by Rae Earl
Wednesday 29.8.90
4.56 p.m.
Just when my life couldn’t get any weirder, today I was watching Tell the Truth with Fred Dineage and Mrs Crane our teacher from school was on it!! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. I managed to quickly tape most of it! Anyway I’ve not told anyone WHY but everyone is coming round tomorrow to watch it!
9.12 p.m.
Mum was cross when I told her everyone was coming round tomorrow (the house is a bit of a tip) BUT when I showed her the video she totally understood. She said ‘And people think I’m eccentric.’ To be fair being on Tell the Truth isn’t half as loony as having a bodybuilder tattooed on your arse but I wasn’t going to argue.
Thursday 30.8.90
6.32 p.m.
Everyone thought the video was EPIC. In fact the words ‘I’m Mrs Crane and I’m the school teacher’ have become a national catchphrase. Well a Stamford one anyway! Ronni thinks we should get T-shirts printed with it on!
I’m going to miss all this. There’s always someone up for a gig and a laugh. Even about stuff featuring Fred Dineage.
Friday 31.8.90
11.58 p.m.
Haddock out but tonight he was a bit of a git. He was with these two amazing looking women (where did they come from – Europe?) and he winked at me and said, ‘Don’t get the wrong impression Rae – seeing as you’re my girlfriend’s friend.’
What is that actually meant to mean? I’m not your friend anymore?
And Battered Sausage singing ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot WILLY’ full blast in the Vaults is not funny – it’s tedious. Especially after the 405th time.
Saturday 1.9.90
5.39 p.m.
Yet another argument with my mother. She started this one by calling me a ‘little shit of an 18 year old’. I said ‘Better a little shit of an 18 year old than a massive shit of a 48 year old.’ That was it. The killer line. I beat the teacher at her own game.
Sunday 2.9.90
2.46 a.m.
Do you know that is just the way it goes. You think Saturday is going to be a total load of crap and then you get a great night down the Vaults. Firstly I got pissed with Mort down the Meadows. What a classic love she is. Then, I can’t believe it, without any pre-planning I had a massive in-depth session with HADDOCK.
I can’t live with what a total and utter epic person that man is. He says he’s ‘sorted himself out’ (I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever be). He told me about things. He’s had some quite hard times in his life. Why isn’t he addicted to fucking chocolate and crisps?
Anyway some things I said
1. I wish you were my brother (NO I DON’T – I WISH WE WERE BLOODY MARRIED YOU HANDSOME, FUNNY AS HELL, BRILLIANT SOD)
2. You are in my top 5 best friends.
Things he said to me
1. Stop undervaluing yourself.
2. I’m sure you’ll find a bloke at Essex.
3. I know you’re lonely but there’s no need to be. You’re brilliant.
4. If you lost weight you’d be doubly attractive. (NOTICE – ‘doubly attractive’ – in other words I’m at least a bit attractive to start with)
Dear Dr Haddock,
You could cure my loneliness.
Please write me a prescription for your love and frankly a totally hardcore full-on session of DO.
Love from Patient Earl (PATIENT in many ways too. Too bloody patient)
Monday 3.9.90
2.13 p.m.
Keep thinking about some things Haddock said. His girlfriend must talk about me. That’s weird. I don’t want people to get this impression that I’m this fat, ugly, unapproachable pitiful figure.
Even if I am.
Tuesday 4.9.90
4.23 p.m.
Tomorrow I’m going to Hull with Aristotle. I love Aristotle (that’s another Mort codename) – we have a real laugh. He’s Battered Sausage’s mate and he’s going to Hull to sort out his accommodation for next year or something because he’s going to university there. I’m in charge of music because his crappy car doesn’t have a radio or cassette player (his parents are loaded – this makes NO sense). He’s just got a mini ghetto blaster at the back. He loves The Wonder Stuff and it will be good for me to go somewhere different. I took some of Mum’s funny tablets just in case I have a ‘do’.
Wednesday 5.9.90
This is a weird entry because I will sound mad.
