So Farewell Then, John and Edward

They've become a bit of a phenomenon, John and Edward, over the past weeks.

For those of you who don't know, they are contestants on The X-Factor, and if you've been living in a cave in the desert and don't know what that is, it's a televised nationwide singing competition in Britain. Of the twelve finalists, one act gets voted off every week, until one remains and is pretty much guaranteed the Christmas Number 1 and some winners, such as Leona Lewis or last year's Alexandra Burke, do very well afterwards too.

Some people criticise the whole competition - which is fine - - and complain that the contestants have no talent - - which is not. I think that this year's bunch have been particularly talented, as a matter of fact.

Except for John and Edward.

These two are seventeen-year-old identical twins from Ireland with identical blond vertical hair. They have an identical lack of talent, too: they can't really sing and they can't really dance. But they have tremendous energy, masses of self-belief and self-confidence, and have also shown a quite amazing resilience as every week they've been greeted by loud boos from the - always slightly hysterical - X-Factor audience.

They've been in the bottom two before in a previous week and been saved from elimination by Simon Cowell letting the public vote decide - - and they'd had more votes from the public than the other contestant, so they stayed.

They've been promoted well beyond their talent and I think that they've only got this far because lots of young girls fancy them. Their Unique Selling Point - - well, actually, I could be cruel and say it's their Only Selling Point - - is that there are two of them. Ooh! Look! TWO of them! And they're JUST THE SAME!

The Boyzone song that they sang when they were in the bottom two tonight had a large assortment of notes in it, most of which remained undiscovered by Jedward (as the public has taken to calling them).

Every week their mentor Louis Walsh has cleverly concealed their lack of ability by adding lots of other people on the stage doing lots of jumping about in bright costumes. The song tonight, however, required excellent voices singing in harmony, and hence left the twins totally exposed as they clunked their way through it.

They were up against Olly Murs, who is an excellent singer and a superb performer too - - and Dannii Minogue had the vote which finally sent the twins out of the competition.

I don't expect it's the last we'll hear of them though. It's possible to get a long way on self-possession, and I'm sure they'll stay in the public eye for a while yet.

So there you go. Visit Daphne's blog for all the important world news, brought to you fast.

The Smokers

To get into the hospital you have to pass three layers.

The first layer that you get to is of thick cigarette smoke.

The second layer is of the smokers. Some have oxygen, some are sitting in wheelchairs, some are on drips. Grey-faced and cheerless, they stand or sit in their dressing-gowns, in the drizzle, smoking.

The third layer is of the door, which is covered in notices that say "No Smoking in the Hospital or Grounds". Often it's hard to spot the notices because the smokers are leaning on them.

I'm filled with righteous indignation seeing them. I want to stop their treatment until they give it up.

But then I think - - well, we all do things that aren't so good for our health - - and they've probably smoked for years and when things are stressful it's hard to give up - - and you can see at a glance that they're not people who've had the easiest of lives - - so perhaps I should cut them a bit of slack, even though I hate to see them there. The worst for me is seeing pregnant women who smoke - when I was expecting Olli, a few pregnant smokers voiced the idea that since the smoking made the baby smaller, that meant an easier birth and hence was generally a Good Thing. Hah.

We took my mother out for a breath of fresh cigarette smoke this afternoon. It was supposed to be a breath of fresh air, but that's how it goes outside the hospital.

She had her operation on Thursday and it's gone fine - already the arm is looking a bit better. But although her blood pressure is generally excellent, they think a problem could be that it suddenly plunges for no apparent reason. The statins that she's on can cause this. She's on a tiny dose, mind - - I'm on 40mg, four times her dose and don't seem to have any ill effects.

But she is eighty-five, of course. Anyway, yesterday, just before visiting, she had been told that they want to keep her in for a while longer to try to even out this blood pressure. Perhaps, when she tripped and broke her shoulder, it was actually plunging blood pressure that caused her to trip over her shoelace. Certainly when she collapsed in the cafe her blood pressure was really low.

It's not good, very low blood pressure, and I speak as someone whose blood pressure was once thirty over fifteen. I was both pregnant and upside-down at the time - I was in a special bed and they kept tipping me more and more to keep the blood flowing to my brain.

Anyway, you could say that my mother did not take this news well. She hasn't been in hospital for years and years and it's all been a bit of a steep learning curve to her. The food isn't very good. They make you turn your light off at ten o'clock. It's horrific.

She was absolutely determined to discharge herself and it took my brother Michael and me about an hour to talk her round and persuade her that if she goes home now she might just fall over again, and it's better to invest a few days in getting it sorted.

After about three quarters of an hour of this I noticed that the entire long Nightingale ward had fallen silent and was listening with rapt attention and keen enjoyment to our verbal battle.

Finally she calmed down and said she'd stay put for the weekend.

Today, we took her to the cafe and outside for a few minutes and she was much more cheerful. But I'm rather dreading Monday, because I don't think it will have been sorted by then, and I may have to have the same conversation all over again.

