Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog

I recently had a chance to chat with Ross Hemsworth on his UK web radio programme The Hammer Show and a good time was had by all! From the controversy surrounding my recent novel Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts and my work on Mitzi TV, to celebrity culture and Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s animal cruelty involving his own dog – no subject is immune!

Tune in for some lively discussion and a perspective on the world from both Britain and America. Clink to listen to the replay of the interview at:

http://thesop.org/story/nailing-it-international-celebrity-and-erotic-author-mitzi-szereto-up-close-and-personal

The recent Christmas and New Years holidays (along with the never-ending Bank Holiday Mondays we get here in ol’ Blighty) have got me thinking. Yes, I do this on occasion. Having worked through the holidays nonstop, including Christmas Day and News Years Day, I began to wonder about those such as myself who spend our lives toiling in alternative forms of labour – ie authors and other creative individuals who don’t take home a regular pay cheque or get requisite days off (let alone sick days). Wouldn’t it be nice if WE got a special day off?

Yeah, I know it’s a lot to hope for, but what’s life without a bit of hope?

You’re probably asking what I was so busy doing that I couldn’t even take a minute to myself. Okay, where should I start? There’s this little matter called a deadline that had to be dealt with. Publishers set them – and it’s your job to meet them. So I was correcting the galleys for my upcoming book Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts (going over them twice, I should add). In addition, I was putting together a book trailer and website for the title, while also working on my new anthology Red Velvet and Absinthe (which likewise has a looming deadline), reading material as it came in and working closely with writers whose material I was keen on (I mean, being an editor does require some actual… errr… editing!). In between all this, I had to keep myself fed and watered, attend to my social networking responsibilities (and they are massive), do housework, and look after a rambunctious young bear, who doesn’t like being neglected. There was also the issue of a new vacuum cleaner that needed attending to (the previous and now-famous one having died on me right after the warranty ran out). Oh, yeah, and I was busy fighting an annoying cold I’d picked up from some germy bugger on an overstuffed tube train in London one night when I was on my home from The Smoke. Imagine the footage you’ve seen of passengers in India clinging vicariously to the sides and roofs of train cars and you get the picture. Though at least the Indians don’t pay the equivalent of a London pub lunch for the price of a tube ticket.

Of course I realise that I’m not the only person in the world who has a ton of things to do and not enough time in which to do them. But when you actually have to force yourself not to send out rejection emails to hopeful short story contributors on Christmas and New Year’s day, fearing it would make you look like “Mrs. Scrooge the Anthology Editor,” you know it’s time for an official day off.

A Facebook friend of mine suggested that maybe two authors should get married and give us a public holiday, a la Will and Kate. Since that seems to work as far as adding to the British Bank Holiday curriculum vitae, I said yeah, good idea. So I thought we can play matchmaker between Salman Rushdie and Jilly Cooper (that should get some notice!). Whether either of them is already married is beside the point. They can always get a quickie divorce in Mexico and hurry back here in time for their wedding.

Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to happen. I mean, no one really gives a darn about us poor writers toiling away in our dark and dusty garrets. The public reads our books, but do they care about how we are? Hell no. If we need someone to make us chicken soup when we’re sick do they come running with the ingredients and a cooking pot? Hell no. When they see us on the street, do they drag us into Starbucks and treat us to a latte with extra whipped cream? Hell no. They just use us and forget us. (Hmm… kinda like men, eh?)

No, it seems we’re on our own in a big old scary world without a proper and legally recognised day off. The entire world goes off on holiday and there you are, still slaving away and seeing your life flash before your eyes. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Even my gym kept shutting early because no one wanted to work. Blimey.

So on behalf of all us poor overworked authors, will Salman Rushdie and Jilly Cooper please hurry up and get married and give us an official day off?

I mean, is it really so much to ask?