I think I’m meant to go to Hull. I can’t explain it. We just went all round the city and this instinct, this voice in my head said ‘Come here’. It felt RIGHT. Now every time I have ignored that voice (and it’s different to the panic voices) something bad has happened. Like when – when you know what happened. I had a funny feeling about that man but I told myself it was just me being stupid and then look what happened. He got me on my own and . . . Anyway this voice was shouting ‘Come here . . . Come here!’ Even though there was nothing special about it. In fact one of the last things we saw was this really dodgy sex shop! But it didn’t matter. It all felt like it was meant to be.
And it’s near Leeds. One train journey away. Just one.
Aristotle’s music was great too – ‘Charlton Heston’ by Stump. LOVED it!!!
I feel like I’ve . . . found somewhere. It had white phone boxes. It was all odd but odd in an ‘I’m Hull – deal with it’ sort of way.
But I’m going to Colchester. Where the phone boxes are red and we are nearer to France than Leeds probably.
Thursday 6.9.90
10.54 a.m.
My personality eats up my gender
The femininity is denied
It doesn’t hurt me till I see him.
Then I feel like a boy monster
I’ve got tits but they’re hidden
Underneath this uncomfortable gob.
No. Why should I stop being funny? THAT’S ME.
The one I want doesn’t even want me to stop being funny either.
Just went mad in my bedroom to ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ by Deee-Lite. I could just dance some days till I died. Or was nearly sick, like then.
Friday 7.9.90
11.01 p.m.
What a palaver! MAJOR problems. Haddock’s girlfriend in tears. I love him but he is acting like a bit of a git. She stayed at mine last night. I had to hide the Haddock museum of photos and artefacts so far under my mattress. She has no idea. I can tell. She honestly believes I just like him.
Saturday 8.9.90
7.09 p.m.
Black Beauty is BACK on TV! It’s got the same theme tune and everything! It’s set in New Zealand though but who cares?! I LOVE BLACK BEAUTY!! Might gallop down to the Vaults with that on my L–N compilation tape. Thank you London String Chorale.
11.08 p.m.
No Haddock. Dobber still can’t get in Olivers. Black Beauty was the highlight of the entire day.
Sunday 9.9.90
8.23 p.m.
Sat here looking out my window, listening to ‘Wishing on a Star’ by Rose Royce. It’s the most beautiful song. It’s about when you’ve lost someone and you just want them back. I wish on everything. On stars, on rainbows, on the mangy black cat from 3 doors away that sprays on Mum’s passion fruit plant and drives her loony. I wish on it all that the bad stuff all goes away and only he’ll be left. He is the prize for getting rid of all the fat on my body and the mad stuff in my head. But even I know it’s going to take more than wishes.
If I know that, why do I have to swipe myself 6 times and say the Lord’s Prayer 10 times perfectly to stop my mum dying.
‘Groovy Train’ by The Farm is brilliant.
Monday 10.9.90
4.35 p.m.
I’ve been trying to sort out my grant today. I get £790 A TERM!!! THAT’S A FORTUNE!! Mum says you’ll have to make it last but £790!! AND apparently because you’re a student the banks give you massive overdrafts too! HELLO HMV!! I can just get the textbooks from the library and MUSIC BINGE!! This may have been the greatest thing Thatcher has ever done!
Tuesday 11.9.90
11.01 a.m.
Woke up this morning to find an envelope put through the letterbox. It had a chicken bone put through it and the message ‘Put this in your nose and fuck off back to where you came from’.
Now I’ve had some fat abuse in my time but this does not make any sense at all.
1) I don’t binge on chicken. Stamford doesn’t even have a KFC. I occasionally eat too many spicy wings and stuff but not regularly.
2) I was born in Stamford Hospital. Go back to where I came from?! Do they mean Rutland Road where I first lived or Stamford High School?! Either way it’s STUPID.
3) Putting the bone of anything through someone’s letterbox is vile.
4) So now I get bullied not just in the street but in my own house too by thick twats who make no sense. WANKERS.
5) I wish I could get out of this place. Even though I’m scared to.
7.09 p.m.
