Making It Up As I Go Along (23 page)

And the door opened and in she came, tiny,
powerful, brave woman that she is, her entourage hurrying in her wake, and I took my chance and
jumped into her path, and she looked a
little startled to see me but
recovered well, and I stuck my hand out and she took it and I said, ‘Thank you for
enduring,’ and she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Thank you for helping me to
endure,’ and of course, she wasn’t talking about me, she was talking about all of
us, about you, about every single one of us who has wished her well over all these years, so I
just thought I’d tell you.

mariankeyes.com
,
June 2012.

Thank the Lord,
Strictly
is back and as
soon as I watched the preview show a few weeks ago, I felt a huge uplift in my mood! Genuinely,
seriously. More effective than any antidepressants I’ve ever been on.

I can’t pinpoint what it is that I find so
joyous about
Strictly
. The glitteryness? The music? Seeing people who don’t
really look like dancers suddenly start to blossom? Anyway, I immediately applied for tickets
for the live shows and – of course – they were all gone, they’ve been gone for
months.

I brooded upon the matter as I sought a solution.
I even considered asking
It Takes Two
if they’d have me on the Friday panel, just
to get ‘close’ to the show. (I planned to do the panel, then kiss everyone goodbye
– ‘Goodbye, goodbye, leaving now, off I go, out of the BBC, very much leaving,
practically gone, indeed I
am
gooooone’ – but it would be a ruse, see.
I’d only be
pretending
to leave the BBC. Instead I’d sneak down to the
studio floor and hide under the bandstand for twenty-four hours, with a stash of cereal bars,
and I’d watch the Saturday show from there.)

In the end I discussed the matter on Twitter and
many of my folleyers asked the BBC if they’d rustle up a couple of tickets for me –
and would you believe it?! – they did! I am so grateful to all the people who lobbied for
me and to the BBC for the tickets. But do you see how great the Twitters is and how we help each
other when we can?

I had two tickets and myself
and Himself discussed this long and hard and it was decided that, even though he loves the show
nearly as much as I do, he’d fall on his sword and give the spare ticket to Jenny.

Now, let me tell you about Jenny. Jenny has been
my friend since 1986 and she’s probably the most ‘true and good’ person
I’ve ever met, and her kindness to me goes way beyond the call of duty. But the thing is
she’s very hard to thank. She says she has everything she needs and, for example, she
thinks flowers are a waste of money (for herself, she’d happily send them to someone
else).

However! She’s a massive
Strictly
fan, perhaps even more than me, because Jenny does dancing, as in she can do salsa, tango, jive,
jitterbugs and all the rest. Jenny Boland could be a
judge
on
Strictly
! She
knows all about ‘kicks and flicks’ and ‘finishes’ and other judge-speak.

So the long and the short of it was that Jenny
and I went to the
Strictly
ACTUAL show! Himself had to disappear to an unknown location
because Jenny would have insisted that he go instead of her, but when I told her –
honestly – that I hadn’t a clue where he was, she eventually gave in.

And oh God! If you’re a fan of the show,
you’ll know how excited we were. The first thing is that you have to get there HOURS
before the show starts. People had been queuing from eight that morning, and Jenny and I got
there about three. We waited in a BBC canteen till we were called at about 5.30 and when we
walked into the studio, I nearly puked with the excitement.

I know people always say this about television
sets, but it really was much smaller than it looks on the telly. Everything was so near! There
was the judges’ table
and there was the band and there was the stairs
– all a matter of yards away. We were in the second row from the front and it was then
that Jenny and I discovered that we were in with the friends and family of the celebrities!

Denise Van Outen’s husband was there, and I
was sitting beside someone who was a friend of Johnny Ball’s, and next to her was someone
who might be JB’s wife. Supporting Louis were some very clean-cut-looking young men.
Athletes, allegedly. But they looked sort of holy, you never saw such neatly combed hair!