Mitzi Szereto and Teddy Tedaloo (the "Norfolk Hayseeds")

My beloved sidekick Teddy Tedaloo and I are recently back from our first in what will hopefully be many visits to the wonderful county of Norfolk. When friends told me that things are a bit quirky in those parts, I knew it was the right place for us – and I wasn’t disappointed. Sure, I got a bit of ribbing about all the inbreeding and webbed hands and feet (the same kind of jokes you get about Wales, which is a beautiful place!), but I saw no webbed hands or feet (except on the ducks), and the locals I met were friendly, pleasant and helpful.

The plan was to soak up lots of local colour for a quirky novel I’m going to write, and soak it up I did in abundance! The quirkiness kicked off a few minutes before my train arrived at King’s Lynn, with my friend and hostess sending me a series of progressively panicked text messages informing me that she was stuck in the soap cycle at the car wash and could not get out. I ended up waiting outside by the taxis with some poor woman whose friend apparently forgot to collect her from the station, and we amused ourselves by watching the gulls deposit their waste onto parked vehicles until a car came skidding to a halt before me. My friend had arrived.

Well, I felt really let down, especially after all those text messages. I’d expected the car to be covered in soap suds like some giant bath sponge, but apparently my friend managed to make it into the rinse cycle, and hence to freedom. And off we went for a Magical Mystery Tour of Norfolk that lasted for several days and probably put a couple of pounds on me from all the eating I did (did someone say “pudding“?).

Mitzi Szereto and Teddy Tedaloo at a Norfolk pub

Now there’s nothing Ted and I like better than country and village pubs, and we availed ourselves of plenty while there. My favourite pub was in a village straight out of Midsomer Murders, replete with a local vicar drinking there… only he wasn’t a local vicar as I soon found out. In fact, he was a Welsh vicar with a parish in Essex. You figure it out. Even he thought it was a scream. It was in this quaint old pub where I found the perfect inspiration for my novel – and I sketched out the entire plot on a scrap of paper in between exchanging quips with the vicar, who was a bit of a comedian. It seems his parish is very near the part of Essex where the ferries go to the continent, only he said his parish was for “the incontinent”. I kinda got the impression he wasn’t too crazy about Essex when he told me: “I love everybody, but I don’t have to like everybody.”

The Norfolk Broads

Welsh vicars from Essex aside, you haven’t lived till you’ve gone to a pub with a black labrador that’s in season. We’d all just come from a lovely walk on the beach, barely missing being swallowed up by high tide, and were in the mood for some real fish ‘n chips (not sure what the lab was in the mood for, but let’s not go there). Anyway, there was this smaller male dog at the bar giving her the eye and, well… let’s just say he was interested and leave the subject before it disintegrates into non-family content.

Actually, forget about the horny dogs. You haven’t lived till you’ve been on a boat in the Norfolk Broads piloted by Ted. He’s a pretty good driver for a bear, and, in fact, he was a damned sight better at driving our boat than my friend (who continues to assert that I ran over a swan when I took the helm). But I had to get to the Broads and at least see what David Bowie was singing about in “Life On Mars“.

Teddy Tedaloo piloting a boat through the Broads

The only thing actually wrong with Norfolk (and there isn’t much) are all the Londoners coming in and trying to change it into a smaller version of London. There are quite a few so-called “celebrities” and other assorted riff-raff with too much money and no sense who descend on the county in their requisite Sloan Square attire, poncing about and trying to be all country-ish and “bishy-barney-bee” as they shop at the London clone shops and eat in the London clone restaurants (lovely old pubs that have been bought out and destroyed by the gastro craze and certain “celebrity chefs” who fob off their overpriced kibble on you). I have suggested putting barbed wire up to keep these Londoners out, or better yet, an electrified fence. I mean, if you want Primrose Hill, then stay in Primrose Hill!

