Mo Fanning's Blog, page 18

The language of stand-up

‘It’s like learning to speak a new language,’ the stand-up comedy teacher said. ‘At first, it won’t sound like you.’

It never crossed my mind I’d need to find new ways to write to deliver a gag, but three weeks into a twelve-week course, I’ve come to see that writing to be read is very different to creating words for stand-up. Readers frown on short choppy sentences – unless your aim is to create pace and tension. The stand-up world loves them. Punctuation is king – delivered in the form of short pause-shaped full stops. Words like ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘however’ have little place in the set-up of a joke, they confuse. As someone who spent many years learning how to write longer sentences and vary the flow of words, this is proving harder than standing on the stage and delivering my feeble attempts at humour.

What’s proving fascinating is how hard it is to use language and make it funny without sounding like you’re trying. As my group of fellow wannabe comedians workshop ideas, we’re often shot down for picking topics that have been ‘done to death’ or that sound like us trying to be funny. And yes, I thought the whole point was to root your gags in absurd ground, but why? That’s not how I write novels. I often start with a situation that in the hands of any other character might be everyday, normal and dry. The comedy comes from the people who populate scenes. It’s the same with stand-up. The humour lives with the person delivering the joke. It needs to become personal.

Hemingway is often credited with having claimed there’s nothing to writing … ‘all you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein’. It seems this rule applies to stand-up. You’re the fall guy. Everything must happen to you if the audience is to come down on your side.

Next step in my stand-up journey is to find a topic. I have several in mind though worry they sound like someone who tries too hard. Something that’s been done before.

Keep coming back, it works.

 

 

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So you think you’re funny?

If there’s anything guaranteed to set my teeth on edge, it’s people who yap on about stepping outside their comfort zone. Or anybody who declares themselves midway through a year of saying yes. And yet just yesterday, I experienced toilet-sitting fear as ‘yes’ landed me in the most uncomfortable place going.

Was it when I bounded onto a stage as 20 strangers clapped, whooped and stamped their feet. I announced my name and grinned. My literal first step into the world of stand-up comedy.

So … you know how January gets us all. How even the hardest of hearts sets your mind thinking of ways in which the year to come will be special? Nine months ago, I resolved 2018 was the year I’d scratch a nagging itch. Do I have it in me to be funny in front of people? I write stories with a comic edge. I’m told they make people laugh … in a good way. But standing on a stage in a dark room that smells of sweat and strangers?

I signed up. And promptly forgot all about a moment of madness. I didn’t even tell Mr Fanning until a month ago when the lie-awake-at night-and-regret-my-actions sweats kicked in.

Week one

Yesterday, I popped a beta blocker, did my best to calm Mr Fanning’s nerves – he was more scared than me – and set off for Brighton’s Komedia. I’ll be going there for the next twelve weeks.

I’m not great with strangers, terrible in crowds, and my social skills rank with those of an incontinent goat. What the hell was I doing? Arriving early, I tried to blend with the pleather bar stools in the club cafe, and nurse a flat white, trying to determine who else had signed up for ritual humiliation. They all seemed so confident.

After being led down darkened stairs into a room set up like an AA meeting, true terror took hold. We were to pair off and introduce each other. I duly trotted out my claim to fame (had a wee next to Chris Tarrant at an Abba concert) and hung my head in shame as my partner spoke of a Baywatch walk-on part. To be fair, she got there, took one look at the malnourished airheads, had an attack of the sensibles and pulled out … after blagging a photo with the super-tall Hoff.

The hours flew by. I met people who made me laugh. The teacher was suitably teacher-like. Wise and taking precisely zero shit. This wasn’t one of those airless company team building days, and by the end of the afternoon, I found myself in a pub with ten strangers, and feeling like I’d met new mates.

Next week, the actual joke writing, learning to perform and falling flat on my arse stuff starts, but so far so good. Comfort zone successfully breached. I said yes.

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Chemo brain and writing

I’m supposed to be editing. Or as I like to call it deleting most six months hard work and writing a totally different story. Call it chemo-brain or call it the fact I realised just a tiny bit too late I’d written the wrong story, but ‘The Toast of Brighton’ is going down to the wire when it comes to hitting deadlines.

Does everyone do this? I seem to remember Victoria Wood once claimed she wrote about ten times what she ever needed so she could edit out the crud. Not that I’m comparing myself, but I’m pretty close this particular book has long passed the million word mark. Now at least I have a tight storyline, and 40,000 words that I’m fairly content to send to my editor anyway, so chances are I’ll make the deadline. But as with everything, you can never be sure.

