Auntie

This year is being an absolute see you next Tuesday and continues to batter me.

I lost one of my favourite aunties yesterday. Not an African auntie, but my proper same surname as me Auntie. For all the aunties that tell you about your weight or getting married, my Auntie was genuinely concerned for me and my wellbeing. 

When I had my first period, my Auntie was straight around with an embroidered white blouse for me to go with the white skirt my mother wanted me to wear (don’t ask), to have a ceremonial celebration of my womanhood. It was acutely embarrassing but it was precious. 

Auntie made the best doughnuts and had the best laugh. She did nothing but love her family to the ends of her perfectly coiffed wig. She was decent and honest and God fearing and I don’t know what her kids will do without her. They’re not kids any more but when it comes to your mum? You’re always a kid. 

My Auntie’s knowledge and power and understanding has fed a lot of my books and she was unabashedly proud of me. I can’t quite believe that I’m never going to see her again. Or hear her laugh. Or the way she says my name with such affection. She was at home with me and my mum having a couple of glasses of wine when I received my first email from Jayha Leigh. The three of us were cackling in the car as my mum dropped her home. Another sign of her decency - she loved a glass of red and a hard spirit or two. 

I’m going to have a hard spirit for her. Just for today. Given the pandemic means we can’t travel to Ghana to honour her in the way we Ghanaians usually do, I’ll toast to her and all that she gave me.

Rest well, my sweet Auntie. You’ve earned it. 

Love In A Time Of Madness

And is this time not mad?

Briefly, I've been thinking about my Italian Knights babies and what on earth they'd be doing given the current situation.

And it came to me pretty quickly:

Nick and Gina have their restaurant - Ghanaian/Italian fusion food of deliciousness. Focaccia and hard dough bread freshly baked every morning by that clever Robinson girl. Can Nicholas arrange delivery? Of course he can! It would also be the best place to get gelato in a range of flavours. They're taking gift vouchers and providing meals for freezing to food banks.

Tony and Lydia are hard at work, when Tony isn't indulging in his hobbies and giving Lyds a smack or two. Tony - hacker extreme - is fiddling with the numbers on bank accounts. He can't have people starving, can he? He's also making sure PPE is available for those who need it. He's got to protect his in-laws, or his eardrums won't survive. Lydia's nursing has always been exemplary. I can't see her doing anything but putting her everything into keeping people well. Private hospital run by her husband's best friend or no, space should be made for those who need it.

Massimo and Belinda are self-isolating in their beautiful home in London. Both Paul and Nick didn't want them to be in a different country while the UK locked down. Belinda has taken to making shitto for her babies and they collect at a safe distance. Massimo makes pasta for the street and every Friday, the neighbours sit in their front gardens and create a pub like atmosphere to enjoy their food.

Rocco and Anna have fixed boundaries and separate offices. Rocco is doing a lot of criminal pro bono for black Londoners who are being disproportionately targeted by police with little to do and rules that aren't law. Anna is fielding clients who are trying to stay afloat and keep their employees. She's also taking on free cases to keep people in work, rather than sacked. Nonna has Nick sorting her cake deliveries across London and if he's late, he has to pay her double. Deliveries to the Mamione-Taylors from Nonna and Gina are key.

Luca and Frankie are busy with their twins and work. Rather than twiddle his thumbs, Luca has set up a build your own pizza from home business - dough ready to be rolled, tomato sauce or white sauce if you fancy and sides to top it with garnishes. Frankie is working closely with domestic abuse agencies and insists that Luca provides his pizzas to key workers. She has one or two herself.

Ella and Durante's work is elbow deep in olive oil. Their town is pulling together to keep going. Durante has relied on Tony's work to make sure they survive. Ella is still shipping her divine VBR Rose oil products and ensuring shipping is free. All their children are at the farmhouse grilling, swimming or picking olives.

Finally, Beppe and Mimi returned from Switzerland before the lockdown kicked in. Beppe's been working on providing sterile kits for new mothers and the elderly. He's putting his brain to everything he can to help. Mimi is taking up those routine operations that have fallen in the path of the virus.

Busy little bees all of them. I like to think they're entertaining themselves and getting some snuggles in too, even when they're a bit tired. More than anything, I like to think that they're safe.