Of course, coming home is never without its own excellent adventure, particularly when the train driver can’t be bothered to stop at my stop, or indeed, two of the previous stops, when they are ALWAYS scheduled stops. Just one more great mystery brought to you by British Rail. I had been so elated that for my journey home I wouldn’t need to schlep my heavy suitcase up and down countless stairs as I had to on the way to Norfolk (resulting in a slightly sprained hand), but not only did I end up at the next town up from mine, I ended up having to deal with stairs when I was forced to make the reverse journey back to my town. Thankfully my plight was put to an end when a young gentleman intervened and took over suitcase duty. I have often said there are no gentlemen left in Britain (especially in the London area), and I continue to adhere to that statement, therefore it was a pleasant surprise to actually find one (the only ones still alive are usually walking with zimmer frames). Mind you, this particular gentleman (not surprisingly) was from out of town.

Anyway, I’m really looking forward to getting a start on my new novel, and I might at some point need to pop back up Norfolk for an inspiration fix. And who knows, maybe I won’t leave!

I often wonder if I have some magnetic force field operating around me that causes strange things to happen. I admit that I keep a rather low profile locally, since I don’t want hoards of fans queued up at my front door with copies of “In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed” for me to sign. (I prefer they do this in a bookshop, where I won’t be obliged to make them cups of tea.) But low profile or not, I only need to walk a couple of minutes from home before something odd transpires.

For instance, the other week I was heading to the post office when I happened on a busker and her dog. The busker, an Irish woman who seemed to think that I was also Irish (apparently I have an Irish accent), was playing guitar and singing, and the dog, who was wearing a bonnet straight out of a Jane Austen novel, was her devoted sidekick.

I guess I’m a soft touch when it comes to animals, so I put a few coins in the busker’s guitar case, slightly ashamed at the paltry offerings of the locals. Anyway, I got chatting with the woman, who was about to pack up for the day, and somehow from all this I ended up taking on the job of dog minder while she headed off to find a public loo. There I was, sitting on a bench with this dog in a Jane Austen bonnet parking her furry bum on my foot while all and sundry filed past. A few people offered me a friendly smile (I don’t think they were serial killers), including this guy I’d met earlier, who returned to pester me to join some new gym in town when I’d earlier told him that I was happy with the one I already go to – especially since his gym would have cost me double what I now pay.

When the busker returned, I was at last free to do my post office run, afterward heading off to the bank, where, along the way, I ran into an elderly lady I thought I knew from a writers group I’d given a talk to. (By “ran into” I mean on foot, I wasn’t driving.) Turns out it wasn’t her at all, but that didn’t matter, because she invited me to go Scottish dancing in Upminster (which is nowhere near Scotland, by the way). When I explained that I didn’t have a car and, although it sounded like good fun, it would be rather difficult for me to get to, she tried to entice me with tales of men in kilts, suggesting that perhaps I could find out what they wore beneath them. Well, I’d never been so shocked in my life! Okay, maybe I have. I think she just wanted to take me along as some sort of foil, and I probably would have gone, if she’d offered to pay for the taxi.

No sooner had I recovered from this adventure when yet another landed on my doorstep, for just the other day I was running some errands when, in the process of barreling toward the greengrocer’s, I was waylaid by a sweet little old lady with one of those push trolleys. She gave me a big smile and asked if I might offer her my arm so that she could get to a nearby bench to sit down. I saw a couple of old codgers seated there and, although I suspected her intent might be to chat them up rather than rest her elderly bones, I allowed her to borrow my left arm. (She didn’t much care for my right.) There we were, moving along at a snail’s pace and discussing that all-time favourite of English topics, the weather, when suddenly out of the blue she asks me why I think Jesus died.

Well, all I know is that I wanted to buy some of those lovely Spanish peaches before the season was over, therefore I was unable to shed any light on the subject of her query. Undaunted, she continued in what appeared to be a very concerted move to convert me to Christ, or at least drag me into a church. Okay, everyone’s entitled to their own gig and I respect that, but this was getting a bit much, particularly when we got to the bench and she made no effort to let me go – or to sit on the bench she claimed she needed to sit on. By the time she began fiddling in her sleeve for some of those Jesus pamphlets, I’d caught on to what she was about and made my departure before lightning struck me dead.

