave myself one.

I made a cup of coffee, put some biscuits on a plate, and took them upstairs to my study.

"Just sit down and make yourself comfortable," I told myself, so I did.

ME: So how do you feel you're doing at the moment, Brummie Broad?

ME: I don't think I'm doing too bad at all actually?

ME: Any problems?

ME: Only with doorstep salesmen and the money grabbing tax man.

ME: Do you feel you need to develop in any way?

ME: Well I'd like to learn to speak French and maybe travel the world a bit more, but other than that, typing at 140 words per minute might be advantageous, you know, to keep up with the work.

ME: Do you find it difficult to keep up with the work, Brummie Broad?

ME: Ah, a trick question, suggesting I might be a bit incompetent. Clever. No difficulties with the workload per se, but obviously I'd much rather be lounging around all day reading books whilst sipping Pimms and chomping on delicious delicacies from M&S.

ME: I see. So tell me, Brummie Broad, what do you do when your workload is particularly heavy? How do you cope with that?

ME: I type faster. Scream louder. Use more swear words.

ME: Would you say you're satisfied in your job?

ME: Hmm, let me think. No stressed-out boss breathing down my neck, no insecure work colleagues plunging sharp blades into my spine, no soul-destroying commute to and from work every day. Yep, I'd say I was pretty satisfied with work, life and everything, overall.

ME: And where do you see yourself in a year's time, Brummie Broad?

ME: Doing this, but probably slightly madder, probably a lot scruffier, and with dark stains on my front door from the demise of many, many salesmen. Okay, your turn now, rate me. Go on, say nice things about me, tell me how fab I am at my job and how pleased you are with my work.

ME: Umm.

ME: Go on, I can take it. What do you think of my performance really?

ME: Well there is something I wanted to bring up that you've already mentioned actually. We do think you're a bit... well, a bit scruffy.

ME: Pardon?

ME: Scruffy.

ME: But... but... I work at home! I can wear what I like, and I like the mad old biddy wearing hippy skirts look.

ME: We've had complaints, Brummie Broad.

ME: Complaints? From whom?

ME: The neighbours. They say you're bringing down the tone of the area, and that house prices plummet every time you take the dog out for a walk.

ME: I see. Bar stewards. Anything else?

ME: No.

ME: Good.

I think it went quite well and expect an incredible pay rise in the immediate future - which the tax man will no doubt swipe from my hands before it even touches my palm (git).

I'm thinking of utilising some other business related activities to help with productivity, like going out for lunch with myself, gossiping with myself around the printer, or networking with neighbours (periodically yelling, "Oi, when you gonna cut yer hedge?" out of the window).

And, of course, booking a few sessions with the nearest psychiatrist.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: Rest of week

One of the 'joys' of working at home is that I'm constantly assailed by salesmen. Constantly. Assailed. By salesmen!

I work upstairs in my study, so if someone knocks on my front door I have to extricate myself from the computer headphones (or forget and suffer whiplash) and gallop all the way down to the front of the house. If I'm then met by some smirking salesman yabbering away on my doorstep, I'm not too berluddy happy I can tell you.

In the olden days (cue Hovis music) it was much simpler. They'd say, "Hello, madam, can I interest you in...?" and you'd know what was going on. These days they must take psychological degree courses on how to avoid answering awkward questions like, 'Are you a salesman?'

No, no, definitely not a salesman, tsk, perish the very thought, a mere salesman indeed. No, they're called 'representatives' now, or 'researchers', or 'canvassers'. It's all intended to put us off the scent so we'll have to stand there for a long time trying to figure out who they are and what they want.

Take yesterday for example. My doorbell rings. I unplugged myself from the computer, hauled myself out of The Typing Chair, and raced downstairs.

"Are you selling something?" I snapped at the bloke on my doorstep.

"We're just in the area and - "

"I'm not interested. As this bright orange sticker here on my porch clearly states. Can you see where it says No Salesmen and that I don't buy anything from the door?"

"People don't usually mention them," says the salesman, visibly flinching, "They don't often point them out quite like that."

"That's because you're the third salesman I've had knocking on my door today!"

"Yes," he said, "I'm getting that impression from people, that you get a lot of salesmen round here."

"And yet still you come!"