What The Hell??

What. The. Hell?!?

I thought me and 2020 had an agreement? I thought we were cool and things were going to be peachy this year after the disaster of 2019? And you do this 2020? I feel like I’m living in the Prince of Egypt but without the insane Hans Zimmer score.

Let me just side step by saying why are old people so stubborn? Both my parents are in the vulnerable category and should have been taking self-isolation seriously. But my mother? “I need to find something to eat!” Know what she came back with from Lidl? Quiche. Flaming quiche. And my dad? After I hand rolled some oddly shaped but highly tasty bread rolls for him bumps off to Poundland. Poundland. I- Actually you know what I did? I told my big brother who in turn FaceTimed my parents to tell them off. Now my dad calls me a grass. 🙄

Anyways, in the mire that is a 21st Century plague (I am not writing King Lear - behave. I’ve barely found the time and inclination to write this!) I am desperate to find peace in my own space which has turned into an office space. My phone which used to be an escape from everything is now the direct line to messages at all hours of the day with very little regard for my time or mental health to work.
The day job isn’t a joke. It’s an emotional toll which I’ve finally learned to balance. If I can’t resolve it by six pm, I’m not going to resolve it at ten or eleven pm. There needs to be a point of switch off and if I can’t, I won’t be able to do it for much longer. I used to be able to close my laptop and pop downstairs for a little nibble and a cup of tea. Then out for a walk and to Liberty for a comforting break. Or off to delightful Wimbledon Village (of tennis tournament fame yes) to have a wander and a cheeky shop.

Now I don’t have those modes of escape. Can’t get my nails done, my hair washed, a massage or my bits waxed. All my techniques of distraction for the next three weeks at minimum have gone.

Seriously what the goddamn hell do I do? You lot already know that I don’t write when I’m emotional and this pre-apocalyptic mess is making a bitch emotional as hell. I’m getting that trapped cat about to scratch everything enough to send you to hospital for stitches sensation of frustrated.

Is this the point where I meditate and light scented candles? It may have to be or else you’re going to find out who I am - on the news and in handcuffs...

I mean I guess I have the time to watch the shows I’ve moaned I’m too many seasons behind to catch up on as a way to destress? Nah, lemme watch season 8 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race for the billionth time instead. Then I know I won’t be disappointed by the outcome and a Jo Malone scented bath with do wonders. Coz as much as that cost, it works a charm.

Deep breaths y’all. This is reaaaaaaaaaal weird.