When I arrived at the greengrocer’s, I got chatting with the cashier and mentioned what had just happened, only to learn that a few days earlier she too had met with the very same elderly lady who had asked for her arm to help her get from point A to point B, only to be given the exact same pitch word for word. The cashier went on to say that a friend of hers had also met with this elderly lady, and so on and so on. Seems she was working the entire street! What bothered the cashier the most (she told me she was raised a full-on Christian, btw), was the degree of sneakiness and dishonesty involved, which she felt gave Christians a bad name. In fact, she didn’t believe the old woman was infirm enough to require assistance at all, and had merely been using this as a ploy. Indeed, we fully expected to see our doddering granny go jogging past the shop at any moment! We both concluded that we would very likely think twice before lending our arms to anyone. As for me personally, I never felt so cheap and used in my life!

The following day I returned to the High Street for a bit of grocery shopping and no, I didn’t see the elderly lady, but I did encounter a group of Native American Indians in full regalia performing tribal song and dance. Having by now learned my lesson, I didn’t stop to chat.

I bet you’re thinking that it’s only my local High Street where all these curious adventures take place, but it seems that no matter where I go, this magnetic force field of mine follows – even in the middle of Central London (or, in this case, beneath it). One night I was on a standing-room only underground train when I and several of my fellow passengers noticed a moth sitting on the handrail (at least it had somewhere to sit). The man near me was discussing with his mates what a moth riding the tube might eat, and I remarked that it was quite likely curry, since the moth was yellow. He agreed as to the logic of my argument, at which point several more people joined in the conversation. We then started taking guesses as to which stop Mr. Moth would get out at. I said Liverpool Street (turns out I was right). After so much speculation on the life of the Central Line moth, we were sorry to see it go, and when it came time for our little group to disband, we did so with tears in our eyes. (Okay, so maybe we didn’t, but we did part fondly.)

You’re probably saying that all this random weirdness must be some eccentric English thing, not a Star Trek-ian force field that has attached itself to me. Well, I’ve got news for you: it isn’t. Just wait till I tell you what happened when I ran into a bunch of Klingons in France!

Mitzi Szereto slums it on a BMW motorbike

Okay, anyone who’s seen the latest Mitzi TV video “Born To Be Wild” can probably figure out that I’m a bit partial to motorbikes. In fact, some of the happiest times I’ve ever had were riding pillion when I lived in LA. Those were the days, flying along Pacific Coast Highway on the smog-tinged ocean breeze! (I’ll omit details of how I once drove into a wall in Beverly Hills while actually driving one of the things. Well, at least it wasn’t a wall in Compton!)

I guess it was inevitable that this subjugated desire of mine should once again rear its ugly head. Being the resourceful lass that I am, I put the word out that I wanted a ride.

An invite was soon forthcoming.

However, things never quite go according to plan – at least not where I’m concerned. What started off as an autumn Saturday afternoon motorcycle ride into the English countryside ended up landing me in the midst of what appeared to be a camp of survivalists in rural Essex.

Mitzi Szereto as Tank Girl

Now Essex is known for many things; survivalists aren’t usually the first thing that comes to mind. Chavs, footballers, footballers’ wives, bleached blonde hair and fake orange tan (see footballers’ wives), Essex girls, white stilettos (see Essex girls), West Ham supporters, holidays in “Ibeefa” (see Essex girls), the highest rate of marriages in the UK (and the highest rate of divorces), and a sledgehammer accent (innit?) that can strip the paint off metal – these are the things that have put Essex on the map!

Oh, yeah, and Jamie Oliver. Now he’s the kind of Essex boy you’d want to bring home to mama. In fact, he’s probably the only Essex boy you’d want to bring home to mama, unless you fancy your mama being besieged by copious uses of the “C” word, which is bandied about by these finely reared Essex lads as often and easily as one might ask for a cup of tea.

