She tells everyone in school, including the boys and including Keith Swaybe! I am a laughing stock. Everyone is staring, pointing, giggling, whispering “Ruth fancies Keith Swaybe!” I never speak to him again.Jane’s pearls of wisdom: “Ask in person .. Have good timing .. Be direct and to-the-point .. Give plenty of notice .. But not too much .. Be casual .. But not too casual .. Be confident.” Too bloody late.Babysitting.Early-teens. Initially problem-free, eg rich people with catering-size boxes of sweets in the pantry never seem to notice that I sneak two Twixes, two Kit-Kats and two Crunchies every Saturday night, to compensate for not having a boyfriend.Then it all goes wrong: I stand in for friend at last minute The new couple own an adolescent Alsatian. Your host will assume that it was you, and will quite rightly be very cross.”So how do you know what sort of clothes to wear to a party?Early teens I am the new girl at school Decide to make friends by solo visit to weekly disco. Outcome: we never see the grand family again.Jane’s words of warning: “If no one saw the incident, don’t be tempted to keep it quiet.
After a miserable afternoon, find mother in quiet corner and guiltily report disaster We return to toilet Press two halves together Run away. Incident triggers school dinner phobia, followed by several months of maternal toing and froing every lunchtime.Jane’s advice: “If you hate everything you’ve been served, it’s quite hard to leave it without appearing rude …” How true.What should you do if you break or damage something?Pre-teens Family visit to grand house belonging to friends of parents Mid-afternoon trip to little girls’ room Toilet fails to flush I lift up lid (porcelain) to cistern (porcelain) Splash about for a few minutes Attempt to reflush Lid comes crashing down and splits neatly in two I run away. We are ushered into teacher’s office, from where sister improvises brilliant cover-up: trauma caused by recent passing-away of great aunt Lil. Sadly, dreaded liver coincides with dreaded bread-and-butter pudding the day the headmaster sits on my lunch table I burst into tears Sister summoned from big kids’ table. Horrid junior school forces frightened tots to eat lunchtime meat Dreaded liver appears on the menu at least once a week Sometimes it can be hidden under mash.
On boiled potato days, a more elaborate ploy is necessary: I slowly fork bite-sized chunks into my mouth, fake chewing until no one is looking, “cough” offending item into hand, then throw gristly mess under seat of innocent tot adjacent Not bad for a five-year-old.Next school has nice food. Is there any polite way to avoid eating food that you don’t like?
Pre-teens. The author is 24-year-old Jane Goldman, who must always have been pretty sophisticated: she married Jonathan Ross when she was 17. Anyway, it’s jolly sensible and friendly, full of tips and tactics on dating, how to impress at job interviews, being the perfect guest, and what to do when you meet your idol If only I’d had a copy in the Seventies. He should go down a storm.Storm of Soul, £4.99 (£5.99 with cassette) from The Stanza Building, PO Box 2249, London, W14 9WQ Live: The Mean Fiddler Acoustic Room, 9pm, 17 Feb. Next week sees the publication of a guide to etiquette for modern teens, called For Weddings, a Funeral and When You Can’t Flush the Loo.
The verse has also been recorded with funky/kooky embellishments (wah-wah guitar, gospel piano and cymbals), but why not go the whole hog and see the man himself, in a rare live appearance at the Mean Fiddler this week. The poems are short, taut and daringly uninhibited in their use of elliptical imagery, leaping in subject-matter from the Los Angeles riots to Curtis Mayfield, to Bosnia (“Europe’s new casualty ward/ Where the anaesthetic has run out/and doctors work by camera light”), to Paris and love. On the one hand, he clearly knows he has pop pin-up potential (his face adorns the slim volume, which is published on Valentine’s Day) – on the other we are told he is quite shy, (“uncomfortable in the media glare”).But media glare might just be heading his way, if Storm of Soul is anything to go by. So we can forgive 29-year-old writer and singer Luke Meddings his ambivalent approach to publicity: “Everyone’s talking about poetry as the new rock’n'roll but there’s only one poet who can live up to the hype,” declaims the blurb accompanying his first collection, Storm of Soul. but you don’t want to become over- familiar, endlessly lapping the poetry club circuit in search of recognition. Going down
a storm
It can be hard being a young poet in London sometimes You want to get your face seen, perform, be noticed…
“I saw Ian at the airport and he didn’t look to me like he had a broken nose.”Pakistan’s Test win, page 39. “We called the police and Ian made a statement before he went to hospital to be checked.”
Healy declined to take the matter further and was allowed to fly home to Brisbane later that day after being treated at the Royal Perth Hospital. He had been part of the Australian party staying at the Hyatt, where a team dinner was held on Tuesday nightto celebrate the Ashes Test series victory over England.Healy then went out for several hours. He returned to thehotel by taxi, at 2.30am he said, before striking up a conversation with the two England supporters in front of the hotel.Benney revealed that security guards had been watching the two men because they had been standing around the hotel entrance.However, Healy’s place on Australia’s short tour of New Zealand, which starts next week, is not under threat though the Test team manager, Ian McDonald, said that he had heard nothing about the incident.Laurie Sawle, the Australian chairman of selectors, who had seen Healy off at the airport, also expressed surprise after being told of the attack by the two fans.”I’ve heard nothing at all,” Sawle said.