The day I had chemotherapy, I was cocksure it wouldn’t hit me like it hits everyone else. In fact, I sat there, tapping away at my laptop, doing paid work, writing sales proposals, drafting emails and correcting other people’s words. The day after – the one the doctor told me would feel like a hangover – I felt even better. Steroids kicked in and I ironed every shirt in the house. If Mr Fanning hadn’t unplugged me, I’d have knocked next door to see if they had any little jobs to tackle. All in all, it was a weekend of little sleep, but lots of action. I even wrote a little, which everyone had warned me off, saying no matter how much you feel you’re doing good things, you won’t be.

Should have listened. It’s weird reading the words now, they feel like someone else had control. I recognise the characters and the situation, but the words they speak don’t come from me.

I hit low water on the Wednesday – almost a week after my treatment. Woke at six, hungry for a horse. Created something vaguely egg-based, wolfed it down, told Mr fanning, I felt fabulous and opted for a power nap. That lasted until 6.30pm, when I stumbled zombie-like and crabby as heck from my bed, swigged most of a carton of orange juice, swore at the dog for barking (he didn’t) and stumbled back under the duvet.

It’s nearly two weeks later and I feel like I’m back. I’ve returned to my regular paying job, and it feels so good to be using my brain again. I sat down first thing, rewrote my storyline and know what needs to happen with ‘The Toast of Brighton’. It has an end now. And it’s the end it always had. The one I wanted it to have. I’m back on track.

And for now, that’s me done with boring you about cancer. Check your balls, breasts and anything else that might turn green and drop off. Please.

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The Tortoise and the Vole

So, I was supposed to be rewriting and editing and doing all the stuff that might one day make my fortune as a celebrated scribe, but a combination of steroids and chemo-hiccups had my mind a-musing. Here’s a short poem/story for your delectation. The (Brexit) pretext is paper-thin, and I’d appreciate you reading it in the voice of Pam Ayres for full effect.

Once upon a time, In a wet and sodden hole

Lived a tired little tortoise and a nervous little vole

They settled there becoming tired of sitting on a fence

And after months of putting up, things had grown quite tense.

Tortoise wanted out and Vole felt so misplaced.

They hardly shared a civil word in that unhappy space

Such unlikely roommates, and oh so very frail

They’d asked for sheltered housing, but this was more like jail.

Vole would often reminisce of fancy leather pants

Of boy jobs, girl jobs, walking tours in Switzerland and France

Tortoise would hanker after shiny folding bikes

Allotments, jam, Jerusalem – nice but full of kikes.

‘In many ways, we had it made,’ Vole said. ‘We thought the same.’

Tortoise nodded slowly. ‘We were playing the long game.’

Until some bugger noticed and tried to rock the boat

Vole looked cross, and muttered of that fucking people’s vote.

The two agreed to disagree, but didn’t hide the truth

And tortoise looked uneasy. He mislead Labour youth

They neither saw it coming. They thought they’d fool the plebs

With talk of softer Brexit. By messing with their heads.

The British love for voting is a tough thing to predict

‘I blame Simon Cowell,’ said Vole. ‘He had the nation gripped.’

They took advice and teamed up with prime time ITV

The People’s Vote was hosted live by Dec and Honey Gee

‘We never saw it coming.’ Vole’s tears began to well

Tortoise looked uneasy and ducked into his shell

‘At least we have blue passports. It’s all been worth the drama.’

Tortoise closed his eyes. He hated life in old Botswana.

Botswana has a blue passport. Just like any EU country can (and some do).

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This is the bit where I start to feel better, right?

So, the big day arrived. Delayed by six weeks thanks to a scan that showed ‘something‘ on my lungs. Dr Savage explained it thus: ‘it’s like taking a photo of a moving car. We know it’s there, we know it’s moving. But how fast?’ He needed a second photo to be sure. I’d have rather not had any car in any picture, but it was one of those no choice moments that cancer likes to spring on you. For me, it was the first real moment of frustration. Up until this point, I’d coped. Mostly on account of being a total control freak – tell me what happens next, when and why, I’m yours. Throw me a curve ball and it’s like you’ve tried to snatch biscuits from a baby. This curve ball left me in the foetal position. I do know I should ring and say sorry to the courier service who felt the full force when they failed to deliver some poncy face cream that was going to change my complexion and life two days running.

But, I digress.

This six-week delay should have had me climbing every kind of wall, and yet my brain did what it always does. Once I reorganised my schedule to add in this new step. I put it out of my mind. I forgot I had cancer. It was only when others asked after my health that I had to remember. And if you’re reading this and thinking you did bad by asking, you didn’t. I love you all the more for caring. But when I spoke or typed my answers, it felt like I was talking to someone else. Cancer went on hold.