"We're just asking if you want your soffits done," the salesman continued tenaciously.

Just how many soffit companies are there in the South Birmingham area exactly?

"Soffits aren't high on my agenda," I tell him.

"You know they protect the wood, don't you."

Tsk. "Yes, but it's not something that keeps me awake at nights."

"Your neighbour has had her soffits done."

I gave him my best Lee Van Cleef look, all squinty eyed and menacing.

"Fascia boards?" he says.

"What about them?"

"Do you need yours doing?"

Lee Van Cleef was now sucking a lemon and feeling a bit trigger-happy. I didn't trust myself to answer without resorting to violence.

"Can I leave you a quote?" he asks.

"No, you can leave me alone!"

"You don't need anything doing then?"

Short of tattooing Eff Off on my forehead (and I've given it serious thought), I wasn't sure how much clearer I could be. "No!" I screech, so high pitched that my dog cried out in alarm from the other room.

He still seemed reluctant to leave, as they all do - maybe they want to see just how sarcastic I can get before I spontaneously combust, maybe they just like the feel of my driveway underfoot. Who knows?

Saying (or rather, shrieking hysterically) that I Work At Home elicits a variety of responses from said salesmen. Most assume I'm a homemaker (as they're called now), a Woman of Leisure who does nothing but lounge around all day eating chocolates and watching Jeremy Kyle.

One particular salesman, as my husband pulled up in the driveway, said, "Oh here's a proper worker, he'll know what I'm talking about." Hubs had to hold me back whilst he told the salesman to 'clear off while he still could'.

Another, upon being told through gritted teeth that I Work From Home, sarcastically sneered, "Oh I wish I could work at home."

I nearly said, 'Well you spend several years in a manic city environment putting up with back-stabbing colleagues and chronic corporate crap, perfecting your computer and survival skills to the nth degree and wasting hours sitting on a packed bus in rush hour traffic every single berluddy day and maybe you can!' But didn't.

There are now two signs in my porch. One reads, 'No Salesmen. No Jehovah's. NO EXCEPTIONS'.

The other sign is right next to my doorbell and it reads: 'Salesmen, before pressing, ask yourselves this question: Do you feel lucky?'

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: There rest of week.

Hubs started it. He said, "Have you got everything you need for the wedding next week?"

"Yes," I said, avoiding all eye contact.

"Are you sure?"

I started crying.

Of course I'm not ready. There's a reason why I rode motorbikes for decades and prayed with each pregnancy for a boy child. It's because the feminine gene (along with the smelling gene, the sanity gene and the fashion sense gene) just passed me by completely, took one look at my forming foetus and cried 'Don't bother with that one, lads, we don't have the resources'.

I don't do Dressing Up, as my friends will happily tell you. Scruffy But Comfortable is my middle name (pretty sure the clashing hippy look will come back into fashion at some point).

But this was a wedding. An effort is required. I'd bought a dress, wasn't that enough?

Apparently not.

Hubs bundled me into the car and drove to (aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!) Merry Hell. I had a list: something to put on my feet, something to put on my head, something to put on my pitiful fingernails.

Sigh.

Despite it being his idea in the first place, Hubs obviously wasn't in the mood. We've devised a Scale of Agony when out shopping: one is fine, ten is ready to open up an artery. In the first shop he was already on five.

We joined the crowds of women trailing round rails of clothes being trailed after by bored husbands. Mine was no exception.

"Where you at now?" I kept asking, staring miserably at 145,087 pairs of sandals and not liking any of them.

"Seven," he sighed.

I glanced at window displays as we rushed passed hoping that something would leap out and wave at me, or for a big sign saying "BRUMMIE BROAD, EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN HERE!"

Earrings, check. Fridge magnet, check. DVDs check.

"Where you at?" I asked Hubs after we'd been shop hopping for an hour.

"Nine."

"I've got one more to go."

"No!" he cried, "I can't take it any more, we have to leave NOW."

I didn't argue, I'd been at 10 on the richter scale of horror since before we left the house. Nobody hates shopping more than I do. Nobody.

So if you're in Yorkshire on Thursday morning and you see a scruffy, frantic, red-faced woman running round shops screaming for nail polish and sandals, please stay well out of my way.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: The rest of the time.