I showed Mum the letter and the bone when she got back from work and told her I was sick to death with being bullied. Mum said ‘Rachel – things aren’t always about you and this isn’t for you. It’s for Adnan. It’s saying he’s a savage. Bone through the nose? Go back to where you came from?’
Oh she’s right. That’s BLOODY AWFUL. So now we basically live near Hitler and a load of fascists! I know I don’t always like Adnan but that’s not because he’s black! It’s because he sings badly, eats everything in sight and doesn’t get fat and turns this place into a right gooseberry palace. He would do that if he was purple! Where do people get off being horrible to him because he’s black. Why don’t we just rename Stamford South Africa!! No – because even they’ve released Nelson Mandela.
I asked Mum what she was going to do about it. She said ‘What can I do? Hide it from Adnan.’ Then she told me people had been making ape noises behind his back too. 1) That’s too horrible to even think about 2) That’s suicidal! Adnan could kill them with his little finger. But he won’t, that’s the point, because he’s a real gentle giant. So he just has to put up with it.
Just like me. We just have to put up with it. BUT WHY SHOULD WE?! I could lose weight and stop it. He can’t change his colour. WHY SHOULD HE ANYWAY?! AND WHY SHOULD I LOSE WEIGHT? I never thought being black and being fat had anything in common but we both have a massive history of injustice.
9.05 p.m.
Can I just say I am not completely comparing the civil rights struggles of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to me being obese. That’s bloody ridiculous but it proves people get shit for just being different and it’s always from the same idiots. Bet the Green Lane Twats are behind the note. I wish Adnan would kickbox them in the face but he won’t. He’s too nice.
He goes back on Friday too. Which will make them think that they’ve won.
I might put an advert in the Stamford Mercury that says ‘To whoever sent the anonymous note and bone. You are a thick, spineless twat that needs a good kicking’. I don’t think they’ll put that in the announcement sections though with the ‘Congratulations on the birth of your beautiful boy’. There should be a COCK NOTICES section though. I’d pay.
Wednesday 12.9.90
11.48 a.m.
I walked into town this morning and every person I saw I thought, ‘are you the phantom bone sender?’ It just makes you doubt everybody. Who secretly underneath it all is a total racist who would happily be a member of the National Front? And what is going to come through the letterbox next? A bomb? A dog poo?
9.09 p.m.
Just rang Mort. Jasmine was telling her that Battered Sausage is hypersensitive and spends loads of his time asking her if ‘Rae really meant what she said’.
HA! Isn’t it good to know that men suffer too AND that I can make them suffer!
Thursday 13.9.90
11.02 a.m.
Nothing came through the letterbox this morning except some kind of bill. Wonder if Mum would prefer a bone and some racist balls. At least it’s not demanding money!
No she wouldn’t by the way. That was a joke. If Mum finds out who sent the bone she will be scary. She’s not violent. She will just destroy them mentally. I’ve seen her do it.
Good. They deserve it. I hope they end up in Ward 4 of Edith Cavell doing exercises with beanbags and I hope all the psychiatrists are Asian, Chinese and really, totally black.
8.32 p.m.
I just watched Top of the Pops. The KLF’s ‘What Time Is Love?’ is a MONSTROUSLY good piece of music. It was all slightly buggered by Sonia singing some utter balls but you can’t have everything.
Friday 14.9.90
10.12 p.m.
Adnan has left. He has to for Home Office immigration purposes. I said goodbye to him this time. He’s a nice bloke and doesn’t deserve to become the Steve Biko of Stamford. Now Mum has to go through this massive process to prove that her marriage is legitimate. It’s probably because he’s not white. This country is racist. Sinead O’Connor is right in her song ‘Black Boys On Mopeds’. She’s spot on.
11.23 p.m.
Thinking about it, it’s probably more to do with the fact that Adnan is 20 years her junior, he can’t speak English very well, she’d known him for about 5 minutes before they got together and she’d only just divorced her 2nd homosexual Latin teacher husband BUT still – Britain is racist. FIGHT THE POWER!
Saturday 15.9.90
10.45 a.m.
Life is a gift but this present keeps repeatedly kicking me up the arse.
I’m getting hammered tonight.