Second scan

And so, six weeks after that first CT scan, I lay down, endured the nauseating contrast dye injection and rolled in and out of an oversize loo seat obeying prerecorded instruction to breathe in/breathe. If you’re old enough to remember those government-sponsored impending nuclear attack warnings, it was the same bloke, I swear. (If not, listen to Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes* and you’ll get it). It wasn’t exactly comforting. I’d like to suggest they get Joanna Lumley to redo these orders.

A few days later, I was back with Dr Savage. I listened as he went into numbers mode. Cancer, is all about the percentages. The risk of this, the chances of that. It works for me. I need to understand how likely it is that something might happen. If you’re a detail hound, I have a 4% chance of the lung thing developing into a cancer within the next four years. That seems fair. And I dare say everyone has about the same. Certainly anyone who virtually ate two daily packs of Camel Lights for twenty years. As for the now surgically-removed testicular thing, that was clear. Nothing lymphatic (which is a good sign) but with my age and the size of the tumour, I had a 30-40% chance of it recurring – and losing the other ball and possibly growing breasts and a chintz fetish. One course of magical carboplatin chemotherapy and I’d cut this ten-fold. So lung and balls would become equal.

As no brainers go, it was a simple choice.

What’s chemotherapy like?

A nurse talked me through the side effects. After each horrific potential scenario, she made eye contact, and waited for a nod of consent. I drifted away and stopped listening, hoping Mr Fanning was taking it all in. That’s the thing with cancer, there’s so MUCH information, it’s hard to pick and choose what matters most. Nearly all of these side effects would be very unlikely, she said. They tend to come with cumulative chemotherapy and not with the single dose. But still there was likely to be much gippy tummy – and so anti-sickness meds feature large. A big scientific-looking tablet, some more to take home and a 30-minute infusion.

I wasn’t sure what the Plan B might be if I flat out refused to counter any given side-effect. What if I was finewith the hair loss, constipation/diarrhea and extreme fatigue, but drew every kind of line at tinnitus? But then she sweetened the pot with steroids – ‘they’ll make you alert’. A three-day supply. Sponsored speed. Enough to do all those niggling household chores, and maybe get a sprint on with the editorial draft of ‘Toast of Brighton‘.

There was much fuss around getting a line in for the infusion of (what amounts to) poison. Two wrists stabs down, a second nurse appeared. I’m bruised.

On the plus side, I was treated to one of the best bacon, chicken and spinach sandwiches going. Mr Fanning feasted on egg and cress. It’s detail like this that so many medical blogs leave out. They shouldn’t.

Afterwards with cancer?

Fabulous flowers – click to buy something very similar and get a free vase

I initially felt no different. Mr Fanning and I minced around a  supermarket. Him constantly asking if I felt OK. Me saying yes, even though I wasn’t sure what OK would feel like right then. Because I didn’t feel sick. There was no tinnitus and (sadly) no speedy elation. What there was inside my head was the start of a deep, dark anger. One I didn’t dare show. Why didn’t I find this sooner? What was that something on my lungs? Why did it take three goes to get the canola in? How come those percentages can’t be zero? Why am I going to feel speedy for three days then crash hard?

And nobody mentioned the chemo hiccups that have temporarily drained all joy from coffee.

But I’m still going and the anger has faded. Mostly helped by the fabulous flowers Mr Fanning ordered from the ever marvelous Bloomen. Plug time, click that link and you’ll get a free fancy vase with your first order and they last for two or three weeks.

Thanks for all the love and support here, on Facebook and Twitter and in real life. I promise you I’ll finish that bloody book soon and get it to the editor by the middle of June. One day it might even be available to buy. Talking of which, watch out for a freebie on the Armchair Bride coming in June, for those who (ridiculously) have yet to discover my obvious genius.

* Or Breathing by Kate Bush if you’re a bit more arty

The post This is the bit where I start to feel better, right? appeared first on Mo Fanning.

Writing light comedy from a dark place

Everyone says that the best comedy comes from the darkest of places. And that gives me hope for ‘The Toast of Brighton’ – shameless plug alert: this is my upcoming novel – as the past few weeks have felt pitch black. And yet, I believe the words, chapters and story match the hopes I always had for my writing. Maybe that old adage holds true.

When first I heard the word cancer in connection with my name, I was sure the writing would stop. The last thing I felt able to do was create something to might make people laugh. In a good way. At and not because of. In this dark corner, I thought, how will I do it?

Writing romance with one ball

One of my very first (wrong) thoughts about how testicular cancer might impact my life, was that I might find it hard to write everyday ‘blokes’. Would I give in to temptation and deprive them of matching testes?

Around the time of my surgery, cruel fate saw the Fanning pet dog to undergo a similar (though more comprehensive) procedure. 24 hours later and he was humping cushions, so I figured if he could get over it, so could I.