As Cold as Charity

"If we had a proper society there'd be no need for charity." Discuss.

Yes, it sounds like an essay question, but it was the Communist's firm belief and hence he didn't believe in giving to charity. He said it only propped up the badly-funded system. If we as a society really cared about the poor then there'd be no need for charity.

I have to say he had a point. That old saying, "As cold as charity" - yes, institutional charity is often given out in a grudging, mean-spirited way - - or in a way that makes the person giving feel important.

Today is the annual Children in Need day in Britain which every year raises millions of pounds for - you guessed it - children in need.

Yesterday I was listening to an auction on the radio of various events, "things that money can't buy" - all in aid of Children in Need. People were bidding many thousands of pounds.

I know I should be glad that such children will be helped - - and I am! - but it seems to me slightly incongruous and ironic that someone bids £24,000 for a meal cooked by the chef Raymond Blanc so that some poor children can have something more than a bag of crisps for their dinner.

And even though it's for charity, there's something I don't like about people spending thousands and thousands on luxury events. I feel it's somehow wrong.

I feel, I suppose, that, at bottom, rather than being proud of raising so much money for Children in Need, we should be heartily ashamed that in this relatively rich country, in the year 2009, there are children in need at all.

And I think that what many of us do is cough up once a year and then forget about it for the rest of the time - - secure in the knowledge that, in giving a few bob, we've done our bit.

Papering over the cracks, of course. Have I any solutions? No, and I admire the huge fund-raising efforts that are going on today. But I think we're doing it wrong.

The Operation

My mother had her operation today, to mend her broken shoulder.

I didn't go with her. It's hard to explain why not. Partly it was because I was booked to do a roleplay, and it's a demanding one, and only a few of us do it, and I was already replacing someone who couldn't do it, and I knew it would cause real problems if I said I couldn't do it.

But that was only part of the reason.

The Communist, who died last December, was an amazingly patient patient. Good-humoured, resilient, remarkably uncomplaining. "When I get old, put me in a home," he used to say. "I won't mind."

Of course, I had no intention of doing any such thing, but when it came to it, I had to. Once he'd had a leg amputated, there was no way I could cope with him at home.

He did mind, of course - - but sometimes a lot less than he should have done when he was badly treated. But, in general, like his mother before him - she was in a home for the blind for several years - he was appreciative and uncomplaining and the staff all liked him.

My mother's not like that, generally. She hates hospitals and thinks in the abstract that they are all out to do her down in some crucial but unspecified way. She's like that with anything remotely medical, such as her hearing aids. She talks as though she's convinced they were designed with the sole intention of annoying her.

When she broke the shoulder and was taken to hospital in Swansea, three weeks ago, her attitude to both the place and the staff made it one of the very worst days of my life. She was in deep shock of course - - but my cries of "Can someone help me please, my mother's in shock and I can't deal with it" went mostly entirely unheeded.

She screamed, shouted, swore and tried to flee. I had to keep chasing after her and bringing her back. Ironically, one of the things that was upsetting her was that she felt that her fall had ruined my weekend away, and she thought that things would be improved by her discharging herself and leaving - - which, eventually, she did. I couldn't stop her and neither could the staff.

I absolutely dreaded this happening again. I thought that, with me there, it was actually more likely to, whereas she might keep more self-control if I wasn't. Though part of my reasoning for this, I suppose, was that I just couldn't bear the idea of another few hours like the ones in Swansea. It's not my mother's fault, of course - she's eighty-five, she's had a stroke, she's hardly ever been in hospital and the fluorescent lights give her migraine. But to see my fiercely independent, fighting-fit mother in that state - I couldn't bear it. And I couldn't deal with it.

Apparently before the operation today she did try to escape - she had quite a long wait and at one point decided she could stand it no more and was going to leave. The staff in Leeds seemed much better than the ones in Swansea. They took her out in the fresh air until she felt better and then managed to persuade her to stay.

When Stephen and I arrived this evening she was still asleep but quickly woke up when I called to her.

She seems absolutely fine now. She looks incredibly well and was also incredibly cheerful. She was in some pain from the shoulder, but was beginning to be hungry - she hadn't had anything to eat today of course. She had a few sips of water and perked up even more.

A nurse came and took her blood pressure. A hundred and eighteen over sixty-five, like someone in their thirties.

She was delighted to see us, of course. My brother's coming tomorrow, from Amsterdam, and she'll be even more delighted to see him. I passed on love and best wishes to her from lots of people who'd asked me to send it, and she was very pleased.

So all was well. I do hope that she will make a complete recovery because if she doesn't she won't be able to bear it.

On the way home we stopped for a McDonalds, because I wanted comfort food with lots of fat in it.

And half-way through eating it I kind of forgot where I was for a moment, and just remembered that my mother had had an operation. And then, as a big shock, I remembered something. I hadn't rung the Communist to tell him it had gone well.