Antony Cotton was in the front row, and other
people that I recognized but didn’t know from where. Then, at the very last minute, who
comes in, only Nadine and Nicola from Girls Aloud, to sit in the front row! Thrilling it was,
thrilling I tell you!

I’d show you photos of all of this
glittering glamour except that our phones had been taken away from us. So I can’t.

Am I conjuring up anything at all like how
thrilling it was to be within touching distance of the dancers and to see their nerves before
the music started and to watch the reaction of the judges?

I have seventeen favourite couples, which takes
some doing as there were only fourteen couples, thirteen now, in fact only twelve now,
they’re dropping like flies! My favourites are – obviously – Nicky Byrne
because I’m Irish, and Lisa Riley because her cha-cha-cha in week one was the most
uplifting thing I’ve ever seen, and Fern Britton because she’s dancing with Artem,
and Artem is Himself’s favourite (of the men dancers; Aliona is his favourite female).

But if I had to have a
favourite
favourite, it’s Pasha. And Kimberley, obviously.

So the dancing started and at the end of each
dance I was
jumping to my feet and giving rowdy standing ovations. (I was
close to being out of control.) But not everyone was as excited as me and Jenny. I’m going
to whisper you one tiny little piece of gossip. I shouldn’t, and Christ knows, I
don’t want to blot my copybook with the BBC, but I can’t stop myself! During the
show, a certain famous ‘friend and family’ was approached by a poor man from the BBC
to tell them that the celebrity they were there to cheer on would be the next to dance and that
the cameras would be on this ‘friend or family’ so would they please smile.

I’m not the only one who commented on this
certain person’s sour puss throughout the show, so I suppose I’m not giving away too
many secrets.

Eventually the Saturday-night show ended, but
instead of the professional dancers all rushing away and shouting, ‘No, no, no! Leave me
be!’ they loitered on the dance floor, chatting to members of the audience they knew. At
this stage I’d decided that the person I really, really, really, really, really, really
wanted to show the love to was Pasha. I don’t know why I particularly picked on him,
because I love everyone in the show, judges, dancers, celebrities, male and female, young and
not-so-young.

And he was tantalizingly close. A matter of
yards. He was chatting to Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud, who is the cutest little thing; she
had a lovely pink jumper on. Because I was in the second row, my route to the dance floor was
barred (the front-row chairs were sort of glued together, so I couldn’t just shove them
aside), and I watched Pasha with mounting hysteria.

The clock was ticking, soon he would be gone, and
just when I was considering clambering over the back of the chairs, I got a lucky break in the
form of Brindan, who came to chat to the Johnny Ball supporters seated next to me. With
uncharacteristic
rudeness, I interrupted and said, ‘Ah hello there,
Brindan, we meet again! Yes, we
have
met before!’

Politely he prepared to engage in chat with me,
but I said briskly, ‘No need, Brindan, no need. But would you do me a favour?’
I’m sure he was expecting me to say ‘Would you autograph this torn bit of paper for
my granny?’ or some such. Nevertheless, he gamely agreed. So I said, ‘Would you go
over there and get Pasha for me.’

Instead of being offended, instead of saying,
‘What am I? Your pimp?!’ he said, ‘Okay.’ He went over, had a little
whisper in Pasha’s ear, Pasha looked up and clearly didn’t know me from Adam, but he
made his apologies to Nicola Roberts and immediately he came over!

This is what I said: ‘Pasha, my name is
Marian, you don’t know me, I’m nobody, nothing, and you are Pasha and I love you,
yes I do, you remind me of my nephew, his name is Luka, he is eleven, and I love you, you are
Pasha, I saw you in the live show in Dublin in January or it might be February and I thought you
had a very lovely kindliness about you, you are Pasha, you are sweet, I sound mad to you, I know
it and I can hear myself and yet I can’t stop myself, I love you, but not in a stalkery
way, yes, everyone always says that, especially the stalkers –’

At this stage, Jenny, keen to release Pasha from
his torment, interjected with some nice words and broke my unstoppable gush. Now, the thing is
I’ve met a few famous people over the years and most of them have been (all, even)
pleasant. But with a lot of them, they’re so used to hearing star-struck love and praise
that even though they try to hide it, something shuts down behind their eyes. I suppose
it’s very hard to engage when someone is shouting facts about yourself at you that you
already know. But not Pasha. I was right up-close and I’m telling you, he is real!
He’s
as sweet as he seems. His eyes did
not
go funny! He was
genuinely friendly, not just ticking off the seconds, being polite to a manic fan. Trust me on
this! Please!