But then my upbeat, coping with it all shell cracked.

Dark corners

It coincided with writing the last few ‘The Toast of Brighton’ chapters. And as any writer will confirm, the last steps of the ‘dance’ often force the storyteller to take stock of how characters have changed. It’s time to deal with feelings.

To make decisions for my main character – Evie – I had to inhabit her world. And I’ve dealt Evie a terrible hand. She loses her job, husband and home in the space of a day, and after six years as a sober alcoholic, craves a drink. And revenge.

I’d left Evie facing a final challenge. Something that – if handled right – would bring positive change. In technical story-telling parlance,she was at the turning point.

Raw and real

To do these final chapters justice, I had to tap into her feelings. I had to reach the same dark place as Evie. The whole cancer thing meant I was already in no mood to bounce like a new-born lamb, so that wouldn’t be hard. But should I add to how I felt. Or wait a while, pick it up when I felt better. dark as the story had become, there needed to be some comedy.

And then – please forgive my first world problem – I found myself in Waitrose, staring at fresh-baked bread and swallowing tears. Something took over, and I never saw it coming.

I found what I needed to bookend Evie’s story.

The tears would dry. There would be humour in the words.

A happy ending?

I jumped the final hurdle and ended the story on what I hope is the right note. I agonised for a week about a chapter where everyone appeared for one last bow, happy in their new roles. And then, I deleted it

I want the reader to decide what happens at the end of this story. Evie finds a way out, she’s offered what she’s almost sure she wants, but the decision to jump remains hers. Or yours if you buy the book – second massive plug, sorry. It’ll be out late summer.

Now let’s see my editor shred the damn thing.

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Suspicion – or why nobody wanted to say the c-word

I still recall my Nan – or the local news, as we called her, stood at her garden gate in the 1970s. This was where she shared gossip. Hours of curtain twitching meant she knew who’d come home late with a strange man, who had failed to dip their nets, and – most importantly – who was sick. The woman at number 43 had taken to her bed, and I wanted to know why, and hid behind Nan’s front door, ears pricked … but when the moment came to confirm her illness, Nan’s voice dropped to a whisper.

And now I understand why. Back then, Cancer was a dirty word.

Suspicion

A month ago, my life changed. First a doctor, then a urologist and then two more doctors looked at my toilet parts. They tested, scanned and vanished into a room to confer. In a curtained side ward, a doctor with lovely eyes (the effect offset by a pink hairnet) told me it looked like cancer. He couldn’t be sure, but what lurked in my scrotum looked suspicious.

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Suspicious is a word I associate with men in dirty rain coats who watch young boys play football.  I wanted to know was it cancer.

As if sensing my irritation, he spoke slowly. The only way to know for sure what was going on was to remove my suspicious ball and run tests. Testicular cancer, he said could only be confirmed or denied by a biopsy. It wasn’t like other cancers where doctors could take a slice of any suspicious growth. This was an all-or-nothing deal. And I signed a form that confirmed I couldn’t have my ball back.

It was like being back behind Nan’s front door listening for gossip. Cancer was still a dirty word.

I had the surgery, and then came my first appointment with an oncologist. This was when the truth hit. Oncology meant cancer. I joked that this would be my ‘Welcome to Cancer’ orientation meeting. Even though, secretly, I hoped this might be where someone apologised profusely and said it actually wasn’t cancer after all.

Good news?

Nervously, I sat next to my partner and the doctor delivered his opening line: ‘I have good news’. He went on to tell me how my tumour was huge. This put me in the high risk group for recurrence. I’d need a CT scan, and a single session of infusion chemotherapy. One that wouldn’t make my hair fall out or my gums bleed or anything.

‘So I have testicular cancer?’ I said.

He looked surprised that I’d not worked this bit out … and maybe that was something he’d said (or assumed someone else had said), but he nodded.

Yes I had it. In fact, I have it.

The treatment he’d explained would control and hopefully get rid of it. The scan would check it hadn’t spread. The chemotherapy would ‘mop up’ any stray cancerous cells.

‘You could have it Friday afternoon and be back at your desk on Monday.’ I’m assured it’s lightweight and like having a bad hangover.

The alternative would be to take my chances and if it came back (almost a one in two chance), face at least three months of devastating chemotherapy. With this single dose of ‘light’ chemo, the risk drops to 3%. It wasn’t a hard choice.

Afterwards, my partner and I discussed the meeting.

‘I’d hate to hear him deliver bad news,’ Mr Fanning said, and I agreed.

But then I thought about all the people I know whose lives have been impacted by this awful disease. How little hope they were given. My doctor had spoken of a ten-year surveillance plan. And even though the word surveillance sounds horrible, it means someone expects me to live a long time … and get over this.