Sweet Caroline

This is the most bizarre post I think I've written. At no point did it ever cross my mind that I'd be writing about the death of Caroline Flack, The Flack Attack, Strictly Come Dancing Winner 2014 a few months after her 40th birthday.
She's a presenter who's always been in my line of tv sight, with her startling eyes and husky voice. And it's so strange to think she'll never do her slow motion strut into the Love Island villa, squeeze an islander's hand, ask a cheeky question, defend someone on Twitter, have the naughtiest little photos on her Instagram or be singing on a dance floor.
I didn't know her personally, but you can see from the out pour of messages and tributes from the people that did - she was so deeply loved. And she still took her own life.
While we'll never know the why, the breadcrumbs lead us to inevitable conclusions. Social media has changed something in us all. It's not just the tabloid press - who are crying crocodile tears while they delete all the negative stories they had up right up until they published Caroline's death - but us as individuals. I'm not going to plead innocence in how I tweet about reality television - it's tv, come on - but good God, why would anyone put their fingers to a keyboard, or touch their phones to tell another person that they should die?
Love Island has had three suicides (Sophie Gradon, her boyfriend and Mike Thalassitis) and after each one, the same sad faces, the same platitudes wandered around before the same record played again. Only a few days ago, I was listening to the Laid Bare Podcast, and Leanne, a recently dumped islander, revealed how she was receiving death threats. It's a television show. She told a guy she didn't like him. That's it. She didn't beat anyone. She didn't bully anyone. That's all it took for her to get death threats from a bunch of cunts. It's supposed to be entertainment. We're supposed to be watching people form relationships and win a bit of money. Their motives behind going on a show may be monetarily based (the prize money is only £25,000 if you share it in your couple, so the partnerships, the promotions can run into the hundreds of thousands) but these are still human beings. What gives anyone the right to do that to another human being?
Clemmie Hooper, a mummy blogger, who had almost 700,000 Instagram followers created a whole persona to troll herself, other bloggers, to be racist, even to troll her own husband. Because it gave her power - she enjoyed how it made her feel - superior.
People who tweet horrible things about Meghan Markle get likes, traffic, attention - so the trolling works for them. Think of Piers Morgan, Katie Hopkins, and the latest troll for hire, Lawrence Fox. It pays to be racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic - to mock, to ridicule, to undermine. And in that same vein, people thought it was okay to mock and ridicule Caroline Flack. She faced a difficult trial for assaulting her boyfriend and it wasn't a show, because her boyfriend didn't support the case against her.
Listen, I've applied for protective orders. I've sat with clients and reassured them. I've gone to bed worried that I would get a call or an email telling me that client had died at the hands of their partner. I've had arguments with police officers who haven't taken what I've warned them about seriously and they get called back to the same address over and over again. I've also desperately tried to talk clients out of making statements that withdraw their complaints against their partner for fear of worse happening to them. And it does. The worse happens. The law exists for a reason, especially when it's failed survivors of abuse for decades. Even worse for male survivors because they're simply not believed. "How could your five foot two wife burn you like that, sir?"
Caroline needed to have her trial. She needed to be left alone to deal with that. She didn't deserve people laughing at her, tweeting at her daily that she'd lamped her boyfriend, to have the papers reprint a Valentine's card with a mocking cartoon of her on the front with a threat. She didn't deserve to hear that she was an abuser and deserved to go to jail forever.  That she was a paedophile and a nonce for dating Harry Styles when he was seventeen and Caroline was thirty one. That she should kill herself for what she did to her boyfriend.
I've had the barest of negativity from my work. I can't imagine what it would be like to open your Instagram to look at photos of your boyfriend, whom you're not allowed to be with because of your bail conditions, and instead see hundreds of messages telling you that you deserve to die. When you hear something enough, you start to believe it. And she did believe it. Despite all her friends and all her family telling her otherwise; she believed that she deserved to die. That the world would be better without her. That she didn't belong on this earth any more.
That's not fair.
There's a lot that needs to be changed with the media - god look at what the media did to Meghan and all she did was marry a man she loved who happened to be a member of the British Royal Family! Prince Harry and Caroline dated in the past and you know why they broke up? Same media. There needs to be some consequence for their recklessness. But there also needs to be tougher measures on social media and what that needs to be - smarter minds than I need to come up with that.
Most of all, I need people to know that they're not alone. Never alone. It can be a daily, unrelenting battle and the way this has come about can only be triggering when you struggle with your mental health. Please believe me when I say you deserve to be here. You deserve to live. You'd be missed. Please stay.
Please.

https://www.samaritans.org/

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Suicide/

Valentine

It's the romance author's national holiday today! And in case you fancy a little bit of self-love and some time alone with a book boyfriend, let me reintroduce you to the Valentine's OGs.

I created Season of Love to front a few short stories to celebrate Valentine's Day. I've linked the pdfs here so you can remind yourself!

Season of Love Vol 1

From Volume 1, I got Stella and Niels and Wynne and Bren!

Season of Love Vol 2

From Volume 2, I got Art and Patricia and I'll also have Salina and Cael too.

All these stories started on this magical day and will continue to give me a place to start, to evolve, to do better than the boys on Love Island because that's what Hot Muse Hank demands.

No matter what, today you are super loved and appreciated and you're needed right here.

Fake Love

I am on something at the moment, so let's roll!

How beautiful is this cover? Black Jazz Design coming through for me like the proverbial knight in shining armour!

To explain! If you follow me on social media (and if not, why not? I'm freaking hilarious!) you'll know that I love reality tv or scripted tv shows. My day job although now part time is tough work mentally and emotionally. Other people's lives are terrible to untangle legally and if I'm not reaching for a glass of Merlot, I'm watching Love Island or First Dates or The Undateables. It's the best way for me to switch off and to distance myself from my work. By the time the hour has finished and I'm raging over what so and so has said to whatshisface or I'm dabbing my tears because a person with Tourette's is proposing to his girlfriend aka crunchy tits or I'm laughing at the seventy year old woman who doesn't fancy her date and wants her loins to be on fire before she jumps into another relationship, I can't even remember what the hell triggered me the entirety of my journey home. 