He hugged me. At least twice. Possibly up to four
times. Jenny says it only happened twice. But it FELT like four.

mariankeyes.com
,
October 2012.

May I tell you about what turned out to be one of
the happiest days of my entire life? I may? Tanken yew! Well! You know Sali Hughes, the
brilliant journalist who writes for the
Guardian
on a Saturday and the
Pool
on
a Wednesday? And has her own website,
salihughesbeauty.com
, where she does great videos called
‘
In the
Bathroom’, where she visits the bathrooms of famous and/or interesting people and
discusses their beauty products and skincare and whatnot? Well, I’ve been a fan of hers
for a long time because while she really loves all things beauty, she’s entirely honest
and reliable and informative. She knows
everything.

We first came into contact when I twittered
asking people what I should do about the little broken capillaries on my face and everyone told
me to email Sali – and she emailed me back immediately, giving me a variety of options and
telling me the upsides and downsides of each. And after that we stayed in touch, and even though
we hadn’t met in real life I loved her already because she has great sweetness and
gentleness coupled with razor-sharp intelligence.

Also, she gives airtime to all kinds of brands,
they don’t have to be big names and expensive, so she’s in nobody’s pocket, so
I know that what she writes in her columns is genuinely impartial. Also, she’s wonderful
for giving exposure to new and emerging brands, which thrills me because I am a divil for
‘New and Exciting’.

And now she’s after
writing a book, called
Pretty Honest
, and it is the ABSOLUTE BEAUTY BIBLE – it
covers everything from the very basics, such as identifying your skin type, to how to manage
your beauty when you’re going through something awful like cancer, and she demystifies the
‘anti-ageing’ industry, separating out cod science from things that do actually
work. (As well as acknowledging that there’s nothing wrong with looking your age –
basically she gives you every option.)

Every woman should have this book. Because beauty
stuff is a passionate hobby of mine, I thought I knew a bit, but compared to Sali I know nothing
and I’ve already consulted the book many times.

So anyway, there I am, living in Dublin and, you
know, living a quiet life, seeing my mammy and the Redzers and the Praguers and going for walks
with Himself and Posh Kate and Posh Malcolm – when Sali sends me this invitation to a
lunch. A foncy lunch – being thrown for her by Bobbi Brown – yes! The make-up brand
Bobbi Brown! And I was invited!

There were only twenty people invited and I was
one of them – and when I saw the list of the other invitees, didn’t I nearly get
sick! They were all writers or journalists that I hold in HUGE regard: India Knight, Jojo Moyes,
Sam Baker, Polly Samson, Miranda Sawyer, Hadley Freeman, Lucy Mangan, Maria McErlane, Georgia
Garrett, Julia Raeside, Jo Elvin, Camilla Long, Sophie Heawood, Bryony Gordon and Sarah Morgan.
Also invited were three amazing women from the Estée Lauder group: Jay Squier, Cheryl
Joannides and Anna Bartle.

My immediate impulse was that I couldn’t
possibly go, that I didn’t belong, that I wouldn’t fit in, and then I thought,
‘Feck it! I want to go. I’m GOING!’

And this was huge for me because I’ve been
mad in the head
(MITH) for so long that I’ve had to keep my life very
small and safe because it was all that I could cope with. But I realized I was ready to go into
a daunting, intimidating situation and try to hold my own.