And hearing someone say the c-word out loud and connect it with my name was hard to take. But I’d rather know what I have than deal with, rather than face something suspect.

It could be you

This isn’t only a disease that hits young men. I’m 53. And yes, the treatment sounds horrible. After that ‘good news’ meeting, my spirits sapped and I hit a downer. But it’s in us all to bounce back. Like a ball – though obviously not a suspicious one.

The long and short of it is that you will lose a much-loved bollock. There is a scar, and you’ll have to whip your trousers down in front of strangers. But testicular cancer is not an automatic death sentence. Unless you ignore that lumpy, harder than the other one or slightly-swollen ball, in which case it is.

April is testicular cancer awareness month. If you don’t already know how to self examine, here’s some help.

 

The best time to check is in the shower or bath – when you get warm

 

Why am I telling you this?

I made a decision to share my cancer story and my experience because I was scared, and didn’t know what to expect. There are groups out there who know all there is to know about testicular cancer. Guys who have been through it, guys going through it, guys terrified that they’ve found a lump or something that doesn’t feel right. I’ll continue to talk about my journey until someone confirms I’ve become a cancer bore. If it helps just one person speak to one doctor, I’ll be happy.

Check ’em lads runs a Twitter and Facebook page, along with a bunch of video resources – and what these guys don’t know about the subject, isn’t worth knowing. The founder of this vital charity explains it thus: “I really just wanted advice and to talk to someone who had actually been through it. There were charities that offered help but I wanted someone who knew from personal experience.”

The NHS website also offers sane, simple advice, as does Cancer Research UK, and Macmillan. Beyond this, there are lots of smaller groups and sites, but avoid those forums run by idiots. The sort who are only too ready to tell you about how someone they knew died within two days or how it’s some form of some kind of God’s revenge on a lifestyle – they do exist.

 

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A life-changing event

Were I to list all the places where cancer might change my life, it’s unlikely I’d include Warrington. It’s even less likely I’d plan for this revolution  to occur in a charmless Premier Inn.

It was Valentines Day, and by agreement, I was miles away from my significant other. I’d left a Waitrose fish pie in the freezer, and was set to throw myself on the mercy of a prefab pub/diner that lurked at the far end of the hotel car park.

What I didn’t reckon with was that February  14 is the one dismal mid-winter evening where tired long-term couples seethe across tables. A stressed out voice agreed to accept a party of one, but only if I came right away. At 5.35. They would ‘need the table back’ at 6.30.

I perused the ‘Lovers’ Menu’ surrounded by pink balloons, silver streamers and enjoyed the musical styling of 80s power-pop giants Air Supply. A smiling lad named Wayne mentioned how the ‘chicken burger’ was quick to make. I didn’t dare ask about the optional coleslaw, in case the extra seconds needed to open the tub caused a kitchen melt-down.

The clock was ticking. I felt I owed it to Wayne to eat like someone who’d not seen food in a fortnight. Nobody suggested the desert menu, Or coffee. The bill came as I abandoned my knife and fork.

Back in the most generic hotel room, there was little to do. I drank tea, infused with the tang of not quite enough UHT milk, flicked through TV channels, recalled the 56k dial-up modem days courtesy of free Wi-Fi, and eventually decided on a bath.

And that was when my life changed.

Balls

When first I noticed how much bigger my lest testicle (let’s call it Ben) was in comparison to the right (Bill), I tried to work out how it could have happened. We have a still puppy-like golden Labrador, who greets each day by launching all 27 kilos of himself at crotch-level. The train journey to Warrington saw me squashed into a train seat next to a man who was all elbows, perhaps I’d sat on and squashed Ben.

I dared a second feel. Bill was soft, floating, innocent. Ben was hard, huge and more or less saying ‘uh-oh‘.

I did what any grown man might. Dried myself off, made more tea, watched Eastenders, and then – when the fear became too much – phoned home, and told my other half what I’d found, listening for any hint of fear in his voice, and feeling flattened when I heard it. After hanging up, I cried with self-pity for an hour. At some point, sleep took over.

The next day, everything seemed different. It took a while before I dared check again, and I swear Ben felt smaller. Still, I managed to get a phone call with someone from my GP surgery. He wanted to see me the next day. And so, I put on a smile and hid the fear at the back of my head and got on with my working day.

Here comes the cancer science part

The GP I saw – a locum, of course – had a look and feel. He refused to use the c-word, and not once did we make eye contact. Nervous and jumpy, he looked out of the window, and anywhere but at me. Blood tests were ordered, and the promise of a referral. I was being put on an urgent referral path – I’d be seen within two weeks.