Anyway, I was dead excited about my scheduled ride into the country on the back of a BMW motorbike wiv my new m8 “Mister G” – gun runner, rapper, and drug cartel kingpin from the West Country. But as the day drew near, I began to suffer a twinge of anxiety. Bad enough I’d just read a news article about a motorcyclist in Scotland who ended up in hospital after colliding with a sheep. Apparently the guy sustained a lot of injuries, however, that didn’t stop him from being billed by the local council for damage when his motorbike caught fire and melted a portion of the road’s surface.

The sheep died.

Then I kept getting SPAM emails from some insurance company in the UK that specialises in road accident coverage. Was somebody trying to tell me something?

We weren’t even ten minutes into our ride when we passed through a village with a preponderance of funeral directors, not to mention a cemetery located conveniently close by. Another sign? Was I teasing the Grim Reaper by daring to do something I might actually enjoy? I realised later that the village had a very large population of elderly folk. Hey, you’d think they’d figure out not to move there, what with the high mortality rate. Sort of like that TV show “Midsomer Murders“. Why do people live there when the murder rate is something like 85%? I mean, how dumb can you get?

I decided to get a photo of me slumming it on a BMW motorbike, so we pulled off the road into an area that looked for all intents and purposes like a family campground. However, rather than pup tents and screaming tykes, it looked like we’d landed in the midst of a military coup. Tanks, weaponry, army boys with rifles – with the only tents in sight army-issue with camouflage netting. I kept expecting Charlton Heston to appear holding up a rifle that could kill a charging buffalo as he muttered something about “from my cold dead hands”.

Oh, yeah, he is dead. Guess that gun thing didn’t work out too well for him after all.

As for the survivalists, something wasn’t adding up. First of all, the men I saw didn’t look as though they were cast members from the film “Deliverance“. Second, I didn’t hear any banjos. In fact, the one major thing that gave a hint that something wasn’t quite kosher was an old phonograph playing The Andrew Sisters. Turns out it was just a harmless gathering of retro-military aficionados camping out for the weekend.

I’m now looking to recruit someone with a Harley so I can have another pillion ride. Though after this visit to the Twilight Zone, maybe it might be wiser to hit Kent?

On second thought, maybe not. It’s south of the river. And as any proper Londoner will tell you, you just don’t go south of the river!

Mitzi Szereto recruited by NRA (From my cold dead hands...)

In this fragile and depressed economy, I wouldn’t want to wish bad on any business. But there are times when it’s pretty obvious that a business is a serious blight to the community. Sometimes you aren’t aware of just how major a blight it’s been…

…until it’s gone.

I refer to the recent (and what appears to be major) fire at a popular nightclub on the local High Street: on the surface an unfortunate event, in reality a blessing – at least to us poor bastards who live within drunken shrieking distance of it. It happened early Sunday evening before it was due to open. I’d just arrived home from a Mitzi TV video shoot in Kensington (an arduous task, since there was engineering work on the rail line, necessitating a replacement bus service which increased my travel time by a good hour each way). I was attempting to chill out when I smelled a very nasty burning. And no, I wasn’t cooking!

My initial thought was, had Burning Man suddenly been relocated from the Nevada desert to a town located on the edge of London?

When I went to look out the window for any signs of new-age “radicals” singing “Koom-By-Ya”, I saw that the air was thick with smoke (slightly worrisome what toxins might have been IN that smoke), and it sounded as if every fire engine from every fire brigade in southeast England was heading my way. I was ready to grab Teddy and my laptop, and get the hell out.

Fortunately, such measures proved unnecessary; the smoke appeared to be slowly thinning. Just to make sure all was well and neither Burning Man nor Armageddon was taking place in the hood, I decided to find out for myself what was happening. However, no sooner did I reach the sidewalk when a neighbour called down to me from his balcony (Romeo, oh Romeo!), informing me that the entire High Street was closed off and the famous infamous nightclub had been charred. Satisfied with this explanation (he was cute, surely he wouldn’t lie to me?), I returned to the warmth and safety of my flat, where Teddy and I kicked back with some Swiss chocolate.

