What Is Polari?

I do know that Polari is the language that gay men used to use before this is just a useful tool to link the two fabulous aspects of my day. I have started a new project for Bent called ‘We Wish You Were Our Mum’ I cant give the details away until its out in May’s edition as I don’t want it to get nicked, suffice to say I had one of my childhood idols being my ‘new Mum’ number one the lovely Janet Ellis (technically I would like to point out therefore Sophie Ellis Bextor was my sister for the morning by association).

One of the things I try and pride myself on not doing is name dropping (you'll have to excuse me on this count now and again when its just too exciting), when your job is interviewing celebrity’s, authors, singer’s and the like and people ask you about your job I try and mention it in passing, or if I loved them I will rave about them, I am aware they are not my friends and its professional (though I have been lucky to befriend a few) and out of all the people I have interviewed so far the one who has everyone, I include myself, the most excited has been Janet. Or as one of my friends likes to call her ‘Saint Janet’ along with ‘Saint Sarah’ and ‘Saint Yvette’ – you get the idea.

I think it’s the fact that she was a part of so many peoples childhoods that I know. So when she left a voicemail on my answer machine I stored it to play people and the same with texts. You probably all think I am very sad right now. So when I met her in Starbucks (glamorous) I actually for a few seconds didn’t know what to say. She was however wonderful, lived up to all I could dream, really open, happy to camp it up and talk about leaving Blue Peter – she left controversially as she was pregnant with out being married. I have the truth… you’ll have to wait for the interview. The polari link? One of the questions was about it and she knows her lingo.

So Polari Part 2… my second night at Polari in Soho’s Green Carnation was a joy.

Last month it was Stella Duffy, who read from her latest novel ‘The Room of Lost Things’ (which I have blogged about previously) this month it was the author Christopher Fowler. His latest book was ‘Old Devil Moon’ he chose to read some new unpublished stuff which was autobiographical and made us laugh out loud in parts. Paul and Dom were as usual the hosts with the mosts and it was a delight to see them and catch up with them both. The music was great, I have now downloaded Neneh Cherry’s ‘Raw Like Sushi’ and Mike Oldfield’s ‘Moonlight Shadow’ – thank you for the recommendations Dom. Was also great to see ‘Madame’ as ever. All the literary stuff has gotten me even more determined to push the ‘Bent Book Group’, my editor needs more convincing!

Took Muffintop for her debut and she loved it, she was so excited we had to rush our Stuffed Crust Pizza Hut. She was made very welcome, as everyone is, and we got down to some good old chair dancing! She was very taken with both the décor and the DJ’s. Fun was had by one and all!