‘So is it cancer?’ I said, determined to get a straight answer.

‘We need to rule things out,’ he bluffed, his eyes fixed on the wall behind me.

I went to the bloods clinic the same day, and crossed my fingers.

That evening, a text arrived ‘blood test results received, no further action’. What did that mean? Was I cancer free? Bill was still huge. Did no further action mean things were so bad, I should get my affairs in order? Did I even have affairs to get in order?  It was Friday, and so I faced a weekend of worry.

The Monday-morning GP receptionist sounded bored as she read my blood test results. Everything is fine, no tumour markers, no cancer, nothing. So what now? She couldn’t say, and the doctor I saw last week had gone elsewhere to talk to other walls and windows. I felt abandoned.

I somehow worked my way through a day of meetings and calls, breaking down between them to rant and rail, until 4pm, when I finally spoke to someone at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. I’d been bounced around their switchboard for over an hour and my temper was frayed. He spoke to me like he cared, he told me how he understood my fears and frustrations, and promised to help. I cried again.

Shit gets serious

Two days later, I showed someone else my toilet parts – a urologist – and he duly copped a feel. I made a lame joke about how I usually expect dinner before allowing such intimacy, and he didn’t smile. He told me it could be cancer.

Relief flooded through me. All I wanted was a name for whatever it was. Obviously, I’d read every crackpot Internet theory, but at last I knew what might be wrong with me. He explained there would be more scans, very soon, and explained what might happen if Bill needed to be removed. (Quick incision across the groin, a fumble, a yank, a snip and Bill would be gone – sorry for being graphic, probably should have warned you). We talked about testicular cancer survival rates, and how I was way outside the risk group at 53. I nodded and smiled. I made jokes – it’s how I cope, I perform. My partner asked the sensible questions and took notes. I considered myself blessed to have him.

Ten days after Warrington, a woman chatted about the Beast from the East as she smeared my balls in gunk and then showed me photos of what she’d found. Ben, she admitted was a perfect specimen, the king of testicles. Rarely had she seen one so well-formed (I may have made this last bit up). Bill though, not so much. She wanted a second opinion.

That second opinion came fast. Half an hour later, a man in a pink hairnet asked if I could come back in on Wednesday? For surgery.

Two weeks after Warrington, an anesthetist explained how I might feel a bit sleepy. And then I woke, was given a cheese sandwich, a cup of tea and assured everything went well.

I texted and phoned people who mattered – my other half was at home on dog watch, climbing walls with worry. I was to be sent home the same day. The only challenge was that I needed to prove I could have a wee, otherwise a catheter loomed. I drank more tea and water than felt right. No way was I being ruled out of skinny jeans. The second relief of the day came. And the first part of my journey ended.

Why am I telling you this?

I made a decision to share my cancer story and my experience because I was scared, and didn’t know what to expect. There are groups out there who know all there is to know about testicular cancer. Guys who have been through it, guys going through it, guys terrified that they’ve found a lump or something that doesn’t feel right. I’ll continue to talk about my journey until someone confirms I’ve become a cancer bore. If it helps just one person speak to one doctor, I’ll be happy.

Check ’em lads runs a Twitter and Facebook page, along with a bunch of video resources – and what these guys don’t know about the subject, isn’t worth knowing. The founder of this vital charity explains it thus: “I really just wanted advice and to talk to someone who had actually been through it. There were charities that offered help but I wanted someone who knew from personal experience.”

The NHS website also offers sane, simple advice, as does Cancer Research UK, and Macmillan. Beyond this, there are lots of smaller groups and sites, but avoid those forums run by idiots – the sort who are only too ready to tell you about how someone they knew died within two days or how it’s some form of some kind of God’s revenge on a lifestyle – they do exist.

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Fifty-denial – why I’m not down with da kidz

I don’t sound right using words like totes

I headed this piece as being  ‘down with da kidz’ with a knowing nod to irony. I’m about as far removed from being down with anyone under the age of 40 as it’s possible to get. On the rare days I stiffen my sinews and spend a day in an actual office with actual people, my fifty-denial shows. I hear words like ‘totes’ and ‘amazeballs’, and if I so much as ask what these words mean, I’m accused of ‘throwing shade’. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a writer. I believe that language should evolve. Rules are there to break. But why the need to deliver things in cod-American accents. I’m looking at you random gay man who equates catty with camp. Ridic, right?

I’d refuse to see video games as a life choice

Me: So, 32-year-old man who I’m fairly sure has a mortgage and children, what did you do over the weekend? 

32YOM: I hung out with the guys, then played Legend of Zelda on the Switch

Me: Is that a video game?

32YOM: Yeah.

Me: And you played it with your kids or something?

32YOM: No, totes on my own, dude.