Sunday 16.9.90
9.23 p.m.
Dearest, dearest Haddock,
Where do I start?
You’re never going to see this so I don’t think it matters where I start does it?
I think you’ll never talk to me again after last night. I know I was pissed but that’s no excuse is it?
Look at me Haddock. I can’t explain it to you but I’m so fuck ugly, fat and have enough hang-ups to keep the psychiatrists in business for years. And you. You are bloody everything. What I feel for you cripples me. I’ve had it for so bloody long. In fact since exactly 23.7.89. That brought it down to an immature level. I don’t want it to. This isn’t a school crush. It’s something deeper.
Oh God – it all comes out wrong. That sounded bloody laughable. That’s what I am. Oh I am not going to get self-pitying. I’m worth more than that.
Last night I can’t remember what you said. I remember crying and you taking me out of the Vaults and you kept hugging me and holding my hand and basically being a total love. Saying all these lovely things. You told me you loved me. But I know you said that because I was so upset and I told you I wanted to die. Half truth. I don’t, I just can’t find a way to like living.
Then you force-fed me some pizza and then I farted in front of you. OH, TRAGIC AREN’T I? God I’ve broken all the rules of etiquette. Not only being drunk in front of the man I love but farting in front of him too!
I hate myself sometimes (you’re not meant to put yourself down either).
I know I sound like a prattling schoolgirl. I just think I’ve found someone and something beautiful and I want to be part of its life. Please let’s never lose touch.
I am a floundering pissed up twat but I do love you.
Monday 17.9.90
Still feel totally embarrassed.
Tuesday 18.9.90
11.30 a.m.
A typical day.
Wake up at 7.00 a.m.
Feel happy for 1 second then think of Haddock.
9.00 a.m. Watch The Odd Couple.
9.35 a.m. Go back to bed.
12.00 p.m. Get some dinner.
12.35 p.m. Go back to bed.
Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.
Try to forget.
Wednesday 19.9.90
9.45 p.m.
One half of me says you have every reason to be terminally depressed –
I am fat, not beautiful, character faults galore, a family that try to help me but can’t b
ecause they don’t really know me, I’m a total hypochondriac, an image problem, I’m a cheap laugh to many people, frigid, more chips on my shoulder than the Brittania takeaway etc etc etc etc. INSECURE!!
But then again –
I have half a brain and nice hair.
Thursday 20.9.90
8.45 p.m.
Today has been a barrel of laughs! Mum, since she got home from work, has sat in the armchair staring into space. IT’S HER BIRTHDAY!! I know Adnan has gone home but at least she has a relationship. That’s more than me! Then she started going on about Winston Churchill. ‘You know Rach – they say he was a hero but we waited for hours for him and he didn’t even wave from his car. He didn’t come and save me either.’ When I said ‘Er Mum . . . he was a bit busy trying to save the free world’ she shouted ‘But this was in the early 1950s!’ I left her staring into space and went down the pub and had a birthday drink for her. I wish she’d cheer up a bit. I know she is down but I know her. She’ll make it work. She always gets what she wants.
Friday 21.9.90
11.01 p.m.
‘My biggest vice when I fall from the tightrope is to attack venomously the ones I love the most’.
Richard Burton.
Why O Why O Why O why am I such a bloody bitch to Haddock? I take the piss all night – NIGHT AFTER NIGHT. I make him laugh but that’s all I do. Why can’t I just tell him how I feel?! Soon it’s going to be too late.
No I can’t risk it – it’s the wrong time. I need to be thinner and prettier with decent bras NOT from old lady shop Harwayes. THAT’S the time to make my move. When my knickers are small and my bra is frilly.
I did my numerology today. I need to change my name or I’ll never be successful.
Haddock doesn’t. He’s set for life. I did his too. Actually if I take his surname I’m fine.
Now I sound completely obsessed. Only you know how bad this is diary. Well you and Mort and even she doesn’t know just how deep it goes.
Saturday 22.9.90
8.09 p.m.
If Jeremy Beadle was a woman he wouldn’t be on TV even though I could do his job a million times better than him.