And then I remembered, and started to cry, in the middle of McDonalds, feeling like an idiot. Funny how your mind can play tricks on you.

Mr Pastry

The comedians I like in general are ones who are quick-witted and good with words.

So it may seem slightly strange, therefore, that the first comedian who made an impression on me was Richard Hearne, in his television character of Mr Pastry ,as his comedy was mostly visual.

That's what I remember, anyway. I enjoyed the comedy dancing and I remember the signature tune Pop Goes the Weasel always being played.

Thanks to the wonders of the interclacker, I have found this clip of him, pretending to be at a dance:



It doesn't seem THAT long ago to me - I suppose it must have been amongst the first television that I ever saw, in the late nineteen-fifties.

But it looks - well - ancient. From a time where there was smog in Leeds caused by all the coal fires: from when people wore elbow-length gloves to go to town: from a time when there was still a post-war feel and there were sometimes old blackout curtains to play with: from a time when British food seemed to consist mostly of cabbage and rice-pudding.

To some it was a time of Elvis and Buddy Holly: but not to us though. It was a time of Sing Something Simple on the radio and a crackly old gramophone playing classical music.

Where was I then, watching Mr Pastry? In this house, in the room next door to this one, where we still watch television, with my Grandma upstairs in her two rooms, my mother making the tea and the Communist coming home from his chemist shop.

A long time ago, perhaps, the late Fifties, but it doesn't take much for me to plunge right back into them.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I think I sleep less than a lot of people. I generally go to sleep at twenty to one - it's not deliberate, that's just when I do - and I get up at eight at the latest, often earlier.

If I'm worried about something, however, I tend to wake up in the early hours and just can't get back to sleep and it's really annoying.

I worked through the weekend last weekend as I just had a lot to do - I did go for a walk in the park but that was about it really.

Today, I think, it caught up with me - I was tired working in the office this morning. Then I had to interview some students this afternoon - they were so good and interesting that I loved it and the buzz of it kept me awake. But as I walked back to the car - about fifteen minutes through the drizzle - I was aware of feeling tired.

So we had tea and then I thought - - well, I'm tired, I'll relax for an hour - - and we sat down to watch the latest episode of Life. All about insects, narrated by David Attenborough - - - I love wildlife programmes and I think he's fantastic - - so two of my favourite things.

The opening two minutes were really interesting and then for no apparent reason the next thing that happened was the closing credits. I think it's entirely possible that I may have fallen asleep.

Another busy day tomorrow - - I think I must try to master going to bed earlier. But I've never been good at it. I always feel I'm missing something.

My Bid for Television Stardom

At about this time last year I flew to a distant land full of swamps and alligators. So did a group of other non-famous people.

I was going to Florida on holiday, of course, whereas they were going to Australia to take part in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

If you haven't seen it, the plot for this annual programme, which has just started again this year, is this: A group of people live for a couple of weeks in a bit of Australian jungle. The public votes for which of them every day does a "bushtucker trial" to gain food for the group - - things like crawling around underground, or being covered in insects, or looking for things in water, or eating various small live creatures.

They are voted off day by day until one of them wins.

They are supposed to be celebrities - - but, in general, they're not. "I used to be in Hollyoaks, a long time ago" said one of them. So they're people who wish they were celebrities, and people who used to be, and want to be again, and people such as Katie Price also known as massive-breasted model Jordan, who is wheeled in whenever any producer wants a bit of controversy in his/her telly programme, which is often.

But in general, as the list of names is read out when the series begins, a general cry goes up of "WHO? Never heard of them!"

I have to admit I'm a bit of a sneaky fan of I'm a Celebrity - - though. Mostly so I can shout at the screen. Things like "Get a grip, you idiot!"

Look, not only do they get an all-expenses-paid trip to Australia and boost to their careers included - - they get paid to take part, and very well-paid too.

They tend to go on and on about their great fear of spiders etc and half the time I think it's just so they can come over as incredibly brave when they have a bucket of them poured over their head.

Now me, I don't mind all these creepy crawlies - - I don't think I'd like to be covered in them much, but I could cope with it. I'm not scared of snakes in general and I'm not too bothered by any small rodents such as rats. I don't like fish brushing against me, granted. And I know I would really hate to have to eat creepy crawlies. I wouldn't mind sleeping outside as long as it was warm - - and it is warm where they are.

But if you offered me a trip to Australia in return for all this - - even if you didn't offer to pay me - - I'd be there like a shot. Granted, I'd probably have a problem with the lack of food and would be discovered in a diabetic coma after a couple of days. Anything for attention, that's me. But, that aside - - for goodness' sake, people! Where's your spirit of adventure?

I'd go tomorrow. Get rid of Jordan. She's had one go at it. Bring me in to replace her. Granted, I've got smaller breasts than she has, but then so has everybody, and I'd promise not to marry any of the other non-celebrities in there.

I'm a nonentity. Get me into there.