Jane

Child asked me to toast her leftover Halloween marshmallows.
They are shaped like ghosts.
I am spearing tormented souls on a skewer and holding them over the flames.
What have I become?

A large mint green poster, with peeling edges and black text peppered with speech bubbles, reads “Meet the voices in your head”. The poster is for Crossed Wires Podcast Festival.

Having just left my psych appointment, this poster was, on closer inspection, quite disappointing.

Christmas Carol Goes Wrong - CHRISTMAS CAROL GOES WRONG - Mischief Comedy Mischief’s new action-packed thriller THE COMEDY ABOUT SPIES, gripping audiences with laughter from April 2025 at the Noël Coward Theatre.

Upcoming #AudioDescriptions:
A CHRISTMAS CAROL GOES WRONG, Wales Millenium Centre, 22/11/25 @2.30pm
mischiefcomedy.com/whats-on/christmas-carol-goes-wrong
THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN…, Norwich Playhouse, 25/11/25 @8.00pm
norwichtheatre.org/whats-on/the-chaos-that-has-been-and-will-no-doubt-return/

Anyway, I love this girl and hope she goes to the best beauty school. And I’m really cross that I live in a city with sufficient poverty that a thoughtful 17 year old is having to stake her future career on the sum of £190.

There’s a teenage girl on this bus talking to her friend about a vocational beautician course. “I can go to city college. Yeah, I’d rather go to X, everyone says it’s top notch, but it’s £190 and that’s a huge amount. Mum wouldn’t make me pay her back, but I’d feel bad. It’s so much”. 💙

Has anyone heard of #BWRT therapy? I tried it for the first time on Wednesday. It’s primarily been developed for trauma/anxiety, but I actually think it could be a game changer for ADHD related procrastination. (I did my dry run notes ON THE TUBE HOME, not at 1am!!)

Health anxiety in your late 40s is *something* being wrong with 80% of your body, but no one thing being *wrong enough* to see a doctor.

I cannot decide whether this is better or worse than #Gigantosaurus, in which the velociraptors are dangerous because they - *checks notes* - make snarky comments and steal your fruit…?

Still on this: In #TheLionGuard, a lion and a cheetah are protecting a herd of zebras because “there might be predators around”.
That would be predators like - lions and cheetahs?
You’re on first name terms with ALL the herbivores. How socially awkward is it when you need a snack?

That’s a kid being primed for an eating disorder by their parents. 😒

Way too much of my brain is taken up with being irritated by narrative inconsistency in children’s TV.
In #PuffinRock, why do all the animals share a common language EXCEPT the seagulls?
If the kids in #RescueRiders speak dragon because they were raised by dragons, why do they also speak English?

Troilus and Cressida | Summer 25 | What's On Two opposing cultures, the Greeks and the Trojans, clash in London's open-air Globe Theatre this summer, in Shakespeare's epic, rarely performed satire.

Upcoming #AudioDescriptions:
TROILUS & CRESSIDA, Globe Theatre, 17/10/25 @ 2.00pm
shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/troilus-and-cressida/
A CHRISTMAS CAROL GOES WRONG, Wales Millenium Centre, 22/11/25 @2.30pm
mischiefcomedy.com/whats-on/christmas-carol-goes-wrong/about/

Can anyone shed light on why the idiots in charge of the US are jumping on *this particular* drug (acetaminophen/paracetamol) for their scaremongering? The opiate freak-out has already got doctors there prescribing this stuff to terminal cancer patients. Take that away - what am I missing?

This was all around the turn of the millennia, for context. We thought we were moving forward, to be fair.

I was writing a (really hackneyed) dystopian piece where people from groups vilified by popular media were incarcerated by the state. He sneered and said “I think we’re a bit past concentration camps, don’t you?”
Sometimes I wonder if he says that today, whilst watching the news.

Every now and again, I think back to the “writing for stage” module I did at uni. I wasn’t good at it. I can craft a fairly elegant sentence, but I couldn’t write a plot for toffee.
Anyway, that’s not why I remember the (older, white, male) professor scoffing at my efforts…

Leaving aside that he was actually shot by a fellow fascist:
I don’t like violence. I very much respect pacifism.
But there will come a point at which pacifism becomes a moral luxury. And waiting until the fascists hold all the power before deciding that, is not particularly wise.

I am so confused by all the people who “never again” about genocide, who are also hand-wringingly “violence is never the answer” when an actual fascist gets shot.
Are you under the impression the nazis were persuaded to open the gates of the concentration camps by our well-reasoned arguments?

Given he was speaking in the wake of (yet another) school shouting, I don’t think that’s what he meant. He was very clearly talking about “acceptable” collateral damage.

Look, I’m trying as hard as I can to feel something for the common spark of humanity snuffed out, but I’m at capacity with Gaza etc.
And if you are on the side campaigning to keep guns readily available, you can’t really complain when they shoot you.

On the one hand, one less fascist, on the other, Reichstag fire. #CharlieKirk

Well, apparently Bluesky is magic, because power was restored the second I posted that.

Our street has been without power since last night. First it was going to be fixed in 3 hours, then 12 hours, now it’s apparently 24 hours and looking a bit silly.
We have essential medication that needs to remain refrigerated.

The same show has dubbed their *indigenous American* characters with British accents, though, so it’s a bit damn weird all round.

Child is watching a programme featuring a little song about how your gear and equipment don’t make you a winner, your heart does. Which is a lovely sentiment, but not actually true. We’re teaching kids financial privilege doesn’t exist.

At a kids disco. I absolutely adore how uninhibited our child is compared to most her age. She dances like a whirling dervish. Like it’s a religious experience.

Upcoming #AudioDescriptions:
BORN WITH TEETH, Wyndhams Theatre, 20/9/25 @ 2.30pm
rsc.org.uk/born-with-teeth
TROILUS & CRESSIDA, Globe Theatre, 17/10/25 @ 2.00pm
shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/troilus-and-cressida/

Close up of a porcelain doll, with blue eyes and golden-blonde ringlets, wearing a pink lacy dress and a faintly pensive expression.

Despite her father having full on pediophobia, the child persuaded him to buy a vintage doll as a gift and store it until my birthday.
At bedtime, she innocently proclaimed “I hope (doll) feels safe, so she doesn’t murder us in our sleep”.
The child is a comedian.

Trying to coordinate directly with some arts companies makes me so very bloody appreciative of the agencies I usually work through.

I’m not sure publicly announcing “I’m too cowed and apathetic to fight for my right to exist” is tremendously “normal”, to be honest.