“You\u00a0JUST couldn’t write this stuff!”<\/p>\n
As a writer (or even as a non-writer), have you ever said that to yourself or to someone else? I know I have. Many times, in fact.\u00a0I’ve seen and experienced things that are so unlikely, not to mention\u00a0so outright ridiculous that\u00a0if I’d written them, I’d be putting myself at risk of failing\u00a0to suspend disbelief in my reader. Usually it’s the kind of\u00a0thing you’d never dream up in a million years, not\u00a0even if you’d raided the\u00a0shelves at your local pharmacy.<\/p>\n
Last week\u00a0I\u00a0received an email from\u00a0a television comedy writer who had a big hit series on\u00a0the BBC\u00a0some years back.\u00a0Apparently he was\u00a0looking out his bedroom window the other morning, only to\u00a0discover that his front gate had vanished. Certain he hadn’t misplaced it, he got dressed and\u00a0promptly set off to\u00a0search for it, eventually finding it in\u00a0the next street over, leaning against somebody’s front door. The homeowner, who\u00a0appeared in her dressing gown looking none too pleased at the intrusion, didn’t take kindly to my friend’s claim that it was\u00a0HIS gate on\u00a0HER property. She proceeded to\u00a0interrogate him,\u00a0demanding to know\u00a0how he knew the gate belonged to him in the first place – whereupon he drew her attention to the fact that\u00a0the gate had his house number on it. How did the gate get there? He\u00a0concluded that\u00a0the local lads had stolen it\u00a0as a drunken prank.<\/p>\n
A hit\u00a0comedy writer for the BEEB<\/a>, and even he had to admit that he could never have come up anything this<\/em> bizarre in one\u00a0of his television scripts.<\/p>\n I know exactly what he means.\u00a0Only last night I\u00a0attended a drinks do at a pub in Islington (one that wisely\u00a0supplied my Belgian strawberry\u00a0beer on tap, I might add). It was a\u00a0bon voyage-slash-fundraiser for one of my friends,\u00a0who’s setting off this weekend\u00a0to bicycle from London to Lourdes to raise money for the Glanfield\u00a0Children’s Group. I assumed it was going to be the usual\u00a0piss-up at the pub\u00a0kind of evening, replete with a\u00a0mob of Irish Catholics suffering no guilt whatsoever about imbibing as many pints as\u00a0the Vatican will allow. And that’s exactly how it started out.<\/p>\n …Until the guest of honour’s\u00a0girlfriend brought out the waxing strips.<\/p>\n Undressing from the waist down\u00a0to a pair of black\u00a0bicycle shorts,\u00a0her boyfriend\u00a0bravely\u00a0leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. In true\u00a0Murder On the Orient Express<\/em><\/a> fashion,\u00a0one by one we proceeded to have a go, stripping the virgin hairs off this poor lad’s calves, knees, and thighs. He was even\u00a0forced to lie facedown so that the backs of his legs could be attended to. Much maniacal laughter ensued, along with\u00a0yelps of pain from our victim,\u00a0as both\u00a0video and photographic evidence were collected on mobile phones and digital cameras – all of which will likely appear on Facebook<\/a>. Save for a few glances in our direction, the other patrons\u00a0sharing the mezzanine area\u00a0with\u00a0our little group\u00a0carried on as if nothing unusual was transpiring\u00a0within a few feet of their pint glasses. And perhaps this was true; perhaps men having their legs waxed in a pub is common practice in north London. Thank god nothing else was being waxed, that’s all I can say. Indeed, I\u00a0was told more than once that this could be the\u00a0inspiration for my next erotic story. It’s always nice to have your mates support and encourage\u00a0your creative endeavours, isn’t it?<\/p>\n (Now in case you’re wondering if this waxing was initiated in order to\u00a0appeal to\u00a0the passions of the rural French he’ll be meeting\u00a0on the way to Lourdes, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Its intended purpose\u00a0was far\u00a0more practical and far less erotic: if our bicylist\u00a0ends up sustaining an injury to his legs, his wounds will be easier to clean and treat without all that manly hair getting in the way.)<\/p>\n Since the evening\u00a0was supposed to be a fundraiser as well as an excuse to drink, a member\u00a0of our party decided to\u00a0round\u00a0up a nearby quartet of women to have a go,\u00a0afterward informing them that they must now\u00a0pay for the privilege. Upon hearing this, their\u00a0drunken giggling faded\u00a0in\u00a0volume, however, they did open up their generous hearts by\u00a0depositing a pound coin\u00a0on the table\u00a0as blood money.\u00a0After the waxing strips had finally been exhausted, our charitable bicyclist was left with\u00a0a\u00a0patchwork design\u00a0of\u00a0silky white\u00a0skin and brown\u00a0fur on his legs. Little red bumps had already begun to appear on the plucked flesh,\u00a0and he\u00a0rubbed some soothing lotion onto them which had been\u00a0thoughtfully provided by his girlfriend\u00a0who, in case you’ve forgotten, is the same\u00a0kind soul\u00a0who thoughtfully provided the waxing strips. When he finished,\u00a0he\u00a0put his trousers back on – an act which seemed to generate far more interest from the other patrons than the act of his depilation. We quickly downed the last of\u00a0our pints and headed out into the\u00a0night,\u00a0all of\u00a0us secure in the knowledge that we would never\u00a0show our faces in this pub again. The last glimpse I had of\u00a0Mr. Sexy Legs\u00a0was of him\u00a0being dragged across the road to a curry house.<\/p>\n Which brings me right back to my original statement: You JUST couldn’t write this stuff!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “You\u00a0JUST couldn’t write this stuff!” As a writer (or even as a non-writer), have you ever said that to yourself or to someone else? I know I have. Many times, in fact.\u00a0I’ve seen and experienced things that are so unlikely, not to mention\u00a0so outright ridiculous that\u00a0if I’d written them, I’d be putting myself at risk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1782,1784,1780],"tags":[33,47,834,91,1713,1714,103,1709,108,170,1715,181,1716,1717,1718,253,1712,270,1710,1711,274,292,579,716,717,329,340,423,833],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artsandentertainment-2","category-randomandcrazy-2","category-travelandplaces-2","tag-authors","tag-bbc","tag-bloggers","tag-charity","tag-charity-events","tag-charityevents","tag-comedy-writer","tag-comedywriters","tag-creative-writing","tag-facebook","tag-fund-raising","tag-fundraiser","tag-fundraising","tag-glanfield-childrens-group","tag-glanfieldchildrensgroup","tag-leg-waxing","tag-legwaxing","tag-london","tag-london-pubs","tag-londonpubs","tag-lourdes","tag-mitzi-szereto","tag-mitzi-tv","tag-mitziszereto","tag-mitzitv","tag-pints","tag-pub","tag-television-script","tag-vloggers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6933,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/6933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitziszereto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}