Well, that night was the first night in two years I heard nothing but blissful silence. No shouting, no yelling, no shrieking, no sirens – nothing but a gentle breeze and the occasional chirping of a bird (along with Ted’s occasional snore). Coincidence? When the same thing happened on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, I had to conclude that no, it was not a coincidence, but a direct result of the fire. Clearly, the vast majority of anti-social behaviourial problems and criminal activity taking place in my town stemmed from one main source: the nightclub.

No more nightclub, no more problems.

I can’t begin to tell you what a pleasure it’s been not to hear drunken sluts shouting and shrieking till all hours, along with their chavvy male equivalents who seem to think that being a “man” means to be so inebriated they can’t even walk. Oh, and of course swapping STDs with their drunken female counterparts in a toilet or alleyway.

In the immortal words of Alf the Cockney Devil from my short story “Hell is Where the Heart is” (Getting Even: Revenge Stories): “Put the spoiled little shits in the army, that’ll make men of ‘em.” (And women, too, no doubt.) I should add that Alf’s idea of a real army was the Israeli version. Wish I could say these booze-soaked blights to modern civilisation were an anomaly. Alas, they’re more the rule than the exception in the cities and towns of Britain.

All I know is, I don’t want things to go back to how they were. In fact, I’m tempted to run for political office, if I thought I could keep this menace of a nightclub from re-opening and re-attracting the scummier residents from the less salubrious towns within commuting distance to mine. Just think what I could do if I was on the local council. We could have a Mitzi TV video featuring quirky councillors engaging in a singalong at their local pub!

Oh, yeah, I did that one already.

Okay, how about an egg and spoon race?

They don’t call this country “Blighty” for nothing. It seems like everyone’s always ailing around here, especially me. I get shot of one malady, only to have another swoop down and carry me off in its germy clutches. In the past few weeks I’ve been hit by a cold, followed by what may or may not have been food poisoning, followed by bronchitis (with severe laryngitis) combined with a head cold (that’s still going on). I average something every four weeks now, except for the summers, when I get time off for good behaviour. I shudder to think what would happen if I was forced to join the daily commute in and out of London with millions of germy commuters hacking and coughing and sneezing their way through the morning and evening rush hour. Frankly, I’m beginning to think the plague was never fully eliminated from Britain.

Some time back I was out for an evening in Blackheath with a bunch of Cockneys (I do seem to know a lot of Cockneys, don’t I?) and I was given a most interesting history lesson. Apparently the heath itself – which is a green space situated between some of Blackheath’s village streets – can never be built on. Now let me say to those blissful in their ignorance, the heath itself is one hell of a nice piece of real estate… until you hear that there are plague victims buried there. Oh, sure, there are mixed reports on all this, but when was the last time you saw anyone spending a Sunday afternoon on the heath with a bucket and spade? I mean, would you let your children play there? Er, well… providing you actually LIKE your children, that is.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not blaming Blackheath specifically for my maladies! I guess if I were to place the blame on any one particular location, I’d probably have to opt for Eyam, the famous plague village in the Derbyshire Dales, since I’d been there way before I’d ever stepped foot in Blackheath. When I lived in the dreaded north (by that I mean Sheffield, home of the Arctic Monkeys, Sean Bean, and assorted bits of steel cutlery), I spent quite a lot of my free time in Derbyshire, hiking about in The Peak District, only to end up in some wonderful country pub afterward (that really was the whole point of the exercise, if I’m honest!). If you want to know of a good pub in the Peaks, just ask – I know them all. There were very few Sunday afternoons when you wouldn’t find me at some cosy country pub with a pint and a plate of some tasty pub grub. No frozen rubbish there. The food was fresh and often bordering on gastro-cuisine, and there was always room for sticky toffee pudding. One tends to work up an appetite hiking and climbing and teetering about on cliffs, believe me.

