Benefit Street, Brighton.

  No I haven't gone back into Alice-country again; and no, paws actually don't have anything to do with anything at all I'm wittering on about. In fact neither of the two nouns in that sentences have ever played a vital role in my life. And that's pretty much a common experience: there are some things in life we are only familiar with at second-hand, because they are characteristics associated with other species. From White rabbits to seals the common factor is not the apparatus which enables locomotion. It's whiskers. The very first entry on a basic on-line search for the word "whiskers" brings up the information: "one of several long stiff hairs that grow near the mouth of some animals." The example sentence follows: "The cat licked its whiskers. "  Now I'm not one to credit conspiracy theories; I spent years as an investigative journalist. But, this thing about the whiskers? It just seems so fishy to me. I think it's cheap so

  When I was 16 I was living a double life. During term-time I was a convent Boarder in a rather posh school in Australia. I was 'too young' for most things; I wore my hair in two skinny plaits; clumped about in sensible school-shoes; and and was condescended to by everyone in the world who was over 17. But during the long Summer Holidays and the shorter ones in between, I flew home to my tropical island in the sun and lived my real life. In this world I rarely wore shoes; my hair - which had never in my life been cut - flowed freely down my back and over my bum and I wore a frangipani or hibiscus behind one ear. In this world I had been driving for the past two years; smoked cigarettes socially, was rather knowledgeable about wines and whiskey, and was treated no differently to anyone else. It was in this world that my father, asked to do a spot in the annual Xmas Concert down at the Army barracks, airily informed all and sundry that he would be accompanied by his Glamorous As

  When my father was 16 he ran away and joined the circus. Yep - wanted to lead with that line to get this over and done with: - it isn't just a cliche, or a tired plot line. Some people really have , in real life, and from time to time, done it - and my father, George Simcox was one of them. Even people who are aware that this can be a fact rather than a fiction, looking at George would doubt it.   He was so much the stereotypical RAF Officer the idea was ludicrous. His hands were always impeccably manicured, his blue-black hair Brylcreamed into submission but for a stray, somewhat romantic, recalcitrant lock. Like Hugh Grant's.  In his youth he looked a bit like David Niven in all those WW2 movies (" a mean little moustache" my mother always said about that incarnation.) In his middle years, when he and Jimmy Edwards were fighting The Battle of The 'Tache, (which developed into The HandleBar Club still going strong here in Brighton I discovered to my joy. ) he

I was 26 when I wrote my first autobiography. I didn't market it as an autobiography, of course. Who's going to believe that by the age of 26 anyone would have enough material to fill a book?  The m/s kept coming back unread  because novice authors are not considered skilled enough to write in the first person - so said all the agents in South Africa at the time. On opening up the 5th refusal citing this as the reason, I kinda lost it, strode to my computer and wrote back that I didn't give a damn what some people could or could not do - only in what I could do. And I bloody well COULD write in the first person.  Thus began a wonderful relationship with Frances Bond who became my agent, and remained so until her untimely death.  But, we didn't see eye to eye on her perception of two of the characters - Phil and George.  She kept telling me to tone them down, and insisted that they were OTT as characters and the kinds of things that happened to them were so bizarre they

   Yes, I do mean Alice as in Alice in Wonderland. She  who, 150 years later, was to inspire plot-lines for Soaps and B-Grades with the (now) evergreen It Was All a Dream- ending for years to come. And the reason I am referring to Alice is because, until those hot days we had recently, I never had completely understood how, on a hot summer's day, anyone could really fall asleep under a tree? Not that I ever breathed this puzzlement to a soul: nothing I had ever read, seen or heard over an increasingly longer period of time, seemed to indicate there was a flaw in this reasoning. Everyone else obviously understood.  As this has undoubtedly been the status quo for around three quarters of a rather peripatetic life, one sometimes one has to get a grip on asking too many questions. The line people draw between eagerly intelligent fact gathering, and total imbecility, is shorter than you may realise. But now, finally, like a bucket of iced-water over the head, I discovered that shade

The day I learned that Billy Connolly shared my utter contempt, my revulsion, my deepest loathing for the colour beige, I think I fell a little bit in love with him. Because to me, beige is the colour of all white underwear after a few turns in the washing-machine. It's the colour snowy white pillow cases turn, so your bold black & white colour scheme exists only in your imagination after a couple of months. Beige is also the colour of the underneaths of things: the underneath of your most dashingly upholstered sofa is beige. As are the underneaths of my own arms in winter. Beige too, is renowned for being the colour of stodge: suet dumplings, porridge, sliced bread labelled 'wholewheat', and custard that you make from cornflour because you've run out of Birds gaily familiar yellow powder. It's also the colour of tie-dyed 'white-bits' when you use Household Bleach to strip colour. Or when it splashes on your clothes - so that instead of looking interesti

When you've spent the last five years in a fog I expect suddenly bursting back into clarity again is going to be an illuminating experience in any circumstances. To have done it in the Spring is to add all those tropes of rebirth,  and leaving the Underworld that happen to be circulating around from about March. Anyone who is not totally insensate at this time of year is genetically programmed to rise to the call of Nature triumphant. But to do it in this lockdown has proved exciting, and thrilling, and illuminating by turns - and sometimes all at the same time so I really do, like a girl in a Romcom, gasp audibly and stop in my tracks; quite often. I have twice, unconsciously, but ever so theatrically, raised a hand to my bosom while doing so. (Apart from the conviction that I was certifiable insane, the Fog really seemed to draw a sort of dark oily fuzz over the perceptions. Imagine then, what it's been like to round a bend and come face-to-face with a bawdy, lusty

I was "chatting" to a Twitter-friend to-day who'd noticed I'm not posting much atm.(And @MrsSimpson, I believe, has followed my lead - though perhaps she's just busy with the Cholera Epidemic down there in Georgian Brighton?  ) Not given much to the terse, spare prose of the Greats I explained my current strategy to this woman whom I have never met, but whom I count as a friend. Not "Great" but at least terser and sparer, what it boiled down to was: I am not bullet-proof. Neither is anyone I love and admire. Statistically, the possibility of any of us being killed by bullets, however, is negligible in the face of You Know What.  I am thus engaged in a Cunning Plan and am fine. But of course, anxious to stress the significance of this, I had to include bits of background here and there, and to explain bits elsewhere - just to keep her up to speed. For instance: It’s a given that, even with the three week extension, I am not going to