Me: Kill me now

I pity people whose only way of landing a shag is online

When I was young and desperately horny, I understood the gay dating game. Basically, every Friday and Saturday you put on your best t-shirt and drank your body weight in ‘Continental lager’ until your confidence levels were as high as your standards were low, and then you ‘copped off’. The subsequent hangovers led to an exchange of (landline) phone numbers that you’d never call and a walk of shame. Unless you’d played smart and put aside enough cash for a bus ride home.

These days, decisions on ‘life partners’ are made on the strength of retouched photos. You allow two seconds before a swipe left or right. Or – if you’ve embraced the world of gay dating apps – before you dismiss the dick pic and opening gambit of ‘Hi’. Gay culture today consists of walking past people you’ve ‘cruised’ online and not recognising them. At least in the olden days, you got to bond in the special clinic over who gave who what, or talk through bad shag judgments. 

I remember bank managers

As a student, I lived in overdraft. This was long before the banks and government teamed up to rebrand enforced poverty as ‘student loans’. Each branch of a bank (remember them?) had its own manager. And that manager got to pass comment on your financial conduct. As a second-year trainee teacher I received a curt note that suggested I was making poor life choices.

My bank manager had caught wind of a meal for two at what his letter termed ‘a fairly upmarket establishment’. He was right, but I’d met the man of my dreams. There was everything to play for. We’d be together forever. Dinner at Chez Jules was an essential piece of the jigsaw. I still wonder what his name was. The man of my dreams, I mean, not the bank manager. That sanctimonious shit cut me off at the Safeway checkout six days later, and deserves to rot in hell.

I can’t understand when Britain became so right-wing (and why nobody cares)

People are stupid. I’m a person. I’m stupid. Ergo all people are equally dumb. But come on … Brexit? A third of the nation got to voice their opposition to something or other in an advisory referendum, and suddenly it’s the ‘will of the people’. I still shake with anger as I recall the morning after the vote when I ventured to Lidl and the woman in front of me asked the check-out girl when she was going back home.

‘Back to where she came from’ in the words of knuckle-dragging cousin-fucking racists. 

The girl looked shocked.

The smug cunt turned to me and smiled. ‘I can say this now,’ she said.

When did this country become so damaged? Sure, I know the banks are to blame, and the Bullingdon boys left everyone asking how the hell we got into this mess, but I always thought of Britain as a nation that mucked along fine.

That vote was a protest. People wanted to blame someone or something for the years of austerity, and Europe got it in the neck. Europe, not the EU. Nobody really has a clue what the EU is.

And the real thing they hated? The immigrants. The Romanians who dare to gather in parks to sit and talk and innocently pass the time of day. The Polish builders who undercut the shoddy overpriced work that was once the right of the white van man. The Bulgarians who … happen to be Bulgarian.

My mother tells me how when she goes to the doctor, everyone speaks in a foreign language. That’s because they need health care. They don’t have jobs that won’t let them take an hour off to get five minutes with a GP who they’ll only ever see once in their lives. A GP who is weighing up whether to continue to support his community or ‘go back home’. I can say that now, that woman said, and it was her badge of pride. And don’t get me started on Trump.

I don’t get how anyone who came to this country as an immigrant can be anti immigration

One more thing, how did we get to a point where second or third-generation immigrants voted for Brexit. Or vote for  UKIP or their slightly less blatant wing the Tory Party? 

I’m never entirely happy not wearing a tie in important meetings

Just a year ago, I wore a tie to a meeting. In London. With important people. One of those important people leaned back in his chair, adjusted his designer glasses, scratched his bulging belly and looked at me. ‘Why are you wearing a tie?’ he said. I went defensive. I played it for laughs. It goes with this outfit and I dropped by breakfast down my shirt,’ I said. He laughed. Secretly I died a little more inside.

It’s not that I ache for the formality of days gone by. I want my wardrobe choices to work for me. I don’t want to be belittled because I choose to work to a certain standard. I’m not a time traveller in disguise. I’m fine with open plan offices. I shop online. But when it’s an important meeting, let me feel like wearing a tie is allowed.

I worry about pensions

This is the part of me that I hate. When I was 20 (or let’s be honest 40), it didn’t occur to me that I might ever be too old to work. That I might have to scratch by on very little money. If I’m honest, I sort of assumed my parents would kick the bucket and leave me lots of money and a house I could sell to buy a yacht and travel the world.

Now I’m fifty-denial I see that pensions matter. I hear the young-uns all around me moaning that they’[re being made to put money into a pot they’ll ‘like literally never see’. They think 67 (or 70 as it will soon be) is so far away. It isn’t. It’s closer than you ever dared believe.  And saving for that day is sensible. Just typing those words makes me want to throw up. It shouldn’t matter. Why is it so wrong to want to spend every spare pound and penny on a new jumper or sweets or a gym membership I’ll never ever use. 