I’ve had some very enjoyable experiences in the Peaks. In fact, I’ve even taken some literary inspiration from the area via my short story Bakewell, Revisited originally published in Erotic Travel Tales 2. It’s set in the market town of Bakewell and involves its most famous celebrity: the absolutely divine Bakewell Pudding. Mind you, I’m not entirely certain the Bakewell Pudding’s founding fathers (or mothers) had envisioned quite the scenario I’d conjured up for my story, but…

Anyway, let’s get back to those Peak District jaunts before I get myself into trouble here. I tell you, you haven’t lived till you’ve been right in there among the heather when it’s in its full purple glory. Oh yeah, you’ll have plenty of company buzzing about too, which can be a bit of a challenge. I’d already had some nasty run-ins with wasps on a remote mountaintop in the Greek islands (Epinephine anyone?), so their English cousins were not exactly winning me over – especially when one of the cheeky buggers got up my skirt. And honey, I mean WAY up my skirt. Let’s just say this could have been a la petite mort that would have truly been mort.

I’d probably have to say that one of the absolute highlights of my time there (the Peaks, not Greece) was when I was out one Sunday afternoon with my walking/hiking mate Liz and a couple who were visiting her from France. After a scenic drive, we partook of a brief walking tour of duty along a hilly country lane, which wound past a farm full of sheep bleating and whatever else it is sheep get up to. Indeed, our Frenchman was so inspired by this pastoral English setting that he burst into song, serenading these farm residents with the Edith Piaf classic “La Vie En Rose”. (Oddly, there was no applause when he finished.) We then trudged our way back up the hill to the pub, whereupon he ordered the lamb for dinner. I never quite forgave him for that.

Meanwhile, back to the plague. The crazy thing is, I was never ill this often when I lived in Sheffield – and that hilly city is far colder and much windier than The Big Smoke by a long shot. Perhaps those salt-of-the-earth Yorkshire folk are hardier and not as prone to germs as these spoiled Southerners are – after all, they come from steel mill and coal pit stock. Now I’m not saying the dreaded lurgy never sank its talons into the locals, but I don’t recall anything quite to the extent of what I’m experiencing here. Mind you, it could just be me. In fact, I’m certain of it.

I wonder if someone’s trying to tell me something. Is that a voice in my ear, whispering “Come to California! Come to California!”?

Nah. Guess I must’ve imagined it.

Well, it’s that time of year again when I’m receiving panicked emails from my mother informing me that yet another hurricane is about to hit South Florida. Seems like only yesterday when this end-of-the-world scenario was transpiring, with wild-eyed rabid shoppers climbing all over each other to lay claim to the last torch (flashlight to you Yanks) on the shelf at The Home Depot, not to mention queuing up to buy petrol for the family car. I well remember being stranded in Glorious Sunshine Land during Hurricane Katrina, the eye of which went right over the roof of my mother’s house, sparking off a psychedelic light show on the power lines that would have put any rave to shame, leaving us with no power for several days – and no air conditioning. If you’ve ever spent a summer in South Florida, you’ll know that this is tantamount to the very worst of CIA torture techniques. It took three days before we could find a hotel that had either electricity or a working generator. My flight back home to Blighty had to be delayed by another week, and I was never so glad to see the glum-faced immigration officers at Heathrow in my life.

Which makes me wonder why people get so worried about earthquakes. I’ve experienced a few during my time on the West Coast. These are the little things in life that keep you on your toes. I mean, there’s nothing like being jolted out of a sound slumber at 5am and having to sprint naked into the nearest doorway (for those of you who don’t know about such things, doorways are apparently the strongest part structurally in a building). With the opening lyrics to “The End” by The Doors playing in your head, you wonder if this is finally THE BIG ONE that everybody’s been going on about – the one where the San Andreas Fault will crack wide open and swallow up Los Angeles. Now I ask you, is that such a bad thing? Just think, no more mediocre television sitcoms or plasticised dim-witted celebrities!