One of my favourites is a little show where two strangers meet on their wedding day and go for the plunge - they actually get married. The romantic in me is desperate to see these people fall for each other, to get closer, to introduce each other to friends, to be thoughtful and caring and to make a decision where they stay together forever and ever and they tell their kids how mum and dad met each other on television. To be fair, the concept is a Westernised version of arranged marriages, without a camera crew following you about and people tweeting about your lives (also me typing in capitals for the husband usually to not be a dick!)

When NaNoWriMo rolled around November 2019, I knew what I was going to do. Twitter fingers Billy was going to use all that energy into getting a scripted tv show romance done. 

My main character, Victoria is amazing. I love all my ladies for real, but Vic has such flavour, no filter, a mum to two, an appreciation of all of her curves (and she got cuuuuuurves) a giant not just in heels but bare feet and the best baker in London town - ask the reality stars who've been Instagramming the crap out of her work. She's the perfect foil for Hal (I was having a Shakespeare moment, let me at it) my severe, half Korean, one legged, former army man who just wants to live a quiet life and run his nice restaurant in peace. Between their three respective kids, exes, parents, grandparents, best friends Vic and Hal are going to do what I've very kindly asked them to - fall for each other hard because a tv show put them together. 

I love it when a tv show works out - don't you?

When You Believe

I was going to try and attempt to write my feelings on Kobe Bryant’s passing. Given the man was the same age as my older brother and he has a three year old daughter, coupled with the fact that I am extremely close to my father and I couldn’t comprehend my life without him, I know I don’t have the range to quantify my feelings right now. It’s all too terrible and too much.

Instead, I’m going to excise my feelings on a rando coming into my mentions to be loud and wrong on each of his tweets.

Sorry! Spoiler alert 🚨 If you haven’t seen Sex Education Season 2 STOP READING NOW!