In an ideal life, I don’t have to do anything

‘I don’t know how I ever managed to do a job, I’m so busy’ says my mother who to my eyes fills her day with pottering. She’ll go to B&Q for her Diamond Discount every Tuesday, Lidl every Wednesday, and Sainsbury’s twice a week on Thursday. On alternate Thursdays, she has her hair done. ‘It’s all go,’ she insists. 

I used to adore being busy from the moment my eyes opened until I fell asleep reading something in bed. I hated the quiet times. The boring bits. I had a fear of being bored. Now I can’t think of anything I’d rather be. I’m already making plans for semi-retirement, even though it’s ten years off. I want to please myself because the world around me no longer pleases me.

I’m happy to go to bed by 10, in fact I worry when I don’t

Ten o-clock was going out time in years gone by. When I lived in Amsterdam, the very thought of hitting a bar much before midnight was – quite frankly – ridic (as the kids of today say).  Now I plan my evenings with the glorious prospect of bed at ten in mind. I get twitchy if we start to watch something on TV that might end near eleven. Not that I sleep when my head hits the pillow. I’m obsessed with reading the news. I need to know what state the world is in. I have to troll Twitter and see how much better other lives are through Facebook.

But bed by ten is my comfort blanket. My way of coping for now. Something inside tells me that’s going to change soon. I hope it’s right. 

Conversely I’m not sure being in bed after 10 in the morning is a good thing.

The post Fifty-denial – why I’m not down with da kidz appeared first on Mo Fanning.

Coming out – On being forced from the closet

Coming out stories vary. For every parental ‘yes, we thought as much’ shrug, there exist a dozen painful ‘not under my roof’ tales of woe.

In my case, it wasn’t so much a closet door that was wrenched open, as the dodgy drawer in my divan bed base. Over a two-year period, I’d currated a ‘members only’ collection, stored between the covers of Blue Peter annuals.

At the age of 17, I was in the middle of a sexual awakening courtesy of a Morrissey-lookalike from my French class. It’s probably fair to say 90% of my time was dedicated to having or thinking about sex.

And then, one day, my collection of ‘Vulcan’ and ‘Zipper‘ magazines went missing.

Panic took hold. Had my evil cousin taken them hostage? A twisted revenge for my hiding his prized dog-eared copy of ‘Knave‘ retrieved from a hedge in the park?

The letter

The answer came in a sealed note, left on my pillow. The name typed on the envelope was mine. Who was the only person with access to an Olivetti Praxis 48 … with a dodgy letter A?

My mother.

I remember studying the unopened letter a while. It wasn’t like our family chose to communicate in writing. We were big on screaming fits and slammed doors. This felt different.

The words danced on the page. Even now, I remember how I read it three times to be sure, then tore it in two. As if that might make everything better.

I stumbled upon the note that forced my coming out a month ago, folded in four between the pages of an Enid Blyton paperback.

She opened with an explanation as to why she conducted that fated forensic search of my bedroom.

“I was looking for the video tape of The Bill from Tuesday night.”

That didn’t ring true. Our collection of Betamax cassettes (don’t ask) lived in the bookcase near the telly.

She went on to allude to the evidence, and label it unnatural – with a dodgy letter A. She was clearly disgusted, and yet more than that, she feared for my future.

Back then, I’d given in to parental pressure and abandoned the dream of becoming an air hostess. We’d agreed I would train as a teacher.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be allowed to conduct such relationships and keep your job.”

She had a point. 1980s Britain conflated being gay with paedophilia. And maybe for some that still hasn’t changed.

The offending magazines – she went on to explain – were in a box outside. I was to dispose of them before my father came home.

Times change

These days, my partner and I share a bed in her house. I taught for a couple of years, and then decided it wasn’t for me. I write gay characters and she doesn’t mind one bit.

So why share this coming out story after thirty-odd years? I want anyone who finds themselves facing the same all-consuming blend of panic and shame to know, this too shall pass.

And if you want to be an air hostess, live your dreams.

Online Lisa‘ runs a theatre box office in Manchester. She lives in Scandi-chic minimalistic bliss with her gay best friend. She’s sorted and she knows it.

‘Offline Lisa‘ stumbles from drunken-dating mishap to career-threatening dinner party.

Somewhat the worse for wear at a New Year staff party, Andy and Lisa resolve to change their lives. In the coming year, she’ll find love, and he’ll find fame.

Is her goal closer than she thinks?

Available online and in really good bookstores

The post Coming out – On being forced from the closet appeared first on Mo Fanning.