And off I went. And I really hope you don’t
think I’m being a boasty-boaster, I just wanted to let you know that if you’ve
suffered from the MITH-ness yourself and you think you’ll always feel terrible, it may not
be the case for ever.

I ‘jetted’ in from Dublin –
normally, when I travel by air, I simply fly, but because this was so glamorous I
‘jetted’ – and the lunch was upstairs in the private room in Balthazar and I
had to scuttle past the welcoming committee to go to the Ladies to do last-minute checks on
myself, only to discover that – horrors! – I’d somehow managed to leave Dublin
without my comb!

For a brief but very real moment I contemplated
scuttling back past the welcoming committee, leaving Balthazar and going back to the airport and
flying home – yes, ‘flying’ home, no ‘jetting’ this time, it would
be an ignominious return – and never contacting any of the people here today ever again.
Then I remembered a day long ago when my mammy couldn’t find any of her combs, because all
of her daughters had stolen them, and she had to go to Mass (not a Sunday but a holy day of
obligation) and she ended up having to comb her hair with a fork. Inspired by her ingenuity, I
resolved that as soon as was polite, I’d secrete a fork from the table into my handbag and
race back to the Ladies and sort my hair out that way.

So in I went to the room and I was appallingly
nervous – the first person I saw was Camilla Long – Camilla Long! In real life! And
then I met Sali and my hands were shaking so much, my fingers were all fumbly. But she was the
kindest, nicest woman you could meet, and exquisite-looking, like a doll.

And as it transpired,
everyone was INCREDIBLY nice. The only person I’d properly met before, apart from the
amazing Jay Squier, was the wonderful novelist and co-founder of the
Pool
Sam Baker,
who is very grounded and calm and kind, and she passed on a little of her calmness to me. And
she was with Jojo Moyes – Jojo Moyes! My love, my admiration, my
downright
jealousy
of Jojo’s talent knows no bounds. But would you believe, Jojo had also
forgotten her comb! So I decided that if someone as amazing as Jojo Moyes had forgotten her
comb, forgetting one’s comb was actually admirable. Perhaps it could become a
‘thing’. A bit like the ice-bucket challenge – where you go out for the
evening without your comb …? No, maybe not. Sorry. Not all my ideas are runners
…

Then I met Miranda Sawyer, the music journalist,
who is so cooooollll! But she was
extremely
welcoming and warm and fun and that did a
huge amount to put me at my ease.

So we were standing around having drinks, and I
went mad and had a Diet Coke because of the day that was in it, and before I knew it, I was in
the thick of things.

Initially I was acting, trying hard to chat and
act normal and not keel over with intimidation, but after a while it became real – and
then I discovered I was enjoying myself. Like,
really
enjoying myself.

And when we sat down for the lunch I discovered
several things:

What was very interesting was the atmosphere in
the room – there was nothing but love. I’m very attuned to undercurrents and
unspoken tension and there was absolutely none. Everyone was so happy for Sali and everyone
seemed genuinely thrilled to be in such a beautiful room, eating such delicious food, and being
with such lovely people. And there was no one-upmanship or posturing or ‘Oh yeah? So
when’s
your
book coming out? Because
my
book …’ And believe
me, I’ve been at my fair share of those sorts of competitive yokes over the years and this
was nothing like them.

I was having such a great time that the hours
rattled
by and before I knew it, it was four o’clock and I had to leave to ketch
my flight to ‘jet’ back to Dublin (
definitely
‘jetting’), and
as I was leaving I had a little chat with Lucy Mangan and, to be honest, I was afeerd of Lucy
Mangan because she’s such a passionate defender of the poorest and most deprived people in
Britain that
I thought she’d dismiss me as a fluffy eejit airhead.
But! Would you believe that we talked about shoes! Yes! We both have abnormally small feet and
we bonded over what a pain in the arse it is to never be able to find shoes to fit.

Then off I went, and because everyone was so
great and because it’s not that long since I was so mad in the head that I couldn’t
even get out of bed, it was one of the best days of my entire life.

mariankeyes.com
,
October 2014.