**************************

Eric Effiong is my favourite character by far and away. He’s from a Nigerian/Ghanaian family who like most West African families attend church and are close knit. Eric’s pride in his sexuality culminated last season with his very African very religious father stating openly how proud he was of him. So this season in complete contrast to the last one, Eric has a boyfriend - the dangerously sexy and worldly Rahim. We don’t know a whole much about Rahim but he seems to know a lot. Except, it seems, how to behave around other people with tact and humanity.
After pushing for an invitation (Eric did buoy it up with singing and plantain how can mandem resist?) Rahim attend a church service with Eric and his family.
It’s a blackity black church - gospel choir in robes and traditional clothing.
After being asked whether he is Muslim, Rahim announces that he’s atheist and doesn’t believe in God. Awkward sitting in the church you pressed to attend, but okay! The pastor welcomes Rahim and says “Jesus is with you.” Rahim says “I’m sorry I don’t believe in Jesus.”
Bear with me, it gets worse. Then as they’ve left the church (forty five hours later) Rahim declares Eric’s family as “sweet because they think the ‘God stuff is real’ and obviously Eric only pretends to go along with it to ‘keep the peace’.
If that isn’t telling that Rahim has no idea as to who Eric is - man who showed up to his prom in a gelee, a full face of glittery makeup and false lashes - would go to church and believe in God ti keep the peace, I don’t know what else. Eric states boldly that he does believe in God. The response is “how can you believe in a God that doesn’t think you should exist?”
Pause - I’m getting there.
He then adds that, “My family had to leave their country because of religion. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
And ends the conversation with “we’ll agree to disagree.”
Let me start at the beginning: Rahim has no home training. His family moved to France from where? We don’t know, we’re never told. But they had to leave because of religion. You would have therefore had some modicum of a religious upbringing to understand the implications of not believing - especially as Rahim is supposed to be a teenager. Not practising your faith ie not praying with your classmates or work colleagues or not attending services with extended family members. You would have in the past to know the rituals and to explain your reasons for leaving the country. To understand the risks of non conformity - what it will cost you and your family to follow a different path - you would have started out conforming before the divergence. With any history of religious upbringing there is undoubtedly respect for places of worship and leaders of said worship. That doesn’t become undone by fleeing from persecution - it reinforces it. I know - I’ve made those applications for those seeking asylum. Just as I would cover my head in a mosque, I wouldn’t rush to the Iman and say “nah don’t get any of this business.” It blew my mind that he said to a pastor’s face “I don’t believe in Jesus.” Are you without sense?
At base level, having been welcomed by the members of the congregation - it was plain rude. High key, why are you embarrassing your boyfriend like this? Why would you do that? He’s finally sharing an important piece of his life with you and this is how you react. And people were okay with this?
Then the side swipe “you don’t believe in this stuff.”
Why would you assume that having left the church your boyfriend expressed so much joy and enthusiasm for? If you are an atheist it’s very difficult to explain to someone what faith can give you. If you are someone who has turned away from faith because your beliefs do not align with your former religion it’s even harder to understand why you would embrace something that has effectively rejected you. Rahim wasn’t there when Eric was being bullied. The church was. It was a constant. A distraction. A time separate from school to be at peace.
I like to visit places of worship when I travel and feel that same sense of peace in me when I sit and sit in stillness. When the world moves at a hundred miles an hour, that stillness can be glorious and uplifting in the same way meditation is.
Eric can pour his effervescence his spirit his joy into the music. Gospel is music for the soul and no one can tell me otherwise. Eric isn’t known for peacekeeping. Eric pushes boundaries and served looks while he did so. He boldly proclaimed “take me as I am or do one!” In nail polish, in traditional clothing, in lengthening mascara, to his beautifully presented core.
Ultimately, Eric’s belief in God is none of Rahim’s business. God and church are separate entities. If they weren’t, the things that man has done in the name of God would have made me an atheist too. Man told woman she couldn’t spread the word of the Lord (according to the church) and this never sat right with me considering women were the first ones to discover that Jesus had risen from the tomb. Man has dictated a lot of “should and should nots” protecting violent men from rightful persecution and lining their pockets with blood money. This is still separate from a person’s relationship with God. If anyone can point to me where in the bible Jesus says “you don’t exist gays! Begone!” I’d be grateful.
If God is where Eric finds his comfort, his faith, his steady path - why is Rahim questioning that? Why would you question that of someone you love? If it doesn’t make any sense to you are you even willing to listen? You want everyone to know you don’t believe in God and your partner is foolish for doing so. The patronisation irked my soul. No two Gods are the same or even share the same name.
I always come back to the scene in Atonement. The soldiers at Dunkirk singing Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind, knowing they’re stranded, that they may be bombed to death at any moment and yet they sing. Because they believed. They prayed in song for deliverance or God’s peace on their souls. Would someone like Rahim rush up to them and say “why are you singing when your God has abandoned you?”
Probably he would - just to show he knows better because religion cost him his home. Religion didn’t. Man did. Man’s terrible interpretation and lack of simple humanity did.
Having filled out enough divorce petitions for people whose faiths took different paths while believing they could maintain a marriage, I know how important it is to have respect for what the other believes. If you can’t respect your partner’s understanding and commitment to God, you won’t enjoy the same in your own relationship.
There are some things that doom a relationship. There were many in Rahim and Eric’s but his casual dismissal of something that had been present in Eric’s entire life was the beginning of the end. I said so and a bitch was right.
Now, I’m not saying that the church doesn’t have a whole bible of work to do in being more inclusive and welcoming all people; this is undeniable. Look at what the Church of England put out recently reserving sex for married hetero couples when the creator of the Church of England literally did it so he could divorce his first wife and marry several others. Further that the Church has been complicit in abuse and protecting perpetrators. There are gay Christians and this is your message to them? Doesn’t sound Christ-like at all. That’s what I mean by God and man being separate. And it doesn’t change Eric’s love of his God and his church because his boyfriend thinks he’s trying to keep the peace by believing. Gays are not a monolith. As a worldly teen (supposedly) Rahim should know that.
Man didn’t even like musicals! He had to go!
That was my beef and distraction today. And today of all days is not the one to question a person’s faith. In an undeniably cruel world where children are killed with their parents in senseless accidents, faith can be all there is that pulls you through until tomorrow. Never underestimate or deny that power. It’s not your place and if you truly love someone, you never will.