You don’t get warnings about earthquakes, therefore there’s no need for those panicked trips to Home Depot or the BP station. Theoretically you’re supposed to have an emergency supply kit on hand anyway, which includes flashlight, radio, batteries (gotta have them batteries, and I don’t necessarily mean for the flashlight and radio either!), canned food, and a generous supply of water for both drinking and washing (and to help flush the loo if things get really dire). Of course hardly anyone bothers with this. I never did. Guess I figured I’d just get in the car and get the hell out of town.

As it happens, we have earthquakes in England too, though they’re pretty wimpy compared to those butch California ones. I remember being awakened in my bed in Sheffield in the middle of the night, thinking “did we just have an earthquake?”, whereupon I promptly fell back to sleep. The next morning I heard on the news that there had been an earthquake across the Pennines in Greater Manchester. A few broken windows and fallen bricks – nothing remotely along the lines of the 1906 San Francisco quake that nearly destroyed the city or the one in 1989 that re-deposited cars on the upper level of the Bay Bridge to the lower level.

Volcanoes. That’s one thing we don’t hear too much about on our curious little island, though they do exist. Now those can be tricky. I lived in Seattle for awhile, and had a rather oblique view of Mount Rainier from the balcony of my apartment. In fact, I even climbed it once (Mount Rainier, not my apartment building), though abandoned the quest at the halfway mark when I passed some snowboarder who couldn’t have been more than 15 looking on the verge of a stroke as he scrambled back down after only having made it part of the way. Needless to say, I ended up leaving Seattle before any lava came rolling in my direction. Or any more snowboarders.

I guess it’s safe to say that I’d take an earthquake over a hurricane any day. I mean, why get all worked up about something before it even happens? Then again, why not just opt for the quiet life? Aside from random earthquakes, windstorms, floods, tornadoes, strikes, football hooliganism, terrorist attacks, riots, never-ending engineering work on the railways and tube, Chancellors with surnames like “Darling“, and wood lice that somehow manage to get through your front door, life in Britain is pretty peaceful overall.

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It’s often been suggested to me that I should seek out the office of British Prime Minister. Okay, so maybe it hasn’t been suggested – or not that much anyway. Granted, I don’t have the dark jowly Scottish charm of Gordon Brown (or thankfully the stomach), but what the hey?  I’ve been in England long enough - I’m really more English than American, so why not become Prime Minister? I can’t drink tea without milk, my sense of humour is warped (Papa Lazarou is my idol, Dave), and I’ll take a pint of beer over a glass of wine at the pub any day. Now I ask you: is that English or wot? The only thing that needs sorting is an appropriate political party; I don’t fit into either Labour or the Tories, and as for the Green Party or the Lib Dems, nah. Dull, the whole lot of them! So here is what I propose: The Erotic Party. You’ve got to admit, it has cache. It just rolls off the tongue (ahem), doesn’t it?

The thing is, do I really want to live at Number 10 with folk coming and going at all times of the day and night? What if Maggie Thatcher popped round for a cuppa? Bet she’ll use up all my demerara sugar, like the workmen always do whenever they come by to do repairs. I’ve yet to meet an English repairman who doesn’t take 3 sugars in his tea. And then there’s the Queen. Oh, I’ve no quarrel with her, she’s a fabulous old bird, but that husband of hers is a real lech. I don’t fancy fending off his roaming hands at a cocktail party. And I know already that it’ll be a major hassle to get all these visitors to remove their shoes before they come indoors; I’ll have to appoint someone specifically for this task – the Shoe Removal Whip or some such. Whip? Hmm… considering that I’ll be the leader of The Erotic Party, that might lead to some unwanted speculation. As for Number 10 itself as a place of residence, I’ve heard it’s cramped, and I suspect there might be rising damp. Are those windows double glazed? Doesn’t look like it to me. If you’ve been through an English winter (and spring, and summer, and autumn), you’ll know all about the importance of good double glazing and proper insulation.

I suppose I’ll have to give this a bit more thought before I decide. Do I give up the exciting jetsetting life of writer, editor (and occasional teacher) of erotic literature just for some silly little job of running an entire country?

I ask you, what would you do?